Film Theory – The Daily SPUF

Holes Shaped Like Our Fathers

June 17, 2018June 13, 2018 valorsminion 0 Comments Atandwa Kani, Black Panther, Captain America Civil War, Chadwick Boseman, doppelganger, dream sequence, father figures, fathers and sons, Film Theory, John Kani, Killmonger, Michael B. Jordan, Ryan Coogler, Seth Carr, spiritual journey, Sterling K. Brown, Wakanda

“Tell me the story of home.” Black Panther’s opening dialogue, of a father telling his son (and us, the audience) the story of Wakanda, serves to set the scene for the film. It’s a great opening, exposition-wise, and gives us context before the first action scene of the story (set in Oakland, 1992)—but it wasn’t until the day after I saw the film that I realized something. Namely: that the boy asking for a story is the child who will become Killmonger. He longs for a home he has never seen, and is relying on his father to illustrate his… [Continue Reading]

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Window Dressing

March 21, 2018March 19, 2018 valorsminion 0 Comments American Experience, artistic license, Doc Holliday, doppelganger, Film Theory, frontier, Gil Perez, Henry Fonda, Jekyll and Hyde, loss, memory, My Darling Clementine, OK Corrall, Old West, Richard Feynman, Shape of Water, Shootout at the OK Corrall, The Double, The Shape of Water, Victor Mature, Wyatt Earp

Richard Feynman, in one of his autobiographies (if memory serves: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!), talks about losing his wife. She was diagnosed with tuberculosis, which at that time (the 1940s) was untreatable/incurable. In SYJMF, he says that he didn’t cry at her funeral, or precisely accept that she was dead. Until two weeks later, when he was walking down the street, glanced in a shop-window, and thought “Arline would love that dress.” That was when it hit him, and he started to cry. Yesterday, I went to an alumni (Sarah Lawrence, 2013) event. Someone asked who my don (SLC’s system:… [Continue Reading]