blindness – R&D Gothic Discoveries

From Joyful Animation to Pure Tension

2 May 20192 May 2019 rovallee

When we think about The Jungle Book, we usually think about the animation movie that we all watched when we were younger. This first movie was released in 1967 and was based on a previous novel written by Rudyard Kipling. Last year, in 2018, a new version of this movie was released, called Mowgli.

Briefly, it is the story of a child, Kaa, that was raised in the jungle surrounded by wild animals. We follow him through his journey in adulthood and see him overcome different challenges that living in the jungle can imply. In the new version of the movie, there are different gothic motifs involved, but the most important one throughout the movie is darkness. Darkness is exploited through the use of dark backgrounds and lightings. The majority of the 2018 film is set in dark spaces of the jungle, where there is not much light, nor much life. The use of dark places obviously adds suspense and tension in the movie. Since the individuals who watch the movie do not know what surrounds Mowgli, they feel stressed and it certainly creates tension. The public is hence kept in ignorance and blindness, such that the anticipation of something bad happening builds up, which also is a gothic motif called tension.

There were certainly not that many gothic elements in the first version of the Jungle Book, but I guess we could argue that the new version represents the new generation of kids watching it as well as the older one that used to watch it as a kid in 1967. Did you ever watched the older version of the Jungle Book or you’ve only watched the new one?

Cheers,

Rosalie

Movies

Pride, Arrogance, and Anger

2 May 20192 May 2019 rovallee

In Tom Harris’ novel The Silence of the Lambs, as well as in the movie adaptation, hubris is one of the most important motifs. The term hubris is a Greek word referring to the importance of pride, arrogance, and anger in one’s personality.

First, in this work, hubris is considered as a monster and as well as an ancestral curse. Since it blinds the mind of people who have hubris in their blood, it complicates and impairs the well-being of the society.

For instance, Jame Gumb is a great example to demonstrate how hubris leads to blindness. When Clarice enters in his house at the end of the story to catch him, he thinks that the only way to have control over her is to turn off the lights. Since he has night-vision goggles, he thinks that he would certainly be able to escape from Clarice without any consequences. Obviously, as ironic as it sounds, Jame is totally blinded by his hubris. Indeed, Clarice still has control over him and over the situation; that is, she is the only one who sees clearly.

This example accurately shows how hubris can affect someone’s view of a situation compared to what it really is.

Another example of a character that has to face his hubris is Hannibal, the main character. Throughout the entire novel and movie, Hannibal is trying to overcome his own hubris, as well as his desire to transcend the classification of scientists. All of this to say that hubris is clearly a gothic motif in Harris’ writings and that it is mostly defined by blurring certain characters’ vision, making them act without a proper consideration of the consequences beforehand.

Rosalie