Wasteland by Vik Muniz

Wasteland is a Modern-art documentary where Brazilian artist Vik Muniz travels to Rio De Janeiro to incorporate his collective style of art with the massive amounts of garbage in the world’s largest landfill of Jardim Gramacho. Vik Muniz is most known for his style of artwork in which he generally uses objects and unlikely materials from everyday life, such as dirt, sugar, wire, amounts of string, chocolate syrup and even peanut butter. As he does in the documentary, Muniz also uses a style of art which he uses objects arranged in particular shapes to create a picture when viewed from a distance. For instance, in one of his well-known works he created a portrait of a civil war soldier out of hundreds of individual toy soldiers. In 2007 Muniz travels back to his home country of Brazil from his workplace of New York City in search of new materials and ideas for his artwork. Being that he uses many everyday objects in his work, a landfill is like a goldmine. The old saying is true, “One man’s trash, is another man’s treasure.” While most would see nothing more than a massive landfill, Muniz sees the possibility for something beautiful despite being in nothing more than a garbage dump. While in the world’s largest landfill (or simply Gramacho), Muniz meets the workers of the landfill and decides he wants to use them as the models for his art and use the garbage itself as the material to create his collective style of artwork. The workers of Gramacho are known to them as simply “Catadores” or “the collectors” in English. The catadores live in slum-like housing and work for barely 25 dollars per day. Many of them started working here at a very young age to provide for their families. Muniz picks six catadores in specific to help him recreate famous pieces of art out of the recycled materials of Gramacho. Through his art, Muniz attempts to influence people’s lives by creating beautiful forms of art out of materials that they are surrounded by every day. Vik explains to the President of the Catadores Union (ACAMJG) that he wants to give back to the community that gave him so much. He tells how he grew up very poor and has now reached a point where he feels that it’s time to give back through the artwork which he will create from the workers and materials of Jardim Gramacho. All of the profits made through his art will be returned to the ACAMJG in attempt to better the lives of those who work in Gramacho. Through their efforts, they managed to raise over 250,000 U.S. dollars which was all returned to the ACAMJG. The ACAMJG is now recognized as a legitimate portion of the recycling industry of the world. Through these efforts, Muniz explains that not only has he helped these people but they have helped him more than ever previously imagined. Muniz’s art shows broke Brazils current records of attendance by bringing in over 1,000,000 people to view his works, making it the second highest viewed art show in the world. The Gramacho was set to close in 2012, so with the money that Vik helped raise the ACAMJG has begun efforts to help the workers transit into different jobs. They have opened multiple learning centers for the workers and even schools and a library for the children. Viewing this documentary has made me realize things on a grander scale, take nothing for granted. And remember, 99 is not 100.

The Importance of being "Earnest"

For the young male in the Victorian era, the idea of living a double life was looked at with an ammount of secret passion.The story takes place in Victorian era in the countryside of England.
As the story begins, we see that friends Jack and Algernon are both living double lives, implying that the two are well off.
The two were using the identity of Ernest Worthington, the older brother in the family that Jack was adopted into. Until this point, the partners had transistioned from a luxurious city life to a life in the country, using their single
identity to make things more convieniant. We then learn that Jack is love with a woman named Gwendolen, who happens to be
the grandaughter of a wealthy aristocrat with regul blood(Lady Bracknell). A problem arises when Lady Bracknell learns of the two's relationship and begins to investigate "Jack's" pedigree. When Lady Bracknell learns that Earnest is actually an orphan, she gives him a choice. Jack must find a family to marry Gwendolen into, or he doesnt get to marry her. Meanwhile, Algernon proposes to the woman of his dreams; Cecily as Earnest, the same Ernest thats trying to marry Gwendolen. Cecily happens to be
under legal guardianship of her Uncle; Jack, who isnt very approving of any courtship with Cecily and other men.
Gwendolens arrival at the estate only makes Jacks facade as Ernest even harder to keep under wraps. After a jealous arguement over tea, Gwendolen and Cecily uncover the truth; there is no Ernest. Well, Earnest is really two people; Jack and Algernon. Both of the womens indignations are shorty lived, especially when the two lean that "Ernest's" love for them is also fake. The storm finally calms between the few, until Lady Bracknell returns and begins to questions the newly discovered lineage of Jack.
Being Cecilys legal guardian, Jack wants nothing of Algernon on she being wed. The truth is then revealed, Mrs.Prism had dark secrets and this entire mess has her to blame. Almost thirty years ago, on her daily walk she mistakenly placed baby Jack into the handbag and the novel into the baby carriage. She then proceeded to drop baby Jack onto the doorsteps of the
Victoria Station, thinking it was the novel she simply misplaced him. With this revealation of truth, we realize that Jack has a younger brother; Algernon! So the connection is made that Jacks real last name is Moncreiff, the same as Algernons. What of Jacks real first name however? After searching for who his real father was they discover that he was a military general. After a breif consult with the Army, Jack discoveres that his real name is in fact Ernest. With all the pieces in place, everyone is at peace. Algernon and Cecily proceed to get married, soon after so do Gwendolen and the newfound Ernest. Oscar Wilde makes a blatant pun with the name Ernest. The adjective "earnest" means honest or sincere, which was anything but what the Earnest in the story was. Ironically, there is no character named "Ernest," but everything depends on pretending to be Ernest. Trouble arises when Algernon, whohas his own version of Ernest, catches on to the scheme and shows up at Jack’s country manor impersonating Ernest, just as Jack decides to kill off his pesky younger brother.Finally, things start to unravel and the truth is revealed. We’d like to say that Jack and Algernon are finally being earnest, but they can’t really take credit for the events that occur. When Jack’s identity is revealed, he still doesn't know what his real name actually is. But then he findsout that it is Ernest. So he really has been "earnest" the entire time. The ending, where Jack cheekily tells Lady Bracknell, "I’ve realised for the first time in my life the vital Importance of Being Earnest" is ambiguous. Is Jack saying that he’s learned the importance of being honest, or the importance of being named Ernest? It's just as important to be named Ernest in the end as it was in the beginning, since Gwendolen still insists on loving a man named Ernest. Either Jack really does learn the value of honesty at the end of the movie, or he simply holds tighter to the importance of being named Ernest.

O' Brother, Where art thou? by the Coen Brothers

From "auteur" duo Ethan and Joel Coen came a movie in 2000 titled O' Brother, Where art thou?, set during the Great Depression of the early 1900's in the midwest United States. The film is an obvious reinterpretation of Homer's Odyssey, even beginning the film with the epic poems invocation of the muse. Each character of the movie is loosely drawn from a character in The Odyssey but has been recasted to fit a depression era, Mississippi. The Coen brothers interweave the mythology of the original Greek Epic with the backdrop of a Christian mythos and traditions of southern America. The resultant braid is an exquisitely woven journey, primary a hilariously comical one, but at times just as powerful and moving.

The simplicity of the original Epic allowed for a very adaptable story to be imagined, so when writing, the Coen brothers were able to create a fictional yet relatable movie that was able to appeal to a wide variety of audiences. By simply tweaking the characteristics of major figures of the Epic, the brothers were able to create perplexing backstories for characters that had previously remained unchanged for hundreds of years. By doing so, the Coens created characters that were genuinely modern while retaining their original framework.

Besides being excellent works of music that brought the Coens dozens of awards, the soundtrack of O' Brother, Where art thou has a much deeper meaning than just use for background noise. Being the most popular amongst movie-goers, The Soggy Bottom Boys' Man of Constant Sorrow sits highly amongst some of the most highly regarded film scores in modern film history. The song ties together the entire character cast, it does so by relating to lifelong struggles, trials, and the triumphs that lie within the end result. The song specifically points out that everyone has tribulations but it usually works out in the end, relating to seemingly endless trials that the main trio encounters. The film received extremely positive reviews and the American folk music soundtrack won a Grammy for Album of the Year in 2001.

The movie was one of the first to extensively use digital color correction, to give the film a sepia-tinted look. The Coen brothers purposely wanted the film to be digitally rendered to give the film the appearance that is was older than it truly was to add a sense of realism. Cinematographer Roger Deakins stated “Ethan and Joel favored a dry, dusty Delta look with golden sunsets. They wanted it to look like an old hand-tinted picture, with the intensity of colors dictated by the scene and natural skin tones that were all shades of the rainbow.” is was the fifth film collaboration between the Coen Brothers and Deakins, and it was slated to be shot in Mississippi at a time of year when the foliage, grass, trees, and bushes would be a lush green. It was filmed near locations in Canton, Mississippi and Florence, South Carolina in the summer of 1999. After shooting tests, including film bipack and bleach bypass techniques, Deakins suggested digital mastering be used. Deakins subsequently spent eleven weeks fine-tuning the look, mainly targeting the greens, making them a burnt yellow and desaturating the overall image timing the digital files. This made it the first feature film to be entirely color corrected by digital means, narrowly beating Nick Park’s Chicken Run.("Film Screening: O' Brother, Where Art You?" Filmmakeriq.com. N.p., n.d. Web.)

''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' similarly offers a fairy-tale view of an America in which the real brutalities of poverty and racism are magically dissolved by the power of song. Because the Coens are smart enough to know that such a place has ever existed only in fable and song, their vision takes on an unexpected poignancy. Rather than wallow in nostalgia for the past, they dare to reinvent it, to make it something strange, beautiful and new. ''O Brother, Where Art Thou?'' is a tribute to, and example of, the persistent vitality of the American imagination.