Since 1965, films have come a long way and have impacted millions of people throughout the years and have changed drastically while doing so. FIlm’s have typically been made to make large sums of money for the creators, but the ways these creators can bring in their audiences are widely different, shaping and evolving over the years. Specifically, it would seem that as time moved on, film makers started testing the boundary of what they could talk about in their films and what underlying messages or morals they were trying to get across. These subtle or not so subtle messages have also been more and more prominent with the developing technological advances that have shaped movies for what they are today.

These issues that the creators seem to be touching on tend to be controversial in some way, but are able to send their messages to there audiences without confusion through the effects and technology used to make crazy and visually appealing films. The four essay’s specifically I’ll be talking about are Solaris, The Deer Hunter, The Conversation, and Avatar, all of which did amazing in the theaters. All these movies are somewhat mainstream, with cool special effects for their time, and easy to follow plot lines, most wouldn’t make you “think critically” I would say unless you looked a little deeper.

To start, I will talk about the oldest film of the bunch, Solaris, written by Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972. This foreign film is roughly a three hour Russian film that contains a particularly interesting story. The story follows a Russian man named Kris, who assigned to go aboard a distant space station to check and see how the crew is holding up. This planet is orbiting the newly discovered planet, “Solaris.” On the space craft, Kris learns the planet has somewhat magical powers, and has the ability to bring people from a persons mind back into existence without them knowing whats going on. The cremates on the spaceship refer to these things as “guests.” Within Kris’ time on the ship, he is able to reunite with his dead wife who passed away before the trip. Although Kris enjoys his “guest,” the other crew members hate theirs, not referring to them as people at all and wanting to get rid of them permenalty. By the end of the story, Kris is faced with the decision to get rid of “his guest” and he accepts, knowing the idea of keeping her around with him was wrong. This ethical question is seen and talked about through Bailey Garon’s blog post. One academic source from scenes of cinema, gave a quote I found interesting, which was, “In Solaris, a tenuous communication is established with the planet and, having faced up to his demons, the hero attains a degree of peace with himself.” This was a quote that I found interesting for my subject because it can represent how this film focused on being faced with a somewhat philosophical planet, but was still able to bring in tons of viewers through the advertising of it being on a large spaceship around a alien planet, something viewers wanted to go and see. This can be seen through the historical source of the films movie poster.

The second film I wanna talk about was the second oldest film out of the group, which was The Conversation, written in 1974 by Francis Ford Coppola. This film follows Harry Caul, who is somewhat of a spy you could say. Caul is a “listener” for hire and will tap into and record anyones conversation for any employer. In the film, Caul is hired to listen to the conversation of a couple in the park, record it, and then give it to his employer. After getting the recording, Caul listens over the tapes and makes sure they’re all in order when he finds something interesting. After listening, Caul believes the couple is in danger, and if he hands over the tapes to his employer, it might result in the couples murder. Having flashbacks to a time where Caul’s work did actually get someone killed, he is faced with the dilemma to either turn over the tapes or try and keep/destroy them and face the consequences. Although this is the dilemma in the film, the interesting part for me was for when the movie was released. This issue and topic can be seen through Bailey Garon’s blog post. This film came out around the time of the Watergate scandal and everybody was on edge on the idea of the government being able to “listen in” on your conversations. This film represents this issue by showing how “easy” it was for a hired average looking man to be able to listen and record everything you had to say. One critic from Filmsite said in particular “It’s how thoughtlessly they did it, how little regard they showed for the human beings whose information they were taking.” This critics writing is relevant to my topic because is shows how the director, Coppola, was able to represent the government in “negative” way of sorts which I would think was pretty controversial for that time. Coppola was able to bring in his audiences through the “advanced” technology that he was showcasing throughout the film. Throughout the movie, all of Caul’s equipment is shown, and also a ton of advancement equipment is seen when Caul goes to a “spy” expo of sort, showcasing what all this equipment was a capacity to do. This advanced equipment was what brought curious audience members in, as seen in the historical document of the films release poster. 

The third film I’m going to discuss is going to be, The Deer Hunter, written by Michael Cimino in  1978. The Deer Hunter is a film that follows a group of friends, before, during, and after the Vietnam War. The film follows two main characters, Michael and Nicky, and their group of close friends. The film starts by showing the friends back home in the U.S, with one character in particular getting married before they all get deployed for the war. The film seems to showcase before the war as “happier” time of sorts and shows all the characters in a good state of mind. The film ends up cutting to the friends in the middle of the war, fighting and killing in a village. The friends are then captured by Vietnamese soldiers, and are taken to a hut on the river where they kept in a cage underneath. One by one, the Vietnamese take soldiers up separately and force them to play Russian Roulette with one another using a loaded gun. During the scenes, the Vietnamese are shown harsh fully abusing the soldiers and sending them to their breaking point. This scene gained a lot of attention from multiple critics, who say this Russian Roulette game never happened and the scene wrongly portrays the Vietnamese soldiers. One critic from WikiZero said, “Director Cimino was also criticized for one-sidedly portraying all the North Vietnamese as sadistic racists and killers.” After the scene portrays the group of friends in the war, it then goes back home to show the effects and side effects of the war on their social interactions, with one of the characters losing his ability to walk and another going completely insane. The issues represented in this film were realesed a little after the Vietnam War were these effects were actually being seen in people around the world. The “issue” that was brought up and shown in this film was indeed a controversial one, with the director representing the Vietnamese as “sadistic and racist killers.” The Director was again able to draw in his audiences to see this film through the effects he gave, specifically the war scenes, where there were explosions and people getting killed constantly. Although the trailer doesn’t revolve around these effects, they can be seen a little bit throughout.

The fourth and final movie I want to talk about is the film, Avatar, directed by James Cameron in 2009. This film focuses on the character Jake Sully, on the alien planet, “Pandora.” In this film, the humans are at Pandora to harvest it’s resources, stealing from the native aliens, the “Na’vi,” who represent blue human like creatures. Jake is assigned on a mission to infiltrate the Na’vi people and learn about them, though joining their culture by putting his consencious into a vessel that resembles a Na’vi, called a “Avatar.” Throughout the film, Jake eventually gets accepted into the Na’vi culture, and get participates in their rituals while also falling in love with one of the Na’vi creatures. Jake eventually sides with the Na’vi people, and goes against the wishes of the humans to infiltrate and steal their resources. The humans end up going in yesterday, showing a final battle of the humans against the Na’vi, with the humans wielding machine guns and robot machines, while the Na’vi wielded bows and arrows and spears. The issue in this movie is clearly seen as a direct comparison to white poeple stealing and destroying the native peoples culture. Robert Ebert commented on this saying, “Avatar is not simply a sensational entertainment, although it is that. It’s a technical breakthrough. It has a flat-out Green and anti-war message.” This is also seen and talked about in Rebecca Settles blog post. This issues was shown and represent through James Cameron’s amazing work with CGI, making this movie one of the first “big” 3D movies to hit theaters, These special effects an be seen clearly throughout the historical resource of the films movies trailer.

In conclusion, throughout the history of film, things have changed a lot throughout time. These changes can be seen through many different ways in different films, especially through the technology that was used in relation to the social issues that the director and film makers were trying to express. These special effects were able to give the film makers the ability to express their ideas through visually stunning and appealing ways.