Elephant, a Gus Van Sant movie (2003)

Elephant poster

1) What struck you most in the film?

The thing that strucked me in the film, was the fact that violence is very normaliced. I mean, in this film it's undeniable that the kids who shooted the school had no emotions when they were doing it, execpt happiness. I don't manage to understand how somebody could feel happiness hurting, or even killing other people in this case, it's like when somebody has fun making suffering animals.

2) What also impressed you?

I was a little bit impressed by the fact that there was no security in the school. These boys were showing their weapons to everyone and no one was scared about it. I know that it is a film but actually this was impressing me because, I'm quite sure that, as these guys did, the real shooters did it as well, and no one said anything either.

Elephant scene

3) Did you find anything more particularly upsetting?

I think, that what upsets me the most is the fact that we could have stoped this event with the necessary help to these students. I think that one thing that this director wants to show is a critic of the schools' system. The shooters were victims of bullying at school, and no one did nothing to help them, I think that, if somebody had show any kind of interest on their problems, they could have found their problem and solve it or just anticipate this kind of events.

4) What did you find very disturbing?

Elephant scene

In my personal opinion, I don't understand either what the black "angel" was thinking when he was walking with a calm path in the corridors. Instead of jumping through the window with the other people, he decides to go and "investigate". I could understand this decission if he just have seen the blond shooter pointing the director, but actually he was alone. This kill, does show that even "angels" are threatened by this kind of acts.

5) What was most shocking?

Elephant scene

3 Elephant scenes

When they shooted the geek girl, I suppose that's what shocked me the most. This poor girl who ran to her own death because she was late, was the first victim of these monsters. I don't understand why they did kill her if she was in their same situation. At the beginning of the movie they call her looser and other insults, she is suffering bullying as well, I don't think she bullyied them so I was very shocked and angry about the fact that they shoot her. It's maybe because they don't want to see other people suffering what they were suffering, but if their targets were the jocks, I see no sense in killing other people... And this is horrible.

6) What does the film  suggest about the two school shooters?

It looks the film wants to show a revenge from both bullyied geeks, but above everything, a filmed version of a documentary about what happenned in Columbine High School in 1999 for people to sensitice more about what happenned there and see why this kind of events could happen.

7) What's more, what does the film director make clear about the two killers?

Elephant scene

We can see both aspects of hate with the two killers, the one who is full of rage and acts with out no conscience about his acts' consequences, and the one who's calm and can face problems with a cold blood that would scare lots of people. This last option shows an intelligence higher than the normal people and then very dangerous for the society if it gets angry. Something that I love about this film is that we are thinking there's one domineering killer, the blond one, and that the other one follows instructions but these roles change instantly when the chestnut-colored one shoots the blond and this one dies. He has been manipulating him during the whole film and no one has noticed it, that shows a very manipulative mind and an incredible good plot because no viewer noticed it.

8) What kind of approach to the school shooting itself did Gus Van Sant opt for?

Elephant scene

The school, in the film, is calm, serene, peaceful, monotonous, boring, as every school in the world, except some, the most disturbing thing is arriving late, laughing at somebody... Otherwise, everything looks realistic, the classes teachers are teaching are the common ones in a high school, one thing that could impress the viewer could the "homophobia dicussion" because we can't see lots of these discussion in high school, wether it is important to talk about it, I think that's why the director filmed it.

9) Moreover, what's the main consequence of the realistic treatment he uses? What about the 'poetic' touches he instills throughout the film?

Elephant scene

This realistic treatment, we immerce in this mood of serenity and then, horror, fear and mutilation. In the middle of the higher tension scene, we can see a sky with some clouds on it that can give calm and serenity. The piano scene, can give a poetic vision of one of the killers.




10) As a conclusion, what must we admit about the way in which the killing and the killers are perceived by the film viewers?

Elephant scene

Elephant scene

Elephant scene

As we have already said, the killing in this film is something very cold, like something that could happen in the institute. Killing people from the back, shooting a person you just kissed, planning a terrifying plan to kill lots of people who did nothing to you... Viewers might get confused because of this, so now, to put it in a nutshell and to sum up, we can see, in Elephant, very hard events shown with a very normalized point of view.

Elephant scene

School shootings in the USA

The shooters:    Dylan Klebold:

Dylan Klebold picture

His personal diary:

Dylan's diary

Dylan's diary's entry

                      














  Eric Harris:

Eric Harris picture

His personal diary:

Eric's diary's entry

Eric's diary's entry

Eric's diary's entry

       As we have seen we are in front of two guys who look they are non mind healthy. We can see it on their diaries' entries. They cross out lots of words and lots of drawings because they might get confused and they don't know how to express themselves properly. They speak about killing people and we can see they look happy when they talk about it Dylan says "Have fun!" when he's speaking about puting bombs and making them exploud. This is actually horrible. How much these guys' minds have had suffer to be happy when they think about killing other people?


Here some interesting facts about the Columbine High School shooting:

"As for the author, you won't find much about me on this website as this site isn't about me. It's about the Columbine High School massacre: What happened before, during and after the shootings, and the people who were directly affected. I only added this page because I've had so many emails over the years asking about how and why I started what's become a behemoth of an information resource."

"I was less than satisfied with the way the media was covering the event. Rumors and speculation were presented as fact; mainstream television and corporate news sites initially seemed more interested in sensationalizing things than finding out what actually happened"

"I knew the true story was lurking out there somewhere so I started digging around, online and off. I put up a website on a free web host: A single site with a list of the known names of the dead, updated as they became available, and information about where the event had happened. In the days that followed I dug as deep as I could to get the real story that the media just couldn't seem - or didn't want - to piece together."

"The chaos and terror inside Columbine High School on the day of the shootings was horrifying; a person was lucky to escape it."

"When the assault began, people ran in any direction they felt was safe. Some chose better than others. Some ran and kept running."

Who were Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold? Why did they do what they did? Together these two young men were brought to the world's attention when they laid siege to Columbine High School the morning of April 20, 1999. Before that day they were just a couple of American high school seniors only two weeks away from graduation... or so those who knew them believed. For well over a year before the shooting the boys had been making plans to attack their school and the people in it."

Rank	Reason	% Agreeing
1	They want to get back at those who have hurt them.	87
2	Other kids pick on them, make fun or them, or bully them.	86
3	They don't value life.	62

So now, these are some interesting facts given in the web site of the horrible event of this High School. The author tells why did he sart with this web site and how did he get all the information and all that things that look very interesting.

Series and movies that show this kind of horrible events:


AMERICAN HORROR STORY, SEASON NUMBER 1: KYLE'S SCHOOL SHOOTING:
Just as the web site says,
"One of the main characters in this season is a school shooter who killed 15 people. The writers of the show used a real internet search page in one episode where they edited "Columbine" to read "Westfield" but the rest of the search results obviously reference the Columbine shooting. The subject of the shooting reappears several times throughout the season. Aired 2011."

Shooting scene in American Horror Story season 1

Victims of the school shooting

ELEPHANT:
Just as the web site says,
"School-shooting movie told from the point of view of someone the shooters let go before the killing starts. Directed by the guy who directed Good Will Hunting and put out by New Line Cinema, it's probably the highest-budget film of its genre. While this meant it's better quality than most, it also unfortunately meant that a lot of people who saw this film didn't know anything about Columbine before. They then thought Elephant was a true-to-life retelling of what actually happened. It and Zero Day (see further down) caused a lot of confusion in their time. This film includes a gay scene in a shower between the shooters pre-assault that set off loads of renewed rumors about the Columbine shooters' sexuality."

Shooters going to the school

One of the shooters

Both shooters

Shooter after having killed his class mates

I think this film and this series show very well how this school shooting was felt by the victims. The American Horror Story version is just a way to give a past to the character but actually this is the way we can feel as well the pain this character was suffering to do it. The Elephant version shows us a much detailed version of this event. It shows more what the people suffered than what the guys who did it did.
I think having both version is very good because in a same version you can't do it at the same time, one of the view points, is a little bit hidden by the other one. In the elephant version, for example, they explain why they did it because of video games, what I think is a little bit short explanation of what happened. These people must have suffered and they might not have had access to any help. I not saying they were in their right to do it, I will never defend violence, but I personnaly thing that in this film they give a very poor excuse for what they did, they didn't have the whole fault.

Individual Documents on 'Spaces & Exchanges' Notion

We are living in a world where people can communicate with other people who are even not in the same continent.
A world where gossiping is what people most like to do, where you can learn how old Shakespeare, Neil Amstrong were when they died, or they start becoming famous. The fame, this is one of the most important things in our society, don't you  think so? Then why are teenagers so worried about how many followers they have on Twitter and Instagram? Or friends on Facebook? Or even views on Snapchat?
Were are living in a world of change, nowadays The USA is the most important thing, maybe tomorow it would be Spain, India... No one knows it, so we have to be ready and "openned" to accept and react to every new change we have to live.

As we have al ready said, we live in a very energetic, an activity as reading must seams, then, like a boredom, but actually it is one of the most interactive activities of our world.

Not just due to the fact of this image which represents very well the reading meanning, that is to say that, everything you eat gives you lots of needed nutritions and reading something very similar. But not just the fact that reading can give you lots of culture and knowledge, but that it seams obvious to me that when someone writes a book and another person read it there's an exchange between these people. The author, can give his own view point and express his feelings just writting, but it is undeniable that these words just have an importance when someone reads them, even if it's the author itself who does read its own work.                                                      

Reading can as well connect countries, because of the selling in different countries and continents. But the most important thing of reading is something that we've already start to draw, is the personal journey someone makes just reading. Reading can take us to other worlds, it can make us living incredible trips, but what really marks a reader is the incouncious trip of his own feelings.               

For me one of the most important books would be this one,

This is the the first book I've read about acting. When I was reading it, I felt how big were my feelings and my enthusiasm of becoming an actor. I've learned many things about Richard Boleslavsky and his First Six Lessons, Boleslavsky exchanged, then his knowledge with me without being in the same country and even in the same century; Wouldn't it be, then the best social network you've ever seen?

As we've we already seen there is that internal journey with the fact of reading, but we must admit, that the "usual" trip, is as well very important for a person. But there are people who can't adchieve this amount of money or they don't know how to trip. So that is why that with the raise of the social networks, there have been different movements to show people trips or tutorials of how to organize one. There are the photographs on Instagram, the stories on Blogs or Facebook or even Twitter... But the one that I find more interesting is Youtube with the videos.

So that is why I've find interesting to talk about this spanish Youtube channel cold "Mola Viajar", that means, "Travel's Cool". This channel, shows tips to travel around the world with no money on you or how to organize a luxe trip with not a lot of money.

Here we have a screenchot of one of my favorite videos of them, is like a kind of trailer of a new journey they wanted to live and share with their followers. They wanted to make a whole world trip in 80 days. And as we've already said with different ways of travel, sometimes with no money on their pokets and sometimes in a incredible 5 stars hotel. Of course they don't have this money (For the 6 stars hotel) they've been sponsored by a brand to do it, that is why they do ask for more followers, because if they didn't have enough they wouldn't have the opportunity to do it and then share it.

I defenitely, find this incredible. In my opinion, I couldn't agree more with the fact that they ask for more followers, even if some people would think they do it to become reacher, I think this initiative helps them but as well the users who could travel to China just watching a video. In my case, I love travelling but because of the school, drama, I don't have time enough to do it, and I totally think is the best option to travel without leaving our houses.

To put it in a nutshell we must admit that almost everything is connected somehow, even reading as an exchange between people. We live in a interconnected world in which people must share to keep connected to this Globalised world.

SPACES & EXCHANGES: ¿Qué? A cartoon by Nate Beeler (2007)

In this globalized world, it's usual to see people from other countries coming to yours looking for a better job and a new way of life. There are lots of immigrations in the world, but the one which is more practiced, is the illegal one. Thousands of people are threatening their lives because they want the life they deserve and they think that coming to the globalized world they will get such a better way of life. On the one hand this is true,the majority of these people live in an extreamly poor situation. But, actually, on the other, it's true as well that when they do arrive here, they still have no home and no money, in a world in which they are not accepted and prices are much higher. Doing this, in my opinion, and as far as I am concerned, is like puting the string around your own neck. But it's undeniable that some people have succeeded and have got a better standart living.

¿Qué? A cartoon by Nate Beeler (2007)

Here we have a Nate Beeler cartoon talking about immigration in the United States. This cartoonist, is an american citizen who uses his cartoons to critice american acts and change people's view point. Here we can see three men, two reporters, one holding a camera and the other one a microphone, and what it seems to be a mexican worker holding lots of baggages with him. The cameraman has his face covered by the huge camera and the little microphones on the top. Both, the camera and the reporter's microphone, have "TV" written on them, so it's quit obvious that they are reporting some telivision news. The reporter, indeed, seems to be very exited, he looks very confortable putting his hand on his poket and winking to the camera but to the cartoon's viewer as well, and smiling while he says, "We're here live with the 300 Millionth american! How do you feel about this milestone, sir?".
They are, both of them well dressed compared to the man on the left who wears a tank top and jeans. He is, by the way shoesless. He actually, seems a little confused and do not understanding what's happening that's way he answers "¿Qué?" that means, "What?". He has a moustache and he has his shirt and arm a little bit dingy.

Here can see the two worlds, the globalised one, with nice suits and huge cameras and the one with dirty shirts and no shoes on the feet working like a slave for a little bit of money with what we can't live in this World. Indeed, the mexican man has already suffered before working in this situation. We can see he has a barbwire sticked to his left leg. This can mean that he passed a barrier of thorns in the frontier between Mexico and The United States of America. That is what lots of mexicans trie to do, pass the frontier to get better jobs, as we've already said. If the barbwire keeps sticking into his leg it can mean that he just arrived to The United States and that they are already exploiting him or that he didn't have a break to put that hurting thing away. The cameraman is the only one in the image that's a little bit more near to the mexican. The covered face, means objectivity and maybe a little bit of sympathy to the mexican worker, while the reporter's smile means, in my opinion, hypocrisy. The repoter is the only who does not have nothing more than a microphone to hold, while the others are holding heavy things for other people to enjoy their work.

As we've already said a few times people, move their contries to look for new oportunities. This mexican man can't even speak english, or that is what it seems because he answers in spanish to an english speaking qestion that is why I think this document can perfectly illustrate the notion of SPACES AND EXCHANGES. Because, people move to other countries even if they don't know the language to become somebody in their lifes, and they give, some how, the ir own clture to the new country, just living their and for example having children. That's why I think immigration (if it's not the way this picture represents) is really useful for countries' developpement.

POST 10 : TATTOOS & GANGS

Is very well known that in todays society, especially between the young people, is more and more attractive to be as lawbreaker as possible. Maybe these people don't want or are not able to live in this way of life, but it just have an interesting aspects that catch the eye of the youth.

Why do you think more and more people wear tattoos (regardless of whether they belong to gangs or not)?

Presonally speaking, at first sight, I think that tattoos are very attractive to people because it's a way, first of all, to represent their thoughts but as well another way of rebelion and individuality, something that people are looking for since the beginning of the world. To do not belong to a group makes people think they are original and special. Tattoos are one of those ways to leave this groups to join others. But actually, at the end, everyone keep having the same tattoos so we don't know who becomes, then, a rulebreaker, breaking the walls of standardisation and becoming really unique. Maybe before but in any case, nowadays, I don't think we should relate tattoos with gang street bands because even old people (who should not be in favor of these kind of actions) have sometimes some tattoos.

Why do young people join gangs? 

As we have already said, people are constantly trying to be different, or to belong to some groups and not to others. In this phase where you are young and you don't know what you want to be, and what to do with your future, young people, might have the necesity to join a group where they will be accepted. Gangs may open their doors to those guys and show them a world which is not true at all, they promise them things that will never happen and a life they will never reach, just because this not the right way to do it. Those young people obnubilated by the shinning world they "can" reach, and in their situations, where they are totally lost, they will join this kind of corporations without a thought.

What link can you see between both topics and the notion of power?

Maybe the posibility of a person to change his body the way that person wants could be a kind of power; They have power on them, but on the others as well because, as far as I'm concerned, I think that doing what you want with your body do not let the others to tell you what to do, nobody can't say to do not put ink in your skin, because your decision, so in that way your are prohibing other people to do what they want to do. On the other hand, we have the gangs, I truely think that the manipulation that young people suffer by these kind of groups is an incredible form of power, because as it was said in the Newsweek, to leave a gang is extremely difficult. And I think it's because they use things to retain people, as they can't leave these groups, like family threats and these kind of staff that could make the manipulated people be affread of leaving these gangs.

To put it in a nutshell, I, personally speaking, think that tattoos do not have anymore the same image that thay once had. Now, even if I think we should evolve much more in tattoos mindset, we are in front of a era much more permissive in the tattoos topic.

POST 9: The Draw of 'Dead Town' - A Newsweek article (February 16, 2009) + GANGLAND Video

Go there for a full version of the Newsweek article given out in class.

Questions:

1. Gabriel Hinojos is an ex-con who was, in 2009, trying to redeem himself for his acts in the past "Getting out of a street gang in L.A.". He used to be a street gang in L.A., in Florencia 13, that has commited some misdemeanors and wants to change his lifestyle "is about like getting a tattoo removed". He was in the prison and he just wants to live his life like a normal person "Gabriel became a kind of poster child for leaving behinf the gang life.".

2. " 'Ya 'Stuvo' , spanish slang for "that's enough, I'm done with that." " It is the tattoo removal center where Gabriel Hinojos goes to remove his tattoos. Is almost known by everybody that tattoos are for life, once you made one is very difficult to remove it. Well, it could be like an image of the thoughts of people having tattoos and wanting to remove them. With the setence "Ya estuvo" the pacient could mean that another life begins and it is because of the tattoo remove.

3. The "black teardrops" are the tattoos that the criminals do when they murder someone or a prison stint "Each one can stand for a stint in prison or a person killed.". It's also called "black" because the ink used is the black one, it's tattoed below the eye, and they do it each time they do what we have just explained before.

4. Gabriel Hinojos went several times to " 'Ya'Stuvo' " center. He commited a lot of crimes so he should have the body full of tattoos. Those therapies are not easy to do and of course not short. It's extremely painful, " "You know when you're cooking and the oil hits you? It feels like that, over and over." ".

5. "Getting out of a street gang in L.A. is about like getting a tattoo removed: slow, painful, scarring." This looks like a very difficult and hard work to manage to do, and personally speaking, I think that it must more difficult to clean your past than leave those street gangs.

6. Actually I don't really think so, it is said that, "But escaping the pull of gang life is extremely difficult." and of course, what make us assure that it's impossible for some people to do it "a gang banger can never leave a really brutal gang like Mara Salvatrucha 13.".

7. Gabriel was one of those cases. He should have commited a lot of crimes compared to a normal person, but not as many as Mara Salvatrucha, for example. He just had to go to prison and redeem their sins.

8. Gabriel is saying that it is almost impossible to leave this kind of gangs. He is, as well saying that is even more difficult, almost a labour of Hercules far beyond a normal person, to leave the past and get introduced into the society like a normal citizen. People will judge you because of your past and not because of your present acts, what it is totaly normal after what you did.

9. Even if it's difficult to get reintroduced to society, their are some exception... Gabriel was one of those. He aparently became a model of what criminals should do to get intouched  again with society. But, as always, everyone returns to its origins and that's what this article explains at the end. Actually and as far as I am concerned, I think they give a very simplistic, I think is enough suffering to be trapped in a jail for some mounths or even a week. Do not knowing what's happening to your family. And as we already said, life after criminal acts is really difficult no one will want to help you because they will have a preconcieved image of you, they have excuses, but not everybody is identical. I think, in his case, Gabriel did not have another alternative that to come back to jail, it was know like his new house and the "real world" seamed to him like foreign.

10. In this photograph we can see who we could think is Gabriel Hinojos. He is getting a neck tattoo removed in 'Ya Stuvo center. We can feel his pain during the session, a pain that must be liberating like the ancient greeks used to say.