Easy Rider (1956) and Scenes of Empathy

Empathy is an integral aspect for filmmakers to consider during the process of producing a film. It involves various elements of represented images in the aim of eliciting a mixture of emotional experiences from the audience through visual, auditory and psychological strategies employed by the filmmaker. In this context, the film Easy Rider (1969) directed by Dennis Hopper will be examined in terms of its subscription to scenes of empathy and how it communicates emotional experiences to the audience.

Scenes of empathy are often used in film as a “summation of the film’s ideological project” and are normally associated with close up shots that focus on the facial expression of actors. It is the aim of scenes of empathy to elicit a primordial response from viewers with regard to the six universal emotions that span across cultures. At this point, it becomes imperative to differentiate between the concepts of sympathy, empathy and sentimentality since the three can be observed in various movies in varying degrees that often concern a mistake on the part of the filmmaker for not setting up the appropriate conditions to elicit emotional contagion (Plantinga 254). Emotional contagion on the other hand is a term used to describe a process wherein viewers experience an empathic experience with what the character in the film appears to be feeling (Plantinga 253).

Scenes of empathy, aside from being closely associated with close up shots can be filmed by taking into consideration the concepts of attention, duration, allegiance, narrative context and affective congruence (Plantinga, 249-251). Attention pertains to an element of film that uses technical camera skills to direct the attention of viewers towards an object or a certain character in the scene. Attention is an important set up for the entire feat to work and emotional contagion to spill over (Platinga 249). Duration on the other hand refers to the amount of time spent in focusing on the character. An appropriate duration to focus on the character usually depends on the part of the film where such scenes are necessary. Durations are most effective in scenes of empathy that are located in the latter parts of the film when the narrative context has already been laid out (Plantinga 249). Narrative context is valuable for filmmakers as it is entirely embedded in the plot and the way the story progresses. An insufficient amount or inappropriate narrative development counteracts tendencies toward emotional contagion and mimicry among the audience. Allegiance is also important since it essentially determines the empathic contagion and the duration it stays effective to viewers (Plantinga 251). Lastly, affective congruence refers to the combination of all the mentioned elements of film producing effective scenes of empathy in the process (Plantinga 254).

The film Easy Rider depicts the story of two bikers on a journey to find the meaning of their lives after selling drugs and pocketing all their money on their bikes. During their odyssey, they encounter different characters altogether and communities that essentially disgusted their non-conformism to the status quo. The two hippies eventually get jailed for some minor pretext and meets a drunkard lawyer that helps them get out of prison just in time for the Mardi Gras.

In the scene wherein Wyatt and Billy together with the girls of the community decided to go skinny dipping, enjoyment is portrayed as the camera focuses on Wyatt’s face ending with a close up that appears to share a feeling of contentment and temporary happiness. The shot is complemented by a point/object shot of his friends Billy and the girls also having fun. The musical score also played an important role in establishing a scene of empathy particularly concentrated on a temporary sense of joy, happiness, contentment. The narrative context is also present in the form of a fresh breath of air as the group finally gets some time to enjoy themselves after enduring the weirdness of the theatre group they stayed in.

There are many aspects of film that contribute in creating the perfect scene of empathy but one of the most important factors is the represented face. The represented face is shown via a close up shot (point/glance shot) of the character’s face together with a congruent point/object shot to show the object of emotional experience without which no proper narrative context shall be established. The object in which the character is directing his/her emotion is also important since it avoids the unjustified solicitation of emotion from viewers. In film, a character’s facial expression is usually shown followed by the object in which the character’s emotion is directed at. This setting with the point/glance shot coming in first before the point/object shot allows the empathic condition to occur because seeing the object contextualizes the emotion of the character. The unjustified solicitation of emotion as seen in the aforementioned scene in the film is otherwise characterized by the concept of sentimentality. Sentimentality occurs when a character is shown to be eliciting an inappropriate emotion from the audience simply because such character does not deserve empathy or the viewer’s allegiance does not side with that actor at all (Plantinga 252). Essentially, the scene can be summarized as eliciting an unearned emotional response from the audience especially at a moment when viewers are at a certain emotional distance from the character attempting to provide emotional contagion.

            On one point of the story wherein the drunkard lawyer is introduced into smoking marijuana, George (Jack Nicholson) is shown as responding with genuine curiosity with the drug through another scene of empathy. His companions stare at him expectantly which serves as items for the point/object shot. When George reacts nonchalantly after smoking pot, Wyatt argues that he should take the smoke into his lungs for it to have an effect. This response elicited an apparent sense of disappointment, shame and shyness on George. Additionally, when the trio gets high over marijuana and Billy starts to hallucinate claiming that he saw a UFO hover over the sky. George’s reaction to this is an image of shock and bewilderment followed by unintelligent slurs and incredibly leads to a focus on one of the ideological projects of the film. George talked about the cracks of their antiquated society and how the government keeps certain information secret from laypeople like themselves.

            After the gang’s road trip while high, they arrive at a diner in a nearby town with the locals eating their lunch. George’s public display of emotion appears to be different to what his lines are generally implying. As they sit in their respective table, the girls in an adjacent booth check them out one by one. George smiles at the girl showing a rather flirtatious image while speaking of the nearby police officers that might detect the presence of marijuana in their systems. This scene illustrates the difference between the public and private display of emotions. While George publicly portrays himself as having a good time flirting with the girls, the inner emotion however contradicts by showing a sense of panic and nervousness over the police officer’s presence.

            Most film theorists argue that women are more effective in scenes of empathy and that they are more capable of connecting with the audience in pursuit of emotional contagion. However, this particular movie utilizes male characters in conveying the emotion the director wants the audience the feel (Plantinga 240). The efference hypothesis on the other hand shows no bias to gender in relation to a character’s capability of connecting with the audience. Efference hypothesis states that emotion can be elicited from the audience through the use of facial feedbacks in response to an object. Facial feedback in turn contributes to the emotional experience if and only if it complements emotion processes that are already in place (Plantinga 241).

The last few scenes after their hilarious trip at the Mardi Gras shows a moment featuring Wyatt and Billy over a campfire. They succeeded in selling their drugs for a big amount of money which supposedly would make the two protagonists happy. However, Wyatt appears to be upset saying that they “blew it” and Billy shows a genuine feeling of disappointment towards Wyatt’s reaction. This scene can be analysed as a failure to elicit any form of empathic reaction from the audience as the feeling of disappointment shown by Wyatt has no proper precedent and is not explained soon after the scene has ended. Essentially, the scene is a scene of sentimentality whose value can only be realized by the end of the film. The ending of the story features the two easy riders biking innocently as two truck drivers pass them by. The two characters turn out to possess a shot gun that they jokingly point at Billy eventually shooting him. Wyatt sees this and runs his bike to get the two suspects. As he reaches them however, the two shot his bike ricocheting to the air with the scene implying Wyatt’s death without really showing him die.

Overall, the film is seen to be capable of effectively utilizing scenes of empathy throughout the duration of the movie. While some scenes fail at eliciting the appropriate emotion, other scenes nonetheless compensate for this by being able to invoke affective congruence and fulfilling the promise of film as an effective medium of communication to the audience.

Works Cited

Plantinga, Carl. “The Scene of Empathy and the Human Face on Film,” in Carl Plantinga & Greg M. Smith (eds.) Passionate Views: Film, Cognition, and Emotion. The John Hopkins University Press, pp. 239-255. PDF 

Reading Between the Lies: Shattered Glass (2003) Review and Credibility of the Mass Media Industry

Shattered Glass (2003) starring Hayden Christensen

“He handed us fiction after fiction, and we printed them all as fact. Just because we found him ‘entertaining.’” – Chuck Lane, Shattered Glass (2003)

The quotation shown above is an excerpt from the film Shattered Glass which features the topic of credibility in the media industry. Credibility in the newspaper industry is a highly regarded pillar which should be maintained by journalists and writers alike. This very pillar determines the legitimacy of the media to the people without which the purpose of media reporting would cease. Taking into consideration the previous incidents that essentially attacked the legitimacy of the media, it becomes imperative to critically analyse how writers such as Jayson Blair and Patricia Smith were able to create fabrications and show it to the world as outright facts. Is this proof of the long disputed magic bullet theory? What are its implications to the capacity of the masses to know the difference between what is right and wrong? How exactly can we read between the lines?

Jayson Blair is a campus journalist in the University of Maryland, College Park for the school’s official newspaper The Diamondback. He served as the campus paper’s editor-in-chief for a year (1996-1997) during which other members of the editorial staff complained of four serious errors in Blair’s reporting including an award-winning article about a student who allegedly died of drug overdose. The members of the staff however claimed that the student really died of a heart disease (Folkenflik, n.p.). According to Felkenflik “[T]he disgraced journalist's closest peers were troubled by his work and behaviour at the University of Maryland, but no one heeded their warnings.” These incidents necessarily questioned Blair’s integrity as a campus journalist but nonetheless did not stop him in landing an internship in The New York Times. After his brief stint in the famous publication, he was offered an internship extension which he later refused claiming that he still has to finish university requirements for graduation. He returned to the newspaper a year later and immediately became a regular reporter in the field of mental health.

Everything seemed to be alright as far as Blair’s career is concerned until he received a call from Times national editor who asked him about a closely written article with one of the writers of San Antonio Express-News Macarena Hernandez. Upon discovering this mishap, a series of past articles purely fabricated managed to surface out such as his October 30, 2002 piece entitled US Sniper Case Seen as a Barrier to a Confession wherein he hinted that a suspect of a murder case is about to confess. Several other incidences came up eventually leading to the discovery that Blair didn’t even graduate from college as the university informed the publication that Blair still had one year worth of course work to complete.

The film Shattered Glass (2003) portrays the same story played by a young writer of New Republic who got busted for tailoring an intricate fabrication of a story about a boy hacker who managed to hack himself into a secure company network and extract the paychecks of every top employee. When people started to double check the facts, they find out that not only one of the writer’s works was done in the same manner. “You can resent me, you can hate me, but come Monday morning, we're all going to have to answer for what we let happen here,” says the New Republic editor Chuck Lane who tried to fix the mess they have done after trusting Stephen Glass, the fabricator/writer. When the fact checker got into a confrontation with Stephen and told him that there was indeed one piece of information that was correct among his articles, he said “[T]here does appear to be a state in the union named Nevada (n.p.).”

On the other hand, according to an article by the Boston Globe, Patricia Smith - a Pulitzer Prize finalist and columnist of the same publication was forced to resign her post “after admitting to fabricating characters in four of her columns (n.p.).” Her editor explained that Smith managed to attribute quotes to people who did not even exist. After Smith’s resignation, another columnist named Mike Barnicle committed the same crime “amid new allegations that he fabricated material for one of his columns published nearly three years ago (The Boston Globe, n.p.).” What’s bothering in the cases of Smith, Barnicle and Blair is that all of these journalists are known to be institutions in their own fields – the similar case to other individuals who attempted to fabricate stories, attribute unsaid quotes to non-existent characters and plagiarize published materials all of whom almost got away with it (The Boston Globe, n.p.).

The persistence of these types of crimes raises the question regarding the veracity of the magic bullet theory which basically assumes that the readers immediately believe what they hear, read and see from the media (DeFleur & Ball-Rokeach, 288). This theory has been repetitively disproved and disregarded – but considering the continuing cases of fabrication and plagiarism in the media industry, the masses are faced with the challenge of reading between the lines and thinking critically beyond what they read, beyond what they hear and beyond what they see.

Works Cited

Boston Globe, The (August 19, 1998). “Barnicle resigns from Globe: fabrications found in 1995 column, “ The Boston Globe. Web.

DeFleur, M. & Ball-Rokeach, S. (1989). Theories of Mass Communication. Longman, London. Print.

Folkenflik, David (February 29, 2004). "The making of Jayson Blair". Baltimore Sun. Web.

Looper Review and the Time Travel Paradox

I'm from the future and I am here to write this piece about the time travel paradox apparent in most time travel films. Okay, this statement is false but before we prove the impossibility of the proposition that I traveled back to the past only to write this piece on the impossibility of time travel, we'll need a theoretical walkthrough (of course, we won't actually be walking) with the time travel paradox prevalent in Hollywood films - the upcoming movie Looper (2012) in particular.

Looper stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis playing the same role as Joseph Simmons just in different timelines - Gordon-Levitt from 2042 and Willis from year 2072. Aside from the two actors, Emily Blunt is also part of the cast playing as Sara. The film is set in a futuristic gang world wherein Simmons (Gordon-Levitt) is a looper. A looper is some sort of a foot soldier that is tasked to neutralize gang members from the future visiting the 2042 timeline. Gordon-Levitt happens to be a good looper "handling" Gat Men members from the future - he was always successful in neutralizing his targets. However, one target came to be a particular trouble for Simmons as he discovers that was his next victim was actually himself from the future. More conflict arises as the two Simmons try to find out the reason as to how they ended up together but that's not really what I'm interested in. What I'm interested in is the fact that taking a closer look at time travel theories would make the Looper storyline utterly impossible altogether.  

Time travel plots usually meet conflict by virtue of the time travel paradox. The time travel paradox is a theoretical condition wherein the very act of going back to time would actually change precedent or following conditions depending on the perspective of the observer. To make it clear, the paradox is often told through the story of a man who goes back in time to kill his own grandmother. How does this become a paradox? It's simple, if the man is successful in killing his grandmother, then his very existence would cease altogether leaving the grandmother's murder impossible to have had happened in the first place. Consequently, if the murder did not happen because of the man's erasure from the timeline, then his inexistence would be reverted. I know it sounds confusing so here's a simplified logic that explains everything clearly:


M entails not M and not M entails M. 


The same logic goes for the Looper plot - if the 2072 Simmons was to go back to his 2042 self, then he would have had knowledge of how things went during that time period thus, he would have escaped any unfortunate events that might have transpired during such timeline. However, the film shows that Willis had no recollection of a future self coming back to the past to be neutralized by his 2042 self. This entails the very impossibility of the plot - going back to the past and causing such drastic changes necessitates that the future Simmons would have knowledge of himself coming back from the future and into the past only to be targeted by his 2042 self. I might sound confusing but the bottomline here is that the conditions must be consistent in order to represent a perfect and infinite time loop of Simmons going back from the future to change the conditions of his past. However, "changing" the conditions of his past is actually a way of saying that he came back to the past to ensure his very existence in the future by setting up the same conditions he experienced during his experience of the 2042 time period. 


To explain things further, let's say there is this object that we have to send back in time. Suppose there is a time line a-b-c and we are currently in point C. If the object was sent back from point C to point B, then a contradiction would occur - the successful transfer of the object back to a time wherein it did not exist would entail the proposition that the object existed in point B in relation to point C. Holding this proposition to be true would falsify the first condition that the object did not exist in point B until we sent it back from point C. The only theory that could accommodate this contradiction is the assumption that time branching occurred. Time branching entails the creation of a new time line due to the actions executed by the original timeline. In this context, sending back the object from point C to point B creates a new time line wherein the object already existed in point B thereby creating a whole new point D in the time branch. 

Fig. 1

As shown in Fig. 1, sending the object from point C to point B necessitates the creation of point D wherein the proposition that the object already existed in point B can be satisfied. Consequently, this explanation also sometimes entails that point A-B-C or the original time line will cease to exist as a newer version has already replaced it. The disappearance of the original time line is an explanation to preserve the linear time line concept and to avoid further contradictions that might arise if we consider such propositions to be true. The thing about this concept of time travel is that it has this unwarranted assumption that time is linear until an action in point C is executed. To sum it all up, the time branch theory is challenged by its self-defeating assumption that time can only be multilinear if time travel existed.

Basically, time travel movies can be divided into two categories (multiverse and unilinear timeline concepts) each of which consist its own set of rules. However, these rules are still not enough to challenge existing inconsistencies with regard to time travel paradoxes. The question is, if these movies are indeed inconsistent when it comes to adhering to time travel theories, why do people keep watching them? The answer lies in the ingenious strategy employed by James Cameron (The Terminator) and Robert Zemeckis (Back to the Future). Time travel films began almost a century ago but it only became prominent with the emergence of Cameron and Zemeckis' idea of putting in just enough science and a balanced dose of entertainment that fans would not immediately discredit the film of being inconsistent. Since the inception of Cameron and Zemeckis' balanced approach to time travel films, Hollywood used the same framework to every setting possible from horror (Warlock), romantic comedy (Kate & Leopold), comedy (Click) to drama (Peggy Sue got Married).

Even though time travel films can't completely escape the scientific problems of self-consistency, relativity among other inconsistencies, fans continue watching them simply because of the endless possibilities time travel can supply our imaginations. In the end, time travel films are loved and liked by millions of fans not because it exhibits a coherent time travelling logic but because it gives them joy to explore the enigma of the future and the mysteries of the past.

P. S.
I couldn't have been some guy from the future by virtue of the theory of self-consistency. But more on that later! Stay tuned in for more crispy reviews only here on Punchdrunk Penguin! More than just movies. More than just theories.

Winning Gotham’s Soul: An Ideological Analysis of The Dark Knight (2008)

Albeit the fact that the Batman set of franchises has already been reviewed enough for the past decades, revisiting the Dark Knight and the ideology behind it makes it worth the annoyance. The Dark Knight is a 2008 film directed, produced and co-written by Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight series is based on the DC comic character Bruce Wayne, a young billionaire who moonlights as Batman played by Christian Bale. Other noteworthy actors involved in the film include Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman as well as Gary Oldman among others.

Nolan practically based the entire film from his inspiration borne out of the Joker’s comic debut from a 1996 series The Long Halloween which also told the story of how two-face became involved in the fight against Batman and how he acquired the desire to conquer Gotham City. As this is an ideological review, one of the necessary objectives of this article is to dissect the ideological elements apparent all throughout the film. The film maker may not be aware of such elements, he/she may even deny their existence, but through the eyes of an ideologically sensitive film critic, this analysis will attempt to unveil the essential ideologies etched in the discourse of the said film.

Harry Potter and the Political Philosophy of Social Change: The Best Means to Employ in Responding to Political Injustice

Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix

The best manner through which one can determine the proper means to respond in situations of political injustice is to analyse an aspect of a certain political philosophy and dissect the underlying socio-cultural implications. In this context, an analogical philosophical paper is needed in order to explain the subject matter in a more comprehensive manner. Essentially, this research seeks to first examine the sociological, cultural, political and philosophical value of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter Series and analogize it to a working political framework.