my great-aunt

My great-aunt Antonina was born in a respectable family and she is the youngest of three children. She grew up in  Valdepeñas, a town in Ciudad Real. Her childhood was hard because of the postwar years. In fact, her father was in jail for a long time due to his political ideology. When he was released in the end, he died soon afterwards of a brain stroke. She and her brothers and mother had to work a lot to move forward. She tells that when somebody wanted to buy something on the black market, as she was the youngest of the three siblings, the older ones make her sell the items –for instance some bread-, since she didn´t realised that was something illegal.  In spite of all that, she is a self-confident person and she studied on his own every night after a workday.

As I see it, she possesses lots of good qualities like always putting others first (she has not a trace of a selfish streak), a good sense of humour, razor-sharp mind (she is highly intelligent), but the most interesting thing about her is that she is a striking storyteller, she has a vivid imagination.  This must run in the family, since my grandpa (her older brother) was a poet and a writer; it seems a quite common streak in my family (my uncle Antonio is a good writer too –he likes writing theatre plays, and he has even won literary awards like his father –my grandpa-; even my mother has always had good qualities and a great imagination to tell us –my sister and me- stories and tales.  As for my great-aunt Antonina, I look on her as a behaviour model and  I´d like to take after  her...  I wish I could follow her footsteps and I love her a lot!

NORTH BY NORTHWEST....

North by Northwest is a late 1950^s film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and James Mason. This film will be always remembered by its perfect plot and powerful images due to a masterly use of technique.

At the beginning of the film shows one of the most well-made confusion in the history of cinema. While Roger Thornhill (Cary Grant) –an advertising executive- is having lunch in a prestigious restaurant, he has the bad luck to lift his arm to call for a messenger, just as the same time as a telephone call is announced for a certain George Kaplan. From that moment on, Thornill is mistaken for Kaplan –a supposed USA spy- by the bad guys.

Among the techniques used by Hitchcock, the establishing shot is a characteristic recourse in this film. For instance, shots that provides sceneries like United Nation building, the famous cornfield scene or Mount Rushmore scene. This type of shot helps the spectator to know quickly where the action takes place, since the main character changes locations frequently.  However,  it is also used the shot reverse shot, because that one is useful to show a scene where two characters are in a conversation; that is, it is a closer way to watch a conversation and maintain the pace of the scene. For instance, the train scene with Eva Marie Saint and Cary Grant at the restaurant wagon (in this same train happens the famous censored scene whose Spanish version has different voices because it was added later -see below-).

Tell me, why are you so good to me?

Kendall: Shall I climb up and tell you why? I've been thinking...it's not safe for you to roam Chicago

looking for this George Kaplan you've been telling me about. You'll be picked up by the police the moment you show your face. It's such a nice face, too.

Don't you think it'd be a better idea if you stayed in my hotel room while I located him for you and brought him to you?

Thornhill: I can't let you get involved. It's too dangerous.

Kendall: I'm a big girl.

Thornhill: Yeah, and in all the right places, too.

Kendall: You know, this is ridiculous.  You know that, don't you?

Thornhill: Yes.

Kendall: I mean, we've hardly met.

Thornhill: That's right.

Kendall: How do I know you aren't a murderer?

Thornhill: You don't.

Kendall: Maybe you're planning to murder me, right here, tonight.

Thornhill: Shall l?

Kendall: Please do.

Thornhill: Beats flying, doesn't it?

Kendall: We should stop.

Thornhill: Immediately.

Kendall: I ought to know more about you.

Thornhill: What more could you know?

Kendall: You're an advertising man, that's all I know.

Thornhill: That's right. What else do you know?

Kendall: You've got taste in clothes, taste in food....

Thornhill: And taste in women. I like your flavor.

Kendall: You're very clever with words.

Kendall: You can probably make them do anything for you. Sell people things they don't need, make women who don't know you

fall in love with you.

Thornhill: I'm beginning to think I'm underpaid.

HITCHCOCK OUTLINE

I . Hitchcock was one of the less recognized filmmakers in his time, although now he is considered as a classic  due to his great technique, his mastering of suspense and his well-known use of  "macguffin".

II. Great technique
     A.montage
        1.narration

III.  The master of suspense
     A. Pioneer of suspense
         1. Remarked suspense Hitchcock´s films

IV Macguffin
     A. Term´s origins
         1. Examples: Psicosis and North by Northwest

V.In spite of not being deservedly recognized for a long time, Alfred Hitchcock, because of his great mastery is now considered among the big ones.

GUN OWNERSHIP ( thesis stament)

U S A government should forbid  free access to guns, since violence involves more violence,  security could be increased and as a result we wouldn´t feed the thriving gun industry.

The lack of food resources.....

   The lack of natural food is an increasing problem, because the human being is using up the ecological resources of the planet Earth. In fact, this year the ecological footprint – a measure that represents the amount of resources necessary to supply the human population compared with the biosphere´s ability to regenerate itself and provide services- has been exceeded. This means that it is more and more difficult to find natural and healthy products; the raising prices make poor people unable to access them. Therefore, if we do nothing to change this situation, we will run out of our resources, each year there will be more and more people with nothing to eat and in the end we will use up all the food.

In order to solve this problem, many alternatives have been proposed along History. One possible solution is to eat little children (because their meat is more tender) as proposed in 1729 by Jonathan Swift in his  well-known essay A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People From Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick, commonly referred to as A Modest Proposal. However, this remedy was already criticised for not being very ethic even at that time. In spite of being a satirical essay to highline the attitudes toward poor people, there were some who took it seriously.

Another solution could be to produce soylent green as suggested in the film starring Charlton Heston. It is a retro futuristic film about an overcrowded planet Earth and how the population survives on rations produced by the Soylent Corporation, a green cookie that contains "high-energy plankton". However, if you have seen this film, you will know why this remedy is inviable, unless certain prejudices or civilization taboos are dismissed.

Thus, a final answer (since these solutions are not the ideal proposals for everybody, as people may be reluctant to apply them) that involves fewer difficulties would be a more responsible behavior in preventing the lack of resources. For instance, it could be solved educating or making the population aware about it. Therefore, if every one of us acts responsible, we will avoid this urgent issue.

                                                      

FIRST PRACTICE: Living in the countryside

   If I had to choose I would like to live in the countryside. Generally speaking, it is true that living in a big city may be more attractive, but residing in a rural area has always been more comfortable and healthy. In fact, there is less pollution in the countryside than in an urban area, because, for instance, driving is not necessary to go anywhere there. Furthermore, if you looked for a job in the countryside, it would be easier to find one, because there are more opportunities, due to the fact that it less crowded than a large town. In addition, the countryside, or a small village, provides you a more relaxing and contemplative way of life, and its gastronomy is organic and ecologic, unlike city´s gastronomy. Therefore, for these reasons, I prefer residing in a rural area instead of living in a big city, since this way of living is more gratifying than living in a big crowded city.

Disadvantages of watching dubbed films and original language versions.

If you are thinking of watching a film in the near future, both options -dubbed and O V- have disadvantages, unless the original  version is in your mother tongue.  Sometimes dialogs and subtitles are not well synchronized. In addition, subtitles are not always faithful to the original script; this is usually a matter of space, but as a result some expressions or nuances are lost. And if you have to be reading subtitles all the time you can miss images or visual details. On the other hand, watching a dubbed film implies missing the actors´ voices; this means that you cannot appreciate their whole performances. Besides, since a dubbed film doesn´t allow you to listen to the original voices, you do not have the chance to improve your listening skills. Furthermore, dubbed versions may manipulate the original dialogs, as happened with Franco´s censorship. For instance, that happened in Mogambo (as one of the main characters couple is presented as brother and sister instead of husband and wife in order to hide an adultery, but in the end it unintentionally seems an incest) and in several Hitchcock films, etc.