* L'AVVENTURA *

L'Avventura

L’Avventura is an example of a movie that has very little dialogue and virtually no music whatsoever and can still be considered one of the best mystery movies to this day. But to Michelangelo Antonioni, the director of the movie, there was no particular need for any additional music or excessive dialogue to heighten the movie’s climactic plot. All that was needed was the mystery depths of the movie and the exceptionally beautiful sceneries of Italy. This was the goal of Antonioni: to make a movie using solely the plot, the artistic landscapes, and the slow pace of the scenes.

Every scene in the movie has a story to it, a mystery of its own. If you will notice, none of the backgrounds the movie has ever gone out of focus, no matter how much is going on within the frame. Even in the scenes that zoom out to the landscape as the characters talks and walks away, you will see that the camera never loses its perspective and as every second pass, each artifact in the picture can easily be depicted. But why did Antonioni spend so much time and effort into perfecting this feature alone? At first I thought Antonioni was trying to plant subliminal messages into the movie, but this is too far-fetched of a conspiracy theory. Now I realize this was the result of his deep cinematography skills and a mastered pace of shooting.

Many will agree with me that the movie’s pace was slower than a snail’s and the plot was so obvious that it was excruciatingly long. But once the plot was taken into consideration, it seemed quite clear this had to be done to feed the audience with the suspense that all mystery movies have. An example of this theory is in one of the last shots of the movie, Sandro is walking around at the party looking for something he himself was unsure of. This scene stretched as long as five minutes. But in-between this long scene, the camera would cut back to Claudia who was desperately waiting for his return. As the scene continues, the audience will feel the suspense of the movie rising to a high climax because both the actors and the audience are unsure of what will happen next.

As a result of the non-excessive elements of a movie, the perfect sceneries, and the slow pace of the climax, you can see yourself why this movie is considered to be an exceptionally risky yet beautifully shot movie. Like many others, this has become one of my favorite classic movies of all time.

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* THE FOUND BOAT *

The Found Boat

Boys and girls are profoundly different in each aspect. One may like bikes and the other may dislike bikes solely because the other favors it. Even as men and women, there is a sex difference between the two in terms of attitudes and personalities. It is as though the system of perfect equilibrium between the two genders is nonexistence, and this story is an example of that theory. In The Found Boat, the relationship between the kids were constantly changing due to their uncertainty and the changing nature of the two.

When the kids found the boat in the flood, they did what any other youngster would do, take it in for experimentation. Once they took the boat in, they wagered to see if it was possible to get the boat to float in waters again. They worked together by fixing the holes, testing the durability, and even painting the boat to fit their taste. And when they were done and brought the boat back out to the flood, it floated flawlessly; their teamwork was accounted for their success.

But in each step of the process in building the boat and sailing on it afterwards was unpredictable. At times, they would agree with each others ideas and continue to follow the ideas that were brought up. Other times, they argued intensively with demeaning yet playful remarks. Once they did use the boat to ride on the flood, they reached the end of the path and stumbled upon an old broken down station. Inside here, they peacefully ate snacks and sandwiches, and played Truth-or-Dare. They both took turns asking questions and giving dares, and they all followed the rules of the games, even to the end. When they were given the final dare to take off all their clothes, everyone did so concordantly. But once the girls and boys got separated, the girls decided to ditch the boys and go on their own.

The girls and boys were always uncertain of how they felt with each other. At times they despise each other, at other times they enjoyed each others company. One thing is for sure, they both act the same way towards each other.

.

* THE FAT GIRL *

The Fat Girl

The Fat Girl is a realistic story that many can relate to. The characters, especially Louise, have a lot of depth to them. What I found so appealing about the story is that Louise, the main character, had never lost her true identity. Even when she transformed into a slim and slender woman, her personality did not change her intricate character. Through thin and thin, Louise’s identity had always stayed the same even when she gained a new persona from her weight lost.

Louise’s weight problems started when she was only nine years old. At that young of an age, it is very hard to lose weight because the habit of over-eating is already forged into the body. Louise, like most people with weight problems, always felt insecure about themselves. These people would often rely on their metabolism to help them get into shape. But when they realize their metabolism is not high enough to withstand the amount of calories being inputted, it will all be too late. Louise’s mother, who only shows love to Louise if she is skinny, mentioned that Louise had her high metabolism, but Louise’s mother wasn’t aware of her daughter’s nasty habit of eating food in the dark. The food consumed her soul, entrapping her body into a cage of mistreatments, and it didn’t stop until she went to college and met Carrie, her savior.

In college, Carrie displayed a series of trust and acceptance to Louise’s beastly habit of eating in the dark; so when Carrie proposed Louise to go on a diet for her own sake, Louise didn’t turn down the offer. Soon enough when Louise lost all the weight she pledged to lose, not only have she forgotten what it was like to be obese, she had also gain a new personality. This new personality that developed overtime from her new body was also a cause from doing things she never could when she was fat. She could then fit into a new line of slim clothes, talk to her mother more comfortably, and have more friends.

All of these new things were overwhelming for Louise, but soon she realized that her true identity could not have been forgotten. She have longed for fatty foods, and with Carrie gone, the inspiration for staying healthy was no longer there. Her new personality came to a halt and she became her old enjoyable self again.

.

* MADAME ZILENSKY AND THE KING OF FINLAND *

Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland

There are many people who lie in this world. As a humane society, we grew up to believe that lying is a wrong doing and anyone that lies is not worthy of being trusted with later on. Although, there are people in this world who still insist on lying even when the outcome may not be in any way rewarding. Society considers these people to be below reasoning; it’s these people that ruin the trustful world of today. Yet oddly, there are those who accept those that lies. When one lies to another, the trust is lost and all that is left to do is either reject their lies or accept them.

Madame Zilensky, who was a composer and a pedagogue, was not well known but had an impressive reputation from her works. Mr. Brooks, the music department at Ryder College, hired Madame Zilensky to teach at the school he was working at. As time went on, they would talk and eat together at the college. Mr. Brooks was always fascinated by the stories Madame Zilensky told to him. The stories were all very exciting with different people and social events. They were so amazing that they almost had something wrong with the stories, and soon Mr. Brooks found out what it was.

Then Madame Zilensky told Mr. Brooks about the time she met the King of Finland, and instantly he found out what was agitating him all along. The words that came out of Madame Zilensky’s mouths were all lies. With little researching, he found out that there is no King of Finland, and scheduled a meeting with her to discuss this matter. He confronted her about the lies and deceptions, but she insisted she did see the King of Finland. And after a rigorous battle of getting Madame Zilensky to admit she’s a liar, he soon realized that she had no intentions of lying, because it seemed to be her nature to lie. Then Mr. Brooks gave up chasing her ill-witted self and decided to go along with the act.

Madame Zilensky lied because she might not have a choice. She may have grown up with lying people around her, or she was raised up to lie. Some people can lie without a moment’s hesitation, and others may lie without a second-thought. And in this world we lie in, we can only either accept them or reject them.

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Captain Scott

Captain Robert Falcon Scott was born on June 6th, 1868 in Stoke Damerel, England. He was a Royal Naval officer and Antarctic explorer. During the “Race to the South Pole” Scott came in second and on his way back to their base, he and his four companions died due to the rough terrain in the South Pole.

In 1901, Scott commanded the National Antarctic Expedition through many adventures. The major achievement of the expedition was an exploration of the Ross Sea. During the Terra Nova expedition (1910-1913), when Scott and his party members decided to head home after a year spent undertaking science work, they began to slow deteriorate in the unpredictable and rough terrain of the cold weather. Slowly, each member started to weaken and die due to miscalculations, injuries, frostbite, malnutrition and exhaustion.

Scott died on March 29th, 1912 on the Ross Ice Shelf and was found in a tent containing two more bodies including Scott. Rock samples of the experiments they were working on were found near the corpses. Diaries were also found near the bodies; these diaries spoke of their last moments in the dying winter.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captain_Scott

Billy Holiday

Billie Holiday, born as Eleanora Fagan, was born on April 7th 1915 in Baltimore, Maryland. She was an American singer known for the difficult times in her life and her singing voice. Holiday is considered to have one of the greatest emotive jazz voices of all time.

Holiday had a horrible life throughout a life; she admitted to using hard drugs in the 1940s. She married a trombonist Jimmy Monroe in 1941, and also took up with trumpeter Joe Guy, her drug dealer. In 1947, she split with Guy and divorced Monroe, and was also sentenced to jail for eight months due to drugs.

By the 1950s, Holiday’s relentless abuse to herself with drug abuse, drinking, and other abusive actions gave her voice a more swell and coarsen her voice. Holiday is considered to be a prime example of a artist with a bittersweet ending.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Billie_Holiday

Around the World in Eighty Days

Around the World in Eighty Days is a adventure novel that was first published in 1873 by a French writer Jules Verne. In the story, two men made a bet that they can circle around the world in 80 days on a £20,000.

This book was written around the difficult times of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Jules Verne was having a series of unfortunate events when he was writing this book: he enrolled as a coastguard, had money difficulties, recently his father died, and also witnessed a public execution. Despite all these events, Verne was very excited about his work on this new book he was writing, Around the World in Eighty Days, which came across his mind one day in a café while reading a newspaper.

A film adaptation was made into movie directed by Frank Coraci in 2004 with Jackie Chan, Steve Coorage, and Natalie Denise Sperl.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_World_in_80_Days

Martin Scorsese

* Cultural Reference Chapters 21-23 *

Martin Marcantonio Luciano Scorsese was born on November 17, 1942 and is considered one of the greatest crime-genre directors of all time, directing Academy Award movies such as Taxi Driver, Good Fellas, The Aviator, and as a long anticipated come-back in 2006: The Departed.

Scorsese’s father, Luciano Charles Scorsese, and mother, Catherine Scorsese, both resided in New York when they gave birth to Martin in 1942. It was the contemporary-realistic cinemas in New York that gave Scorsese the passion go follow his dreams as a director.

Scorsese was a multi- Academy Award, Golden Globe, BAFTA, and Directors Guild of America, award winner and was nominated for Best Director five times, but never won.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scorsese

Lassie Come Home

Lassie come home is a 1943 film set in England during the Depression-era that tells the story of a poor boy’s dog who was sold to a rich man and had to return home to her original owner. This movie stars Roddy McDowall, Donald Crisp, Dame May Whitty, Edmund Gwenn, Nigel Bruce, Elsa Lanchester, Elizabeth Taylor, Ben Webster, J. Pat O’Malley, Alan Napier, and Lassie. A collie male dog named Pal played Lassie.

The original novel Lassie Come Home was written by Eric Knight, and the movie was directed Fred M. Wilcox and adapted from the book by Hugo Butler. After this movie, many other movies and television series starred Lassie, the collie male dog.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lassie_Come_Home

Richard Burton

Richard Burton was born on November 10, 1925 in Celigny, Switzerland. He was a Welsh actor, and was one of the highest-paid actors in Hollywood. He is well known for his vocal style, and was nominated seven times for the Academy Awards for acting but never won.

Burton is most known for his roles in Look Back in Anger, King Arthur’s Camelot on Broadway, and Cleopatra (1963). During a filming, he met Elizabeth Taylor and immediately fell in love with her. Once they married, people began to see many on-screen collaborations with two of them.

During Burton’s fourth marriage with Suzy Hunt, he suddenly died of cerebral hemorrhage at his home in Switzerland. He was only 58 years old when he died and was buried in Switzerland in a red suit.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Burton

Balzac

Honore de Balzac was born on May 20th, 1799 in Tours, France. He was a French novelist and playwright who published almost 100 novels. Balzac is well known to be the founding father of realism in European literature. His novels, most being comedies, consists of many well-defined characters, and descriptions in exceptional detail of the scene of action. It is also his trademark to bring back particular characters in various novels repeatedly.

As Balzac’s health failed in 1849, he traveled to Poland to visit Eveline Hanska, a wealthy landowner. Balzac and Eveline married in Berdyczow in 1850. Because of his health problems, he died three months after his wedding.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balzac

Jack Nicholson

* Cultural References Chapter 17-20 *

John Joseph Nicholson is an Academy Award winner and seven time Golden Globe winner American method actor most known for his dark-themed characters. Nicholson was born on April 22, 1937 in Neptune, New Jersey at the Jersey Shore Medical Center.

In high school, Nicholson was voted as “class clown” by the Class of 1954. A theater and a drama award at the school are named in his honor. In his later acting years, he won many awards and even received a Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. Nicholson is best known for his films One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, As Good as it Gets, and Tim Burton’s Batman.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_nicholson

King Lear

King Lear was written by William Shakespeare and published in 1587. This tragedy is very well known and is played by many great actors throughout time. There are two different versions of the play: The True Chronicle of the History of the Life and Death of King Lear and His Three Daughters, which appeared in 1608, and The Tragedy of King Lear which appeared in 1623. The two are commonly printed in a regular text version. Yet many editors say that each version has its own delicacy.

Since World War II, it has been considered to be one of Shakespeare’s greatest achievements; especially because of its description on the nature of human suffering and kinship on a cosmic scale.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Lear

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born on June 2, 1840 in Dorset, England. His father worked as a stonemason and his mother was a ambitious and well-read person. His mother supplied Hardy’s formal education, which ended when he turned 16 when he became John Hick’s apprentice.

Thomas Hardy became an English novelist, short story writer, and poet of the naturalist movement. Most of his work depicts characters struggling against their passions and circumstances. Hardy published his first poetry in his fifties and has come to be as well known as his novels.

Hardy died from an illness called pleurisy in January 11, 1928. On his deathbed, his final poem was dictated by his wife.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono was born on February 18, 1933. She is a Japanese musician and artist and is currently living in New York City as an American citizen.

Ono was an explorer of conceptual art and performance art. In a performance art called Cut Piece, she sat on stage and invited members of the audience to use scissors to cut off her clothing until she was completely naked. As a form of conceptual art, she wrote a book of instructions called Grapefruit. This book included instructions that are to be used within the mind of the reader through Zen-like thoughts.

As Ono’s musical career, she collaborated with groups such as John Cage and jazz legend Ornette Coleman. Her music changed after marriage. Her contribution to the album Double Fantasy was considered to be better than John Lennon’s.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoko_Ono

Charles Manson

* Cultural Reference Chapters 14-16 *

Charles Milles Manson was born on November 12, 1934, and was known to be the leader of the Manson Family. The Manson Family was a cult consisting of hippie like people that began to form in San Francisco in 1967. Manson was convicted of committing the 1969 Los Angeles Tate-LaBianca murders, where members of his cult were given instructions to do so.

Manson was an unemployed ex-convict who spent nearly half his life in institutions for correcting his inhuman behaviors from his minor and major offenses. Before the period of the murders, Manson found himself in the music industry where he had a chance to associate with Dennis Wilson. Oddly, once Manson was charged with the crimes, the songs written by Manson and performed by him and members of the Manson Family were released commercially.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Manson

Nefertiti

Nefertiti was the Great Royal Wife of the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep IV. She was the mother in law and probable stepmother of the Pharaoh Tutakhamun. One of the daughters married Tutankhamen. Her name roughly translates to “the beautiful/perfect woman has come”.

She is mostly known for her famous bust. The bust itself is notable for expressing the understanding Ancient Egyptians had regarding realistic facial proportions.
. . .

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nefertiti

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov, who was born in Tagnrog on January 1860, was a Russian short story writer and playwright. He produced four classic playwrites during his brief playwriting career. His short stories are more well known and holds high esteem by writers and critics around the world.

Chekhov gave up on the theatre floor after a reception of his has gone horribly wrong (The Seagull in 1896). One of Chekhov’s short stories was written for money, but his artistic values grew. He made formal innovations that have influenced the modern short stories.

Anton died of tuberculosis at a health spa of Badenweiler, Germany, on July 15, 1904.

. . .

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov

Dante

Dante Degli Alighieri was born between May 14/June 13, 1265. He was an Italian poet from Florence. Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy) is considered to be one of the best works of literature ever written.

Dante was born into a remarkable family of Florence, the Alighieri family. His mother, Bella Degli Abati, died when Dante was only seven years old. After his mother’s death, Alighiero soon married again to Lapa di Chiarissimo Cialuffi. This woman bore two more children, Dante’s brother Francesco and sister Tana.

Records of Dante’s don’t seem to specify his education, and some assume he simply studied at home. Where ever he studied, his interests in poetry took the best of him and he remained to be one of the greatest poets to this day.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dante

Lord Byron

* Cultural Reference Chapters 12-13 *

George Gordon Byron was a British poet and a leading figure in Romanticism. Lord Byron has many reputable works. Most of these works are narrative poems including Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage and Don Juan. Many of his works later on were considered unfinished when he died. Lord Byron is known to be one of the greatest European poets and is still very famous

Lord Byron’s life was as interesting as his writings. He had many love affairs, debts to pay, separations, and accusations of having intimate relationships with family members. He was also a regional leader of Italy’s revolutionary organization called the Carbonari. Unfortunately Lord Byron died from fever in Missolonghi.
. . .
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_and_Prejudice

Sunny von Bulow

Martha Sharp Crawford von Bulow (known as Sunny) was born on September 1, 1932 in Manassas, Virgina. Sunny is an American heiress and was a socialite and philanthropist. She was the wife of Claus von Bulow.

Since 1981, she has been in a persistent vegetative state, followed by a mysterious coma following that. When it was discovered that the coma was ascribed to hypoglycemia from injected insulin and a high publicized trial, her husband became convicted of attempted murder. Even when the evidence points heavily toward the husband, the conviction was still overturned by the court.

To this day, many aspects of Sunny's persistent vegetative state remain unexplained.

. . .

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunny_von_Bulow

Cocoon

Cocoon is a science fiction film directed by Ron Howard in 1985 about a group of elderly people who are rejuvenated by swimming in a pool that is charged with life-force and was intentionally left there for aliens to use.
Approximately 10,000k years ago, a group of aliens from the planet Anterea formed an outpost on Earth at an area known as the legendary and mythical Atlantis. Once Atlantis sank due to an earthquake, 20 alien members remained behind so the rest would have sufficient lifeforce to return to their home planet.

The story goes on with the aliens returning back to the outpost to retrieve the remaining members. They charge up a pool with life-force but unfortunately, elders from a retirement-home sneaked into the pool and unknowingly used the lifeforce. Although, one refused to use the powers and spilled the secret, resulting in all the elders using the pool.

. . .

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocoon_(film)

Gilda

Gilda is a film made in 1946, directed by Charles Vidor. It stars Glenn Ford and Rita Hayworth in her unique role as the ultimate femme fatale.

Johnny Farrell is a minor-league hood hired to run an illegal major-league casino in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Singer Gilda is the casino owner's new wife, and a former lover of Farrell.'s. Ballin Mundson is the mobster casino owner who initially doesn't know about Gilda and Farrell's past and assigns Farrell to keep an eye on his wife. Farrel keeps track of her dating men everyday. After a number of twists and turns the serets of the three are eventually revealed.

- - -

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilda

Breakfast at Tiffany's

*Cultural Reference List 10-11*

Breakfast at Tiffany's is an Academy Award-winning film of the 1960s starring Audrey Hepburn and George Peppard, and featuring Patricia Neal, Buddy Ebsen, Martin Balsam, and Mickey Rooney, and directed by Blake Edwards.

The movie is about Holly Golightly, a young woman always on the run from herself. Since she was a child, she was known to be unstable. She married at fourteen, had the marriage annulled afterward, moved to Hollywood to start a film career, leaves Hollywood for New York (where she earns money as a call girl and by unknowingly carrying coded messages for a mafia boss), and plans to leave New York for Brazil to marry one of the world's richest men.

The main plot is Holly's relationship with neighbor Paul Varjak, who has confidence problems of his own. The story explores the depths of their reltionship and the resolution that occurs within Holly's own mind and between Holly and Paul.

- - -

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany

"O Captain! My Captain!"

"O Captain! My Captain!" is a poem written by Walt Whitman as a homage to President Abraham Lincoln's assassination in 1865. The poem is a fairly short poem consisting of three stanzas; it's layout appearing like a ship approaching its destintion.

The poem starts with its famous apostrophe of its title:

"O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;

The ship was weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;"

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O_Captain!_My_Captain!

Grace Kelly

Grace, Princess of Monaco, was born on November 12, 1929 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania as an American citizen. When Kelly reached the age of 22, she became a fashion model and starred in her first film, Fourteen Hours. Following her first film were many successful films starring and co-starring her (also as a supporting actress), films including: High Noon, Mogambo, and The Country Girl (the film that won her an Academy Award for Best Actress).

Her acting career came to a halt when she married Prince Rainer III of Monaco. Once they were married, she was surprised to find out that the Prince wished for her to give up her acting career completely for him, and she did so grudgingly. Throughout her marriage, many biographers claimed that the marriage wasn't of a happy one, but Kelly remained married to Rainer until her death in 1982.

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Princess Grace died from a stroke while driving her Rover at the age of 52, September 1982. Before her death, she made many lasting impacts on popular culture and fashion. Such impacts include: the first actress to appear on a postage stamp, named as one of the products of the French 'haute couture' fashion called the "Kelly Bag" (expensively custom made bags of various skins), and she was notably referenced in many songs of the era (one example is Elton John's "Wrap Her Up").

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Kelly

Dante and Beatrice

Dante and Beatrice both lived in Florence, Italy for all of their lives. For two periods of nine years apart, Dante had only glimpsed at Beatrice each time, but the moment Dante saw Beatrice, he instantly fell in love with her, and his poems and writings reflected upon this.

"She has ineffable courtesy, is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and the queen of virtue, salvation." This is a quote from one of his works describing her as his savior, one who removed all evil intentions from her. It seemed he was not attracted to her physical aspects, but her divine stance, that is she was a holy catholic believer.

Throughout his whole life, he was utterly mesmerized by her beauty; and although he had never openly admitted to his obsession with Beatrice, there are obvious clues in his poems that related specifically to Beatrice and to no other women.

Beatrice was a magnificent inspiration to Dante’s work, as she had influenced him in many of his works including two of his greatest - La Vita Nuova and La Divina Commedia. After Beatrice's death, Dante retired into intense study and began writing poems dedicated to her memory. She was his beauty, his burning flame, his undying salvation.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatrice_Portinari

El Dorado

*Cultural Reference List 8-9*

El Dorado is a legend about a South American tribal chief who covered himself with gold dust and dove into a lake of pure mountain water. As the story was told by multiple variations, El Dorado (Spanish for "the golden one") is particularly known as the city of wealth, inspiring many explorers from the 1500s and on.

The story of El Dorado was brought by rituals of the Muisca and was then arose up the legend of El Dorado. This magical place was later told as a kingdom, an empire, the city of a legendary golden king.

El Dorado is often portrayed as a metaphor in the mythology of the Muisca today. El Dorada represents the energy contained in the trinity of Chimingagua, which constitutes the create power of everything that exists. And in other terms, El Dorada can simply be used metaphorically as any place where wealth can easily be obtained. The modern location of this place is Columbia.

Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Dorado

Sylvia Plath

Sylvia Plath was most famous as a poet. She was also a novelist, short story writer, and an essayist.

Sylvia is known for The Bell, the semi-autobiographical novel describing her struggle with depression. Throughout her life since the age of 11, Plath had been keeping a diary and kept her journals until her suicide on February 11th, 1963. Once Sylvia started her freshman year at Smith College in 1950, she began writing the adulthood of her diaries. Frances McCullough and her husband Ted Hughes published her diaries as The Journals of Sylvia Plath. Later the project was passed onto Freida and Nicholas, who passed it onto Karen Kukil. The final published version is called "The Unabridged Jornals of Sylvia Plath", and in this book was her dark thoughts and her constant struggle with depression.

On the morning of February 11, 1963, Sylvia Plath took her own life by placing her head in an oven with the gas turned on. Even though her journals hinted at her sad and painful life, many were still shocked that she would take her own life.

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sylvia_plath

Auntie Mame

Auntie Mame is a 1955 novel by Patrick Dennis about the adventures he had growing up as the ward of his dead father's strange sister. Many reffered to Auntie Mame as an autobiographical work, but the author said it wasn't anything other than fiction; he claimed he did have a strange aunt, Marion Tanner, who resembled Mame in many ways, but instead of a dead father, was raised by both his parents.

The novel was a best seller, selling more than two million copies during its initial publication. A sequel was later written by Patrick Dennis called Around The World With Auntie Mame. Unsurprisingly, this novel was adapted to the stage and put into a Broadway production. Later, Warner Brothers released a film version of the novel based on the play.

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auntie_Mame

Spartacus

According to Roman histories, Spartacus was gladiator-slave who became the leader of a slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about Spartacus beyond certain events but there are historical documents written for about Spartacus that many historians have agreed on, despite some contradictory and sketchiness.

Spartacus was a native Thracian who served in the Roman army, but was disgraced and sold into slavery. Since he was a former Roman mercenary, they considered his strength to be suitable for combat and afterwards he was assigned as a gladiator.

Spartacus was trained at a gladiatorial school near Capua. Once the time came, Spartacus and about 70 followers escaped from the school and seized knives from the cook's shop and a wagon full of weapons, and fled to the Caldera of Mount Vesuvius (near modern day Naples) where other slaves joined them.

The slaves led by Spartacus managed to overcome many battles of the Roman Legions. Many details from various stories add to Spartacus's heroic status and his violent revolt against slavery; but all of them are similar, that is he was known for his malevolent approach to end slavery and how he died for his own belief and courage.

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartacus

Comden and Green

*Cultural Reference List 4-7*

Betty Comden, along with Adolph Green, were the musical duo writing team who created many successful screenplays and songs for some of the most memorable movie musicals. They also collaborated on numerous Broadway productions. Albeit they were not married, many considered as a married couple for their genius and sophisticated wit that together formed a six-decade-long partnership that produced many of Hollywood and Broadway's greatest hits.

Before Comden and Green met each other, both attended school in hopes of becoming actors. But once they met each other, they formed a troupe called the Revuers because of the same interest they had and performed at the Village Vanguard, a club in Greenwich Village. Once they were noticed they earned a movie role, which later turned out to be too small of a significant and they turned back to New York to begin writing Lyrics for nonsuccessful musicals such Billion Dollar Baby, and Bonanza Bound. But luck was on their side and they immediately fround work at MGM.

From then on, they continued to write screenplays for musicals and broadways such as Good News, The Band Wagon, and their most sucessful project: the classic Singin' in the Rain.

. . .

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comden_and_Green

Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor, who grew up to be an important voice in American Literature, was born into a Catholic family in Savannah, Georgia. When O'Connor was five her aunt gave her a chicken that could walk backwards, and surprisingly this led to her first experience of being a celebrity. News people filmed O'Connor with her trained chicken, and showed the film around the country.

O'Connor graduated from peabody Laboratory School in 1942. She then got admitted to Georgia State College for Women where she majored in English and Sociology.

Two novels and 31 short stories were written by O'Connor, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was considered by many as a Southern writer in the vein of William Faulkner, often writing a Southern Gothic style. Her two novels were Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear (1960).

O'Connor ceased away in 1998 but her reputation lives on.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flannery_O

Sandra Dee

Sandra Dee became a professional model by the age of four, progressing to television commercials, then to her first film, Until They Sail, in 1957.

Known for her gorgeous blonde look and natural acting skills, she won a Golden Globe Award for "Most Promising Newcomer" in 1958. She ruled the thearte floor flawlessly as her roles in critically acclaimed films were a success such as Imitation of Life, Gidget, and a Summer Place (all in 1959). By the 1970s, Dee seldom took acting roles, but would made occasional television appearances.

Dee's personal life was as common as today's actors and actresses, stick-thin role models and trendy icons. She openly admitted that for most of her life she battled anorexia nervosa, depression and alcoholism.

Dee's constant battles of diseases and complications led to her death on February 20, 2005. Her life with Bobby Darin has been dramatized in the 2004 film Beyond the Saa, in which she was played by Kate Bosworth.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandra_Dee

Rat Pack

The Rat Pack is a formed group of popular entertainers who performed during the mid years of the 1950s and 1960s. The group consisted of famous stars such as Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawform and Joey Bishop. The Rat Pack also had female participants such as movie icons: Shirley MacLaine, Lauren Bacall, and Judy Garland.

The term "Rat Pack" was announced by Lauren Bacall when she witnessed a group of friends (including Frank Sinatra) returning from a night in Las Vegas, wearied and tired; she said words to the effect of "You look like a goddamn rat pack," referring to the tired and haggard appearance of the other members of the group.

Sinatra and friends had no idea their band would make entertainment history. The group was remarkable for its upbeat entertainment style and smooth musical and comedy routines, many of which were adlibbed.

As of 2006, Joey Bishop is the only male member of the Rat Pack who is still alive.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Pack

*Cultural Reference List 1-3*

Mary Shelley was born on 1797 in London, England. Percy Bysshe Shelley was born on 1972 in Livorno, Italy. It was fate that brought these two famous writer and novelist together as they were one of the most famous couples in history of literature. Ruled by their undying love for each other, they eloped in hopes of finding peace.

Strangely, Blue referenced Percy and Mary as her own connection toward her father. The view one may have when finding out that Percy and Mary were lovers when reading can make one wonder if Blue has a intimate incestive relationship with her father, a thought ridiculous to the core, but not fully implausible.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Bysshe_Shelley