Summary: Edda Chiemnyjewski is a freelance photographer and single mother in late 1970s West Berlin, struggling to make a living from small commissions to photograph public events. Alongside her professional work, she has her own artistic projects – both individual and as part of a women’s photography collective – which try to capture the reality…
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A collection of high-quality academic essays.
The Red Shoes (Movie): Story Summary & Analysis
Summary: Based on Hans Christian Andersen’s folk tale, the plot follows the career of Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) who rises to fame to dance the ballet of The Red Shoes. She falls in love with conductor Julian Craster (Marius Goring), but impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), fiercely protective of Vicky’s career, forces Julian to resign….
Rebel Without A Cause (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: Set in suburban Los Angeles, Rebel without a Cause tells the story of an affluent family and their troubled son, Jim, who makes friends at the local high school with equally troubled teenagers, Judy and Plato. Jim is teased by a group of high school students, particularly their leader Buzz, and in order to…
Rabbit-Proof Fence: Summary & Analysis
Summary: In 1931, three aboriginal girls escape after being plucked from their homes to be trained as domestic staff and set off on a trek across the Australian Outback. Analysis: Rabbit-Proof Fence takes as its subject the forced removal and ‘re-education’ of mixed-race Aboriginal children in early twentieth-century Australia. Given this backdrop, we might expect…
The 400 Blows: Summary & Analysis
Summary: The narrative of The 400 Blows condenses events drawn from several years of Truffaut’s own childhood into what appear to be a few weeks or months in the life of Antoine Doinel. Antoine’s world revolves around three locations: the cramped apartment he shares with his mother (Claire Maurier) and adoptive father (Albert Rémy); the…
Pulp Fiction: Explained
Summary: Pulp Fiction is structured around three interlinking story segments which are told in non-chronological order. Vincent and Jules, two hitmen working for the gangster Marsellus, retrieve a briefcase of money belonging to their boss which had been stolen by a group of minor drug dealers. While carrying out this job they accidently shoot one…
Psycho (1960 Movie): Story Summary & Analysis
Summary: After stealing money from her boss, Marion Crane drives out of town and stops at a motel off of the main freeway. There she meets Norman Bates, the young owner of the motel. Marion decides to return the money but is murdered before she can do so and Norman disposes of her body. Marion’s…
Il Postino (The Postman) – Summary, Analysis
I’ve ranged the far-famed seas, the nuptial stamen of each island, I’m a great paper seafarer, and I ran, ran, ran, to the uttermost foam Pablo Neruda, El Canto General (1950) Summary: In the 1950s, in a fishing port on a small Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea, Mario, illiterate and unemployed, dreams of a…
Ashes and Diamonds: Summary & Analysis
Summary: The action of Ashes and Diamonds takes place over the course of a single day: the 8th of May 1945, the final day of the Second World War. However, for Andrzej (Adam Pawlikowski) and Maciek (Zbigniew Cybulski), two soldiers in the outlawed Polish Home Army, the hostilities are not over. The pair has been…
The Piano (1993 Movie): Summary, Analysis
Summary: It is the mid-nineteenth century. Ada is a mute who has a young daughter, Flora. In an arranged marriage she leaves her native Scotland accompanied by her daughter and her beloved piano. Life in the rugged forests of New Zealand’s South Island is not all she may have imagined and nor is her relationship…