Summary: A railroad operator, Sisif, saves a young child, Norma, from the wreckage of a train crash. He raises the orphan girl alongside his biological son, Elie. The children grow up believing that they are related by blood. Both Sisif and Elie fall in love with Norma. Sisif reveals his feelings for Norma and the…
Category: Media Studies
Rome, Open City (1945) – Summary – Analysis
Summary: In Nazi-occupied Rome, the Gestapo is hunting the ringleaders of the local Resistance movement, Manfredi and Francesco. The pursued men are hidden and assisted by the local people, including the local priest Don Pietro and Francesco’s fiancée, Pina, while the diabolical Major Bergmann tracks them down from the comfort of his office. Francesco is…
She’s Gotta Have It (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: Nola Darling is a young black woman living in Brooklyn. She is sexually involved with three men: the caring but overly protective Jamie, the affluent but arrogant Greer, and the fun but immature Mars. Each man wants to date her exclusively, but Nola resists deciding on a single partner, wanting to maintain her independence….
Killer of Sheep: Summary & Analysis
Summary: An angry black man shouts at his son for failing to get into a fight to protect his younger brother; the boy’s mother contemptuously slaps him. Years later, the boy, Stan, lives with his wife and children in Watts, a black Los Angeles neighbourhood. He works in an abattoir. He cannot sleep, and is…
Hustle & Flow (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: DJay is a Memphis pimp and small-time drug dealer who operates out of his car and resides in low-rent housing with erratic air conditioning, sharing his space with his hookers Nola, Shug and Lex. Frustrated with his life, DJay decides to reinvent himself as a rapper with the assistance of former school classmate Key,…
The Cool World (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: Duke, a young African-American, struggles to survive and make a name for himself in the slums of Harlem. The film opens with a close-up of a bearded, black Muslim on the street preaching hate against whites and the cruel world we live in. We then get a tour from Duke’s high school teacher, the…
Coffee (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: Coffy embarks on a spree of bloody vengeance against drug dealers, dirty cops, and corrupt politicians after her family become casualties of organized crime. Her older sister is a prostitute, her brother a coke addict and her younger sister, LuBelle, is brain-damaged as a result of contaminated drugs. The film begins with Coffy meting…
Bone (Movie): Summary & Analysis
Summary: Bill is a successful car salesman, famous from his television advertisements. He and his wife Bernadette are an affluent couple living in Beverly Hills. One day, they find a rat in their swimming pool; suddenly a big, black man, Bone, appears in their garden, disposes of the rat and then, despite being completely unarmed,…
Mulholland Dr. – Story Summary – Analysis – Explanation
Summary: David Lynch has always been obsessed with getting beneath the surface. From the start of his most famous film, Blue Velvet (1986), where the camera dived beneath a lawn to reveal a subterranean world of gigantic insects, reality in Lynch’s works always seems to be a cover for something more evil and monstrous. Mulholland…
Hurt Locker: Story Synopsis & Analysis
Synopsis: Staff Sergeant William James, a soldier known for his ability to disarm bombs whilst under fire, joins his latest detail in Iraq and finds he is an unwelcome presence: his new teammates, Sergeant JT Sandborn and Specialist Owen Eldridge, are mourning the loss of their previous commanding officer, Sergeant Matt Thompson, whose zen-like approach…