Waltz with bashir

Waltz with Bashir was made in an entirely animated except for the last few minutes of the movie, which I think worked wonderfully for the movie. This style gave the movie a very dreamlike kind of trippy feel to the movie, and this works perfectly with the main character's post traumatic stress disorder and lack of memory of what really he did during the war. This made me think of the movie Waking Life, which was a movie that was actually filmed, unlike this one, but worked on after filming on computers to give it an animated look. The main character in that movie is lucid dreaming and the style and the dreamlike feel of Waltz with Bashir reminded me of the feel of Waking Life.
Another reason why I think this worked very well for the film was it made the film different from every war film. There have been many antiwar films in the past, and it is a theme that will be visited many times again in movies, but this being animated as well as being in the 1982 Lebanon war were two things that definitely set this movie apart and different from other films of this sort.
At the end of the movie when the movie when it switches to live footage it makes the movie real again. It makes the movie feel even more real then other war movies that used actors since the beginning because you know it is fake from the start, and they never do anything to change it up. In Waltz with Bashir when at the end of the movie it switches to actual live footage of the massacre it makes you realize that this really happened and leaves you with a really powerful image.

Waltz with Bashir

Waltz with Bashir was about the 1982 Lebanon war, which I did not even know happened before last class period. I really enjoyed the movie none the less, even though it probably would have been easier to follow if I had been more acquainted with the events of the war. The movie was really depressing, but that should probably be the case since I would guess war and massacres are not a good time.
One thing that I did not really like about the movie was that it was subtitled. The animations for the movie were really good and I wish I could have just watched them instead of having to shift my eyes to the text frequently. At least one problem that can come from having a dubbed movie that is averted by this is having a bad dub just totally ruin the movie.
A question that came up when we were discussing this movie in class is if you were to use this movie in class what age do you think is the youngest you should show this. I have thought about this after class and I think it would be fine to show this movie to freshman in high school. One probably couldn't actually do that in the school system because there was the scene with pornography in it. This was the scene that people said was the reason why they wouldn't show it to people under 18. This scene was comic relief and I doubt this is one of the scenes that anyone found disturbing from the movie. The disturbing scenes from this movie were the ones of genocide toward the end of the movie. I remember from middle school I watch some World War Two and the holocaust, and in one of these movies I remember there was a scene from Auschwitz where a prisoner got mauled by a dog. If movies about Nazi prison camps can be showed to middle schoolers I see no reason why this cannot be.

Gonzo

When we talking about Libicki's article, from The Jewish Graphic Novel, she called her books gonzo literary comics and I thought this was a totally a wrong classification of the book we read by her. I don't just think this because I adore the works of Hunter S. Thompson, and also find Libicki dull. I guess for something to be "gonzo", something must just be a first person narrative of events, whether you were originally in them or not, but there is more of a style with something being gonzo then just being first person. For something to be gonzo I think it is necessary for the narrator to be bold, reckless, and extreme. In Jobnik Libicki had none of these characteristics, she just seemed mostly apathetic and weak. In gonzo journalism the narrator often was more important to a piece then the actual event, which just was a playground for someone like Hunter S. Tompson's character the duke interact with. In Jobnik it doesn't seem like Libicki is really interacting with the story, so much as being driven by the situations in it. I think Libicki called her work gonzo just to give it a more appealing name than an autobiographical comic or something along those lines, but I think that gonzo is a name that should not be applied to her works.

Jobnik

I did not enjoy Jobnik at all. Jobnick seemed like it was a story that was meaningless and had no reason to be to told. The book seemed no to have no more interesting content then my day to day life, and while I may not be in Israel I do not think that makes this story worth telling. It seemed kind of like a  a coming of age story, which I am not a fan of, where the Miriam Libicki ended the story just as confused with her identity at the end of the story as she was at the start. I am not sure if this is a totally legitimate complaint with the book, because it was stated in class that it is part of an unfinished series. In class we talked about some of the depth of the story, but I feel that we were just dredging for something that was hardly there to begin with, it still seemed like the majority of the book was just mundane. The book also had some sexual panels in it, but all of these in the book were so censored it just seemed like a bit of fooling around, and nothing much ever happened. This did seem like the best way to portray this, because it gains nothing from not portraying it. I also like the aesthetics of this book the least out of everything we have written so far. I liked how she drew herself on the cover of the book, but in the actual book it seemed like everybody was half a foot shorter and just mashed together.

More mouse

It was a rather quick class that we had this week, since we had to through roughly twice the reading as we normally do, but it was productive and kept things from getting dull as easily happens in a three hour long class. One thing that shocked me when we were talking about Maus two was that the picture of Vladek was taken after the war. I was under the impression that this photo was taken of him by the Nazi's or something of the sort, but he actually got this taken after the war as some sort of memorabilia or a trophy or I don't know. I cannot see how someone would want such memorabilia from going through one of the worst things that one could go through. I know in the photo Vladek had well fitted clothes, but in the book it also said that he got some well fitted clothes and better shoes, so I thought it made sense that the photo could be taken while the camp was still under Nazi control. It also seems strange to me as to how Vladek can keep his photo from his Nazi prison camp, and how he had to get rid of Anja's journals. It is rather sad to see how Vladek can survive the Nazi prison camp and talk about it without strong emotions, but Anja's suicide is unbearable for him. I think this might be because going though the Nazi prison camp was something he had to choice in, he was one of the lucky ones who made it, but Anja's suicide seems like it could very well have been because she found Vladek unbearable and probably many other reasons.

Rabbi's Cat

I did not care the Rabbi's Cat for the most part, it was a very deep graphic novel. I first want to talk about the aesthetics of the book. I actually liked the art in the look, it reminded me of something that would be on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon in the mid to late 90's when I was a little kid and the cat seemed very fluid and well animated like an actual cat. One thing about the writing that made this work much harder for me to read then other ones we have read for class was the use of cursive writing for the cats narration in the book, this made an already very deep book that much harder to read for me. I don't really know what to think about the real text of the book, it is quite scattered and seems quite open to interpretation. The last part of the book where the family goes to France for the honeymoon is the most confusing for me. It seems as if the rabbi sees a lot of people who are called "Jews" but they do not follow all the rules that come with it, this distresses him. Then he goes and eats a meal, which breaks just about all of the rules on food and food preparation, after the meal he says a prayer for those who transgress against the rules. Then he also talks to daughter's father-in law, a nonreligious Jew, and from his experiences in France he goes back to his "parish" (I don't know what the Jewish term for this is) and basically says he does not know if his religion and bascially his whole life's work means anything, but lets just do it anyway. The characters in this book are just so ridiculous and unreal that I had a hard time getting much out of it.

Well it is another Saturday night, and I am making my second post for the night which seems to be a trend that I am keeping up on. The second book in Maus a interesting reading and I wish we got to discuss it while it was more fresh in my mind. One thing that I really liked about the second book of Maus was the perspective that it gave you into Art Spiegelman life and the problems that he has with him self in no small part to having to grow up with his father. This is just really awful because Art never went through the Holocaust he still got a whole lot of psychological problems that can come with having a tough childhood and this just passes down because of the way he was raised. The book also kind of made me feel bad about the way I treat my parents, when Vladek asks for Art to stay at his place and take care of him and Art tells his father to hire a nurse or when Vladek asks Art to do some sort of work around the house and Art tells him to hire someone to do that stuff. This is the exact sort of way that I generally treat my mom, and I have done so with no second thoughts but in book I fell sympathetic to Vladek at times and this also makes me feel bad for the way that I have treated my mom.
Also at the end of the month the TV series for the Walking Dead comic books starts, which I am pretty pumped for because even though I read very few comics, Walking Dead is one that I read every issue for and it is simply the best piece of zombie fiction in any media ever made, so hopefully the TV show ends up fantastic as well.