“Everything I learned I learned from the movies.”

-Audrey Hepburn

Movies, as the eighth kind of form of art, welcomes a great amount of the viewers. Unlike the tradition painting or literature. Movies offers a feast of both your eyes and ears. When you are watching a movie, you feel like you share your senses with the character. It’s like you become one of the characters in the show.

Movies have a long history, and it actually appears from a photographer called Edward Muybridge. He had took 24 pictures of a galloping horse to see whether its all hooves would buck at the same time. By seeing the pictures, Edward got the conclusion that it would. However, he coincidencely found that when he was flipping those pictures quickly, the horse in the picture looked as it was alive and galloping. Since then, more people started to put their attetion on this thing.

On October 14th 1888, the first movie Roundhay Garden Scene was filmed by Louis Aimé Augustin Le Prince(qualified by IMDB). Louis filmed three movies between 1887 and 1888. All of them are about 3 seconds long. However, Louis was disappeared on a train on September 16th 1890. He could contribute more for films. We feel sorry for him and we should not forget his great contirbution for movies.

When I was still a kid, I don’t watch cartoons as the other kids do. I always watched movies with my father. I felt I enjoyed them a lot. During those days, I also learn many names of those famous actors and actresses. In fact, I name myself “Cage” since the first actor I remember is Nicolas Cage. and I consider this name is so cool. When I grow up a little, my father asked me to tell him my reflection after I had finished a movie. At the beginning, I felt this is meaningless. I could only tell him whether this movie is interesting or not, the explosion is spectacular or not. After a few days, I actually realized that a movie contians so much things. It might be the summary of their life experiences; it might be some ideas; or it might be knowledge of some specific areas. I always learn a lot from watching movies. Anyway, I hope those words help you know more about movies and my feeling to it. Some movies are good, and others might be not. No matter which one it is, it must be filmed for some specific purposes. We as audience should obejectively review about it and be respect for its purposes.

“It’s not what a movie is about, it’s how it is about it.”

Roger Ebert

12 years a Slave, directed by Steven Mcqueen, describes about a true story of one man’s long way back to freedom.

Soloman Northup as one educated violinist and carpenter is tricked by two kidnappers, and then was sold to William Ford as a black slave called Platt. Because of his good behaviors and nice works, he was preferred by Ford. However, Tibeats hates “Platt” and tries to kill him, but he failed. After this, Ford sent Platt to Epps to save his life from Tibeats(Ford also sent him to Epps for paying his debts).

Epps treats black slaves cruelly and ruthlessly. He thrashes slaves because the amount of cotton that is reaped by them is not enough. Among of them, a woman called Patsey could collect cotton as many as two men does. She is preferred by Epps, however, she is often raped by Epps and abused by Epp’s wife. After seeing Patsey’s life, Platt feels pity for her and determines his mind to survive.

After then, Platt meets a white man, Armsby. Platt considers him as a good guy and pays him to mail Soloman’s friends in New York. However, Armsby pretends to accept his request and he actually reports to Epps that Platt wants to escape. Fortunately, Platt successfully fools Epps by his smooth talk. He feels despaired and burns the letter, his only hope, to cinder.

In the last section of the movie, Platt meets a Canadian carpenter Samuel Bass. Bass disagrees with the slavery and believes everyone should be free whether they are black or white. Platt trusts him and asks him to write a letter to his friends in New York. Bass accepts. At the end of the story, Mr.Parker(a shopkeeper in Saratoga) receives his letter and proves Soloman as a freeman in Saratoga and brings him back home after 12 years.

“What difference is there in the color of the soul?”

Samuel Bass

The main theme of this movie is freedom. After being sold as a slave, Soloman never gives up. He suffers and bears all those pain in order to set himself back free. Those scars on his back are the best evidence. There are a few scenes which show Soloman staring at somewhere far away for a long time. They indicate Soloman’s desire of freedom.

Humanity is the second big part of the movie. Nearly every character with a name in this movie expresses a kind of person or a part of the society. Soloman is a man in hole; Ford has the sympathy but he could do nothing to help; Epps is a ruthless upper-class landlord; And Patsey is a downtrodden underclass worker. We can see that all those characters represents the different treatment to different classes.

After seeing an old slave died from overwork, the other slaves prepare a funeral ceremony for him. A song called “Roll Jordan Roll” is sung during the ceremony. In Bible, Moses brings slaves to Jordan, but they didn’t cross the river. He considers those slaves will live with servility for the rest of their lifes. Therefore, they bring up their sons and daughters and let them cross the river to construct the new world. In the long history of black slaves, Bible is always used to shape their mind and maintian their servility. Soloman doesn’t join them to sing at the start, but he sings after all. He maybe considers he has no chance to escape or he memories his kids and wife. No matter what he’s thinking at that moment, it must be a sorrow. This reality makes Soloman suffer for years that he finally joins them to release his depression.

12 years a Slave is chosed as one of the best 100 movie in 21 century. It is rated 8.1 in IMDB which is a extraodinary score. From my perspective, this movie is totally worth watching. I highly recommend this movie.

Well, I havn’t mentioned that I am a Chinese student who studies at Shanghai Pinghe high school. This school is actually well-known here. Most of us study here as international students which means that we are all gonna go abroad.

Alright, let’s get into this. Winter is about to come in Shanghai, so it is quite cold in this campus right now. Most of us have already worn the overcoats, and that includes me. Besides, we have all our lessons in our homeroom classroom, and my seat is just nearby the window. It makes me suffer so much.

We have ten lessons a day which includes English, Literature, Mathematics and Physics. Usually we would have two of each lessons a day. The rest of day would be self-study for us. Therefore, we have a bunch of time to do whatever we want. Since we are international students, we need to prepare for language tests such as IELTS, TOEFL or SAT. We would use our self-study time to do practices instead of messing around.

Anyways, let’s talk about meals in school. Basically, I could summarize this with only one word—-disaster. I’m serious. Honestly I havn’t seen such this kind of thing in my entire life.

Finally, it is the dormitory that I’m gonna talk about. I consider the dorms of our school could be one of the best in Shanghai. We got three beds and desks in it, and an independent bathroom is contained. It is really hard to find a student dorm like this in China(because of the pupulation).

Basically, we as students have the same school life. Get up, go to school, go back to dorm and sleep. Yeah, that’s what we do day by day.