Blog and Film as means of Learning

It is a well known fact that we cannot be taught in the same way as our parents or grandparents were. Nowadays, the Technology offers motivating ways to teach and learn that all teachers should take into account. In this sense, we are very glad to have worked with Blog as we think that this is a very helpful and motivating tool to work with. Clearly it is not the same a research made with a Blog and a research made in papers.
As a group, before taking this course and doing this Blog,we agreed that after seeing a movie the first things that we usually said was if we liked the film or not, but without giving any powerful reason and tending to qualify films as good or bad using a weak criteria that was based on our personal tastes, and at the same time we felt that we had neither the words nor the tools to go beyond the entertainment that films provide.
Now that we’ve concluded our blog, we feel that we have those words and tools that we needed to express ourselves and thoughts. Thus, many conclusions come to our minds since this task we’ve been asked to do has involved a lot of deep research.
There is no doubt that this has allowed us to open our minds and find out different points of appreciation about films that we used to ignore in the past.
Consequently, we’ve learned to recognize films that were made many years ago as something really valuable taking into account that our actual cinema would have never developed if films like this had not been done.
By doing this research and studying films, we have been provided new issues of conversation that involve cultures, audiences , historical stages and other appreciations that depend on what kind of audience you belong to. At the end of our blog we feel that we have become part of more educated audience that doesn’t only watch films for pleasure but for cultural interests and purposes as well.

Something that all of us have agreed as a future English teachers is that we will use films in teaching in order not only to improve our students' language skills but also to make students think deeply about all the aspects that cinema involves and that are usually ignored by ordinary audiences; the purpose is always the same: to get a wider point of view about cinema as a cultural phenomenon. Also , Technology will play a fundamental role in our teaching method.

We would like to conclude that Hitchcock is what we really call an author since he shows a different aesthetic perspective and his work is a good example of the influence that Literature has on cinema since the latter is what is commonly known as the seventh art and that needs the contribution of the other art forms ;otherwise, it wouldn’t exist on its own.
Vertigo is a film in which we have gone beyond the surface but the deep content of it, and all what this film has involved that is not only the director's creativity but other essential elements that provide illusion the audience, the illusion that everything is taking place in front of us. That is the magic that Vertigo and only good films have when they are real pieces of art.
Personally, we admire Hitchcock as an artist because of his ability to capture different emotions in visual terms through the lens of the camera.
Finally, we are glad that we've accomplished our task in personal terms because there is a big change in our perspectives on cinema, and the knowledge that we have now is something that we'll never forget and we are sure it will be useful not only in the present but in the future as well.

Claudia Carrión
Macarena Honorato
Andrea Lobo

Our film in comparison with other films of the class

"Always make the audience suffer as much as possible" Alfred Hitchcock

Before making the relation between our classmates' blogs with Vertigo, we would like to mention first some points that involve all the films. Firstly, all directors, whose films we've been given to analyze, have made a significant contribution to the development of cinema ,and at the same time they have left an important legacy that have transcended time. Thus, films that were made more than fifty years ago are still object of study for learners like us. Another thing that characterizes all these films is the fact that there is no excessive use of special effects that distract the audience from what is really important, that is to say, directors of the past knew how to take full advantage of simplest things and thus, they earned an important place in the cinema world.

By analysing other blogs, we found a coincidence that called our attention, and this is the participation of Bernard Hermann who was an important composer that not only created pieces of music for Vertigo but also for Citizen Kane. This remarkable composer had the ability to evoke different emotions and even the style of films. For instance, the short piece of music that introduces Vertigo suggests what film is about, and,somehow, it tells us that the film deals with issues like fears and phobias; in other words, the music has the ability to express feelings on its own, which means that the role of music is crucial in two ways: firstly, as a means of expression that neither words nor images can express, and secondly, as a help for the audience to guide their watching, which is closely related with genres as well.

On the other hand, by the time these films were made, directors had already been recognized as auteurs by the French journal Cahiers du Cinema ,and consequently they were able to transmit what they wished and explore new techniques getting their authenticity as real artists, so even though films share similar genres, they are expressed from different perspectives of their authors, and this is what makes them be unique and recognizable around the world.

Most of the films were made in the United States for example Casablanca, Rebel Without a Cause and the most celebrated movie of all the times: Citizen Kane. They were also made during different social stages having strong influence and impact on social audiences, so just as James Dean was an icon for the youth, Vertigo also had an emotional impact imposing suspense on a audience that was not accustomed to it.

Finally, we conclude that all the films we’ve been given to analyse fostered an ideology and became at the same time real vehicles of values since society has never reacted indifferent towards films like these.