Creative Juices

An Immigrant's Story by Elizabeth Harrison An Immigrant's Story "Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,  Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,  I lift my lamp beside the golden door!" ~ The Statue of Liberty Before this country embraced the name, The United States of America, it was simply an assortment of immigrants looking for a better home. Many came seeking asylum from political or religious persecution, many sought freedom from oppressive economic limitations. These immigrants created the vibrant cultural background of what eventually became the US. I would even submit that this country was built by immigrants. Today, over 1 million people still immigrate to the country every year. Many still come for the same reasons as those of past centuries. However, perspectives towards immigrants and immigration have begun to shift in the last decades. Immigr...

When I returned home from my mission, sometimes people would ask me, “Oh, how was Chile?” or “What are the Chileans like?” However, the context and the perceived expected response only allowed for a simple one-line reply. Often, I think we make the mistake of seeing countries or cultures as solely one-dimensional entities capable of being surmised in flat descriptions. Sometimes we think that if we’ve met one person from a specific culture or country that we comprehend how that entire culture or country is. However, within any group of people there is innumerable diversity. There may be unifying factors, such as shared dishes, language, or music and dance, but there are likely more differences between two members of a group than there may be between two members of two different groups. To me God is the author of diversity, but simultaneously, we are all his children and therefore share a common essence. This idea may seem contrary, but I believe that instead of lump summing or gen...

I don’t think I can recall a certain moment when I learned about Blacks being denied the priesthood, temple endowment, and sealing for such a large portion of our Church’s history. Although I knew that that wasn’t right, I never really dwelt on it that much. I thought, it’s not like that anymore, so its ok now. However, the more and more I’ve studied and learned about personal stories of racism and mistreatment of minorities in other contexts, the more and more I’ve come to realize I can’t keep turning a blind eye. Although I will never fully understand what it is to be a minority, I feel it is my obligation to at least try to empathize and when I can, to be an advocate. It is necessary to acknowledge injustices to be a promoter of positive change.             Reading the Gospel Topics Essay on Blacks and the Priesthood brought to the forefront this negotiation within my own faith. I was forced to confront the issue head own...

Enabled by the technological advancements of the 1960s, the participatory mode of documentary formed. It is nearly opposite of the observational documentary with the filmmaker directly interacting with the subject, conversing, collaborating, and sometimes confronting. The audience also is able to interact more with the subject. These films draw from an anthropological tradition but differ in their dedication to the rhetoric of a story rather than simply the social science research. Documentary tends to not sacrifice the narrative for the data. Often in participatory mode however, the narrative doesn’t occur until the filmmaker incites the story; potentially one they are already involved with, or perhaps one that they seek out to investigate.  The participatory mode can be exemplified by Ross McElwee’s documentary,  Time Indefinite  and Jean Rouch’s  Chronicle of a Summer . The story in both films would not have occurred if the filmmakers had not picked up their ...

Return to Homs  is a poignant and personal depiction of the Syrian conflict and civil war. Its main character is the renowned goalkeeper for the national soccer team, Abdul Basset Saroot. The film follows him from the beginning of the peaceful protests as he performs rallying songs to the breakout of civil war and his audacious leadership of a small band of rebels. He is charismatic and relatable, giving emotional and intimate insight into the war-torn area. Slingshot Hip Hop  is another stirring documentary that gives the viewers an insight into a political conflict, especially from a perspective uncommonly envisioned. The story deals with the birth of rap in Israeli occupied Palestinian communities. Two main groups, DAM and PR, give us a personal view of the precarious situation of Palestinians in sector ’48, Gaza, and the West Bank. The two groups (and others) use rap as a peaceful form of vocalizing their struggles and discontent, as well as rallying and infor...

The expository mode of documentary "assembles fragments of the historical world into a more rhetorical or narrative frame than an aesthetic or poetic one," (Nichols). It employs indexical images, poetic and affective associations, storytelling qualities, and rhetorical persuasiveness. These types of documentaries rely heavily on spoken dialogue to inform the audience. Editing focuses on the gathering of evidence or creating the greatest impact, therefore often spatial or temporal continuity is altered. On the other hand, observational mode seeks to have as limited involvement in the events as possible. The idea is that the filmmaker sets up the camera and lets fate tell the story. Both modes were enabled by advances in camera and sound technologies in the 1960’s. Equipment became lighter, less obtrusive and easier to transport. It allowed more freedom of movement therefore leading to less strict control over staging, arrangement, or composition, and in the expository documen...

Night and Fog  (1956) documents the horrors of the Holocaust in brutally honest way. One of the most infamous atrocities in history, the director, Alain Resnais, shows it in full detail. The somber narrator immediately sets a reflective tone as the camera glides of the now grass covered yards of Nazi concentration camps. The almost peaceful images betray the nauseating depictions to come. Mounds of emaciated corpses, severed heads in a row next to a pile of their body counterparts, smoldering bones, and skeletal survivors. During this war, humans went farther into the realms of the unspeakable and damnable than they possibly ever had before. The cruelest thoughts were acted upon; the unthinkable became the reality of millions.   The Act of Killing  (2012) directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, is a chilling and rather sickening investigation of the genocide in Indonesia during the 1960s. The documentary features several of the perpetrators of the heinous acts, ...

The decline into worldwide economic depression in 1929 elicited a different kind of film. Hollywood was predominantly producing golden-age escapist films, such as the classic Ginger Draper and Fred Astaire musicals. However, not all audiences wanted to be distracted by the glitz and glam of fabricated sets. Many were creating films based in the difficult realities of the day. Documentary filmmaking lent itself particularly well to recording and bringing to light the specific issues of the time period. Filmmakers such as John Grierson, were particularly influential in creating a new trend in the documentary tradition. He sought the “drama of the doorstep” to help “lead the citizen through the wilderness”. His film  Drifters (1929) became an important catalyst in  motivating others to take up the camera as an advocate for the actual and relevant world issues. They would find the stories that were "right under their noses" to unveil truth happening. Housing Problems  ...