Journal Article Analysis

My article for the analysis is Cinematic Carcerality: Prison Metaphors in Film from 2010 April issue of the Journal of Popular Culture which is written by Jan Alber. He works in English Department in University of Freibergin Germany as an assistant professor. Alber has been author and editor of many books and written works. Particularly the article mentioned above has discussed about the depth of the Film metaphor, Prison Metaphor and the use of Prison Metaphor in the films. In this article author has discussed many points like the types of prison metaphors, different seven ways of producing metaphors in films.

This article is about the metaphor of prison, film and the uses. According to the author  two types of the prison metaphors exists, the first one is  that attracts people to see prison as different thing and the another that describe a area of the outside world as a prison. At first taking the example of the metaphor that encourages people to see prison differently, article states that this metaphor are used in the many parts of the film which takes place physically in prison. The best example for this is the way Alber has stated that the prison can also be taken as womb and tomb. Analyzing the example from the womb side we can assume ourselves inside the prison as being reborn spiritually or having the new life inside prison as a caged person where as in the tomb side we can assume being in the prison like spiritually dead after being forbidden from the free world to the walls of the prison to face the social death which the inmates supposes as the entering of the dark tomb. Next point to focus is the ones that portray the area of the outside world as a prison. Author explains that these metaphors are available in the different scenario and this metaphor is bound to prevent someone from doing the thing one wants. We can elaborate this more as someone being not physically in prison but mentally he/she is coerced as being in a prison or trapped either way. Just for an instance we can assume a person bound in a marital relationship along with professional life or a teenager of a strict family and so on. This few examples can portray how caged the person in the examples will be feeling mentally though they are not physically caged.  Similarly, talking about the film metaphors I do not support the early critics that did not believe that film metaphors were possible as they are in reality. In the article there are seven ways for a metaphor to emerge. The article talks about seven ways of producing metaphors in film such as combination of anxious elements, Interaction between the auditory and visual level, Matching shots, Distortion, Focusing in the same entity in different views and among them some of them are more interesting to discuss about like the idea of matching shots. This is the presentation of two different things in a similar way either by the use of similar camera angles or same dialogue lines. The article has presented a example here of fence posts and Nazi’s  being same in a way that  they are both very organized but are lack of the emotions. Similarly the next one is the presentation of same thing in but in two distinctive ways, the thing that shows the metaphor is how the things like pointed wire fences, giant walls, and bars in non prison area forces us to think that it’s prison.

There are many points that the author has stated in the article and I agree to the author’s point. In the article author has clearly stated the prison metaphor and the types, film metaphor and the ways of producing the metaphors and the use of the prison metaphor in the films in a great way as stated in the above paragraph. The author has also beautifully inserted the example to support his main points through the film “The Shawshank Redemption” to prove his works. Through the film he has marvelously shown how the prison metaphor and the types used in the film. The example includes womb and the tomb idea as the prisoners in one side including Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) and Red (Morgan Freeman) takes the situation as being spiritually reborn in a new life where as the other side including “Fat Ass” (Frank Medrano) are mentally and spiritually dead as being deprived of the free life to be caged and being physically abused. Here, the first half thinks it as a womb and the second half takes it as a tomb to get decayed forever. Secondly, in the film “The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner” the character named Colin is treated badly by his mother like a jailed prisoner, next when Colin kisses his girl he sees fences behind him thirdly; when his mom and he went for his father insurance the gatekeeper opened the large gate. These wire fences, gates and huge walls made him like in prison outside too.

This article is all based on metaphor of films and prison metaphor as per the article. This article is obviously important as the films all include metaphors and the understanding of the metaphor gives us essential messages and entertainment too. Next is, including the metaphor in the films makes a good film just like the prison metaphor used in the film “The Shawshank Redemption” has made the film outstanding. This article has described that a film may have both positive metaphor “womb” and negative metaphor “tomb” and I agree to it as this prison metaphor helps to evaluate certain limitations in the world outside the prison so it weighs important ideological and serious influence.

References

Alber, J. Cinematic carcerality: Prison metaphors in film. The Journal of Popular Culture. April, 2010 issue.