The Butler
David C, David M, Nuria Díaz
TABLE OF CONTENTS: Introduction……………………………………………………………………. 2 Director biography……………………………………………………………. 2 Synopsis………………………………………………………………………..3 Description of the characters that we chose………………………………. 4 The poster of the film………………………………………………………….7 The trailer……………………………………………………………………....8 Dialogue……………………………………………………………………….. 9 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………....10 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………………...11
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Introduction In this project we are going to talk about the movie “The butler”, a movie based on a real story. We analyzed the trailer, the poster and we wrote a new dialogue with one sentence of the film.
Director biography Lee Daniels is a director from the United States. He was born in Filadelfia Pensilvania in 1995, he is the oldest of five children. His father died when he was 12 years old, probably it was hard for him. He studied in the Lindenwood University in Missouri. Then, he started to work in his own agency but he sold it and he started to work as an actor in some films. From there, he started his popular career. Then, he decided to do his owns films working as director. This director is more famous for his movies “Monster's Ball”, “Precious”, and some TV series as “Empire” or “Star”. The principal themes on his movies are racism, family violence and sex.
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Synopsis This film is about a black boy that when he was young worked in the cotton farm but the death of his father made that Annabeth Westfall taught Cecil Gaines how to be a butler. Then he escaped from the cotton farm and stole in the house where he is contracted to be a butler. Afterwards he passed to a hotel where a man takes Cecil to the White House. While this story takes place there are different presidents in the White House. The protagonist explains many things about the story.He goes back to the past from 2009 to Barack Obama’s time. This film focuses on the facial expressions that generate feelings in the spectator and when we see the entire body of the cotton farm’s owner we realize that he is different from the rest of the characters, for his aspect, his clothing , his colour...and his acts (He rapes the boy’s mum). The film is a drama and historical movie because it is about Cecil Gaines’ life (Forest Whitaker). He tells the story of his life and how black women and men got the equality.
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Description of the characters that we chose. -
Cecil (David.C): At the begging of the film,
we can see this character
working in a cotton field for free and he is wearing old clothes. Years later his situation is better and he is going to work in the White House in Washington D.C. When he works there, he is wearing more elegant clothes because he is the butler of the president. His physical description is that he is tall, his eyes are brown, his nose is small, his ears are big and he wears the short hair.
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Louis (Nuria): The character that I chose to do the description is Louis Gaines Cecil’s oldest son. This character is performed by David Oyelowo. He changes a lot during the movie because when it starts he is a child and when the movie ends he is older so the years pass and he changes his clothes and his way of thinking. He is a young black guy that wants to change the world and get equality between black and white people also he is stubborn because he wants to get it one way or another and if he has to die to get it he will die for it. The reason why I decided to choose this character is because he decides to change the situation with protests and studying politics and he doesn’t agree with the situation of the moment. not be okay with the actually situation. I think that thanks to this type of person now the world is better and more equal in a lot of things as for example with the racial segregation ( that now there is not) or the right of women to vote (because now women can vote but before we couldn’t )
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Thomas Westfall (David) : Thomas Westfall wears braces, a white t-shirt and jeans and has short hair and sideburns.This character expressed violence and hates coloured people and what reality happened inside the cotton farm is that he decided to kill a Cecil’s father and rapes a Cecil’s mother. Annabeth Westfall saw what had happened and taught Cecil to be a “black butler”. This character only appears when the film starts.
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The poster of the film
In this picture we can see a lot of people in the street with placards probably, they are in a protest for their rights. We think that because the people. In the background are black. Behind those people we can see the Washington DC capitol that is in front of the White House.Opposite the people we can see the protagonist behind the windows looking at them. He is standing in front of the windows with his hands in his back. We think that he is in the oval office because we can see the flags you can see them in the movie. In relation to the colors we think that in
the laterals
there is more
darkness than in the center of the picture to stand out the people’s attention on the protest.
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In the picture we can see the protagonist, the cast’s and it tells that it is inspired in a true story. At the bottom it appears the movie title, the names of the people that participated in the production, the name of the director and the scriptwriter too. We think that the logos that appear at the bottom are the ones of the different producers or patrons.
The first time that we saw this image we thought that the movie was a historical film about the social problems in USA, from the 40’s to the 90’s. We think it because the image centers your attention in the center of it and the authors give us some clues
about the theme of the film
The trailer https://youtu.be/DUA7rr0bOcc
In our opinion the producer didn’t choose the right sequences because there are more than we need. It has the most important and impressive sequences and it doesn’t have intrigue because it tells us all the important things about the movie, for example the sequence, where he was stealing the cake to eat something, is not necessary, but the sound is important because it creates intrigue. The pace grows during the trailer, it has intrigue because it calls your attention. We think that the most important sequences in the trailer are the violent scenes because they contribute to the message of the film. It talks about racism in USA and how black people fight for their laws.
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Dialogue: “America always turned a blind eye to our own black yard. We look out to the world and judge… the concentration camps…when these camps went on right here for 200 years”- Cecil. The moment that we can see this sentence into the film, is in the scene number 71 and in this scene we can see that the protagonist went with his wife to the place that the white man killed his father. We decided to move this sentence to other scene or to other part of the film because, we thought that it was easier. The scene that we put the new dialogue is when the family are in the dining room having a dinner, the father and the son start to argue with each other about the politic situation in US.
Video:(USB)
Gloria: Today in the street the people insulted me and threw things me. Louis : That won’t happen again . Cecil : Ah. Louis : We will fight against they in the street everyday . Cecil : Louis do not get in problems and respect the white people Louis: This situation is your generation’s fault. Cecil: “America always turned a blind eye to our own black yard. We look out to the world and judge… the concentration camps…when these camps went on right here for 200 years” Gloria: Keep calm. It Is his life, he knows what he is doing. Louis: You aren’t still good for nothing. Gloria: Go away from my house.
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Conclusion Nuria’s conclusion I like it because it is a different way to see the movie. I had seen this movie before but when I saw it again to analyze it my point of view have changed, because I payed attention to other aspects and events of the movie. For example I payed more attention on Cecil’s wife, his mother, his friends and his workmates. I think that this is the objective of the project, it teaches us to see beyond the normal things for example a movie, a magazine or a new paper and it helps us to know the real message of the film.
David : In this project I learned to analyse the film, poster , trailer and to observe the small details to understand the context of the film and the time period. Also, thanks to the project I watched “The Butler” and I learned more about the history of The United States between 1920 and 2009.
David.C: In this project I remembered how to analyze a movie, the poster… I think that doing this kind of projects is a very great way to see the context of the film. For example on this film (The butler) we can see how Cecil’s life is and the way that the film expresses the theme. For me the theme is about the situation of the black people in the world specially in the USA.
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Bibliography Alissa: https://goo.gl/SRkPmA [Accessed 31/05/2018] Allan Ishac: https://goo.gl/zfKT11 [Accessed 31 31/05/2018] IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1327773/awards [Accessed 31/05/2018] Lago, Loly; https://goo.gl/scPjF8 [Accessed 31/05/2018] Lago, Loly; https://goo.gl/xTHbAH [Accessed 31/05/2018] Lago, Loly; https://goo.gl/C4qW7W [Accessed 31/05/2018] LesFilmsSeville:https://goo.gl/CCfT5m [Accessed 31 31/05/2018] MetroBot: https://goo.gl/3a1cXk [Accessed 31/05/2018] MetroBot : https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Butler [Accessed 31/05/2018] MetroBot: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_Daniels [Accessed 31/05/2018] SensaCine: https://goo.gl/NE3f3b [Accessed 31/05/2018] TvGuide: https://goo.gl/XpSCRz [Accessed 31 31/05/2018] The Biography.com website: https://goo.gl/XGvWEz [Accessed 31/05/2018]
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