“The Architecture of Dreams” - Paprika! Maintenance, Yale School of Architecture, December 2024
Abstract:
On any regular night between the hours of 10:00 pm and 6:00 am, I live in a world of my own making. To get there, I follow a specific set of protocols developed through trial and error over a period of years that allow me to get the best possible sleep. Lately, this has involved nightly stretching and a fresh dose of magnesium, which hits me like a sack of sleepy bricks about 30 minutes after taking it. Nothing of importance can happen after I take my magnesium.
Some days after waking up, all I can think about is my inevitable return to bed - a sweet haven of slumber I’ve worked so diligently to perfect. I have a lavender mist for my pillows and 100% cotton sheets that are cool to the touch. I have a sound machine. I have a fan. I am a hot sleeper, if that wasn’t clear. Sleep is the maintenance phase of the mind and dreams are of another world entirely. I sleep to reset, and I sleep to dream.
This essay will explore dreams and dream making as a creative act through the analysis of architectural symbolism: The Cave, The Home, and my recurring nightmare of trying to find a toilet in a crowded public space.
References:
Ackerman, Chantal. Jeanne Dielmann, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles. Olympic Films: Belgium, 1975.
Borkenhagen, David. “For Jung, Architecture was a Tool to Represent the Psyche.” Psyche. Published: 13 Feb 2024. <https://psyche.co/ideas/for-jung-architecture-was-a-tool-to-represent-the-psyche>.
Cocteau, Jean. La Belle et La Bete. DisCina: France, 1946.
Jung, Carl G. Visions: Notes on the Seminar given in 1930-1934. Princeton: 1997.
Jung, Carl G., et al. Man and His Symbols. Bantam: New York, 1964.
Tanizaki, Junichiro. In Praise of Shadows. 1933.
“Spectacular Vision: Albers, Mambety, and the Experience of Color” (Development)
Abstract:
This paper will explore the interconnectivity of the work of the Senegalese filmmaker, Djibril Diop Mambety, and the artist and educator, Josef Albers, through comparisons of their experiential investigations in color theory.
Mambety died after making five films, but in his short catalog, he explored themes of greed, ‘craziness’, neocolonialism, and political and social issues in Africa. These thematic explorations often occurred through stories surrounding “little people”, as Mambety commonly referred to marginalized characters. To him, these were, “The only truly consistent, unaffected people in the world”. His use of color in film reflects these ideas and themes in a rich, complex, and profound way.
Josef Albers, though not a direct contemporary of Mambety, was one of the foremost artists and educators studying, utilizing, and presenting on color theory. To Albers, in his study Interaction of Color, color was to be best understood through experience, “[Color] is almost never seen as it really is…it deceives continually”. It is important to discuss film within design and theoretical discourse as it provides narrative and experiential context to fundamental architectural language. Mambety is an underrecognized figure in this world, though widely beloved in world cinema discourse.
Through pedagogical practices, visual theory, and historical context, the films of Mambety and the work of Albers will illuminate and reinforce the intangibility of color and the experiential nature of viewing and understanding color theory in conversation with its surroundings.
References:
Albers, Josef. Interaction of Color. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1963.
Albers, Josef. Formulation: Articulation. Thames & Hudson, 1972.
Arnheim, Rudolph. Film as Art. University of California Press, 1957.
Gabara, Rachel. “Cinephobia/Cinephilia: Modernism and Sub-Saharan African Film”. Modernism is Modernity, 2024. Accessed: 11 June 2024. <https://modernismmodernity.org/forums/posts/gabara-cinephobia-cinephilia-modernism-sub-saharan-african-film>.
Mambety, Djibril Diop. Touki Bouki. World Cinema Foundation, 1973.
Mambety, Djibril Diop. Hyenas. California Newsreel Productions, 1992.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Architecture of Image: Existential Space in Cinema. John Wiley & Sons, 1999.
Pallasmaa, Juhani. The Eyes of the Skin: Architecture and the Senses. John Wiley & Sons, 1996.
Ukadike, N. Frank. “The Hyenas’ Last Laugh: A Conversation with Djibril Diop Mambety”. Metrograph, 1999. Accessed: 11 June 2024. <https://metrograph.com/a-conversation-with-djibril-diop-mambety/>.
Hollow - Feature Screenplay (Development)
Intention Statement:
My intention for this piece is to write a story of a young girl stuck in a rural mountain town in East Tennessee. She desperately wants to leave and she’s found a way: attending fashion school in New York City. She just has to get her high school degree and save up enough for bus fare. She’ll figure the rest out when she gets to New York. But there is one problem, she’s pregnant.
When I was in high school in 2005 in Maryville, Tennessee - a small town at the base of the Smoky Mountains - we heard of girls getting pregnant all the time, but we never saw them. After a while they stopped coming to class and rumor was they were sent to the alternative school with drug addicts and legally dubious individuals.
The whole town was weird about pregnancy. Everyone was pro-life, but god forbid you actually saw a pregnant teenager - the very ones whose lives are most impacted. We were taught abstinence education in health class and condoms were traded like black market drugs. This was also around the time that fentanyl started entering the area but it wouldn’t become a National issue for another 10 years.
I’ve been thinking about this time of my life as I’m now entering an age where I’m constantly asked about whether or not I’ll have kids. I think of the girls I went to school with and how they didn’t really have a choice. In one case in particular, she was forced to carry a troubled pregnancy to term.
Hollow explores the story of a young teenager, Tiffani, who finds out she is pregnant too late and is forced to carry a troubled pregnancy to term. She comes from a low-income family and her father is struggling to keep a job after the local coal mine closes. Her sister was forced out of school to care for her own children, and Tiffani would be the first in her family to graduate high school.
I want audiences to be able to reflect on the complexity and pressure a teenager goes through under these conditions. I want to explore my own fears growing up of getting pregnant - fears I still feel now - and feeling desperate to leave this world where creativity is smothered with work and money and you feel like you don’t belong.
Internal Monologue (Tiffani Bledsoe):
Where I’m from you say hello to everyone at the grocery store even if you don’t know them. But around here, we all know each other so it doesn’t matter. Everyone knows everyone’s business. I’m the middle daughter of Henry and Eliza Bledsoe and the granddaughter of Hazel Reese. But like I said, everyone knows that already.
We put up a lot of appearances at church, at school, at the store, or at my grandmother’s alterations shop. We’re a decent family just trying our best. We all live together on a plot of land that belonged to my Grandmother’s family for generations. We’re close enough to holler at each other from our porches - so that’s what they decided to call it, a holler. If I’m telling the truth, the whole place is suffocating.
I try to get some alone time to myself whenever I can so I can think and draw. There’s no time though now with my sister Annalyn’s second baby. Those babies are everything to the family and their Daddy is nothing. The coal mines are all shutting down one by one and that put Momma and Daddy out of their jobs. Annalyn’s husband Derek, grandma, and I are the only ones bringing in any money.
Derek is in the military. The Army, first lieutenant. He’s in the Middle East and has been for a while. He’s okay with computers - at least better than Daddy. I work for Hazel at the alterations shop after school. She tells me if I keep on doing good and making good grades, I’ll be the first one in the family to graduate high school the way you’re supposed to - the normal way. But I want to do more than graduate high school the normal way.
I want to move to New York and work for big fashion designers. I want to have my own line of clothes and dress celebrities and senators and queens and kings. I want to surround myself with beautiful things and wear beautiful things and be beautiful.
It’s hard to do that in the muddy holler where I have to take care of Annalyn’s babies and feed my own momma and daddy because they can’t feed themselves. Sometimes I get so wrapped up in all of it, I feel like I can’t breathe and that I’ll either suffocate completely or explode. But they tell me I’m a good girl - the smartest little girl they’ve got. But what if I don’t feel like a little girl at all? They’ve taken that girlhood away from me by asking me to be grown up.
This is why I have to leave. I’ve been saving a little bit of money everyday and working on my sketches. No one knows about it, not even Bethany, and it’s hard to keep secrets when everyone knows everyone’s business all the time.. As long as everything goes to plan, I’ll graduate in May and take the bus straight to New York City and leave all of this behind.
“A Comparative Analysis of Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and Widows (2018)” - Reimagining Genre in Cinema Conference Presentation, San Francisco State University, October 2019
Abstract:
What motivates a person to commit a crime? What motivates a person to steal? One sub-genre of films that investigates these questions is the heist film. A descendant of film noir, heist films center around the criminal act of thievery that is often complicated involving tedious planning, intellect, technical expertise, and improvisation. In film, the representation of crime on screen has a long history. In many cases, crime films and criminal characters are romanticized, imbedding themselves into popular culture. For example, during the early 2000s, the film Scarface (1983) by Brian de Palma became a symbol of affluent celebrity lifestyle in the show MTV Cribs - a reality show that tours the homes of famous musicians, actors, and athletes (MTV Cribs). Scarface lore appears enough times on the MTV reality show that major plot points can be discerned without ever needing to watch the film. This film provides just one example of how pervasive crime films can become in the popular culture. Crime films have opportunities to address complex topics within their narratives, but are there ways to address these issues without relying on violence and dissociative emotional behavior as the selling points for the main character and for the film itself?
By comparing the two films Ocean’s Eleven (2001) and Widows (2018), this paper posits an analysis of the heist sub-genre by identifying similarities, differences, and evolutionary traits in a popular crime film genre. These films do not strictly rely on romanticized violence, allowing for more complex narratives, relatable human motivation, and experiences. Both Ocean’s Eleven and Widows subvert the norm of excessive violence in heist crime films (as represented here by Scarface) by adding emotional suspense, drive, and political dialogue to create an engaging and entertaining film.
References:
Marcus, B.K. “#49 – ‘People Love the Robin Hood Story Because He Took from the Rich to
Give to the Poor’ | B.K. Marcus.” FEE, Foundation for Economic Education, 20 Mar.
2015, fee.org/articles/49-people-love-the-robin-hood-story-because-he-took-from-the-rich-to-give-to-the-poor/. MTV Cribs. Litton Entertainment, 2000.
Nussbaum, Martha C. Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions. Cambridge University Press, 2009.
“Ocean's 11.” Box Office Mojo, www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=oceans.htm.
Ocean’s Eleven. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Village Roadshow Pictures, 7 December. 2001.
“Scarface and Popular Culture.” Alternative Magazine Online, 28 Oct. 2009, alternativemagazineonline.co.uk/2009/04/20/article-scarface-and-popular-culture/.
Scarface. Directed by Brian de Palma, Universal Pictures, 1 December. 1983.
Widows. Directed by Steve McQueen, 20th Century Fox, 16 November. 2018.
Widows Unmasked: A Chicago Story. 20th Century Fox, 5 February. 2019.
The Rules of the Game (1939) - Film Analysis
Excerpt:
“Though it is clear that there is no single protagonist in Renoir’s eyes but instead a class of people (The Haute Bourgeoisie), for the sake of this analysis, Christine will serve as the film’s protagonist. Christine’s house and relationships ultimately drive the film forward though she is far from any ideal French Bourgeoisie representative of the time. She is Viennese and most notably, not Parisien. She is an outsider in her own game and tries to take control of her circumstances, ultimately causing more misunderstandings and confusion.
Robert is Christine’s husband and Genevieve is his lover. Robert and Genevieve can be seen as antagonists together, whom Christine tries to work against. Though, I feel ‘antagonist’ may be too strong of a word.
Andre Jeriuex is an aviator in love with Christine. Octave is an old friend of both Andre and Christine. Octave is more or less an agent of chaos throughout the film, but ultimately, both men are in love with Christine and seek to win her affections.
Lisette is Christine’s maid and her husband, Edouard Schumacher, is Robert’s gamekeeper at their Chateau. Marceau is a vagrant/poacher who tries to win over Lisette’s affections. It is because of this love triangle that Andre is murdered at the end of the film.”
References:
Holland, Norman N. “Jean Renoir, The Rules of the Game, 1939 (Reconstructed 1959)”. A Sharper Focus. Accessed 05 Dec 2021. <https://www.asharperfocus.com/rulesof.html>.
Renoir, Jean. The Rules of the Game. Gaumont, 1939.
Sesonske, Alexander. “The Rules of the Game: Everyone Has Their Reasons”. Criterion Collection, 2004. Accessed: 13 Nov. 2021. <https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/308-the-rules-of-the-game-everyone-has-their-reasons>.
Sullivan, Danny. “Learning from The Rules of the Game: Expression, Intimacy, and Aesthetic Pleasure in Jean Renoir’s Masterpiece”. Bright Wall/Dark Room. Published: Aug. 2017. Accessed: 3 Dec 2021. <https://www.brightwalldarkroom.com/2017/08/08/learning-the-rules-of-the-game-expression-intimacy-and-aesthetic-pleasure-in-jean-renoirs-masterpiece/>.
The Film Sufi. ““The Rules of the Game” - Jean Renoir (1939).” Published: 19 Feb. 2010. Accessed: 13 Nov. 2021. <http://www.filmsufi.com/2010/02/rules-of-game-jean-renoir-1939.html>.
“Sexism in Survival Situations: Women and the Ecohorror Genre” - Film Analysis of Jurassic Park (1993) and Into the Forrest (2015)
Excerpt:
“At first view, the film Into the Forest (2015) appears to be without overt sexism but after further viewing, the film establishes similar, prescriptive gender ideas that the main characters, Eva and Nell, must eliminate on their own by the end of the film. As Cudd and Jones write when discussing the differences between ‘intentional extrinsic’ versus ‘individuated extrinsic’ sexism in the workplace, “One important effect of the practice of excluding women... is... that women are made more dependent on others, usually men. By reducing the opportunities women have available to them, women are less able to clearly establish, both to themselves and to others, their general ability to accomplish high-paying (or high-status) tasks” (Cudd 105).
Nell and Eva, at the beginning of Into the Forest, are completely dependent on their father for survival even before the power goes out. Having lost their mother, a former dancer, to some undisclosed illness, they are left to live in an isolated, modern house that their father is attempting to convert to use only solar energy. Living several hours away from the nearest town, Eva and Nell keep to themselves while their father tinkers with various projects and feeds the family – the father goes so far as to say ‘don’t worry about it, kiddo’ when Nell asks to help after draining the car battery. The assumption is that Eva and Nell could not survive on their own and as young adults, subtly rebel against this lack of autonomy until it is forced upon them by the death of their father. Cudd and Jones continue, “Where these patterns are left unchallenged there is thus little to counter the claim that women are, by nature, more dependent” (Cudd 105). Fortunately for us, we see this opportunity to counter arise in both Jurassic Park and Into the Forest. As Nell and Eva survive throughout the film after their father’s death, they are faced with challenges where they must counter this ‘dependent’ claim.
After the death of their two chickens at the hands of a wild pig, Nell and Eva must forage for their own food - later in the film, Nell hunts and kills a pig and, with Eva’s help, are able to leverage every single piece of the animal for their continued use. In discussing directionality of psychological growth, Leo Gura cites Carol Gilligan's findings on Feminine Morality, to describe the theory that growth of the psyche (or maturity levels) is directional, stating, “people move up this chain of levels, but they don’t move back down” (“The Grand Model”). This idea relates to the misattributed summation of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection or more colloquially known as ‘adapt or die’. Eva and Nell grow out of their unconscious, prescriptive gender roles (passivity) into roles more apt for survival without regressing when faced with distinct moments of male presence in the film. When Nell’s boyfriend, Eli, arrives at the house after a few weeks without power, we see and feel his intrusion through Eva’s behavior on screen. Eva grows concerned by his use of their food and supplies as Nell appears to embrace this idea of a male presence in the house again. Leo Gura continues in his video on directional psyche to explain the concept of ‘spiral dynamics’ to illustrate the previously mentioned levels of maturation (“The Grand Model”).”
References:
Briggs, Laura, and Jodi I. Kelber-Kaye. “’There Is No Unauthorized Breeding in Jurassic
Park”: Gender and the Uses of Genetics”. NWSA Journal, Vol. 12, No. 3, The Science and Politics of the Search for Sex Differences (Autumn 2000), pp. 92-113. The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Catalano, Angela. “What is Ecohorror?” FTA 4591, 14 January 2020, University of New Orleans, New Orleans.
Cudd, Ann E., and Leslie E. Jones. “Sexism”. Blackwell Companion to Philosophy: A Companion to Applied Ethics, Blackwell: Oxford. 2003. Pp. 102-117.
Into the Forest. Patricia Rozema. Elevation Pictures, 2015.
Jurassic Park. Steven Spielberg. Amblin Entertainment, 1993.
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”. Film Theory & Criticism. 8th Ed.
Oxford University Press: New York, 2016. Pp. 620-631.
Parton, Dolly. “Hard Candy Christmas”. RCA, 1982.
“The Grand Model of Psychological Evolution – Clare Graves & Spiral Dynamics”. YouTube, uploaded by Actualized.org, 30 August 2015. <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23aDNBvn_2g>.