Hitchcock Post

There is an important theme of marriage that appears in most of the Hitchcock films. Through the plot of the films we get a sense that marriage is something to be mocked and made fun of. We can especially see this in Rear Window where Jeff is avoiding the beautiful Lisa who really wants to marry him. In order to get his attention she has to put herself in great danger which is pretty extreme over marriage. Also we see marital problems with all of his neighbors and with them and Jeff we can see how Hitchcock really dislikes the idea of marriage.
Another very common thing that we see in most of his movies are people who see things that they shouldn't. They act like peeping toms and because of this they get in some enormous trouble that is way over their heads. In rear window Jeff is bored and because of this he decides to watch his neighbors all the time. He then witnesses a murder and gets himself in some danger while trying to solve the murder. And then in Vertigo Scottie is hired to follow his friend's wife wherever she goes and he ends up falling in love with her, but then she "dies" and he ends up getting caught up in a murder situation as well. With these two films we see Hitchcock's message that one should not get into other peoples business and that it only leads to trouble.

Catch me if you can

Catch me if you can is based on the true story of a boy named Frank who became a master of checking fraud at a very early age. Frank, played by Leonardo DiCaprio is being pursued by Carl, an FBI officer played by Tom Hanks. The story of this chase contains one huge theme of truth in it. Frank is a con man and the way he makes his millions of dollars is simply by being an extremely good liar. He is able to pass himself off as a pilot, lawyer, and even a doctor. Frank and Carl have an interesting relationship where Frank will evade Carl and then Carl will catch up to Frank only to have him barely slip away each time. They have a tradition of always talking to each other on Christmas and with all of the conversations they have had they get to know each other a little. By analyzing Carl Frank makes an assumption that Carl also uses lying as a thing to help attain what he wants as well which in this case is to catch Frank, but as the movie goes on Carl is not what he seems and Frank gives in to the truth.
There is a very important scene toward the end of the movie which is one of the last standoffs between Frank and Carl. Carl walks into Frank's hideout unarmed and tells him that there are 20 French police cars outside and that he has been caught. Frank immediately reacts to this and tells Carl that he is full of shit. He has used so many lies in the past couple of years and has come to believe that they are used by everyone and that he can not trust anybody. These two have gotten to know each other over the last couple of years and it seems that they do care for one another. Carl says that Frank will die if he walks out of the warehouse and finally Frank believes him after making him swear on his daughter. The scene ends with the two of them walking out of there peacefully. After this scene we can see that Frank symbolizes lies and Carl is the truth. The movie sends a message to us that one can not lead a life of lies and eventually our lies will catch up to us.

War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds was directed by Steven Spielberg and deals with the question, what is aliens attacked us? Spielberg explores this idea and shows us how he thinks people would react to such a situation. It is interesting to see what everyone does when they see the destructive tripods. In the very beginning people are just very confused and dumbstruck, they just stand still and stare. But then when the aliens start firing their vaporizing lazers everybody erupts in a storm of panic. Spielberg shows everyone as throwing all of the rules away and doing anything to survive when this enormous disaster strikes. If such a disaster were to happen today in real life, it probably wouldn't be an alien invasion, but would people react in such a way? In the film Tom Cruise's character, Ray is trying desperately to get to Boston with his two kids as they cross through a very dense crowd of people trying to do the same thing in just about the only working car due to an electrical storm. The mob crowds the car screaming for a ride. They break the windows and an enormous fight breaks loose. Ray loses the car to someone with a gun and one person even gets shot and killed over the car. It is crazy how people in a mob react when such a disaster occurs and scary to think that something like that can turn good people into monsters fighting for every chance of survival.

One of the very last scenes of the movie still really confuses me. In the scene the camera zooms in on I think it is a leaf at first but it keeps zooming in on the leaf until we see the basic atoms and elements that make up the leaf. While they do this they explain what killed all of the alien tripods. They say that as soon as the aliens landed here they were doomed. They say that it is our life that has killed all of the tripods. I think this is very ridiculous, are the aliens allergic to us or what? How can such a sophisticated creature with this amazing technology just die? Ray defetes one of the many tripods, makes it to Boston, and somehow they are safe and the humans have won the war. I hated the ending, but am still confused. Maybe I am missing something and if someone could clarify the ending that would be great.