I really enjoyed Professor Scarlata’s presentation last night on point of view in film. The part that I most enjoyed was the clip from Christopher Columbus. I think a film like that shows not only a single person’s ability to shape an event the way they want, but that other people expect to see the event played out the way that it is presented. The movie was made in the 1940’s, and I think the characters were presented that way to make the viewers comfortable with what they were watching. The reason a movie is called controversial is because it makes the viewers uncomfortable with either the subject, or the way they think about the subject. At the time, the comfortable movie may be hailed as a master piece, but it is only the later generation that will look at the same film and take it down from it’s pedestal. The controversial film will be banned, mother’s will cover their children’s eyes, and a later generation will see the movie as groundbreaking and a true testament to the times. I think it is the comfortable movies that tell a true testament to the time in which it is made, because it shows how the populace in general thinks and feels. The controversial movies are made by the “weirdo’s†and the people who don’t quite fit in. It is neat to see how literature does a similar thing. Works like The Rights of Man by Thomas Paine, and I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelo, made the people at the time uncomfortable about what was going on around them; they were happy about seeing what they wanted to see.