Oral: notion mythes et héros

Notion: Myths and heroes

I'm going to talk about the notion of myths and heroes.

First I would like to give a definiton of this notion. A myth can be defined as a story about gods or heroes, it can be a popular belief or a tradition or a false notion. A hero can be a mythological figure, a person who is admired for his or her achievements, a superhero or maybe a role model or an icon.

This year in class we studied serval documents about this and in particular the war in screen with three documents. The first is the poster of the movie “Tingerland”, the second is a trailer of  “We were soldier” and the last is a video called “A World War Two movie”.

So I'm going to ask me how is the American soldiers are represented in American war movies.

On the first document we can see a group of soldier. Two of them are looking down and their faces are in the dark, witch means they are lost and dehumanized. One of them stand out, because he probably wants to become more a human than a soldier. It shows that despite the war, one soldier remains internally a man like the others but who unfortunately saw the horror of the war. We can guess that's he's the main characters that the may be rebellious and questioning his duties as a soldier.

The second document is a trailer about a group of American Soldiers who were sent to Vietman. Durig the plot, it says that they are “young, brave, husbands, wifes, fathers, sons...”. After, we can see that the portryal of soldier are shown by different ways. One of the soldier says to a friend that he loves her wife while he was dying, shows the love to his family. In this trailer, the way that they are brave was shows by the picture of the soldiers dying on the field. We also knows that they are united by the quote “the first to set foot on the field and the last to step off”. So they are represented as both fighters and family men, who are ready to experience an exceptional brotherhood. War is a noble duty and the filmmaker stresses the notions of heroism and patriotism.

The last document is about a World War Two movie which stages a family who's going te the cemetery in Colleville and we see a vet who came to the commune with himself in front of a grave. This video can be divided on several parts xith some important moments. Like the moment of the tracking shot on the alley when the trumpets give more solemnity to the scene and it shows how determined to honor them. I can also note the moment when he's shot in front of the grave. It shows that he's overwhelmed by his memories and how important his family is to support him. A tracking shot which end's on the man's eyes. The music is gradually replaced by the sound of waves so we understand the remembres the landings. The sound becomeslouder which shows the emotion is increaming.

To conclude, I can say that the American soldier is described as a hero. In spite of the hard knocks, the losses of his comrades, the soldier holds good for the honor of his country. I can also note that the love of his family is very important in the process of this hero.

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