Thursday, January 17, 2013
Finding Forrester
Before the the film, we engaged in some creative skits to illustrate the
following concepts: arrogance, integrity, honor, betrayal. trust,
conscience, pride, and courage. We were asked to look for examples of
these concepts in the film. So, what are your thoughts on the concept
you illustrated or on a concept you feel moved to write about after
viewing the film? How did each of these concepts manifest themselves in
the narrative? Please write a thoughtful and detailed response of AT
LEAST TEN SENTENCES with examples from the film.
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ReplyDeleteThe concept of trust moved me most in the film. It was the key component for the friendship that formed between Forrester and Jamal. Forrester had the amazing capacity to trust Jamal, a kid he barely knew from the Bronx, to invite him to his apartment. As their relationship progresses, so does the trust between them. The critical point of the movie and their relationship is marked with Forrester trusting Jamal enough to allow Jamal to take him to see a baseball game on his birthday, despite not actually leaving his apartment for several years. In the later scenes of the movie, Jamal betrayed Forrester by turning in a piece of work that Forrester deliberately said should stay in the apartment. Jamal’s action of not revealing the identity of Forrester after being accused of plagiarizing mitigated his earlier dishonest action. There is also a sense of trust between the Claire and Jamal. When Jamal tells her to turn around and close her eyes, she follows his word because she trusts that Jamal will not harm her. Overall, trust propels the relationships and events of the movie forward that otherwise might never have been realized.
ReplyDeleteThe other concepts we talked about also played major parts in the movie. John Harbell was a character that almost epitomized arrogance. He only cared about being the best on the basketball court and patronized Jamal. When Jamal, was mad at Forrester for not telling him that his previous work was submitted in an old magazine, he attacked Forrester’s pride, which caused him to be kicked out of the apartment. Jamal showed true courage by standing up to Crawford’s humiliation of his students. Forrester showed that he had a conscience when he realized that Jamal might lose his bright future and stepped him by taking an active and revolutionary role.
Many of the concepts we discussed in class were portrayed and aided in forming the movie,"Finding Forrester." While all of the concepts are relevant to the story, I feel that trust, betrayal, and courage all connect with each other and shine brightest in the film. Early on, trust becomes a very big part of Jamal's relationship with William. William makes Jamal promise that he won't compromise their relationship (tell anybody who he is) and that he will not take any of the writing that he does in William's apartment. This trust and agreement help keep Jamal and William together and is also what begins their friendship. As the movie progresses towards the end, their friendship is tested by betrayal. In an attempt to save himself from his teacher, Jamal turns in a piece of writing that was written in William's apartment. This makes Jamal's teacher suspect that Jamal's work isn't his. This event propels Jamal into a troubling situation in which he asks William to help him. William, who is hurt by the fact that Jamal turned in something he shouldn't have, says that he won't help him and that Jamal should just take his punishment. Jamal then proceeds to tell William that he won't help because he's a coward who doesn't really care about him. These events test the relationship of Jamal and William because both of them betray each other in some way. Later on in the film, when the assignments are getting read, William shows up to save Jamal. He reads one of Jamal's pieces and convinces everyone that Jamal is his friend and that he should not be punished. Without trust, the relationship between William and Jamal never would have occurred. Without betrayal, the plot wouldn't have been able to move forward. Without courage, the story would not have reached a happy ending, Jamal and William's friendship would be no more, and the story would be back to were it started. In conclusion, trust, betrayal, and courage are prominent concepts in,"Finding Forrester," but they also help to drive the story forward in a compelling and interesting way.
ReplyDeleteIn class, my partner and I were asked to illustrate the concept of courage. In the film, many instances of courage appear. It takes courage for Jamal to finally go up one day and meet "the window". It takes courage for Jamal to leave his old school for the new prep school. In my opinion, the biggest acts of courage that took place in this film were when Jamal took William Forrester out to the Knicks game and when William took his bike out. It was very courageous of Jamal to take Mr. Forrester out because William had not been out of his apartment in years, and anything detrimental could have happened. Jamal was courageous enough to try and stay by Forrester's side, even though it did not work out so well when the two got split up. Not only is it courageous of Jamal, but extremely courageous of Mr. Forrester to make the decision to go out of his apartment. In most of the films I've seen that involve people who are scared to go out of their homes, the person is very reluctant to go. We see that William is ready to go, even though he has stayed in the apartment for several years. It takes a lot of courage to step out in to a world that has changed so much since the last time you set foot out there. Another scene that shows courage is when William Forrester takes his bike out and starts riding through the streets. This is after he goes out with Jamal, but it shows the first time he has gone out by himself. He shows a lot of courage by going out in the New York streets alone. The scene does not show him scared or nervous either. He is very happy, enjoying the breeze and the atmosphere as he rides his bike through the dark streets of the Bronx.
ReplyDeleteThe situation that best showed integrity was when Jamal kept his promise to William by not telling the school he had his permission. When William appears at the school to read Jamal’s work, the teacher who outranks Mr. Crawford praises Jamal for his integrity and dismisses him from the honor council. The movie shows that good things can happen from upholding integrity. This situation explicitly shows Jamal’s value in keeping his promises and therefore maintaining trust. The trust that William and Jamal hold in each other is very important throughout the movie. Initially the promise starts with Jamal’s trust in William to honestly help him with his writing and William’s trust that Jamal won’t let anything that is written or said in the apartment outside of it. Their trust extends further as they become closer over the course of the movie. William agrees to let Jamal take him out to the ball game and take him out to the crowd. This is huge step for William, who hasn’t left his apartment in years. Even after getting swept up in the crowd at the game, William still trusts Jamal when he is lead to the big stadium by his young friend. Jamal’s integrity upholds the trust between the two that plays such an important part in the friendship this movie revolves around.
ReplyDeleteI saw many of these concepts in the film, but the ones that I saw the most were trust, and courage. Forrester was courageous in allowing Jamal into his life. He then made Jamal promise two things: to keep his work done in Forrester's apartment there and to keep Forrester's identity hidden. Jamal did break the first one, but kept it for awhile and when he was accused of using Forrester's work, he kept quiet about him knowing who Forrester was. He was very courageous to keep this secret hidden. Another time courage was shown was when Forrester came into Jamal's class and read Jamal's work. It was courageous of him to come out of his somewhat hiding and to protect his friend. Another instance of courage was when Jamal took a scholarship for a private school in another part of town. Jamal knew he would struggle with not fitting in with the rich private school kids, but he gained courage and went to have a better education. Another time he showed courage was when his friends dared him to go into Forrester's apartment. He was also courageous when he kept writing for Forrester to read even after being told to go away. Jamal was very courageous and he was able to rub off on Forrester. Jamal's greatest trait would probably be his courage.
ReplyDeleteI thought integrity was an important concept in the film. Integrity plays a key role when Professor Crawford accuses Jamal of plagiarizing his paper. Professor Crawford, however, makes assumptions about Jamal in accusing him of plagiarism rather than looking for direct proof. This shows Professor Crawford’s prejudice against Jamal and by extension lack of integrity. Jamal shows integrity in this situation by protecting his friend. His true character shows when he honor’s Forrester’s wishes concerning not talking about Forrester and Jamal’s relationship. Even when he has made a mistake in taking work he has done under Forrester’s guise, his moral compass stays true. Forrester realizes that it was partially his fault that Jamal was accused of plagiarism because he persuaded Jamal to write the paper. He stands up for Jamal by going into his classroom and showing the Board what a good writer Jamal really is. Both Jamal and Forrester were shining examples of integrity in the film.
ReplyDeleteThe concepts that I think played the biggest role in the movie “ Finding Forrester” were trust, courage, and betrayal. Trust was the main concept in the movie because it was the cornerstone of Jamal and William’s relationship. They made an agreement was that William would check Jamal’s writing and help him improve, but Jamal can’t tell anyone who William is and he may no take any writing that he writes in William’s apartment. The trust is kept until about half way through the movie Jamal betrays William by taking a piece of work outside of the apartment and turning it in. He betrayed William by breaking one of his main rules and pays the price by getting accused of plagiarism because he doesn’t have permission from the author. Jamal’s betrayal of William puts William in a sticky situation because William has a fear and doesn’t want anyone to know where he is but Jamal needs William to go to his school and say Jamal had his permission to use his title and work. William then over comes his fear with courage and reads Jamal’s work to the school and tells the headmaster that Jamal had his permission to use his work. William showed a lot of courage by going to the school and helping Jamal out. The last time William went out was with Jamal to a baseball game and he had a break down from fear. This really pushed through the concept of courage to the audience. It was then reinforced by how calm Jamal was playing basketball and going to a new school. Jamal showed just as much courage as William did. In the end we got our happy ending with William moving on and Jamal growing up. I wouldn’t have noticed this before but “Finding Forrester” demonstrated concepts that are hard to show through a film. To sum it up I thought the movie was really well done.
ReplyDeleteMany of the concepts listed above played an important role throughout the film. Ones I thought related directly to Jamal were courage and integrity. Jamal had great courage when he went to that apartment the first time, and when he knocked on the door again the second. He had great courage to go to a school much different than the one he attended. He broke out of his shell in order to get where he wanted. He also displayed an appreciable amount of integrity. He never let Professor Crawford belittle him. He respected Forester's wishes to remain hidden from world, even if that meant his own downfall. He was very true to himself and other people. He didn't care what anyone thought of him, as long as he knew the truth about himself and his best friend/teacher.
ReplyDeleteSomething that stood out to me was the arrogance displayed by Professor Crawford. When Jamal outsmarted him at his own game, he sought out revenge to save his own pride. He believed himself to be better than each one of the students, and held this proclaimed fact over the heads of all his pupils to distract them from his otherwise apparent insecurities. His own arrogance is what makes him believe he can teach writing after having a book of his rejected over and over, the only writing he was successfully able to sell was a book about other writers. With his self proclaimed superior intelligence, he places Jamal in a box of judgements, unable to see the blunt facts before him and instead searching for any way this could possibly be fake. He is willing to do anything in his power to maintain his swollen pride, even if that means expelling a perfectly adequate student in the process. He speaks down to everyone around him, as if he holds the punchline to the joke of the human race.
ReplyDeleteCourage was one of the key attributes in the film that really spoke to me. I was amazed by the levels of courage displayed by characters in the movie and I thought the brave actions of some of them were really admirable. In my opinion, Jamal displayed that courage the best on both the court and in school, not even mentioning the guts it must have took to meet Forrester in the way he did, then build a friendship off of it. A scene that especially stuck out to me was the one where Jamal managed to fire off 50 straight free throws just to win a competition with another kid on the team he had barely even met. I know that personally I never would be able to match the stamina and discipline it took to find the courage to focus on making the shots, and not give in to the anxiety surrounding the situation. Also, the guts that it must have taken to stand up to professor Crawford when he was being an ass despite him having the power to ruin Jamal, I found admirable if not downright inspiring. One of the values that I aspire to gain soon is to never let someone give you crap if you don’t have to. Jamal demonstrates that ideal brilliantly, while also maintaining a good level of modesty as not to become to arrogant.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, I'd like to think of these not as concepts, but rather character traits and values (although I'm not sure where betrayal and conscience fit in). I think it's more important to have good, morally supported character traits than it is to have a moral compass, because you think in regards of your moral compass, but your values don't aren't always reflected in your actions. Your character traits, however, are determined by the decisions you've made in actual situations that test your values. Jamal has a couple of good character traits, such as integrity, and courage. He doesn't act on these because of a greater moral code, he acts on them through his intuition. He's courageous enough to speak out when there is injustice (the poetry in class scene). His relationship with Forrester reflects values with character traits. Forrester has primal values such as honesty, respect and trust, but he doesn't ever get a chance to show that he upholds those values. When Jamal enters the picture, Forrester sees his values being closely protected by someone else – not even a person who he's known for long. Forrester sees his values taking effect in Jamal's actions, and that's primarily why they develop such a strong relationship.
ReplyDeleteEvery single concept listed above was obviously portrayed through different characters acts, mainly Jamal and Mr. Forrester. Jamal was a pretty cool, calm, and collected person but snapped in class, embarrassing Mr. Crawford in front of the rest of the students. When a fellow student in a previous scene told Jamal that he did the right thing by not talking back, Jamal didn't learn his lesson, that Crawford was dangerous. Jamal's arrogance led to his near expulsion and in an essence, the state championship game. Honor, Jamal displayed a huge amount of it, Jamal honored his promise with William. Jamal had to muster up all of the courage in his body to think of others before himself, he trusted that by covering somebody else's back that they would cover theirs. It seemed that until the very end that Jamal's back would continue to go uncovered, but with Mr. Forrester's final act of friendship and courageousness he saved Jamal.
ReplyDeleteThis movie in my opinion was an absolute great one, it displayed every single concept listed above and I could go on and on about each single concept.
Each and every concept was displayed throughout the movie; however the concept of betrayal (coincidentally the one I was assigned in class) stood out to me as a juicy part of the movie. When betrayal was conveyed, it marked a low point for the characters in the movie. First, Jamal betrayed his original friends with whom he used to play basketball after school. They had tried to reach out, but Jamal had made a new world for himself, one that revolved around school, writing, and William. They obviously felt betrayed and "kicked out" of Jamal's life. Next, the more obvious example was when William would not stand up for Jamal when he needed help with the essay Jamal turned in. Jamal knew that he and William had created a very strong bond. Therefore, he was very betrayed when William's cowardice got in the way of doing what's right. William not only betrayed Jamal, but he let him down as well. Jamal looked up to William as a father figure, and selflessly did things for the old man, like take him to games. William could not see the good in a situation strung with so much fear and haunting from the past. He believed that being a recluse was the best way to fight pain. He allowed his closed mind to the world dictate how he acted toward his friend. Thank goodness he came around.
ReplyDeleteThe concept that I acted out in my skit was courage. The concept of courage played a big part throughout the movie as characters faced their fears and did what they thought needed to be done. One of the first times that we see courage is when Jamal goes up to Mr. Forrester's apartment. This was courageous, because all of the kids were scared of the man in the window and Jamal was the only one brave enough to go up there. The next time that we see courage is when Jamal goes to another school. This is incredibly courageous, because he leaves behind everything that he has grown up with to enroll at a school that he has never even been to before. Jamal displays courage many times during the movie, but we also see courage from Mr. Forrester. Throughout the beginning of the movie he lives afraid in his apartment and doesn't embrace the world outside. The friendship that he has with Jamal is the only way that he is able to make a difference on the world, because that is the only person he sees. Once Mr. Forrester is courageous he is able to make a difference in the world and live his dream. This movie shows that when people are courageous good things come from that. When Jamal took out Mr. Forrester on his birthday it didn't start out well. He had an anxiety attack when he got trapped in the crowd, but by the end of the night he said it was one of the best times that he had experienced in a long time.
ReplyDeleteThe characters in “Finding Forester” illustrated many of the concepts we had acted out as a class. John Harbell, a failed book writer who turned to teaching, displayed mass amounts of arrogance. Throughout the movie, Harbell assumes that Jamal, an African American teenager from Bronx , has no literary abilities because of his back ground. Even though Jamal proves Harbell wrong on several occasions, Harbell continues with his arrogance and accuses Jamal of plagiarism. I think that in the end, Harbell was blinded by his own assumptions. It was not until William Forster who came to Harbell’s class proving Jamal innocent that Harbell was finally able to believe Jamal’s skills.The movie shows that an arrogant personality really does affect someone in a bad way. Without John Harbell’s arrogant personality, he could of have helped Jamal reach a new academic level along with the help of William Forrester. Jamal displayed courage many times during the movie. When Jamal first started to settle into his new school, it had took courage for him to move away from his friends and start something completely new. Another good example is during one of Harbell’s class, Jamal was able to stand up against Harbell by naming all of the authors Harbell quoted. Even though Jamal has gotten the indication from his classmate to not speak out against Harbell, Jamal still had to courage to stand up against Harbell. Also, I think that Jamal defended his honor by proving to Harbell wrong about Jamal’s lack of academic abilities.
ReplyDeleteIn the movie “Finding Forrester” I feel that the trait that was portrayed the most is trust. Jamal and William’s relationship is completely based on trust. William, even though he didn’t tell Jamal who he was, had to trust Jamal enough to let him into his apartment after Jamal had already broken in a few days prior. I feel that William started to gain some respect and trust in Jamal after Jamal wrote the 500 words on why not to break into William’s house. We also see William trusting Jamal when he leaves the safety of his home. Even with this great bond of trust, Jamal betrays William and himself when he turns in a paper he wrote with William to his evil teacher which took a lot of courage. Even though Jamal broke William’s trust, Jamal took a step that eventually led to William Forrester getting back out into the world. Another time we see trust is with Jamal and Claire. Claire puts her trust in Jamal when she lets him teach her basketball.
ReplyDeleteAnother trait we see in the movie is arrogance. Jamal’s teacher is so arrogant and has such a large ego that he is judgmental. Without any hesitation, the teacher assumes that Jamal is a fraud and is getting someone else to do his work for him. Just because he failed, he doesn’t think any one without his credentials could be that good.
Instead of choosing one concept, I decided to go with a character that exhibited a few of the qualities. I thought Professor Robert Crawford was quite an interesting character. One very interesting scene was in the classroom when he was challenging Jamaal to identify the authors of quotes he recited. Jamaal not only identified the author but he also finished the quote himself. This scene is full of tension and very powerful because they have one quality in common that causes them to but heads: Pride. And neither can stand it when anyone challenges that. Although, while Jamaal has another quality that balances it out--integrity--the professor has a quality that weighs the scale towards the same direction, arrogance. He has failed attempting a career at writing so he has become a teacher of the art so that he can feed his pride and arrogance. This way, he is constantly surrounding by those inferior to him in talent...or so he would like to think. Jamaal on the other hand has integrity that balances out the pride. When faced with probation, possibly losing his scholarship and having to return back to his old school, he continues to keep his integrity and protect William Forrester's Identity. If he on the other hand was arrogant alongside his pride, he would protected his education and may have probably been boastful about the fact that not only did he have William Forrester's permission, but the author had edited his paper too. In the end, integrity overcomes all.
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