Saturday, October 27, 2007
My Research Topic: "If war produces one thing, it's many cemeteries. And in cemeteries, there are no enemies."
For my research paper, I'm going to look at Oliver Stone's Heaven and Earth and compare it to Le Ly Hayslip's autobiography When Heaven and Earth Changed Places. More specifically, after I watch the movie, I'm going to pick a section of it and analyze what techniques he used/how he went about adapting the corresponding part in the book. I'm still trying to figure it out a little, and I'm sure once our other paper is finished I'll be spending more time researching this one.
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2 comments:
Corey- nice topic. I think that it will be interesting to look at the differences between the selection we read about Hayslip(or the entire book)and the movie created after it. I don't really know what Professor Smith means by this "lense" that we are supposed to identify, but I feel like I hear her talk about a "historical lense" often. This might actually work for your paper. You could look more into the history of the Vietnam war and compare how well Haylsip and the movie relate it, and then you may discover in which way autobiography is more effectively transmitted. Think of looking into MLA International Bibliogrpahy database to search for info, they have everything. Here is a site I found on the history of the Vietnam war: http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/vietnam/index.html. I really am not very good at this, but i hope this helps or at least inspires you somehow. Good luck.
useful comments from discussion:
*you want to focus on the "coming to America scene and idea of "American dream" (film portayal v. book)--make sure you define what the "American dream" is
*when referring to Stone's film, reference as an "adaptation" so there is a more neutral connotation
*enhance paper by building, keep momentum going (can do this by rearranging paragraphs--specifically, put aspects of Hatslip's life BEFORE techniques Stone used in filming
*you mentioned that the two main themes of your paper were 1)average Vietnamese life (which Stone didn't cover in the movie enough) so make you sure you define what that is and 2)forgiving others-->look at book reviews to get an idea of other themes in the book
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