Assignment/Activity Title Cinematic Analysis Quarter 3 Skill Writing

Year Freshman Portfolio Category Critical Reasoning

A Cinematic Analysis is a project where the student must watch a movie and then analyze its theme, historical significance and any metaphors that are expressed. The movie I chose to watch for the third quarter Cinematic Analysis was The Long Walk Home starring Whoopi Goldberg. This movie was about the Montgomery Bus Boycott in Alabama. The main character, Odessa took part in the boycott and the movie was about she and her familys toil during this time. I very much enjoyed watching this movie because unlike many other movies regarding the Civil Rights Movement, it was from the perspective of a female black woman. I was very interested by this movie and I learned much more about the Bus Boycott Movement than I ever did from the textbook articles I read on it. The overall effect of the movie was much more than I could imagine just by reading the facts. I placed this movie in the Critical Reasoning category because not only did I have to watch and summarize the movie, I also went through the process of thinking about the themes of the movie as well as investigating its historical accuracy and significance. This required a fair amount of research and critical thinking because there were no topics given to me to research. I had to come up with what I thought might have been different in the movie from what actually happened, and delve in even deeper to come up with some evidence to show that the movie had shown the wrong evidence. In addition, I had to critically think of which one of the many themes shown in the movie the director was trying to convey to the viewers. By doing this assignment, I learned many things. For example, the way in which some white people in the southern state would help the boycott effort. Also, I learned the extent to which the southern government during this time period was influenced and essentially run by white supremacists. At a city council meeting (attended by whites only) there were openly displayed Ku Klux Klan flags on the wall behind the podium where the speakers were to speak! The purposeful showing of this in the movie made the racism of that time period even more obvious to the viewers. Overall this movie and the critical analysis that followed helped me to better understand its themes and the time period that I have been just begun studying.

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