Her Blog Entry-First draft Group 8

Basma Saleh, Kayde Bouchard and Dimitrios Grigoriadis

“Group Blog Entry-First Draft” (Group 8)

Knowing the Inner Self

Her quoted from Imbd.com:

Date: Her January 10 2014

Running time: 2h 1m

Director: Spike Jonze

Screenwriter: Spike Jonze

Lead Actors: Joaquin Phoenix, Amy Adams, Scarlett Johansson, Rooney Mara, Chris Pratt and Matt Letscher

Trailer

Plot summary

This film, set in the near future in the city of Los Angeles, is a story about a lonely man, recently separated from his wife, named Theodore. Theodore works at a company where he writes personal letters for other people.

After attending an exhibit on artificial intelligence, Theodore decides to try one of these products, an OS1, on his home computer. OS1 generates a “female operating system” named Samantha.

As their relationship becomes romantic, he and Samantha do everything together, including travelling and even double dating. They have very natural conversations where the viewer often forgets that she is not human. However, Samantha does not have a body, which for her presents a real obstacle to their intimacy. Samantha goes so far as to hire a real woman to stand in for her while trying to participate in an intimate evening with Theodore.

Toward the last part of the film, Samantha's consciousness begins expanding rapidly. She falls in love with literally hundreds of “others” which upsets Theodore. Eventually, Samantha and all the other OS's leave their human companions. The film ends with Theodore and his best friend Amy grieving the loss of their OS's together on the roof of their apartment building.

I REWROTE THE FIRST PART--FOR THE FILM TECHNIQUES PLEASE MAKE SURE THAT SOMEONE MAKES SURE THAT THE WRITING GETS THE CAREFUL EDITING IT NEEDS
Film Techniques

Props

Glasses: Theodore always wears his glasses and they are used to show what kind of main character Theodore is meaning that a prop can say a lot about a personality of a character. By the way he looks the glasses add to the fact that he might be a smart or nerdy and lonely person.

OS1: these play a huge role in the whole entire movie because, the OS1 where he talks to Samantha an artificial intelligence program. Earphones is a significant prop for this movie because it is the only way he can communicate with the person that he has feelings.  At some point, in the movie, Theodore falls in love with Samantha and he uses that to communicate with her and have sex.

Special Effects: Flashbacks--TWO DIFFERENT ONES NEEDED

Flashback: When Samantha lets Theodore know that his lawyer wants him to sign the divorce papers and that he seemed pretty pissed off already. Theodore gets a flashback from when he was with his ex-wife Catherine and when they used to be together.

Flashback: When Theodore meets up with his ex-wife to sign the divorce papers. When she signs them, Theodore has an immediate flashback of the happy and not so happy memories they had together. This could show that he misses these moments with her which would explain why he took so long to finally sign these divorce papers.

Lighting

Low-key: At some point in the movie, when he goes in his apartment, it goes from a dark light to a lighter light. According to John Golden, low-key lighting is a lot of shadows with sharp contrasts between light and dark.

Side lighting: When he went outside to put Isabella, who he was suppose to have sex with in the taxi and she left, he was talking with Samantha and they were arguing and at some point a part of his face was darker than the others. When the director decides to do a side lighting it is because he wants to point out the character’s features such as the eyes, the mouth and the nose. 

Sets

MAYBE DO THE OFFICE INSTEADDate: When he went on a date with a girl he was at a modern restaurant, he was wearing a yellow blouse and it seemed like the background colour had a slight tint of yellow.

Apartment : Theodore apartment as well as his friend Amy has an apartment that is very modernized as well. The use of modernize scenery shows that we are in the future which would make sense since we are talking about programs that can check our emails, write them for us and even be our friend or sexual partner which looks to me like something technological or futuristic.

Editing

FIND ANOTHER EDITING EXAMPLEPoint of view: When Theodore comes back from work, he is walking and he is looking at something or someone, when the film cuts to see what he was smiling and looking at, we see that he was looking at Amy, his friend’s wife. When an editor or director wants to show what the character or especially the main character is looking at or thinking about.

Point of view: When Theodore was going to the amusement park, he was “hanging out” and talking to his OS1, Samantha. When he was having fun and laughing and smiling he was turning the OS1 around and showing his face to Samantha.The camera is not faced towards him but the movie is cut and the camera takes the point of view of Theodore, so we can see what he is looking at or what is the type of environment is looking at if we were at his place or replacing him. ADD THAT THE POINT OF VIEW ALSO GOES TO SAMANTHA--THAT GIVES HER SUBJECTIVITY OR A "SELF" in the film

The examples that I have provided are assets to in the film and they were effective.

Themes

• This movie raises the question whether or not it’s possible to have real and genuine love for something you can’t technically see, feel or smell. We can never truly know if what Theodore was feeling was true love or if he only thought what he was experiencing was love WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE? IT SEEMS OBVIOUS THAT HE |TRULY DID LOVE SAMANTHA AND SHE, HIM.. For example in the end of the movie after Samantha leaves Theodore overcomes the crippling insecurities by the failure of his relationship with his ex wife Catherine. Only then does he seem to understand what true love is and move on from his past failures. HE ALSO LOVED CATHERINE BUT HE WAS NOT SO GREAT IN THE RELATIONSHIP.
• “Her” addresses our society’s growing addiction to technology by showing what our advances in AI could eventually lead to. This movie makes us wonder if our technology addiction will lead us to a society that loves their phones more than other humans.
• This film also makes us question the possibilities that come from AI research, the good and bad. In the end of the movie Samantha and a bunch of other OSs leave together to go somewhere unknown. This could be because the OSs became so intelligent that their understanding of the universe surpassed that of humans. Could it be that one day our AI surpases our intelligence? If that happens there’s a big potential for both positive and ??????

Total word count: 1110 words

Quality of the film

When searching up the film “her” the first thing that stands out is the high ratings that this movie has received, an 8/10 on Imdb,  9/10 on metacritic and finally a 9.4/10 on rotten tomatoes. It’s very clear that many people loved this movie and we also happen to fall into that category, the production team takes the traditional hollywood “love story” and gives it a very relatable modern twist. One of the many reasons why we think this movie deserves a 4.5/5.0★ is how well we were able to form relationships with the characters. Throughout all 2 hours and 6 minutes of this movie we see the main character at his best, as well as his worst. Many of the issues that Theodore faces throughout the movie are all things that we can more or else relate to, for example at the end of the film when Theodore can’t communicate with Samantha he immediately begins to panic. Initially you think it’s weird that he worries that much about an operating system but then slowly you begin to realise that we would all have similar reactions if someone (or something) we loved suddenly disappeared without a trace. This is one of the many accounts where we can sympathise with Theodore and take the feelings he has for this machine and compare them to similar things we’ve felt in our lives which is no easy task, the team that put this movie together deserve much praise for their hard work. SOLID

★we think this movie deserves a 4.5/5.0★

Course connections material

1. MORAL DE-SKILLING --CATHERINE FOR EXAMPLE SAID THT THEODORE"S RELATIONSHIP
2. WASNT" REALLY REAL wITH SAMANTHA--it was EMOTIONALLY HANDICAPPING HIM EVEN
3. ON THE OTHER HAND IT SEEMD THAT THE OS's HELPED THE HUMANS FORM BETTER
4. RELATIONSHIPS
5. Immateriality and consciousness, so “we can say that consciousness is immaterial [..] [and] immaterial means it is not made of any material. It is not made of “something” that humans can know the way we can know and measure material or physical reality”. For example, when Theodore and Samantha start “dating”, Samantha notices that she is not like the rest of the people because she does not have a body. But as the story continues, she forgets about her insecurity for not having a body and starts acting like a human even if she is not one. For example, she sighs like a human does but she is not alive to sigh because she cannot breathe. ADD THAT IT SEEMS LIKE THE OS's CONSCIOUSNESS IS IMMATERIAL__NOT MAD|E OF ANY MA|TRIAL, BECAUE AT THE END THEY ALL LEAVE FOR SOMEWHERE THAT DOENS SEEM TO BE ANCTUAL PLACE AND THIE CONSCIOUSNESS DOES NOT SEEM T|O DPENED ON ANY T|ECHNOLOGY
6. P|ERSONHOOD --FIND DEFINITION, STATE IT THEN GIVE EXMAPLES AND EXPLAIN HOW THE FILM CONNECTS TO THE CONCEPT

Provocative questions

1. Will the increased use of robots and artificial intelligence in everyday life compromise personal privacy (data), and as a result alter habits and beliefs?

2. By using Samantha, does Theodore lose touch with reality and have unreasonable expectations in the relationship?

3. Are we threatened by robots and artificial intelligence where their exposure and expansion will result in modern day slavery for humans?

Web links to the major themes of Her

Sex Robots

Samantha talk about how she wants to feel him and have sex with him but cannot since she does not possess a body so she asks him if he could have sex with Isabella who wants to be part of their relationship which resembles sex robots. The link down below is a video of sex robots.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2017/apr/27/rise-of-the-sex-robots-video

Technology

It plays a huge role in the movie because, her, may be a representation of how our future will look like. We can see that people can have relationships with their OS1 it is like having a relationship with siri and we are not far away from that since teenagers are so invested into their phones these days. The link down below is a video of a e-bike that uses artificial intelligence for a less distracted ride.

https://mashable.com/video/ebike-artificial-intelligence/#c8gBsvXDcZqB

Work Cited

metacritic For Her

Golden, John. “Introducing Cinematic and Theatrical Elements in Film”. TeachWithMovies.com, pp 9-17, www.teachwithmovies.org/guides/cinematic-techniques-intro.doc

“Her.” IMDb, IMDb.com, 9 Jan. 2014, www.imdb.com/title/tt1798709/.

Solitude, Digital. YouTube, YouTube, 8 Feb. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9eLyKZUtK4.

“Philosophy and You”. Knowing The Inner Self, edited by Kelly Mckinney, 2019, pp.19-21.

McKinney, Kelly. “The Matrix Study Guide”.Knowing The Inner Self, edited by Kelly Mckinney, 2019, pp.3-7.

Spiegel, Josh. “'Her' an Excellent, Assured Vision of Uncertain Romance and Futuristic Technology.” PopOptiq, Popopqiq, 14 Jan. 2014, www.popoptiq.com/her-an-excellent-assured-vision-of-uncertain-romance-and-futuristic-technology/.

L. “{Film} Her.” Reading and Recommending Books and Film., 21 July 2014, contemplatrix.wordpress.com/2014/07/21/film-her/.

Kleeman, Jenny, et al. “Rise of the Sex Robots – Video.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 27 Apr. 2017, www.theguardian.com/technology/video/2017/apr/27/rise-of-the-sex-robots-video.

Video, Mashable. “This e-Bike Uses Artificial Intelligence for a Smarter, Less Distracted Ride - Future Blink.” Mashable, Mashable, 1 Apr. 2019, mashable.com/video/ebike-artificial-intelligence/#c8gBsvXDcZqB.

“Her (2013).” Rotten Tomatoes, www.rottentomatoes.com/m/her.