Oral sur la notion "Mythes et héros"

[Lectrice]

Bonsoir !

J'ai demain un oral blanc. J'aurai besoin que vous me corrigiez grammaticalement et orthographiquement mon oral, mais surtout que vous m'aidiez à le raccourcir car je fais 7 minutes au lieu de 5... Je dois absolument garder intro + exemples (tirés de mes cours et personnels) + conclusion !

Mille mercis par avance...

 

Myths and heroes

I'm going to speak about the notion of myths and heroes. The theme myths and heroes refers to the collective identity of a nation. A myth is an idealized representation of a character, a historic event ... The hero is as much a reality as a social construction, hovering between legend and reality. The hero can be defined as a brave man, doing things out of the ordinary, and this in the name of values.There are a lot of heroes : a fictitious hero (from comics), a fashion hero (like Michael Jackson), a humain rights defender, a sportsman, or an unknown hero, like a fireman or a soldier. Now I will focus on some war heroes : the soldiers. My problematic is : From the hero soldier to the fallen hero on screen.

I The traditional representation of soldiers in American films

Soldiers are the main representatives of the heroes who are ordinary persons who help the others. They are regarded as heroes, because they realized good actions, they protect us, they risk their lives for protect their countries... They do a lot of sacrifice, for example in their family life. In class, we studied the movie trailer We were soldiers by Randall Wallace released in 2002. We saw a commanding officer who has a double life : on the one hand he's a husband and a father, on the other hand is an instructor at the Army. It's not easy for him. He must leave his family to take part in the Vietnam War.

The soldiers make all these sacrifices to protect their homeland but also to defend values such as democracy. So many Amercian films dealing with the Second World War present the soldiers as heroes. We see extraordinary men, who constantly surpass them. We see a strong camaraderie between them. They are truly portrayed as supermen.

We also studied film reviews. A moviegoers who had filmfanfrank pseudonym gave his opinion on the film Saving Private Ryan. This is a Steven Spielberg movie released in 1998. This viewer say that the film is too sentimental, awkward, and patriotic. And judging by the trailer of this movie, we can say that this is a flag-waving film. But this kind of film leads us to think on the realism of those films.

II The soldiers in realistic American films

In 1963, the Vietnam war broke out. The soldiers are differently depicted. At first, we can speak about the training of the soldiers. The movie Full Metal Jacket released in 1987 and realized by Stanley Kubrick shows us the horrors which these men live in their training. We discover men whose the humanity and the feelings are erased to transform them into war machines. The Instructor Sergeant destroyed psychologically his recruits. However we see that the most human of the soldiers, the one who cannot leave his humanity become completely crazy. Finally, in this antiwar film, we see that what passed for heroism before, can now be seen as madness. Fight without thinking makes no sens because the purpose has been deleted. The war is completely absurd.

This feeling of nonsense of the war is also shown in the film posters. Indeed, in the film poster promoting the film entitled Platoon realized by Oliver Stone in 1986, we see a man. Judjing by the catch phrase "The first casuality of war is innocence", he must have been forced to fight. He's certainly a conscripted soldier. He seems to implore the sky to forgive him. He implores the God's mercy. This involves that he feels guilty of something. It might be because he attacks the Vietnamese. In any case, he has nothing more of a hero. He appears even as the opposite, I mean guilty, maybe like a murderer.

To conclude, we can say that there is a myth of the heroic soldier but not of a real hero when the movies are realistic.We really see their flaws, their fears... the worst of the human. It's truly a "heroic butcher" as write Céline. We feel powerless in front of these victims of the war. Movies really allow us to see the same thing of several points of view : the same person can be a hero or not according to what we see of her and how.

 

Citation

 

 

[Jean B]

Bonjour,

Myths and heroes

I'm going to speak about the notion of myths and heroes. The theme myths and heroes which refers to the collective identity of a nation. A myth is an idealized representation of a character, a historic event ... The hero is as much a reality as a social construction, hovering between legend and reality. The hero can be defined as a brave man, doing things out of the ordinary, and this in the name of values.There are a lot of heroes : a fictitious hero (from comics), a fashion hero (like Michael Jackson), a human rights defender, a sportsman, or an unknown hero, like a fireman or a soldier. Now I will focus on some war heroes : the soldiers. My problematic issue is : From the hero soldier to the fallen hero on screen.

I The traditional representation of soldiers in American films

Soldiers are the main representatives of the heroes who are ordinary persons who help the others. They are regarded as heroes, because they realized good actions, they protect us, they risk their lives for  to protect their countries... They do a lot of sacrifices, for example in their family life lives. In class, we studied the movie trailer We were soldiers by Randall Wallace released in 2002. We saw a commanding officer who has a double life : on the one hand he's a husband and a father, on the other hand he is an army instructor at the Army. It's not easy for him. He must leave his family to take part in the Vietnam War.

The soldiers make all these sacrifices to protect their homeland but also to defend values such as democracy. So many Amercian films dealing with the Second World War present the soldiers as heroes. We see extraordinary men who constantly surpass themselves. We see a strong camaraderie between them. They are truly portrayed as supermen.

We also studied film reviews. A moviegoers who had filmfanfrank as a pseudonym gave his opinion on the film Saving Private Ryan. This is a Steven Spielberg movie released in 1998. This viewer say said that the film is too sentimental, awkward and patriotic. And judging by the trailer of this movie, we can say that this is a flag-waving film. But this kind of film leads us to think on the realism of those films.

II The soldiers in realistic American films

In 1963, the Vietnam war broke out. The soldiers are differently depicted. At first, we can speak about the training of the soldiers. The movie Full Metal Jacket released in 1987 and realized by Stanley Kubrick shows us the horrors which these men live in their training. We discover men whose the humanity and the feelings are erased to transform turn them into war machines. The Instructor Sergeant destroyed psychologically his recruits. However we see that the most human of the soldiers, the one who cannot leave his humanity becomes completely crazy. Finally, in this antiwar film, we see that what passed for heroism before can now be seen as madness. Fight without thinking makes no sense because the purpose has been deleted. The war is completely absurd.

This feeling of nonsense of the war is also shown in the film posters. Indeed, in the film poster promoting the film entitled Platoon realized by Oliver Stone in 1986, we see a man. Judging by the catch phrase "The first casuality of war is innocence", he must have been forced to fight. He's certainly a conscripted soldier. He seems to implore the sky to forgive him. He implores the God's mercy. This involves that he feels guilty of something. It might be because he attacks the Vietnamese. In any case, he has nothing more of a hero. He appears even as the opposite, I mean guilty, maybe like a murderer.

To conclude, we can say that there is a myth of the heroic soldier but not of a real hero when the movies are realistic.We really see their flaws, their fears... the worst of the human man. It's truly a "heroic butcher" as write Céline <(décédé le 01/07/1961)> once wrote. We feel powerless in front of these victims of the war. Movies really allow us to see the same thing of from several points of view : the same person can or can't be a hero or not according to what we see of her them and how.

NB Tu as un réel problème avec l'emploi intempestif du déterminant "the", à résoudre de toute urgence. Bonne chance pour tes oraux.