Obtuse Meaning in the Godfather free essay sample

In Roland Barthes’ essay, â€Å"The Third Meaning,† he posits two levels of meaning in a film or photographic image: the first is the simple or informational level which simply tells you everything you can learn from the setting, the costumes, the characters, their relations and so forth; and the second is the symbolic level, which shows you the connotations inside an image. The example he gives is a still from a film by Eisenstein Ivan the Terrible. In the picture, two courtiers are raining down gold over the young Czar’s head. Barthes finds in the image not only the two obvious levels of meaning but also a third level of meaning, which he calls obtuse. It goes beyond the information of the scene and the communication of the scene into something complex and difficult to determine. Barthes calls this the obtuse meaning as opposed to the obvious meanings, which are simple or symbolic. We will write a custom essay sample on Obtuse Meaning in the Godfather or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page â€Å"OBTUSUS means that which is blunted rounded in form. Are not the traits which I indicated (the make-up, the whiteness, the wig) just like the blunting of a meaning too clear, too violent? Do they not give the obvious signified a kind of difficultly prehensible roundness? † The Third Meaning, Research Notes on some Eisenstein Stills, R. Barthes In his second attempt to make clear his analysis, Barthes returns to the idea of the obvious meaning and uses example from another Eisenstein film, The Battleship Potemkin. In those images we see an old woman with a closed, upturned fist, which signifies her determination to participate in the revolution. Then he shows another image from the same film of two women with their hands over their mouths stifling a sob. What Barthes says is that this doesn’t distract from but accentuates the symbolic meaning, but then he shows another image of the old woman seeming to express something else, an obtuse meaning, something difficult to define, something that eludes obvious analysis. He says that this obtuse meaning has something to do with disguise and lack of intentionality. Things seem to be expressed even beyond what the person intends by their gestures. He even compares the two stills of the same old woman, the one where the image obviously signifies grief, the other here something more complex is communicated: â€Å"I quickly convinced myself that, although perfect, it was neither the facial expression nor the gestural figuration of grief (the closed eyelids, the taut mouth, the hand clasped on the breast): all that belongs to the full signification, to the obvious meaning of the image, to Eisensteinian realism and decorativism. I felt that the penetrating trait- disturbing like a guest who obstinately sits on saying nothing when one has no use for him- must be situated somewhere in the region of the forehead: the coif, the headscarf holding in the air, had something to do with it. (R. Barthes) In the next image, the obtuse meaning vanishes leaving only the communication of grief. I would like to look at some examples of The Third Meaning in the work of Marlon Brando as Don Corleone and Al Pacino as his successor in â€Å"The Godfather†. From the beginning Brando is shrouded in darkness, we see him from behind and before him is a supplicant who comes to ask for a favor. The obvious meaning is the information in the scene the father’s outrage at his daughter’s violation, his hesitancy in approaching the Godfather and so forth. The symbolic meaning is in the fact that the supplicant is the lower or lesser party and the Godfather is the king, they are symbolically separated. There is a third meaning almost immediately in the film indicated by the way Brando is seen gesturing in response to the supplicant’s request. Which makes us immediately wonder why he is so reluctant. We learn later in the movie, that Brando’s entire role as the Godfather fills him with deeply ambivalent, deeply ambiguous and complicated feelings. He would like to be a true American, to do legitimate business, instead he is the head of a Sicilian crime family, forced to wait for respect from people who secretly don’t give it to him, who think him no more than a glorified thug. His gestures in the scene, his slight wave of the hand, his proud demeanor, his pain that after a long life he is still regarded as no more than a common criminal -all of these ambiguities are communicated elusively. They are present in Brando’s response to the situations in which he finds himself. The supplicant has come on the day of Don Corleone’s daughter’s wedding asking him to act like a dog. Instead of throwing him out, he puts the man through a deliberate charade of making him say the right words to respect him. In all the time we cannot but feel that there is something going on in Brando’s consciousness as the Don, which is deeply troubling to him. So we watch the movie from then on, with these three levels of meaning already defined, the simple or informational level in the story, the symbolic level with the supplicant kissing the Don’s hand, and the third meaning or obtuse meaning being what is elusive in Brando’s performance that we can’t yet put a finger on. The film then cuts to the wedding, which all takes place at levels one and two, but we as an audience now know that there are depths to this film and to Brando’s performance that we are going to look out for. Another example of the third meaning happens after Brando has been shot by the rival gang, and he’s informed for the first time about who killed the men who did it. When he’s told that it’s Michael, a look of great pain surfaces on his face, and we understand that he wants to protect his youngest son from the life of crime which has consumed all the other members of his family. The scene is enormously powerful, because Brando has been shot and because we know that Michael has made the fateful decision to be the one who carries out his revenge on behalf of his father. While we think this is a perfectly normal reaction of a son to want to avenge his father’s attempted murder, we are plunged into the same complexities as at the beginning of the film, which is: can Michael stay out of the criminal world and live a normal American life and marry Kay? The third meaning doesn’t inform or symbolize it discloses; it reveals what is going on inside the character, almost in spite of the character’s intentionality. The emotional power of the Godfather, lies in the fact that underlying currents are at play that are deeper than the informational or symbolic levels at which so much of the reality seems to occur. This ambiguity is very clearly brought out in the scenes in Sicily when Michael (Al Pacino) begins to experience what his future life holds for him as a gangster on the run. He’s in Sicily in the Corleone village protected by local peasants, far from the reality he’s known in New York. He meets a beautiful girl and experiences a â€Å"coup de foudre†, they fall in love just by looking at each other, almost immediately Michael has to explain himself to the girl’s father which he does convincingly and instinctively by telling the father in no uncertain terms, that he wants to marry the daughter even before he had spoken to her/ marriages were arranged by men in this patriarchal structure. Michael’s declaration of intent satisfies the father, surprises Michael’s companions and perhaps Michael himself and he endears himself to the family. All of this emotional drama takes place at the informational and symbolic level, the meanings are obvious, Michael is going to marry somebody who symbolizes innocence and purity. We see that in their pre-nuptial encounters and at the wedding, but something very interesting happens during their first sexual intimacies. Michael, in spite of himself is in awe of the girl’s beauty, sensuality and voluptuousness, we feel that Michael treasures his new bride and is straining in himself for the same purity of behavior as she is showing. We also know that Michael has a girlfriend back in New York, we’ve seen him with Kay Christmas shopping, we’ve seen Kay being invited in the family portrait at his sister’s wedding. So the questions that crosses our minds are, is Michael being unfaithful, or is he following some innocent, idyllic romance that is doomed? All of Al Pacino’s gestures at this point of the film are close to the third meaning, is he disguising something about himself, some bad corrupt side to himself, can he really ever be as pure as the girl? In Pacino’s expressions, all of this ambiguity comes out. Finally in the film the third meaning is expressed most convincingly in Brando’s death, we see him playing with a little boy in the garden, trying to be like any other grand-father, a kindly benign old man, and then he clutches his heart and has a heart attack. In the moments leading up to his death, his gestures are all of disguise, in fact he’s a corrupt criminal but in the scene he’s playing a gentle loving grand fatherly figure, straining for redemption by acting normally. Brando’s performance like Pacino’s goes way beyond the symbolic and informational levels into a level of disguise that presents the character in all its complexity. To conclude in the words of Barthes, the third meaning structures a film differently, without subverting the story. The level of the third meaning, that the filmic finally emerges: â€Å" The filmic is that in the film which cannot be described, the representation which cannot be represented. The filmic begins only where language and metalanguage end. – The third meaning theoretically locatable but not describable – can now be seen as the passage from language to signifiance and the founding act of the filmic itself.

Markstrat Final Management Report Essay Example

Markstrat Final Management Report Essay Example Markstrat Final Management Report Paper Markstrat Final Management Report Paper In Sonnet market was to create sustainable profit to scuffs sustainable growth with high margins, market share and enough budgets for Votive Entry. In order to achieve our objective, inspired by focusing on competition and Consumer focus, our strategy was to differentiate our brand upgrade our products based on our target segments? needs. To achieve our objective, although we had a new market Votive where there was a huge opportunity of being a market leader by spending considerable amount of budget, we allocated some of our reserves to Sonnet market as It was a such bigger market compared to Votive. Mainly, we focused on customer expectations. From conjoint analysis and semantic scales marketing research data, we analyzed the customer perceptions, ideal levels for product attributes, product features and modified our existing products or developed new products. We tried to be the product leader by offering the best product to each segment targeted. We targeted SAM for Others, ASANA for Singles, SAIL Tort Pros Ana HI Earners Ana or outs. Meanwhile we 010 cost reaction projects for all brands to use cost advantage and sell with higher margins. We set the price mostly again based on customer perceptions and tried to lower the price or keep price increase at feasible levels. Based on the distribution panel surveys, we allocated the sales force to sales channels according to the shopping habits of segments and total sales figures. First we decided on the total number of the sales force to be allocated to brands and then by weighted average, we divided them in between the distribution channels as shown on Appendix 2. We also continued to invest our budget on advertisement in Sonnies, by not ignoring our penetration tragedy with heavily advertisement and sales force for the new market Votive. In our initial management report as our Votive market strategy, we stated that our main objective was to be the market leader by being Pioneer comparing our RD budgets with our competitors. But firm with the highest budget and targeting lowest product features entered market in the 13th period. Because of our budget constraint and better product improvement target we were late but we did not give up. With other two firms we decided to use the advantages of being ? such as rather than being replacement or substitute or the pioneer, we choose to position ourselves as variety enhancers with different product features. Based on market researches, we defined the needs of the targeted customer segment and we tried to improve our product according to defined segment requirements. In our initial management report, we stated our strategies according to be the Pioneer in Votive market. Our stated objective was to become the market leader in the Votive market and benefit from higher margins. Committing our above stated objective, we adapted some of our strategies being an ? Follower?C,-1?0 as firm became Pioneer in the Votive market. Making a leapfrog action with our positioning strategy, we mostly targeted optimal cost and relatively high product features instead of imitating pioneer? VODKA. We determined positioning of our brands with and earning from our competitor mistakes. As market researches shown ? and had the highest relative importance for most of the customer segments, we tried to focus on those attributes with the right consumer segments; AVIVA for Adaptors?C,-1?0 and ? and VAST for and By the end of period 6, the leader of the Votive market which is Firm E is overcome by drowsiness therefore we went up to second place with our increasing net contribution, we had seen that our implementation of our strategies succeeded. Continuing to analyze the steps of our competitors what they can do, incorrectly analyzing our company opportunities how we can increase our sales, to increase our net contribution we tried to increase our market penetration. Based on our past experiences we were aware that to increase sales our competitors would decrease the retail prices. We were ready for these scenarios; we invested on cost reduction in period 7 in order to be able to decrease our retail prices and not to decrease our profit margin. Competing in overcrowded market, prospects for profits and growth reduced. As a result of this decrease at period 4, increased competition of price turn the water bloody (? Ocean?C,-1?0 as Chain Kim and Renee Unbroken); with all of our competitors we had the same budget (at that period we were in 4th range). It was an excellent opportunity for us. With the same budget capabilities we got the chance to use same amount of RD, Sales and Advertisement opportunities in total. We focused on RD for Votive while it was our chance to get into a ocean?C,-1?0 of uncontested market to untainted competition. The most unexpected situation was to lose the chance of being Pioneer in Votive market. But this unexpected situation which seems negative at the beginning, turned out a positive taxation with the mistakes of firm They did not allocate enough budget for RD to enter first in the Votive market; they missed the importance of advertisement to create brand awareness and the product features in long term. With their low product features they did not believe in their product so they gave a rower II price exclusive AT null ease cost. Other unexpected case is related with the entering strategy of other early followers. Firm E entered the Votive market with a low cost low price strategy with a better product than O. Although we were expecting this move we did not think that such low price. Firm I is also entered Votive at the same with us but with a huge price that a market cannot ignore. This was the positive competitor move for us. With the higher profit margins comparing to Sonnies market, there were ample opportunity for growth in Votive market. With our strategy of simultaneous pursuit of differentiate our products and reduce our base costs with RD projects we decided to change our product features. But we failed to predict the production volumes precisely for some brands, SALE, AVIVA etc. Especially in the last periods; we missed the opportunity to sell more and the increase in our market share and margins.