How is the chicken used as a metaphor in the opening scene of City of God?
The chicken is used as a metaphor to show the life of the Brazilian common man living the life under the terror of gangsters. When the chicken is watching other chickens being killed the chicken get scared like any human would to see other human being killed front of their eyes, close-up shot is used to show the emotion, then the chicken thinks of escaping from that place just like a human running away from the danger to save their life. this is showed by when chicken tries to untie itself by straggling with leg. many close-up shots are taken to show the killing of chickens to make it look from the chicken point of as the chicken turns its head right and left.
When the chicken start running, the humans starts to chase the chicken it adds a little humour to the movie for audience to enjoy the scene but if it was a human absconding and the gangsters hunting him/her, it would have been more serious action. It also makes the audience think to treat every life as important as human life even if is an animals and the chicken is compared with Brazilian peoples and their lives as they would be suffering from the gangsters. During the chase, the savage streets of Brazil are showed to create brutal atmosphere in audience mind, as the gansters were pushing the poor people out of their way but none of them react back and it shows that how much terror they have formed in brazilians heart. Many long shots appears to show the streets of brazil and the stage of economy.The chicken also reveals the story line and life of the characters during the opening scene. The chicken tries to fly during the chase but it does not achieve that which suggest that every Brazilian does not achieve to get from the gangster alone.
There was a little message, it was only one chicken who was chased by the lots of gangsters and even after that the gangsters found very difficult to catch the chicken and if there were few more of the chicken then it would have been impossible chase the chickens and the gangster would have divided themselves to chase the chickens and that means they power would have become weaker, it reflect that if one human stand against them then it is easy to fail one human by lots of opponents but if it was more than one men against all of them, as it would be difficult for gangsters to break them down as they would have divided themselves to chase the nobles, just like they would have done to chase the chickens and this would have weaken their power and then it is easy to destroy there brutal atmosphere that they have created.
Www. Well done for finally submitting this, through it was extremely late and you are very lucky that I am marking it. You have shown a good awareness of the metaphor and attempted to make connections between what you have seen and what you feel is meant. There is some limited use of media language.
ReplyDeleteEbi. You had spent more time developing a closer and more detailed analysis. You need to include more media terminology in this type of essay if you are to acquire a good grade and submit at the length requested. This is short. Perhaps next time to can work through the denotation and connotation, signifiers and signified in a closer way and seek to demonstrate exactly how meaning is created through the film making and how the chicken's perilous escape is so effectively used.
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