As an English major, I'm interested in the way Waking Life found a relatively new form of writing and utilized that medium to reach such a large audience in mainstream cinema. It brings forth a growing sentiment that we are in the midst of a fundamental change in the way the world sees the art of composition. No longer is writing a singular, secluded act that’s performed with a pencil to paper. Writing has come to LIFE, and speaks with a colorful palette of mediums- images, audio and video files, websites, Power Point and similar presentation software, instant messaging, e-mail, and my personal favorite, blogs. Our audience has grown in ways that literary big leagues like Virginia Woolf and Mark Twain could never have imagined; we can cross state and country lines, cultural and religious boundaries, and blend the socio-economic differences of class, race, and gender until we all have a literary platform, equal and instantaneously available for the world. From this platform we work together to create and collaborate, to edit and argue, and to communicate in a voice that represents humanity better than ever before.
This sentiment is contingent with Kathleen Blake Yancey’s idea for a 21st century curriculum that can provide guidance in a literary world, a world that is rapidly bypassing the current emphasis on writing for a grade from a professor. Basically, today’s students are living double lives, and writing in new ways that our educational system has yet to understand, let alone create a uniform program of study to accommodate. At home, our students blog and respond to each other with comments, upload videos of social commentary, debate politics on wikis and discussion boards, and collaborate on and review each other’s poetry and fiction with email, IM, and texting. Then they go to class with a pen and paper and get bored. They force out work they are uninterested in (and it shows) and don’t care, because only one person will ever read it. The work receives a grade and dies inside a dusty notebook.
This blog is designed to provide a place for commentary, analyzation, education, criticism, and exploration into the significant philosophical issues presented in the film Waking Life. Directed by Richard Linklater and released in 2001, it is one of the most unique films to date; whether viewing through a tech savvy, animator's lense and appreciating the innovative rotoscoping construction, or listening with a writer's ear to the ninety nine minutes of dialogue that alone comprise the entire film, Waking Life can be appreciated by a wide and varied audience with different tastes. Feel free to look through the postings on this blog in any order you like, and comment on anything, no limits!!
