Melancholia:
Depression on Film
I
Lead-in.
A) What
illnesses and diseases do you know? Take 3 minutes to write a list. Compare
your lists with other students.
B) What
are the symptoms of the diseases or illnesses in your list?
C)
What
mental diseases do you know? What are their symptoms?
D)
Look at John Everett Millais’
painting “Ophelia”. What mental state does the painting represent? What do you
know about the subject of this painting?
E)
How can films or works of art represent or portray different diseases
and illnesses? Can you think of films that
depict illnesses?
F) Follow
the link https://www.imdb.com/list/ls066746282/
and look through the list of films that portray illnesses and diseases. Have
you watched any of the films? What films from the list would you like to watch
and why?
II Study the active vocabulary and focus
on Ukrainian equivalents of English words.
clinical depression клінічна депресія
warped деформований
duration
тривалість
throw out of proportion надмірно щось
роздувати
skewed перекошений
communicate передавати
reception прийом
weird
дивний
temporal часовий
severity серйозність
stare
blankly байдуже
витріщатись
get ahead of випередити
III Watch the video and fill in the gaps
with the words from the list. There are some words you don’t need to use.
beginning; simpleton; write; blankly; castle;
dreamlike; depression; montage; watered; star; country; viewer; abandon; night;
slow motion; familiar; unaware; low emotion; momentous; mint; duration; warps; symptom;
skewed; bother; mental; yourself; rewatch; dreamed; relationship; skewed; description;
scenery; newly-married; limo; proportion; wasted; stranger; ceremony; puppet; scene;
depression; hint; ahead
A commonly reported 1)_____ of clinical 2)_____ is a warped sense of time.
Everything can feel like it’s moving in super 3)__ ___. In fact,
depression 4)_____ everything around
it, like a 5)_____ warps space-time,
not only your sense of 6)_____, but
also your sense of 7)_____ and
others. Your 8)_____ life is thrown
out of all 9)_____. In his film
“Melancholia”, Lars von Trier uses 10)_____
proportions to communicate a feeling that he’s intimately 11)_____ with.
-
“You know when I write, I can only 12)_____
about myself, and this is more or less a 13)_____
of my own depression.”
The very first 14)_____ after the slow-motion 15)_____
that, speaking of warped time, shows both the end of the film and the end of
the world, is the 16)_____ Justine
and Michael trying to get from the 17)_____
to the reception in a stretch 18)_____
that is almost comically too large for the 19)_____
road that they’re driving on. Eventually they have to 20)_____ the car and walk and by the time they get to the 21)_____ where the reception is, half
of the 22)_____ has already been 23)_____.
-
I won’t even 24)_____ saying
how late you are.
What’s interesting is that the 25)_____ doesn’t really feel that
lateness –we’re only at the 26)_____
of the film. And this – I think – gives us a 27)_____ of the weird, almost 28)_____,
temporal quality of the wedding reception to come. One thing that keeps getting
29)_____ and stranger to me as I 30)_____ the film is the 31)_____ between Justine and Michael. I
mean, at times it almost seems as if they don’t even know each other; Michael
seems to be completely 32)_____ of
the severity of Justine’s 33)_____,
and there are a few shots where Micheal just stares off 34)_____ like a kind of dead 35)_____.
Here again, things are 36)_____ –
von Trier doesn’t give us a sense of the couple’s past. But I’m getting 37)_____ of myself.
IV
Match the words with
their meanings.
relationship; weird; reception; symptom;
depression; couple; limo; feeling; stare
3. an emotional state or reaction
V Match the words from two columns to make
collocations used in the text. Use four collocations in your sentences.
1.
|
commonly
|
a)
|
of time
|
2.
|
clinical
|
b)
|
a feeling
|
3.
|
sense
|
c)
|
all proportion
|
4.
|
in super
|
d)
|
slow motion
|
5.
|
mental
|
e)
|
of
|
6.
|
out of
|
f)
|
reported symptom
|
7.
|
communicate
|
g)
|
a hint
|
8.
|
familiar
|
h)
|
blankly
|
9.
|
give us
|
i)
|
life
|
10.
|
unaware
|
j)
|
with
|
11.
|
stare
|
k)
|
depression
|
VI Watch the
part of the video and answer the questions.
1)
What
symptoms of clinical depression are mentioned in the video?
2)
Why
did Lars von Trier decide to create a film about depression? What does he know
about that mental illness?
3)
What
methods (colours, sounds, montage) does the filmmaker use to show the
depression?
4)
Why
do relations between Justine and Michael seem unusual and strange?
5)
Does
Michael notice and understand that Justine suffers from depression?
6)
How
does the filmmaker create the effect of lateness? Why is lateness important for
the movie?
7)
How are lateness and warped sense of time
connected with depression?
VII Study the active vocabulary and focus
on Ukrainian equivalents of English words.
alternate чергуватись
bout припадок
set up пропонувати
languish мліти
detached
відокремлений
whim примха
unsettling тривожний
dash розбивати
rogue planet міжзоряна планета
crease м’ятися
shatter розколотися
sequence кадр
refrain приспів, рефрен
narrative розповідь
VIII
Watch the video and choose the correct option to complete the sentences.
The first half of the film is made up
of the wedding recipient/receiver/reception,
alternating between the party/partly./partied
and Justine’s various assist/exits/exist
as she falls deeper and deeper into an oncoming bounced/bout/about of depression. Von Trier uses the interception/accepted/reception itself
to set up an aspects
on/experienced/expectation of continuous time, but Justine’s exits make
this problematic/diplomatic/problems.
The two parts of the sequence don’t seem to pit/fitted/fit together. Justine rides off in a golf cart all the
way crisscross/across/cross the
grounds, she dishes/languishes/language
in the bath, but the party is always there, always still happening when she
returns to it in moods/moody/wooded
that are increasingly attach/attachment/detached.
Even within the party time jumps foreword/forward/reward
at the whim of von Trier’s disorienting editing/editor/edition.
The film critic Marta Figlerowicz drew my attention/potential/attentive
to the fact that – for example – the newlyweds’ first dance is actually a staged/mounts/montage of Justine
dancing with a number of people, while the song bereave/bequeath/underneath it – La Bamba, plays continuously/continuous/countless.
What it all adds up to is settlement/unsettling/upset it feeling of subjectivity, a feeling that you’re
in the head of Justine, and by extension von Trier’s, whose attempts to get a bundle/handle/handheld on things, to
lock everything in place are upset and then finally washed/dashed/dissed. No one in the film seems capable of meaning/treasuring/measuring things
correctly, whether it’s the number of beans/bags/blobs
in a jar, or the correct trajectory of a rogue planet.
-
Two million and six/sixteen/sixty
beans.
Everything that’s handled burns, decree/creases/increased or shatters.
And we ought to mention the several artfully/artistic/artist
is references von Trier makes in the film, any of which are in the very
first consequential/sequence/sentence.
The most obvious is this shot which cites John Everett Millais’ painting
“Ophelia” after the character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, who is perhaps the most
famous depressive in all of literature/literary/illiterate.
Then we have an actual shot Bruegel’s “Hunters in the Snow”, a painted/painters/painting of hunters
coming back to their village/pillage/villains
empty handed. Which calls to mind another sence/scientificall/science
fiction film concerned with the depths of the soul: Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris”.
Von Trier is a amass/massive/passively
fan of Tarkovsky and there are other similarities here, too. “Solaris”, for
example, makes great use of Bach’s “Choral Prelude in F Minor” repeating it
throughout the film and as he’s written, Tarkovsky likes to use music as a frames/refrain/retain. The refrain
brings us back to our first experience of entrance/entreat/entering
that poetic world, making it immediate and at the same time renewing/reviewed/viewers it. Von Trier
uses the same technique in Melancholia with Wagner’s “Prelude to Tristan and
Isolde”, a romance/nomadic/romantic
song that speaks to how the filmmaker mixes his meditation/mediator/medical/ on depression with beauty, like a
glowing blue planet, and desire. And there are plenty of other inference/referees/references too. Like
those to Alain Resnais’ “Last Year at Marienbad” – another film with a
dreamlike narrative/repetitive/narrated
structure. And of course these early shots jump forward to reference, but not
exactly duplicity/duplicated/replicate,
later moments in the film.
IX Find the words in the text that have the following meanings.
1. someone who makes a
film
2. written artistic
works
3. not feeling emotional
about something
4. the spiritual part of
a person
5. a mention of
something
6. someone who has
recently married
7. easy to recognize or
understand
8. the path that an
object follows
9. the feeling of
expecting something to happen
10.a short period of
illness
11.able to do things
effectively
X Match the words from two columns to make
collocations used in the text. Use four collocations in your sentences.
1.
|
to be made
|
a)
|
feeling
|
2.
|
wedding
|
b)
|
of depression
|
3.
|
bout
|
c)
|
reference
|
4.
|
to set
|
d)
|
time
|
5.
|
continuous
|
e)
|
on things
|
6.
|
to draw
|
f)
|
up of
|
7.
|
unsettling
|
g)
|
with
|
8.
|
to get a handle
|
h)
|
structure
|
9.
|
capable
|
i)
|
fan
|
10.
|
artistic
|
j)
|
reception
|
11.
|
empty
|
k)
|
handed
|
12.
|
science
|
l)
|
of
|
13.
|
concerned
|
m)
|
world
|
14.
|
massive
|
n)
|
up an expectation
|
15.
|
poetic
|
o)
|
fiction
|
16.
|
narrative
|
p)
|
attention to
|
XI
Watch the part of the video and mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F).
1) The first half of the
film shows the wedding ceremony in church.
2) During the reception Justine’s
husband has bouts of depression.
3) Von Trier uses montage
to show that time is not continuous for a depressed character.
4) Justine rides off in a golf cart, she
languishes in the bath, but the party never stops and no one notices her
absence.
5) The newlyweds’ first
dance is a montage of Justine dancing with a number of people.
6) The director of the
film wants to place the viewers in Justine’s head.
7) People in the film
can measure and count things correctly.
8) In the film things burn,
crease or shatter.
9) The film never uses artistic
references.
10) The film recreates the painting “Ophelia”.
11) Ophelia is one of the most famous depressive characters
in literature.
12) The film recreates Bruegel’s “Hunters in the
Snow”, a painting of hunters coming back to their village empty handed.
13) Von Trier explored Andrei
Tarkovsky’s “Solaris”.
14) “Melancholia” uses
Bach’s “Choral Prelude in F Minor” repeating it throughout the film.
15) Tarkovsky uses
Wagner’s “Prelude to Tristan and Isolde”, a romantic song.
16) “Prelude to Tristan and Isolde” mixes the
thoughts about depression with beauty. And there are plenty of other references
too. Like those to Alain Resnais’
XII Study the active vocabulary and
focus on Ukrainian equivalents of English words.
polarizing що викликає протилежні реакції
та думки
undeniable
незаперечний
coherence узгодженість
untethered
незв'язаний
standstill
зупинка
precede передувати
warp викривляти
disposition схильність
sane що має здоровий глузд
earnest щирий
apprehension уявлення
mental illness
психічний
розлад
insight розуміння
XIII Watch the video and fill in the gaps with the missing words.
“Melancholia” is no 1)_____ a polarizing film. Its beauty
is 2)_____, but I’m sure many will
argue that it lacks 3)_____ or
focus. Indeed, I have my own 4)_____
with the second part of the film, but this is one of the most striking 5)_____ – to me – of a 6)_____ that affects so many but which
is still so little understood. In my view, 7)_____
is what happens when your identity –
that sense of the 8)_____ you have
with the world around you – becomes untethered, 9)_____. In this process everything starts to 10)_____. Time slows to a 11)_____.
Your body once so easy to move feels like it 12)_____ a ton. For a person memories start to become 13)_____. The memories of a film, on
the other hand are all those works of arts that 14)_____ and precede it. Perhaps this is why von Trier surrounds
his 15)_____ with so many.
By the time we get to the second half
of the film an 16)_____ situation –
the approach of the rogue 17)_____ Melancholia,
warps even the character’s 18)_____:
Justine emerging slowly from the depths of her 19)_____ reacts to the existential situation with 20)_____.
-
The Earth is 21)_____. We
don’t need to grieve for it.
Claire on the other 22)_____ – her sane other half – begins
to 23)_____. The film, in the end,
takes on the 24)_____ of its main
character. I, for one, am happy to see a film so 25)_____ about sadness. As it stands, science and 26)_____ have come up short in their
apprehension of 27)_____ _____. So maybe we ought to look to
art for insights and solidarity about what it’s like, living a life out of 28)_____.
XIV
Match the words with
their meanings.
mental illness; standstill; to grieve; to
lack; memory; insight; to skew; undeniable; disposition; coherence; portrayal; character;
polarize; identity; sane; earnest; calm
1.
the situation when the parts of something fit together
2.
a clear understanding of a complicated situation
3.
the type of person’s character
4.
peaceful, without worry
5.
having a healthy mind
6.
serious and determined
7.
an illness that affects the mind
8.
who a person is, or the qualities of a person
9.
to divide into opposing groups
10.to not have something that is needed
11.to feel great sadness
12.a person in a film
13.the way that someone or something is
represented in a film
14.a condition in which all movement has
stopped
15.to cause something to be not straight
16.certainly true
17.something that you remember from the
past
XV
Watch the part of the video and mark the sentences as True (T) or False (F).
1)
People
have different opinions about “Melancholia”.
2)
The film is beautiful, but it lacks coherence or focus.
3)
People with depression have focused relations with others.
4)
For depressed people time slows
to a standstill.
5)
Your body feels easy to move when you have depression.
6)
Depressed person’s memories start
to become organized.
7)
At the end of the film Justine becomes calm and other people panic.
8)
Science and medicine can have
good apprehension of mental illness.
XVI
Vocabulary focus. Study the words and word combinations, check your understanding
using flashcards, practise
their translation, spelling. Check
your knowledge in the test. Play matching vocabulary game (match words to their
translations to make cards disappear) and save the planet from asteroids by typing in correct translation of the words.
XVII OVER TO
YOU.
A) Watch all parts of
the video and summarize how depression is portrayed in the film. What
techniques or tools are used to show depression?
B)
What works of art (paintings, music, literature) are mentioned in the
video? How do those works of art portray mental illness or diseases?
C)
How can artwork (for example painting and sculpture) represent or
portray different diseases and illnesses? Can you think of works of art that
depict illnesses?
D) Follow the links https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736519/
and read about artwork that either represents
illnesses or was influenced by the artists’ diseases. Fill in the table with
the names of artists, their artwork, and the names of diseases or medical
conditions that influences the works of art or artists.
Artist
|
examples
|
Medical
condition the artist suffered from
|
symptoms
|
Medical
condition portrayed
|
symptoms
|
|
1.
|
Quentin Massys
|
An Old Woman (or The Ugly Duchess)
|
X
|
X
|
bone ailment Paget's disease
|
sunken eyes, the deformed hands, the unusual distance between her
upper lip and nose, distorted nostrils
|
2.
|
Agnolo Bronzino
|
An Allegory with Venus and Cupid
|
X
|
X
|
||
3.
|
Rembrandt
|
Self-portrait of aged 63
|
||||
4.
|
Renoir
|
|||||
5.
|
Francisco Goya
|
“Los Proverbios” "Los
Disparates"
|
encephalitis
|
fever and mental confusion
|
X
|
X
|
6.
|
Paul Cézanne
|
“Pyramid of skulls”; “The murder”; “Three skulls on an Oriental
rug”
|
bouts
of depression
|
X
|
X
|
|
7.
|
Vincent van Gogh
|
|||||
8.
|
Edvard Munch
|
|||||
9.
|
Mark Rothko
|
|||||
10.
|
Jackson Pollock
|
|||||
11.
|
Bernard Buffet
|
|||||
12.
|
Bryan Charnley
|
|||||
13.
|
Charles Louis
Lucien Muller
|
|||||
14.
|
Philippe Pinel
|
|||||
15.
|
Tony
Robert-Fleury
|
|||||
16.
|
Jean-Etienne
Dominique Esquirol
|
|||||
17.
|
Charles Bell
|
|||||
18.
|
Picasso
|
|||||
19.
|
George
Cruikshank
|
|||||
20.
|
Pieter Breughel the Elder
|
|||||
21.
|
Botticelli
|
|||||
22.
|
Giovanni Francesco Barbieri
|
|||||
23.
|
Joseph Wright
|
|||||
24.
|
Jacques-Louis
David
|
|||||
25.
|
Edouard Manet
|
|||||
26.
|
Ric Hall
|
|||||
27.
|
Ron Schmitt
|
E)
If you could create a work of art to portray a medical condition, what medical
condition or disease would you choose to portray? How would you portray it
(describe you work of art in 10 sentences).
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