Linear vs. Non Linear Time (1)

My final project will be an eight pages graphic novel, which will have two different endings in the end of the story. I will use tracing paper to hide the endings and try to make the readers choose the ending they want.

This is the rough draft of my graphic novel.

Memento

The movie is about a man who has trouble to remember any recent memory, Leonard. His wife was killed by two men at first. Then, he wants to revenge. By his friend Teddy's help, he finds the killer and kills him, but he does not remember it. Then, Teddy and Natalie (a girlfriend of a man who is killed by Leonard) exploit Leonard to kill a lot of people that they want to kill. In order to remember some important information, Leonard keeps them by tattoos and Polaroid photograph. However, he changes or destroys some of them and makes himself confused. Finally, he kills Teddy and believes his revenge is over, but in fact, his wife was killed by him because of too much insulin.

The director, Christopher Nolan, uses two different sequences of scenes (one is black and white, and one is color) to create two time lines, and he also arranges them in random (or maybe a very) order. That totally made me confused at first, and I have to watch it again. I think Christopher Nolan arranges the scenes in this unique way because he wants to create the scene of anterograde amnesia (Leonard’s disease). As what Leonard says in the movie, “Memory is unreliable.” Our viewers are also deceived by our own memory and get lost in our memory’s labyrinth.

Jorge Luis Borges

Circular Ruins

It is a story about a magician’s dream. At first of the story, he wants to create a man by his dream. And finally, with the fire’s help, he successes, and the man becomes a “real” man and a part of the “reality”. However, the man and other people may not know he is just a dream of the magician. And only the god of fire and the magician know fire can prove the man is not real.

I think the last part in this novel is interesting. “He walked into the tatters of flame, but they did not bite his flesh—they caressed him, bathed him without heat and without combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he realized that he, too, was but appearance, that another man was dreaming him. “

After reading this story, I begin to wonder if the world in our eyes is real or maybe it is just a person’s dream? But if our world is a person’s dream, the world that the person lives could also be someone’s dream. Just like a labyrinth, which has not exit.

The Library of Babel

Jorge Luis Borges wants to show the universe in his mind in this novel. He thinks the universe is like a library with “infinite number of hexagonal galleries”. Because the letters can compose infinite words, his universe is infinite. Also, he names the library “Babel” because it is a heaven to him. Books are his belief.

Honestly, I read this novel a few times, but I cannot understand a lot of details that Jorge Luis Borges talks about. However, I think he believes the uncountable books in the library are the labyrinths, because the same books are always infinitely published. Their repeatability becomes the order of his universe.

Story Boards

Statement for Group Documentary

Our group’s theme of the documentary is about a ghost in Stuyvesant Park Residence. Rumor has it that Stuyvesant Residence used to be a mental hospital. Whether it is a truth or not still remains unclear, and that’s what we are going to address in this short documentary.

There will be no main character in this video. A female voice sound like a reporter is going to guide the viewer through the documentary and lead the viewer find the ghost that always cries at midnight. It will be shot with a hand held camera, in order to create a scary atmosphere. We are going to shoot the blueprint of the building, and show the viewer the area where used to be the morgue. We’ll tell the historical background of this building, and give its connection with Beth Israel Medical Center across the street. We’ll ask a staff at the security desk to tell story, which could support our statement. And we’ll shoot the inside part of the building and the old picture of the building from the school website, to add credibility to our work.