Chaos Theory

During Mr. Bennett's film class today, the intriguing idea of Chaos Theory wrapped around my ever-expansive mind.

*Stolen from my good friend wikipedia*

"Chaos Theory studies the behavior of dynamical systems that are highly sensitive to initial conditions; an effect which is popularly referred to as the butterfly effect. Small differences in initial conditions (such as those due to rounding errors in numerical computation) yield widely diverging outcomes for chaotic systems, rendering long-term prediction impossible in general.This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future behavior is fully determined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. In other words, the deterministic nature of these systems does not make them predictable. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos."

From what my meek mind understands currently about this theory, I think that essentially anything that affects said subject will never have a truly predicatable outcome, because there are too many unknowns and determining factors that could possibly affect it. Or something like hat

I feel like the rat maze that Dr. Screbher is examing is an example of how the Chaos Theory is placed into effect. The subject, the rat, easily has many paths and possibilities to follow throughout the maze. Yet, throughout the said maze, the rat can easily run into a dead-end path, or go towards the wrong direction. Simply put, there are too many outcomes and factors that can make for a truly predictable outcome, because the rat won't necessarily find his way to the end of the maze. Perhaps he goes into one direction, or another, or even stays at the "wrong" end, or stays at a different end. Regardless of the final outcome, is it truly possible to predict that exact correct outcome, out of the many other outcomes this said situation can bring? 

Maybe thats how life functions.

Dark City Film Post

Films such as the Dark City are always reminiscent of the life that I desire to live one day. A life of mystery and excitement, mystery and endless enjoyment around each corner. Yet at the end of the day, it's a moment of introspective thoughts culminated from thoughts throughout the day.

These film noirs, The Asphalt Jungle and Dark City have proven to be that gritty, yet slick lifestyle that I desire to be part of. A lifestyle where danger is lurking around each corner, where situations where life and death wrestle with each other, and such.

Much like what I said about The Asphalt Jungle being an allusion of my favorite genre of music, rap, Dark City just happens to be an updated version of the mafioso gangster mannerisms that rap offers.

Dark City reminds me of another Jay-Z album that I absolutely adore, which is American Gangster. The connection between American Gangster and Dark City is definitely more clear than the connection between American Gangster and The Asphalt Jungle. After all, American Gangster was basically an update from Reasonable Doubt (as stated in my other film post), and just makes more sense.

One moment in the Dark City specifically stuck out to me, and that was the rat maze that Dr. Daniel Schreber was toying around with in the beginning of the film, when Anna comes into the room. In American Gangster, there is a section in the album where Jay-Z contemplates about the idea of success and failure, but soon falls into failure. Yet he repeats the process all over again.


The rat maze in Dark City represents the fact that Murdoc was trying to find his way to success, the end, and happiness, and a song in American Gangster, "Success" shows the artist trying to find his way into having success. But yet, the song that follows quickly after that, "Fallin'," quickly shows how you can lose your way trying to find success, or the final end. Jay-Z is basically in a maze trying to find his way out of this "Fallin'," and basically trying to find his "Success."

The Asphalt Jungle Film Post

Foreword: My dearest apologies for not posting throughout the week.

I feel that the film The Asphalt Jungle is more significant than the other films that we have watched in film class mainly because of one reason. This one reason is that The Asphalt Jungle is a vivid representation of the mafioso / early nineties late-rap lifestyle that so many of my favorite rappers have rapped about.

One clear representation of what the Asphalt Jungle was to my eyes, is the great rap albums, Reasonable Doubt & American Gangster from Jay-Z. All of the works of art have that classic plot of where the character hustles his way to make it big, makes it big and revels in the lifestyle that money can easily buy, and finally has their downfall. In the Asphalt Jungle, it's briefly in the scene where Ciavelli is about to have that sweet satisfaction of breaking into the safe and finally getting their jewels. In Reasonable Doubt, it's the song Cashmere Thoughts, a lacadasical romp through Jay-Z's monetary exploits and adventures. In American Gangster, it's the songs, Roc Boys (And The Winner Is...) and Sweet, where Jay-Z raps about winning it into the big time, and just simply seeks to rap about his success.

Just a thought