The Miracle Worker
Director: Arthur Penn * Cast: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory , Inga Swenson , Andrew Prine. 1962. 106 minutes.
This is a dramatization of the relationship between two remarkable women—Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller—whose lives have inspired generations. It presents how the unique relationship between a teacher and a pupil develop. Young Helen, the daughter of the Southern aristocrat, becomes blind and deaf after an attack of scarlet fever in her infancy. Totally unable to communicate with anyone, Helen grows into physically robust girlhood, frustrated, unruly and occasionally violent. She once even throws her baby sister out of the cradle. The parents contact the Perkins School for the Blind for help. Twenty-year old Anne Sullivan—a partially blind former student of the school—is offered as a home tutor for Helen. Annie has to overcome the barriers of prejudice and hopelessness from the family and has sometimes to physically battle with the unruly child who would explode at the slightest discomfort. Arthur Keller is initially not well disposed to Annie. During the first meeting, Annie recognizes Helen’s intelligence and curiosity. She gifts her pupil a doll. Responding to the child’s love of the doll, Annie tries to introduce Helen to the finger alphabet by spelling the word “doll” on Helen’s palm. Helen learns it but rebels when the doll is taken away from her. Annie refuses to give up and persistently tries to reach the child’s heart and make her learn sign language by touch. She demands that the girl be set up in a separate house with herself to teach her good manners and upkeep. Persistence, strictness and genuine love win out. Finally, she is able to make Helen connect the hand signs with things. This leads to a rebirth in Helen and a discovery of herself which is the beginning of her journey of education through which the world famous Helen Keller was made. The climactic point is when Helen is able to partially articulate the word “Water” with her mouth when Annie takes her to a water pump and spells it on her palms. Love and patience have triumphed.
The Social Dilemma
Director: Jeff Orlowski * Cast: Tristan Harris, Aza Raskin, Justin Rosenstein, Shoshana Zuboff, Jaron Lanier, Skyler Gisondo, Kara Hayward, Vincent Kartheiser, Anna Lembke. 2020. 94 minutes.
This docu-drama is about a crisis that today’s world faces—the issue of online life and the hidden and overt threats that it poses for mankind. The cell phone affects family and professional life. The film provides commentaries by experts highlighting the challenges that it poses to civilization. The IT companies of today are the wealthiest in history. Their method of operation raise ethical questions on an unprecedented scale. There are no effective methods of putting them in check. The film explores how addiction and privacy breaches are features, not exceptions, in social media platforms, how much power a handful of tech companies have on the public experts and how they invisibly control individual lives. The fact is that media platforms and the manner of their design and operations are meant to cultivate and foster addiction, manipulate individual lives and governments, and spread fake news. Conspiracy theories and disinformation have become the staple of online discourses. Interviews and commentaries involving prominent tech experts are provided. These experts were former employees, executives, and other professionals from high profile tech companies and social media platforms such as Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Mozilla. Platforms like Wikipedia are neutral by showing all users the exact same information without curating or monetizing it. The commentators are agreed on the need for some serious changes in approach to the use of artificial intelligence in social media. The worst part is the increased mental illnesses (depression and suicidal tendencies) related to the social media. Social media addiction has led to an unprecedented increase in depression in recent decades among the youth; and the worst affected are preteens who are tied to their cell phones. A 62% increase in hospitalizations for American females aged 15–19 and a 189% increase in females aged 10–14 due to self-harm, beginning in 2010–2011. A 70% increase in suicide for females aged 15–19 and a 151% increase in females aged 10–14, beginning when social media was first introduced in 2009.
Prof Gigy Joseph
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