please answer the following questions after watching the film TIME (on amazon) – i also have attached this week’s class notes if you want to relate anything you discuss in the original post when answering the questions to anything in the class notes
Questions to answer after watching the film: How is TIME different from other films about incarceration? Consider how the present footage was filmed and edited with the older footage and how Fox and her family were represented – give 2-3 examples from the film. I need you to write one paragraph answering these questions please write it in the style like my classmate’s her writing style is great and it can be used as a good example in terms of how to layout answering the question here is her answer for reference: “My experience with nonfiction films dealing with incarceration have been heavily reliant on the statistical analysis of the issue. While that is a perspective that is important to understand factually, it can distance yourself from the personal experiences of those who are affected. Cultivating an intimate experience of how just one family has been impacted by the prison industrial complex in a way where we as viewers are put right there with them as they go through this pain is what this film does so well. We were with them as they waited decades for the children to get their father back, through the frustration of awaiting news from the judge about resentencing, the feeling of loneliness and vacancy that was left behind as Robert was in prison.
One instance of personalization cultivated by the film was when I felt the awkwardness that Fox experienced when she was asked by a fellow mother where her husband and the father of her children was. With pride she truthfully tells that she is not a single mother yet can not find it within herself to tell the other woman where he actually was.
The film, as the title suggests, deals greatly with the passage of time. One of the more striking ways in which it felt personal to the view was to pair shots of the boys as children, perhaps playful and hopeful for their father’s return, with images of them much older and entering adulthood. We saw them reach milestones as young adults in the same minute as them at birthday parties as young children, hammering home just how long their father has been gone. Additionally, through positioning clips of Fox at the time of her husband’s incarceration with clips of her decades later still giving motivational speeches and sharing her and her husband’s story, encapsulates how much she has grown and how long and hard she has been fighting to help other people and for her husband.
I will add how powerful it was to add the trials and tribulations of getting ahold of the judge’s conclusion for Robert to get resentenced. Particularly the moment where she has her monologue where she says “man these people have no respect for other human lives” and she essentially breaks down with frustration. And after she has her moment, she collects herself and moves on. In that moment we feel just how tired Fox is that she has to juggle being a single mother and providing her family AS WELL AS fighting for her husbands freedom. “
The second paragraph i need you to write is replying to my classmate’s post please reply to my classmate’s Wilma’s response: “I believe TIME differs from other films about incarceration because of how it is depicted. Throughout all of films I have seen regarding incarceration there often seems to be a common theme of depicting black struggle rather than black success. Whether it is showing how it affects individual families or society as a whole, there tends to be a trend of showing how individuals, in this case black individuals, are constantly in an unbeatable war against the system. Although I believe those stories are important to tell, I think sharing success stories, one being the family in TIME, is more powerful. Sibil often says throughout the film, “Success is the best revenge,” and that is clearly shown through herself, her kids and of course her husband.
Another way in which TIME is different from most films is through the footage provided. Often times in films about incarceration, the audience does not get to see what life is like for the families before after and during the time served of the incarcerated. But in TIME, we had an inside look of the conversations between the husband and his family, the children’s lives without both parents and later their father and how their community embraced them despite their hardships. I believe this helped truly understand what the Richardson family faced in order to later understand how good it felt when the father was finally released. It almost felt like we were there when Sibil made several calls to the court regarding her husbands case, when she had to apologize to her family about the mistakes she made in the past and of course, the joy she felt when justice was finally served.”