FREE ESSAY ON GRAND CANYON

GRAND CANYON

The movie Grand Canyon encompasses many thoughts and feelings. The movie consist of many
characters, whose lives run in parallel, and often touch each other, resulting in some
unexcepted events and relationships. The encompassing theme of the movis is that life,
and the people who live those lives, finds a way to over come adversity. The adversity
comes in the form of unexpected and unmeaning violence. We see the characters' lives
suddenly punctuated by events over which they have no control, and which are at random.
Yet their lives, although temporarily thrown off course, maintain themselves and
sometimes become enriched. The helplessness of the human condition is made even more
stark by man's relationship to his environment. This is exemplified by The Grand Canyon,
which inspires awe of one character in particular, and which, at the end of the movie,
provides the back drop for the closing scenes of disparate people coming together.
The movie also has other themes resonate as under currents to the central themes sketched
above. The separate universes of the urban poor and suburban wealthy are contrasted.
These universes occupy the same time and space, but rarely touch, except for moments of
threating violence and pitiful ignorance. These images occupy the opening scences of the
movie. The street basketball, played by impoverished, inner city adolescence and adults,
shows the poverty of generations trapped in a way of life. An old man looks on through
the chain link fence at the basketball court, illustrating that despair is all that one
generation offer the next. These scenes are shot in black and white, devoid of color of
life. These scenes are contrasted with the colorful shots of the professional basketball
game, with cheering, affluent, predominatly white crowd,and an arena full of commercial
interest and money. The game is the same, but the universes that they are played in are
unimagined to each other.
A second subtheme of the movie is the disappointment of human relationship, but how they
are given new hope by new relationships. We see the faltering marriage of Mack and
Claire. The drifting of Otis from his family to the street gangs. The failed attempt of
Mack to initiate and adulterous affair with Lisa. These failing relationships are
contrasted with the joy of the new relationship between Claire and her adopted baby,
Simon and Jane, and Roberto with his new girlfriend. These are limits of Lisa new
relationship with a police officer. And Simon announces his love for Jane. A some
relationship fade, others are kindled.
Violence is an overreaching theme in the movie. Every character suffers from a violent
episode, over which he or she has no control. The violence is of the very ordinary kind
that happens many times in the city. The violence is not always man's making. A mild
earth quake is enough to induce a heart attack in one of the peripheral characters. The
heart attack, like the earth quake itself, is unexpected and undramatic. The earth quake
also ties in with the theme of man's diminutive importance to nature, and the world as a
whole, as it has existed for millions of years before mankind. The Grand Canyon cares
nothing for the trials and tribulations of the human race, or individuals who make up
that race.
Overall, this movie fails to deliver all that it promises. It does not make me think and
consider its contents, but then a good book would have done that much more effectively.
The movie is too long and eventaully lost mt interest. The producers failed to convince
me that they had anything meaningful to say. Instead, they were content to hint at shades
of maening. I would recommend the movie, but not to be taken as seriously as it would
like to be.