Highbrow Magazine - 1917 https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/1917 en With the Best Picture Nominations, the Oscars Unleashed the Monsters’ Journey https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10396-best-picture-nominations-oscars-unleashed-monsters-journey <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/film-tv" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Film &amp; TV</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Mon, 02/10/2020 - 07:14</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2jokerfilm_0.jpg?itok=1mB6kfwb"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/2jokerfilm_0.jpg?itok=1mB6kfwb" width="480" height="270" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>Opinion: </strong></p> <p> </p> <p>As a small child, I had a recurring nightmare that I was left behind in a parking lot as my parents and siblings walked away from me. But the nightmare always ended well, in that it ended, period. No nightmare we have while sleeping ever lasts longer than the time it takes us to wake up.</p> <p>We have living nightmares as well. We can look to the meat-grinder that killed millions of young men in World War I <strong>(1917)</strong>, the many who perished under Nazi Germany <strong>(Jojo Rabbit)</strong>, or any number of more personal murders throughout our history <strong>(Once Upon a Time in Hollywood) </strong>to remind us of this. And yet, we often can point to a specific event or moment in time to demonstrate how such nightmares were no more – we collectively wake ourselves up, so to speak.</p> <p>In examining the daunting reality we face every day, we consider the journey of the monster who perpetuates it. And when we consider the journey of this monster from beginning to end, we see how the nightmare unfolds.</p> <p>It’s common for us to see someone like a psychopath <strong>(Jojo Rabbit)</strong> or a sociopath <strong>(The Irishman) </strong>and trace their history back to a point or a series of points of trauma. Without this confluence of events, they may not have turned out to be as destructive as they are. They experience hardship at an early, tender time, and thus their worldview is tainted from then on.</p> <p>We see their harmless beginning, wherein the monster finds themselves fantasizing, perhaps “daydreaming” <strong>(Parasite)</strong> of a different reality than the one they face, having their expectations dashed <strong>(Marriage Story)</strong>, or experiencing the disappointment of a lost opportunity <strong>(Joker)</strong>.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/1oscarsmonster.jpg" style="height:300px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>We then see how they attempt to reconcile this gap in their world, be it using others for their own gain <strong>(Ford v. Ferrari) </strong>or destroying the things we love most <strong>(Little Women)</strong>. The monster then justifies these actions through their sense of lack <strong>(Parasite) </strong>or to protect those they love the most <strong>(The Irishman)</strong>.</p> <p>The monster’s journey enters a surprisingly menacing phase when their actions become normalized <strong>(1917)</strong>. They fit their actions into the standard way of things just enough to be perceived as someone merely misguided in their choices <strong>(Joker)</strong>, and when they’re rewarded with success, they reinforce their worldview moving forward <strong>(Ford v. Ferrari)</strong>. And thus, they tip into a reality from which there’s no coming back.</p> <p>To perpetuate this worldview, they begin to manipulate the situation to suit their agenda <strong>(The Irishman)</strong>, and they escalate their impact to the point of finally catching the attention of those around them and being labeled as the fiend they are <strong>(Joker)</strong>.</p> <p>And here is where the monster’s journey may diverge, as many live out their lives remaining in wholehearted devotion to the ideals that led to their destructive tendencies <strong>(Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)</strong>. Still, some monsters come to realize that they are the catalyst of the nightmare that consumes their life, they “feel like (they’re) in a dream,” <strong>(Marriage Story)</strong> and seek repentance for their past <strong>(Little Women)</strong>. But because of the nature of their actions, they often pay for it in incarceration <strong>(Joker)</strong> or perpetual isolation <strong>(The Irishman)</strong>.</p> <p>The impact of the monster’s journey reminds us of what’s at stake, be it the next generation of children who may continue the destructive cycle if they’re neglected <strong>(1917)</strong>, or choices that lead to an untimely demise <strong>(Parasite)</strong>. Without vigilance in fighting this monster, we risk enticing the darkest natures of others and creating the nightmare we so greatly fear.</p> <p>But how do we find that vigilance? How can we respond in a way other than pretending that the monstrosity didn’t take place <strong>(Once Upon a Time in Hollywood)</strong>?</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/3oscarsmonster.jpg" style="height:338px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>We see this darker tendency turn around in them when we help them avoid their decline in isolation <strong>(Little Women)</strong>. We have the conversations that will help them to feel connected to another and thus no longer in a spiral of their own suffering <strong>(Marriage Story)</strong>.</p> <p>We must show them how to lean into the differences they see in others not from a place of hate but rather curiosity <strong>(Jojo Rabbit)</strong>.</p> <p>We must help them to move forward, no matter the setbacks they’ve faced.</p> <p>As we study the monster’s journey, we’re shown how the nightmares we suffer through at their hands can come from a surprising place. Eventually, one of my family members did leave me, but not when I was a small child in a parking lot. My nightmare began only months ago when I lost my father to a medical error. I began seeing the word through a darker lens and felt more victimized by the little slights and humiliation that come with everyday life. But as I realized the nightmare I was about to enter, I chose connection over isolation, curiosity over hate.</p> <p>I came to understand the main point that prevented the nightmare before it started.</p> <p> </p> <p><img alt="" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/4oscarsmonster.jpg" style="height:400px; width:600px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>As we move forward in 2020, we are presented with one of the most destructive, polarizing realities we’ve faced in many decades. We are presented with political and economic choices that may determine whether we live out our lives in a nightmare or not.</p> <p>The Academy, through its nine best picture Oscar nominations, was trying to tell us that the nightmare is pending, and that it has a root cause.</p> <p>They may be trying to tell us that the cause is the monster that lurks in each of us.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong>Author Bio: </strong></p> <p><strong><em>Neil Gordon </em></strong><strong><em>is a communications expert focused on helping his clients attract a following using as compelling of a message as possible. His style has been described as “persuasion with heart,” and he has helped his clients double their speaking fees and secure appearances on TV shows like <em>Ellen </em>and <em>Dr. Oz</em>. Gordon formerly worked as an editor at </em></strong><strong>Penguin Random House<em> with </em>New York Times <em>bestselling authors and has been featured on </em>NBC Palm Springs<em>, </em>Forbes, Fortune<em>, and </em>Inc. Magazine.</strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>For Highbrow Magazine</strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/2020-oscars" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">2020 oscars</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/academy-awards" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Academy Awards</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/parasite" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">parasite</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/jojo-rabbit" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">jojo rabbit</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/once-upon-time-hollywood" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">once upon a time in hollywood</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/1917" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1917</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/joker-0" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">joker</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/best-picture-oscar" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">best picture oscar</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Neil Gordon</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Mon, 10 Feb 2020 12:14:10 +0000 tara 9344 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/10396-best-picture-nominations-oscars-unleashed-monsters-journey#comments The Fallen Monarch: Remembering Tsar Nicholas II https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7472-fallen-monarch-remembering-tsar-nicholas-ii <div class="field field-name-field-cat field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even"><a href="/news-features" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">News &amp; Features</a></div></div></div><span class="submitted-by">Submitted by tara on Sun, 03/19/2017 - 15:51</span><div class="field field-name-field-image field-type-image field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="og:image rdfs:seeAlso" resource="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1tsar.jpg?itok=TzuTXUPF"><img typeof="foaf:Image" src="https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/field/image/1tsar.jpg?itok=TzuTXUPF" width="480" height="360" alt="" /></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" property="content:encoded"><p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2017/03/14/exit-tsar/">PunditWire.com</a></strong>:</p> <p> </p> <p>March 15 marked the 100th anniversary of the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II of Russia.</p> <p> </p> <p>The milestone has attracted little notice. It is the opinion of most historians that Nicholas was a failure: feckless, dimwitted, reactionary—and henpecked to boot.</p> <p> </p> <p>But as Robert Massie makes clear in his admirable biography, <em>Nicholas and Alexandra,</em> the real Nicholas was more complex, more human and more interesting than the caricature.</p> <p> </p> <p>Massie notes that Nicholas was as least as intelligent as any other European monarch of his day. Certainly as intelligent as his cousin, George V of England, with whom he had so much in common. Massie is on target when he says that “in England, where a sovereign needed only to be a good man in order to be a good king, Nicholas II would have made an admirable monarch.”</p> <p> </p> <p>Alas, it was Nicholas’s misfortune that he was not born King of England, but Autocrat of All the Russias—a position for which he possessed neither the ability nor the temperament.</p> <p> </p> <p>When Nicholas assumed the throne in 1894, the Tsarist system had clearly outlived its time. It was riddled with dry rot, incompetence and corruption. But it had not entirely lost its vitality. The performance of the Russian Army in the First World War is one example of its residual vigor.</p> <p> </p> <p>When the war broke out in 1914, German strategy was based on the so-called Schlieffen plan. France and Russia were allied against Germany and Austria-Hungary. In order to avoid having to fight a war on two fronts, the Schlieffen plan called for Germany to fight a holding action against Russia in the East, while hurling the bulk of its forces against France. Once the French had been crushed, and Paris occupied, the Germans could turn their full might on the Russians.</p> <p> </p> <p>The plan assumed that the lumbering Russian bear would mobilize slowly. Instead, the bear showed surprising speed and agility. Two Russian armies struck at East Prussia while the Germans were still short of Paris. The unexpectedly swift Russian advance forced the German high command to violate the “inviolable” Schlieffen plan and transfer two army corps and a cavalry division from the French front to meet the Russians in the East. As a result, the weakened German invasion force was stopped just outside the gates of Paris. France was saved.</p> <p> </p> <p>For the next three years, the Imperial Russian Army kept 160 German and Austro-Hungarian divisions tied down in the East. Without Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary would certainly have prevailed against the Allies. When the Bolshevik Revolution forced Russia to drop out of the war in 1917, it was only America’s entry on the side of the Allies that same year that ensured their final victory in 1918.</p> <p> </p> <p><br /> <img alt="" src="/sites/default/files/2tsar.jpg" style="height:407px; width:500px" /></p> <p> </p> <p>Is Nicholas II to be allowed no share of the credit for this outcome? Winston Churchill thought otherwise. Writing a decade later in his World Crisis, he offered a generous but unsentimental assessment of Russia’s last tsar; one that in the interests of fairness should be read alongside the many criticisms. Churchill wrote:</p> <p> </p> <p>“It is the shallow fashion of these times to dismiss the Tsarist regime as a purblind, corrupt, incompetent tyranny. But a survey of its thirty months’ war with Germany and Austria should correct these loose impressions and expose the dominant facts. We may measure the strength of the Russian Empire by the battering it had endured, by the disasters it had survived, by the inexhaustible forces it had developed, and by the recovery it had made. In the governments of states, when great events are afoot, the leader of the nation, whoever he be, is held accountable for failure and vindicated by success. No matter who wrought the toil, who planned the struggle, to the supreme responsible authority belongs the blame or credit.</p> <p> </p> <p>“Why should this stern test be denied to Nicholas II? He had made many mistakes, what ruler has not? He was neither a great captain nor a great prince. He was only a true, simple man of average ability, of merciful disposition, upheld in all his daily life by his faith in God. But the brunt of supreme decisions centered upon him. At the summit where all problems are reduced to Yea or Nay, where events transcend the faculties of man and where all is inscrutable, he had to give the answers. His was the function of the compass needle. War or no war? Advance or retreat? Right or left? Democratize or hold firm? Quit or persevere? These were the battlefields of Nicholas II. Why should he reap no honor from them? The devoted onset of the Russian armies which saved Paris in 1914; the mastered agony of the munitionless retreat; the slowly regathered forces; the victories of Brusilov; the Russian entry upon the campaign of 1917, unconquered, stronger than ever; has he no share in these? In spite of errors vast and terrible, the regime he personified, over which he presided, to which his personal character gave the vital spark, had at this moment won the war for Russia.</p> <p> </p> <p>“He is about to be struck down. A dark hand, gloved at first in folly, now intervenes. Exit Tsar. Deliver him and all he loved to wounds and death. Belittle his efforts, asperse his conduct, insult his memory; but pause then to tell us who else was found capable. Who or what could guide the Russian State? Men gifted and daring; men ambitious and fierce, spirits audacious and commanding—of these there were no lack. But none could answer the few plain questions on which the life and fame of Russia turned.”</p> <p> </p> <p>As Churchill said, Nicholas and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Their bodies were thrown down a mine shaft. Not until after the fall of the Soviet regime were the remains recovered and accorded Christian burial. In the year 2000, the members of Russia’s last imperial family were canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church.</p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Author Bio:</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong><em>Hal Gordon, who wrote speeches for the Reagan White House and Gen. Colin Powell, is currently a freelance speechwriter in Houston. Web site: <a href="http://www.ringingwords.com/">www.ringingwords.com</a>.</em></strong></p> <p> </p> <p><strong>From <a href="http://punditwire.com/2017/03/14/exit-tsar/">PunditWire.com</a></strong></p> </div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-tags field-type-taxonomy-term-reference field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Tags:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/tsar-nicholas-11" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">tsar nicholas 11</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/russian-revolution" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">Russian Revolution</a></div><div class="field-item even" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/bolsheviks" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">bolsheviks</a></div><div class="field-item odd" rel="dc:subject"><a href="/1917" typeof="skos:Concept" property="rdfs:label skos:prefLabel" datatype="">1917</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-author field-type-text field-label-hidden"><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Hal Gordon</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-pop field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Popular:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">not popular</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-photographer field-type-text field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Photographer:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Wikipedia Commons; Google Images</div></div></div><div class="field field-name-field-bot field-type-list-boolean field-label-above"><div class="field-label">Bottom Slider:&nbsp;</div><div class="field-items"><div class="field-item even">Out Slider</div></div></div> Sun, 19 Mar 2017 19:51:15 +0000 tara 7425 at https://www.highbrowmagazine.com https://www.highbrowmagazine.com/7472-fallen-monarch-remembering-tsar-nicholas-ii#comments