Denby’s (Denis Baya)

Making films are supposed to teach lessons  instead 0f focusing on make a bad film.Denby was referring to the immoral behaviors that are shown in films that keep the crowd coming back for more.  He seemed to of keept a one side to it. The films that are shown showing immoral beahvior teaches people a moral lesson in a way. The antagonist is teaching people who they should not be.  But Denby thinks the immoral behaviors that films produce are not necessary cause people by nature know what is right and wrong.  Denby feels like they are teaching kids the wrong things.

Mutual Decision (Denis Baya)

Ohio state claimed the National Board of Review as unsuccessful. With that being said, Ohio state wanted to have their own censorship board that films must meet to be approved for release. They ripped people off because; each film corporation must pay a fee to the board in order to get reviewed.        

   Mutual Film Corporation sought to go against the state under three terms: This law affected interstate commerce, this law gave power to a group of people that were not elected to make laws and standards about films, and this law violated the first amendment, free speech.After being rejected by the district court, Mutual petitioned to the Supreme Court. In a surprising decision, the court rejected the corporation’s claims. The court accepted that films were a form of expressing opinion, but they were pure business rather than press. The court also said that this law did not affect interstate commerce because the censorship was within the state. In the end, the court disregarded Mutual film corporation claims that delegation boundaries were hazy. 

Hay’s Code-Individual responses(Denis Baya)

Hay’s code goes into detail about how to handle everything including reasons to support to preamble code, reasons supporting the general principles, crimes against the law, religion, vulgarity, titles, sin and evil, etc… It seems that the code is more towards restricting films from any possibility of affecting the public. 

 Hay’s Code addresses the term sin, which really caught my attention. Sins do have the competence to stimulate opinions in the audience according to each individuals request to it. Sins are natural of human, so to portray any image of them would mean portraying their flaws or sins at some point because no one is perfect. Without the attraction element from sin, films would be boring and not worthless to watch. Regarding distinctions between films for the young and those for a mature audience, we all think it is necessary, because even today, movies are rated to protect the young audience from watching immoral images that might inspire them to do the same false action. About crime, there is an agreement in the group that crimes being showed in films could possibly inspire others to be criminals. At the same time, however, not many are so easily affected that they would actually do it. 

Regarding the code’s effort to protect the moral fabric of our society. With that being said, it is important to understand that American society in the 1920’s was far different than America today. Most Americans lived in rural areas, and most did not attend college, because they were to poor.  With that, or population was not an educated, sophisticated audience.  I believe that the code was an important step in the evolution of our cultural history.

1st Ammendment & virginia declaration (Denis Baya)

Critics definitely viewed Scarface as a violent film, because it was the first major gangster film. The Hays Office made numerous changes in the film because they thought the film would manifold to citizens that the gangster lifestyle was approved in society. Nevertheless, when the film debutted, citizens take on the film was disbelieving. There are thousands and thousands of opinions about the film, but most thought it was the most outrageous gangster film of its time. 

   The amendment and section 12, freedom of speech is an essential part of life, and by no means is it to be controlled by the government. According to the two documents the government states that freedom of press and speech are allowed and by no means should be denied to any citizen. According to the documents freedom of speech and press is given to any citizen at their discretion, therefore why is it that Hay’s Office forced Hughes to make changes to the movie. If the government is trying to protect their country against crime and violence then  I think by editing the film it was a good choice given they didn’t want the message of the movie to seem the gangsters were more powerful then the police. Though, the censorship office still denied Hughes his rights.

Scarface-3 endings (Denis Baya)

In the original ending script of Scarface, As Cesca prepares for her own revenge. Gun in hand, she sneaks into Tony’s apartment through the secret enterance, determined to kill her brother; but when she sees him, she couldn’t kill Tony. The police arrive and the two team up for a final fire fight with the police. Tony and Cesca attempt to escape through the secret enterance but do not succeed because the police had the place on lockdown. Tony sounding confident tells his sister that they will take over the North and South.  While Cesca was loading guns for her brother, she was shot by a stray bullet. She starts dying very slowly and starts telling Tony that she is dying and that he will be on his own. Tony starts to panic and becomes scared of being alone. Tony tells Cesca that she can’t leave him. Cesca tells him that he’s afraid and that her husband wasn’t afraid. She also tells him that she doesn’t want to stay with him because he’s afraid, so she dies. Tony couragesely goes down the steps after a tear gas grenade was tossed into his apartment and starts firing at will.  

In the second version of scarface the ending As Cesca prepares for her own revenge. Gun in hand, she sneaks into Tony’s apartment through the secret enterance, determined to kill her brother; but when she sees him, she couldn’t kill Tony. Yet, when the police arrive, she joins him in a fire fight with the police.  While Cesca was loading guns for her brother, she was shot by a stray bullet. She starts dying very slowly and starts telling Tony that she is dying and that he will be on his own. Tony starts to panic and becomes scared of being alone. Tony tells Cesca that she can’t leave him. Cesca tells him that he’s afraid and that her husband wasn’t afraid. She also tells him that she doesn’t want to stay with him because he’s afraid, so she dies. When a police officer tosses a tear gas bomb into his apartment, Tony decides to give up. Whining, almost crawling down the steps, Tony begs for his life once the cops break in. Tony tries to make a break for it but is gunned down by one of the police officers.

In the third version of the ending, Cesca prepares for her own revenge. Gun in hand, she sneaks into Tony’s apartment through the secret enterance, determined to kill her Tony; but when she sees him, she couldn’t kill him. Yet, when the police arrive, she joins him in a fire fight with the police. While Tony and Cesca attempt to escape thru the secret entrance, the police apparently were waiting for them downstairs. Tony locks up his apartment with the steel shutters and laughs with Cesca and also mentions her as one with him.   While Cesca was loading guns for her brother, she was shot by a stray bullet. She starts dying very slowly and starts telling Tony that she is dying and that he will be on his own. Tony starts to panic and becomes scared of being alone. Tony tells Cesca that she can’t leave him. Cesca tells him that he’s afraid and that Rinaldo wasn’t afraid. She also tells him that she doesn’t want to stay with him because he’s afraid, so she dies. Tony starts to panic after a police officer tosses a tear gas grenade into the apartment. Tony starts talking to himself that he has no one and he decides to give up.  Whining, almost crawling down the steps, Tony begs for his life once the cops break in. He becomes a coward and begs for mercy, only to be hanged later on in the movie because of the crimes he committed.

I don’t think that any of the endings of Scarface glorify Camonte. The different endings all have a similar finale. In all of them, Tony is defeated. The differences are the ways Tony is taken down. My view of Tony has not changed due to the three different endings. Whether he tries to escape of surrenders, I still view him as the same person.

Scarface- Comonte (Denis Baya)

        Scarface is one of the major films that defines the American gangster genre in the 1900’s.  Scarface was violent and humorous from the beginning; the movie was also controversial.  My point of  view of the movie was that it was boring at the beginning, but as the movie progressed it started to get more interesting. Some scenes made the movie seem unreal, for instances, the punches that have been thrown  looked fake, as if the fist made no contact which the face.

       I think Paul Muni (Tony Camonte) did a great job of conveying his character’s personality and really making it seem like he was real. With that being said, I could tell that Paul Muni’s character, Tony Camonte’s, is rude, arrogant, over protective and sarcastic.  You can really tell what a character is thinking just by the way they portray themselves and the expressions they do.

    Tony Camonte is a gangster who knows he can get away with anything; Tony is very arrogant and his conduct towards the police officer in the movie was very rude.  When the officer tells Tony to come with him to the police station, Tony moves very slow and portrays his innocence.  He was also very disrespectful when he lit a match on the officers police badge. Another scene shows Tony Camonte being vey over protective of his sister. In the scene Tony spots his sister Casca, making out with a guy.  He got very angry and grabbed her. After he yelled at her, he told her that from now on she will obey him. Later, he gives her money and the mother sees Tony giving it to her and she tells Casca to give it back. She disapproves because she knows the money is dirty. She tells Cesca that Tony is not a good person and that she is starting to become just like him.  In another scene, Camonte works for a man names Johnny Lovo, but by the look of things, Tony wants to run the illegal alcohol business in town and is just using Lovo to get to the top. The film must be glorifying violence, because as Tony beats up people or kills them, he is getting respect and power. With respect and power he is a feared man. I think the film is giving us the impression that in one point in history, gangsters got away with crimes and government officials did nothing about it. 

Introduction-Denis B.

Hello, my name is Denis Baya and this is my second year at George Mason.  My major at George mason is engineering and my minor is mathematics. I was born in Bolivia and raised in Virginia. I am bilingual, I speak both English and Spanish.  What I do outside of school is, work and play basketball most of the time.  I’ve been working at Sears in Potomac mills, for the past year and a half and what I do there is sell appliances. Other than work, like I mentioned, I play non-competitive basketball throughout the school year, but in the summer I play competitive basketball for some Summer League teams in Washington D.C., and my role on most of those teams is, being the backup point guard.