When the Leeves Broke

Cruz 1 Carolina Cruz Professor Gwaltney pillowcase 1102 March 14, 2013 When the Levees broke A Rhetorical Analysis It is nearly unattainable to imagine that one day you can be safe in your home and with both of your belongings and the next day a hurricane leaves you with nothing. Unfortunately, the 484,000 mass who lived in natural siege of Orleans had to experience those unimaginable thoughts first go in 2005 due to Hurricane Katrina. An entire city was nearly wiped off the face of the earth (Kellogg) and at least 1,833 mass were killed during and after the storm.There ar universey an(prenominal) theories and conspiracies of what happened with the levees and what could have been done better in order of magnitude to befriend the residents of recent Orleans. Director relegate lee(prenominal) felt real unassailablely nearly-nigh the issue and decided to buzz off a objective in order to move over the people of New Orleans meetice. By directing When the Levees st one-broke, lace Lee gives the inter take hold of his personal spot on the entire dapple dealing with Hurricane Katrina and her aftermath. With his use of video editing and choice of certain interviews, Lee gave not only emotional credibility to his mental picture still overly a logical blossom of view.The main argument of the documentary was to justify the series of until nowts that occurred during and honoring the storm, duration as headspring getting the inside point of views of some of the Hurricane Katrina victims. An some other argument grip Lee was trying to make Cruz 2 was that there was a lot more(prenominal) to the possibility than just the storm. I do believe that Lee did a good chisel in getting his point across in his documentary nevertheless I do not believe it was a truly strong argument. The argument is not truly convincing because not everyones view was included in the blast.It seems that arbor Lee was very biased while making the documentary and had no problem with gestateing it in his film. Though I do somewhat agree with Lees point of view, I do not believe that it was a very well travel argument. In his documentary, Lee confronts the underlying problems that occurred at the time of the hurricane much(prenominal) as racial, cultural and political issues. By adding so much information close to what was actu eachy occurring during Hurricane Katrina in his film, Lee made a very well put together documentary.Lees purpose of making the film was to give the victims their chance to speak out and to show how the poor and underprivileged of New Orleans were mis inured in this grand calamity and still do by today (Chisholm). Lee is a very passionate and outspoken man and he conveyed his message in a modal value where the victims had the upper give way and could speak on the real issues. Had spellbind Lee not been so biased, I think both his argument and documentary could have been excellent. entwine Lee used the Aristot elian appeal of pathos the most end-to-end his documentary in order to catch the earreachs attention.The way he incorporates certain cultural music and photos of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina make the audience more inclined to pay attention. The collection of photographs Lee features in his film not only let us see what was happening during Hurricane Katrina, they also add texture and even further weight to these stories (Kellogg). He does this on purpose in order to make the audience olcircumstanceory sensation kind-heartedness towards all the people who were interviewed as well as those Cruz 3 who passed extraneous due to Hurricane Katrina.The best way Lee kept the attention of the audience was by allowing the people who lived through the disaster to tell their stories (Kellogg). The viewer is more the likely to pay attention if they are stimulated emotionally and that is what Spike Lee aimed for. He also shows the audience how the evacuation process spaced parents fro m children as people were loaded onto buses, by doing this, the audience gets a more in depth view of the disaster and is more likely to feel sad and watch the documentary more.The underlying issue that Lee was trying to explain to the audience was that the storm was damaging by itself, but that was not the true disaster (Chisholm). Some critics do not believe that Spike Lee was meant to make this film because he did not capture everyones point of view. This film is supposed to be close just the victims smell on what they thought roughly the situation dealing with the political science and Hurricane Katrina. I think he was well fit for the job because Lees films have looked unflinchingly at some of the most polarizing subjects (Jacobs) nd it was no surprise that he made this documentary about Hurricane Katrina. There were many criticisms about the documentary such as it did not necessarily discuss all of the people of New Orleans and it gave us a bad view of the government. Lee had his own conspiracy on how the levees were blown up as opposed to just being ruined by the hurricane. Lees film was also criticized because it suggested that the explosion assured that the poor neighborhoods be modify and not the rich developments further down (Jacobs) and that did not take well with the conservative circles.Another reason his documentary was Cruz 4 faulty was because it had a very biased standpoint and Mr. Lees documentary boils with anger and a degree of paranoia (Holden). The three main topics this documentary touched on were those such as politics, cultural issues and racial issues. There were many complaints within the movie about the government from the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The people of New Orleans were outraged by the tardy response of the scouring administration to the crisis (Jacobs).A large portion of the documentary focused on the lack of help from the government, it explained how a few government officials took longer than normal to help with the disaster in New Orleans. The fact that bodies were still being found after F. E. M. A supposedly searched all the houses was a big irritation for the people. F. E. M. A had not been giving the victims the decent care they needed for the amount of time that they had left and that was a very broad(prenominal) c erstwhilern to the people who desperately needed help from F.E. M. A. George Bush and Dick Chaney were also spoken upon in a bad agency as well because they had more important things to do rather than help the dying people of their own country. Just like most of his other films, Spike Lee made his documentary mostly about race. At one point in the movie it explains how the disaster started the racist, vigilante airwave which gave cops and soldiers carte blanche to shoot on sight looters (Onesto) and how they were not afraid to follow through with orders.The majority of the people Lee interviewed were poor and black and were treated very poorly. In this film, Lee i nsinuates that the victims are being treated like slaves and separated from their families. He expresses the truth of how the institutions of white supremacy and the ideas of racism are woven into the very workings of this system of U. S. capitalism (Onesto). Culture is a big deal in Cruz 5 New Orleans the people consider their culture the most important and valuable thing to them.A very large part of the New Orleans culture is Mardi Gras and it was a concern of the people whether they should or should not have the celebration the following division after Hurricane Katrina. Mardi Gras is an annual celebration and even the hurricane could not completely consider the residents of New Orleans down. Spike Lee wanted to show that even though the city looked bad, the people of New Orleans still had their high spirits. All the controversy involving New Orleans such as race, politics and culture lured Spike Lee to make a documentary about the hurricane.Based off his previous films Lee was fit to make this film and did a good job in conveying his message. With this use of enhanced photography and video editing Lee was able to make an informative even captivating film that showed the other side of the story. In his documentary, we can eventually put human faces on the devastation (Jacobs) and realize that these people were once like us in their homes. His film not only allows us to see what occurred in August of 2006, but it lets us hear the undivided stories and realize what we were not told by the government.The documentary gives us the victims view of the disaster and it makes the viewer more aware of the devastation that the people of New Orleans had to face. By making this documentary, Lee not only helped explain the troubles of the victims of Hurricane Katrina but he also let the people come out and express how they felt during the evacuation and rebuilding process. Cruz 6 Works Cited Chisholm, Kenneth. Plot outline for When the Levees Broke A threnody in F our Acts IMDb. IMDb. com, n. d. Web. 8 Mar. 2013. Holden, Stephen. When the Levees Broke Spike Lees Tales From a Broken City. Www. nytimes. com. The New York Times, 21 Aug. 2006. Web. 2013. Jacobs, Jay S. PopEntertainment. com Spike Lee Interview about When the Levees Broke A Requiem in Four Acts. PopEntertainment. com Spike Lee Interview about When the Levees Broke A Requiem in Four Acts. N. p. , 18 Dec. 2006. Web. 6 Mar. 2013. Onesto, Li. Spike Lees When the Levees Broke Bitter Truth About the Crimes in New Orleans. Spike Lees When the Levees Broke Bitter Truth About the Crimes in New Orleans. renewing Newspaper, 27 Aug. 2006. Web. 7 Mar. 2013.