Tag: Film
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Inside Out: Family meetings avoid putting the foot down
Family meetings are more than just a way to promote cooperation and joint decision making. Family meetings also provide an opportunity to respectfully discuss family disagreements and negotiate solutions. In the meetings, each family member is given time to talk and everyone else listens to understand each other. Most importantly, family members get to share…
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Bridge of Spies: Pre-mediation conference avoids being left out in the cold
In Stephen Spielberg’s movie Bridge of Spies, Tom Hanks portrayed Jim Donovan, an attorney who engaged in an historical negotiation. During the Cold War, Jim was enlisted by the CIA to be the negotiator in an exchange of accused spies. This exchange took place on the Glienicke Bridge spanning between East Germany and West Berlin. However,…
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Elaine Stritch’s Shoot Me: Giving up the car keys
For an elder, few things are as symbolic of the loss of freedom as the phrase “giving up the car keys.” Elaine Stritch illustrates this well in her documentary Shoot Me, filmed when she was 86 years old. At the beginning of the documentary, it was clear how full of life she was walking the…
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Finding Vivian Maier: Exposing conflict like a street photographer
Street photographers have an eye for seeing reality from new perspectives. Just as film is exposed to light, street photographers can teach us how to expose our understanding to the reality of our conflicts. The documentary Finding Vivian Maier from John Maloof gives an inside look at a 20th century street photographer, Vivian, who was a…
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The Martian: Feeling stranded by conflict
I hope none of us are ever in such dire straits as Mark Watney, the character from the book The Martian by Andy Weir and played by Matt Damon in the movie. Yet, despite Mark’s predicament of being stranded on Mars and his immense loneliness and desperation, he never lost sight of the importance of…