Blossoming Flowers & Frog Rain
Before the opening credits role we are shown three different scenes, all of which involve what some would see as coincidence, but what others would see as fate. A pharmacist is murdered one night in a town called Greenberry Hill by three men who were attempting to rob him, their names being Green, Berry, and Hill. A scuba-diver is lifted by an airplane carrying water to extinguish a forest fire and dies second after falling from the plane, which is being flown by a man who interacted with the scuba-diver just days before at a casino. Finally, a boy tries to commit suicide by jumping off of his building's roof top, but is then killed by a bullet being shot threw a window three stories down by his mother, who is arguing with his father and who is threatening him with a gun that the boy has loaded several days earlier. The boy then falls on a net that had been installed for window washers which would have saved his life were it not for this incredible sequence of events. Magnolia, as keenly noted by James Berardinelli, a reviewer for the New York Times, "deals with the effects of physical and spiritual cancer on individuals and their families." It is the story of Earl Partridge the producer of a television show called "What
All of these things that seem so dependent on coincidence and on the philosophy that anything can happen, I think truly make us appreciate them when they do happen. We learn to appreciate the love which we receive and, like Donnie Smith, the love we have to give. It would be comforting to think that since the ending is so experimental, that there is a lot of reasoning behind it and all of the subliminality. However, after reading an interview with the writer/director, this is clearly not the case. When asked about the scripts biblical overtones, Anderson said "Exodus 8:2 (describes) the plague of frogs in the Bible. The funny thing is, my reasons for using the plague of frogs aren't exactly biblical. I didn't even know it was in the Bible until after I wrote the script. The rain of frogs is something that really happens. Did you know that? It's a true thing. Right after I got done writing the script I found out it was in the Bible. So then I became very interested in looking at the Bible and figuring out what it meant there. I just thought it was a fun directorial, bored-on-the-set thing to do, to plant 8:2s all over the place." However, upon further research, I discovered that Anderson was right and that there have been times throughout history where it actually has rained frogs. According to a website that deals with strange but true facts, "such events are caused when a wind storm passes over a pond or lake teaming with frogs, picking them up and dumping them elsewhere!" This website then goes on to quote a newspaper story from 1997 which reports "CULIACAN, Mexico- It rained toads in the town of Villa Angel Flores. A small tornado whirl
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1120
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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