The Eagle Huntress follows Aisholpan, a 13-year-old girl, as she trains to become the first female in twelve generations of her Kazakh family to become an eagle hunter. How do you tell the story of a young girl on the ground and her eagle in the air, set in remote parts of Mongolia, sometimes in sub-zero temperatures? Read the In Eagle's Shadow Fist movie synopsis, view the movie trailer, get cast and crew information, see movie photos, and more on Movies.com. THE EAGLE HUNTRESS follows 13-year-old Aisholpan Nurgaiv as she prepares to compete in the Annual Golden Eagle Festival which would overturn 2,000 years of. Arts & Literature. The whole idea behind a liberal arts education is to teach people how to process and generalize information, not just how. No disrespect, but... Is my commander going to send me a poem and ask me to explicate it? I considered actually assigning him some research on the subject for his first journal, or perhaps incorporating this in my classes next semester as a beginning essay: why is the close study of literature so important and enduring? While I love all the . You'll find some overlap here and there, but each outcome, I think, is unique. I'd like your thoughts on the list, additions to it, and expansions on ideas already listed, please. To benefit from the insight of others. ![]() Director Otto Bell’s The Eagle Huntress made a pretty big splash earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival when it became the first documentary to debut in. A photographer who snapped what could be the world's only girl hunting with a golden eagle says watching her work was an amazing sight.![]() The body of world literature contains most available knowledge about humanity- -our beliefs, our self- perception, our philosophies, our assumptions and our interactions with the world at large. Some of life's most important lessons are subtly expressed in our art. We learn these lessons only if we pause to think about what we read. Why would anyone bury important ideas? Because some ideas cannot be expressed adequately in simple language, and because the lessons we have to work for are the ones that stick with us. To open our minds to ambiguities of meaning. If you go through life expecting people to play by your rules, you'll only be miserable, angry and disappointed. You won't change them. Ambiguity, double entendres and nuance give our language depth and endless possibility. To explore other cultures and beliefs. History, anthropology and religious studies provide a method of learning about the cultures and beliefs of others from the outside looking in. Literature, on the other hand, allows you to experience the cultures and beliefs of others first- hand, from the inside looking out. The only other way to have such a personal understanding of others' beliefs are to adopt them yourself- -which most of us aren't willing to do. If you understand where other people are coming from, you are better equipped to communicate meaningfully with them- -and they with you. To appreciate why individuals are the way they are. Each person we meet represents a unique concoction of knowledge, beliefs, and experiences. In our own culture we find an infinite variety of attitudes and personalities, hatreds and bigotries, and assumptions. With each exposure to those who differ from us, we expand our minds. We may still reject their beliefs and assumptions, but we're one step closer to understanding them. ![]() To expand our grasp of the machinations of history. History and literature are inextricably entertwined. History is not just names and dates and politics and wars and power. History is about people who were products of their time with their own intricately- woven value systems. Study of literature enhances our appreciation of history's complexity, which in turn expands our appreciation of present political complexities and better equips us to predict and prepare for the future. To exercise our brains. Our brains need exercise just like our bodies do. Don't balk at picking up the barbell and doing a few mental curls. Great literature has hidden meanings that won't slap us in the face like childrens' books will; we'll have to dig and analyze like an adult to find the gold. To teach us to see individual bias. In a sense, each of us is an unreliable or naive narrator, but most of us mindlessly accept the stories of certain friends or family without qualification. We should remember that they are centers of their own universes, though, just like we are. They are first- person narrators- -not omniscient- -just like we are. The only thing that suffers when we appreciate individual bias is our own gullibility. To encourage us to question . As children, most of us were taught to believe what we're told and those basic hypotheses provide our schemas, or building blocks of knowledge. As we grow, we learn to question some ideas while rejecting the offensively alien ideas outright, often without real examination. However, human progress often results from the rejection of assumed . The more ideas we expose yourself to, the more of our own assumptions we can root out to question and either discard or ground our lives in. To help us see ourselves as others do. Literature is a tool of self- examination. You will see your own personality or habits or assumptions in literature. The experience may even be painful. While our ego defense systems help us avoid self- scrutiny and ignore others' observations or reactions to us, literature serves as a mirror, revealing us to ourselves in all our naked, undefended glory. To appreciate the contributions literature has made to history. The pen is mightier than the sword, yes? When a country undergoes regime change, the new regime imprisons, exiles or executes the intelligentsia- -scholars and philosophers- -who are seen as the keepers of the culture, creators of ideology, and instigators of revolt. See Russian, Chinese, and German history for examples. In American history, see the copious examples of pro- and anti- slavery literature as well as Thomas Paine's and Thomas Jefferson's contributions to the American Revolution. Literature shows you the human tragedy. To further our mastery of language. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words build and destroy nations. Study of literature hones our language skills and teaches us new and valuable techniques for communication. A master of language can seduce your emotions and inspire you to follow him into death- -or he can crush your will with a word. Language is the single most important tool of leadership and great leaders embrace its study. To recognize language devices and appreciate their emotional power. Like good music, poetry uses wordplay, rhythm, and sounds to lull the reader into an emotional fog, and therein deliver its message. Great leaders learn to harness these techniques of communication and persuasion. Listen closely to effective advertisements and politicians and lawyers. Listen to the pleasing rhythm and wordplay of their mantras, and watch the sheep blithely flock to them: . To explore ethical complexities. Only children find ethical rules cut and dried. Literature forces readers to challenge their simplistic ethical conceptions and sometimes their outright condemnation of others' actions. For example, we believe lying is wrong. Have you ever met a person rude enough to follow this rule implicitly? Be advised, though: ethical exploration is a mature endeavor; it is not for the thin- skinned. To see the admirable in everyday life. We are surrounded by unsung nobility and sacrifice. Once we learn to see it in the actions of common folk, our lives will be forever richer, as will our faith in humanity itself. To learn better ways to behave. An untold amount of our opinions and words and reactions are absorbed during childhood and from our culture. Literature teaches us better courses of action and more effective responses to situations.. To know we aren't alone. Others have been where we are, have felt as we feel, have believed as we believe. Paradoxically, we are unique just like everyone else. Others were here and they survived.. To refine our judgment. This involves several aspects of reading: exposure to new ideas and new ways of looking at old assumptions, expanded vocabulary and understanding, and improved ability to write. Altogether, these benefits refine our ability to think, and thus guide us toward informed, mature judgment. To learn to support our points of view and trust our own interpretations. We provide evidence for our interpretation of a story or poem when we explicate it. When we build a solid case in support of our opinion, we build self- confidence in our own interpretations of language itself. To develop empathy for those who are unlike us. Literature can train and exercise our ability to weep for those who are not us or ours. As children, our circles of concern stop with ourselves. As we grow, we expand those circles to our families and friends, and perhaps to our neighborhoods, towns, cities, states or countries. Our study of literature continues to expand that realm of concern beyond the things we physically experience. To expand our vocabularies. New words are tools for grasping new ideas. Each new idea is a building block upon which we may acquire more knowledge. It's a place from which we hear about movies we may get a chance to see later - independent films in particular. Critic Kenneth Turan gets to see those movies now. Hi, Ken. KENNETH TURAN, BYLINE: Hey, Steve. How are you doing? INSKEEP: OK, so what's catching your eye? TURAN: Well, what's catching my eye is what caught everyone's eye. It's a new film by Kenneth Lonergan. And his new film is also set in the American Northeast. It's in a town north of Boston. The hero is a man played by Casey Affleck who's kind of a misanthropic soul. He's really angry at the world. His older brother dies. He ends up having to be the guardian of the older brother's son. He really doesn't want to do this. He especially doesn't want to move back to Manchester- by- the- Sea where he has a really tragic past. INSKEEP: And Casey Affleck has been in this area before, this sort of North Eastern thriller, and been very effective. TURAN: Absolutely, and he's really the best he's ever been in this role. It's a film that really mixes heartbreak and humor. This is a film that feels so lifelike, people literally are already talking about Oscar nominations even though The Oscars are more than a year away. INSKEEP: Wow, OK. So you're also watching at least one documentary. In Mongolia, there's a 2. And a 1. 3- year- old girl, whose father and grandfather are eagle hunters, decides she wants to do it too. And it's beautiful - just beautiful out there. INSKEEP: What's the landscape look like? TURAN: Well, you see it all during the year. Part of it is barren, it's very snowy. It's really - the director said, it's not the end of the world, but you can see it from there. INSKEEP: And it sounds like the star of this film, to some extent, is, well, the eagles. TURAN: The eagles are amazing. The young girl is really amazing. She and her family came to Park City and they're here and they're doing photo ops. This is really kind of a dizzying place sometimes. INSKEEP: The photo ops with the eagles? TURAN: They couldn't bring their own eagles because obviously you can't be transporting eagles, but the Comanche Nation of Oklahoma provided eagles. INSKEEP: OK, so quite a show there. We've got teenagers, we've got birds and some other documentaries there, right? What are you watching? TURAN: Yes, there are two documentaries I really like. They are both having to do with film, but film figures in them in an unusual way. The first one's called . He really loved those films, and they brought him back. The other film with film in it is . He was distraught that his country's films were so bad. And being a despot, he kidnapped South Korea's top actress and South Korea's top director, who happened to be husband- and- wife. He brought them to North Korea, and he made them make films for him. And, you know, this is a documentary. You hear the people talking. You hear recordings of Kim Jong- Il's voice talking about this. This is really quite a story. INSKEEP: Really sounds like two pretty amazing stories there. I want to come back to that first one, Ken. You loving films as you do must have loved sitting there watching this documentary of a kid being brought back to his voice, anyway, by watching Disney animation. TURAN: You are so right. I mean, it really was kind of amazing to see the power of film. It's something we forget so easily, but the power of film to do good really is strong in this film. INSKEEP: Kenneth Turan reviews movies for MORNING EDITION and the Los Angeles Times. He's at the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Ken, thanks. TURAN: Thank you, Steve. Copyright . This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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