The Black Scar

We are privileged to gain insight as to Maya Lin’s monuments, the reasons behind these creations, and the specifics as to why the designs and monuments look as they do today. Although she is a very skilled architect and creates very moving sculptures, I don’t think that her there was anything rhetorical to be deducted from the movie (we don’t have to look very hard to figure out how she connected with the audience, etc.). She comes out right and says why she made the sculpture the way she did and why certain elements were used or not; she specifically mentioned the purpose and what she hoped for people to take away from her artwork.

However, this is not to down play Maya’s intelligence. It is actually the opposite. By telling us all of her thoughts on the sculptures she made she is reinforcing her knowledge of rhetoric—the rhetoric of images rather than spoken or written word. Rhetoric is about the relationship the author has with the audience. Maya took the time and effort to research these particular groups and try to understand their cause thereby allowing here to appeal to their emotions. With the Martin Luther King memorial, Maya attempted to understand the pressure and pain the people who would visit the memorial, at least initially, would feel. Part of rhetoric is connecting with the audience through personal experiences (i.e. Jon Stewart’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame speech) and Maya, going through the pain, doubt, and pressures she experienced while building the Vietnam Memorial, was able to relate, in a way, with the family members at the memorial—not in a physical way mind you, but rather in an emotional way; the way the water moved around the ellipse and how it tied into the words inscribed into the marble.

I, like Ron, could not find a rhetorical message in the film. It appeared as if the director was just highlighting Maya's life centered around architecture. Unlike the previous films which, due to political context I assume, had a clear and defined message, this one seemed blank, as if it was a simple biography.