Time Crisis - Up the Yangtze

In the film, Up the Yangtze, we as the audience are able to discern and uncover a number of Killingsworth's appeals to time as discussed in this week's article. Most prevalent of these appeals was the rhetoric of crisis in Yung Chang's film. One scene in particular I believe demonstrates the urgency of building the Three Gorges Dam. In this scene the camera focuses on Cindy’s home and fast-forwards through time showing the rising water level of the Yangtze around the banks of the shack. The exigence in this argument is clear, the Dam must be built quickly in order to preserve as much land as possible. The kairos of this short segment in the film, or the force of the scene, is all in the cinematography. Showing the water progression provides the audience with the appeal to crisis and urgency of time.

As Killingsworth mentions in his article, "The now-focus and crisis rhetoric...becomes even more important as we move into the twentieth century and people's sense of their own power increases with the growth of technology and with globalization." I think the same could be said about the move from the twentieth century to the twenty-first century. With a now-perspective and the increase in people’s power, it is much easier to recognize to the rhetoric of crisis that Killingsworth discusses.