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Little Man Tate

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63-488: Little Man Tate is a 1991 American drama film directed by Jodie Foster (in her directorial debut ) from a screenplay written by Scott Frank . The film stars Adam Hann-Byrd as Fred Tate, a seven-year-old child prodigy who struggles to self-actualize in social and psychological settings that largely fail to accommodate his intelligence . It also stars Foster, Dianne Wiest , Harry Connick Jr. , David Hyde Pierce , Debi Mazar and P.J. Ochlan . Little Man Tate

126-455: A genius . Fred's reading and mathematics abilities are remarkable, and he plays the piano "at competition level", but his intellect has isolated him from his public school classmates. He calls his mother, who loves him unconditionally, by her first name. Fred's abilities come to the attention of Jane Grierson, a former music prodigy and now a psychologist running a school for gifted children. She asks permission from Dede to admit Fred to

189-520: A "rage to master") the cerebellum accelerates the streamlining of the efficiencies of working memory in its manipulation and decomposition/re-composition of visual-spatial content into language acquisition and into linguistic, mathematical, and artistic precocity. Essentially, Vandervert has argued that when a child is confronted with a challenging new situation, visual-spatial working memory and speech-related and other notational system-related working memory are decomposed and re-composed (fractionated) by

252-462: A better understanding of the film. According to the taxonomy, combining the type with the genre does not create a separate genre. For instance, the "Horror Drama" is simply a dramatic horror film (as opposed to a comedic horror film). "Horror Drama" is not a genre separate from the horror genre or the drama type. Crime dramas explore themes of truth, justice, and freedom, and contain the fundamental dichotomy of "criminal vs. lawman". Crime films make

315-423: A broader range of moods . To these ends, a primary element in a drama is the occurrence of conflict —emotional, social, or otherwise—and its resolution in the course of the storyline. All forms of cinema or television that involve fictional stories are forms of drama in the broader sense if their storytelling is achieved by means of actors who represent ( mimesis ) characters . In this broader sense, drama

378-512: A child in mathematics, but he taught himself algorithms and tricks for calculatory speed, becoming capable of extremely complex mental math. His brain, compared to six other controls, was studied using the PET scan, revealing separate areas of his brain that he manipulated to solve complex problems. Some of the areas that he and presumably prodigies use are brain sectors dealing in visual and spatial memory, as well as visual mental imagery . Other areas of

441-472: A field of expertise, is capable of holding relevant information for extended periods, usually hours. For example, experienced waiters have been found to hold the orders of up to twenty customers in their heads while they serve them, but perform only as well as an average person in number-sequence recognition. The PET scans also answer questions about which specific areas of the brain associate themselves with manipulating numbers. One subject never excelled as

504-526: A greater demand for visuospatial information processing and visual-motor imagination in abacus mental calculation. Additionally, the right middle frontal gyrus activation is suggested to be the neuroanatomical link between prodigies’ abacus mental calculation and the visuospatial working memory.  This activation serves a mediation effect on the correlation between abacus-based mental calculation and visuospatial working memory . A training-induced neuroplasticity regarding working memory performance for children

567-580: A live performance, it has also been used to describe the more high-brow and serious end of the dramatic output of radio . The Screenwriters Taxonomy contends that film genres are fundamentally based upon a film's atmosphere, character and story, and therefore the labels "drama" and "comedy" are too broad to be considered a genre. Instead, the taxonomy contends that film dramas are a "Type" of film; listing at least ten different sub-types of film and television drama. Docudramas are dramatized adaptations of real-life events. While not always completely accurate,

630-435: A lot and knows a lot but is only gradually beginning to understand a lot, we can hear echoes, perhaps, of a young girl who once found it more interesting to study French than get her picture in the fan magazines". Drama (film and television) In film and television , drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction ) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind

693-685: A more central component of the story, along with serious content.  Examples include Three Colours: White (1994), The Truman Show (1998), The Man Without a Past (2002), The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2011), and Silver Linings Playbook (2012). Coined by film professor Ken Dancyger , these stories exaggerate characters and situations to the point of becoming fable, legend or fairy tale.  Examples: Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009) and Maleficent (2014). Light dramas are light-hearted stories that are, nevertheless, serious in nature.  Examples: The Help (2011) and The Terminal (2004). Psychological dramas are dramas that focus on

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756-633: A person's life and raises their level of importance. The "small things in life" feel as important to the protagonist (and the audience) as the climactic battle in an action film, or the final shootout in a western.  Often, the protagonists deal with multiple, overlapping issues in the course of the film – just as we do in life.  Films of this type/genre combination include: The Wrestler (2008), Fruitvale Station (2013), and Locke (2013). Romantic dramas are films with central themes that reinforce our beliefs about love (e.g.: themes such as "love at first sight", "love conquers all", or "there

819-520: A poem by Matt Montini, one of his former grade school classmates) before taking off his microphone and walking out of the studio. Jane is unable to find Fred, and she and her assistant Garth communicate with Dede. Dede suspects Fred has gone home to their apartment, and flies back. She finds him there, and embraces him, with him calling her "mom.” Jane appears at the door, and upon seeing that Fred has what he needs, turns and walks away. One year later, Fred continues to attend Jane’s school and has adjusted to

882-477: A ride on his moped and shows him things such as how to shoot pool; it is good for Fred to spend time with someone who's not a genius. However, when he walks into Eddie's room while he's in bed with a woman, Fred runs out and Eddie chases after him. Eddie explains that he cannot be a babysitter for Fred; although he enjoys his company, Fred needs to find friends closer to his own age. The return to isolation takes its toll on Fred, as he suffers from nightmares in which he

945-566: A significant point, perhaps at the agricultural-religious settlements of Göbekli Tepe or Cyprus . Some researchers believe that prodigious talent tends to arise as a result of the innate talent of the child, and the energetic and emotional investment that the child ventures. Others believe that the environment plays the dominant role, many times in obvious ways. For example, László Polgár set out to raise his children to be chess players, and all three of his daughters went on to become world-class players (two of whom are grandmasters ), emphasising

1008-464: A specific approach to drama but, rather, consider drama as a lack of comedic techniques.  Examples: Ghost World (2001) and Wuthering Heights (2011). According to the Screenwriters' Taxonomy, all film descriptions should contain their type (comedy or drama) combined with one (or more) of the eleven super-genres. This combination does not create a separate genre, but rather, provides

1071-452: A teaching position at Harvard Noting that the cerebellum acts to streamline the speed and efficiency of all thought processes, Vandervert explained the abilities of prodigies in terms of the collaboration of working memory and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. Citing extensive imaging evidence, Vandervert first proposed this approach in two publications which appeared in 2003. In addition to imaging evidence, Vandervert's approach

1134-412: Is a mode distinct from novels, short stories , and narrative poetry or songs . In the modern era, before the birth of cinema or television, "drama" within theatre was a type of play that was neither a comedy nor a tragedy . It is this narrower sense that the film and television industries, along with film studies , adopted. " Radio drama " has been used in both senses—originally transmitted in

1197-526: Is a final fight to the death; the idea of the protagonists facing death is a central expectation in a war drama film. In a war film even though the enemy may out-number, or out-power, the hero, we assume that the enemy can be defeated if only the hero can figure out how.   Examples include: Apocalypse Now (1979), Come and See (1985), Braveheart (1995), Life Is Beautiful (1997), Black Book (2006), The Hurt Locker (2008), 1944 (2015), Wildeye (2015), and 1917 (2019). Films in

1260-530: Is more plastic . Besides the quality of practice, and the parental investment, the experience of flow during the practice is important for efficient and adequate practice for music prodigies. Practice demands high levels of concentration, which is hard for children in general, but flow can provide inherent pleasures of the practice to ensure this focused work. PET scans performed on several mathematics prodigies have suggested that they think in terms of long-term working memory (LTWM). This memory , specific to

1323-559: Is not always maintained into adulthood. Some researchers have found that gifted children fall behind due to lack of effort. Jim Taylor, professor at the University of San Francisco, theorizes that this is because gifted children experience success at an early age with little to no effort and may not develop a sense of ownership of success. Therefore, these children might not develop a connection between effort and outcome. Some children might also believe that they can succeed without effort in

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1386-419: Is proposed. A study examining German calculating prodigies also proposed a similar reason for exceptional calculation abilities. Excellent working memory capacities and neuroplastic changes brought by extensive practice would be essential to enhance this domain-specific skill. "My mother said that I should finish high school and go to college first." Saul Kripke in response to an invitation to apply for

1449-421: Is someone out there for everyone"); the story typically revolves around characters falling into (and out of, and back into) love. Annie Hall (1977), The Notebook (2004), Carol (2015), Her (2013) , and La La Land (2016) are examples of romance dramas. The science fiction drama film is often the story of a protagonist (and their allies) facing something "unknown" that has the potential to change

1512-445: Is supported by the substantial award-winning studies of the cerebellum by Masao Ito. Vandervert provided extensive argument that, in the prodigy, the transition from visual-spatial working memory to other forms of thought (language, art, mathematics) is accelerated by the unique emotional disposition of the prodigy and the cognitive functions of the cerebellum. According to Vandervert, in the emotion-driven prodigy (commonly observed as

1575-408: Is treated as a freak and an outsider. Jane is asked to bring Fred onto a TV panel discussion show on the topic of gifted children. Fred attends but breaks down. Dede tunes into the program from Florida and reacts immediately to Fred’s visual appearance, remarking to herself, “you look like hell, kid.” On the air, Fred claims his mother is dead, and recites a childish poem (a word-for-word repetition of

1638-422: Is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-genre, macro-genre, or micro-genre, such as soap opera , police crime drama , political drama , legal drama , historical drama , domestic drama , teen drama , and comedy-drama (dramedy). These terms tend to indicate a particular setting or subject matter, or they combine a drama's otherwise serious tone with elements that encourage

1701-830: The Autism-spectrum quotient (AQ) were reported in both first-degree relatives of child prodigies and of autism, which was higher than normal prevalence. Some autistic traits can be found among prodigies. Firstly, the social function of arithmetic prodigies may be weaker because of larger activation in certain brain areas enhancing their arithmetic performance, which is also essential for social and emotional functions (i.e., precuneus, lingual and fusiform gyrus). These neuroplastic changes in neural networks may modulate their social performances in terms of emotional face processing and emotional evaluation of complex social interactions. Nevertheless, this emotional or social modulation must not score at psychopathological levels. Additionally,

1764-915: The Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity House, in Oxford, Ohio ; and both the Wexner Center and the Ohio Theater in Columbus, Ohio . In its opening weekend in North America , Little Man Tate was #6 at the box office, grossing $ 2.3 million. The film grossed a total of $ 25 million domestically, against a $ 10 million budget becoming a commercial success. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gives Little Man Tate an approval rating of 71% based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.30/10. On Metacritic ,

1827-763: The western super-genre often take place in the American Southwest or Mexico, with a large number of scenes occurring outdoors so we can soak in scenic landscapes. Visceral expectations for the audience include fistfights, gunplay, and chase scenes. There is also the expectation of spectacular panoramic images of the countryside including sunsets, wide open landscapes, and endless deserts and sky.   Examples of western dramas include: True Grit (1969) and its 2010 remake , Mad Max (1979), Unforgiven (1992), No Country for Old Men (2007), Django Unchained (2012), Hell or High Water (2016), and Logan (2017). Some film categories that use

1890-493: The Apes (1968), A Clockwork Orange (1971), Blade Runner (1982) and its sequel Blade Runner 2049 (2017), Children of Men (2006), Interstellar (2014), and Arrival (2016). In the sports super-genre, characters will be playing sports. Thematically, the story is often one of "Our Team" versus "Their Team"; their team will always try to win, and our team will show the world that they deserve recognition or redemption;

1953-429: The ability to understand and reason using concepts framed in words. However, this positive link is absent among adult experts. Remarkably, in the sample of chess prodigies, the more intelligent children played chess worse. This is considered as the result of less practice time of more intelligent chess skills. Practice-plasticity-processes (PPP) model was proposed to explain the existence of chess prodigies by integrating

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2016-407: The audience jump through a series of mental "hoops"; it is not uncommon for the crime drama to use verbal gymnastics to keep the audience and the protagonist on their toes.   Examples of crime dramas include: The Godfather (1972), Chinatown (1974), Goodfellas (1990), The Usual Suspects (1995), The Big Short (2015), and Udta Punjab (2016). According to Eric R. Williams ,

2079-497: The brain is, the easier it is for them to acquire chunks, templates, and heuristics for better performance. On the other hand, inherited individual differences in the brain are circumscribed children to learn these skills. Music prodigies usually express their talents in exceptional performance or composition. The Multifactorial Gene-Environment Interaction Model incorporates the roles of adequate practice, certain personality traits, elevated IQ, and exceptional working memory in

2142-664: The brain showed use by the subject, including a sector of the brain generally related to childlike "finger counting", probably used in his mind to relate numbers to the visual cortex . This finding is consistent with the introspective report of this calculating prodigy, which states that he used visual images to encode and retrieve numerical information in LTWM. Compared to short-term memory strategies, used by normal people on complex mathematical problems, encoding and retrieval episodic memory strategies would be more efficient. The prodigy may switch between these two strategies, which reduce

2205-460: The brilliant but slightly bizarre "Mathemagician" Damon Wells, a whiz at math who wears a black cape wherever he goes. After Fred unintentionally upstages Damon at one of the competitions at Odyssey of the Mind, the latter is upset with the former. Damon, however, warms up to Fred when out horseback riding on Jane's ranch, and is Fred's first insight to a world outside academia. Damon tells him: "It's not

2268-473: The cerebellum and then blended in the cerebral cortex in an attempt to deal with the new situation. In child prodigies, Vandervert believes this blending process is accelerated due to their unique emotional sensitivities which result in high levels of repetitious focus on, in most cases, particular rule-governed knowledge domains. He has also argued that child prodigies first began to appear about 10,000 years ago when rule-governed knowledge had accumulated to

2331-533: The characters' inner life and psychological problems. Examples: Requiem for a Dream (2000), Oldboy (2003), Babel (2006), Whiplash (2014), and Anomalisa (2015) Satire can involve humor, but the result is typically sharp social commentary that is anything but funny. Satire often uses irony or exaggeration to expose faults in society or individuals that influence social ideology.  Examples: Thank You for Smoking (2005) and Idiocracy (2006). Straight drama applies to those that do not attempt

2394-588: The contribution of deliberate practice over their innate talent to prodigies' exceptional performance in chess. The deliberate practice is energy-consuming and requires attention to correct mistakes. As prodigies start formal chess training early with intense dedication to deliberate practice, they may accumulate enough deliberate practice for their exceptional performance. Therefore, this framework provide an arguably reasonable justification for chess prodigies. However, similar amounts of practice also make children differ in their achievements because of other factors such as

2457-473: The course of the film. Thematically, horror films often serve as morality tales, with the killer serving up violent penance for the victims' past sins.  Metaphorically, these become battles of Good vs. Evil or Purity vs. Sin.  Psycho (1960), Halloween (1978), The Shining (1980), The Conjuring (2013), It (2017), mother! (2017), and Hereditary (2018) are examples of horror drama films. Day-in-the-life films takes small events in

2520-400: The explanation of music prodigies. A study comparing current and former prodigies with normal people and musicians who showed their talents or were trained later in life to test this model. It found prodigies neither have exceptional performance in terms of IQ, working memory, nor specific personality. This study also emphasises the significance of frequent practice early in life, when the brain

2583-481: The family as a whole reacts to a central challenge. There are four micro-genres for the family drama: Family Bond , Family Feud , Family Loss , and Family Rift . A sub-type of drama films that uses plots that appeal to the heightened emotions of the audience. Melodramatic plots often deal with "crises of human emotion, failed romance or friendship, strained familial situations, tragedy, illness, neuroses, or emotional and physical hardship". Film critics sometimes use

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2646-427: The film has a weighted average score of 71 out of 100 based on 5 reviews, indicating "generally favourable reviews". Roger Ebert gave the film three and a half stars out of four and commented on how the film's premise is similar to Foster's life, saying; " Little Man Tate is the kind of movie you enjoy watching; it's about interesting people finding out about themselves and as Foster creates this little man who sees

2709-418: The future as well. Dr. Anders Ericcson, professor at Florida State University, researches expert performance in sports, music, mathematics, and other activities. His findings demonstrate that prodigiousness in childhood is not a strong indicator of later success. Rather, the number of hours devoted to the activity was a better indicator. Rosemary Callard-Szulgit and other educators have written extensively about

2772-416: The future of humanity; this unknown may be represented by a villain with incomprehensible powers, a creature we do not understand, or a scientific scenario that threatens to change the world; the science fiction story forces the audience to consider the nature of human beings, the confines of time or space or the concepts of human existence in general. Examples include: Metropolis (1927), Planet of

2835-717: The general facts are more-or-less true. The difference between a docudrama and a documentary is that in a documentary it uses real people to describe history or current events; in a docudrama it uses professionally trained actors to play the roles in the current event, that is "dramatized" a bit. Examples: Black Mass (2015) and Zodiac (2007). Unlike docudramas, docu-fictional films combine documentary and fiction, where actual footage or real events are intermingled with recreated scenes. Examples: Interior. Leather Bar (2013) and Your Name Here (2015). Many otherwise serious productions have humorous scenes and characters intended to provide comic relief . A comedy drama has humor as

2898-416: The hallmark of fantasy drama films is "a sense of wonderment, typically played out in a visually intense world inhabited by mythic creatures, magic or superhuman characters. Props and costumes within these films often belie a sense of mythology and folklore – whether ancient, futuristic, or other-worldly. The costumes, as well as the exotic world, reflect the personal, inner struggles that the hero faces in

2961-418: The legal system. Films that focus on dramatic events in history. Focuses on doctors, nurses, hospital staff, and ambulance saving victims and the interactions of their daily lives. Focuses on teenage characters, especially where a secondary school setting plays a role. Child prodigy A child prodigy is, technically, a child under the age of 10 who produces meaningful work in some domain at

3024-706: The level of an adult expert. The term is also applied more broadly to describe young people who are extraordinarily talented in some field. The term wunderkind (from German Wunderkind ; literally "wonder child") is sometimes used as a synonym for child prodigy, particularly in media accounts. Wunderkind also is used to recognise those who achieve success and acclaim early in their adult careers. Generally, prodigies in all domains are suggested to have relatively elevated IQ , extraordinary memory, and exceptional attention to detail. Significantly, while math and physics prodigies may have higher IQs, this may be an impediment to art prodigies. K. Anders Ericsson emphasised

3087-437: The physical abacus act as visual proxies of each digit for prodigies to solve complex computations. This one-to-one corresponding structure allows them to rapidly encode and retrieve digits in the long-term working memory during the calculation. The fMRI scans showed stronger activation of brain areas related to visual processing for Chinese children being trained with abacus mental compared to control groups. This may indicate

3150-483: The potency a child's environment can have in determining the pursuits toward which a child's energy will be directed, and showing that an incredible amount of skill can be developed through suitable training. Co-incidence theory explains the development of prodigies with a continuum of the discussion of nature and nurture. This theory states that the integrative of various factors in the development and expression of human potential, including: Prodigiousness in childhood

3213-438: The practice extreme and innate talent extreme theories. Besides deliberate practice, neuroplasticity is identified as another critical component for developing chess heuristics (e.g., simple search techniques and abstract rules like “occupy the centre”), chunks (e.g., group of pieces locating in specific squares), and templates (e.g., familiarised complex patterns of chunks), which are essential for chess skills. The more plastic

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3276-420: The pressures of being a child genius, particularly after an even younger student is admitted to Jane's school. Dede hosts a well-attended birthday party for Fred, reconciling Fred's emotional development with his intellect. Jodie Foster, who is herself a former child prodigy , was immediately impressed by the film's narrative and was interested in directing it. Orion Pictures was on the verge of bankruptcy at

3339-420: The problem of perfectionism in bright children, calling it their "number one social-emotional trait". Gifted children often associate even slight imperfection with failure, so that they become fearful of effort, even in their personal lives, and in extreme cases end up virtually immobilized. Prodigies have been found with the over-representation of relatives with autism on their family pedigrees. Autism traits on

3402-427: The quality of deliberate practice, and their interests in chess. Chess prodigies may have higher IQs than normal children. This positive link between chess skills of prodigies and intelligence is particularly significant on the “performance intelligence”, regarding fluid reasoning, spatial processing, attentiveness to details, and visual-motor integration, while least significant on the “verbal intelligence”, regarding

3465-476: The school, in order to develop his intellectual gifts in ways that a public school cannot. Dede is reluctant, preferring that Fred have a more normal upbringing, but when no one comes to Fred's seventh birthday party, Dede consents. Fred joins other brilliant young people, and participates in Jane's Odyssey of the Mind event for part of the spring. There he meets one of his heroes, who is one of Jane's prized pupils,

3528-446: The size of a man's IQ that matters; it's how he uses it". Jane attempts to become more nurturing, but is unable to relate to Fred as anything other than a case study. Fred is later enrolled at a university, where he studies quantum physics while his mother, aunt and cousins travel to Florida for the summer. An adult student named Eddie accidentally hits Fred with a globe when goofing around. To make it up to Fred, Eddie takes him out for

3591-401: The storage retrieval times of long-term memory and circumvent the limited capacities of short-term memory. In turn, they can encode and retrieve specific information (e.g., the intermediate answers during the calculation) in the long-term working memory more accurately and effectively. Similar strategies were found among prodigies mastering mental abacus calculation . The positions of beads on

3654-534: The story does not always have to involve a team. The story could also be about an individual athlete or the story could focus on an individual playing on a team. Examples of this genre/type include:  The Hustler (1961), Hoosiers (1986), Remember the Titans (2000), and Moneyball (2011). War films typically tells the story of a small group of isolated individuals who – one by one – get killed (literally or metaphorically) by an outside force until there

3717-525: The story." Examples of fantasy dramas include The Lord of the Rings (2001–2003), Pan's Labyrinth (2006), Where the Wild Things Are (2009), and Life of Pi (2012). Horror dramas often involve the central characters isolated from the rest of society. These characters are often teenagers or people in their early twenties (the genre's central audience) and are eventually killed off during

3780-578: The term "pejoratively to connote an unrealistic, pathos-filled, camp tale of romance or domestic situations with stereotypical characters (often including a central female character) that would directly appeal to feminine audiences". Also called "women's movies", "weepies", tearjerkers, or "chick flicks". If they are targeted to a male audience, then they are called "guy cry" films. Often considered "soap-opera" drama. Focuses on religious characters, mystery play, beliefs, and respect. Character development based on themes involving criminals, law enforcement and

3843-734: The time and was skeptical about Foster directing the film. They ultimately agreed after she offered to act in the film without payment. The film includes certain autobiographical elements from Foster's life. Most of the film was shot in Over-the-Rhine and downtown Cincinnati . Other locations include the Cincinnati neighborhood of Clifton ; the Village of Indian Hill ; the University of Cincinnati 's McMicken Hall; Miami University 's Alumni Hall , Upham Hall , Hall Auditorium and

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3906-498: The word "comedy" or "drama" are not recognized by the Screenwriters Taxonomy as either a film genre or a film type. For instance, "Melodrama" and "Screwball Comedy" are considered Pathways,  while "romantic comedy" and "family drama" are macro-genres. A macro-genre in the Screenwriters Taxonomy. These films tell a story in which many of the central characters are related. The story revolves around how

3969-434: Was released theatrically on October 18, 1991, by Orion Pictures to critical and commercial success. Reviewers praised Foster's direction, Frank's screenplay and the performances of the cast. The film grossed $ 25 million domestically, on a $ 10 million budget. Dede Tate is a young working-class woman of average intelligence and strong instincts, raising her seven-year-old son, Fred, alone. Fred shows every indication of being

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