Just like in Howard Hawks' Bringing Up Baby, the main character is easily manipulated by the opposite sex in Billy Wilder's Double Indemnity. In my opinion Walter Neff started off as a fairly "good" man. Just going along doing his job until a female came along whom he fell "in love" with. This also seemed to be the case with David (Cary Grant) in Bringing Up Baby. David was drawn into Susan's (Katharine Hepburn) schemes, and eventually fell in love with her. The way I see it was he was easily manipulated by her the entire movie. And I can't really explain why he said he loved her at the end of the movie, so I guess I can't prove my point. There were no signs of his love for Susan until he said so at the end.
Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray)in Double Indemnity was easily drawn into Phyllis' (Barbara Stanwyck) schemes the minute he met her. She convinced him she was in this terrible, abusive relatioship, which yes her husband probably didn't give her the attention she would've liked, but lets be serious it most likely wasn't bad enough to murder the guy. Walter started out just doing his job, ran into this looney tune, fell "in love" with her, and continued to be manipulated by her. He was sucked into her schemes so much that he ended up taking charge and carrying out the murder himself. Bing-go! Walter was easily manipulated by this 1940's gold-digger, which led him to a complete downfall in his own life, and ended his chance of really ever being a "good guy" again.
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Tuesday, November 6, 2007
Groundhog Day!
Harold Ramis portrays the life of many Americans in the 1993 film Groundhog Day. Today we are so caught up on being "successful", but what does that word mean to you? To me, the word successful means you have achieved your own happiness. Sure, Bill Murray's character Phil Connors is successful in the sense that he has a nice job, and is making money, but his individual success is low...He begins living Groundhog Day over and over and over again. Which in a way he was already doing that before, because he wasn't changing his attitude, lifestyle, etc. to achieve "inner happiness". Reliving groundhog day was the way to give him the chance and time to change. Sure enough, it did.
I think for many people these days, reliving a certain day could be for the better. I feel like Americans are just always on auto-pilot. We have plenty of ways to help us stay in our fast-paced lives: fastfood, drive-thru's, online movie rentals, "go-gurt", ipods, cellphones, facebook, delivery of almost anything, and the list goes on. We take what we have for granted. Many people are so focused on what they think is important to help them achieve "success" they miss the other elements of life. If we had the chance to relive one day over and over again we would eventually, just like Phil, pay attention to our surroundings in detail and maybe learn new things, meet new people, and improve individually. Phil tried new things (because he had nothing better to do), found he liked those things and were fairly good at them. He got to know new people, and realized even though they are different than him they are really good, fun, genuine people. By the end of the movie, all of these factors helped him improve from the inside-out. He stopped reliving groundhog day once he achieved true inner happiness, to me that is a success!
I think for many people these days, reliving a certain day could be for the better. I feel like Americans are just always on auto-pilot. We have plenty of ways to help us stay in our fast-paced lives: fastfood, drive-thru's, online movie rentals, "go-gurt", ipods, cellphones, facebook, delivery of almost anything, and the list goes on. We take what we have for granted. Many people are so focused on what they think is important to help them achieve "success" they miss the other elements of life. If we had the chance to relive one day over and over again we would eventually, just like Phil, pay attention to our surroundings in detail and maybe learn new things, meet new people, and improve individually. Phil tried new things (because he had nothing better to do), found he liked those things and were fairly good at them. He got to know new people, and realized even though they are different than him they are really good, fun, genuine people. By the end of the movie, all of these factors helped him improve from the inside-out. He stopped reliving groundhog day once he achieved true inner happiness, to me that is a success!
Monday, November 5, 2007
Once Upon A Time In The West (vs. Cat Ballou)
---I finally just got these films on netflix and were able to finish watching them, so here are my posts for the westerns!---
I decided to compare Once Upon A Time In The West (Sergio Leon 1968) to Cat Ballou (Elliot Silverstein 1965). Both westerns have a different kind of heroine than most classic westerns. The reason for this is that Once Upon A Time In The West is a revisionist western, and Cat Ballou is a parody western; a revisionist and a parody both have some western characteristics but are either "updated" (sort of like a new way of doing something) or exaggerated.
Jane Fonda's character Catherine Ballou has about four cowboy heroes following her around through out the movie. Claudia Cardinale's character Jill McBain has two cowboy heroes are her feet, and the villain, too, in a way. So all three men sort of have a fascination with her, just like the four in Cat Ballou. I think Sergio Leon's purpose for having the two heroes and the villain so tied to Jill is to bring a "fresh" feeling to the plot. Once Upon A Time In The West is again, a revisionist, so he tried to stray away from the typical one hero, one heroine, and a bad guy plot by adding some more contrast and conflict to the plot. Elliot Silverstein's purpose was merely to make fun of that typical one hero plot by adding three more heroes. He made a couple of them fall in love with Cat Ballou and had them believe she was in love with them, too, which also was creating a mockery of the fact that the hero usually falls for the heroine, and vice versa. The two westerns brought a freshness to the screen and both were quite succesful in doing so because I liked both of them. I thought I hated westerns, but I realize now I just don't like the typical classic westerns!
I decided to compare Once Upon A Time In The West (Sergio Leon 1968) to Cat Ballou (Elliot Silverstein 1965). Both westerns have a different kind of heroine than most classic westerns. The reason for this is that Once Upon A Time In The West is a revisionist western, and Cat Ballou is a parody western; a revisionist and a parody both have some western characteristics but are either "updated" (sort of like a new way of doing something) or exaggerated.
Jane Fonda's character Catherine Ballou has about four cowboy heroes following her around through out the movie. Claudia Cardinale's character Jill McBain has two cowboy heroes are her feet, and the villain, too, in a way. So all three men sort of have a fascination with her, just like the four in Cat Ballou. I think Sergio Leon's purpose for having the two heroes and the villain so tied to Jill is to bring a "fresh" feeling to the plot. Once Upon A Time In The West is again, a revisionist, so he tried to stray away from the typical one hero, one heroine, and a bad guy plot by adding some more contrast and conflict to the plot. Elliot Silverstein's purpose was merely to make fun of that typical one hero plot by adding three more heroes. He made a couple of them fall in love with Cat Ballou and had them believe she was in love with them, too, which also was creating a mockery of the fact that the hero usually falls for the heroine, and vice versa. The two westerns brought a freshness to the screen and both were quite succesful in doing so because I liked both of them. I thought I hated westerns, but I realize now I just don't like the typical classic westerns!
My Darling Clementine
---I finally just got these films on netflix and were able to finish watching them, so here are my posts for the westerns!---
In My Darling Clementine (John Ford 1946) civilization wins over wilderness. Tombstone is a town of community and growing civilization. The first time Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) arrives in Tombstone there is loud music and people yelling and cheering, out partying at the saloons. During the time this film was set, towns were growing in order to make traveling easier. Train stations were being built and so on. There is even an entire scene for the church that is going up in the town.
After all the fight scenes, relationship "drama", and the final duel of The Clantons verse Doc and Wyatt; civilization is pushed more down the road to success. Wyatt leaves Tombstone to move forward in adventure, but the town continues to grow and expand its kind of "industrialization". The church bells continue to ring, and my guess is that many travelers pass through to add to their economy.
In My Darling Clementine (John Ford 1946) civilization wins over wilderness. Tombstone is a town of community and growing civilization. The first time Wyatt Earp (Henry Fonda) arrives in Tombstone there is loud music and people yelling and cheering, out partying at the saloons. During the time this film was set, towns were growing in order to make traveling easier. Train stations were being built and so on. There is even an entire scene for the church that is going up in the town.
After all the fight scenes, relationship "drama", and the final duel of The Clantons verse Doc and Wyatt; civilization is pushed more down the road to success. Wyatt leaves Tombstone to move forward in adventure, but the town continues to grow and expand its kind of "industrialization". The church bells continue to ring, and my guess is that many travelers pass through to add to their economy.
Thursday, November 1, 2007
Bringing Up Baby vs. Meet The Fockers
Along with most of my classmates, I found Katharine Hepburn's character, Susan, extremely annoying in Howard Hawk's Bringing Up Baby. Sorry Mr. Klobuchar. I honestly tried to look past her character and enjoy the rest of the film, but all around it drove me nuts. I can acknowledge that it is a good film, just not my taste. I realized I felt the same way when I saw the blockbuster hit Meet The Fockers (Jay Roach, 2004). Sure, Ben Stiller is pretty funny, but I cannot STAND when every little, tiny thing makes the movie a disaster after disaster. I just don't have the humor for it! I couldn't bring myself to laugh when Ben Stiller's character, Greg, went on the roof to smoke a cigarette, dropped it, and ended up lighting the hand-carved, wooden wedding arbor on fire; that is funny? That's terrible! A parallel from Bringing Up Baby to that disasterous fire scene would be when Susan goes to see David at the end in the museum, and ends up making the entire reconstructed dinosaur fall to the ground. Now that scene wasn't as bad because at that point David barely cared anymore. But still, seeing a lot of work, money, time and effort fall to the ground is not my kind of humor. Great movie...just not for me!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
