Abstract Principles in The Virgin suicides

556 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Depiction of women in movies

I found that Coppola purposely revealed very little about the girls inner selves in order to suggest that the girls’ lives are limited under the strict order of their parents. The girls are completely suffocated inside their family and by their neighbors. In the world outside the Lisbon’s house the neighborhood boys take the Lisbon sisters to the extreme. They constantly talk about them being “beautiful creatures” and constantly are placing expectations upon them. In the beginning of the movie the boy who is narrating says with amazement, “No one could understand how Mr. Lisbon and Mrs. Lisbon could produce such beautiful creatures.” From the very start of the movie the Lisbon sisters are positioned as unbelievable or unreal. Kirby points out, “The girls lives’ and their abode literally deteriorate before the eyes of the community.” The boys literally spy on the girls, waiting on every signal or sign that could lead them to uncovering the mystery of the sisters.
It is unusual that Sophia Coppola chooses this style of directing considering her father is Francis Ford Coppola, who is k...

Show More
Related

  • Theoretical Suicide and Truth in "All About Suicide" by Luisa Valenzuela

    993 Words  | 2 Pages

    "Suicide, what a terrible concept. There are two types of suicide: physical, and theoretical. Physical suicide is the more commonly heard type of suicide. It entails the person actually, physically killing himself or herself. On the other hand, theoretical suicide is when the person does something that will, in turn, get him or her killed. For example, in “All About Suicide” by Luisa Valenzuela, Ismael, a man that works at a minister’s office, murders the minister, a high-ranking public official. Ismael has been forced to be quiet by the government; therefore he lashes out by killing the minister so that he can reveal the truth about the government. In doing this, Ismael technically “kills himself” because he knows the government will eventually find him and execute him. The theme of this story is that quite often, the truth is misconstrued or is hidden from the public. In order to reveal the truth, action must be taken to bring the truth to the people. Valenzuela reveals this theme through flashbacks, pronoun usage, and imagery.

    Read More

  • Lisa Cholodenko Essay

    839 Words  | 2 Pages

    Lisa Cholodenko grew up in Los Angeles and she began her film careers working as an assistant editor; however, she then moved to New York and earned an MFA in screenwriting and direction at the Columbia University School of arts. At Columbia University School of Arts, Cholodenko filmed her first short movie Dinner Party. Besides being a director, Lisa Cholodenko also was a film professor at Columbia University, an advisor and is currently on the Board of Governs of Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science. It was surprising to be able to find out how active Cholodenko is in the film industry and in the university she attended. This portrays how committed Cholodenko is to creating successful movies and to be a part of others film victory.

    Read More

  • Comparing Mary Anne in Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong and Kurtz in Apocalypse Now

    2598 Words  | 6 Pages

    Phillips, Gene D. Conrad and Cinema: The Art of Adaptation. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., 1995.

    Read More

  • Verisimilitude

    653 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...ne should, and I think everyone should do everything they do that way. Movies have to have quality and integrity because they have such a tremendous influence on the world and on people.” (Coppola)

    Read More

  • Observational Analysis: Being Lost In Classical Hollywood Cinema

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Unfortunately, Coppola changed the style of Classical Hollywood Cinema by not allowing the characters to not be fully aware of everything. For example, during the scene of the whiskey commercial, Bob Harris was confused because of his Japanese interpreter didn’t speak like the Japanese commercial director. In all, Bob was lost and the audience without the use of subtitles. Being away from their true lives Bob, the washed up movie actor, and Charlotte, the young wife, find comfort in each other. Being lost in their own lives and marriages the short time built a love that take years to achieve. The lingering confusion of Lost in Translation is the whisper between Bob and Charlotte that leaves Act III

    Read More

  • The Vestal Virgins In The Roman Empire

    2371 Words  | 5 Pages

    As a whole, the glory days of Rome are remembered in popular imagination as an era of prosperity and social growth. A significant component to the history of the Roman Empire is the variety of Pagan denominations that emerged with the blending of different peoples and beliefs. One of the more prominent cults within the Roman state was the cult of Vesta, whose namesake goddess was tended to by her following of priestesses. These maidens, known as the Vestal Virgins, are remembered in historical imagination as soft, feminine beings that spent the majority of their lives within the Roman forum. However, the image of the Vestal Virgin is one that lends itself to a strong and dignified woman; a woman who relinquished her body for the prosperity of the Roman state as an attendant for the goddess Vesta.

    Read More

  • The Philadelphia Story

    1553 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Classical Hollywood style, according to David Bordwell remains “bound by rules that set stringent limits on individual innovation; that telling a story is the basic formal concern.” Every element of the film works in the service of the narrative, which should be ideally comprehensible and unambiguous to the audience. The typical Hollywood film revolves around a protagonist, whose struggle to achieve a specific goal or resolve a conflict becomes the foundation for the story. André Bazin, in his “On the politique des auteurs,” argues that this particular system of filmmaking, despite all its limitations and constrictions, represented a productive force creating commercial art. From the Hollywood film derived transnational and transcultural works of art that evoked spectatorial identification with its characters and emotional investment into its narrative. The Philadelphia Story, directed by George Cukor in 1940, is one of the many works of mass-produced art evolving out of the studio system. The film revolves around Tracy Lord who, on the eve of her second wedding, must confront the return of her ex-husband, two newspaper reporters entering into her home, and her own hubris. The opening sequence of The Philadelphia Story represents a microcosm of the dynamic between the two protagonists Tracy Lord and C.K. Dexter Haven, played by Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Through the use of costume and music, the opening sequence operates as a means to aesthetically reveal narrative themes and character traits, while simultaneously setting up the disturbance that must be resolved.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Suicide Note By Janice Mirikitani

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    In 1987, Janice Mirikitani wrote and published a poem titled Suicide Note. The speaker of the poem, a female, Asian American college student who commits suicide after receiving slightly-less-than-perfect grades, gives repeated apologies to her parents and tells them exactly how she feels in a suicide note - one most probably addressed to them. In the poem, Mirikitani conveys a sad and somber mood while implementing an extended metaphor to compare the speaker to a bird.

    Read More

  • Suicide In Society: Suicide And Society

    1229 Words  | 3 Pages

    Individuals in society experience many changes that can make them feel overwhelm or feel accepted by their friends, family members and the rest of society. But there is times when people feel that they do not fit or feel welcome in their social group. Many people face their difficulties and achieve success others are do not have such luck. The individuals that are not lucky finishes their life committing suicide. Suicide is an act of taking one’s own life voluntarily and intentionally that affects not only immediate family and friends but indicates factors in society that are influencing individuals to commit this act. Is important to understand what aspects in society are making individuals to take their own live? And if

    Read More

  • Borderline Personality Disorder In The Virgin Suicides

    3105 Words  | 7 Pages

    Set in 1970s Michigan, The Virgin Suicides (1999) tells the story of the five Lisbon sisters from the perspective of four neighborhood boys, whose narration throughout the movie describes the girls’ lives, personalities, and deaths. Therese, Mary, Bonnie, Lux, and Cecilia Lisbon (listed oldest to youngest) live at home with their two overly strict and protective parents. The film opens up with thirteen-year-old Cecilia attempting to kill herself by slitting her wrists in the bathtub. Cecilia’s psychiatrist claims that it was simply a cry for attention, and that she didn’t intend to succeed. He suggests the girls be allowed to participate in social events, and stresses that it would benefit them to be around

    Read More

  • The Mise-en-Scene in the Film Marie Antoinette Directed by Sofia Coppola

    757 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Marie Antoinette” (2006) directed by Sofia Coppola is a drama/comedy, that is centered on the life of the notorious Queen of France, in the years leading up to the French Revolution. Coppola’s film style was very modern avant garde. The film focuses on Antoinette point of view throughout all her adventures and difficulties. She was the character with whom the viewer identified with the most, her observation were the most important (aside from the audience). Therefore there were many close ups and high lighting on her. The film also invokes the lesson that luxuries is not everything that it will not make you completely happy, which makes the audience feel somewhat sympathetic towards the queen. Coppola successfully achieves to use beautiful and extravagant cinematography to tell the story of the late Marie Antoinette. The mise-en-scene of the film that will be discussed is setting, costume, lighting and figure behavior.

    Read More

  • The Social Causes of Suicide and Durkheim's Theory

    1907 Words  | 4 Pages

    Durkheim was a functionalist, and theorised that a holistic social narrative could be identified which would explain individual behaviour. He argued that, whilst society was made up of its members, it was greater than the sum of its parts, and was an external pressure that determined the behaviour of the individuals within it. At that time, suicide rates in Europe were rising, and so the causes of suicide were on the agenda. Since suicide is seen as an intrinsically personal and individual action, establishing it as having societal causes would be a strong defence for Durkheim’s functionalist perspective. Durkheim used the comparative method to study the official suicide rates of various European countries. While he was not the first to notice the patterns and proportional changes of suicide rates between different groups in European societies, it was this fact that was the foundation of his theory – why did some groups consistently have much higher rates than others? This supports the idea that it was the external pressures placed on certain groups within society that induced higher rates of suicide, and is the basis of Durkheim’s work.

    Read More

  • The Yellow Wallpaper And The Virgin Suicides Analysis

    1220 Words  | 3 Pages

    In The Virgin Suicides, there is no character development of the narrators, as they serve solely to retell the story to the readers, even if they throw in their own opinions here and there. Therefore, there is no real need for the reader to know who the boys really are, as long as they can explain to us the story of the Lisbon girls. This just helps the reader get a side of the story that’s relatively unbiased, since it’s not from the Lisbon girls themselves. This is contrary to The Yellow Wallpaper, where the ambiguity of the narrator actually adds an important element to the story: mystery. We never find out the name of the narrator, nor much of her background, history, or even what is to become of her once the story is over. The only clues we get are from slight mentions by herself, her husband, her sister-in-law and from a single line spoken near the end of the story: “‘I’ve got out at last,” said I, ‘in spite of you and Jane?’…” (Gilman, 656). This line could possibly mention her name, however, it could also be a misprint of her sister-in-law’s name, Jennie, but it could also be our final clue into who she was before her spiral into madness through her time in the rest

    Read More

  • The Problem of Teenage Suicide

    1928 Words  | 4 Pages

    Most everyone at some time in his or her life will experience periods of anxiety, sadness, and despair. These are normal reactions to the pain of loss, rejection, or disappointment. Those with serious mental illnesses, however, often experience much more extreme reactions, reactions that can leave them mired in hopelessness. And when all hope is lost, some feel that suicide is the only solution.

    Read More

  • Suicide Reflection Paper

    1093 Words  | 3 Pages

    Often times when I heard the word "suicidal" I was curiously caused the person to do it. Growing up, I heard that people decided to commit suicide was because they "wanted attention, they wanted the easy way out, they were weak, they couldn't handle life, etc." Personally, I have significant people in my life that have felt like they wanted to commit suicide. So, this topic honestly is a difficult, yet, emotional one to discuss.

    Read More

More about Abstract Principles in The Virgin suicides

Open Document