American Cinema: 1960 to present Stella Menezes Torres 02/21/2014 Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966) Introduction The movie Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was created based on a play with the same name by Edward Albee, which was already a huge success in New York in 1962. For that reason, it was a great risk and challenge for the director and the actors to create a movie based on a play with such high standards. Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was directed by the acclaimed Mike Nichols and stars Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, Richard Burton as George, George Segal as Nick and Sandy Dennis as Honey. The movie is officially drama, but it also has a lot of comedy to it. Censorship Before the movie was produced, the PCA had advised Warner Bros. that some changes would have to be made in the script in order to release the movie, however, the studio decided to go on with the production. The studio even considered alternative distribution channels that were not regulated by the PCA so they could keep the script intact. After years of debate, Warner Bros. produced the movie with no changes on the script and only after it was ready the studio presented the script to the PCA, which was slightly different from what was really shot. Both sides would not agree either to approve the movie or to cut some scenes. If Warner Bros. decided to release the movie without any changes, it would have to resign from the MPAA (Motion Pictures Association of America), since all the members had agreed to release only approved movies. If the PCA didn’t approve the movie, the box-office revenue of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? would have little effect by that. On the other side, if the PCA lost Warner Bros. it would show the deficiency of the MPAA t... ... middle of paper ... ... about things and develop a critical thinking, such as in the alienating subject as well as accepting a black person into the white society in the 1960’s. Conclusion Overall, the movie Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is a great example of how the 1960's was a decade that brought up a lot of issues to debate to Hollywood's movies. The movie has common issues that were seen in a lot of movies' subjects such as violence, sex and alienation. Another important thing that was born in this decade and relates a lot with this movie is the censorship. Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? brought a lot of tension between the PCA and the Warner Bros. studios, being very important in the beginning of the PCA and the MPAA on accepting mature themes. The movie was definitely a mark on the 1960's movies and also on the adaptation of a successful play to a Top 3 box-office rank movie.
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American film, based on the novel of the same name by Harper Lee. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic film about racial injustice, the loss of innocence and what it was like to live in the deep south during the depression era. When I watched To Kill a Mockingbird, I had many things I like about the movie and a few things I wish that could have been differently.
... movie because it lacked many important sections. Putting every scene of a book into the movie is impossible because the movie would have to be two days long instead of two hours. However, the director must be careful when making the decision of what scenes to cut. The movie could have had a stronger impact if it had more information about the introduction to her life, her stay in the mental institution and the process of her getting clean. These scenes would have helped create an strong emotional bond between the audience and main character. This bond is important because it creates feelings that make the movie a lot more personal. But on the other hand, this movie was made many years ago when the public might not have been ready for all the material that the book had to offer. It makes one wonder if a remake of the movie would be more influential if made in 2009.
After overcoming her denial and admitting that no son exists, Martha lies prostrate as George asks her, “Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf?”(242). Martha wearily replies, “I…am…George….I…am…”(242). In other words, “Who’s afraid of the truth?” My parents, Stuart of Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy, and Martha and George from Thomas Albee’s “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?”. Ceasing to rationalize reality to suit one’s needs entails dealing with the truth and experiencing pain. Therefore, it stands to reason that many smart, reasonable people fall victim to the allure of denial. However, as Martha demonstrates, the walls crumble eventually, and one feels the pain as acutely as ever. So, who’s afraid of the truth? The more appropriate question is who’s not afraid of the truth?
1966 was a turning point in American history. It was the height of the Space Race as well as the Vietnam War. In the entertainment industry, The Beatles had released the album Revolver, the show Star Trek premiered on television, and the play Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? was adapted to film. This film was controversial for several reasons, including its depiction of violence and drinking, as well as its theme of sexuality. For a movie to take on such bold scenes and topics requires other bold cinematic choices as well. These choices included casting glamorous actors and actresses in not so glamorous roles, filming in black and white as opposed to color, and using unique cinematic film shots in various scenes. The choices that the filmmakers
The fifties was a learning year and the 60's became the time to express everything that they learned. The 60's was a time for new and innovative ways to entertain the people. Since the blacklisting continued in Hollywood, the making or films became very difficult to express. The restrictions, such as the production codes, kept the big corporations to produce films that had no interesting subjects. These films also had to be films that show no signs of communistic values. The film industry was failing to bring in the audience to the theaters. With the TV making a big wave all over, the U.S. the film industry was losing it is money. Then in 1961 something big happened, 20th Century Fox took apart its lot. This act was one that led to a chain reaction. Studios were assuming the role of distributors. This would allow the independent companies to come in and add a new flavor to the silver screen. During this time films changed it's traditional film making ideas. Things started to get graphic, more violent, sexual and more expressive. Movies had found a new look and with the production codes now gone and the blacklisting ending, there was an explosion of ideas that would be presented to the United States.
Emily Dickinson once wrote “Much madness is divinest/Sense-To a discerning Eye.” Often in literature, a character’s madness or foolish action plays an important role. Such is the case with the play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? written in 1962, by Edward Albee. The author develops and revisits the inner conflict of Martha, the protagonist, which results from the struggle between her and society throughout the plot to highlight the theme of struggle between reality and illusion. Martha’s madness is used by Albee to reveal characteristics of American society in the 50s and 60s that reveal the seemingly mad behavior as reasonable.
Virginia Woolf describes both a meal at a men’s college, and a meal at a women’s college, drawing out sharp differences. While the men were spoiled with delicacies, the women were served boring and unappealing dishes. Through Woolf’s structure, language, detail and tone, she portrays her attitude towards the place of women in society. She uses comparison and contrast to show the immense inequality between the two colleges.
Woolf’s pathos to begin the story paints a picture in readers minds of what the
Many novels are transcribed from their original texts to films. Some of the movies are similar to the original plots, others do not follow the authors work. Alice Hoffman’s novel Practical Magic is altered when it is made into a movie; and Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible which was also made into a movie, was extremely similar to his original writing. There are multiple variables that account for how a movie is made some of them include; the amount of income, how much can be changed, and the author’s approval. The two recreations previously mentioned, have two completely different outcomes, the results all depend on the amount of creative licensing the movie company has.
This is a narrative film and the genre is drama. Genre gives us a standard in order to analyze the film. In comparison to other American drama films from the 1950’s All About Eve did very well and was nominated for many Academy Awards. Drama films are about realistic characters who are dealing with emotional problems. Real life issues and problems are iconographic of the drama genre because it is something that the audience can relate to ...
Argument: Mrs. Ramsey is triumphant over Mr. Ramsey, by her awareness and intuitive feeling of the more important things in life: the value of human relationships. Though she is submissive, with no mention of extensive educational background, she innately possesses the crucial social skills that gain: the cohesion of the family as a whole; the respect and love of her children, and the continued survival of her marriage.
The physical and social setting in "Mrs. Dalloway" sets the mood for the novel's principal theme: the theme of social oppression. Social oppression was shown in two ways: the oppression of women as English society returned to its traditional norms and customs after the war, and the oppression of the hard realities of life, "concealing" these realities with the elegance of English society. This paper discusses the purpose of the city in mirroring the theme of social oppression, focusing on issues of gender oppression, particularly against women, and the oppression of poverty and class discrimination between London's peasants and the elite class.
“The New Dress” is a 1994 short story by Virginia Woolf. The story features Mabel Waring, who goes to a party wearing a yellow colored dress. The dress is newly made purposely for this occasion. The story is about the dress that Mrs. Warning wore and felt that it is not good. My first reaction to the story is that the story is about the dress, and it caused large discomfort to Mabel Waring. The discomfort of Mrs. Waring was not mainly caused by the dress, but the writer used the dress to symbolize the social displacement Mrs. Waring was, that she felt that she was out of place due to her social class. The writer uses some stylistic devices to bring out the message of the story and to make it appealing to the reader. "The New Dress" was the
To the Lighthouse is a novel full of hidden messages, symbolism and history. All of these elements make “To the Lighthouse” a novel that is not easy to read. There are no clears signs within the novel telling us “Hey look here!! This is where the action is!!” The novel also lacks to mention when the events all takes place, who is speaking, and lastly does not give us an indication in what way we should think and feel of them. Virginia Woolf’s novel opens with an answer to a question that hasn’t been asked yet. This answer is given by a character who is not identified or described, and is addressed to the child who is sitting on the floor near a “drawing room window” in an undisclosed place that is also not described or identified. Also within this novel, there is not much respect for the standard novelistic conventions of clock time or consecutive action. Just when the audience starts to think that they’ve begun to establish an order of events, they start to realize that Woolf seems to take pleasure in confusing her audience by inserting an event or idea that has happened in the past or she anticipates a reaction, so that time in her novelistic world, the past and present and future, seem to flow into one another in an unbroken stream of consciousness.
Virginia Woolf's 'To the Lighthouse' is a fine example of modernist literature, like her fellow modernist writers James Joyce and D.H Lawrence. This novel in particular is of the most autobiographical. The similarities between the story and Woolf's own life are not accidental. The lighthouse, situations and deaths within the novel are all parallel to Woolf's childhood, she wrote in her diary 'I used to think of [father] & mother daily; but writing The Lighthouse, laid them in my mind ….(I believe this to be true – that I was obsessed by them both, unheathily; & writing of them was a necessary act). Woolf, Diary, 28 November 1928) Woolf like many other modernist writers uses stream of consciousness, this novel in particular features very little dialogue, preferring one thought, memory or idea to trigger another, providing an honest if not reliable account of the characters lives. There novels motifs are paired with many of the novels images. The novel features two main motifs that Woolf appears to be interested in examining, firstly we notice the relationships' between men and women and the other appears to be Woolf's use of parenthesis. The novels images only become apparent once these motifs have been explored, allowing the reader to examine the relationships between the different characters.