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A Film by Martin Scorsese

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Title: A Film by Martin Scorsese


1
  • A Film by Martin Scorsese
  • Based on the novel by
  • Edith Wharton

2
Vincent Canby New YorkTimes
  • Mr. Scorsese has made a big, intelligent movie
    that functions as if it were a window on a world
    he had just discovered, and about which he can't
    wait to spread the news.

3
Rita Kempley Washington Post
  • Perhaps it shouldn't come as such a grand
    surprise that he is as deft at exploring the
    nuances of Edwardian manners as he is the laws of
    modern-day machismo.

4
ChristopherNullfilmcritic.com
  • Very pretty, very long, very cold, and very tidy.

5
Scott Renshawrec.arts.movies.reviews
  • It's a fascinating examination of lifeless and
    soulless time, and my attention never waned.

6
Fred Hong Joo JungKorea Times
  • Operatic tale of love that captures the
    humanity of Martin Scorsese's direction much more
    than his gritty mob fables.

7
Dennis CunninghamWCBS-TV New York
  • One of the most elegant films every made.
    Breathtaking, heartbreaking, amazingly rich.

8
Marc SavlovAustin Chronicle
  • As a period piece, it's a joy to behold, but
    with such an indecisive little newt of a
    protagonist, it's just hard to give a damn what
    happens.

9
Role of Flowers in Film
  • Movie opens to opening flowers--yellow and red
  • At first, flowers open slowly, then faster.
  • What do the colors and budding signify?
  • Flowering/Deflowering of who/what?
  • Newlands standing order of Mays lilies
  • Newlands gift of yellow roses to Ellen
  • Ellen receives carnations from Henry van der
    Luyden and orchids from Beaufort.
  • Who would send me a bouquet? Im neither engaged
    nor going to a ball

10
Flower Meanings
  • LILY OF THE VALLEY Return of happiness, purity
    of heart, sweetness, tears of the Virgin Mary,
    you've made my life complete, humility,
    happiness.
  • The legend of the lily of the valley is that it
    sprang from Eve's tears when she was kicked out
    of the Garden of Eden. It is also believed that
    this flower protects gardens from evil spirits.
  • Also known as the flower of May.

11
Flower Meanings, Cont.
  • ROSE, YELLOW Joy, friendship, true love,
    decrease of love, jealousy, try to care, freedom,
    slighted love, shows "I care", joy, gladness.

12
Role of Music in the Film
  • Nominated for 5 Academy Awards, but won only one
    Best Score (by Elmer Bernstein)
  • Why is opening scene set at the opera? How does
    opera become a parallel for characters?
  • What is signified by Larry Leffertss use of
    opera glasses to watch not the performers, but
    the audience?
  • When Henry van der Luyden announces that he will
    invite Ellen to a dinner with the Duke of St
    Austrey, this is punctuated musically by a march
    (trumpets), and the next scene depicts Ellen
    triumphantly ascending the van der Luyden
    staircase. Why a march?

13
Role of Art in the Film
  • Life-sized oil portrait of Regina Beaufort in a
    drawing room of her home
  • Rather than squeezing through a narrow passage
    to get to the ballroom, one marched solemnly
    through a Vista of Drawing Rooms
  • Beaufort having audacity to hang in plain sight
    Return of Spring in the Crimson Drawing Room
  • Camera focuses on faces in paintings as narrator
    comments, this was a world balanced so
    precariously that its harmony could be shattered
    by a whisper.

14
Role of Art in Film, cont.
  • At Granny Mingotts, while the narrator comments
    that in Newland and May, two of New Yorks best
    families would finally and momentously be
    joined, the camera zooms in on a painting of a
    white woman about to be scalped by two Native
    Americans.
  • How do the characters in the film resemble
    characters in paintings?
  • They all lived in a Hieroglyphic world the real
    thing never said, done or thought, but only
    represented by a set of arbitrary signs.

15
Art in Film, cont.
  • Camera cuts from van der Luyden drawing room to a
    faceless woman with a parasol in an Impressionist
    painting on Ellens wall.
  • In Boston, the camera zooms in on an artists
    hand painting a woman holding a parasol. Scene
    shifts to Ellen sitting on a bench, holding a
    parasol, like the lady in the painting.
  • Louvre scene Whenever hed thought of Ellen
    Olenska, it had been abstractly, serenely, like
    an imaginary loved one in a book or a picture.
    She had become the complete vision of all that
    hed missed.

16
Role of Food in the Film
  • What do the dinner table scenes represent?
  • How does Scorsese use these to move the action
    along?
  • Several courses to choose from, but in a set
    pattern and within carefully set parameters.
  • Perfect, fragile china with perfect
    patterns--easily breakable
  • Careful arrangement of food and flowers

17
Role of Cigars in film
  • Clipping of cigars highlighted in film, with loud
    snip and with camera zooming in.
  • Newland speaks with Mr. Letterblair re Ellens
    divorce over cigars and with Sillerton Jackson
    about Ellens place in New York.
  • Nipping ideas in the bud? Cutting reality?
    Emasculation?
  • Is a cigar ever just a cigar?

18
Fire vs. Ice
  • Icy streets of New York
  • Snow flurries at Pennsylvania terminus/warmth of
    carriage.
  • Fire in Mme Olenskas drawing room, both in the
    fireplace and cigarette lighter
  • Fire in Patroon house/ice/snow outside
  • In his own home, Newland comments to May that the
    fire in the lamp has died.
  • May stokes and then puts out the fire as she
    announces that Ellen is leaving New York.

19
Role of Narrator
  • What does the narrator make possible
    cinematically that otherwise would be impossible?
  • Scorsese criticized for Joanne Woodwards
    voiceovers
  • How would the film be different, more limited, if
    told from Newlands point of view?

20
Joanne Woodward
21
Novel to Film
  • Character Omissions Why?
  • Notable Omissions?
  • Changes in names Dallas to Theodore? Fanny Ring
    to Annie?
  • Regina Dallas to Regina Townsend?
  • What not Dallas?

22
Novel to Film, Cont.
  • Why in the film does Newland initiate the visit
    to the van der Luydens to plead their case,
    when in the novel Mrs. Archer does this and
    Newland is dragged along reluctantly?
  • The Patroons house is shown upside down in a
    reflecting pool, when it is announced that May
    and Newland will spend their wedding night there.
    Significance?
  • Fading to black technique

23
Representations of Passage of Time
  • Cars parked on Ellens street at end of film
  • The final scene introduced by a ringing phone
  • Dallas and Newland speaking by phone
  • The new Metropolitan museum

24
Final Scene
  • Reality vs. Newlands reality
  • Light reflected off the window Archer is
    watching. Seeing the Light? Blinded by it?
  • Flashback to scene at Granny Mingotts in
    Newport--light reflected off the water
  • This time, in Newlands mind, Ellen turns around.
    What does this represent?
  • Why all the flying birds as Newland walks away?
    Why does the camera allow him to get completely
    out of sight before the scene closes?
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