Agreeing on a film that a middle aged couple and their kids all want to see is a challenge every school holidays. Our 13 year old daughter expressed no interest in ‘I am Legend’ and ‘American Gangster’ – both high on our 17 year old son’s ‘must see’ list. No-one but me showed any interest in ‘Atonement’ despite the romantic theme (which I hoped would entice my daughter) and the chance to see Keira Knightly as wet camisole competition entrant (which I thought might be leverage for spouse and son). We settled on ‘Enchanted’ the Disney studios’ homage to and gentle mockery of what I have read described elsewhere as ‘its own back catalogue’!
It is actually bit broader than that with many of the industry’s conventions - especially the set pieces of lavish musicals like ‘The Sound of Music’ and ‘Seven Brides for Seven Brothers’ - coming in for recreation in a teasing yet celebratory way. By far my favourite was the translation of Snow White’s famous transformation of the dwarves’ grotty cottage with the help of her forest friends! The film establishes in the opening animated scenes that the heroine, Giselle, has a retinue of saccharine woodland chums ready to whip up a proxy prince charming for her out of objets trouvé and garland her with flowers.
When she is later transported to 21st century New York City and is dismayed at the disarray in the apartment of the people who have given her shelter overnight she employs the traditional Andalasian (Disney) solution of calling melodiously to nearby fauna to come and wield brooms and dusters to make everything shiny new! This being New York though, raccoons, chipmunks and blue birds are in short supply and her respondents are CGI rats, pigeons and cockroaches. There follows a joyous sequence in which the vermin cooperate with Giselle to make the apartment spick and span. My favourite vignette is three rats heartily scrubbing the toilet bowl with the family’s toothbrushes!
Having transformed the flat in best Snow White/Mary Poppins fashion, the animals roost on the furniture looking pleased with themselves and revelling in their jolly cross species cooperation. Just as you are thinking ‘Aah’ - one of the pigeons leans over and consumes one of the ‘roaches in a single gulp! Reality check (of sorts)!
But life, as we know, imitates art and I was reminded of a time soon after I started work at my current location opposite Sydney’s Belmore Park and saw a homeless man distributing stale bread to huge flocks of pigeons. ‘Aah’ I thought (despite my rational mind being only too aware that environmentally it was NOT a good thing). Then some of the pigeons started tussling over some crusts and without hesitation the old bloke gave the one he considered the greediest a boot up the arse!
The cinematic genre bending goes on... I walked through the park the other morning and the pigeons were engaged in a Hitchcock ‘homage’, cooing and glowering from the branches in their hundreds! Watch out cantankerous old bloke I thought!
3 comments:
Dear Alice
If I'd been making the film, the rat would NOT have eaten the cockroach.
When we (the viewers) see something on the screen, correct me if I'm wrong, but the viewer has an automatic subconcious "feeling" that the author or producer (or whoever) actually condones or supports or accepts what has been shown.
OK, that's ridiculous, you say, but I believe that unless the author or producer or whoever goes to great lengths to demonstrate that a particular behaviour was wrong, then it almost becomes right.
So the rat's behaviour is regarded as unsavoury but acceptable, normal, part of life, etecetera etcetera, to be expected, funny even.
Well, I would rather see better behaviour demonstrated and some sort of aspiration to something more palatable (oops).
In my film, the rat and cockroach would have got on much better, trusted one another, ate something else, left us with a solution and not a resignation.
From your friend
Dear Alice
If I'd been making the film, the rat would NOT have eaten the cockroach.
When we (the viewers) see something on the screen, correct me if I'm wrong, but the viewer has an automatic subconcious "feeling" that the author or producer (or whoever) actually condones or supports or accepts what has been shown.
OK, that's ridiculous, you say, but I believe that unless the author or producer or whoever goes to great lengths to demonstrate that a particular behaviour was wrong, then it almost becomes right.
So the rat's behaviour is regarded as unsavoury but acceptable, normal, part of life, etecetera etcetera, to be expected, funny even.
Well, I would rather see better behaviour demonstrated and some sort of aspiration to something more palatable (oops).
In my film, the rat and cockroach would have got on much better, trusted one another, ate something else, left us with a solution and not a resignation.
From your friend
Thank you, friend of mine. In this case I don't have any serious moral objections to the Director endorsing the consumption of a cockroach by a pigeon (or even by a rat!) Food chain, circle of life and all that. Look forward to chewing over the ethical perspectives of Tarantino and Scorsese in future excahnges tho'
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