I do not like the movie of BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S.

I think it’s terribly ironic that the image of Audrey Hepburn as Holly Golightly in the movie adaptation of Breakfast At Tiffany’s is so worshiped to the extent that it has. Its become so iconic in the public’s consciousness as being synonymous with Audrey that it’s almost a religious symbol for people today who are interested in “vintage” things and is seen as something very refined and tasteful. Put on your Wayfarers and pearls and pray to your Saint Audrey icon/Holly Golightly poster on your wall and hope that everyday you will look flawless and so classy!

To her credit, she is well dressed, she’s fascinating to look at. She had a great taste and a great stylist, most of which can all be attributed to her lasting relationship and patronage of fashion house Givenchey. Get yourself a symbiotic relationship with a fashion house in the same manner and you too will always look good!

By all means use Audrey as a model of impeccable grooming, style and poise and as a humanitarian (none of that “I believe in pink” crap) and an advocate for children, but, just realize you shouldn’t idolize HOLLY GOLIGHTLY at all.

Now it’s Audrey’s Holly Golightly, not the novella Holly Golightly but she’s still…Holly Golightly. You are not supposed to really like her and she is not a good role model for girls. I just wish it was more known that you’re really not supposed to like the character as much as people do. At least that’s how I see it. 

Her character in Capote’s original novella is a callgirl. Capote phrased it in an interview of her being more of an “American Geisha”, a classy escort who takes indulgences from her clients in exchange for her presence at events and parties, but she just also might take her client home as well, or she might not. She’s a complex character that Capote originally wanted Marylin Monroe to play in the movie, and also wanted Paul Newman as, well Paul. Audrey Hepburn was miscast as Holly and George Peppard is a TERRIBLE actor. And don’t make me start about Mickey Rooney in yellowface!

Capote was disappointed in the film and that they did not go with his original casting preferences. In regards to Marylin (another Hollywood icon who is severely misunderstood and is cult-like worshiped all for the wrong reasons) playing Holly; it could have worked. The extremely naive ex-country girl gone New York swinger glamorous would have been almost semi-biographical for Marylin as it mirrors her own story from rags to riches and breaking off an early marriage in a similar manner. Apparently, well rumor has it Paula Strasberg nipped the idea of Marylin’s casting when they offered the role to her, saying she didn’t play “women of the night”. The rest is history.

But really, Holly is a callgirl. Arm candy. The movie skips around it as much as it could, sanitizing it, even poking fun with it with the “Is she or isn’t she” joke, but, really it’s there. The thing is, even though she’s making choices for herself, something about it is off, and I personally do not like her. I mean she’s admirable for staking out on her own and being her own women and choosing who she has sex with but something is still off - the flighty way she wanted to get away from her client in the beginning of the film, who she obviously didn’t want to sleep with, that to me doesn’t look like someone who is very self assured or able to handle herself and tell the guy to fuck off. I don’t find how good of a role model the character is when she seems so flighty to her own supposed profession and general wishy-washiness about everything. She won’t even name her cat. (Pretentious much?).

There’s really nothing new or innovative here, gold-diggers and people who manipulate for financial gain are a trope and a fact of life, anybody will try to get the best deal out of things, and while it’s smart on her part to know how to manipulate people using herself to get what she wants; indulgences, it’s not very admirable because of how she goes about it: without an ounce of confidence. She’s no Selina Kyle (the anti-hero or anti-villainess Catwoman of DC Comics) who manipulates and outright steals what she wants when she wants it, or even the naive but diamond-loving Lorelai in Gentleman Prefer Blondes. Both examples of these ladies revel in their acquisition of nice things and the lifestyle that money provides. Holly, apparently does not. 

I’m not sure how a role model she can be if she’s dependent on others for her living but  doesn’t really accept what she is and what she does or even try any other way. It would have been nice if movie Holly could actually admit she was such a callgirl, be obvious and blunt and unashamed about herself and treat it matter-of-fact like Shirley Maclaine in Irma La Douche and attempt to make the best of her situation by furnishing her apartment with the luxuries she obviously desires. The denial she has is infuriating because she is attempting this disastrous cafe society type of life of floating around not really living at all but puts on the facade that she in fact, does. She’s this amoeba blob of depression and avoidance. She shows no inclination of getting a real job (or jobs) or put her apparent musical skills and singing talents to good use. If she was a “Swing Shift Cinderella” with a dual set (or sets) of odd jobs; waitress or maid or secretary or even a club singer during the day (or maybe like Selina Kyle; an extremely successful and sly cat burglar!) and then POOF becomes a classy society lady and escort by night and because of her combined efforts and tact was self sufficient and financially independant; she would have been likable, but she’s not. She can hardly take care of herself or bother to furnish her apartment. Naively trafficking information for the mob thinking she’s only telling the weather? Come on. Holly Golightly doesn’t try. She just pretends to. She takes no pride in her apartment and yet goes out walking in diamonds and pearls. She’s a wreck and all facade.

Compare her self preservation skills again to another heroine, Scarlet O’Hara in Gone With The Wind who certainly used men to her advantage, but is pretty obvious in her schemes and had the nerve to dance with Rhett Butler while still in mourning garb for a recently deceased husband (who for the viewer is clear she didn’t even care for). She’s determined and conniving and doesn’t care what other people think. Holly seems to care about what everyone thinks.  There’s nothing wrong in wanting to marry rich or retain a certain type of lifestyle; it’s how you execute it that can make you likable or unlikable (not saying what Scarlet does is morally acceptable or something to emulate either, she’s just more likable due to her drive and nerve). Holly is in comparison; vacant, sad, and aloof and doesn’t even to seem to enjoy herself much other than trying to impress people when talking about various topics or throwing parties.

In some ways I think her character is good for women in the history of film, but they went about it the wrong way, they glamored Holly Golightly up when in reality and in the novella, she’s not glamorous at all, she’s a broken individual. She’s this twisting amphisbaena of dependence and avoidance of taking actual responsibility for oneself. Sure in the film she chooses to be with Paul, her wannabee writer/occasional gigolo love interest who she threatens and treats poorly but nevertheless chooses him and “poverty” over decadence (running away with the rich man to another country) by doing so. That’s a very “Hollywood” rose-tinted tacked on ending. The character of Paul didn’t even exist in the novella. The narrator ‘Fred’ or at least that’s what she called him, who is her closest confidant in the novella that they somewhat turned into Paul, was a gay man! And she sure as hell didn’t sleep with that.  Though, it is sort of sweet the gigolo and the callgirl end up together in the film, but still…not enough to redeem the film nor justify Holly Golightly as a good role model.

Seriously, love the actress, love the fashion if you want, the music, but I’m not sure Holly Golightly the character is worth the accolades and neither is the movie adaptation.

(via untoldhistory)

Everyone seems so entranced with The Help…like, everyone. But I’m so skeptical. Like really skeptical. I’m sure it’s wonderfully acted, funny, and styled well for the period, and has good intentions, but something seems off. Maybe it was the lemonade colored cover or the fact that every woman over thirty was reading it on the beach when I was there a few weeks ago. What is the purpose of this movie?

And…go.

(via untoldhistory)

In a dream I had last night I was cast in this play, musical type thing that was originally a novel that was made into a movie in the 1940’s which I distinctly remember saying “Oh yes, that movie, I’ve seen that movie yeah, yeah, this should be fun”. I had this giant script book which was really old and dated. I remember my character goes half of the play disguised as an older man but then is revealed to only be a disguise and he changes his disguise to that of as a circus bear who stands upright on one leg, sticking the other out in front of him for most of his appearances for whatever comedic reasons. I remember either notes or another character in the play said “Of course the bear stands on one foot, it’s funny!” Which makes…no sense.

For whatever reason my character was played by Stewart Granger in the movie version, a fact I forgot about in the dream and when I realized that fact I got rather freaked out since it meant I was playing some sort of lead role and that’s serious, serious….stuff.

Since it was a period piece there was also an instance of talking to another featured character on the steps to some sort of old building of Neoclassical columns and she was decidedly provincial compared to other characters, but got really excited when an ice cream cart, like a cross between a cooler and a coolie pulled up nearby and she absolutely had to get ice cream and jumped off of the portico porch to go buy some.

                     Masaki Kobayashi’s Kwaidan (1965)

” I have to keep talking Johnny”

darrrby:

inky:mappeal:

Prolost - Your New TV Ruins Movies

TVs are designed to do one thing only: sell. To do so, they must fight for attention on brightly-lit showroom floors. Manufacturers accomplish this in much the same way that transvestite hookers in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district do—by showing you everything they’ve got, turned up to eleven. You want brightness? We’ll scald your retinas. You want sharpness? We’ll draw a black outline around everything for you. Like bright colors? We’ll find them even in Casablanca. Oh, and since you associate “yellowing” with age and decay, we’ll also make the image as blue as a retiree’s bouffant on Miami beach.

and on the feature of Motion smoothing in LCD flatscreens (interpolating extra frames) :

Filmmakers were not content to make movies with video cameras until those cameras could shoot 24p, because video, with its many-frames-per-second, looks like reality, like the evening news, like a live broadcast or a daytime soap opera; whereas 24p film, by showing us less, looks somehow larger than life, like a dream, like a story being told rather than an event being documented.

This is interesting since, well, James Cameron just announced higher framerates as the future of cinematic whatever.

I liked this bit too:

Now I’m going to do that internet-unfriendly thing I try to do every so often, which is make a nuanced point.

Which is why newer isn’t always better.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO ME WHEN WATCHING SHUTTER ISLAND over my cousin’s house.

My cousin’s TV is so HD that not only did it make Leonardo DiCaprio look worse than he probably looks even in person without makeup; every wrinkle, acne scar or pock mark, puffy dark circles under his eyes, skin-tone, all over-emphasized and put on display in blaring contrast. Michelle Williams often became a hazy white blob, probably part intentional as part of her “spector/visions” role, but for a while I didn’t even realize it was even Michelle Williams. The TV made Shutter Island look like a daytime soap opera and Leo looked horrible. NOTHING is hidden. Sure it’s old fashioned to be anti-realism, not to say celebrities are “higher than thou” and are expected to be flawless, no one is flawless physically, and I don’t expect them to be perfect, but it took it far too over the top to the point of grotesque. Seriously levels of “Wow I can count his pores, this is kind of uncomfortable,” I mean everyone has their flaws, but I enjoy the mystique of character and sure a little gruff or stressed and strained look can help an actor look more the part and help the movie’s aesthetic but it shouldn’t be so bad as to think “Wow, Leonardo looks really old” because it shouldn’t be about Leonardo. It distracts you from the story, the acting and ruins the overall composition in a film having to see his tired beet red face IN EXTREME HD and due to the sheer number of close ups, it felt very awkward.

It was completely jarring as some scenes were so entirely cheapened by the increased HD sharpening things in the background that shouldn’t be sharpened in terms of depth of field, thus making a set…actually look like a set. Costumes, actually looked like constructed costumes, CG looked rather CG, Everything looked off, not always “belonging”, thus shattering any illusion the movie is trying to build up as a self contained composition.

Sure, it’s annoying, sure, turn down the visual settings yourself if you can, but seriously, if people don’t realize something is off, they might think a movie is terrible to watch going by the EXTREME HD and you can get the wrong impression that the director and cinematographer didn’t mean to present.

(via theteethcollector-deactivated20)

Pablo Picasso Harlequin’s Family With an Ape (1905)

I want a cinematographer somewhere to base a movie’s lighting and color scheme on this painting.