Film/Text/Culture Autoblog -Summer 07

After a lot of thinking, er no, feeling, I’ve decided to take back what I said in class about Little Women.
I love it. It’s timeless and warm, comforting like an old country song.  Upon finishing the book, I realized that I had spoken too soon.  When I dished out my less than glowing opinion of the book, I was only at the tip of the iceberg (about page 150).  Then I tumbled into it.  Instead of going out Friday night, I stayed in and devoured it.
It can be trite, idyllic and sometimes nauseatingly sweet like an episode of Leave it to Beaver, or Full House when the music starts to play at the end and someone has learned a lesson — but those things don’t make it any less wonderful than so many readers have discovered since its publication.  When I finished the last page, I was 10 again (but […]

Original post by cdame2of

As we all know many movies are made from books, but what makes film adaptations of books a success? For me it is important that the film portray the feeling of the book, and to a great degree it does need to follow the plot of the book otherwise it may only be “inspired” by the book and not an adaptation. This is what I found to be the great difference between the two versions of Little Women we have watched so far: The Hepburn version does the best job of following the spirit of the book, and the June Allyson version does not. The main difference between the two for me is that the earlier version has the same energy as Alcott’s prose due to the direction of George Cukor, while the second seems satisfied by simply playing out the scenes in color, and not using […]

Original post by onda

The protagonist of Miller’s Crossing, Tom,  harkons back to Hammet’s Ned Beaumont, the cynical idealist that keeps his friends close and his enemies closer. 
It would appear that just as much as his gambling habits, Tom’s hat is an equally important element of his identity.  And though he says that a man chasing his hat is foolish, he is constantly chasing something, if not an identity.  Like most gangster flicks, Tom lives in a world where nothing is certain and change could come at the drop of a hat (or a gust of wind).  Friendship, character, and hell, I ain’t afraid to say it; ethics are constantly in jeopardy, and Tom continually has to makes choices of whether of not to chase them, or let them blow away.
Appearing to be emotionally detached from just about everything, I think he does care.  Even in his line of work, he cares about honor, […]

Original post by cdame2of

I like to look these movies up on IMDB after I view them, so of course I did for this one. It perplexed me that Beth was made younger than Amy, and my original theory was that they wanted a younger character to die to make it more “heartwrenching.” After looking at the trivia for the movie however, the rest of the class was right (or Dr. Campbell, I can’t remember who suggested this) and Beth was made younger because of the availability of the actress.
I became interested in why this occured, so I found this nifty page on Wikipedia about the studio system.
It is interesting to note that Margaret O’Brien, who played Beth, was only really known for being a child actress. She wasn’t even named Margaret, her first name was Angela. She took the name Margaret after her first major role, as was expected […]

Original post by khusband

Permit me a moment of film geekdom, in which I ramble on (probably at length) about how incredibly awesome I think George Cukor is. Together, he and Howard Hawks directed most of my favorite Golden Age movies. There is, I suppose, a rather important difference between a director being a brilliant director and a director with a continuous output of much-loved films, but then again, the two often coincide as well.
So, the awesomeness of George Cukor. Firstly, a list of his films that I feel licensed to comment upon, being as I’ve seen them: A Bill of Divorcement, Dinner at Eight, Little Women, Camille, The Philadelphia Story, Gaslight, Adam’s Rib, A Star is Born, Pat and Mike, My Fair Lady. Also, unfortunately for him, Cukor was slated to direct and then kicked off both Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz (1939 could not have been a […]

Original post by anniek

As I stated in class yesterday, I love the book Little Women. The first Louisa May Alcott book(s) I read was actually Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom. I still have the falling apart copies my mother gave me as she told me they were the first books she had read and fallen in love with. Likewise, I fell in love with those books and I quickly began reading any Alcott book I could get my hands on. As an author, Alcott is one of my favorites.
I feel I have a lot to ponder since class yesterday. I have been contemplating why I’m one of these nuts that likes Little Women so much. When others in the class expressed some of their oppositions to the book, such as it being too sweet, I completely understand where they are coming from. I just […]

Original post by kcannon

I just finished watching the 1933 version of “Little Women,” and I must say, I was pleasantly surprised. I thought the film did an excellent job portraying each of the central characters accurately; especially Katharine Hepburn as Jo. The only thing that was a little off-putting was the fact that the actresses were quite obviously older than the characters they were playing. However, I can understand the film makers desire to choose talented actresses over ones that simply looked more the part. Although the film was definitely corny in parts…so was the book, so I suppose that isn’t a legitimate critique. I think it’s very easy to take a not so great book and turn it into a film; however adapting a classic such as “Little Women” for the big screen is no small feat, and I think that overall the 1933 version was quite […]

Original post by ellie