Film/Text and Culture

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 for a child star. Talk about the movies controlling your life.

Ok. Let’s reveal another interesting fact about me to open this post. My parents named me after Katharine Hepburn. Except they didn’t like how she spelled her name. So they changed the second a to an e. So I’m really not named after Katharine Hepburn. Plus I’ve never seen her in a movie in my life. And let me just tell you, after watching this 1933 version of Little Women, I really do not want to be associated with her. I’m sure she’s probably done some really good movies (unless my parents were just crazy when they named me) but she sucked in this one (In my own opinionated and well chosen words.) I hated how unfeminine and tomboyish she was. I know Jo is supposed to be tomboyish, but Hepburn takes it to the extreme. Very extreme. The book Jo loved to do boy things and talk to boys, but I don’t recall her screaming a lot and acting totally uncivilized. But according to others, her performance was pretty good. The Wikipedia page for the movie says that Hepburn won the 1934 Golden Medal for Best Actress at the Venice Film Festival and also established her roles as strong characters in all other movies she was in.

I’m not a tomboy. I hope I didn’t let my parents down.

Let me start this off by saying I haven’t seen a lot of the movies that I am “supposed” to see, according to pretty much everyone I ever meet. I am constantly hearing, “Wait, you haven’t seen (fill in a popular movie)? Do you live under a rock?”

Miller’s Crossing opened me up to the world of the Coen brothers, and now I fully intend on seeing Fargo now, because it’s one of those movies I apparently missed while living under my rock. Miller’s Crossing was great. My favorite scene? Shockingly, when the house becomes a raging gun battle and goes up in smoke. That scene was pretty awesome. More to come later.

I hate the snobbery that is associated with the word “art.” Art to many people is supposed to be some unique, never before seen work. But honestly, I don’t get a lot of what people call “art.” At an art museum near my house, someone had sawn a table in half and mounted it on the wall and is probably making a lot of money off of it. I just don’t get it. Why would I want to look at that? I think art should be a little more enjoyable than that. Art should not be this exclusive club that only a handful of people “understand.” I think movies are a form of art. It has meaning, and the audience can enjoy it. The amount of work that goes into every scene in a movie and how deliberate everything is done is just as great as any painting in a museum or book on a shelf or song on a record. Sure there are some pointless movies out there, but there sure is a lot of pointless paintings out there in my eyes as well. So art critics just need to cut movies a break.