Robyn’s Blog

I too googled companionate marriage.  My google sources tell me that

Definition: A companionate marriage is based on the spouses having mutual interests in their careers and children. Spouses in companionate marriages believe in the equality of men and women and believe their roles in marriage are interchangeable.

Both individuals in a companionate marriage need self-awareness and self-confidence in order for the marriage to be successful. Without trust, friendship, commitment, and shared values, a companionate marriage may be difficult to maintain.

 Along with this nifty quote:

“At the core of a companionate marriage is friendship and trust and the belief that both partners have equal responsibility in all domains of the marriage. They share the economic burdens and child rearing, and they believe that both partners’ sexual needs and wishes should be clearly articulated and fulfilled. They also recognize that when the children are young and career issues are pressing, their own needs as individuals have to be placed on the back burner. These couples know that people living side by side experience inevitable conflicts that must be confronted openly. They understand that mutual commitment is what holds the marriage together.”
Source: The Good Marriage: How and Why Love Lastsby Judith S. Wallerstein and Sandra Blakeslee, page 155
Apparently, most marriages in America today are considered “companionate marriages.”  As much as having a life companion and a soul mate is a really nice idea,

The divorce rate in America for first marriage, vs second or third marriage
50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce, according to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri.”

 Hmm.  Seems like America is not doing so hot with these companionate marriages. But what is the alternative?  Arranged marriages?  Sure, there are fewer divorces in arranged marriages, but that’s becuase the freedom to divorce someone you don’t like kind of goes hand in hand with the freedom to marry whoever you want in the first place.  The vision of marriage has changed so drastically in our country over the years; and that’s not even talking about the varying visions of marriage throughout other cultures around the world.  What is an ideal marriage?

I’m not being rhetorical–I really would like to know.  And if a companionate marriage based on mutual love and friendship and understanding and passion the ideal, at least for Americans; does it even really exist?

I am willing to bet that many men decided to become misogynists after watching Little Women.   Was it necessary for them to scream every line of dialogue?  All I can say is, those girls are unbearably loud and obnoxious.  Except for Beth of course, but she’s just unbearably dull.  Though better to be dull and quiet than rambunctious and piercing.

Aside from the fact that the March girls conversed in a tone similar to dog whistles, (but unfortunately not quite high-pitched enough– being that we could still hear them)  I thought the movie had surprisingly good acting and accurately conveyed the struggles and personalities of the girls as well as relaying in the shortened time period of a movie a very good representation of the important interactions of the members of the March family and their respective friends.  Laurie was a bit, um, painfully awkward, but the girls were just brilliant.  Their characters seemed very “fresh,” and unrefined, which is how they came across to me while reading the novel.  The great disadvantage of the film as far as I’m concerned is it’s audio element–the novel being so peacefully silent.

I thought it was extremely intriguing that all the literary intellects who commented on the book Little Women found themselves explicitely relating to Jo as a character.  I found myself wondering if all these sophisticated women were actually akin to Jo, or if they simply wanted be like her.  It is undeniable that Jo is one of the most charasmatic characters ever created in a novel.  How could anyone not like Jo.  She’s perfectly adorable.  “Fifteen-year old Jo was very tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way.  She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful.  Her long, thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to be out of her way.  Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly shooting up into a woman and didn’t like it.” (6).  It is interesting how Louisa May Alcott sets up the personalities of her characters  from the very beginning of her book, but if I did an in-depth analysis of everything I found remotely interesting, this would be a very long blog indeed.

Even if you aren’t like Jo at all, she is the kind of person that you wish you were.  She is passionate, creative, inventive, quirky, spunky, spirited, and often ridiculous.  She’s often crazy and frustrating, and is all the more lovable for her faults.  Jo experiences struggles inherent to any girl trying to “find herself” as she grows into a woman.  She is, as Dr. Campbell says, both looking for a connection with her own sense of self, as well as simultaneously trying to understand how she fits into her community and experiences with other people.  She is trying to assert herself as an individual while also trying to be loved and form significant human connections. 

Jo is an incredibly relatable character, because we can find her in all of us.  Even if we are not exactly like Jo, we can find something about her to emphasize with and connect with our own sense of self.  I think it’s interesting how when we watch movies and read books, everyone usually talks about how they are similar to a particular character, and more often than not everyone relates to the same character.  No one ever relates to Beth.  No one ever wants to.  Beth is a weak character. 

I have a lot more to say on this I think, so I will reflect on this more later and probably come back to it later.

p1-kennedy.pdf 

So I perused google for a little while in search for some additional information about shot lengths and what it all means.  Those of you who have already taken a film class probably already know all this, but here is a pdf file to some additonal information on the set-up of shots in movies to create a scene.  Page four and five are particularily relevant.

Hope there’s a snow day tomarrow!

I must admit, I was at first skeptical of Dr. Campbell’s graphs of film shots.  The correlation seemed to be minuscule, at best.  But after really exploring the possibility of the pattern in class, and after watching the actual shots in a scene, I think I understand better what he is talking about.  Though a director probably doesn’t meticulously graph out the cuts of each scene before making a movie, I think there is definitely something to be said about an innate, even instinctual pattern of the cuts of a scene that correspond with the directors intentions for the scene.  There is a definite rhythm to the cuts of each scene.  Each scene has aspects that need to be emphasized and brought out, with longer cuts; whereas quicker shots leave less of an impression on our brain; or give us the feeling of anxiousness or uncertainty.

The idea was brought up in class by Carmen that the rhythm of the shots of a scene was similar to that of a human heartbeat.  I included one here so you can determine the possible correlation for yourselves.  Not to be too hippyish (I’m cringing as I’m saying this because it’s so corny but I’m going to grit my teeth and just put this out there) but maybe our human heartbeat is a microcosm for a deeper rhythm that transcends into other aspects of our lives, such as film shots?  Feel free to mock me as necessary.

After watching Miller’s Crossing, I have to say that I really enjoyed the movie.  However, we talked a lot in class about every detail in the movie occurring for a reason.  I think that I am not yet a sophisticated enough movie-watcher to uncover the subtle meanings behind the various symbols and motifs in the movie.  I feel like there was a lot going on that I havn’t really been able to work out in my head.  There are a lot of different themes going on.  One which struck me as particularly relevant was the theme that was repeated throughout that “You never know anybody.  Not that well.”  A lot of the movie seemed to support the idea that no matter how much you think you know about a person or a situation, you might be completely wrong.  The movie showed a lot of different perspectives. For instance, Bernie’s death.  Each character in the movie had a completely different perspective of Bernie’s death, and each character was convinced they knew the truth.  The Fat guy whose name escapes me (is that Shad?) was so convinced that Bernie was dead by the hands of “Tommy” that he killed his partner to protect Tommy’s honor–honor that was utterly non-existent.  Yet Tommy is honorable, or at least he was to Bernie, until Bernie double crossed him.  Which brings us to another consistent theme in the movie–that of honor.  And the contrasting views of honor.  How you can kill someone and still be honorable; betray someone and still feel honorable.  Every character in the movie had their own unique honor code, most of which didn’t make much logical sense.  As you see by this very convoluted blog entry, there is so much happening in this movie that I’m not sure where to start, but I hope class today will give me more direction in terms of really understanding Miller’s Crossing.

While this re-make of the glass key may be more realistic, I think they should have kept Veronica Lake as the actress, because she is certainly easier on the eyes than this girl.  I may be on the wrong track, but to me it seems as though the re-make Miller’s Crossing is a demythologization, taking the beliefs from the past and showing them to be naive.  The movie thus far appears to take some of the cliche, unbelievable aspects of The Glass Key and make them more realistic in a very modern way.  For instance, instead of Ned and Janet making eyes at each other, in Miller’s Crossing they are having sex.  While in the glass key we heard about the murder of Janet’s brother through secondary sources, in Miller’s Crossing we see the dead man with our own eyes.  The nuances that The Glass Key glosses over are blatantly obvious in the more modern Miller’s Crossing.  I just don’t understand why they couldn’t have found a more attractive actress in this modern day in age–I wasn’t aware that there was a shortage of beautiful people in Hollywood these days.

I’m with Carmen–I never really thought about all the little details that go into making a film.  Just like a book, every last detail is there for a reason.  Each shot has a purpose and intention, and every detail about the shot corresponds with what the director is trying to create.  I think it’s sort of amazing.

It did leave me wondering, as I’m sure we all wonder when we read book sometimes “did the author really MEAN for that detail to turn out like that?”  “Did the director really INTEND the shot to work so well with the theme of heaven/hell, etc?”  I guess we’ll never really know, but I feel better believing that every intricate detail was completely intentional.  But even if it’s not–if the effect is there, accidentally or intentionally, I’m sold.

Just imagine two circles, the circles of a Venn diagram.  The Samurai from Yojimbo would be one circle, and Ned Beaumont would be the other circle.  The overlapping circle, naturally, would be their similarities.  In the Samurai’s circle, it would say “Japanese.”  In Ned’s circle, it would say “American.”  And that would be the only things written there, because besides the fact that Ned is American and the Samurai is Japanese–they are the same person.  The overlapping part of the Venn diagram would be completely filled; with the following points:

•  both gamblers
• both inherently alone in the world
• caught between two opposing sides of a conflict
• working in a city that is strange to them
• wanted by both sides of the conflict
• offerered money and incentives for their services to each side
• deal with a beautiful woman who is likewise caught between the opposing sides
• always inherently smarter than everyone else–both always know what’s going on
• cocky and confident
• both captured by one side of the conflict and tortured by some big dude for information

 And I could go on for awhile.  Okay; maybe I’m exaggerating a little–there are a couple other differences between Ned and the Samurai besides their ethnicity.  But not many.

I just thought I’d take a moment to say that yes, in fact, the movie The Glass Key is DIFFERENT than the book.  It was directed by Stuart Heisler; not written by Dashiell Hammett.  I think that we can talk about the multitude of differences between the book and the movie, as two entirely unique mediums of art, or we can talk about the quality of the movie as exactly what it is; a movie.  Yes, it does not have the refined character development of a novel.  I seem to recall that the defining characteristic of a novel is character development, while movies are known for entertainment.

The movie The Glass Key is a completely different creature altogether.  It wasn’t made as a tribute to the book–it’s just loosely based on the book.  The movie has entirely different objectives at stake.   Such as money.  Hollywood is about the box office.

That is not to say that all films are just about money–films are artistic creations in themselves.  But it’s a totally different form of art than a book.  Movies have other concerns; scene shots, costumes, lighting, acting, momentum, etc.  I think it’s unfair to compare a movie to a book without taking into account that it will not have the same effect that a book will have on it’s audience.  We’ll never enjoy any movies that are based on books (and there are quite a few) if we point out it’s failure to do justice to the book.  What about it’s success as a movie?  And it’s not just books–movies are often based on historical events, or true stories.  Well yes, sometimes movies are historically inaccurate.  Sometimes they don’t get the facts straight.

I don’t think that it’s their responsibility to do so.  Yes, in the Sound of Music Maria and the children probably didn’t glamorously climb over the mountain to escape the Natzis.  It may have been more complicated than that.  But damn, that’s one of the most memorable scenes in any movie.  It’s a great shot.  And you can appreciate it for that.  Just like we can appreciate the movie The Glass Key as a MOVIE, and evaluate it’s strenghts and weaknesses as a work of film rather than as a book.