Pleasantville discussion

The 1998 film Pleasantville, directed by Gary Ross and starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon, is a story which comments on social change, passion and prejudice. It begins when a super-charged TV remote control zaps twins David and Jennifer from the reality of their normal 90s life into the set and family of the hyper-perfect ‘Pleasantville’, a black and white 1950s TV show where everyone and everything is, well, ‘pleasant’.

 

David is a big fan of the show and has no problem adjusting as he know all about where he is and who all the characters around him are. His sister however is furious to be missing out on her life back in the ‘real world’ and hates being confined to 50s fashion, habits and values. She refuses to give up her 90s outlook on life and soon begins to wreak havoc as she introduces a whole new set of ideas to the people of Pleasantville, and dares to ask the questions that everyone else had left well alone.

 

 

The remarkable power of this film lies in its cinematography as the black and white world of Pleasantville soon becomes ‘contaminated’ and things start to change into colour before our very eyes. After Jennifer seduces the otherwise wholesome and clean-cut basketball captain Skip, he drives home to find a red rose blooming on an otherwise black and white bush. This startling imagery really highlights the main theme of the film: change.

Read more here at Culturewatch.

 

Things to think about in Pleasantville

In this film the safe and cheerful 1950s TV sitcom “Pleasantville” is revived in the 1990s for a loyal cable audience. One devoted fan is shy suburban teen David Wagner (Tobey Maguire), who has an almost obsessive interest in the series. He is not happy in his own world – not at school and not at home. He lives with his divorced mother (Jane Kaczmarek), and often fights with his popular and rebellious twin sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon). She wants to watch MTV just when a Pleasantville marathon is about to begin. They struggle over the remote control, and it breaks. A strange TV repairman (Don Knotts) supplies their new remote, a potent high-tech device which zaps David and Jennifer inside Pleasantville, where their new sitcom parents are businessman George Parker (William H. Macy) and wife Betty (Joan Allen). As “Bud” and “Mary Sue,” the teens take up residence in a black-and-white suburbia where sex does not exist and the temperature is always 72 degrees. Life is always pleasant, books have no words, bathrooms have no toilets, married couples sleep in twin beds, the high school basketball team always wins, and nobody ever questions “The Good Life.” David revels in Pleasantville’s sanitised peaceful world. He fits right in, but Jennifer’s 1990s attitude upsets the blandness balance, painting parts of Pleasantville in living colour. Repressed desires surface, cracks appear in the 1950s lifestyles, and the Pleasantville citizens find their lives changing in strange but wonderful ways. It is liberating – but the film shows us that there’s also a darker side and that is also explored in the film.

Things to think about:

• Pleasantville is a film of contrasts. Study the thematic contrasts that exist as well as the production techniques used to communicate contrast.

• TV Quote: “I know what I’d feel like if my TV broke; like I’d lost a friend.”-TV ‘repairman’

   

• Look at the theme of destiny–everything is scripted, has a place. What about our lives?

   

• Religious imagery: garden of Eden, offering of apple, rainbow over Pleasantville, trial of Bud, etc

   

• Importance of books. Two books that were highlighted prominently in the film are Huckleberry Finn and Catcher in the Rye; going to the library is ‘in’!

   

• Censorship: “It seems to me we must separate out the things that are unpleasant from the things that are pleasant.”- mayor of Pleasantville. Personal expression and differences become unacceptable. Anything wandering from what is known is feared.

   

• Racism: “No coloureds.”-sign in Pleasantville window “Coloureds” are people who have become enlightened or who become passionate; they are rejected from mainstream Pleasantville. Think about our own world as differences are not tolerated all over the globe: World War II history.

   

• Review the “8 Rules of Pleasantville.” See how they apply to certain institutions in our own world-church, schools, homes.

   

• Rule #8 is worth focussing on: “Non-change-ist view of history is to be taught in all courses in the curriculum.” Does our own education have a non-change-ist attitude?

   

• Take a closer look at the mural painted by Bill-analyse certain other symbols that represent freedom (he uses books, wings, etc.)

   

• Scene at the end of the movie of a sign that says SPRINGFIELD 12 is significant on a number of levels: first, it gives us an indication that people in Pleasantville now have a notion that a world exists beyond its own borders; secondly, Springfield is the setting of the real sit-com, Father Knows Best; third, Springfield is also the setting of The Simpsons‘ which is a parody of 50s family perfection, which, of course, never really existed as Pleasantville makes clear.

   

Recap of the significance of colour in Pleasantville

When David and Jennifer get trapped within the traditional 1950s-style television show Pleasantville, the film changes from colour to black-and-white. Later as we have discussed, coloured portions begin to appear in shots, representing freedom and individual thought. We understand  that in our time that experiencing and experiencing emotions is OK and that the black-and-white aspects of the shots represent more conformist values of ages past, when people’s personal emotions were kept hidden. Later in Pleasantville, some characters change to colour, while more conservative, closed-minded characters remain in black and white. These differences eventually causes a rift between colourful characters and black and white ones. An example is David, who has looked towards conservative values and has been black and white for most of the film, suddenly turns coloured after defending Betty, his Pleasantville mother from bullies. It is important to note the specific significance of colour (or lack of it) and evaluate the significance of colour as a language of its own that is used to create meaning and characterisation in the film.

The use of colour in Pleasantville

“It’s not just a stylistic conceit, it’s part of the story. The first five times that it happens in the movie, people go, ‘Oh my God, look at that colour.’ A character stares at the rose, he’s blown away. There’s constant reaction to the bits of colour… It’s like a virus that spreads. It’s done in part to keep the viewers off guard and give them a sense of surprise and wonder, because this world of predictability is breaking down.”

(Director Gary Ross)

The film uses colour in a complex and symbolic way, mixing monochrome and colour objects in the same frame. The film contrasts the complex, colourful, contemporary world of the late 1990s with the simplified, black-and-white world of Pleasantville, a late 1950s TV sitcom. The introduction of the intruders David and Jennifer to Pleasantville gradually changes the sitcom world and these changes are reflected by the gradual introduction of colour.

Pleasantville’s world is simple. It is a closed universe, where the streets loop back on themselves. In Pleasantville it never rains. There are no fires, all the fireman do is to rescue cats from trees. Everything is perfect and simple. The basketball team has never lost, it even seems that is impossible to miss a shot. While there are books in the library, they are filled with blank pages. The simple clarity of black and white matches the idealised nature of the world.

When Jennifer (Mary -Sue) starts the process of sexual awakening in the town it spreads quickly through the town’s teenagers. The viewer sees car brake lights suddenly glow red. Later we see a pink tongue, then a green car. In the soda shop, Mary-Sue nibbles at the red cherry on her ice cream. The parking spot in Lover’s Lane becomes a riot of colour. It is interesting how other aspects are used to signal changes in a variety of ways and it is not just though the gradual appearance of colour. A tree busts into flame. Text and pictures start appearing in library books. The juke-box music in the Pleasantville soda shop moves from sugary middle of the road music to rock-and-roll and then to modern jazz. It also starts to rain.

In Pleasantville, colour is used to differentiate two universes. In the film Gary Ross uses colour as a metaphor for race. The people who have experienced epiphanies or strong emotion are represented in colour and referred to as “coloureds,” while the people who are still only black and white try to segregate and oppress them.

Symbolism in Pleasantville

Try the Art and Popular Culture site for a discussion of symbolism in Pleasantville. Here’s an extract:

Though one of the most notable aspects of Pleasantville is its extreme contrast – particularly its rich contrast between color and black and white – the symbolism in the film should be noted as well. The most obvious symbolism exists in the “colored” versus those who are still black and white. As a reference to the racism in the 1950s and 1960s in United States, there is a sign posted in a shop window at one point declaring “No Coloreds Allowed”, which mimics those in stores that refused service to Black Americans during the aforementioned era.

Towards the end of the film, the courtroom scene is a throwback to the To Kill a Mockingbird movie, where Atticus Finch makes his famous closing argument. As in To Kill a Mockingbird, the courtroom is divided by color. Sitting in the second floor balcony seats are the “colored”, where Black Americans sat in To Kill a Mockingbird, and the black and white people (White Americans) are sitting on the floor seats of the courtroom. Bud, like Atticus Finch, also makes an impassioned speech to the judge and jury about the unfairness of the trial at hand; however, Bud is not the lawyer but instead one of the accused.

Gary Ross was quoted about the symbolism of the film, saying, “This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression…That when we’re afraid of certain things in ourselves or we’re afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop”.

Read the rest here.

Pleasantville shot by shot

Try this really interesting slideshow on the film.

Pleasantville

Hi to all Year 12 students that are studying Pleasantville. I will add links and information on the film to help with your revision. The first article is from Culturewatch. Here is an extract –

The 1998 film Pleasantville, directed by Gary Ross and starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon, is a story which comments on social change, passion and prejudice. It begins when a super-charged TV remote control zaps twins David and Jennifer from the reality of their normal 90s life into the set and family of the hyper-perfect ‘Pleasantville’, a black and white 1950s TV show where everyone and everything is, well, ‘pleasant’.

David is a big fan of the show and has no problem adjusting as he know all about where he is and who all the characters around him are. His sister however is furious to be missing out on her life back in the ‘real world’ and hates being confined to 50s fashion, habits and values. She refuses to give up her 90s outlook on life and soon begins to wreak havoc as she introduces a whole new set of ideas to the people of Pleasantville, and dares to ask the questions that everyone else had left well alone.

The remarkable power of this film lies in its cinematography as the black and white world of Pleasantville soon becomes ‘contaminated’ and things start to change into colour before our very eyes. After Jennifer seduces the otherwise wholesome and clean-cut basketball captain Skip, he drives home to find a red rose blooming on an otherwise black and white bush. This startling imagery really highlights the main theme of the film: change.

Read the rest here.