It's Oscar Time: Why Cinema Makes Good Writing
Steve McQueen's "12 Years a Slave" is the winner of the coveted Best Picture Oscar in the 86th Academy Award. Spike Jonze's "Her" is the recipient of the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, which is well deserved. It's about an introvert looking for affection in unexpected places. The script is brimming with tenderness, which goes like this:
"It's like I'm reading a book...and it's a book I deeply love. But I'm reading it slowly now. So the words are really far apart and the spaces between the words are almost infinite. I can still feel you...and the words of our story...but it's in this endless space between the words that I'm finding myself now. It's a place that's not of the physical world. It's where everything else is that I didn't even know existed. I love you so much. But this is where I am now. And this who I am now. And I need you to let me go. As much as I want to, I can't live your book any more."
This is the kind of flick that makes a good topic for a college essay. Students of Film and/or Literature have guidelines to follow, such as:
- What do you find most intriguing/disturbing about the film?
- What claims are you making about the film's effect?
- What is the director's intention in this sequence?
- Do the stylistic choices made help achieve the perceived purpose of the sequence?
"Her" is based from Jonze's own idea, his premise. A college essay can be more interesting, if not intriguing, if it's from a literary piece of work. Not that Jonze isn't a genius, but literary adaptation can be debatable, albeit a healthy one. An essay of one thousand and five hundred words may not be enough. So let's look at three previous Oscar winners:
1. Pygmalion (1938) by Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard. George Bernard Shaw's play is part of the reading list in Modernist Literature, the basis for "My Fair Lady", George Cukor's beloved musical. Not many film enthusiasts might be aware that this musical is a remake of sort, as General Film Distributors released a down-to-earth version of Shaw's masterpiece before World War II. This can be a perfect topic for a comparative essay, as Wendy Hiller is the ideal choice for Eliza Doolittle, if physical appearance is the basis. But some believe that the English actress, a Best Supporting Actress Oscar winner for "Separate Tables" (1958), didn't give the role some justice. A few even pointed out that Audrey Hepburn, who played Eliza in "My Fair Lady", gave life to the beloved character. To each his/her own opinion then;
2. Lust for Life (1956) by Vincente Minnelli. This is one of a number of big-screen versions of the life of Vincent van Gogh, the gifted Dutch painter whose works brought him posthumous fame. It's no secret that the fellow behind "Portrait of Dr. Gachet", "Road with Cypress and Star" and "The Starry Night" had troubles, but Irving Stone's novel, from which Minnelli based his movie from, depicted an artist no different from the others, whose struggles become a source of inspiration for their masterpieces. But was Stone, notable for his biographical novels of historical personalities, being compassionate to van Gogh? This can be a good position paper; and
3. Becket (1964) by Peter Glenville. This adaptation of Jean Anouilh's "Becket or the Honour of God" examines the cause of conflict between Thomas Becket, Archbishop of Canterbury, and King Henry II. This is one of the many interesting, if not conflicting, accounts in English history during the eleventh century, as there seems to be no accurate, if not believable, version of the happenings back then. The French dramatist depicts them as the best of friends, until a test of loyalty strains their friendship, resulting to a feud. But another record depicts a father-son relationship between the two. Whatever it is, a review of this film can result to a provocative paper, as the series of events between these two figures changed the course of English history.
The three are part of the tip of an iceberg. There's more, which shows that cinema is more than entertainment.
