The best years of our lives

This film is directed by William Wyler, and displays the difficulties of 3 servicemen to readjust to home after returning from World War 2. From all of them, Al is the luckiest one, being surrounded by 2 strong women in the face of his wife and daughter Peggy and a secured job waiting for him. Despite having these wanderful things at home, he still doens't feel comfortable and refuses to accept his children have grown up and are much more responsible since he last saw them. Al is childish in a comic way, especially in situations with a drink in his hand when he looks the happiest. His wife is next to him all the time, making sure he's ok and providing all the support he needs.
Homer, the youngest of all, has lost his arms during the war and has hooks as replacements. His readjustment seems the most difficult one, because he feels like a burden to his family and future wife Wilma. Homer remains blind to their complete love and support for a long time, but when he faces his own problems and insecurity he finally lets Wilma closer to him.
The three fellows often see each other. Their spot is a pub which Homer recommends, and in fact they, end up there on the very first night. Fred, who has reached a high rank during the war and has exceptional achievements, refuses to come back to the pharmacy where he has previously worked. He meets Peggy, Al's daughter, at the pub where they end up by chance. She is very different from his wife, much more tactful, caring and stepped down to earth. As his wife sees in him only the "smooth pilot" who she has fun with, when the money is gone she is off too. The best years of her life, are in fact, the years when he was gone and she was living in luxury. Peggy accepts him the way he is, with a low paid job and no fancy officer clothes. I really wanted them to end up together ever since they met! When the wife was introduced I got a bit worried.. but luckily it moved forward in the right direction as everyone hoped.
In "The best years of out lives" many details are omitted, others are summed up in one shot, but the audience is clever enough to figure out the whole plot and doesn't suffer during the two and a half hours at all! Brilliant ideas that we could all benefit from- like the long deep focus shots. They save up time and most of all bring style to the who film.

Just to mention that Peggy is played by Teresa Wright, who I've watched in "Shadow of a doubt", my first Hitchcock film :)

Week 20/04- 26/04

We were back from Easter holiday on Monday and submitted our 10 premises for a 7 min film to Richard. I was not looking forward to the group story telling exercise, considering how easy it is mess up any of the lines and somebody will make you go back and change it. Eventually only 3 of 10 sheets altogether survived. Funnily enough, 2 of them were about a hamster and a rat! The class loves animals. The third one was about a quiet part-time piano teacher who desperately wants to please everyone. From this exercise we learned that a good story needs a flawed character, a big enough inciting incident and a very good external goal. Usually this was missing in the other stories which didn't get through. We also talked more about dialogue and its purpose. In that sense, Closer and Good Fellows are very different in the characters' dialogue, but in the same time both films bring us easily into the characters' world through that dialogue.
In the afternoon, Kim Miller was teaching us what to look for in a good, organized storyline. Our homework was to make a short term storyline about Dev. It sounds boring, but after watching 5 episodes of Corie I got into it.

Tuesday was supposed to be an editing class which didn't happen again. I hope we learn how to edit. Really!
In the afternoon was history of cinema class, covering the period after WW2 and the beginning of Star System. Oblivious to the consequences, James Stewart or his manager started it all. And now we have to pay at least 7 mil. for a famous actor. We also discussed the small necessities of the soldiers coming back from war- a car, a house and a fridge! How simple and logical!But I would say a job comes at first place. This brings us further to the target audience of cinema in those days: teenagers, since the elder people were perfectly satisfied with a TV and didn't feel like going out after the long working day. Such factors bring in packaging of films and their theater presentation. In fact, it turned out to be quite a successful idea, considering that a good graphic poster, which has nothing to do with the film's content, would sell the tickets. Other good examples of packaging are Disney and Hitchcock, since we all know what the films are about just by hearing the name of the author.

Wednesday was a screening of "The best years of our lives". There will be another post for it.

On Thursday we were off, researching the characters from Corie and plotting their future liaisons.
On Friday was Abigail's class on producing. We took a script and started filling out some sheets to estimate what we need for a production. I find it quite helpful in terms of organizing the schedule much more precisely and it also saves money! Of course not everything was clear, but it starts to clarify step by step

The African Queen

A John Huston Film


At the beginning of World War 1, Charlie (Humphrey Bogart) tries to save Rosie (Catherine Hepburn) from the German invasion in Africa, taking her on his steamboat. Rosie is an English spinster and the sister of a priest who is killed by the Germans. She is quite set in her ways, but in the same time brave enough to undertake a dangerous journey which aim is to destroy a huge German warship, The Louisa, using handmade torpedoes. For an experienced traveller like Charlie, such an initiative is complete madness. Even though the conditions put them against each other, they also bring the two travellers closer and eventually they fall in love. Finally, their handmade torpedoes manage to destroy The Louisa and save the British pride.
I enjoyed the film, there is no doubt it's great! But I still think that Marlon deserved that Oscar more than Bogart did.
Anyways, the posters are great fun!