Gold Diggers of 1933

This week, our class got to watch the 1933 musical titled “Gold Diggers of 1933,” and I was very excited about it. I used to be extremely involved in my high school’s theater department, specifically in our musical theater productions, so I was really excited to see a musical that I had never seen before.

One aspect of this film I really enjoyed was the music itself. The majority of the songs seemed so upbeat and happy even though the musical revolved around the depression and how it was affecting showgirls at that time. The music was actually a really interesting aspect of this film due to its upbeat nature in contrast with its pretty depressing plot. About halfway through the film, I started wondering why the musical director and director of the film would have chosen to have such happy musical numbers but I couldn’t really come up with a good reason. The only idea I had in my mind was that the director wanted something to bring up the mood of the film since the film’s topic was pretty depressing. But as contrasting as the music was, I enjoyed that it was so upbeat. If all of the music in the film was depressing, slow, and sad, I do not think I would have enjoyed the film as much as I did. However, the music was not the only thing I enjoyed about this film.

I also really enjoyed the character of Trixie because she seemed to bring up the morale of her fellow showgirls and of the overall film. Her sarcastic attitude and love for life made the film easy to watch when she was on-screen, and she also brought a lot of laughter and joy to the audience (and I’m sure the rest of the audience, at least in our class). Trixie’s relationship with Mr. Peabody was also hilarious, and surprised me by how they ended up getting married at the end of the film. I kind of expected Mr. Peabody to be mad at her once he figured out she was just using him for his money, but I was glad to see that he embraced her and seemed to be so nice that it caused her to develop genuine feelings for him. I will say, it seemed like Trixie always sort of liked him for more than just his money, but I didn’t ever expect them to get married like they did in the end. Overall, I think Trixie’s character really pulled this movie together.

Oddly enough, I couldn’t think of anything about this movie that I didn’t like. The plot, music, characters-I thought they were all great. I guess the only criticism I have about this movie would concern the lack of character development in most of the main characters. It seemed like the showgirls and their boyfriends had good (or at least entertaining) relationships, but the audience never really gets to know the characters on a more personal level. I just wish the director would have put more thought into the character development. But other than that, I really enjoyed this film and I think it is one that everyone can enjoy.

Female Empowerment

This week our class focused on the idea of women empowerment, which is something I find really interesting for a few different reasons. Obviously, being a woman myself, I believe women empowerment is a great thing and is something that needs to be talked about. But I realized that a lot of the conversations I’ve had in other classes involving women empowerment have been about the roles of women in society today, not the roles of women in the past. I really appreciated that we were able to talk about and analyze women’s roles in society in the past by looking at different films. For the most part, women used to be portrayed as housewives who were nothing without a man in their lives. But the films we viewed this week showed women in different and powerful roles. It made women seem less helpless without men, and I really enjoyed seeing this in these films. Watching these films made me realize how far we have come as a society to accept men and women in different roles.

One film that really caught my attention was Michael Curtiz’s 1933 film titled “Female.” The film follows the life of Alison Drake, who is a hard-working business woman who is the head of a large automobile company. She seems extremely selfish in terms of her wealth and treats the men in her life as useless objects. After she seduces the man she wants at that moment, she just tosses them to the side the next day and pretends as though nothing happened. Although she makes it appear as though she only cares about herself and her company, the film later reveals that she does want a man in her life and that she doesn’t want to be alone. I was kind of disappointed that we only got to see a few scenes from this film because I was really enjoying it, but I would really like to view the entire film and see exactly how it plays out in the end.

I found it very interesting that Curtiz decided to make a movie that portrayed a woman with so much power at this time in history. Obviously, not a lot of films at this time showed women in powerful, executive positions, but I think it was a great way to show America how women can have just as much power in a corporate setting as men and do just as good of a job. I wish I could have a chance to talk to Curtiz to see why he wanted to make this film. Actually, I find it really interesting that a male director made a film that revolved around the idea of women empowerment. Why wouldn’t a woman want to direct this kind of film? Or were most film directors at this time men? I guess the vast majority of film directors today are men, but still! Why wouldn’t a woman want to direct this film? And what would make a man want to direct a film like this? Just some food for thought I suppose….

Scarface (1932)

This week, our class watched Howard Hawks’ 1932 film Scarface. In general, I really enjoyed this film because it was much more exciting than the past few films our class has seen. The amount of violence that was present in this film actually shocked me, as I’m sure it did early audiences, because I wasn’t fully ready for it. Since we looked at some of the Motion Picture’s Production Codes before viewing this film, the violence just really seemed to catch me off-guard. According to the 1927 Motion Picture Production Code, some things that were prohibited from being in films included profanity, suggestive nudity, sex perversion, and more. To my surprise, almost all of these were present in Scarface, which was produced after these rules came out. It was also interesting to see the amount of items that were on the production code’s “Be Careful” list that were also in this film, including firearms, robbery, brutality, murder, sympathy for criminals, man and women in bed together and lustful kissing. Although there wasn’t really a scene where a man and women were in bed together, there were a few scenes where it was suggested that a man and a women would be in bed together or were just previously in bed together. This movie was full of suggestions like that, but I actually thought it made the film more intriguing. It suggests an idea but allows each individual audience member decide what happens next. I think this is one of the aspects of this film that really kept my attention and left me wanting more by the end of the movie. But there were a few things I didn’t particularly enjoy about this film.

One thing I was really bothered by was how many characters there were in the movie. I kept getting confused on who was who, except for the actual character of Scarface. Due to his scar, I was able to keep track of him. But many of the other male characters looked and dressed the same, so I found it difficult to keep track of all of them. Even the extra men who were just at restaurants or at the Men’s Club seemed to dress the same. It just kind of confused me, so I wish the director would have made the characters more distinct. I also didn’t really like the movie’s ending. I didn’t like how (in the version we viewed) Scarface basically begged for the police to show him mercy and not shoot him. The character of Scarface that most of us today know and love would never have begged the police for anything; he would have stuck to his values and had his own shoot out (which he basically did in the 1983 version of this film). I just felt like it wasn’t a great way to end a “gangster”-type film, but I suppose that is one of the big differences between gangster films today and in the past.

Overall I did find this film entertaining and intriguing. I would find it really interesting if our class had the chance to watch this version of Scarface and compare it to the 1983 version of Scarface. I would also be interested to see what the people who created the 1927 version of the Motion Picture Production Company would think of the newer version of Scarface. I’m sure they would be absolutely appalled….but it would still be interesting to hear their thoughts. :)

Redskin (1929)

This week, our film class watched Victor Schertzinger’s western film titled “Redskin.” The film focused on the life of a Native American boy named Wing Foot, and followed him throughout his young life into adulthood. At a young age, the U.S. government (referred to many times during the film generally as “white man”) forces Wing Foot into a boarding school and changes his lifestyle from that of a typical Navajo boy into that of an average “white man.” The school and their officials force all the young Native American children to leave behind their customs and their overall way of life in order to embrace the “white man’s” style of living. Although many children tried to hold onto their culture, all of them eventually were forced to give in and give up their preferred lifestyles while attending school. The film follows Wing Foot and the love of his life, Corn Blossom, after they grow up and graduate from this boarding school and shows the audience the positive and negative effects of this schooling. While I understand that the vast majority of the film focused on Wing Foot as an adult, I wanted to focus more on the boarding school scenes in the beginning of the film because they seemed to catch my attention and affect me the most as an audience member.

I think the one scene that caught my attention the most was the scene in the boarding school when John, the white man who forced Wing Foot to come to the boarding school, whipped Wing Foot in order to set an example. In this scene, all the school children were lined up outside in front of the flagpole in their school uniforms and expected to salute the American flag. As it was Wing Foot’s first day at school, he tried to hold onto his Navajo customs and refused to salute the U.S. flag because he felt it represented honoring the white man, which is something he obviously did not want to do. John refused to take no for an answer from a young Indian boy and said he would make an example out of Wing Foot by whipping him until he saluted the flag. Unfortunately, Wing Foot was whipped until he cried and eventually saluted the flag. After this, all the other school children referred to him as “The Whipped One” and made fun of him. This scene really bothered me because it showed how white men felt they were superior to other races. It’s so disturbing to think that this was how it used to be at one time, but it also makes me realize how much progress we have made as a nation because we now pride ourselves on embracing all cultures. The United States is a melting pot of many different cultures and it’s nice to see how different cultures are more tolerant and much more accepting of others today.

Actually, the most disturbing part of the entire film took place in the scene just before the one I just described above. I believe the most disturbing scene was the scene where Wing Foot first meets his female teacher/superior in the school’s office. In this scene, Wing Foot meets his teacher and also meets a classmate that is assigned to help him get settled. But the other school boy is a Pueblo, so he and Wing Foot try to fight each other since there is an obvious tension between their tribes. When they try to fight, John breaks them up and states, “It doesn’t matter if you’re Pueblo or Navajo; you’re all equal here.” I find this disturbing because he states that all the children are equal, but still implies and clearly believes that whites are superior to Native Americans. What makes John think that the “white” way of life is better than the Native American way of life? Why couldn’t people just accept their differences and embrace everyone’s cultures? Does there always have to be a superior race? This scene just made me think a lot about race and tolerance.

Overall, I really enjoyed this film. Although I did find some scenes disturbing, I feel as though these scenes were necessary to convey a point. It’s important to watch some of these older films like this because they show us how far we have come as a nation in terms of tolerance and acceptance with race. I also really liked how Wing Foot was able to gain an education from the “white man’s” school without losing touch with his roots. Even though his tribe rejected him when he first returned after gaining an education, he showed them how he was still a Navajo at heart and would always be a Navajo no matter where he went. If anything, it made him more proud of his heritage.

Oscar Micheaux's "Within Our Gates" (1919)

Before watching Oscar Micheaux’s 1919 film titled Within Our Gates, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. I thought that, because it was made in 1919, it would most likely be black and white and a silent film. But I have never actually seen a full-length silent film before, so I was a bit skeptical about it. To my surprise, I generally liked the film. But, like with most films, there were things I really liked about it and things I didn’t really appreciate.

To start off, I really enjoyed the overall message of this film because I felt it was uplifting. The film revolved around the life of Sylvia Landry, a black woman who cared about the education and general well-being of her race. In the story, she is determined to find some way to raise enough money to keep a school for African American children up and running. During the film, a wealthy white woman named Mrs. Warwick accidentally hits Sylvia with her car, and then offers to help Sylvia with her cause of keeping the school open. Although the director makes sure the audience realizes that racism is at its peak during this time, Mrs. Warwick stays true to her word of helping out the school by donating $50,000 to keep it up and running. However, she did not have an easy time deciding whether or not she would go through with her donation. Mrs. Warwick asks her close friend Mrs. Stratton for advice on the matter because she believes Mrs. Stratton is more knowledgeable on this subject matter. Unfortunately, Mrs. Stratton is extremely racist and tells her friend not to waste her money by giving it to a school for black children because she claims that “an education would just give them headaches.” After considering her options, Mrs. Warwick decides that she is going to donate more than the original amount she promised to Sylvia of $5,000 and increase it to $50,000. I really appreciated that Micheaux not only had Mrs. Warwick keep her word to Sylvia but had her increase her donation to an even more generous amount. Micheaux demonstrated how ignorant racists can be and how race shouldn’t make a difference to people. Even though I appreciated the overall theme of this film, there were a lot of things I didn’t really like about it.

For a lot of the film, I felt very lost and confused because of the amount of characters Micheaux had in it. Due to the large amount of characters in the film, there were a lot of plots within the larger plot, and I think that confused me even more because I wasn’t able to keep track of each character and their individual story. It was just a lot for me to handle all at once. I think the film would have been better if there were fewer characters and less mini plots. I also had a more difficult time than I thought watching this movie simply because it was a silent film. As I stated earlier, this was my first silent film. To be honest, I thought it would be easier to follow because it was silent. But I think I ended up being more confused because I would see the characters talking to each other for long periods of time, but the intertitles wouldn’t come up for a while so I would sit there trying to figure out what was going on. I must admit that watching a silent film is much more confusing than watching a film with sound. I mean, you could probably enjoy a film with sound but no/less picture because you would still be able to relatively know what’s going on. Actually, I would be interested to just listen to the audio of a movie to see if that’s possible to enjoy….

Anyway, I did find some of the technical aspects of the film interesting and enjoyable, such as his obvious play on the colors black and white. He made it very clear to the audience who was supposed to be portrayed and good and who was supposed to be evil by the clothes they wore. For most of the film, Sylvia was wearing very white dresses, which made the audience see her as the heroine of the story. But her cousin Alma, who purposely sabotaged Sylvia’s relationship with her future husband, wore a lot of black. This made the audience view Alma as evil and a bad person. I just thought it was very clever of Micheaux to use this tool in a black and white movie because it just goes to show that you do not necessarily need colors in a film to convey a certain message.

But after watching and thinking about the film, I still have some unanswered questions about it. Why would Micheaux choose to have so many characters in this film? Did he not think it would be as confusing as it actually was? I didn’t think some of the characters were even needed….Also, what happened to Sylvia’s younger brother Emil? The last the audience saw him was when he rode off on a horse as he was trying to escape being lynched. Did he survive or was he later found and killed? I would be interested to hear anyone’s thoughts on any of these questions. :)

First Post

Well...here is my very first blog post! :)