Time reviews Woody Allen's film The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) as "a light, lovely meditation on the cost of surrendering our lives to commercialized fantasy."- First, using at least 2 examples from Allen's film, explain in no more than 3 sentences why this magazine's statement is valid.
- Second, in no more than 3 sentences, address the overall idea at play here. In other words, does our relationship with commercialized cinema come with a cost? If not, why? If so, what is that cost?
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Students in the 6-8:50 T/Th class,
who did not get to screen The Purple Rose,
should post to What Do Movies Say about Us/U.S.?
Costs of Surrendering to Fantasy
ReplyDeleteThe review's suggestion that Allen's film represents, in a lighthearted way, the cost of surrendering our lives to commercialized fantasy is very true. The main character in the movie is an extremely likable and naive woman who spends most of her time at the movie theater which inevitably leads to her losing her job because all she does at work is talk about the movies. Also, she leaves her husband for a movie star who ends up leaving her behind and therefore showing another cost of surrendering to this fantasy. Our relationship with commercialized cinema does come with a cost. Many people go to these movies to escape from real life, but often times these people can become depressed about their own lives and relationships when they see how happy and perfect the people in the movies are. This shows how costly a very close relationship to commercialized cinema can be.
The movie's themes are indeed very light and subtle, you can't simply sum up the film to its supernatural effects, you'd be missing the point. Cecilia's constant infatuation with cinema proves to be a distraction that causes her her job and allows her to forget about her awful husband, possibly preventing her from fixing the situation (despite several attempts to flee.) This however is all very subtle, if you were to miss a few key scenes, you might not realize that Cecilia's fascination with movies is having any negative affect on her.
ReplyDeleteBecoming infatuated with anything can have negative costs. With cinema you can become hopeful for a life that simply doesn't exist outside of movies, causing you to live in a constant state of disappointment. If you rely on watching films as a form of escape from your real life, it can cause you to leave problems to fester and become worse (like Cecilia).
The movie does a great job of showing how one who is oppressed may become obcessed with thier hopes and dreams. Cecilia goes to the movies in order to escape her terrible life, and ends up finding the man of her dreams. She has a false sense of hope that results from the movies, opposed to her harsh, very real lifestyle. By putting faith and love into a make believe character she has given up her reality for a false sense of being, and ends up being hurt.
ReplyDeleteIn real life, many tend to escape problems at the movies. On the screne everything ends up working out, which is absolutley not true in real life. By going to the movies to escape our problems, we have not solved anything. As a matter of fact we have just post-poned our problems to a later time, which is neither productive nor healthy. We are essentially prolonging the stress; an undeniably negative cost.
All Wrapped up Around Fictions Finger
ReplyDeleteThe Review about Allen's film being "a light, lovelu meditation on the cost of surrendering our lives to commercialized fantasy" is by all means true. the way Allen's main female character gets all wrapped up in the romance of the movie and then with the romance with and from Tom Baxter, lead her to start believing people and the world are like the movies, which helps her fall more easily into Gil Sheperds trap.
True watching movies can give people a sense of illusion that there lives should be that good, but if there were no movies then people would just escape through reading, music and art. I don't think It's a bad thinbg to see a movie because it helps people escape everyday life. wiether it be a romance, Happy, Scary or Sad people go to see movies, i think to help stimulate emotions they haven't felt in a while or just feel like feeling.
This was the first time for me watching this movie. I believe Woody Allen's film did a good job showing how Cecilia found an escape into fantasy, while leaving behind her sad and lonely world. Her sad and lonely world, was her job, husband abusing her, and not treating her like a woman is supposed to be treated (with love and support, a husband should give to his wife). Cecilia’s husband never spent time with her, and was always selfcentered. In the movie, I don’t think her husband ever told her that he loved her or she was special to him and meant it; only the times when she threaten to leave him, was when he changed his attitude towards her. Our relationship with commercialized cinema does come with a cost. Cecilia didn’t have someone that was there for her and showed her love she desired, until Tom Baxter (character Gil Shepherd played) showed up.
ReplyDeleteWhen people are hurt, I think it would be safe to say they do have a fantasy of a better situation they’d rather be in, than in one they’re currently in. But, fantasy is not something to hold on to, because like Cecilia, problems will eventually occur. This film did a great job showing how fantasy is not always the reality we see in this world.
I think what makes the magazine's statement valid is that Mia Farrow's character is such an everyday person. She works a job she hates just to get by, she uses film as an escape, and she watches these films with the hope that maybe she will be as happy as some of the characters of these films are when they found love. As I previously stated, the fact that we can relate to her creates a personal relationship with her. We end up feeling how she feels and with that, we expect the same joy and happiness in our lovelives that she has. But when reality sets in and we realize that our relationships come with joy and pain, we feel we will never have that happiness that she has and we turn to cinema to drown our pain. It's an endless cycle. THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO did a great job of showing us the reality of it all though. With love and life comes pain and loss.
ReplyDeleteThe statement is valid because of the main character of Cecilia and how her life had been going. She went to the movies to escape from her life of working in a diner all day to come home to an unemployed, abusive husband. She gets fascinated by everything she sees up on the screen because it is better than what she can hope for. When the perfect man, in the form of Tom Baxter, walks off the screen to pronounce his love for her, she doesn't freak out because she is already in love with him. I believe that the relationship that people have as consumers of films is a costly one. People generally want to see something new, something that they can't see in the regular lives. When they see what they wanted, they want to emulate it. When they trie and it doesn't work like what had happened in the movie, they are dissapointed.
ReplyDeleteThe magazines statement is valid because of Cecilia’s dreams of having the cinematic lifestyle destroys her life and her faith in love. It is her day dreaming about the film that causes her to lose her job and it is her naïve sense of the world that causes her heartbreak. Cecilia compares her life to that of the life on the screen, as many people do, and she strives to have that lifestyle by wanting to go out with her abusive drunk husband.
ReplyDeleteThe obsession with commercialized cinema creates a different, more naïve view of the world. It creates unrealistic goals for our lives and relationships and when these two don’t match we become disappointed and heartbroken. The cinema can cause people to try to become those on the screen which can create a life of disappointment and heartbreak for those who are unhappy with their own lives.
Is Fantasy the Best Way to Live?
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the movie,I would have to agree with the statement "a light, lovely meditation on the cost of surrendering our lives to commercialized fantasy."
I think this statement it’s valid because in the movie Cecilia has a not so pretty reality, where she has to put up with an abusive husband and a bad economy. The movies affect her daily life so much that she lost her job because of them. At the beginning of the movie Cecilia did have a job, but she lost it because she would spend most of her time thinking and talking about movies.
Our relationship with commercialized cinema does have a cost. This can bring people to live in a world of fantasy and forget about reality, or try to transform reality into the fantasy that they are living, which it’s more likely not to happen. Real life isn’t always the best thing around, but it’s better than to live in a fantasy because it will never happen which will bring disappointment and something even depression.
The review is very accurate with its view in the sense that Cecilia sacrifices both her marriage, though loveless and full of abuse and her job, which pales in excitement in comparison with the experiences she endulges herself in while biding much of her time at the theatre. In the movies she sees glorious relationships and lifestyles that she wishes applied to her, though in reality it will never happen and its ultimatley depressing when she is reverted back to reality.
ReplyDeleteAs far as us as real human beings being caught up in the fantasy realm of cinema, it can be looked at in two fashions. The first being yes, we do endure a cost due to commercialized cinema, but only if a person lets that cost arise. If a person's life is so pathetic and empty that they cannot separate movie life from real life, than by all means a cost has been appropriated. While on the other hand, if a person just uses cinema as a temporary extention of fantasy or interest, but takes it no further than the expected enjoyment one could have from a film, than a cost has not been endured.
Times' review of Allen's movie is a valid concept because it covers both the idea of it showing the surrender of Cecelia and the fact that it does it a light way. We see Cecelia becoming obsessed with the movies and their stars to the point where she falls in love with a fictional character, in her real life. But also it also keeps it on the lighter side with the point that Allen adds humor with the Tom Brands character and the that though Cecelia's life is not better in the end she still seems somewhat to enjoy the next movie.
ReplyDeleteThe cost that the movie describing the affecting of one's life, would be the people confusing their real lives from fantasic non-real ones. This can happen as people who go to the movies to escape their real lives are only temporatily numbed, and not actually accomplishing in goals in their own lives. Also this sets them up to fail because they will aspire to live lives that cannot be achieved
As Time magazine states this movie is about surrendering our lives to the life of fantasy portrayed on the screen. In the movie THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO, a perfect life of fanciful and exotic places is shown at the theater, when in Cecelia’s reality it is the exact opposite. The film easily pulls her in, making her dream and think of the life in the movies all day. This results in her losing her job as well as her leaving her husband for a fictional character. In the end, she is left behind by the man she chose over her husband. At the theaters the audience can easily be drawn into the film and they can easily compare their lives to the perfect lives on the screen. This can outcome in depression and a false sense of hope. The reality of life is nowhere close to the reality that is shown in movies. Someone may hope that their life will be like the one shown in a movie, and be crushed when it doesn’t work out the way they thought. A movie is fantasy and not reality in any way you look at it.
ReplyDeleteThis statement can be proven valid by Cecelia's want to have a movie-style life where there are no problems and money is abundant. Also, Tom Baxter coming to life provides the fantasy that Cecelia's mind creates in her depressed state in her life. A charcter on screen coming out into the "real world" could never really happen in real life. The cost of her want begins with the loss of her job when she kept losing focus and began daydreaming. She also lost her husband because of the hope she held in the dream of the Hollywood life. In watching a movie, a person surrenders their grip on reality in favor of escaping into the fantasy world of fiction.
ReplyDeleteI find Time magazines review to be accurate as evident in the content of the film itself. Cecilia in her zeal and love of cinema, became far too obsessed with the characters and the actors that portrayed them, letting it distract her from her responsibilities at work and at home. Cecilia too, having been lost in the romance, was led astray like an unwary lamb not only by the actor Gil Sheppard, but the character he played, Tom Baxter, and only found heartbreak therein.
ReplyDeleteI personally believe that the price we pay for our over-indulgence in movies and all things related is far too steep. That is not to say that films are bad necessarily, but rather that when we rely to much on them as an escape we only aid in becoming a hindrance on society. I find it vexing that as apposed to an art form, wherein we might express ourselves in some of the most profound ways, films have become propaganda machines with which to appease the masses, like the Romans did with the gruesome battles at the Coliseum.
In Woody Allen’s film THE PURPLE ROSE OF CAIRO Cecelia stops living her own life, because she wants to escape to someone’s fake fantasy where people are always honest and fall in love with out trying. Cecelia loses her job, because she believes that watching movies will replace her unhappy life of an ill-mannered husband and a low paying job. Tom Baxter also ends up confusing Cecelia even more, when he pretends that he will take her away to the fantasy of Hollywood and acts as if they are falling in love. Woody Allen expresses the idea of affected relationships from cinema’s fantasies, because the audience creates unrealistic expectations for realities relationships. Relationships with commercialized cinema come with a huge cost, which is the lack of effort toward real interactions with normal people. When people see too many romance movies that end with a perfect couple, society ends up believing it is an everyday miracle that is not that special.
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