Analyzation of "Bonnie and Clyde", and "Thelma and Louise" ; Feminist Criticism

The two films "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Thelma and Louise" are two great films highlighting rebellion and gender roles in society, including the new techniques that new filmmakers of those time periods were using. The film "Bonnie and Clyde" is about a couple who go on a crime spree, the love birds partake in bank robberies and even murder as they trave across the country with their fellow criminal commarades who help the couple along their journey. "Thelma and Louise" is a film about two average  women who go on a  mini vacation/ getaway for the weekend and end up running into a little trouble that causes a snowball affect and before they know it they end up as fugitives and are on the run to Mexico for the sweet escape away from the feds. Both films display many examples of rebellion and excitement for viewers that has intrigued people for years, explaining why they're such great films.
                
The film "Bonnie and Clyde" shows a new sort of revolution that was going on in society about the changing gender roles, ore especially for women, in the 1960's. The movie starts with an opening scene of Bonnie's bare neck and shoulders, implying her nudity that the camera never fully reveals to the audience. So already we see a change because the main female character is less conservative as we might've seen in older films, and more sexualized. Also, as the film continues on we are introduced to a new character who lives up to the very stereotypical female role in society, named Blanche, who plays Buck's ( Clyde's brother) wife. If the audience couldn't see the obvious masculine roles Bonnie was beginning to take on. they could clearly see now compared to Blanche that she was. In one scene while they're taking photos, Blanche and Buck take one first and Blanche is very shy and bashful about taking a photo, yet Bonnie poses by herself holding a gun and uses Clyde's cigar, she even refuses to smile. That scene is just one of many that clearly displays Bonnie's taking on of the more masculine role on their journey.

Things have changed a lot by the early 1990's for women and men alike because by now, films were being released that displayed more and more signs of rebellion and people defying their gender roles. Films such as 'Thelma and Louise" were shown now and the audience from the 1990's would've been more adapted to that sort of a content in a film, than the audience of the 1960's, when "Bonnie and Clyde" was released. So, now that the younger generations were seeing this in many films then and other forms of social media, they would feel more obliged to partake in some of the societal changes of that time. For example, in the film "Thelma and Louise" the audience can see the women both at one point wearing jeans and smoking, which was something that was very stereotypical for a male role in that society of that time. Women were more likely to be seen in shorts and skirts, like how Thelma was in the beginning of the movie. However, towards the end of the movie as Thelma begins to change, she takes on the more male role and does things like smoking and wearing jeans, even getting drunk all the time.

I do think a similar film made today would have a different portrayal of gender roles or expectations from a modern audience because now in 2013 people are more open about what they like and not what society wants them to do. Women have come a long way from being the average housewife and child bearer, much like men who take on more feminine roles today, and a less masculine one. Nowadays females can walk around in male clothing and though it may still seem a little odd to us, it isn't something we are completely foreign to. Therefore more films would have to be curved and directed towards the way society and people are setup today, meaning they would feature things that we might have seen before and is popular now or even a little more daring than what we are used to. Every couple of decades we see more and more advancement in society, with more sexual content in the media along with, "abnormal" gender roles amongst people, so who knows what will happen next!

Comparison Between "Citizen Kane" and "American Beauty"

"American Beauty". If one saw this name n a cover of a movie, that person might decide to watch it because the name sends this message about America, which is that it's beautiful, on top of all the other messages perceived from people about America and social media. However, the titles can be deceiving because this movie at first may seem like your typical American suburban neighborhood (because of it's opening scene, which is an overview of the perfect little town) with its typical  American citizens inhabiting the neighborhood but there's much more to this movie than what it seems. During the opening , the main character Lester Burnham talks about how he's going to end up dying at the end of the movie and this is the story of his life basically and how it all happened. The movie goes into depth about his life as a boring, unrespected husband of a perfectionist wife named Carolyn, and a distant father of his moody teenage daughter Jane. Lester works in an office and Carolyn is a real estate agent, while Jane attends a local high school with her best friend Angela. The whole family's life turns around when new neighbors the Fitz's move in next door. It is a family of three, a teenage boy named Ricky Fitz who is a part time drug dealer and is also attending the same school Jane is. He is the son of an abusive, strict, ex marine who hates all gay's especially gay men, and his mom is distant from reality in her own world. Ricky eventually corrupts Lester with his "I don't care, I do what I like" attitude and Lester becomes a changed man. He begins smoking drugs, quits and blackmails his job as well as treats to his family by actually standing up to them and begins acting on his sudden interest in Jane's best friend. Carolyn has an afair with another real estate agent and Jane falls in love with Ricky. Th entire structure of their family seems to be falling apart, yet Lester is finally happy and in the end he gets murdered by Ricky's dad, who kissed  him. Not the exact typical version of the "American Dream" that comes along with the title. "Citizen Kane" is about a wealthy, lonely, love lost, but love bound older man who passed away, and on his deathbed he says the word"rosebud". So a reporter is on a mission to find out what rosebud stands for by interviewing other people on the life of Kane. In the end the audience sees a view of a sled that was used in Kane's childhood, before he was taken adopted his first home, with the word "rosebud" painted across it, burning in the flames of his fire of his furnace. Sounds like a great citizen, maybe not so much but it is a turn out from what the movie sounds like it would've been about, because he's a citizen of America, you would think him to have a great life, especially of a wealthy citizen.

Both movies have this overall theme of this search for something that both main characters lost and wish to regain desperately. In "American Beauty", Lester is on this journey to regain his youthful sense because that was a time of his true happiness, while in "Citizen Kane" Kane is on a journey to find love and be loved, also regain that youthful feeling from when he was a child. These themes are emphasized throughout the two films in many ways. For example in "American Beauty" Lester Burnham begins working out and there are multiple scenes of him doing things like jogging with the gay couple, bench pressing in his garage and doing chin-up's in his garage. There's also a scene when Lester goes to buy drugs from Ricky and the camera zooms in on his face as he discusses with Ricky, his job when he was a kid and even though Ricky thinks it sounds horrible, Lester says it was actually great as he stares of at nothing with a smile on his face. Working out, working at a fast food restaurant and having a posession of a cool car are stereotypical things that "typical teenage boys" want to do or usually do. So, by Lester doing all of those things, even taking it upon himself to go out and get another fast food job, symbolizes him going after his youth and trying to regain what he lost hold of. In "Citizen Kane" Kane holds a campaign running for governor with the word "love" heavily reinforced in the campaign, he also forces Susan to sing in a theatre that he built for her and he disregards her  opinion towards her career about stopping it because he wants the audiences to love what he created, which was Susan's singing career. By Kane yearning for this endless love from his audience it symbolizes what he's going after which is the love that he felt he had as a child.

Though the two films have much in common there is one huge difference. Both main characters crave that youthful feeling, but Kane craves that as of a child, while Lester craves that of a teenage boy. In "Citizen Kane" a reporter's main goal is to try and find out what Kane's dying words "Rosebud" meant, and the people never finds out what it is but the camera zooms in slowly on Kane's old sled he used as a boy when it snowed heavily, with the word Rosebud painted across it, also in his hand before he dies, is a snow globe which is significant. Since Kane was adopted by the bank as a child and taken from his hometown and parents, he never fully had that childhood with a mom and dad who loved him very much, all he had was owners of a bank to be there for him and he didn't have that mother, father and son relationship that other children at that age had. So, he craved love from everyone else around him as an adult by "buying" their hearts through ways his campaigning, owning his newspaper which he says at first is representing the people so they can feel love for him. Even keeping Susan in the house when she wanted to go out places with him, was symbolizing him keeping her heart and wanting her to love him. In "American Beauty" Lester does things like buying a new car, working out, getting a "stereotypical teenage kid's" job, and lusting after a teenage girl showing that he yearns youth, just a different kind.

In conclusion, both of these films showcase the commercialism of people's lives and an outlook on different peoples yearnings, or reasons for what they do in life. These films show great examples of society and how it shapes the way we all live and how it takes away our happiness, which is want most of the universal population wants.Kane used what society gave him, (money) to have power, and therefore he tried to utilize these to the best of his ability which he thought would give him what he wanted; happiness. Lester lived a boring, unhappy life because society says you have to get married, have a family, and die with your significant  other, but then he broke out of that and went after what he thought was his true happiness. In the end Kane died without having something that Lester had, an epiphany. Realization that he had all he ever wanted and by then it was too late because he was murdered, but still, it teaches all audiences to do what truly makes you happy and not by ways of society.

Mise-en-scene in Caligari and Edward Scissorhands

The two films "Dr. Caligari's Cabinet" and "Edward Scissorhands" are two great films expressing differences and uniqueness in society, and in the way others think. "Dr. Caligari's Cabinet" is about a man telling another man a story of how his town was terrorized once by a cinambulist named Dr. Caligari and his sleepwalking attraction; Cesare. The town goes through a series of mysterious murders when Dr. Caligari comes to town and he is caught using Cesare to commit murder under his sleeping spell. Then, Dr. Caligari is put in an insane asylum and the main character is ok. However, there is a twist to the story because in the end, the main character telling the story is actually the mentally insane one and Dr. Caligari is the director of the insane asylum facility. Edward Scissorhands, is a film about a created man with hands that are razor sharp scissor- like objects, who is brought down from his distant tower by a friendly makeup sales woman and brought into her town to live with the whole family. The film covers a series of events that Edward goes through in the town and his encounters in that town. In the end he is banned from the town and almost killed because he became outcasted by the towns people. These films may sound very different, however they are ore alike than one might think.

The mise-en-scene in the film Edward Scissorhands is sort of dark and mysterious in the beginning, when the old woman is telling the story of Edward Scissorhands and when the camera shows Edwards background history, then it becomes dark and mysterious again in the ending. In Caligari, the overall mise-en-scene is neutral and as the film goes on it becomes more and more dark and eerie.A setting is just as important to note in a film as the mise-en-scene. The setting in the two films helped to contribute of the themes of both films. For example in Edward Scissorhands the overall setting was a small town that was very "cookie cutter" like with all the same size houses and cars, that were all painted the same pastel bright colors and matched their cars and everything was perfect and clean. In the back of that town is a single castle that really stands out because it's all grey and dark and its shaped very weird high metal gate. This setting already shows the mindset of the  community in which the people of the town live in because it displays signs of conformity to all living a certain way and the there's the castle and whoever lives there is outcast from the rest of the town because their environment is different than the rest, it is unique. In Caligari, the buildings are very slanted and rigid, everything is on wierd angles, including the shadows. This odd setting can display a sense of uneasiness or craziness to the film, which can link back to the characters who are in the film or the entire plot of the film. The man who is telling the story, Franciz, the audience comes to realize is a mentally disturbed patient in an insane asylum, so therefore that could serve as an explanation to the odd setting throughout the entire film.

 

The two setting in these films, though very unique and different, are similar in some ways. For example both films have these towns that all have this same look because all the houses in Edward Scissorhands are all the same position and size and shape, just like in Caligari, how all the buildings and streets are all ziz-zag, crooked and on odd angles. Both towns are have this effect that everything is the same. The characters in the films contribute to the theme and exaggerate the settings in both films. For example in Caligari two of the main characters, the girl is dressed in an all white costume that is a gown and Cesare is dressed in all black. Compared to the other men in the film, who are all in suits, Cesare stands out in this all black costume, symbolizing the disturbance in that community. The girl is really the only one in all white during that film in the climax, out of all the other females in the film.This made the girl seem so pure and Cesare seem so much more evil, emphasizing what the director wants the audience to think, yet it turned out that all of it was made up. This shows that everything is not always what it may seem, which can be one of the many themes in Caligari. This is similar to  Edward Scissorhands because, toward the ending of the film Edward sheds all of his clothing that the townspeople normally wear and was in this all black leather suit, meanwhile the girl he liked was in an all white dress. Those two characters stood out in that movie as sort of a symbol of normality and purity, clashing with a sort of uniqueness or difference in that community/society. Even the other characters in that film dressed alike in these sort of suits for the men and brightly colored, ridiculous outfits for the women in that movie. Also, all the men went to work while the women stayed at home and gossiped, yet Edward did not go to work. So, Edward being in that all black costume and being unemployed shows how he stood out all the more in that community. This connects to one of the themes of this movie, which is conformity to society and difference being outcasted in society.

   

The overall settings of these two movies do affect the meaning of both of them to some extent. For example if audiences think about it, how would the effect of Edward coming to that town be, if everyone was different  and all the houses and cars were different as well? The affect of him being in the town wouldn't be that ideal or as effective because he wouldn't be looked out as much of an outcast because they would've all been different like him. Also, if the setting of Caligari wasn't all these odd angles and and crooked lines, how could the audience possibly be able to tell between reality and fantasy in the movie, or wouldn't the mood of the film become not so mysterious as it is now that it has this 'off balance" setting?  The whole idea of the film might've been misinterpreted by the audience had they've left the setting normal and the audience wouldn't know how to feel about it. Which goes back into why the setting is so much of importance to, not just these two films, but all films in general. Without a meaningful setting there is no meaning to a film.