cocorosie

watching cocorosie live last night was one of the most beautiful experiences i've ever had

Roman Holiday (1953)

There’s nothing better than discovering a great film. Roman Holiday with its exquisite charm is a film that is hard not to love. Starring Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck and directed by none other than William Wyler. After seeing the horrific Rome in Open City it was a pleasure to see the beautiful, though maybe non-realistic, Rome in Roman Holiday.

The film has all the characteristics of the Classical Hollywood Narrative. There’s definitely deadlines, e.g. Joe must get his story, the Queen must return. The film is definitely based on a “journey structure”, going through the Roman landscape and experiencing new and life affirming things. We have our distinct characters, Joe who is the journalist who needs this one job, down on his luck but good guy, and there’s Ann who is the spoiled princess that wants to experience real life. There are definite goals, Joe wants his story and Ann wants to experience life. An abundance of obstacles are introduced of course like the secret service. And of course there is the romance subplot because this is not only a romantic movie but a Hollywood film and what is a Hollywood film without a romantic subplot?

Wyler uses all of these standard devices to create a fairly unique film. The film sets everything up to the final climax to what appears is going to be another formulaic happy ending. There’s a beautiful backwards tracking shot that reverses as Joe walks towards the camera, the shot keeps deep focus throughout and we can clearly see the background, waiting for Ann to come running after Joe at any second. The film extends this shot for as long as it can truly making the spectator believe that Ann is going to run back out but she never does and the film ends. This expectation that is denied gives the viewer a much more realistic ending. I’m not an expert of films from this period so I can’t say for a fact that there aren’t an overload of films with endings like this one but I haven’t seen one that portrays it as beautifully as this film does.



Another aspect that I loved about the film was how it used its setting. Of course Hollywood is just making a runaway production for their own benefit and the location of this film might’ve not been an artistic choice but the filmmakers truly use it to their advantage here. One clear example of this is the scene with Ann and Joe and the old statue that Joe says can eat your hand. This simple scene uses an authentic Roman statue to its full benefit and creates one of the most charming scenes in the film.

A wonderful and surprising film by the always great William Wyler.

dinners and relationships

shot, edit, sound: manny lage
actor: manny lage
actress: jessie kat

a young couple eats dinner and watches a film. two nights later. the same couple eats dinner, this time watching tv instead. the smoke alarm goes off.