Audrey Hepburn

This week, I am going to talk about one of the most elegant women to grace to screen, Audrey Hepburn. Even though Hepburn was the very epitome of elegance in Hollywood during her reign on screen, her early life was very difficult and not the least bit glamorous. Her parents divorced and her father abandoned the family. After the divorce, Hepburn’s mother moved Audrey and her brother to Arnhem in the Netherlands, thinking they would be safe from Nazi occupation there. However, the Nazi’s invaded the Netherlands in 1940 and life became very hard for Audrey. She was a first hand witness to part of the Holocaust, seeing people rounded up onto trains to go to concentration camps. Hepburn's uncle and her mother's cousin were shot in front of Hepburn for being part of the Resistance. Suffering from malnutrition, Hepburn developed acute anemia, respiratory problems, and oedema.

Although she wanted to be a ballerina, Audrey Hepburn decided to pursue acting. Her first starring role in an American film was opposite Gregory Peck in Roman Holiday, for which Hepburn won an Oscar. She then went on to film Sabrina, with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden, and Funny Face, with dancing legend Fred Astaire, and of course, My Fair Lady, with Rex Harrison.

One thing I have noticed about Hepburn’s films is that she is commonly cast with an older man as her love interest (Humphrey Bogart, Cary Grant, Fred Astaire, Rex Harrison, William Holden, to name a few…). Another thing that I’ve noticed is that her way of speaking and acting is always very refined, and very unique. I haven’t seen anyone speak quite like Audrey in the movies. This raises another question: Would Audrey Hepburn make it in Hollywood today? Would she have the opportunity to become her well known icons of Holly Golightly or Princess Ann, or would she be reduced to character acting in supporting parts (which isn’t a bad thing, but probably a step down from “Audrey Hepburn-ness”). What do you think?

And the Winner of Best Picture Is...

The Academy Awards took place in the end of February. There were some obvious winners that everyone knew would take home the little gold guy, but there were also some surprises...for instance, the winner of the award to end all awards: Best Picture.

I'd never even heard of this movie until I looked at the nominees for the Academy Awards. I was a little mad that this movie from Bollywood, that almost didn't even make it to theatres, had taken away a Best Picture slot from The Dark Knight. In my opinion, The Dark Knight had made the most impact on the culture for the past year, and deserved to at least get nominated. But I decided not to completely write off Slumdog, and went to go see it today.

And I have to say...it impressed me, even though I went in with high standards. The movie is basically what the title says. Jamal, an 18-year-old slumdog from India, enters as a contestant on the Indian version of “Who Wants to Be A Millionaire?”, hoping that his true love, Latika, will see him and come find him. Jamal gets all the answers, despite the fact that he is uneducated. And of course, they think he is cheating. Turns out, he’s not. Jamal knew all the answers because of different life experiences he’s had, and he begins to recall them all as he is tortured and interrogated.

I have not agreed with the past few years of the Oscar winners for Best Picture. For the first time in a while, I am okay with the one they chose. It was refreshing to have a “hero” in a movie that actually had a moral code. Jamal was a good guy. It was nice to have a main character that didn’t look like he’d just stepped out of a Hollister ad, one that stuttered when he talked, one that quietly defended his honor as others mocked him, one that, though he had seen many terrible things, was still apalled every time the human race did something violent. And, he also had a pure, chaste childhood love that he’d do anything to be with and protect. That gets me every time.

[Spoiler Alert]
Slumdog is pretty violent, but not unnessessarily. And unlike most Best Pictures, this one has a happy ending; Jamal and Latika find each other and suddenly break out into an energetic Indian techno dance, with the help of random extras in the background. I definitely didn’t see that one coming.

It's amazing how the movie Slumdog Millionaire parallels its own success in Hollywood.

I’m Going To Get Kicked Out of Fight Club for This

When asked who should play them in the movie of their life, what is the one name that people say? Although they are usually being sarcastic, the answer I hear the most is “Brad Pitt”.

And why not? He’s a versatile actor, having played a cowboy hitchhiker, a vampire, a con artist, a spy married to an enemy spy, a man aging in reverse, and Tyler Durden from Fight Club, to name a few.

The movie Fight Club didn’t do as well in theatres as expected, but after its release on DVD, it garnered a cult following. The movie centers around a nameless Narrator, who is suffering from insomnia and feels trapped in his white-collar job. He begins attending support groups so he can “appreciate real suffering”, and finally finds himself able to sleep after attending these meetings and crying with the people who are really dying. Then, he meets Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt), a soap maker (among other things). They go to the bar, have a few drinks, and just when they’re leaving, Tyler Durden randomly says those fateful words: “I want you to hit me as hard as you can.”

These are the words that started Fight Club, an underground place where men go to beat the crap out of one another. Together, the Narrator and Tyler Durden make up the rules of Fight Club:

1. You don't talk about fight club.
2. You don't talk about fight club.
3. When someone says stop, or goes limp, even if he's just faking it, the fight is over.
4. Only two guys to a fight.
5. One fight at a time.
6. They fight without shirts or shoes.
7. The fights go on as long as they have to.
8. If this is your first night at fight club, you have to fight.

The violence of Fight Club serves as a metaphor for feeling, rather than to promote or glorify physical combat (which I admit, I thought the movie was about before watching it: A bunch of guys out to prove their masculinity by beating each other up). The fights represent the impulses these men have to break out of society.

Although the actual fight scenes serve to show how these men desire to feel, the subject of how these men are struggling to be men is touched on, too. Several times in the movie, the Narrator and Tyler talk about how messed up the version of how men are "supposed to be like" really is and how they’re personally struggling to be men because their generation was raised by women and they didn’t have a man to look up to.

I feel like there were a lot of subliminal messages in Fight Club (subliminal messages was another theme the movie touched on), and I’m pretty sure I missed most of them. After all, I’ve only seen Fight Club once. Warning for all those who have yet to see it and want to: It is graphic and kind of weird. And it feels kind of like watching a dream, especially when you see a penguin playing in the Narrator’s relaxation cave (Don’t ask).

So if you’re feeling a little fed up with what society tells you to be like: take Tyler Durden’s example. Sell all your worldly possessions, move into a dilapidated house, and start a Fight Club.