Pleasantville

1998

Director: Gary Ross

Distributor: New Line Cinema

Key Elements: Visuals – Concept – Message – Symbolism

My Review:

I was enamored with 1950’s Americana when I was a kid. I didn’t realize when this movie came out that it actually mocks that idealism.

Though I found that to be disappointing, I enjoyed this movie.

Two kids enter a world where everything is orderly, predictable, black-and-white and “perfect.” But as people discover passion in life, they become colored.

There are a few potential problems with this movie. Two things that give people color are anger and lust – neither of which is life giving in reality. I sorta wish they’d stuck to things like love, music and art. Also, making a black-and-white world a negative thing could be taken as an implication that absolutes are stifling. But a Christian knows that some things are absolute, and its that foundation that gives life, not the denial of it.

But the message I choose to take from watching this movie is that living a safe, predictable idealized life isn’t really living. It’s better to take risks, follow passions and accept messes because doing so allows you to really live life to the full.

Also, the “Pleasantville photographic style” of highlighting the color of a single object against a black-and-white background is completely gorgeous.

Clip:



Quotes:

• For those of you going on to college next year, the chance of finding a good job will actually decrease by the time you graduate. The available number of entry-level jobs will drop 31 percent over the next four years. Median income for those jobs will go down as well. Obviously, my friends, it's a competitive world, and good grades are your only ticket through. In fact, by the year 2000... The chance of contracting HIV from a non-monogamous lifestyle will climb to 1 in 150. The odds of dying in an auto accident are only 1 in twenty-five hundred. Now, this marks a drastic increase... from fourteen years ago, when ozone depletion was just at 10 percent of its current level. By the time you are thirty years old, average global temperature will have risen two and a half degrees, causing such catastrophic consequences as typhoons, floods, widespread drought, and famine.
• What's outside of Pleasantville?
• There are some places that the road doesn't go in a circle. There are some places where the road keeps going. …Yeah, yeah. It just keeps going. It all keeps going.
• Where am I going to see colors like that? Must be awful lucky to see colors like that.  I bet they don't know how lucky they are.
• Nothing went wrong. People change.
• This is the only book I've ever read in my whole life, and you're not going to put it on that fire!
• I didn`t mean to hurt anybody. I just have to paint ... I need to.
• I know you miss her, I mean, you told me you did. But maybe it's not just the cooking or the cleaning that you miss. Maybe it's something else. Maybe you can't even describe it. Maybe you only know it when it's gone. Maybe it's like there's a whole piece of you that's missing, too. Look at her, Dad. Doesn't she look pretty like that? Doesn't she look just as beautiful as the first time you met her? Do you really want her back the way she was? Doesn't she look wonderful? Now, don't you wish you could tell her that?
• I know you want it to stay "Pleasant" but there are so many things that are so much better: like Silly ... or Sexy ... or Dangerous ... or Wild ... or Brief ...And every one of those things is in you all the time if you just have the guts to look for them. Look at those faces back there. They're no different than you are. They just happened to see something inside themselves that you don't want to ... But see that's just the point. It can't stop at once, because it's in you. And you can't stop something that's in you.
• I did the slut thing, David. It got kinda old.
• There is no right house. There is no right car… It's not supposed to be anything.

Stills: