Essay Compellation #1

FEA 299

3/14/2011

David Gutel

[email protected]
 Essay #1, Inspired Work: Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Monty Python and the Holy Grail isn’t just a classic work to the world it is also a classic

work to me. The reason why this movie has touched me so deeply and I consider it to be so

inspiring is that it entered my life and rescued me at one of my darkest times. When I was a

freshman in high school I was diagnosed with mono. I was bed ridden for about three months

with nothing to do accept sleep and have the feeling of aching bones. My father came home one

day with a movie from the movie rental store (before Netflix or red box) and told me that I

would enjoy this movie that he brought me. As I slowly slumped out of bed and went to the TV

to put it in I heard the beginning credits being played. After I watched that movie I was laughing

so hard that I felt like my old self again and to this day I believe that Monty Python and the Holy

Grail helped me get better over my illness faster than what it could have been.

The movie now is my inspiration to having a positive out look on life, and to have fun

wherever I go. The movie taught me to keep exercising my imagination and gave me the ability

to deal with reality with a brighter look at darker situations. I watch this movie whenever I feel

sad or sick or even need a good laugh to remind me that there were some bad times but I have

my whole life ahead of me. As my family puts it when I watch the movie it’s more entertaining

to watch me watch the movie rather than watch the movie itself because I know the lines

verbatim and get so involved with the film. The wackiness of the movie has helped me realize

that caring what other people think of you, stops you from having fun in this life. The movie falls

under the genera of comedic adventure which is very fitting for this film. Monty Python is a

British Saturday night live comedy group that was very popular in the 70’s. The group includes

one of my favorite actors John Cleese who plays multiple characters throughout the movie, as do

all the Monty python actors. This group started comedy TV sketch shows which launched many
familiar shows that we all know, such as Saturday night live. The Film was made in 1975 in

different parts of England, featuring old English castles, beautiful English woods and English

country side.

The questions of swallows, the characters like Old man from scene 24, and the props like

the holy hand grenade of Antioch, made me realize that you can do anything you want to in the

film world. That there are no boundaries or rules you have to follow, all you have to do is have

fun and make it entertaining. This has moved me in the sense that the movie business can be as

fun as I want to make it, sure there will be stressful times, but if it’s something I love to do then

that means I will be happy even when I am stressed. This movie has moved me look at life in a

more optimistic way, because things always have a brighter side in life, and that you have so

much more to be thankful for rather than complain on what you got. When I watch the movie I

am filled with happiness and joy, because I know when I am watching the movie that all is good

in the world, for if man can create such a silly reality like Monty Pythons then man is so much

more capable of beautiful things. This movie will be known as a great comedic work because it

introduced so many possibilities to the comedy film world, that any sense of humor can be

funny, for example people who don’t like English dry humor still laugh at this movie. This

Movie will continue to inspire me and move me, because the jokes and lines in the movie never

get old and are always quoted and referenced around us day by day. So if whether a 5oz swallow

can carry a one pound coconut or a man with all his limbs chopped off can survive, these famous

movie scenes will always stay with me and remind me of the power of laughter and the ability to

be spontaneous in any circumstance.

“The Truman Show” starring Jim Carry to some is a horrible movie because Jim Carry is

not playing his comedian self. To me this movie can be inspiring and insightful on life. The

theme of this movie is to look outside your life, to question, and to ultimately want more out of

life. Truman, played by Jim Carry, is a worldwide TV star trapped in a continuous running TV

program that records his everyday life. Jim Carries character lives a life in a controlled

environment, but he does not know that because he is part of this virtual reality. As the 3 main

acts of the movie progress Truman completely changes as a person and discovers the truth about

his imitated world.

In the first act Truman is oblivious to his virtual world because it is all he knows. Truman

is confronted by strange incidences that cannot be explained such as a studio light falling from

the sky, and being the only one rained on before the rain “starts” up. As Truman lives day to day

we begin to learn that he wants more out of life and wants to be an explorer and go to Fiji. To

him anywhere away from his town is good enough. So as the theme becomes apart through

Truman’s actions we see he begins to wonder what the rest of the world is like. We place

ourselves in Truman’s shoes that we all have a daily grind that we fulfill day and night, but when

Truman talks to his wife about a vacation and wanting to get away, we feel the same way that we

ourselves want to be out of this “bubble” we live in. As the first act plays out the theme is

established that there is more to life than what we see and what is around us, but it is up to us to

go out and get it because it will never come to us. So Truman begins to take the initiative to go
out and try to find more out of life. The end of act one concludes with Truman in a state of

knowing that this world is not real and it is up to him to try and break out which becomes the

themes main message to get more out of life.

Act two begins when Truman sees his father disguised as a homeless man, but the

problem is that his father “died” many TV “episodes” ago, this forces Truman into thinking that

something is out there is something wrong. Act two shows us that getting more out of life isn’t

easy, people, places, and occurrences will fight you every step of the way. When obstacles keep

getting in Truman’s way he does not back down and tries everything he can to get away, but

these obstacles that keep occurring fuel him with the idea that his world is fake. The Theme tells

us that through perseverance we may fail but we will gain new insight on what is around us. That

is exactly what happened to Truman, he knows his world is not real but now has to figure out

how to escape while playing along with their game. Act two ends with the OH SHIT moment

when he breaks down and cracks under all the pressure and begins to demise a plan to escape his

fake world.

Truman is now reaching the end of his arc where he knows there is more to his world

than he knows and he is on a pursuit even if it costs him his own life. The themes message is

relevant in every scene of the third act Truman embraces his fear of water and goes onto a boat

to escape because he is determined to find more out of life. The director of the show tries to kill

Truman with weather telling the viewer that there will be hardships and dangerous situations that

we will face when trying to get more out of life, or trying to understand something that you don’t

understand. Truman fights through the storm and survives showing us that with perseverance we

can achieve any goal we want to. The third act ends with Truman finding a door on the edge of

his “world” that opens to the real world he has just discovered, making it show that our dreams
and expectations can be met if we apply ourselves. Truman, although scared to go through the

door, finally decides to enter this unknown world to embrace what he always wanted, something

more than his world had to offer.

The movies theme and character arc goes through a dramatic change. It is very evident on

what the story wanted to tell through Truman’s life experience. That we should always be

wanting more out of life and there will be obstacles that we will face, but we can overcome these

obstacles and obtain something more out of life. “In case I don’t see you, Good Afternoon, Good

Evening, and Good Night.”

Stranger than fiction starring Will Ferrell is a wonderful movie that captivates your heart

and mind with lighting, set design, space, costuming, and acting. Throughout the entire movie

ever scene helps develop Will Ferrell’s character, Harold Crick, into living the life to the fullest.

The two scenes I will be talking about are the intro to the movie where they establish who Harold

Crick is a human being, and the second to last scene of the movie where he ultimately gets hit by

a bus to save a child’s life. Both of these scenes are exactly the same except for subtle

differences that change everything about Harold’s perception on life.

The first scene is an establishing scene on who Harold Crick is, they tell us about his

meticulous behaviors and oddities that make him an interesting human being. The scene is

narrated by the voice Harold hears throughout the entire movie, and each shot is composed in his

apartment that was perfectly designed to his personality, dull, bleak, precise, clean, organized,

and lonely. The colors are kaki, low greens, and greys. These colors help establish that Harold

lives a precise life that is never subject to change. As the scene progresses you learn he is an IRS

agent which explains his meticulous behaviors, his work environment has striking lines

everywhere giving the perception of complex structure everywhere. Even at his work there are

bleak colors, the walls the desks even the vending machines are depressing. The set design of

this establishing scene is astronomical when it comes down to describing Harold Crick. The

lighting of the into causes your eyes to either focus on his environment more than Harold so that
you learn of his loneliness and his super controlled life. Will Ferrell does an amazing job at

playing this character that has all these eccentricities. His eye gaze, his movement, and even his

posture all retort back to the theme that it is important to appreciate the small things in life, and if

you are to structured then life will pass you right by. Harold Cricks outfit in the intro is

foreshadowing of what will happen in the movie later. He has a white dress shirt with a pink tie

and black suit jacket, this pink tie shows that even though there is a sense of mildness to him,

soon he will go through life experiences that will challenge him as a person. The Black jacket

represent that he feels he has power in his own life. His choice of green apple symbolizes the

“fiction” that will begin to take place in his life. The last major detail of the intro are these

graphics that follow Harold, these graphics represent what Harold’s thoughts are and provide an

insight on the way he looks at life. For example the number of dots on his tie that show up, the

time of when the bus will show up, all these graphics extenuate the lines in his house and

instantly captivate the audience into paying attention to what is Harold Crick thinking about. and

This first scene of the movie looked through the eyes of mise-en-scene really explains why when

I watched this movie for the first time that I felt I understood Harold Crick even before he

speaks.

The second to last scene in the movie is the hero’s tragic death, but is heroic and beautiful

in its own way. The scene has the same style as the first scene except that Harold, after going

through all these life experiences, doesn’t care about all the meticulous things he used to think

about. The rooms are brighter in his house, symbolizing his understanding now, his demeanor is

more laid back than like before, and his house although organized has a giant hole in the wall

due to an accident which symbolizes his breach with the real world, and how his life style (i.e.

his meticulous house) is prone to the world now. Harold’s outfit is what really distinguishes him
from the previous him; a deep blue suit jacket with a blue tie, this meaning that he has fully

understood his role in life and he is at peace with himself. Unlike his previous state he is fully

aware of his death and is willing to accept it due to its impact on everyone else. The colors of his

surroundings are more vibrant than before, and the flashbacks to what happened are now seen

through a different light. The mise-en-scene of this movie is remarkable and profound, and I

recommend anyone to this movie even if they do or do not understand mise-en-scene.

The first commercial I watched from a color perspective was a candy commercial for

push pops. The single push pop throughout the commercial was red making you excited and

interested in it, followed by quick cutting with exciting activities going behind the push pop.

This gave the consumer the feeling that a push pop will make you an active individual and that

because you have a push pop you will be a “cool kid”. The commercial had exciting colors all

the way through reds, yellows, and some vibrant greens and oranges. As for what the product

was it was blatant that it was candy, but there was no description except for “The candy on the

go”, which was in yellow text making you focus on it.

The second commercial I watched was for the space bag, which is a bag that you can

vacuum seal to save more space anywhere. The words in the commercial used a lot of repletion

and calm relaxing colors, making you feel that if you use the space bag that you will have a more

calm and relaxing life. Also a lot of white was used to show that this product is pure and that

nothing inside the bags will get dirty. The commercial used a lot of personal “accounts” with the

space bag and all the people in the commercial were wearing greens and blues symbolizing that

this product will calm your hectic life down. Now the attention getter of the commercial was that

the price and SPECIAL OFFERS were all in yellow and red to make you focus and excite you to

purchase the product.

optical illusion to make it look like its hovering in your hands. Everyone in the commercial was

wearing black and had a white fushigi on the chest. The black means that with this ball you have

the power to control it and impress your friends, and because there were multiple people in the

commercial as a group all with the same shirt that it makes you feel if you purchase this product

you will belong with others. Another color that was used was purple to represent mystery and

curiosity, to entice the person to want to buy it just to see how it worked. The words in the

commercial talked about having power and impressing all your friends.

The final commercial I observed was for time Warner cable. The commercial had a single

talent that was very modern looking and had a sense of simplicity about him. This was to make

time Warner cable look easy to use to the easiest of person. They used dull colors to represent

their competitors’ actions, to make the consumer feel that the other companies were inadequate.

The use of the mans clothing colors made him look excited to use time Warner cable and also

that he knew what was going on when he switched to time Warner cable.