Blonde Venus and Meshes
Just a reminder that we will be viewing Blonde Venus and Meshes of the Afternoon this week in film class. These films may be harder to find, especially at chain video stores. I'll try to make a copy of each film available on reserve in the library, but I may have to wait until Thursday to do that.
I will also place on electronic reserve the Peter Baxter essay on Blonde Venus as well as a short collection of materials on Meshes. This material isn't required, but it might help you to negotiate a somewhat challenging experimental film. You should also be prepared to discuss the chapter on mise-en-scene on Thursday.
From now on, you are encouraged to include any observations about the films in the comments below each entry.
1 Comments:
I found the character development for Helen Faraday to be particularly fascinating in Blonde Venus. Other characters were relatively static, especially little Johnny, who doesn't really age or develop through the whole movie. However, we see Helen transform from a young girl swimming with friends to a housewife, back to a self-centered performer, and back again. Certain jumps in her personality seemed to be a stretch- for example, Helen was calm and stoic while saying goodbye to her son at the train station, yet went into a rampage during the next few scenes. Yet the shifts in Helen's characterization always had cause behind them, and usually evoked some sympathy from the audience. Personally, I find the most fascinating parts of movies to be the characterization and individual performances of the actors, so I thought Blonde Venus was an interesting film to analyze in class.
~Karen
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