Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Hours
I really enjoyed this movie and agree with a lot of the posts that the focus was on homosexuality and suicide. I haven't read any of Virginia Woolf's other novels (that I know of anyway) so this movie (and novel) on its own merit seemed to be Woolf's innermost thoughts come to 'life'. Virginia herself had a homosexual relationship with Vita Sackville-West whom she remained close friends with til her death. Woolf's novel Orlando contains her feelings for Vita in what has been described as the "longest love letter in literature". Richard's poem in The Hours, as we are informed by some of the minor characters, is also a love letter to Clarissa. That Richard is the one who dies seems appropos given that a little bit of Woolf can be found in all of the characters of The Hours.
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Does anyone have any opinions on why the movie was filmed with three different timelines? We have Woolf in the late 20s, a family in the early 50s, and the party organizer and "Sigmund" in the present day. Woolf is writing her book, the woman in the 50's family is reading the book, and the modern group is living the story. Is this a representation on all the memories and flashbacks seen in the book, or is it something entirely different? Did you feel that it was effective or unnecessary?
ReplyDeleteI don't know why it was filmed in three different timelines, but my guess is so that the movie "copied" the novel with the interweaving of characters and different storylines. The book focused on different individual stories that intersected whereas the movie was really about one woman - or more correctly the same "type" of woman in 3 different eras. I think that in the movie we have Woolf as herself, then a woman who identifies with Woolf but who is stuck in a time period where she can't act openly and freely (the Kidman character), and then we have Mrs Dalloway herself who "fits" the story as told in the book. Instead of focusing on the poet, Peter, Richard, Elizabeth, etc... the way the book does the movie seems to intertwine all the characters and their "private demons" into these 3 women. I think it was a very effective technique; I saw the movie first and then read the novel and immediately thought "Oh! This is why the movie opened the way it did!" With bits of each woman introduced before expanding the individual characters. I'm not sure if I'm correctly conveying this or answering your question appropriately, so please let me know if you agree or disagree ; )
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