REVIEW: Wednesday Night Screening: Breakfast at Tiffany’s
By Hannah Maloco
There is a stillness about Breakfast at Tiffany's which is absent in the Hollywood blockbusters of today. In its silences and simplicities director Blake Edwards allows the fragility of his actors and actresses to resonate; moments of confusion, despair and love creating a narrative that has won over the hearts of many viewers.
In the film's opening sequence Edwards builds what has become an iconic image of both the film and Audrey Hepburn (beautifully cast as lead character Holly Golightly). In the solitude and silence of an empty New York street Hepburn gazes into the window of Tiffany's beginning a performance of elegance, beauty and the vulnerability that remains throughout.
Through the juxtaposition of scenes of elaborate action and surreal splendour with moments of still reflection the film highlights the illusive and intangible nature of its characters and their worlds, their pretences and grandeur flawed fronts for deeper human concerns. Like the lull before the storm, Holly Golightly's life seems to build towards a crescendo, always on the brink of a collapse and destruction that does not arrive until the final scenes. In its elegant and subtle use of set and props the film builds a surreal dream-like world where phones are found in suitcases, shoes in fridges, lipstick in mailboxes and a pearl and diamond adorned girl eats pastries from a paper bag outside Tiffany's at dawn. Like the displaced objects, Holly, Paul (sensitively played by George Peppard) and the nameless cat have wandered aimlessly from home, trapped and lost in lonely worlds they have themselves constructed.
Despite its rendering of a beautiful narrative and cinematography it is undoubtedly Audrey Hepburn's role as Holly Golightly that stands as the iconic centrepiece of the film. Her own fragility helps to construct a character as equally naïve and lonely as she is self assured and elegant, a refreshingly honest and psychologically deep female lead for audiences to relate to.
However, the difficulty arises when comparing Edwards’s film with Truman Capote's original novella and readers may be forgiven for their disappointment. In the expectation of the grittier Texan “call girl” Holly Golightly constructed in the text, readers may find Hepburn's performance flawed, her portrayal more illusive and refined than the character originally conceived for actress Marilyn Monroe. However, detached from the novel, the film must be accepted as a separate cultural entity to fully appreciate its own beauty and meaning.
Undoubtedly there are flaws. The casting of Mickey Rooney as angry next door neighbour Mr.
Yunioshi has seen the film repeatedly criticised for its racist character portrayal and hindered its acceptance by contemporary audiences.
Yet the difficulties highlighted by critics in the narrative, the adaptation of the novella and the casting and performances of other lead characters add a humanity and vulnerability that lies at the very core of the film's beauty.
In a reversal of the expected Hollywood narrative the film begins in a world of illusion and ends with a more truthful acceptance of life. A product of the Hollywood dream factory the film paradoxically shows the cost of such dreams and in doing so displays a humanity that has captured audiences for decades.
In the film's opening sequence Edwards builds what has become an iconic image of both the film and Audrey Hepburn (beautifully cast as lead character Holly Golightly). In the solitude and silence of an empty New York street Hepburn gazes into the window of Tiffany's beginning a performance of elegance, beauty and the vulnerability that remains throughout.
Through the juxtaposition of scenes of elaborate action and surreal splendour with moments of still reflection the film highlights the illusive and intangible nature of its characters and their worlds, their pretences and grandeur flawed fronts for deeper human concerns. Like the lull before the storm, Holly Golightly's life seems to build towards a crescendo, always on the brink of a collapse and destruction that does not arrive until the final scenes. In its elegant and subtle use of set and props the film builds a surreal dream-like world where phones are found in suitcases, shoes in fridges, lipstick in mailboxes and a pearl and diamond adorned girl eats pastries from a paper bag outside Tiffany's at dawn. Like the displaced objects, Holly, Paul (sensitively played by George Peppard) and the nameless cat have wandered aimlessly from home, trapped and lost in lonely worlds they have themselves constructed.
Despite its rendering of a beautiful narrative and cinematography it is undoubtedly Audrey Hepburn's role as Holly Golightly that stands as the iconic centrepiece of the film. Her own fragility helps to construct a character as equally naïve and lonely as she is self assured and elegant, a refreshingly honest and psychologically deep female lead for audiences to relate to.
However, the difficulty arises when comparing Edwards’s film with Truman Capote's original novella and readers may be forgiven for their disappointment. In the expectation of the grittier Texan “call girl” Holly Golightly constructed in the text, readers may find Hepburn's performance flawed, her portrayal more illusive and refined than the character originally conceived for actress Marilyn Monroe. However, detached from the novel, the film must be accepted as a separate cultural entity to fully appreciate its own beauty and meaning.
Undoubtedly there are flaws. The casting of Mickey Rooney as angry next door neighbour Mr.
Yunioshi has seen the film repeatedly criticised for its racist character portrayal and hindered its acceptance by contemporary audiences.
Yet the difficulties highlighted by critics in the narrative, the adaptation of the novella and the casting and performances of other lead characters add a humanity and vulnerability that lies at the very core of the film's beauty.
In a reversal of the expected Hollywood narrative the film begins in a world of illusion and ends with a more truthful acceptance of life. A product of the Hollywood dream factory the film paradoxically shows the cost of such dreams and in doing so displays a humanity that has captured audiences for decades.