One of the most charming fantasies ever put on film was what Gary Ross did in the film Pleasantville. It's subtle message about tolerance for diversity ought to be required viewing for those of us who make public policy and influence public opinion.
Television of the Fifties seems to have fashioned an image of the American family that permeates our political views and social mores right down to today. Not that families were any better or worse during the Fifties, but the image that television created with families from Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, right through to the Brady Bunch seem to set impossible standards. Including a favorite of mine, the Donna Reed Show which I believe was the model for the Parker family in Pleasantville. Starting with your's truly, I don't know anyone who had an upbringing like in a TV family.
Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play a pair of current teens who don't have the greatest of home lives. Maguire is a nerdy kid and Witherspoon is a very serious version of Kelly Bundy who thinks if she sleeps around, she'll be popular and hasn't much interest in education.
One night while Witherspoon is running late for a date and Maguire is getting ready for a marathon showing of the popular Fifties family comedy Pleasantville the remote breaks down. As if by magic, a TV repairman played by Don Knotts shows up with a very special remote. As Witherspoon and Maguire fight over the remote by magic they are transported into the television set and become part of the self contained universe of Pleasantville. Oh, and they are in black and white as the show was taped back in the day.
So with their new identities from the teenage kids of the Parker family with ideal mom and dad Joan Allen and William H. Macy, Maguire and Witherspoon seek to adjust to a new life in television land. But just the introduction of these two into this well ordered universe changes things, first in the most subtle ways and then as both realize the problems with this world in more direct ways. As the change comes, color comes slowly creeping into the black and white images.
Pleasantville got Oscar nominations for Art&Set Design, Original Score, and Costume Design unfortunately not winning any. However it won Saturn Awards for Tobey Maguire and Joan Allen for Best Actor and Supporting Actress in a Science Fiction film. I prefer to think of it as a fantasy rather than a science fiction film, though I can see that science fiction certainly influenced the creation. It combines the best elements of a Star Trek TNG pair of episodes involving Data and LeForge with a holodeck character based on Professor Moriarty and how he's dealt with and an original episode involving Kirk and Spock and some of the rest of the crew landing on a planet where the philosophy of a former sage named Landru is enforced vigorously. There's a bit of the Stepford Wives here as well.
In fact in the role of the head of the Pleasantville Men's Association is J.T. Walsh in a farewell performance. Such things that don't fit his ideas and those of an influential few are just not permitted in their paradise. Pleasantville is also the last big screen appearance of Don Knotts, an interesting choice for the TV repairman as he was a regular on the most wholesome Andy Griffith Show.
Pleasantville is one of the best films of the last decade of the last century. It illustrates that humanity's real strength is in its diversity and how we respect that diversity. It's what brings out the best in the human character, in the human spirit.
Television of the Fifties seems to have fashioned an image of the American family that permeates our political views and social mores right down to today. Not that families were any better or worse during the Fifties, but the image that television created with families from Ozzie and Harriet, Leave It To Beaver, Father Knows Best, right through to the Brady Bunch seem to set impossible standards. Including a favorite of mine, the Donna Reed Show which I believe was the model for the Parker family in Pleasantville. Starting with your's truly, I don't know anyone who had an upbringing like in a TV family.
Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon play a pair of current teens who don't have the greatest of home lives. Maguire is a nerdy kid and Witherspoon is a very serious version of Kelly Bundy who thinks if she sleeps around, she'll be popular and hasn't much interest in education.
One night while Witherspoon is running late for a date and Maguire is getting ready for a marathon showing of the popular Fifties family comedy Pleasantville the remote breaks down. As if by magic, a TV repairman played by Don Knotts shows up with a very special remote. As Witherspoon and Maguire fight over the remote by magic they are transported into the television set and become part of the self contained universe of Pleasantville. Oh, and they are in black and white as the show was taped back in the day.
So with their new identities from the teenage kids of the Parker family with ideal mom and dad Joan Allen and William H. Macy, Maguire and Witherspoon seek to adjust to a new life in television land. But just the introduction of these two into this well ordered universe changes things, first in the most subtle ways and then as both realize the problems with this world in more direct ways. As the change comes, color comes slowly creeping into the black and white images.
Pleasantville got Oscar nominations for Art&Set Design, Original Score, and Costume Design unfortunately not winning any. However it won Saturn Awards for Tobey Maguire and Joan Allen for Best Actor and Supporting Actress in a Science Fiction film. I prefer to think of it as a fantasy rather than a science fiction film, though I can see that science fiction certainly influenced the creation. It combines the best elements of a Star Trek TNG pair of episodes involving Data and LeForge with a holodeck character based on Professor Moriarty and how he's dealt with and an original episode involving Kirk and Spock and some of the rest of the crew landing on a planet where the philosophy of a former sage named Landru is enforced vigorously. There's a bit of the Stepford Wives here as well.
In fact in the role of the head of the Pleasantville Men's Association is J.T. Walsh in a farewell performance. Such things that don't fit his ideas and those of an influential few are just not permitted in their paradise. Pleasantville is also the last big screen appearance of Don Knotts, an interesting choice for the TV repairman as he was a regular on the most wholesome Andy Griffith Show.
Pleasantville is one of the best films of the last decade of the last century. It illustrates that humanity's real strength is in its diversity and how we respect that diversity. It's what brings out the best in the human character, in the human spirit.