Wednesday, April 01, 2015
Kramer vs Kramer - A good Hoffman-Streep show
Kramer vs Kramer: 3 things:
1. Notable parts of the movie (Spoiler alert)
a) The start perplexes: Why did the wife leave? The husband seems to have no clue, and one would expect a series of fights/disagreements and a state of rancour in the air, leading to a slow transition to the moment when she leaves. Instead, ka-boom! She's gone, and Ted is stunned. I was perplexed, too, and this hangover stayed with me through a good part of the movie.
b) Great courtroom scene: The entire courtroom scene was very real and shorn of exaggeration. Ted makes a solid defense: If today (1979), women are expected to be equals to men in the workforce, then men can be expected to be equal to women at home, and therefore custody suits should not be biased towards women.
c) French toast: Great symbolism- right at the start, when the father son relationship is rocky, Ted makes a meal of it (metaphorically!), with gooey milk-egg mixture splattering and the bread burning. But right towards the end, he makes a meal of it (literally!), with the kid Billy giving an able helping hand. These symbolic acts/places/phrases are great aids for storytelling and for showing "full circle" moments in a story. Nice, warm-fuzzy feeling teamwork between the father son pair. I for one am going to make some French toast at home, and the movie would surely have led to a spike in French toast sales at restaurants.
2. Great acting. I wore a hat while I watched the movie, and after the movie- Dustin Hoffman, to you I doff man, and Merryl Streep: to you I merrily tip. Hoffman, very real, some powerful high word-speed dialogues when agitated. Streep very good as the confused, mopey character. They won the academy awards, anyway, both of 'em. The movie won a whopping 5! My sister tells me Streep has won the most Oscar nominations, ever.
3. Do powerful movie stars influence behavior/mannerisms of people?
I had a senior colleague in the US at work, who would have been an impressionable kid during the release of this movie and other Hoffman starrers. Now this senior colleague I think has some serious Hoffman influence in the way he speaks (and even in the way he looks) - struck me as I watched this movie. Movies were a powerful influencer during the pre-internet days. Would an entire generation's accent and body language be shaped by the characters and actors in the movies they watch, especially as a kid?
1. Notable parts of the movie (Spoiler alert)
a) The start perplexes: Why did the wife leave? The husband seems to have no clue, and one would expect a series of fights/disagreements and a state of rancour in the air, leading to a slow transition to the moment when she leaves. Instead, ka-boom! She's gone, and Ted is stunned. I was perplexed, too, and this hangover stayed with me through a good part of the movie.
b) Great courtroom scene: The entire courtroom scene was very real and shorn of exaggeration. Ted makes a solid defense: If today (1979), women are expected to be equals to men in the workforce, then men can be expected to be equal to women at home, and therefore custody suits should not be biased towards women.
c) French toast: Great symbolism- right at the start, when the father son relationship is rocky, Ted makes a meal of it (metaphorically!), with gooey milk-egg mixture splattering and the bread burning. But right towards the end, he makes a meal of it (literally!), with the kid Billy giving an able helping hand. These symbolic acts/places/phrases are great aids for storytelling and for showing "full circle" moments in a story. Nice, warm-fuzzy feeling teamwork between the father son pair. I for one am going to make some French toast at home, and the movie would surely have led to a spike in French toast sales at restaurants.
The famous French toast scene, with the two Kramers at work
2. Great acting. I wore a hat while I watched the movie, and after the movie- Dustin Hoffman, to you I doff man, and Merryl Streep: to you I merrily tip. Hoffman, very real, some powerful high word-speed dialogues when agitated. Streep very good as the confused, mopey character. They won the academy awards, anyway, both of 'em. The movie won a whopping 5! My sister tells me Streep has won the most Oscar nominations, ever.
3. Do powerful movie stars influence behavior/mannerisms of people?
I had a senior colleague in the US at work, who would have been an impressionable kid during the release of this movie and other Hoffman starrers. Now this senior colleague I think has some serious Hoffman influence in the way he speaks (and even in the way he looks) - struck me as I watched this movie. Movies were a powerful influencer during the pre-internet days. Would an entire generation's accent and body language be shaped by the characters and actors in the movies they watch, especially as a kid?
Labels: Cinemas
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