It's a Wallgreen's kind of world

Singin' in the Rain.

I'm ashamed to say that I'd never seen the full movie until last night. At least I'd seen the infamous rain scene...

I enjoyed watching this movie better than watching Sunset Boulevard. This one was just so cheery and left me feeling so fluffy. I was reinergized enough to finish writing my sophomore lecture. As I made my way home, the outside (freezing) air even felt a little warmer. Sunset Boulevard left me feeling so dirty and tired and made me feel like I ought to keep looking over my shoulder into the shadows to make sure that Norma wasn't following me home.

While there are obvious reasons for the two films' opposing tones (song and dance vs. ominous mood music, technicolor vs. black and white, hopeful plot vs. hopeless plot) , I'm wondering... what were some of the hidden reasons?

I'll use our reading from this week as a jumping point. Let's talk about the set. In Sunset Boulevard, Norma's house was portrayed in one of two schemes. The first was very open and lifeless. Take, for instance, the images caught near her staircase. The viewer could see just how magnificently expensive the decor must have been but there was also an earie quietness to the whole scene. These scenes gave the effect of a lonely grandeur. On the complete other end of the spectrum was Norma's sitting room where she and Joe wrote her script. This set was so full of knick-knacks and photos and lounges and pillows and furniture that the scene was almost stifling. These scenes did a fantastic job of displaying how suffocating and overbearing Norma could be.

Now, let's move on to Singin' in the Rain. Most, if not all, of the sets were quite large in scale. They were neither vacant nor over-propped. There seemed to be a specific, tidy place for everything. I don't know why, but the Walgreens commercials where the world is a perfect place keeps reappearing in my mind. I'm thinking of the rain scene when Don's prancing down the street... the street is so clean! There's not stray trash, gum stuck to the ground, or stray cats. He lives in a Walgreens world. Apart from the acute conflict over producing a successful talkie, this movie's Hollywood world is flawless.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, well done you set and prop directors. You really highlighted a lot of underlying theme in these two movies. I'd like to give credit to these guys for evoking a noticeably different response to each movie.

I don't want to appear to have written this as if I thought of it all before typing. I truly have just come to the realizations. There's nothing like beginning with one intention and ending with a different one.