Film Essay - the Hours
The Hours
Mellissa Krause
02/08/13
Production: Paramount Pictures/ Miramax Films, January 2003
Producer: Robert Fox; Scott Rudin; Mark Huffman
Director: Stephen Daldry
Screenplay: David Hare (screenplay); Michael Cunningham (novel)
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey
Editing: Peter Boyle
Music: Philip Glass
Principal Characters:
Clarissa Vaughan Meryl Streep
Laura Brown Julianne Moore
Virginia Woolf Nicole Kidman
Richard Brown Ed Harris
Kitty Toni Collette
Julia Vaughan Claire Danes
Louis Waters Jeff Daniels
Leonard Woolf Stephen Dillane
Sally Lester Allison Lester
Dan Brown John C. Riley
Vanessa Bell Miranda Richardson
The pacing in the film The Hours reinforces the mood greatly throughout the film . The film is about three women in three different time periods who all experience suicidal thoughts and homosexual feelings. Although a slower pace, the film has a definite tempo to it, moving between the three main characters smoothly through parallel cuts in a cross-cutting fashion. Most of the pacing is slow, suggesting a thoughtful approach to the movie for the viewer. At times, the film’s pacing mocks the classical music playing in the background, therefore very little contrast in pacing exists. The editing helps to portray a very smooth, almost choreographed feeling to the film.
That said, the music in the film, almost a constant, speeds up and slows down during more exciting scenes. An example is during the scene when an adult Richard Brown falls to his death. The music is very calm as he is speaking to his close friend Clarissa Vaughan and then as he falls from the window, the piano in the background gains a much quicker tempo.
In one of the opening sequences of the film, the use of jump cuts (all straight cuts) between the characters of Virginia Woolf and Clarissa Vaughan both doing the same tasks, getting ready for the day, shows Clarissa starting to put her hair in a bun and then cuts to Virginia
Mellissa Krause
02/08/13
Production: Paramount Pictures/ Miramax Films, January 2003
Producer: Robert Fox; Scott Rudin; Mark Huffman
Director: Stephen Daldry
Screenplay: David Hare (screenplay); Michael Cunningham (novel)
Cinematography: Seamus McGarvey
Editing: Peter Boyle
Music: Philip Glass
Principal Characters:
Clarissa Vaughan Meryl Streep
Laura Brown Julianne Moore
Virginia Woolf Nicole Kidman
Richard Brown Ed Harris
Kitty Toni Collette
Julia Vaughan Claire Danes
Louis Waters Jeff Daniels
Leonard Woolf Stephen Dillane
Sally Lester Allison Lester
Dan Brown John C. Riley
Vanessa Bell Miranda Richardson
The pacing in the film The Hours reinforces the mood greatly throughout the film . The film is about three women in three different time periods who all experience suicidal thoughts and homosexual feelings. Although a slower pace, the film has a definite tempo to it, moving between the three main characters smoothly through parallel cuts in a cross-cutting fashion. Most of the pacing is slow, suggesting a thoughtful approach to the movie for the viewer. At times, the film’s pacing mocks the classical music playing in the background, therefore very little contrast in pacing exists. The editing helps to portray a very smooth, almost choreographed feeling to the film.
That said, the music in the film, almost a constant, speeds up and slows down during more exciting scenes. An example is during the scene when an adult Richard Brown falls to his death. The music is very calm as he is speaking to his close friend Clarissa Vaughan and then as he falls from the window, the piano in the background gains a much quicker tempo.
In one of the opening sequences of the film, the use of jump cuts (all straight cuts) between the characters of Virginia Woolf and Clarissa Vaughan both doing the same tasks, getting ready for the day, shows Clarissa starting to put her hair in a bun and then cuts to Virginia
Cited: The Hours. Dir. Stephen Daldry. Paramount Pictures/Miramax Films. 2003. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hours_(film) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0274558/fullcredits?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm#cast