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A Narrative analysis of Some Like It Hot
Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959), a classical Hollywood movie by Billy Wilder in 1959, is generally regarded as a romantic comedy. Different from other comedies in that age, Some Like It Hot makes a breakthrough in subverting some conventions, that is, it tries to extend its themes to two marginalisation directions: gangsters and cross dressing. Following these two key elements, this magnificent comedy narrates the story in a humour way, reflecting fickleness of human nature in that age, showing the director’s cynicism, and proposing an advanced idea about gender, sex and love.
The biggest characteristic in Some Like It Hot is the clear narrative which makes the audience is driven by the plots absolutely. Narrative is an important organizing principle for structuring the film’s context, because it “is integral to the process of storytelling”(Casey, Calvert, French and Lewis 138). This sentence indicates that the content of narrative is sequential, so that words and images do not appear arbitrarily but in an order that makes sense to audiences. Owing to the subtle narrative, Some Like It Hot presents its story and ideologies in quite systematic ways.
Some Like It Hot commences with a gangsters narrative which seems to have no relationship with a comedy. Four hoodlums are riding in the hearse and they hear a police siren behind them. Two of them look out the back window and it is apparent that there is no glass in the widow. A second later a bullet smashes the window and, when they look out again, the window is not only broken, but very dirty. As right at the start of the film the audience is reminded, quite obviously, that what you see is not what you get. Subsequently a series of traditional elements of a gangster film appear: policemen shoot at the hearse, the gangsters fight back and so on. When the bullets penetrate through the coffin and the wine flows out of the bottles, the subtitle of “Chicago, 1929” (an
Some Like It Hot (Wilder, 1959), a classical Hollywood movie by Billy Wilder in 1959, is generally regarded as a romantic comedy. Different from other comedies in that age, Some Like It Hot makes a breakthrough in subverting some conventions, that is, it tries to extend its themes to two marginalisation directions: gangsters and cross dressing. Following these two key elements, this magnificent comedy narrates the story in a humour way, reflecting fickleness of human nature in that age, showing the director’s cynicism, and proposing an advanced idea about gender, sex and love.
The biggest characteristic in Some Like It Hot is the clear narrative which makes the audience is driven by the plots absolutely. Narrative is an important organizing principle for structuring the film’s context, because it “is integral to the process of storytelling”(Casey, Calvert, French and Lewis 138). This sentence indicates that the content of narrative is sequential, so that words and images do not appear arbitrarily but in an order that makes sense to audiences. Owing to the subtle narrative, Some Like It Hot presents its story and ideologies in quite systematic ways.
Some Like It Hot commences with a gangsters narrative which seems to have no relationship with a comedy. Four hoodlums are riding in the hearse and they hear a police siren behind them. Two of them look out the back window and it is apparent that there is no glass in the widow. A second later a bullet smashes the window and, when they look out again, the window is not only broken, but very dirty. As right at the start of the film the audience is reminded, quite obviously, that what you see is not what you get. Subsequently a series of traditional elements of a gangster film appear: policemen shoot at the hearse, the gangsters fight back and so on. When the bullets penetrate through the coffin and the wine flows out of the bottles, the subtitle of “Chicago, 1929” (an