Breakfast at Tiffany's

I've been really lax with this blog recently so I consequently have four posts to catch up on now.  The first is about Breakfast at Tiffany's which we watched last weekend.

Now I know this will be seem like a travesty to many girls but I have to say I wasn't bowled over by it.  It was quite a nice, diverting film, but I wouldn't put it up there with my favourites at all.  I was surprised, for instance, that the main character, Holly Golightly, only actually had breakfast outside Tiffany's jewellery store once, at the beginning of the film, which for me rather takes away the significance of the title.

Not to give too much away to those that haven't seen it, the premise is that a young, very elegant party girl in Manhattan in the early 60s has a series of older, rich suiters who help her to pay her rent money.  At the start of the film she meets a new neighbour from the flat upstairs and the story basically evolves as they get to know each other and we find out more about Holly as he (Paul) does.  I found a few aspects of her behaviour and her story slightly uncomfortable and my feminist side baulks rather at her ambition and desire to be rich and indepedent manifests itself in the way it does, performing small favours for slimey rich older men. I suspect some would say that I have missed the point with my next point, and see Holly as very clever in her adoption of the attitude of a rather silly, unaware young girl in order to further her purpose.  I, however, found it slightly irritating that she never remembered her keys, and was, or pretended to be, completely unaware of the unsavoury world that some of her benefactors moved in.  

However, like with all older films, I did enjoy the fact that things were hinted at rather than rammed graphically down one's throat as they sometimes are in films today.  We were left guessing at whether or not she slept with these men, for instance, whereas I suspect the film's modern equivalent might be less subtle in its suggestions. Perhaps this makes me prudish, but I prefer certain things to be left to my imagination.  I like to watch films that are escapist, and the modern penchant for realism defeats the object for me as it ceases to allow me to escape from real life.  I can see that this film provides exactly that opportunity. It allows us to escape the world of today into a glamorous, well-dressed, light-hearted world of elegant black dresses.  A world where a girl was living an independent lifestyle, tied down to nobody, at a time when this wasn't as much the norm as it is today.

I've tried to write this first half of my blog before looking at other people's reviews of the films, but the first review I read reminded me of something else that I found a bit distasteful - the frankly very racist portrayal of a Japanese photographer by Mickey Rooney.

I like the point made by a BBC review of the film last updated in 2007 when it says

'"Breakfast at Tiffany's" is a prime example of a film that often splits the audience from the critics. While it seems to spell magic for many, it is a movie that leaves itself open for professional vilification.' I came to the film looking for the magic that others seem to obtain from it, but perhaps I came at it, instead, from the point of view of a critic.

I think perhaps the film suffered in my eyes from the fact that I first saw it at the age of 29 when most people might associate it with a much-watched and much viewed film that they have known for years.  In the same way, had I come to a film like Grease from my adult perspective now, I might criticise the example it sets that 'good girls' have to change into 'bad girls' to get the man they want and that men don't need to change.  As it is, I first discovered it at the age of 8, love the music and have watched it so many times that I can virtually quote every line.  As such, I cannot see through my view of it as an absolute classic film that reminds me of how much I loved it as a child.  I'm perfectly prepared to see that many probably have the same feelings about Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I didn't dislike the film, I just didn't enjoy it as much as I expected to.