07.26.07
Two for the Road
Boy is this poster misleading…
I once read a quote about Audrey Hepburn that said something like “She’s a woman that every woman wants to be like and every man forgets about.” I don’t know who said it and I couldn’t find in anywhere, but I am very curious as to the context of it because I can’t fathom how anyone could forget her.
I just finished watching Two for the Road. I don’t think I’d ever heard of this movie until Netflix told me I might like it. They were totally right. The gist of the plot is: a struggling architect named Mark (a young and strapping Albert Finney) meets a charming choir girl named Joanna (Audrey Hepburn), they get married, have a baby and have lots of problems. Usually while traveling. Wikipedia tells me that the film was considered experimental because the plot is revealed non-linearly “leaving the viewer to extrapolate what has intervened.” I guess I must be jaded by modern movies, because I didn’t think it took a lot of extrapolating.
I did find it particularly interesting how director Stanley Donen (of Singin’ in the Rain fame) used Hepburn’s fashion and hair to help guide the viewer along to which period of the marriage they were in: the youngest Audrey has long hair and skinny mom-jeans (the only woman who has ever looked sexy in skinny mom-jeans is Audrey Hepburn) while the oldest Audrey has a short Posh-style bob (minus the horrendous bleaching). The best parts are in the middle years when Hepburn’s Joanna seems to have had a brief obsession with vinyl. I couldn’t even find a good picture to link to but imagine an entire outfit that is yellow and shiny. Even Audrey couldn’t pull that off. Well, she almost did.
The movie is also very road oriented (hence the title). Mark and Joanna are constantly on the road and the style of the car they are in represents difference phases of their marriage. Though this motif may be the tiniest bit obvious, it does well at making a statement about relationships moving and traveling and changing and all of that. It also makes tense and intimate moments more tense and intimate because when you are traveling along a highway with someone, there’s really no escaping them.
Decidedly a drama, there are many light moments throughout (Benny Hill, anyone?). However, these can also be the most heartbreaking because they are usually overshadowed by a fight in the present where the couple almost or actually does break up. It’s all very dramatic and weepy and I cried buckets. But, spoiler alert, Love Conquers All. Aww.
Even if you completely hate Audrey Hepburn (WHO ARE YOU??) or relationship melodrama, there is also a really awesome party scene where everyone in their mod clothes is dancing. I wish I could describe it. I think at least one couple was doing The Monkey. Anyway, it’s very funny and probably worth fast forwarding to. Or just ask me later and I will show you the dances.
anon said,
July 27, 2007 at 3:08 pm
early films not only avoided non-linearity, but they even avoided cuts as much as possible. the thought was, at the time, that the audience would become confused: “what? where did that guy come from? we were just looking at that other guy! where’d he go? what happened?” it was a new medium, and the only experience that directors had at that time was with plays, and they just didn’t know how audiences would interpret it all.
FilmFemme said,
July 27, 2007 at 4:46 pm
@ anon: Hey! Someone’s reading my blog! Cool! Who are you?
I’d like to point out that the movie is from 1967 so the argument that this is an ‘early film’ doesn’t really hold (it most certainly was not considered a “new medium” in 1967). Crosscutting and nonlinear editing was actually first explored by early filmmakers, like D.W. Griffith in the early 1900s. Before the advent of sound in the movies, they were forced to use creative editing with little explanation to move plots along at the clip that audiences expected.
1967 pretty much falls in the post-war/modern period where filmmakers like Donen again started to experiment with nonlinear story lines as a backlash to rigid pre-war, classical Hollywood styles.
Anyway, there’s a little film history lesson for today! That was totally worth $40k a year.
Seriously, how did you find my blog?
FilmFemme » We Don’t Live Here Anymore said,
February 13, 2008 at 1:15 pm
[…] is my second deterioration-of-a-marriage movie in as many days. I didn’t like it as much as Two for the Road but it was […]