DKC and I have resubscribed to Netflix, so the days of movie watching are back in business. (And I can stream now from my PS3? How cool is that!) One of the first movies I got was Julie and Julia, the Julia Childs biopic that came out about a year ago, with Meryl Streep and Amy Adams. We enjoyed the film. It tells the story of Julia Child’s efforts to become a cooking teacher, and it mirrors those struggles with a blogger’s experiences–she endeavors to do each recipe from Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. I think it did a good job portraying how even apparently successful people have their own struggles to get where they end up, and the performances were good across the board. (It was fun watching how they did their best to make Streep (5’6″) look like Childs (6’2″)–sort of like trying to make Frodo Baggins look like Gandalf. Three stars.
One thought that occurred to me during the film was how they were able to convey the sense of taste through film. It wasn’t like this was tast-o-vision, or smell-o-vision or whatever. There’s literally no way to get the audience to taste what they’re depicting. However, you couldn’t help but feel like you’d been sampling some of the fare by the end of the film. How did they do that? I think first and foremost, they did it by showing characters’ reactions to the food. If it was really good, they showed the characters talking about how good it was, and showed their expressions–you could see they were enjoying it. Second, they took care to detail the food–describe it well. The food shots were well-filmed, and the food looked delicious. Add to that some good sound effects, and voila. Bon appetit! It’s something I need to strive to do better in my writing, as well. Sometimes I think I rush through descriptions, when what I really need to do is take the time to provide enough detail that the audience connects with it–that they experience the scene more than a cursory overview can give.
Anyway, there’s my 2 cents for today. Sorry I didn’t post yesterday–I was too busy not procrastinating pleasure. I took the day off work and . . . did a bunch of chores. So maybe I procrastinated pleasure a bit more, but my kitchen hutch is looking less cluttered than it has since we moved in, and that’s a bit of pleasure every time I look at it.
L. and I loved this movie. One thing you left out was the devotion between Child and her husband. What a great support he was to her. Such positive interactions between a married couple don’t seem to be portrayed on the screen very often these days.
That’s a really good point. I kept waiting for the part of the movie where he stopped being supportive, and I was pleased and surprised when it never came. Bravo, Mr. Childs!
Exactly. If this had been written by Hollywood instead of a true story I have no doubt he (or she) would have had an affair or some kind of personal crisis. They’d have probably ended up divorced.
And addicted to drugs.