Describe at least ONE important setting in the text(s).
Explain how the setting helped to show the author / creator’s idea(s), supporting your points with visual and / or oral language features.
The film Pleasantville written, directed and produced by Gary Ross shows a time period in American History where life was more comfortable, stable and ‘perfect’ if you would generalise it. However, as the film ironically shows, this was a time when people were more ignorant, racist and most certainly sexist. Ross demolishes this illusion of the great 1950s American society by showing how its defects are gradually changed from black and white to colour. Ross uses various settings to help show the viewer the imperfect aspects of Pleasantville’s…show more content… A close up shot of Davids smirked face shows that he’s a changed character. The diegetic sound of the jukebox shows the rebellion of the teenagers but also the change in characters like David.The change in characters in Pleasantville helped them gain more confidence in themselves and helped them develop their own opinion. At the end of the movie the music became for understated and accepting. This is shown when at the end a montage of the new pleasantville lives are played. It is accompanied by a beatles song ‘across the universe’ whose lyrics ‘pools of sorrow, waves of joy’ perfectly convey the new range of emotions felt in pleasantville. Music helped me to understand the theme of ‘The importance of change because it clearly shows the distinct change between music from joyful,pleasant music into rebellious, complex music and finally into understated, accepting tunes. These three music genres show how pleasantville has changed through the signifier music and how important it is to accept change which is one of the ideas Gary Ross brings across.
Contrast in setting is shown through various settings throughout the film and also shows the idea of ‘The importance of change’. The important centres of the life of the young people are the soda shop and lovers lane. Changes are shown in each setting as the lives of those in pleasantville change. Bland 50’s music played in the soda shop at the beginning of pleasantville but slowly progressed into the rock and roll and
