"A women's whole life in a single day; just one day. It's on this day, this day of all days her fate becomes clear to..."
--"The Hours"
The movie we watched in class, 'The Hours', was very perplexing and emotional. It took me a while to fully understand the connection between all three women. At the beginning of the movie, the three women woke up at the same time in the morning with the sound of their alarm clocks but awoke in different states of mind. All three also arrange flowers concurrently, yet each bouquet of flowers (one coordinated with each woman) was a different color. Because the morning occurrences happen at the same time, Woolf's belief that time unites us is displayed. Although we all live cohesively under time, we all spend our time differently, represented in the different colors of flowers. Throughout the movie, a clock noise chimed like the Big Ben in the novel. Despite that the three women live in different locations (Los Angeles, New York, and Richmond I believe) and live far from London, they portray how time resides everywhere, over everyone.
As well as this, Richard's apartment is dingy and located in a seemingly unsafe area. I thought the state of his home represented the progression of Clarissa and Richard's relationship. When first moving into a home, people usually organize it to fit their tastes. Clarissa and Richard, when they were very happy and moved in at an early age, may have kept the home nice. Now, the house looks disastrous because they are unhappy now and the past is pervading their present situation.
Just like the novel, the movie conveys a single day. It was very interesting to see how all the characters "faced the hours of the day".
I loved how you said that everyone is connected by time. It is very intriguing that everyone lives in a 24 hour day, but spends their time differently. I like how you also connected the cleanliness of the house to Richard and Clarissa's happiness, I didn't even think of that!
ReplyDeleteIt is awesome how you related each of the storylines to time. I never really thought about how the different colors of the flowers represent different interpretations of time.
ReplyDeleteVery well-written post, Sarah! I never considered how Virginia Woolf might be trying to say that no matter how different we are, from different eras and geographies, time unites us.
ReplyDeleteThis post had very insightful analysis to the movie and the thoughts were very well expressed.
ReplyDeleteI agree that time connects everyone everywhere, and it is interesting that both the movie and the novel display how so many completely different events happen at the same time.
ReplyDelete