The Huguenot8 Partnership

Opening Credit Assignment

Read Chapter 1 and 2 of The Giver.  Decide how you might represent the setting of this novel in 29 shots.  Write your shots down as short descriptions. Give the frame and angle of each shot.  Example:

1. Extreme close up shot, eye level- wheel of a bicycle moving.
2.  Far shot, high angle- boy on a bicycle riding away from the camera down a street of identical houses
3.  Medium shot, high angle - young girl playing with a doll on the grass... and so forth

Pleasantville Questions Part I

Answer the following questions in paragraph form.  Number each answer.  Use complete sentences and support your answer with examples from the film.  Grammar and spelling count, so be sure to spellcheck and reread your work before pasting it into comments.

1) Compare the world  that David and Jenny live in to the world that Bud and Mary Sue inhabit.   Include  dialogue and images from both settings to illustrate your comparison. 

2)  Compare the characters of David and Jenny to the sitcom characters of Bud and Mary Sue. 

3)  Why do you think the filmmakers decided to film the Pleasantville sequence in black and white?  What impact does black and white film have on your perceptions as a viewer?

You may wish to use the text of the screenplay to remember particular dialogue or scenes.  An online copy of the screenplay can be found here

Pleasantville Questions Part II

Review your response to the question about the use of black and white in the film Pleasantville.  Now, consider what use the introduction of color has in the film.   

1)  What might color be a metaphor for in the film? 

2)  Compare the use of color in Pleasantville and in The Giver? 

Pleasantville Part III

The 50s were a time of great affluence in America.  Pleasantville represented the idealized view of the 50s.  However, as we know, all was not paradise.   Not everyone was included in the ideal world that is depicted there and not everyone who was included found that world ideally suited for them.  The Civil Rights and Women's rights movement, the rise of a youth culture, McCarthyism are all referenced by the Pleasantville story. 

Choose a scene from the film that you think is a metaphor for cultural clashes... civil rights, women's rights, youth culture or McCarthyism.  Describe the scene and explain why it represents one of those clashes and what the filmmaker is trying to say to the viewer about that clash.

There are a number of articles that you can google to get other perspectives on Pleasantville.