Beloved (reaction to movie review)

I agree with Janet Maslin, writer of "Movie Review - Beloved - FILM REVIEW; No Peace From A Brutal Legacy", that the everyone that helped put this movie together was able to portray the feeling that times were hard and that people had to make sacrifices, so they could protect their loved ones. That people should read the book before watching the movie because even though depending how old you are it might be confusing. It is worth the effort to read the book and spending time reading passages over more than three times, because you are able to learn more about the characters that way. If you still are confused about the book by the end, the movie is a like a little review of what you have just read. A novel like this, thats very descriptive and makes the reader imagen in the head what is happening. It is better to watch the movie after so you can see how much description in a novel can really affect how much emotion and personality the actors have to have. After watching the movie you really notice the them of the novel which is when the supernatural and natural worlds meet, its can make people happy for a certain period of time but it does not specifically lead to happiness in life. I agree with Maslin, that because the movie begins calm and slow, it helps build the plot of the story . It leads to the reveal of the supernatural world as more dramatic and brings a lot of creativity to the  film.(Maslin).




Maslin, Janet. "Movie Review - Beloved - FILM REVIEW; No
            Peace From A Brutal Legacy - NYTimes.com."
            Movie Reviews, Showtimes and Trailers - Movies - 
            New York Times - The New York Times. 16 
            Oct. 1998. Web. 25 Feb. 2011. <http://movies.nytim 
            es.com/movie/reviewres=9405E4D813 3AF935A2
             5753 C1A96E958260>.

Beloved ( reaction to the movie)

My first reaction to this movie is that it was very well planned out. What i mean is that they barely changed anything that occurred in the book, and unlike other book into movies, there where moments when i remembered that that was what the characters said exactly in the novel. It seemed less like you were being told a story because the director used a lot of point of view shots, making the person watching the movie feel as if they are one of the actors, and more connected to the movie. I noticed that the director played with the lighting a lot, for example when Paul D. first entered the house, the hall way emitted a flashing red like, which could symbolize evil or the devil during this scene. I really liked the movie better than the book because there were a lot of reaction shots and close-ups, so i was able to really see how each character felt during that scene. For me the novel seem as if it was trying to packed in a lot of information in just 300 pages, which made it a little confusing for me. However the movie, helped me understand those scenes because there were  fades when Sethe would start to talk about the past, and about what had happened to her. I think that the actors really fit the characters personality especially the actress that played as Denver. I was able to understand Denver's emotion towards Beloved, and until i watched the movie i did not know that at the end Denver's emotion started to change about Beloved. But what surprised me the most was the actress for Beloved because i when i read the novel i did not think would be a crazy character as the one portrayed in the movie. However it gave a lot of emotion and life to the movie, and showed the awkwardness of Beloved. My favorite scene is when Denver is home with Beloved and she is leading her to the kitchen so that she could sit down and eat some bread. This is my favorite scene because the director uses a point of view shot, close up, reaction shot, and an over a shoulder shot, and also a tracking shot during this scene. These shots helps us see that Beloved  looks like a grown teenager however she is like a baby who does not ever know how to even walk. We see that thats how Denver treats her, congratulating Beloved when she is able to walk to the chair. Overall i believe that this was one of the best book into movie films i have seen, and i  felt like the director made ever thing fit together perfectly from the mood of the scene, to the selection of the song he uses, to the actors and  the choice of shots he decides to use. 

Beloved (Pgs 195-316)

Summary:Paul D. and Beloved stayed with Denver and Sethe at the house. Beloved would spend her days with Denver while Sethe was at work, playing games and being taken cared of by Denver. During dinner Beloved would ask questions about Sethe's past and about what happened to her family. One day when it was snowing out side and the river was just ice they decided to go skating on it each using on skate, or just sliding with their shoes. The entire time they could barely get anywhere without falling down, and when they tried to help each other up they would just fall down again and start bursting out laughing. They did this for a couple of hours until they decided to go back home and cover themselves with a blanket while drinking something hot, surrounding the fire. They sat on the kitchen floor just staring at the fire, quietly each deep in their own thoughts. Until Sethe noticed that there was someone that was humming. But what really caught her attention was that she was humming a song that she had made up, and only her and her children knew about the song. This is when Sethe eyes opened and noticed that the Beloved that was living at her house for weeks was not just a stranger that had the same name as her baby that she had killed long time about, but it was her baby that had came back to her in flesh as the age that she would be if she had never died. This changed the atmosphere in the house, Sethe became obsessed with Beloved, taking care of her feeding her treats and just loving her more than she could have. But all this love toward Beloved, meant that Denver was not being noticed that much anymore. Before all of this Denver was happy that her baby sister had came back to her however now she see that Beloved was not just loving her mother but slowly draining the life out of Sethe. Days passed and Sethe stopped going to work, and instead stayed home trying to please Beloved and keep her happy. While Beloved would just walk around the house and sleep anywhere she wanted to. Denver decides to get a job because they would starve to death if she did not. Other women from the community would also help by leaving a basket of eggs or food on the stump in front of the house. When the rest of the women  in the community was informed by the ghost baby that was slowly killing Sethe they decided to try to get ride of her by going to the house with crosses and singing. When they did this Sethe and Beloved went outside and everyone say the naked beloved who had a stomach that was huge like she was pregnant. After Sethe fell into a hallucination and ran into the crowd of women with a ice pike in the air, with Denver running behind her trying to stop her mother from harming anyone. Beloved was left on the porch, and that was the first time she felt lonely and she started to scream to the point that she disappeared in thin air. After this happened Sethe could not leave her bed and Paul. D came back to visit her and told her that he still loved her. The novel ends with their life going back to how it use to be without Beloved and now with Denver having her own job and people communicating with their family again. However the incident with Beloved was never spoken of again as if it was just all just a bad dream.

Quote: "When the click came Sethe didn't know what it was. Afterward it was clear as daylight that the click came at the very beginning- a beat, almost, before it started; before she heard three notes; before the melody was even clear". (Morrison 202).

Reaction:

When i read this quote, i kind of yelled in my head thank you because i believed that it took Sethe a really long time to notice that Beloved was her dead baby that came back to life. And it was one of the things that really aggravated me during the story because how could you not noticed that she had the same name as her dead baby. I think that this was a great way that Toni Morrison made Sethe see the truth about who Beloved really was because when she started to talk about the clicking noise i thought about the click of a light switch. But after reading that passage over a couple more times, i thought the clicking noise could also resemble the crackling of the fire that they were sitting infront of. So the noise can be viewed more than one way. Even though i thought that it would have been better if Sethe seen who Beloved really was earlier in the story, it might have caused the book to be shorter and less interesting. Because by waiting till near the end for Sethe to find out about Beloved, it makes the reader want to read the book and find out what Sethe reaction is.