ROMANCE F ILMS FOCUS ON PASSION, EMOTION, AND THE AFFECT IONATE ROMANTIC

INVOLVEMENT OF THE MAIN CHARACTERS AND THEIR JOURNEY.

Romances

Sleepless in Seattle (1993)

Produced by Gary Foster.Directed by Nora Ephron. Distributed by TriStar Pictures.Plot Summary - Sam (Tom Hanks) is a recent widower who is seeking someone new. Sam's son Jonah, is also looking for a new mother, so when Jonah puts his father on national radio, hundreds of women write to him after hearing his story about his wife. One of the women is Annie (Meg Ryan). The genre of this film is romance. One typical element of a romance film is the fact that they are usually based in a day to day reality, which this film is as it is based in an ordinary day to day setting of the lives of a widower and his son in Seattle and a woman in Baltimore. This film follows the narrative of Todorov as there is an equilibrium in which Sam and his son Jonah are getting past the death of Sam’s wife and Jonah’s mother and in which Annie is engaged to a character named Walter. The disequilibrium comes later in the film when Annie decides to meet Sam, but see’s him with a woman, who she doesn’t realise is in fact his sister. Annie then leaves. However, Jonah is convinced, after a letter she wrote is posted to him from her friend, that she is the one for his dad, so he convinces his dad to go to New York and Annie and Sam finally meet on the top of the Empire State building and a new equilibrium forms when Annie and Sam fall instantly in love. Romance films are typically aimed at female audiences and this film is aimed at females of all ages as it is a story of fate and finding your soul mate, something that females of all ages typically like. Meg Ryan’s character Annie is the typical representation of femininity in that she is emotional and fragile and believes in destiny and fate and romance. Tom Hanks’ character is not the usual representation of masculinity in that he is not confident and strong and tough, however the circumstances are different and he is represented as a good father figure who is dealing with the death of his wife. The representations of age are somewhat stereotypical in that Sam’s son Jonah is the one to push his father to Annie and even, with the help of a friend, buys the plane tickets to New York to make his father meet Annie.

Dirty Dancing (1987)

Produced by Linda Gottlieb.Directed by Emile Ardolino. Distributed by Vestron Pictures. Plot Summary – Set in the summer of 1963 in a holiday camp, Frances "Baby" Houseman (Jennifer Grey) falls in love with the camp's mysterious dance instructor Johnny Castle (Patrick Swayze) whose upbringing is vastly different from her own sheltered life. The genre of this film is again romance and it follows the conventional storyline of a romance film in that girl meets boy, becomes infatuated but he pushes her away because her life is too different from his, he eventually gives in and they fall in love with each other. Another element of a typical romance film that this film follows is the fact that romance films typically have a divide between the two main characters that they have to come such as race, in this film it is the issue of class. The film could be said to follow the narrative of Claude Levi Strauss, in that the two main characters are binary opposites in that the character Baby is gentle, caring, sheltered and naive whereas Johnny is strong, masculine, angry and more mature in ways that he has had to deal with a lot more than she has. Baby is the stereotypical representation of femininity and Johnny is the stereotypical representation of masculinity. There could even be representation of age in as Baby is naive and gentle, whereas Johnny being slightly older is much more understanding of the harsh reality. There is also contextual representation as it is set in the 1960’s and an issue that comes up is a woman wanting an abortion due to being unmarried and pregnant, the only doctor that can help her in time after she becomes ill after the abortion is Baby’s father, and due to Johnny’s underprivileged background he automatically assumes that the unborn child was his. This film is also aimed at a female audience, of all ages but perhaps a more young adult audience as it has steany dancing and rebellion and the main character of Baby is quite young.

The Notebook

Produced by Lynn Harris and Mark Johnson. Directed by Nick Cassavetes. Distributed by New Line Cinema. Plot summary –In a nursing home, resident Duke (James Garner) reads a

romance story for an old woman (Gena Rowlands) who has senile dementia with memory loss. In the late 1930s, wealthy seventeen year-old Allie Hamilton (Rachel McAdams) is spending summer vacation in Seabrook. Local worker Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling) meets Allie at a carnival and they soon fall in love with each other. But they are separated due to their different social class and Allie’s parents disapproval. Allie later falls in love with a War veteran named Lon whom she cared for in hospital as a volunteer nurse but by chance sees a photo of Noah in the newspaper while trying her wedding dress on. She decided to go back to Seabrook to see him and falls in love with him all over again. Back to the present it is made clear that Duke, the resident nursing home, is Noah and he is reading the story of their love to Allie, the old woman with senile dementia.

This film follows the typical conventions of a romance storyline in that it is boy meets girl, falls instantly in love but girl is a little more resistant. She finally gives in and they fall in love. The film comes across the issue of class in that Allie’s parents are not happy about her falling in love with Noah due to his underprivileged upbringing . This film could again follow Todorov’s narrative in that their equilibrium is them falling in love, disequilibrium forms when Allie is forced to leave Noah and they miss each other when she comes to tell him goodbye. However, later into the film a new equilibrium sees them falling in love with each other all over again and finally getting together. This film doesn’t follow the typical conventions of a romantic storyline in that romances usually end with a happy ending, as this is what audiences usually see romance films for, but this film actually ends in tragedy in that Allie has dementia and ends up dying, even though they end up dying in each other’s arms, but it plays on the audiences emotions more.

10 THINGS I HATE ABOUT YOU

Produced by Andrew Lazar. Directed by Gil Junger. Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures. Plot Summary – The new kid Cameron (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), along

with the help of his friend Micheal (David Krumholtz) , must find a date for the meanest girl at school Kat Stratford (Julia Stiles) to get a date with her sister Bianca (Larisa Oleynik). Which is where Patrick Verona (Heath Ledger) comes in.

This film follows the typical conventions of a romance in that Cameron has instantly fallen in love with Bianca and would do anything to get a date with her. However she is in love with someone else and takes a while to warm up to him and see he is perfect for her. The romance between Kat and Patrick is a bit less conventional in that she is not interested at all and even despises him at first, and he is trying to win her over for money. But they both do end up falling in love together, this is less conventional in that usually in romance films at least one of them is in love from the very beginning. This film could also follow Todorov’s narrative because the equilibrium is disturbed by the character of Patrick changing Kats life in that before she was completely against men and love and all social conventions. The new equilibrium is their happiness together, which is then once again disturbed by Kat finding out that he was given money. There is then another new equilibrium when they admit that they are in love. The character of Bianca follows the typical representation of femininity in that she is shallow and vain, the character of Cameron follows the stereotypical conventions of a nerdy boy as he is shy and nervous around Bianca, but he wins her in the end. The character of Patrick follows the representations of masculinity in that he is muscular, rebellious and mysterious, but Kat doesn’t follow stereotypes of femininity but instead follows the stereotypes of the era in that it was set in the 1990s which was still a time of finding yourself and rebellion.