“A film is made up of a hundred or more hidden things,” Vincente Minnelli once said in an interview. The quote seems to sum up Minnelli’s layered film making style. In this essay I will be exploring the themes of feminism, one of the hundred or more hidden things in Minnelli’s work. The essay will move through the life of Minnelli, analysing films from both the beginning and end of his career in the context of the time in which they were made.
Vincente Minnelli was born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 of 1903 into a theatrical family. His father and mother were both performers who travelled and owned half of the Minnelli Brothers’ Dramatic and Tent Theatre. Minnelli first worked as a child performer with his mother, then …show more content…
Louis, Minnelli was granted creative freedom to explore more unique and artistic films. One such film was The Pirate starring Gene Kelly and Minnelli’s wife, Judy Garland. While The Pirate endured tumultuous filming, negative critical reviews and underwhelming box office, it still stands as one of Minnelli’s most intriguing pieces of work. While he had been less outright with his feminist perspective in Meet Me in St. Louis, he enjoyed his newly allotted creative freedom to explore the idea in more depth and with a greater sense of satire toward patriarchal …show more content…
From the onset of the film Manuela appears on the balcony, fenced in by the metal lattice work, echoed in shadow behind her. This continues whenever the character is trapped within the expectations of society to settle down and marry. Then, when she is able to escape and be her own person the prison like line work disappears, being replaced with open skies or loose hanging swaths of fabric. Probably the most obvious shift from line work is when she first meets the showman at the seafront. There are no harsh lines at all, just a wide open
Vincente Minnelli was born Lester Anthony Minnelli in Chicago on February 28 of 1903 into a theatrical family. His father and mother were both performers who travelled and owned half of the Minnelli Brothers’ Dramatic and Tent Theatre. Minnelli first worked as a child performer with his mother, then …show more content…
Louis, Minnelli was granted creative freedom to explore more unique and artistic films. One such film was The Pirate starring Gene Kelly and Minnelli’s wife, Judy Garland. While The Pirate endured tumultuous filming, negative critical reviews and underwhelming box office, it still stands as one of Minnelli’s most intriguing pieces of work. While he had been less outright with his feminist perspective in Meet Me in St. Louis, he enjoyed his newly allotted creative freedom to explore the idea in more depth and with a greater sense of satire toward patriarchal …show more content…
From the onset of the film Manuela appears on the balcony, fenced in by the metal lattice work, echoed in shadow behind her. This continues whenever the character is trapped within the expectations of society to settle down and marry. Then, when she is able to escape and be her own person the prison like line work disappears, being replaced with open skies or loose hanging swaths of fabric. Probably the most obvious shift from line work is when she first meets the showman at the seafront. There are no harsh lines at all, just a wide open