Designerly Curiosity - Academy Award Movie Marathon

I've watched quite a few Academy Award winning movies now. About a month ago I watched "Doctor Zhivago" with Ben, Gaby, and Marina, I'm sure you know by now. I also did a movie marathon the other weekend as I was working on my Type and Image II project. I watched "My Fair Lady", "The King and I", and "South Pacific". Topics and themes ranged from love, war, race, responsibility, women's rights, culture clash, high and low classes of society, image, and life in Soviet Russia. 

I noticed in all these movies there were very long beginning credits with music, some even had intermissions. I can't remember if "Doctor Zhivago" had any random musical parts in it, I don't think it did, but "My Fair Lady", "The King and I", and "South Pacific" all had random songs pop up from time to time. "South Pacific" is a musical, but I didn't realize it was one until a few songs in. I think that was because there was so much normal dialogue between the songs that I hadn't really noticed. The movies were also very long compared to today's movies. A a movie coming out now might be 90 minutes long, Doctor Zhivago was 200 minutes long, more than twice as long. As I sat there watching it I could definitely feel just how long I had been sitting there.

I enjoyed "The King and I" and "My Fair Lady" the most. Though they are from the 1956 and 1964 I still enjoyed the content and humor of the movies. But I do enjoy comedies much more than dramas or tragedies. South Pacific was sort of tragicomdey. I don't want to get into details in case someone hasn't seen it. But there are lots of highs and quite a few lows. I didn't care for "Doctor Zhivago" at all. I think it's because of the content and just how long it was, I didn't realize how long it'd be before hand. I'm happy I watched these movies. Each one showed different times and cultures which I found to be enlightening, but I'm keeping in mind they are all works of fiction.

 

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I'm a sophomore at Herron School of Art and Design at IUPUI pursuing a degree in Visual Communication. This blog is dedicated to my research, activities, and findings related to my VC classes.