Read the short except The Stars by Edgar Morin and watch the movie trailers below. In the comment section, post 150 response to one of the trailers of the kind of Hollywood melodramas that Macabea loves (please make clear which one) as it pertains to her reality versus her imagination. Discuss how Hollywood film creates a “dream of life” and how it reminds you of the relationship between protagonists Macabea and Rodrigo SM in Lispector’s The Hour of the Star.
from The Stars by Edgar Morin, 1957
In other respects Hollywood proceeds in a mood of optimism in order to permit its public to forget the effects of the ‘Great Depression.’ The happy ending becomes a requirement, a dogma. Most films are tinted with an agreeable fantasy, and a new genre, the bright comedy, is enthroned after Frank Capra’s It Happened One Night. New optimistic structures promote the spectator’s ‘escape’ and thus in one sense avoid realism. But in another, the mythic content of the movies is ‘secularized,’ brought down to earth.
Finally, already subject to the influence of the Crash (King Vidor’s Our Daily Bread) and subsequently to the progressive currents of the New Deal, the American cinema receives the full effect of social themes in all their realistic vitality (Fury, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, The Grapes of Wrath).
All these factors determine the evolution of the film. But this evolution itself is controlled by a still deeper current, which is the increasingly middle-class nature of the cinematic imagination. Originally a mass spectacle, the movies had taken over the themes of the popular serial story and the melodrama which provided, in an almost fantastic state, the first archetypes of the imaginary: providential encounters, the magic of the double (twins, speaking likenesses), extraordinary adventures, oedipal conflicts with step-father or stepmother, orphans of unknown parenthood, persecuted innocence, and the hero’s sacrificial death. Realism, psychological awareness, the happy ending and humor reveal precisely the extent of the middle-class transformation of this version of the imaginary.
The projection-identifications which characterize the personality at the middle-class level tend to identify the imaginary and the real and to feed upon each other.
The middle-class version of the imaginary draws closer to the real by multiplying the signs of verisimilitude and credibility. It attenuates or undermines the melodramatic structures in order to replace them by plots which make every effort to be plausible. Hence what is called ‘realism.’ The resources of realism include fewer and fewer coincidences, ‘possession’ of the hero by an occult force, and comprise more and more ‘psychological’ motivations. And the same impulse that draws the imaginary to the real identifies the real with the imaginary. In other words, the soul’s life broadens, enriches itself, even hypertrophies at the heart of middle-class individuality. For the soul is precisely that symbiotic site where real and imaginary encounter and feed upon each other; love, that phenomenon of the soul which mingles most intimately our imaginary projection-identifications and our real life, assumes an increased importance.
Now, Voyager, 1942
Leave Her to Heaven, 1945
Imitation of Life, 1959
Splendor in the Grass, 1961
The Fault in Our Stars, 2014
“The Fault In Our Stars” reminds me the most about the relationship between Macabea and Rodrigo S.M. My comparison may not make sense to many, but after both watching the movie and reading most of the book, there are correlations between both. I think Macabea likes movies like “The Fault in Our Stars” because there is a character that she can find common ground with. Hollywood films like this one create a “dream of life” with the way they try to portray the seriousness of a topic with a dreamy touch. The relationship between Rodrigo S.M. and Macabea is one of which comes off as a negative relationship at times due to how Rodrigo characterizes her and describes her. However, Rodrigo is from the outside looking in, and is amongst other people in Macabea’s life who is mystified by who she is. Her past affects her character and her experiences, but she is happy. Happiness is defined by many ways for different people and what can be seen as happiness for Macabea and Hazel may not be the same happiness Hazel’s love interest and Rodrigo S.M. have a definition for.
As someone who has never watched “The Fault in Our Stars,” the trailer made me think about the characters in “The Hour of the Star.” More specifically, Macabea is quite similar to Hazel so I feel like she would enjoy watching this melodrama. Both characters have one thing in common such that they are struggling in some way; Macabea is poor and uneducated, while Hazel has cancer. In the book, the narrator Rodrigo SM seems to have no sympathy or feelings for Macabea at all, but as we keep reading, we find that he starts to develop feelings and care for her. Even in such a dreary setting like this, where Macabea seems hopeless, Lispector incorporates a “dream of life” when we see that Rodrigo starts to have affection for her and she still finds some enjoyment in little things. Therefore, I feel like she would like this movie because like her, even though Hazel seems to have a hopeless future and knows she may die from cancer, she is still able to experience optimism when she finds love.
“The Fault in Our Stars” reminds me the most about the relationship between Macabea and Hazel. Both Macabea and Hazel are struggling with something that they both have no power over. Macabea is sickly, unloved, very unattractive, and also dealing with poverty and Hazel was diagnosed with cancer when she was only thirteen years old. Hazel never had the intention of falling in love because she knew one day she would die from cancer, but still she manages to remain hopeful and makes the best of her situation. I believe Macabea would prefer watching “The Fault in Our Stars. “Hollywood films, particularly this one, create a “dream of life” by the way they escape reality and make a sad situation into something beautiful. Over the course of the story, Rodrigo’s feelings for Macabea changes. In the beginning he’s very cold towards her, but later he becomes rather affectionate and concerned.
I found that the trailer for “Imitation of Life” most closely resembled the ongoing themes of power in imagination, and the ability to create our own worlds within ourselves. As discussed in “The Stars” by Edgar Morin, and portrayed by the character Macabea in Lispector’s “The Hour of The Star,” individuals are capable of incredible defiance of “realism.” In this trailer, the character whom I found reflected this aspect most passionately was Susan Kohner’s character Sarah Jane. Ashamed by the reality of her mother’s race, and consequently her own ethnicity, it seems that she is determined to not let the truths of her past effect her future being. Both Sarah Jane and Macabea are living in a self-built allusion. The difference being the trying societal force exposing Sarah Jane of this fantasy, while Macabea lives somewhat peacefully within the illusion of her “happiness.”
Both, Macabea from “The Hour of the Star” and Bette Davis from “Now Voyager” are women who desperately want to be loved. “These are tears of gratitude” show Betty’s extreme appreciation to be in the arms of the man she loves, while Macabea’s visit to the fortune teller shows her desperate urge to bring love in her life. The “Now Voyager” would swing Macabea from her unfortunate state of reality into a world she’d dream of with her lover. Hollywood films provide a platform for dreamers to imagine themselves in perfect situations of life .It shifts its viewers from their present state to an endless world of imagination that is perfect from the viewers’ perspective. On the other hand, Rodrigo hasn’t done justice with Macabea’s character. Right from the beginning of the novel, Rodrigo showed discomfort in writing her story by exaggerating her endless repulsive habits. Unlike, the beautiful picture Hollywood melodramas paint in their viewers’ imagination, Rodrigo has left his readers continue to pity Macabea for her unfortunate destiny.
After reading short except The Stars by Edgar Morin, watching movie trailers and reading the “The Hour of the Star” by Clarice Lispector, I imagine, Macabéa would love the trailer of “The Fault in Our Stars” because both Macabéa and Hazel shares dreary life as the common thread of connection. In addition, this trailer imposes optimistic structure, which lets spectator (Macabéa) to escape her reality and fantasize her imagination watching Hazel being able to receive love regardless of her Cancer. Next, The trailer projects how Hollywood film creates a “dream of life” by portraying a story of Cancer victim being embraced and loved in her life. Correspondingly, it reminds me, in The Hour of Star, Lispector shows Rodrigo’s gradual growth in emotion towards Macabéa from cold hatred, “It is true that I, too, feel no pity for my main character, the girl from the North-east: I want my story to be cold and impartial”(5) to frustration, “She makes me so uncomfortable that I feel hollow.”(18) and finally changes into love, “Yes, I adore Macabéa, my darling Maca. I adore her ugliness and her total anonymity for she belongs to no one” (59)
I believe “Leave Her to Heaven” portrays the relationship between Rodrigo and Macabéa. Ellen in “Leave Her to Heaven” seems to portray the mixed feelings of jealousy and melodramatic love towards her fiancé and sister. The same assumption can be made about Rodrigo towards Macabéa. Ellen seems to have everything she wants but yet never happy and her sister seems to be genuinely happy despite not having all the things Ellen does. Rodrigo is a rich and fortunate person, however, he lacks one thing that makes Macabéa’s life more valuable than his, happiness. Macabéa is poor and ugly but yet she sees joy in the little things in life such as drinking Coca-Cola. Rodrigo tends to agonize everything and even though he knows he should pity Macabéa for being poor and unfortunate, he tends to portray jealousy instead. Hollywood made the trailer look like a typical dreamlike story in which the main character has everything fulfilling in life and yet is not happy but eventually realizes the problem and fixes it somehow. In “The hour of the star”, there is no happy ending but only a realistic ending that death can take come into anyone’s life regardless if the person is happy or unhappy.
Leave Her to Heaven is a romantic thriller in 1945. It describes a beautiful woman who falls in love with a man because this man looks like her father. And she marries him. Then she gets to be in control of his husband and she can’t stand his brother and her mother and sister and kills his brother and her unborn child. She finally suicides.
According to the Stars, the base of this film is related to the psychological problem–Electra complex, which is paid attention to by middle class. After Freud raised the theory of psychoanalysis, people are interested to analyze human being’s psychology. So this film reflects the needs of audiences to some degree.
In terms of “dream of life’, we can see that the love of the woman in Leave Her to Heaven is so strong that she can destroy everything between her and her husband. So influenced by this kind of romantic film, Macabea believes the glow of love. In addition, the shiny protagonists and scenes in all kinds of movies make her imagine to live in this environment. The difference between imagination and reality depresses her deeply.
After watching the movie “The fault in our stars” and read the book “The hour of the star” by Clarice Lispector I found that there is connection between both main characters Hazel and Mecabea. They both struggle Hazel because was diagnosed with the cancer and Mecabea uneducated woman’s struggle to survive in a sexist society and dream off a better life. But unfortunately there is no escaping fate. It is very sad that even in our days so many people dies because of cancer and no one pharmaceutical company cannot find a cure. Despite all life unfortunate both Hazel and Mecabea enjoyed every little things in their lifes.
Bette from Now Voyager encounters adversities in her life; however Bette does not let these problems stop from happiness. Even thought it may appear her decisions are misguided. Similar to The Hour of the Star, Rodrigo explains how Macabea is living in a “dream of life.”Macabea seems happy from almost nothing she is unaware of her self and seems to live in an unreal world. While ignoring everything that takes away her happiness by covering up her troubles with excuses of not being rich. Macabea never questions her life of desires a better life. Rodrigo criticizes Macabea harshly because he thinks of existence by others knowing he is alive. “Only now do I understand and only now has the secret meaning sprouted: the violin is warning. I know that when I die I’ll hear the man’s violin and demand music, music, music. ” On the other hand, Rodrigo just wants to be free but is afraid of death. But sometimes what were most afraid of will set us free. The idea behind The Hour of a Star, The Voyager and The Star is find what we love and let it kill us. By that I mean find the things we actually really love and let it consume us even if we’re afraid of what it is and the consequences. Dying is quick and fast but living is even more difficult we have to find ourselves and set ourselves free especially of what is feared.
After watching the trailer of “Leave her to Heaven,” I believe the characters have a resemblance to Macabea and Rodrigo SM. Ellen in “Leave Her to Heaven” portrays jealousy against her half-sister Ruth, and overdramatic love towards Richard. Ellen would cheat, lie, deceive and stop at nothing to make Richard her exclusive possession. Ellen is similar to Rodrigo SM in that we see both characters agonize over everything. Both characters have all the things they need to be happy, but there is always something missing or bothering them that causes unhappiness. Rodrigo also has control over narrating what happens to Macabea and is overly jealous of how Macabea finds happiness over the little things in her life. In my opinion, Rodrigo is evil because he decides to end Macabea’s life knowing that she will have a bright future. Ruth, the gentle half-sister, portrays Macabea, a character that is simple, innocent and empty minded. They seem to live simple lives but conflict always get in their way. Macabea sees everything in an optimistic view so she believes what happens to her is good for her.
Macabea reminds me of Bette Davis from “Now Voyager.” This movie portrays the struggle of a young woman with her tough mother, and details the girl’s first love. “No one ever called me darling before,” Bette Davis states, as she embraces her love. Meanwhile, in The Hour of The Star, we witness Macabea fall in love for the first time as well. Additionally, Macabea also had a rough childhood after losing her parents and living with her aunt who was unkind to her. Throughout this book, Rodrigo SM tries to reason out Macabea’s existence, and he realizes that as Edgar Morin states, “For the soul is precisely that symbiotic site where real and imaginary encounter and feed upon each other; love…assumes an increased importance.” While Rodrigo views Macabea in a pitiful way, since he is always interjecting the story about her with commentary, the young woman has a spark to her, as she views life through hopeful, rose-colored glasses. “Although all she had inside her was the little indispensable flame: a breath of life” (30), Rodrigo SM writes as he perfectly captures the same notion that Morin was describing, how “Hollywoof proceeds in a mood of optimism.” Therefore, this “dream of life” that Hollywood creates is the mindset that Macabea lives in, for although she is poor and alone, she still dreams of one day owning expensive creams and believes in a happy future. Meanwhile, Rodrigo SM’s interjections about how he does not fully understand Macabea’s hopefulness are like doses of harsh reality that help bring the story “down to earth.”
“Imitation of Life” reminds me of the characters in the Hour of the Star. After watching the trailer, the most impressive character among them is Sarah Jane. She is struggling with her African-American identity. She dreams to get rid of it and begin a new life. This is similar with Macabea, who is poor, unlovely and uneducated, but dreaming of a life as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe. They both leave home away to work hard in the city. However, the fact is Sarah Jane’s identity and extreme self-respect makes the family suffer a lot while Macabea died in the end. Hollywood film creates a “dream of life” through giving normal people tough life but a great happy ending. As for Rodrigo SM, he created Macabea and has sympathy on her. He said he hopes Macabea realizes his existence so that she could turn to him for a better life. The result for Macabea is very sad which seems like although Rodrigo tried to create a dream life for Macabea, he finally gave in to the reality.
Hollywood movies do not tend to portray life as it really is. Edgar Morin says that during the Great Depression Hollywood made movies in order for people to forget their real problems. While realism has been more incorporated after this period, Hollywood still gives an unreal picture of life, as if a happy ending is a given. The trailer “Now, Voyager” shows a woman who seems to have an unfortunate life but who fights “for the right to love” and, based on the short trailer, appears to find happiness in the end. Macabea also has an unfortunate life, even though she is not aware of that nor feels like it for most part of the book. However she does not have a happy ending, which makes it seem that Rodrigo SM does not follow the same style of Hollywood; he gives a pessimistic view on Macabea in the beginning and there is no turning point (which is many times found in Hollywood movies) in her life which would end her pain.
After viewing the trailers and doing the readings I feel the easiest connection to make with “The Hour of the Star” was with “The Fault in Our Stars.” I really do though like the other connections people have made, being able to compare the reading to the other trailers in ways I might not have thought of. For me I simply broke it down to the struggling girl (Macabea in The Hour of the Star an the girl in The Fault in Our Stars) and her connection to the Man (Rodrigo in The Hour of the Star and the boy in The Fault in Our Stars) I am ashamed to say I have seen “The Fault in Our Stars” and I feel a connection I made was that the boy was actually teaching the girl how to live life even when things are at their worst, which seems to be the role of Macabea who is the one to show Rodrigo about life and eventually makes him a better person. I feel in both works show a relationship between the characters that make an attempt to create a life better for each other and have the fairy tale ending, but seem to fall short.
!!!!!!!!!SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Such as the life of Macabea ending tragically as well as the death of the boy from “The Fault in Our Stars.” This is the sense of reality and show that everything does not end like the movies Hollywood puts out, but also a tip of my hat to Hollywood not having the beautiful ending of both kids surviving and living happily every after with each other in “The Fault in Our Stars.”
After watching the trailer of The Fault in our Stars, I immediately realized some pieces that I did not realize before. Keeping in mind the idea about reality and imagination, I saw the trailer in a new light. The movie is specifically about the middle class, so the viewer can generalize about the movie that this can happen to them. About reality, the first, and most obvious, thing that she is sick. In most movies, the protagonist would not be sick, the protagonist would be whole and healthy and able to do anything; but here she is not. But moving on to imagination, the protagonist here is “saved.” She is sick and even “shows” the sickness, but another character falls in love with her. She is not portrayed as someone who can be fallen in love with, but the movie industry created this imagination versus reality and how they play off each other.
Edgar Morin in his The Stars says: “ Hollywood proceeds in a mood of optimism…” meaning that Hollywood moviemakers try to hide negative moments and concentrate on positive emotions. In some way I agree with him, usually from the beginning of the movie we already know that there will be happy end. Although, I never saw the movie The Fault in Our Stars, but after watching the trailer, it seems to me that this movie shows us a one real life story of those thousands of people diagnosed with cancer. The main hero Hazel demonstrates the struggle and loneliness that are caused by sickness. Hazel’s emotions are very similar to Mecabea’s from The hour of the star by Clarice Lispector; both of them don’t look like they can be loved. Macabea and Hazel also remind me heroes from Ms. Dalloway written by Virginia Woolf that were aware of isolation and were accepted by different people differently.
Ellen and her half sister in Leave her to Heaven, seems to most resemble Macabéa and Rodrigo S.M in “The Hour of the Stars.” Ellen is like Rodrigo trying to control Macabéa’s life. Rodrigo writes that even he does not know the outcome of her story but what he does know is that she is unfortunate and poor. She has no family or friends and can’t even keep a boyfriend. He could very easily make her life turn around like the fortune teller told her it would but he decides to make her story tragic instead of inspiring. Edgar Morin says in his writing The Stars, “New optimistic structures promote the spectator’s ‘escape’ and thus in one sense avoid realism.” I feel as if Clarice created something completely different in her writing. She made a narrator who is selfish and is more concerned with expressing his aggravation about how he is going to write about Macabéa rather than telling her story. He makes the story of her life depressing and unfortunate but she can’t see how unfortunate she is because she doesn’t know any better. Because of this type of writing, I feel that instead of creating “optimistic structures” and “avoiding realism,” Lispector takes realism head on and makes her story resemble real life with both characters rather the “dream of life.”
Hollywood films are dramatic, tense, hilarious and most importantly entertaining. In the movie “The Fault In Our Stars ” Hazel is a young girl who is battling cancer. Lonely and scared Hazel meets a young man who is also battling cancer. In the movie cancer is portrayed as a dangerous illness and life threatening, which is a reality, but at the same time the movie is portraying this love story of two people falling in love, which seems unreal. This film portrays drama, tense and despairing emotions. That is definitely Hollywood! In the book “The Hour of The Star” Macabea, a young girl, has also experienced a few traumatic events as well. Macabea born with a disease called rickets, uneducated, lacks work experience and has no direction in life seem to accept her reality. On the other hand, Rodrigo, the narrator, seems to not accept or respect her life experiences. In fact, Rodrigo S. M. is basically describing Macabea in a negative way. To my surprise towards the end Rodrigo S.M. seems to have a change of heart and starts having emotional feeling for Macabea. That’s crazy! That doesn’t make sense to me. That’s unreal. That’s what makes a great book.
I think the novel, “The Hour of the Star”, is very similar to the trailer on “Imitation of Life”. The core similarity between these two works are around the existential crisis of the protagonists in both. Just like how Macabea’s thoughts and ideas are invisible to the people she lives with, the Lora is also almost invisible to the man she is in love with, unless she convinces him that she is white. This is similar to Macabea’s life because no one really cares about her for the person she is. For Macabea, her visibility in the society is limited to her socio-economic standing. Likewise, Lora’s visibility to her fiancé is limited to her perceived racial affiliation. This is also seen in Edgar Morin’s excerpt. He points out that what the middle-class thought and desired during the depression was clearly reflected in the topics that became common in Hollywood during the same time. This shows that individual ideas collectively combine to have a greater impact on the culture of something as big as Hollywood.