Preview

Romantic Comedies: Bridget Jones's Diary and Clueless

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1243 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Romantic Comedies: Bridget Jones's Diary and Clueless
Rom-coms
The genre I have chosen for my film studies documentary is rom coms. I have chosen this genre because I enjoy watching them and it’s a type of film that interests me.
Rom coms are usually light hearted and generally focus on romantic ideals. An example of this romantic ideal is true love overcoming all obstacles. The main feature is a love plot in which two sympathetic and well-matched lovers are united or reconciled. They are usually focused around a similar plot – two characters are apparently made for each other, but are faced with obstacles, such as a social divide, parental influence or a problematic ex-boyfriend or girlfriend. When these two characters are separated, one or both of them realise that they love the other. Usually, one of them makes a great effort in order to win the love of the other. In a lot of rom-coms, the two characters end up married or live happily ever after.
The two films I have chosen to discuss are Clueless and Bridget Jones’s Diary. Clueless is a 1995 film that is loosely based on Jane Austen’s ‘Emma’. It’s written and directed by Amy Heckerling and produced by Scott Rudin. Some of its main stars are Alicia Silverstone, Stacey Dash, and Brittany Murphy. Clueless is set in Beverly Hills and tells the story of Cher Horowitz – a typical wealthy Beverly Hills teenager. Cher, played by Alicia Silverstone, is 15 going on 16 years old and is rich, pretty, self-centred and popular, having risen to the top of the high school social scene. She knows how to talk anyone into doing just about anything she wants. Because her teacher gave her a bad grade, that she couldn’t argue her way out of, she and her friend Dionne match him up with another teacher to make him happier. When a girl named Tai transfers to Cher's school, she and Dionne give her a makeover and attempt to find her a boyfriend. Cher soon realizes that she wants a boyfriend herself, but no one seems right. She goes through a spiritual makeover and realizes

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    12. A batch of genre films that enjoys intense popularity and influence over a distinct period is what? A) Collective…

    • 742 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Throughout Clueless, it was simple to detect the similarities between the characters of those in the novel Emma. Cher Horowitz, the main character in Clueless, lives in the wealthy city of Beverly Hills in the United States. Emma Woodhouse, the main character in Emma lives in the more expensive side of town called Highbury in England. Because Cher and Emma both grew up in a wealthy environment, they often view themselves as well liked, posh, and classy. They both have strong, loving relationships with their fathers, and due to their excessive amount of money, the girls became spoiled.…

    • 357 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Clueless, an adaptation of Jane Austen 's 1815 novel, Emma, is a 1995 American film by director, Amy Heckerling. The comedy serves as a 20th century update of the original text that shifts into creating a contemporary Emma, one for our own era. Though Clueless seems to set forth on building its reputation on a completely new, distinct ground, it is not an entirely different work of art. Considerable amounts of uniformities between the adaptation and Emma can be pinpointed throughout. As “Clueless is most faithful to Emma in its recreation of the plot involving Mr. Elton, Harriet Smith, and Emma” (Troost, Linda, and Greenfield 124), several parallels between the two distinctive texts, concerning this matter, can be recognized. One outstanding example is the correspondence and connection between the modern photography scene in Clueless and the sketching/painting of Harriet’s portrait in Emma. Hence, along with the novel’s highly persuasive guidance and the two’s so-called loose relation, various similarities as well as differences are inevitably present.…

    • 1912 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Over the last few years, we have seen a rise in musicals in cinema that have been on par with the films of the past were responsible for the genres rise in film history. These films and shows are original, revolutionary, but also keep intact the traditional conventions and styles at the heart of the genre. Two bodies of work that represent this rise are La La Land and crazy ex-girlfriend. The musical genre uses two major elements of film which are sound and movement such as dancing, singing, and music to express intense emotion. These characters often break the fourth wall when they start to sing and dance, they also use mise-en-scene and lighting to exaggerate and emphasis portions of the film.…

    • 1234 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Both Emma and Clueless have almost identical values. Life for women during Emma was all about who you married, what family you came from and the amount of wealth you and your family had. Clueless highlights some of the values that Cher and her friends have, including who you go out with, the amount of money you had and could spend on items, and for Cher in particular the importance of family. The context of the novel and the film are completely different. Emma was written in the early 19th century by novelist Jane Austen and through the context the reader can understand what life was like for upper class women. Clueless was directed by Amy Heckerling set in the 1990s shows the “way normal life” for rich American teenagers.…

    • 704 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Transformations often involve using the same storyline of a text and changing its context in order to suit the environment, culture or society. In terms of highlighting the themes in a transformed text, it also indicates that the issues that were apparent in the past are still relevant to the current society. The director of the film “Clueless”, Amy Heckerling, has accomplished this through convenient transformation of Jane Austen’s novel “Emma”. Heckerling has supported Austen’s novel in a positive way, however has altered the values seen in Austen’s period to fit modern audiences. The themes of “Clueless” show the context of “Emma” in a contemporary period, converting the text to a well-known high school society in Beverly Hills. Amy Heckerling’s production of “Clueless” presented in 1995 expresses the typical parallels between features, characters and values of the novel “Emma”. In relation to the re-plotting of the text, Heckerling successfully substitutes the values regarding social class, manners, formal conversation and importance of self-image of the novel “Emma”, into another world of social…

    • 1083 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The movies are a great way to pass some time and escape reality for a couple of hours. People like movies for all sorts of different reasons. Movies usually come out each week on Friday night and on average three to four movies come out a week. That comes out to over two hundred movies a year and that is just mainstream film. One of the decisions people have to make is what movies to watch. The paper will discuss what the writer likes to watch, what he finds enjoyable, and what he does not. There is also the choice to watch in the theater or rent and watch at home. The first choice is more immersive and on a bigger screen while the second choice is less expensive and more intimate.…

    • 661 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    reader to reflect on Emma’s behaviour as a reflection of the context of her society and the value put on social hierarchy and status. The opening scene of Amy Heckerling's film, Clueless, made in the 1990’s, immediately adopts Austen's ironic tone. The energetic montage and quick succession of camera angles of Cher and her fellow teenagers indulging in luxurious activities in…

    • 847 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Generally one would assume that our society has changed considerably since Jane Austen's times and I do not want to argue the opposite. In some ways, however, we are still concerned with similar problems. Especially coming of age is a topic which has not lost any of its currency. This can nicely be seen in the 1995 Hollywood remake of Jane Austen's Emma – Clueless. Director Amy Heckerling transferred the story originally set in Highbury in Surrey of the early 19th century to Los Angeles of the 1990s. In the following I would like to compare Austen's novel with Heckerling's movie adaptation. Because of the limited length of this essay I shall mainly concentrate on the…

    • 1333 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Emma and Clueless

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The film Clueless, written and directed by Amy Heckerling, a somewhat modern adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel Emma examines the congruent ideas of self-knowledge and social obligation. Through the characterisation of the protagonists, Cher and Emma, who are perceived to be perfect in every way, possessing many virtues, as they are ‘handsome, clever and rich’.…

    • 908 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Amy Heckerling transforms the many values and issues conveyed in Jane Austen’s Emma, set in the 18th century in Highbury to her teen pic film Clueless set in the 20th century, in a high school society. Both texts involve a protagonist, being Emma in Emma and Cher in Clueless who meddle with the relationships of others as their interest, while being “placed in the midst of those who loved her, and who had better sense than herself”. The protagonists are morally transformed towards the end of the film and novel when they slowly realise the error of their ways. The texts explore unchanged values while highlighting society changes through the transformation of values. Heckerling and Austen convey the values marriage, integrity versus wealth and social status through cinematography and writing techniques such as dialogue, characterisation and stereotyping.…

    • 884 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Films that I particularly favor are thrillers. One reason Thrillers become so enjoyable for me, a sense of diversion is created making the viewers more indulge in the movie all the way to the ending. The plots are usually twisted, climatic, suspenseful and intelligence is often use far as the writing perspective to result in an ecliptic viewing of the movie. A really great thriller will usually bring a shock factor by the climax, then the movie will receive a better understanding from the beginning to end. Another genre of films I enjoy are Musicals they are fashionable and express emotions through singing. I am really into lyricism so I enjoy comparing the actual expression of the each character's individual story and the progression…

    • 649 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In both the Gus Van Sant directed film Good Will Hunting and J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, the antagonists are trying to find the true value of life. While the film is not by any means the visual for the novel, the two are often compared most typically because of the antagonists. Both Holden Caulfield and Will Hunting are both capable of exceeding in the world, but their cruel living styles act as setbacks to whatever beholds in their respective futures. Fortunately for both of them, there are people who show compassion toward them and understand their complexities and also want to help them succeed in life because they find potential in them.…

    • 594 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Documentaries cover a huge range of topics including historical events, science, current affairs, the arts, social and political issues, and nature or wildlife.…

    • 732 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Some people, however, enjoy the lighthearted, sentimental genre of romance. Romance films are love stores, or affiars of the heart that center on passion, emotion, and romantic involvement of the main characters. Romance films make the love story or the search for love the main plot. Usually people who prefer this genre tend to enjoy the idea of parternership…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays

Related Topics