(Family Scenes). 1933-42. Director unknown.

(5/13/00)

This film is a home movie of the life of a family over a ten-year period. I actually question the dates. The earlier sections all have titles announcing the years, but towards the end there is a long stretch (longer than any of the previous years) which is broken up by patches of leader. The leader had been edited out of the previous sections, so I suspect that the last part of the film went beyond 1942, but was simply not identified as to the years.

It was interesting to me that this film began at the beach which seems to mean so much to me. Throughout the film there are a lot of long pans from left to right which I found annoying after a while.

I didn't like the static scenes of people posing for the camera as if they were having their pictures taken by a still camera. Of course, the motion picture camera can shown nuances that the still camera cannot, but I still didn't like those shots. I liked it much better when something was going on. I was especially frustrated when the people posing for the camera were speaking for the film was of course silent and I couldn't hear the words. Of course, some people can read lips, but I can't.

I liked the scenes of workmen adding on to the house because something was actually happening. There was some very interesting footage of dogs at play. Those scenes really livened up the film. My favorite scene was of a girl in a swimsuit swinging a golf club. She was attractive and I really enjoyed watching the movement of her legs.

It was interesting to watch the changeover from black-and-white to color footage. The first color scenes were blurry and the footage wasn't very attractive. Gradually, the color seemed to improve.

In one scene a young man is watching a military uniform--a haunting reminder that this was the time of World War II and that the war forced its way into people's private lives.

The film really left a vivid sense of how things looked in the early 1940s. And it was real life.
There is a scene outside of a theater where some sort of performance has gone on. A woman holds a volume of Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics in her arm.

There was so much of these people's lives that wa snot told in the film. I don't even know, for instance, what business the father was in. As close as I got to them through watching their home movies, this family remained strangers.