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The Presentation Of Betty Is At Odds With The Rest Of The Films Ominous Tone. ...

The presentation of Betty is at odds with the rest of the films ominous tone. When she is introduced she is wearing a pink sweater which is in stark contrast to the dark colours and blacks that the rest of the characters predominantly wear. The plotting of the film is deliberately vague and the narrative difficult to understand, however she is all too easy to understand as a wide eyed, naïve, positive and pretty young girl with dreams of stardom. The way she wholeheartedly embraces the stranger in her house and undertakes the quest to find out Rita's identity is also difficult to accept. Her optimism is not in-keeping with the films dark, mysterious and dangerous tone and we are led into thinking that there is something more to discover about her.
The ending recasts Betty and Rita as Camilla and Dianne; that is to say that the characters that Harring and Watts played are swapped for other bit part characters within the film. Dianne is the jilted lover of Camilla who herself is a successful actress thanks to her underworld connections that have got her cast. Jealous and depressed Dianne hires an assassin to kill Camilla before turning the gun on herself. Betty effectively becomes the corpse that she had earlier discovered. The most common interpretation is that the first two thirds of the film is Dianne's fantasy, dissatisfied with her life and upset at being jilted by her lover she fantasises a more optimistic alternative for herself.
Taking into consideration other scenes from the film, such as the Adam's confrontational meeting with his films producers and the underworld connections that seem to be turning the Hollywood cogs, we can see that the film is in some small part a satire on the Hollywood system. We can then understand that within that frame work Betty/Dianne's character arc is that of a tragic dreamy eyed hopeful who is used, abused and discarded by Hollywood.
The line between Diegetic ‘reality' and fantasy is never clear in the film and narrative meaning is obtuse and deliberately elusive. Character, meaning and narration are all fluid, subject to change and open to interpretation.
A characters motivation may be the driving impetus of a films narrative, their obsession and desire being the key to their ultimate success or failure. Alternatively a character may be forced into the narrative against their will, and allow chance and circumstance to ultimately decide their fate. The voice of the protagonist may not be as informed as we would assume, and we must look for the Directors voice to ascertain meaning.
Our understanding of the resolution of narrative is determined by the qualities that the characters display through the events of the film.


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