Research/Film and Directors Influences
I am going to research various films and their directors and writers. From this research I wish to discover what has influenced them and how they came up with their story lines, and hopefully gain inspiration for my own film. Although I will be researching these various factors, I will be concentrating more on directors and writers who have depicted their films on cancer related topics.
Films are often imperfect reflections of our lives. Movies have been blamed for creating disturbing and profane cultural images, leading to illnesses of society such as isolation, sexual deviancy, and violence. Whether or not art imitates life, or life imitates art, it could be helpful for me to study how films have shown medical themes. This may be worthwhile as I will learn more about cancer and understand how cancer and medicine are perceived in popular culture.
Medical themes have always been popular in movies. An author claims Hollywood studios released more than 100 films with medical or surgical themes in the 1930s and 1940s. How films portray medical themes may tell us a great deal about how we perceive our medical care. In the end, movies are written, produced, and directed by people who often use their own experiences as creative inspiration, and as their experiences change, so do their films.
The purpose of this research is to review films of the twentieth century showing themes related to cancer, and how different people cope with the disease. This will link with my film as the mother in my film will have cancer, and my intention is to portray how it has a negative impact on not just her health or her every day life, but also the life of her teenage daughter.
In over one hundred and fifty films released between 1930 and 1999 with medical themes, only twenty had topics that related to cancer. Cancer is something which I believe should be shown more in the film industry, and through my film I wish to show the lives of cancer patients. Leukaemia and lymphoma were shown in nine of the twenty films, brain tumours in four, and unspecified terminal cancer in three, renal, laryngeal, bone, and breast cancers were each only shown once. Similarly, the age distribution of cancer victims in these films does not reflect reality. In over ...
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In over one hundred and fifty films released between 1930 and 1999 with medical themes, only twenty had topics that related to cancer. Cancer is something which I believe should be shown more in the film industry, and through my film I wish to show the lives of cancer patients. Leukaemia and lymphoma were shown in nine of the twenty films, brain tumours in four, and unspecified terminal cancer in three, renal, laryngeal, bone, and breast cancers were each only shown once. Similarly, the age distribution of cancer victims in these films does not reflect reality. In over half of the films cancer patients are under thirty years of age, and three quarters are under forty. I strongly believe that leukaemia and lymphoma has become the most common movie cancer so film makers can continue to depict "clean" cancers, in young, attractive people. Although movies with medical themes have been common from the 1930s, films with oncology themes were not very common until 1970, but they became more common in the 1990s. This could very well be the result of changes in the film industry, demographics, interest in medical topics, and in movie audiences.
Below are some films that have influenced my movie. The reason they have influenced my movie is because they both depict cancer and show how it affects various people's lives. The two films in which have inspired me are 'Who will love my children' and 'The Christmas shoes.' I will be looking into 'The Christmas shoes' in more detail than 'Who will love my children' as it focus's more on the child's point of view.
Who Will Love My Children
As this film shows a mother who worries over her children and looks after them constantly I have looked to it for influence. The mother is everything the mother in my film will be, she cares a lot for her children and they depend a lot on her, when she gets sick she is unable to do this. However, unlike this film my film will be from the point of view of the child and not the mother.
The Christmas Shoes
This film is influential to my short movie
as it shows a mother who wanted to get everything for her child, but in time of her illness her child is the one who wants to get something for his mother. Role reversal is very much apparent in this film and I wish to portray an image of role reversal in my short film.
Andy Wolk's influence for directing this film came to him after reading Donna Van Liere's well known published novel also entitled 'The Christmas Shoes.' This basic story line of this book however was not Donna Van Liere's idea. In her own words "My friend Eddie Carswell of the group NewSong told me the premise of a Christmas song he was writing. He asked if I thought it would make a good Christmas song... and I told him I thought it would make a great book. I began to work on an outline so I could flesh out the story and characters." NewSong released the song in the winter of 2000, at the end of the following October the book was published, and by December the 1st of 2002 the film was released onto small screen. I believe Andy Wolk was very passionate about making this film, and it reflects through in his work. He done an amazing job at getting the audiences attention and making them empathise with the characters and feel like they are present in the film. He heightens our emotions by laying hands on something which is close to our hearts and then pulling the trigger on it.
I hope to achieve in my film, the sense of passion he has created in his, perhaps even capture the heart of my audience. The reason I chose to study this film and director more closely that the director of 'Who Will Love My Children' is because it concentrates on the child's view point of his mother being terminally ill rather than the mother's view point. In my film I wish to portray the daughters' view of her mothers' illness.
The Fountain
The scientist
Research oncologist Tommy Creo (Hugh Jackman) attempts to reverse brain tumors in rhesus monkeys through animal testing. His work is motivated by his cancer-stricken wife Izzi (Rachel Weisz). When the tests fail on a monkey named Donovan, Tommy is inspired to break medical protocol and use an untested compound derived from a Guatemalan tree. At first, the drug fails to stop the tumor's growth, but surprisingly rejuvenates Donovan, healing his wounds and improving his cognitive abilities.
At home, Izzi points out a golden nebula to Tommy, describing it as Xibalba, the Mayan underworld. She also shows Tommy a book she is writing, set in the age of conquistadors, titled The Fountain. When she goes to sleep, Tommy reads the book and falls asleep as well. When he wakes up, he finds that Izzi has gone to the museum. He meets her there, and she explains the creation myth of the Mayans. She suddenly collapses from a seizure and is rushed to the hospital. She tells Tommy, at her bedside, that she no longer fears death. Tommy does not accept this and returns to his lab, working harder to find a cure for Izzi's brain tumor.
During a visit, Izzi goes into cardiac arrest, and Tommy is forced by medical staff to leave the room. Tommy's associate Dr. Lillian Guzetti (Ellen Burstyn) finds him in the hall and tells him that Donovan's tumor is shrinking. Tommy rushes back into Izzi's room with the news, only to find that his wife cannot be resuscitated. At Izzi's funeral, Tommy tells Guzetti, "Death is a disease, it's like any other. And there is a cure. A cure. And I will find it." This has inspired my film as we will not discover that the woman in my film has cancer until the end, just as we do not discover Izzi has cancer until over half way through the film.
