-How Holly feels that she will be locked up in a cage if she falls in love.
-When Holly and Paul go to the toyshop, they are trying to hide their identity.
The cat represents conflict that Holly believes exists between love and ownership. We know that Holly feels this way as she says “poor slob, poor slob without a name. I do not have the right to give it him one. We do not belong to each other. I do not want to own anything until I find a place where things and I go together. This shows us that Holly feels she does not own the cat and she will probably give the cat a name when she is rich and famous.
Holly calls Paul, Fred, when they first meet. Paul automatically feels an attraction towards Holly, when Holly springs the question on him. “Do you mind if I call you Fred”. Holly says this because she thinks Paul looks like her brother, Fred. Holly has not seen her brother in years. In the end, I think Paul is annoyed at Holly and wants her to call him Paul. I know this when Holly’s agent is talking to Paul and calls him ‘Fred Baby’.
Holly is always her keys. This symbolises her inability to keep or collect any possessions. She says, “Don’t want to you to think I’m a girl who loses her key, so I had 26 of them made”.
Holly is always losing her keys because she never hangs on to items or possessions. She also has very few items or objects in her flat because she feels that she will own items when the time is right and she is married to a very rich person.
“You just moved in, too, huh?”
“No. I have been here about a year.”
Holly‘s real name is Lula Mae. She had this name when she was married to Doc. When Doc comes to find Holly, he talks to Paul and tells Paul the truth about her. “Her name isn’t Holly. She was Lula Mae before I married her; I’m her husband Doc Golightly.” I think Holly changed her name because she felt insecure and wanted a new life away from Doc and her old life.
If Holly falls in love, she is afraid she will be possessed and so she will be kept in a cage. “Nobody’s going to put me in a cage… it’s the same thing… I am not Holly and I am not Lula Mae either. I’m like the cat, we belong to nobody.” This tells us that she is scared of being owned and does not believe she will truly find the ‘right guy’ and will not find true love. This is her disbelief of life and herself at finding her truelove.
Holly and Paul wear masks when they leave the toyshop together. When Holly and Paul leave the shop with the masks on Mrs Falenson talks too Paul and says, “If this is going to be a serious discussion, and suddenly I am afraid it is, you’re going to have to take off that ridiculous mask”. This shows that Mrs Falenson thinks the mask is ridiculous and stupid. I think they wore the mask for fun and found it fun trying not to be caught by the shopkeepers. It also shows that Paul and Holly are trying to hide their identity or trying to change it.
Low camera shots reveal characters that appear to have a less important identity or feelings of little importance. For instance when Paul is answering the telephone, there is a low shot as her crawls under a person. This shows us that Paul is then considered to be of a lower importance. You can tell this as the person Paul crawls under does not take notice or does not worry about Paul being there as the lady is to busy talking.
Another example of this is when Mag Wildwood falls to the ground after she is drunk at Holly’s party and falls to the ground. There is also a low shot here when she is falling to the ground and Holly says “Mag darling you’re being such a bore”. After she falls to the ground, nobody pays attention to her or tries to help her up this tells that she is not respected now.
In conclusion, Blake Edwards presents Holly and Paul’s issues of identity using several techniques. The main technique is to express the character’s feeling through dialogue. However, there are several incidences where identity is dealt with in non- verbal scenes.
An example of this is when Mag wildwood falls to the ground and nobody pays attention. These techniques are very effective as when Mag falls to the ground it tells the audience that she is not respected at that moment. They used music throughout the whole film sweet music at times for the right occasion and then sometimes music that reflected the bad mood of a person talking.
At the end when Paul and Holly revealed their love for each other by kissing. The director, in the last scene has a long high shot of Holly and Paul kissing they are wearing a sort of beige colour coats as they stand out from the other passer-bys as they are mostly wearing black. When Holly is scampering around the dark ally way the music is very sad but just as she finds the cat and Holly stares at Paul the music turns happy and joyful. When this happens, the music turns into lyrics as Holly moves closer to Paul. The cat represents love and conflict in the film but when Holly finds the cat again it wipes out all the conflict and means that she has found true love finally. When Holly was looking for the cat in the ally-way, it was very dark and it was pouring down with rain. However, when she finds the cat the lighting and rain suddenly gets brighter and slower, suggesting that Holly has now found true love and is not afraid of love.
