Little Miss Sunshine Themes

The Hoover family of 6 travel in a yellow Volkswagen bus to California for their youngest daughter to compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant which is her dream. There is a husband, his wife, his daughter, his son, his brother in law, and his own father who are all traveling with each other for 2 days. Each family member in the movie is trying to accomplish some dream throughout the film. Olive the daughter is trying to win the Little Miss Sunshine pageant. The father is trying to becoming a motivational speaker. The wife is trying to reunite her family together as one. The son is attempting to take vow of silence and become an airforce pilot. The uncle is attempting to live a better

The novel, “How I Lost the Junior Miss Pageant” taught the devastating effects of what can happen once you need someone else’s approval of yourself. The mother and daughter were both transparent people that wanted a way out from never being seen. When you live your life by training yourself or

I decided to emphasis the way certain close ups and facial expressions were used to show very significant emotions of the characters in the film. In these particular scenes, no words had to be used. The camera focuses on the character involved in the scene and one can tell exactly what is going on in the mind of the character.

The film Little Miss Sunshine, Directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Farris, explores the lives of a regular American family and how they change their lives in front of us in the ‘Combie’ van on the road to the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The film examines the issues of winning and losing, and what it means to be a winner, throughout many sequences in the film as well as exploring the value of family. The directors and the cinematic team use an extreme range of camera techniques, costuming, and sound techniques to reshape our understanding of winning and losing in the world we live in today.

     The music helped in elaborating this great film. As I mentioned in class different instruments helped create different moods for different scenes in the movie. We heard the cello and the violin to create sadness and remorse. The flute created eeriness and the trumpet created awareness. I thought these were instruments and tools that help make this film extraordinary.

High Noon, which is an old western type of movie, is about a sheriff named Will Kane that has to fight to save his town. "The Most Dangerous Game", which is a short story about a man named Rainsford who has to fight for his survival. High Noon and "The Most Dangerous Game" have similar main characters and similar story patterns, but have a different overall theme.

Throughout history sound has been used to help convey a story. As early as the 1900’s, without today’s technology, movies would often be accompanied by a soundtrack played on a piano or record players. In 1927 The Jazz singer was released, a warner bros movie that featured music and dialog on the actual filmstrip. This film is

The director uses multiple camera shots to highlight the love during troublesome times and the emotions that are present. A wide shot is used when the audience watches Guido marching in front of the soldier shortly before his death. Guido does this as he is aware that his son is watching and still wants the experience of the camp to be a fun game and does not want Giosue to be afraid of what is happening. Close up shots are commonly used throughout the film to give more detail into the emotions that the characters are feeling. A

One particular scene uses close up to effectively show the emotions displayed on Mani and Lola’s face. Mani portraying fear and anguish while Lola has a face of stress and her body language gives of the feel of her feeling responsible. This scene takes places as the start of the film and gives the story of the plot and an opening to the story. Close ups are used to get the audience's empathy or connection to the character. It gives a clear view of the emotions that are being depicted by both Lola and Mani.

To begin the novel, Morrison quotes a “Dick and Jane” book, a children’s book describing an ideal, happy family. Immediately, Morrison provides an example of how American children are bombarded, as soon as they learn how to read, with ideas about what it means to be beautiful. As well, in the first chapter, she exemplifies how American children, both black and white, view beauty, from Claudia and Freida giggling when they are called the names of beautiful white actresses to Freida and Pecola’s admiration of Shirley Temple. In contrast to the broad examples of Polly’s and Cholly’s childhoods, the examples of these 1940s children are discrete and relevant to the period which Morrison wrote the novel. Evidently, Morrison criticizes the effect of the whiteness of American ideals on children, in particular American movies which define societal standards; however, Morrison also makes an important point: these effects are not the same for every individual.

The use of various camera techniques such as canted frames, low-angled, high-angled and close up shots, as well as camera distance, enhances the struggle between the characters. The use of such techniques not only allows the audience to get an extensive insight into the many different characters, but also helps us understand the relationships between them and how all of these factors contribute to the overarching theme of racism in the film. The use of these camera rapid movements

In addition to camera movements, he uses camera distances and framing to create images that make the audience feel cheerful. When he frames a shot, if it takes place outside, there is ample amount of bountiful nature within the frame. The most prominent example of this is toward the end of the film when the narrator is describing the after effects of the massive storm. It is a medium close up but the narrator is only in a small portion of the frame, the rest if a

All throughout America, competition flows through the people’s blood like an epidemic there’s no cure for. From the age Americans are infants, it is bred into them. They are taught that there are winners and there are losers, and not to be a loser. Although some believe this kind of competition can lead to success and happiness, the outcomes are quite the opposite. This is shown in Arthur Miller’s, Death of a Salesman when the main character, Willy Loman, not only lives his life by the myth of competition but also drives this myth into the minds of his family. This causes one of Willy’s sons to be led down a path of misguided aspirations, leads Willy to have very low self-esteem, and evokes poor relationships with others. Through this, Miller shows that competition is just a widely believed American myth which doesn’t lead to a fulfilling life.

The 2006 film, Little miss sunshine, is about a dysfunctional family that struggles to overcome numerous setbacks on an 800-mile road trip from Albuquerque, New Mexico to Redondo Beach, CA in their yellow VW Microbus to get their seven-year-old daughter to the finals of the Little Miss Sunshine beauty pageant. The directors Valerie fairs and Jonathan Dayton use characters and various situations to satirize aspects of American society. This essay will look at how the film explores and makes comedy out of the concept of winners and losers through the characters of Richard, olive and the pageant scene at the end of the film.

Furthermore, Lumet uses the film technique of different 'camera lenses and angles' to emphasize his intentions during the film. He employs numerous methods to enhance the ever-building tension throughout the room, including physically moving the walls in on the actors to enhance the feeling of claustrophobia. One case of this occurring is performed throughout the whole movie. As the story continues, Lumet gradually changes the lenses of longer focal lengths, so that the backgrounds seems to close in on the characters as the movie progresses, this gives viewers the feeling that there is an increasingly amount of pressure and tension filling the room as the decision becomes more uneasy on the jurors. Another example employed by Lumet to raise the tension level of the film is by using various camera angles during the film. Lumet shoots the first third of the movie above eye level, shoots the second third at eye level and the last third from below eye level. In that way, as the film begins we look down on the characters, and the angle suggests that they can be comprehended and mastered. By the end, the ceiling is visible, the characters loom over us, and we feel overwhelmed by the force of their passion.