Based on the real life story of Chris Gardner, the Pursuit of Happyness looks at the crests and troughs in Chris' life on his way to becoming a stock broker, and eventually as everyone knows, a multi-millionaire. Will Smith played the role of Chris Gardner while Smith's son, Jaden Smith played Gardner's 7 or 8-year-old son.
At one level, even though the movie is titled The Pursuit of Happyness (deliberately spelt wrong), it is pretty depressing. Yes, the movie is supposed to focus on the struggles of the main protagonist as he chases what seems like a chimerical dream. However, every time you think that things are going to get better, they only get even worse for Chris. As Chris and his son move from one slump to another, you begin to
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To me that scene in the cab summed up the movie - try, try and try again. You have to determine all the moves for yourself and you have to get it right. That is how one pursues happiness, and Chris' life is a testimony to that.
All this is voiced in one way or other when Chris talks to his son in the movie. In one scene when Chris is playing basketball with his son, he says he never made it as a basketball player and his son wouldn't make it either. And just immediately after, he tells the kid, "Don’t ever let someone tell you, you can’t do something. Not even me." Or at another time he says, "You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you that you can’t do it. You want something? Go get it. Gardner". And that's what Chris does - he gets out there, works himself out and makes it - really makes it, giving hope to a lot of others like him. Not only does this scene voice that people should focus of the strength of trying despite their failures but it also depicts the love that parents have for their children can directly impact the children. This scene especially shows that was parents say and do can have a direct effect on the children. By Chris telling his son to never let anyone tell him he can not do something and that if he has a dream to go get it. These are strong words that reflect what most parents wish to teach their children. To never
During the end of the 3rd Century, the Playwright Plautus wrote many of the first Roman comedies. A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is a musical comedy film adaptation of Plautus's comedies.Set in ancient Rome, many aspects of Roman theatre, including stock characters, were included in the film’s production. While the film is based off of multiple comedies, Plautus's Pseudolus character Calidorus is nearly identical to the film’s Hero. During the time Pseudolus was written, the Crisis of the Third Century led to up to 25% of Roman population being comprised of slaves(Southern). Of the many stock characters Platus included in his comedies, Calidorus/Hero, the son of Pseudolus’s owner and the stock character adulescens, best
As Chris ventures into the Alaskan wild he was able to find the happiness he was longing for. It was a type of happiness that he could only experience when he was with nature as seen throughout his life. As he laid in his death bed, he never spoke about any regrets he had,
In the movie A Better Life, the Main Character Carlos Galindo is an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who started working as a day labor worker when he first arrived in the country, however he has had steady work from Blasco Martinez who owns a gardening business which he tries to convince Carlos to buy from him as he says he is moving. The idea of being self employed is very appealing to Carlos but he knows he can never afford to do so and the risk of getting caught and deported is very high. Carlos has a son Luis who is reluctant to go to school on a daily basis and gets into trouble as he is influenced by his friends who are part of the
This article "Two Kinds of Movies From "Happy Haneke"" by Anthony Lane is about in the movie industry there a generally only two types of movies. The two distinct types of movies are the six o’clock and nine o’clock movies. Each of them gives a different vibe and meaning. While after the nine o’clock movies people tend to go to bed, with “ dreams whose sweetness will not be crumbled or soured by what you say,” six o’clock movies still leave a great deal of day left to enjoy. As stated in the article, “six o’clock movies require more organization.” The audience of this article would be to those unbeknownst to movies industry’s two types of movies. The purpose of this article is to present to some the distinct qualities of the two generalities
but instead he’s still going and trying to make his life better. He believes that in order to reach the idea of happiness he has to go through some misfortune and that’s what’s pushing him to keep going. If you don’t continue pushing though the hard times in life then you’re never going to experience the greatness of life. Just like Candide, Chris too is very optimistic, although his optimism can be shown in a more humorous way throughout the film. Martin Frohm: “What would you say if a man walked in here with no shirt, and I hired him?
In the movie “The Pursuit of Happiness”, Chris was left by his wife making him live with his son, while trying to provide the best for his son. Chris faced many obstacles in his path, but he overcame his setbacks and persevered through his struggles. When looking back, life was hard growing up. I was only living with my mom, who was working at many jobs to support herself and me, to make sure I was not raised any different from any other child. When I watched “The Pursuit of Happiness,” it gave me hope and motivation to believe in myself and know that anything is possible.
The first behavior is that he is a good father. Mr. Gardner was a great father in the way he handled things. Even though through all the troubles he still maintains to keep his son happy. For example, when they got kicked out of the motel and had to find somewhere to stay, Chris saw that his son was in a depressed state of mind and began convincing him about how the scanner is a time machine. He then pursued to pretend that they were in prehistoric times and they had to hide from the dinosaurs. To hide from the so called dinosaurs Chris took his son into the bathroom calling it a cave.
The film Pleasantville directed by Gary Ross is about two modern teenagers, David and his sister Jennifer, somehow being transported into the television, ending up in Pleasantville, a 1950s black and white sitcom. The two are trapped as Bud and Mary Sue in a radically different dimension and make some huge changes to the bland lives of the citizens of Pleasantville, with the use of the director’s cinematic techniques. Ross cleverly uses cinematic techniques such as colour, mise-en-scene, camera shots, costumes, music and dialogue to effectively tell the story.
Will Smith, playing the role of Gardner, is the lead role of the movie. He has been characterized as a homeless salesman who has been struggling since one year. Will Smith, for his tremendous performance, was nominated for Golden Globe and Academy award. The tile of the movie i.e. “Happyness” is inspired from the word written on the wall of daycare facility organization that his son attended. The movie is based on the true story of a person named Chris Gardner, who took custody of his son, after his wife left her alone in despair.
Many live attempting to decipher the riddle of life. What is life? What is the purpose? What makes? Even though we only seek happiness why can’t we ever seem to achieve it? When we do reach happiness why can’t we seem to grasp it and hold it for more than the few short hours that pass like seconds? The question we must answer first is “What makes happiness, true?”
The story of the movie The Pursuit of Happyness directed by Gabriele Muccino portrays a family who struggles with finding enough money to pay taxes and afford living expenses. The movie takes a place in San Francisco during the 80s. The two main characters are the father Chris Gardner and his son Christopher, Will Smith and Jaden Smith respectively. Gardner tries to support his family. But every time he attempts to make things better, they always end up worse. Gardner in the story wonders on "how to be happy?" He earns his money by selling the bone density
The movie starts out with Chris as a salesman struggling to pay the bills, and keep his family together. Chris is on a schedule where he has to sell one scanner a week in order to receive enough income to keep his family out of debt. After struggling to sell this scanner, his longtime girlfriend and mother of his son Christopher Jr., leaves for New York. While Chris and his son are struggling, they stick together and keep fighting to find a way out of their struggles. Along the way, Chris is studying as an intern at Dean Witters stockbroking company where he doesn’t receive a salary.
Carl Plantinga says that in Hollywood films “the convention of the happy ending makes it likely that empathy will bring the rewards of a favor-able outcome for the protagonists; thus our emotional investment will likely yield psychologically pleasing results”. It is true that if you create a story with likeable characters and a pleasing outcome, you are more likely to create a more enjoyable experience based on the emotional attachments an audience may or may not have. If the phrase is not self-explanatory already, the ‘happy ending’ must require that either a film’s characters, the audience or both are left ‘happy’ by the conclusion. Characters’ happiness and audiences’ happiness are completely different in this case, even if they overlap in occurrence. A question that the author raises in this chapter is, “do ‘happy endings’ occur when a film leaves its protagonist in a state of happiness?” In my opinion, I agree with James
How Far Do Spectators Respond to the Emotional Content of Films in the way that the Filmmakers Intended?
When I was eighteen years old, I embarked on an adventure to get back home to Anaheim from a trip to Chattanooga, Tennessee. My ride fell through, as did my plans. On my journey toward home I went to Bourbon Street in New Orleans in the hope that I might be able to work with a ministry there on that notorious street.