Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Lauren Potts- Post 4 Stay Together 1989 Dir Lee Grant


Staying Together 1989

Director: Lee Grant

Lauren Potts

Warm

            Facing adversities can be hard enough, but having a family to go through them can make it easier.  Staying Together is a movie about a family trying to keep its self together after losing its family business and father.  This movie illustrates how people can overcome hardship, and satisfying yourself should always be a priority.
            Dealing with a death and loss of and business is no laughing matter, but it is a sour lesson to learn.  Being able to handle adversities allows you to mature more as a person.  In the first half of the film the three sons were young carefree men taking life day by day.  Flashed forward to the ending, they are all on their separate path, one is going to college another is running a marathon in New York, and the oldest is settling in to family life.  None of them thought the death of their father and loss of their family business would bring them to the men that they are in the end, but that is was adversity does to a person.  That made me think about my own journey and the adversities I faced.  It still shocks me today that I am in college; I didn’t even pack until 12 hours before I left for school.  2011 was a scary year for me and my family but as we are in 2012 we have grown a lot.
            Their father decides to sell the family fast food restaurant, because he doesn’t “want die a chicken man.”  For many years he has given himself to his family and restaurant, but now it is time for him to stand on his own despite his son’s anger.  I thought this was very admirable for him to do, no matter how old you are or what position you hold in your family, going against your clan is a tough pill to swallow.  It made me think of Say Anything toward the end of the fill Diane made it clear that she only wanted to be with Lloyd, despite her father’s refusal.   When you believe in something you fight for it no matter what.  
            Some shots that interested me were when the brothers were together.  It was three of them total but I mostly saw two shots of them.   When they were all on the screen the camera was in a wide shot, sometime the shot was narrow in few scenes.  A series of reaction shots I noticed was when the mayor (who had a physical relationship with the oldest brother) saw him at a weeding with his new girlfriend and her son.  It showed Brian and his new girlfriend, cut to Nancy expression her looking sad and walking away.  Overall I really enjoyed watching the film and seeing the characters grow.

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