Have you ever felt at any moment in your life that you cannot handle things anymore? Feeling powerless and you want to give up everything you have done so far? In the films The Pursuit of Happyness and Hustle & Flow it is noticeable a very important ideology that a lot of people have at some point in their lives, this is The American Dream. It is also significant to talk about the Mise en scene, the costumes and the angle of the camera in both films.
In the film The Pursuit of Happyness shows how hard it is to be a single father with minimum resources to survive and all the struggles that he passes through to create a better life for him and for his son. Christopher is a black man and he does not have a lot of money, looking for ways to get money with different ideas but things did not get any better when he was kicked out of his apartment where Christopher and his son were living because he could not pay it anymore. Things kind of looked better when Christopher got an internship in an important brokerage firm but sadly that position does not pay him until he gets hired for a full-time position in the company and earn much more money than he thought he would have.
The ideology in this film of The American Dream is very clear, it began with the fact that Christopher might be considered a failure dad to a lot of people at the beginning of the film because he does not have any properties, luxury things or anything for his own use, no job and problems with his partner. Christopher is a very good example of a person who reached the bottom of life, where he could not go any deeper than where he was. Christopher tries some ideas to reach success such as a machine that will help doctors in their hospitals, investing all his money into that hoping that will work and get better financially but sadly that invention is a luxury for them and they do not actually need that. Christopher never gave up of giving himself and his son a better life, lying to his son Jaden about reality, always facing things with the best attitude as possible and hoping the best of things. The ideology of The American Dream says that the more effort you put into the things that you are doing, the higher chances you have to reach your goals, passing through all kind of obstacles. Even though you fail and fall, standing up and keep trying (perseverance) are the keys to reach your American Dream and have a good car, nice house, nice job and other things that most people have in their American Dreams. That is what Christopher did throughout the movie with all the struggles that he passed about not having a place to live, food or money. All his hard work and sacrifices that he did ended up having good results, enforcing the famous American Dream that every person has. Nevertheless it is important to always remember that even though a person does what the American Dream tells us what to do to reach it, it is not a guaranteed that you will get it.
A good Mise en scene in film The Pursuit of Happyness is all the times that Christopher was alone with his kid trying to tell him that everything is going to be fine even though they were passing through crappy situations that Jaden was not aware of. A good scene where this happens is when Jaden was playing basketball and another person told him that he shouldn’t be trying to play basketball and he should quit it. Christopher saw that and he said to Jaden and I quote: ‘’don’t ever let somebody tell you that you can’t do something, not even me. You got a dream, you gotta protect it. People can’t do something themselves, they wanna tell you ‘you can’t do it’. If you want something, go get it. Period.’’ This is a very inspirational quote and so true about life that Christopher taught his little son, indirectly this quote refers to the ideology of The American Dream applied to what Christopher topher Jr. was doing.
The costumes in this movie are not very changing at all. Christopher usually wears a very fancy suit, where he takes to his interview for the internship and literally everywhere, just a few times Christopher was not wearing his suit and it was when he was painting the walls of the apartment to avoid of being kicked of it and of course the famous interview that he had to work in the brokerage firm. Christopher topher Jr. normally wears normal clothes; the look of it is poor because Christopher could not afford fancy clothes. The clothes in this movie are important because dressing his fancy suit helped Christopher to get his internship but overall they are not very different clothes that the characters use. Since they are not rich or anything they do not use so many different types of clothes, just the ones that they have.
The angle of the camera plays an interesting role in this movie; a very good scene where the angle of the camera is completely different from the rest of the movie is when Christopher and Christopher topher Jr. are laying down in a bathroom (high angle); making the look very vulnerable or small. This is particular place where nobody would want to live but they were feeling a lot of desperation for a shelter and they did not have any other place to go to sleep. For this scene the camera is on top of them, letting the audience to see the entire scene from an upper view, where they were sitting on (toilet paper), and the things that they were both carrying. This angle made the audience to see them in a different way, making feel others some type of sadness, melancholic scene where they reached the bottom and they did not have any solution any time soon.
Another scene where the angle of the camera makes plays an important role is when Christopher was talking to Christopher topher Jr. about never giving up your dream (the scene mentioned before about the basketball.) Where it shows a low angle of the camera, where the audience can look up at Christopher , making him somehow kind of powerful, making the audience feel vulnerable by looking up at Christopher . This helped to make feel empathy to the audience like if they are viewing the frame from another character’s view, in this case, Christopher topher Jr..
By the other hand we have the film Hustle & Flow which is shows some differences from The Pursuit of Happyness in the way that of how the film was developed but with the same ideology, The American Dream. In this film shows about the main character Djay, who is the pimp of Nola and a drug consumer who lives in Memphis, around the age of 40. Djay is tired of the life that he is having and he dreamed about something big. He had a reencounter with an old friend from school that he is currently in the recording industry, his nickname is Key. Djay is inspired to turn his life the other way around and he uses his life as a criminal to create some rap music. Djay’s hopes increased when he found out that a rap superstar will be coming to his town; he works a hustle to get some of the rapper’s attention and having hopes to get signed with a big contract but his hopes went down when he found out that the rapper wouldn’t help him to reach his goal and Djay gets super mad and hit the rapper and shot a bodyguard and then obviously he went to prison for it. When Djay was being arrested he left in charge to Nola about his future in the rap industry, giving her the task to make his album big and that is what she did at the end of the film.
The ideology of the American Dream in this film takes place when Djay decided to take make a change for good in his life and somehow for the people around him. Doing whatever it takes to make songs about his life as a criminal, definitely with bad words in it but that is part of rap. Living in a very resource house, besides that the movie had a low budget; it fit very well with the movie. The fact that he looks for all the ways to make this work, even though he had to do things that might affect people around him, for example when his recording studio needed a new microphone because the ones that he had were not working correctly. The microphone that he needed was too expensive for him but the seller wanted to do something with Nola and Djay noticed that so he sent her to convince him in a sexual way to get the microphone for free and she did not like that at all, she felt bad about and she was pretty mad at Djay for using her in that way. Djay was perseverant with what he wanted, he passed a lot of stress, plus the thug life that he had, things were not looking very good for him at the beginning but his effort, his wife’s support, Key and Shelby made a very good hit that will make change Djay’s future at the end of the film because that song was on the ratio and everybody new that song, even some cops in the prison.
The Mise en scene in this movie can be identified as the times that they (Djay, Shelby or Key) were smoking some joint for different causes such as relaxing after making a song or just because they just wanted to, without a specific reason. When they made the beginning of the song with the beat of ‘Whoop that trick’ Shelby suggested smoking some joint outside the house. When Djay and Nola were in the car looking a costumer for her (the scene where Djay told Nola to take the wheel so she can feel that she is in charge of things too.), was smoking without a reason. Smoking is something that happens a lot in this movie. This film is different from The Pursuit of Happyness in the way that this film is more about gangsters, bad words, drugs, fights. The movie is more about the street life and it shows it very good, how other’s people life is when they do not make the correct decisions. The Pursuit of Happyness was made for any kind of audience, no restrictions at all. By the other hand Hustle & Flow are for other type of audience that can handle a lot of bad words, cruel reality of others.
The costumes in Hustle & Flow as in the film The Pursuit of Happyness they are not very changing at all, they have some changes throughout the movie, and for example Djay always wears a white BVD (t-shirt without sleeves) almost all the time, sometimes putting on a shirt color skin with lines making squares. When Djay decides to go and see the famous rapper for a better chance to success, he wore a very fancy jacket and gold neckless that his wife gave him to look better, like a real rapper. Otherwise this specific scenes in the film does not happen big changes in the characters of the movie, looking that they wear almost the same all the time, with small changes once in a while.
The angle of the camera did some important things during this film, for example when this black woman was singing in the church with only just two people listening to her (Djay and Nola) with a panoramic view, it is noticeable that the angle of the camera at that moment was a little bit higher that Djay because for a moment the audience could see them as they were in a low angle, like these characters were looking at the audience. Another very good scene where the angle of the camera did a very good role is when Djay and the famous rapper were in the bathroom fighting because the rapper threw away Djay’s demo because he was not interested in helping him at all. Djay got very mad about it and some point in the fight Djay was on top of the rapper punching him in the face. Showing the audience both sides of this because it showed the rapper on the floor and when Djay was on top of him so the audience see both sides of the scene. High angle and low angle of the camera were shown in this scene, giving Djay the power of the scene and showing how weak this famous rapper was in the fight (also he was intoxicated because of the alcohol.) This made the audience feel empathy of both sides of the characters and what they were seeing at that moment.
In conclusion it is possible to see in both films some sense of cooperation of the characters to overcome all the problems and struggles that they face to get a better life for themselves and for the people around them. Never forgetting from where they came, even though they felt that they could not resist anymore and wanted to give up at some point, feeling useless or weak due to the situations they were facing. They gave the best of them to reach their goals and live the famous American Dream that every person has at some point in their lives.