Analyis of a Taste of Honey Moview - Movie Review Example

MOVIE REVIEW, VISUAL ARTS AND FILM STUDIES (A TASTE OF HONEY) A TASTE OF HONEY. A taste of honey is produced and directed by Tony Richardson, screenplay by Shelagh Delany and Tony Richardson. Cinematography by Walter Lassaly, art direction by Ralph Brinton, music by John Addison and film editing by Antony Gibbs. Lead actors are Dora Bryan (Helena), Robert Stephens (Peter Smith), and Rita Tushingham (Jo [Josephine], Murray Melvin (Geoffrey Ingham) and Paul Danquah (Jimmy) This movie is a drama of a story of a young girl who gets impregnated by a black sailor due to her mother’s neglect, later befriends a homosexual and gradually becomes a woman. The director has been very clever in handling the movie because body language says more than meet the words. Tony Richardson is also known for producing other movies like Jean Giraudx’s The Apollo of Bellac. He won an Academy award in 1964 for Best Director of the film Tom Jones. Dora Bryan (Helena), Jo’s mother, is a very selfish woman who is in constant pursuit of her own happiness. You can tell this by the way she combs her hair, puts on her lipstick or light the cigarette. Dora Bryan is also known for her role in Absolutely Fabulous. She won BAFTA awards as Best Actress in A Taste of Honey. Rita Tushingham, also known as Jo, plays the role of an adolescent girl who is also a working class. Her wide eyes show a mixture of fear and innocence. She is aware of her mother’s lack of love and she expresses this by bending her shoulders. She generally carries the weight of being unwanted. Rita Tushingham is known for her supporting roles in The Knack, Doctor Zhivago, just to mention a few. She was nominated Best Actress (BAFTA) in 1966 and also in 1962 Most Promising Newcomer for her role in ‘A Taste of Honey’. This movie is all about black and white people, gay and straight, mothers and daughters. Jo is a 17-year old school girl who lives wither promiscuous and domineering mother, Helen. Jo was longing for love and attention from her mother only for things to get worse between the two of them when her mother enters into a new relationship. This latest ‘romance’ drives Jo out of their apartment and she finds herself in the streets. She later spends the night with a black sailor who ended up impregnating her. Jo’s mother decides to abandon her and move in with her lover after which Jo finds a job and a room for herself. She then meets Geoffrey co-worker who is a shy and lonely homosexual and they agree to share a flat. She discovers later that she is pregnant with the sailor’s child and Geoffrey returns a favor by caring for her while she is expectant and even offers to marry her. Their brief state of happiness is short lived when her mother’s romantic hopes are dashed and she goes back to Jo and is very much determined to drive Geoffrey from the flat and take over her daughter’s life. She does all these to suit herself. At the beginning of the movie, a very organized and responsible Jo is presented to us. She changes when she meets her mother’s lover, Peter and becomes jealous, quarrelsome and very annoying. When she meets Jimmy, the black sailor, she becomes very flirtatious and coy. She also likes the attention she gets from him. When this movie was played, there was a different society at the time. People were not aware of issues such as homosexuality, woman empowerment and racial prejudice. Status seemed to play a very important role in one’s life. Women were very much weaker sex in this era because the society was repressive for women who had domination of the opposite gender. Women were expected to look after their families and homes and this was the way in which their success was measured. Issues of class, gender and race have been evident in the movie and will be discussed below; A Taste of Honey portrays two women who are trying to define their lives in a way they know best. They do not care about what the society might think or do to them. For instance in Helena’s case, she is a single mother in the 1950s and that fact alone is enough for her to face rejection from the society. She believes that she needs a man who will make her life easy and in the process, she ends up taking her daughter through one disastrous relationship after another. The two of them keep running together. The fact that Helena has the mindset that all she needs in her life is a man to make her life easy, tells a lot about the kind of society she lives in. it depicts a society in which women were dependent on men and they were used to being provided for. By the time Helena was a single mother, it showed that no one provided for her so she had to work harder and it was not easy on her because getting a job as a woman, was also very hard in those days. Helena’s daughter is very hard on her and she keeps criticizing her every move. She emerges as a strong character because she believes in not confining herself into the expectations of the society. We see that she is always in control of other men and she sees them as a way to find financial comfort. She uses men and determines the extent to which they will use her. This trait might not have been supported in the 1950s, evidenced by her daughter’s criticism, but she was strong enough to overcome the thoughts of the society. She is very open about her intentions when it comes to men’s pockets and is less concerned with the content in their minds. This is evidenced when she told Jo about her father who was not smart upstairs. She nevertheless seduced him and got a child with him. She is a witty woman and her engagement to Jo’s father clearly shows that all she is interested in is financial support. She is a perfect example of how women choose to live their lives and be in control . Jo on the other hand, sees herself very different from her mother. She is driven by love and attention from others. She gets pregnant by another man who is absent, just like her mother’s case, and instead of seeking financial comfort in another man; she decides to look for a job to support herself. Love drives her to seek comfort in a friend, Geoffrey, who is also like a mother figure to her. She works hard and strives to be a good mother despite not having a good mother figure. She ends up forming a life that best suits her. Jo is an example of a strong and independent woman. She has learnt from her mother’s mistakes and knows better how to avoid them. She should be looked up to by many especially when she decides to be a better mother than her own. In the 1950s, women were expected to be housewives but Jo defies this norm by deciding to look for a job and take care of herself. Not being a housewife was hard enough but Jo decided to work in a pub and she was expectant. The fact that Jo was living with Geoffrey and was unrealistically close was also disturbing but she chose to neglect it. A Taste of Honey also addresses the issue of class intensely. This movie reflects Britain in the 1950s where people had different lifestyles when growing up after the war. Many people were not satisfied with their lives and were always in constant pursuit of better lives. There were very many problems especially with accommodation and people whose houses had been bombed decided to move to single houses which had now become flats. People lived in bad conditions and had to pay a lot of money for the houses. We see Jo telling Geoffrey that she had to work all day in a shoe shop and all night in a bar to pay rent despite the fact that she was heavy with child. We see young people no longer relying on their parents and they acquire spending rights. This was an act of rebellion and also a means of survival. Jo‘s life has been greatly affected and shaped by her mother which leads her to being self reliant and very insecure. She cannot rely on anyone because she is used to being let down by her mother who is also looking for a means of survival for the both of them. Her insecurity is evidenced by the fact that she thinks her boyfriend will not come back despite the fact that he said he will. These traits are as a result of poor parenting. Jo and her mother were not rich and they had to spend most of their time looking for means of survival. This led them to develop traits that were both harmful and good to them. Characters also differ in the movie. We see Jo and Helena sharing a flat and a bed while Peter, Helena’s lover, has a big house and a lot of money. When Helena moved to live with Peter, Jo was left to fend for her and it was so expensive that she had to move in with Geoffrey so that he could help her pay rent. This shows how different people lived. While Peter and Helena lived a luxurious life together, Jo was barely able to take care of herself. The spending habits of these people are also different. Peter spent his money on women and drinks while Jo and Geoffrey spent their money on rent. One party is barely surviving while the other has a lot to waste. Helena is also seen using her sexuality to survive. She cares about no one and only thinks of herself. She is a very intelligent woman but she doesn’t spread her intelligence to other sectors of her life because she is still poor despite getting a lot of access to money. When it comes to her entertainment, she pushes Jo aside. We see Geoffrey taking up the role of a mother by how he cares for Jo and the baby. He is depicted to be more responsible unlike Peter. He does not have a lot of money to waste and this makes him a very responsible man. Homosexuals were also not accepted in the society and this is evidenced by him being thrown out from his apartment and has to look for a place to live and start living with Jo. We are introduced to Peter who is a business man who also likes women and his drink. Peter is very manipulative and is really gifted to do so because he is a salesman. He is has a lot of money to waste and he is always drinking and does not have control over his life. He is single minded and this is depicted by him marrying Helena. The issue of racism has also been dealt with. Jo accepts help from a stranger, who is black, after hurting her leg. The fact that she was open to help from the black man shows that she has no racial prejudice which was very rare to come by in the 1950s. She is a very accepting woman and does not discriminate at all. Later on, we see that the sailor, a black man, comforts her when her mother leaves her alone in the house to go to Peter. This clearly shows that love and comfort knows no racial boundaries. They proceed to the extent of expecting a child. This should have been a depressing season for Jo especially when it comes to the question of the father of the child but she is not worried at all and she expects her child to be born black. Jo is very compassionate and even accepts a marriage proposal by Jimmy. She is proud of him to the extent of telling her mother the truth when confronted with the question of where the ring has come from. There is also some aspect of racism because at first, Jo is ashamed of telling her mother the truth about her boyfriend; this is according to Ashby, Justine and Andrew Higson ed. British Cinema. She hides the ring and her mother sees it accidentally and that’s when she admits to being engaged to Jimmy, the black sailor. It seems that it was a taboo or socially unacceptable to date black people. Jo’s mother, Helena, is not pleased by the fact that her daughter is dating a black man. She even questions her decision to get married at a young age. Racism is also depicted when we see a white captain but Jimmy is a black chef. It seems that the tougher jobs could only be left to white people while these other domestic and ordinary jobs were left to black people. This is racist. There is the use of industrial landscapes. The canals and backstreet s of Salford take a dreamy air as Jo tries to come to terms with her life. Imagery like Jimmy’s boat going down the ship canal and the cut between the starry sky and dance hall ceiling are very beautiful. Subjects like abortion, homosexuality and sex have been tackled through Jo’s emotions. The run time is 100 minutes with black and white color, negative format of 35mm and an aspect ratio of 1.66:1. References: Ashby, Justine and Andrew Higson ed. British Cinema: Past and Present London, 2000. Bazin, André, What Is Cinema? Vol 1 and 2, London: University of California Press Ltd, 2005. Blandford, Steve. Film, Drama and the Break-Up of Britain Bristol: Intellect Books, 2007. Brunsdon, Charlotte. London in Cinema: the Cinematic City Since 1945 London: BFI, 2007. Caughie, John, Television Drama: Realism, Modernism, and British Culture. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000. http://www.jrank.org/literature/pages/4674/kitchen-sink-drama.html http://betterholmesandgardens.blogspot.com/2011/10/book-review-taste-for-honey.html http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/439975/ Read More