• Olivia Collette in Montreal
How do things work in a perfect world? The book of Genesis tells us this much: every living thing lives in harmony, food is plentiful, there is no such thing as pain, and nobody knows the difference between good and evil.
That's the loophole the serpent uses to convince Eve to eat the fruit from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. "God said not to because I'll die," she protests. "You won't die," the serpent says. "You'll just be wiser, like God, and see things the way he does." So Eve eats the fruit because she can't conceive of anything that isn't perfect, and if God is wise, then wisdom is perfect too. As for Adam, the Bible never really attributes any motive to his deed. He just seems to take the fruit from Eve without question.
I always wondered why God put the Tree there in the first place. If you don't want your immaculate beings to have any knowledge of good and evil, why give them access to it? When God eventually punishes Adam and Eve, he's not just angry that they disobeyed. He also realizes they're smart enough to want to do it again. And nothing ruins a fine paradise like free will.
You know what David loves about Pleasantville? It's unlike everything that's wrong about the world we live in. The beginning of the movie even shows us some of the harsh truths David is confronted with: pretty girls that flock to jocks; the lack of job opportunities; the threat of STDs; global warming; and Dionne Warwick infomercials.
A super-fan of the 1950s show "Pleasantville," David doesn't give too much thought to the fact that such a heavenly place never really existed. Those sitcoms were as much an ideal then as they are now. But David doesn't want realism. He gets enough of that every day. He's a nerdy nobody in school, his divorced parents fight over who's going to watch the kids, and his twin sister Jennifer is a selfish, slutty brat.
On a night when David and Jennifer squabble over who gets to decide what's on TV, a mysterious (if omniscient) cableman teleports them to Pleasantville to teach them a lesson in nuclear family behavior. The problem is, he takes them to the idea, not the show.
In black-and-white Pleasantville, toilets don't exist. Nor any other ickiness. Nobody knows how they got there, and nobody cares to ask. Nobody knows much of anything, and nobody cares to ask about that either. The people of Pleasantville live in an idyllic little bubble that has no beginning or end, where the sun shines every day, where the basketball team never misses a shot, where firemen only ever rescue cats, and where children win science fairs without having to delve too much into the science. They haven't a clue what "bad" means because everything's so swell all the time.
Realizing that they're stuck in Pleasantville as the show's main characters, Bud and Mary Sue Parker, David urges Jennifer to play along. He doesn't seem to mind it so much at first, but rebellious Jennifer is mortified. At least until dreamy Skip Martin asks her out.
On that date, Jennifer does something even her Pleasantville parents, George and Betty Parker, haven't done it: she has sex. She fulfills her Eve-like role by setting off a shift in perspective: sex is how people in this town start to see color. But that's not all it does; it also introduces the concept of imperfection when the basketball team, distracted by Skip's erotic tales, loses its first game. Oh, and sex causes a fire.
David begs Jennifer to stop messing with this fragile cosmos, but she isn't convinced it's meant to be so stringent. "These people don't want to be geeks," she tells him. "They want to be attractive. They have a lot of potential, they just don't know any better."
David's own geekiness proves useful when he ends up educating everyone else. He tells them how Huckleberry Finn ends, he shows them how to put out a fire, and he reassures them that rain isn't dangerous. As he does, the people of Pleasantville turn to color.
But people don't turn to color merely by way of sex and trivia. It goes deeper than that. It has to be something that touches you on a visceral level. Something that's the opposite of what you think you know about yourself. That's why David and Jennifer are among the last to make the transition, because for the most part, they're the ones teaching Pleasantville new tricks.
For David, it finally happens when he punches a still-black-and-white boy who's harassing his "colored" Pleasantville mother Betty. If you consider that he didn't have the nerve to speak to the girl he was crushing on at the beginning of the movie, this is an important first. For the previously boy-crazy Jennifer, it happens when she hits the books and genuinely enjoys it.
Before color, Pleasantville was a place of unquestioned rituals and customs except for one person: Bill Johnson, the soda shop owner. I don't know what Bill's doing in Pleasantville, but whoever put him there sure took a risk. Like the Tree, he's a crack in the universe. That he paints a different Christmas mural each year makes him a malleable force. It's the only thing that changes in Pleasantville, and he revels in it. When color is introduced to Pleasantville, Bill's even the first to ask what the point is of doing the same thing in the same way every day. It proves Jennifer's earlier observation about the town's potential. Pleasantville always had the palette and brushes, it just needed to inspire its painter.
Writer-director Gary Ross has dealt with the theme of displacement in earlier movies. It started with Big and carried on in Mr. Baseball and Dave. In each, the expatriation causes discomfort, and the characters inevitably tap into their own resources to adapt. What's great about Pleasantville is that this conversion isn't limited to its main characters. The whole town undergoes the same transformation. And it turns out that it's just as lovely in color as it was in grayscale.
The advent of color in Pleasantville means sacrificing its unsullied state, but the townspeople seem to think they're better for it. Things aren't black and white, they're complicated. That's the beauty of it. That's how we know we're doing it right.
The DVD of "Pleasantville" is available on Netflix. You can stream the film for $2.99 on Vudu or Amazon Instant.
Olivia Collette is a writer from Montreal, Canada. She'd still like to know what God was thinking when he put Adam and Eve within earshot of the Tree. She blogs at livvyjams and you can follow her on Twitter at @Olivia_Collette
We JUST watched "Pleasantville" for the third time 2 nights ago. Good job, Olivia. My thoughts too.
Love this movie. And this insightful review, Olivia.
Love this movie. Such a unique and captivating vision.
Well written analysis, Olivia.
I watched the movie for the first time when I was a science high school student. I and others had been stuck in the school dormitory in rural area for two years, but we sometimes got the video tapes from the local rental shops and watched the movies like “Gattaca” or “Wag the Dog” whenever we had some free time on those days. “Pleasantville” was one of them, and I and others enjoyed it a lot while observing funny things in that ‘perfect world’ from here and there. I remember one student being amused by that monotonous scorecard at the town bowling alley - I have no idea how they can get fun and excitement from that kind of play as shown in the film.
One curious thought: were the other TV show viewers watching the changes caused by David and Jennifer? If so, the rating would have skyrocketed.
Thanks so much Tom, Greg and Randy!
@Seongyong: Good question regarding bowling. I'm not sure anyone has "fun" in the strictest sense in Pleasantville. The scorecard is a bit like the consistent basketball victories (pre-sex, of course): winning is indicative of perfection, and perfection belongs in Pleasantville. That said, isn't it interesting that the mayor considers the bowling alley their "safe place?"
This is my favorite (I didn't say best) movie of all time. It touched a nerve in me like no other movie ever has. If Siskel can have "Saturday Night Fever" and Ebert can have "Do the Right Thing", then I can have "Pleasantville." It's the only movie where, at the end, I felt compelled to immediately see it again. It stunned me. Not because the thoughts were original, but because it portrayed them so beautifully and completely, and so closely matching the philosophy of which I live my life.
Kudos to this blogger. If I may say so myself, I wrote an even more in depth essay about the film right after I saw it in the theaters. Please have a look.
http://thewodons.com/essays/view.php?eid=9
I've been thinking about this review, and the movie, since I read. I'll have to watch the film again.
You touched well on the moral / free will issues, especially with your opening on Adam & Eve.
I've thought since I first saw Pleasantville that it is a political film as well. You touched on my thought ther with the line "These people don't want to be geeks, they jus don't know any better." That neatly summarizes the liberal/progressive view of conservatives. In a very tangible sense, this film is a liberal/progressive/artistic rejection of the nuclear family and the conservative 50s/early 60s in America. Whichh did in fact exist, at least in my experience. I saw it as a very political film, and from a perspective openly disdainful of my worldview. I would like to write more on that.
As I said earlier, I enjoyed the film throughout. But, the political subtext was there and was grating also. Of course, that is a common experience for conservatives consuming Hollywood's product. :)
Great picture of you, Olivia, in the profile at the bottom of the article. Glamour girl stuff.
@Adam: Thank you for sharing your essay.
Went out and found a copy of Pleasantville at our local Family Video. Watched it tonight on my laptop on the road.
it's as good as I remembered it. Better. Thanks for inspiring me to watch it again.
@Randy: I'm glad my essay inspired you to watch Pleasantville again. But I am deeply, deeply disappointed that it inspired this phrase: "liberal rejection of the nuclear family."
Because you and I did the Making Nice project together, I told you that I come from a divorced family. Divorced families are usually the poster children for what's considered "not nuclear" by most social conservatives. But what I can tell you with utmost certainty is that divorce is not limited to liberals (as Newt Gingrich demonstrates) and has nothing whatsoever to do with a rejection of any particular value system. In fact, I can't think of a poorer, more irresponsible way to describe what happened to my family. And because you know me, I'm actually rather shocked that such a description came from you.
What your statement does rather successfully is shine a very bright light on the kind of hard-lined discrimination divorced families face.
Thankfully, things aren't black and white. I didn't grow up in what you might consider a nuclear family, but I love my mother and father dearly and trust them with my life, I am kind to people (whether or not they discriminate against my family for weak-legged reasons), I speak 5 languages, I have a university degree, I'm a classically trained pianist, I'm happily married and I live well. I embody everything that is deemed to be the result of having been raised in a nuclear family, and yet I wasn't. My liberal mother would have given anything to raise me in that nuclear model, but she knew - as many people do - that it's not a requirement to produce decent citizens.
Read a scifi story once (sort of sf anyway) about Adam & Eve's decision to eat the apple (The Book doesn't mention any specific fruit BTW, more likely it was a fig), making it more complex than just "Here" & "Thanks." When they've eaten it God's voice rings out, thunderous and terrible, in a roaring laugh: "At last! After 12 Adams and Eves I finally get a pair that can think for themselves! You are released from this prison! Go make a world!" That's pretty much the message of Pleasantville too--it won't necessarily be a safer or happier world out there, but it'll be a better one because it'll be yours.
Twp PS's: 1) The burning tree (I wonder if it was initially a bush) was caused by Joan Allen's discovery of sex in the bathtub--at Jennifer's instigation, to be sure.
2) So that isn't Sandra Bullock down at the bottom. Coulda swore.
@Jeff: Thanks for your comments. As to Sandra Bullock, I get that a lot. :-)
Hi Olivia. I wasn't thinking about divorce when I wrote my comment. Never crossed my mind. You don't have to defend your situation to me. I think you're terrific, and would never criticize your family situation.
I was thinking of it 180 degrees flipped. I was reacting to this in your piece:
" David doesn't give too much thought to the fact that such a heavenly place never really existed. Those sitcoms were as much an ideal then as they are now."
Oh, but it did exist. At least in my experience. So, when I read it asserted that it never existed it seems a repudiation of my growing up.
Again, I'd like to write about that. Would you mind if I wrote a companion piece to yours? From that perspective? Maybe tonight...
@Randy: Well, in New Brunswick, Canada, where my mother is from - and in much of Quebec or anywhere else that French Canadians lived in the 1950s - a place like Pleasantville was most definitely an ideal. And even so, liberals do not reject the nuclear family. If a place like that was very real in your experience, then you're lucky. Even liberals would think so.
I have to say that I've never heard the specific theological reasons for why God puts the tree in the Garden in the first place, but John Milton's ideas in Paradise Lost make a certain amount of sense.
Basically, Milton says that humans owe obedience to God because He created them and is the creator of all good in the world. They obey God by being "good." For us "fallen" humans, the actions are rather complicated- religious and dietary codes, ten big rules to follow (five for Muslims) and hundreds of smaller ones, believing the right things, undergoing the right rituals, etc etc. This is because, when you're sinful by default (i.e. when you have original sin) being "good" isn't just "not doing anything bad"- it requires an action. Adam and Eve before the fall are essentially good- having no original sin yet- so for them things are much easier. The only rule is to not eat the fruit. They only need to show their action through passive obedience.
But what good is obedience, asks Milton, if the obedient person has no other choice? Suppose a man wants to commit a crime, so the law puts him in jail to prevent it. Does removing his ability to do evil make the man good? And isn't a bit presumptuous to throw him in jail before he's actually done anything? After all, if he wants to commit a crime but resists the temptation through his own will, doesn't he deserve his freedom? The tree is God's way of assuring that Adam and Eve still have a way of asserting free will in Paradise, because to God (or at least to Milton), that's just how important free will is. You can't be good if you can't choose to be evil.
@Doug: Thanks for your comment. Milton's Paradise Lost is one of my favourite works. Though I never got the impression that God was interested in giving Adam and Eve any real free will; rather, he hoped they wouldn't exercise it. In fact, Lucifer's role in tempting Adam and Eve is to prove to God that even though he created something, he still doesn't have any control over it. What got Lucifer punished was his desire to do as he liked, rather than as God commanded. And as such, I still didn't get a clear idea as to why God put the Tree in the garden to begin with. If God punishes Lucifer for disobeying, why does he give Adam and Eve the ability to do the same? Didn't God learn his lesson with Lucifer? If your creation has free will, why take a chance by giving it the opportunity to do evil? I guess what I'm saying is, "to test them" doesn't seem like a good reason, or at least, it seems to suggest that God is not as all-powerful, all-seeing or all-knowing as all that. And if that's the case, can we trust his judgement about the Tree? Paradise Lost isn't too shy to say that God made a mistake. I suppose I'm saying the same thing.
@Doug: I'm happy to share this with a Paradise Lost fan...I always felt that this clip from Bedazzled nicely summed up John Milton's Lucifer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=_Z8AddFYCnA
@Doug. Loved your comment on Paradise Lost. Wow.
@Olivia: I can only think of the Bedazzeled with Elizabeth Hurley. Yeow! Now that was a compelling Satan.