Film Review- Albert Nobbs

Albert Nobbs

The want for financial security can lead to the change in Identity.  `

The movie Albert Nobbs takes place during the 1800s staring Glenn Close as women being a man. Glenn Close’s character, Albert Nobbs, is a butler at a passing through hotel in Dublin Ireland. This drama is well executed with Closes performance. She brings the intensity and seriousness of this economical choice to screen. Along side Close’s performance, Janet McTeer, the painter Mr. Hurbet Page, does a great job to bring in some joy into the movie. Besides that slight joy, this movie overall is depressing.

The movie begins with Albert getting up and starting his day as usual as a butler at the hotel that Mrs. Baker (Pauline Collins) ran. Albert knew the hotel in and out. Most of the hotel’s staff comes and goes, however Albert remains as a well-rounded butler. Albert’s duties were typical duties for a male butler. He shinned shoes, polished silverware, and waited on the residence of the hotel. Each night after the festivities of the wealthy that Albert butlered for, he took his tips upstairs and hid his money and had a up to date record of his income. This scene first really shows why Albert made the choice to pretend to be a man, economic security. Throughout the first half of the movie it shows Albert being a butler and earning money, this makes the movie seem repetitive until the plot changes from a repressed, reclusive story. Hubert Page comes to work for Mrs. Baker briefly as a painter for the hotel.  Right when McTeer enters the scene the audience can sense that he knows more about Albert then everyone else in the hotel. Mr. Page is and oddly built “man”, he has very broad fluffy chest and shoulders and is lanky. It is clear that Mr. Page is not a man to the audience but not to the characters in the movie. Mr. Page is also a woman pretending to be a man. She reveals herself by showing her breast to Albert. Albert for the first time in the movie has hope and the tone of the movie changes into a more comfortable tone. Mr. Page explains his situation to Albert about having a wife and making it almost a business partnership instead of a sexual partnership. Then Albert begins to think about his dream of owning a shop but would need to take a wife to make the shop seem be run by a proper gentleman.  Albert beings to take interest in a maid from the hotel as a possible wife, he attempts to lure Helen (Mia Wasikowska) in.  Without ruining the rest of the movie, it just becomes more depressing. It is just sad that a woman chose to lead her life in a way that is fearful and unnatural to her and must live every moment in dread.

An aspect of filmmaking in the movie Albert Nobbs I believe was a strong aspect of the movie was the costumes.  Costumes are something that I always look in movies. This movie in particular to other movies that are set in the past are particular interesting to me and fascinating to look at. Since Albert Nobbs is set in the 1800s there are a clear differences of social classes visible in dress during that era. The guests of the Hotel were upper class. The costumes for these individuals are the fine lace; fine fabric dresses with large petty coats. The maids and butlers are in the typical dress. The black and white dresses and then the suits for the butlers. These outfits really haven’t evolved over the years. Mr. Page is a painter trying to hide a chest, so he is in a heavy overcoat with thick suspenders and heavy pants and shirt. Mr. Page makes a fine living nothing fancy so he has the money to wear higher quality clothes. Generally the costumes fit well with the location and time frame that the movie takes place in.

Background music is also an aspect of filmmaking that plays a strong role in this movie. Since this movie in general is a gloomy restrictive tone. The movie’s music follows this pattern. The movie’s background music really is the same as all movies. The music follows the tone, so when something happy is happening the movie is more upbeat high-pitched notes and faster moving tempo. When the mood is depressing like the majority of the movie, the music is at a slower tempo with deeper longer notes. The music either foreshadows the next scene or depicts what is happening.

The last element of filmmaking that made this film a nominated film was the acting. Glenn close had done a superb job playing a women being a man. The acting was not mediocre.  This film had strong actors in it. The film required skilled actors to make this film convincing how serious and depressing this situation is. Close brought out her true strength in acting to portray this controversial issue in past and even the present!

Overall this film was well directed, had strong acting and impeccable scenery/costumes. However, I was not fond of this plot. It was just the story itself that was a depressing gloomy story. If other views like movies during this time era and showed issues like this, then this film would be a fine film for them to watch. It was hard to follow the plot of the love life in the story.  This may have been because I do not catch on to hidden messages very well. Audiences that are older (35+) and educated would be a good target audience for this film. This film is about the history and controversial issues and this demographic would be good for that! This movie in a larger picture is just to show that money has always been a cause for people to make rash decisions.

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Reflection

This is the last blog! I cannot believe how fast this semester went! english 101 was not what I expected it to be. I was kind of thinking it was going to be kind of a summary of all my english classes I had in high school, with grammar and literature. I did not realize how much the coarse focused on "genres" before I was in the class. I liked the class kind of. I just hope to get the grade I want in this class. Because my GPA is depending on this class, which makes me frustrated because everyone's english that I know took this class said it was a complete cake walk, yeah I know it is college and it is not suppose to be easy. However, if english 101 is the worse grade on my transcript then thats kinda frustrating. But overall, I had to put the most time in this class then I had to for any of my other classes and I am taking 16 hours. I did not mind the whole blog thing. It was an easy way to get points, and sometimes it was nice to kinda just rant. The readings we had to do were not bad, so I don't have to complain about that. I liked the projects in general, however, I wish there were more grades offered rather then just the grade gotten the project, like if the tests and stuff were not included in the grade of each project. Yeah, I am just glad I am done with english after them class though! I strongly dislike english so I am glad I am finally done with it! I know I will always have to write papers for the next 3 years, i will take away from this is class to be aware of all the genres in which I will write in.
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Audience

One more BLOG after this one! this blog is about who we are writing to for this project.  I am writing my younger sister who is a junior in high school. This time in her high school she is about to take the ACT and so she is starting to...so something on my floor set the fire alarms off, I think it was our dryer, this is why I take my laundry home, so I am now just getting back to this blog... my sister is starting to look at schools and I want to talk to her about how she needs to really look into schools and not just like what they present and look deeper into the program. I made that decision of school to quickly and had little faith in myself so I want to to tell her to believe in herself and apply to the school she really wants to go to. The other person I am writing is my dad. It seems like a lot of people are writing to their dad. My dad is paying for my school, so I owe it to him to do well in school and have career with is hard earned money. I feel like a cannot get the career I want from ISU so in the letter I am explaining why it would be more beneficial for me to transfer to Purdue and how the cost will be worth it. My dad is a very caring dad and he always tells me to do something I love and follow your dreams. If my dad is allowing me to  do this, I want to make him proud with my career! In high school we had to tell my dad the valid reason why we would want to go out of state for school so this letter, is a way I can let my dad know why Purdue would be a better school for me.
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Choose your own

This is our third to last blog (i think)...ever, unless you like blogging and are keeping up with it, well good for you then. I'm sitting in Physics as I am writing this. I have Ansher he a pretty good teacher he is just lecturing on Magnets and this really is boring to me since I had just learned this stuff Junior year in High School. Not am I only writing this in physics class, but I also finished picking out classes for next semester. My schedule is great minus two 8 am classes. I was able to pick classes again to have no class on Fridays! My weekend starts at one on Thursday and then I dont have class again until noon on monday. im pretty pleased with my scheduling process! I signed up for FCS 226, LAN 115.01, FCS 112, ACC 131, and ECO 105. It is a 17 hour coarse load, but I do not think thats too bad. I had that last semester and it was not bad at all especially when there are no lab times. This weekend I am heading to university of Illinois. I am staying with my sister and seeing my brother while I am there. I am bringing my roommate with me. My sister is a senior this year there and she has not gone out all semester because she is student teaching so she is glad i am coming so she can actually go out! I do not know what I am doing on Saturday I know a lot of people my roommate is friends with at U of I so I think i am hanging out with all of them on sat. then sunday i get to finally play soccer again on a rec team with Lisa in our english class! I was watching my sister in high school play this last weekend and it made me miss it so much! and lisa just asked me so it worked out great! have a good weekend
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Week 11- Majors

This week we are talking about our majors. I am an Apparel Merchandising and Design Major with business and Italian minors. I chose to pick the merchandising route. I like business and I enjoy fashion. However, I have applied to Purdue University to transfer after this year though. I wont get to find out if I get in until after grades are submitted. At purdue i am applying to the Fashion Design school. Purdue's fashion school is ranked in the nation, I would like to have a job after graduation and from observing this year my program at ISU, I am not feeling less confident in the ISU program. I really like ISU, but Purdue has always been my dream school and I kick myself for not applying for freshman year. I want the Big Ten school feeling. My high school was a very school spirit type...ISU really isn't that and I miss that! On top of Purdue being my dream school and it is top ranked in the United States, Both of my older siblings went to University of Illinois. So if any of you have siblings that go there too, you might understand or maybe not because my siblings are hardcore university of Illinois fans, but I get a ton of crap for going to ISU. Nothing is wrong with ISU its a great school, but University of Illinois students think everyone is lesser for not going there. I hope you dont have to deal with that like I do. So my siblings think its better if I go to Purdue because it is a big ten school but it is still pur-don't.  I really like business aspect of the fashion world but if I get into Purdue's design school then I want to concentrate on Design. If I dont get in this semester then I am going to go after sophomore year. So I have to do well this semester! hope you love ISU! and love your program!
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Week 10

So we have to talk about what we have learned from one of our classes or what we have learned in general form our classes. Um I havent learned a whole lot from any of my classes... they are all basically repeats of high school to me. I took AP honor classes junior and senior year so all the gen eds I am taking are just like that. In classes that I am taking for my major they are all pre-reqs and have nothing that I want to learn either. The thing that I have learned from this first semester and that i will just have to deal with is...so professors really do not care what you think, they want you to write and redo what they think and say. Whatever happened to being told to think what you want and have an opinion. No i am not saying do not listen to the guidelines or the directions but we should be able to say what we think and not be "graded" on our personal opinions. since when are opinions wrong? I had to write a paper for my FCS 100 class last semester on a topic and we had to write what we thought of it. I had to write what the teacher thought of it not what I thought of it to get the grade I wanted. My brother had the same problem. He had a very conservative teacher for com on year and he just gave very liberal speeches, he's speeches were well written, but he always got a D on them because the professor didnt like the topic. Sooner or later this is what all university will turn into... us reproducing the ideas of professors without having our own thoughts and opinions on topics today. I really do not think that is learning.
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Week 9- Reseached Topics

I am not really sure where to start with this blog. I do not really understand what she is asking? The First Question she asked is "What problem/issue are you planning ti work on for your researched paper?" I believe that is asking what we are researching?? I am an Apparel Merchandising and Design Major. So my topic I picked for this paper is the sweatshops that are associated with the Fashion Industry. I am going to discuss what the situation was and is, how action has been taken, and what actions need to be further taken to make these "sweatshops" ethically correct places of employment. The problems that I have ran into during this project is that she really has not had us take time and talk about what we are going to discuss in the papers. She just said research a topic in the field of study you are in. Oh well. I am working through this problem by actually sitting down and writing  out a thesis, then main points that I have researched to support my thesis, and start putting my research together. I have done a couple long research papers and I am not really understanding this style in which she is teaching the research paper. Research is not my favorite thing to do well neither is english. As right now, after I finish the blog, I am working on the Annotated Bib. I ran into the problem of what research to use and how to talk about it in each of the descriptions. I have a feeling I will be up for awhile tonight working on this assignment. Another problem I have ran into is what she wants from the paper itself. We have talked a lot about the research aspect, but I find it difficult to research when there is not structure to the research. How can you research when you do not have claims to support by creditable sources.
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