Eat Drink Opening

The opening for Eat Drink Man Woman apparently took a week to film.  One of the dishes featured looks like it is Chine Pine Nut Fish, so-called because the carp fillet used is scored and so has a pine cone appearance.

In the following video on the dishes preparation, you'll note similar scenes.

Tradition, Change, and Stinky Tofu

One of the major conflicts in Eat Drink Man Woman is the modernization/Westernization of Taiwanese society, linked with the usual generational conflict.  In this scenario, the conflict is associated with a clash between tradition-bound Chinese culture and the freedom of Westernized society.  We do see that seemingly inevitable breakdown of the old ways and older generation occurring, but unexpectedly some of the younger generation (Jia Chen, the middle daughter) seem to be rethinking their allegiance with new ways and revisiting more conventional ways, while the patriarch, Old Chu, has upset the whole applecart in taking his wife from the younger generation. Instead of the usual pattern of mourning the loss of the past, Lee shows a more complex result: Tradition and Chinese ways haven't been abandoned, nor does Western society dominate.
    The Sunday meals become the field where we watch it all transpire.  Food becomes a metaphor for the social change, where Chu's elaborate cuisine becomes a pointless ritual where everyone believes they are fulfilling the other's expectations and no one really wants  to be there.  Significantly, the meals aren't simply abandoned, but change and allow for voluntary attendance.  In this manner, the focal conflict between the father and his middle daughter can be addressed directly rather being masked by the family tension.   At the same time, Old Chu (representing an older Chinese culture) thrives by joining, in effect, the younger generation and regains his interest in continuing.  However, now he truly cooks for his family (we assume, given the lunch menu subplot) rather than imposing an elaborate banquet menu that overwhelms.  Cooking becomes a gift rather than a duty.

   Smaller touches also suggest the seemingly inevitable Westernization of the younger generation isn't as complete as Jia Ning's (the youngest daughter) job at Wendy's suggests.  Notice when she shares a meal with her future boyfriend, they eat at a street vendor, and the boyfriend dines on a meal of stinky tofu.  Street food is far from the refined cuisine practiced by Chu, but nevertheless a vital part of Taiwanese and larger Chinese food culture and tradition.  It's also something that most would put in the category of an acquired taste (like limburger or lutefisk), something Westerners are less likely to find appealing, but which natives would mourn the loss of. 

'Eat Drink Man Woman" director Ang Lee

Director Ang Lee

  

        

            Ang Lee, the director, has created and directed many award winning films such as the Life of PI, Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon, Eat Drink Man Woman, Sense and Sensibility, and Brokeback Mountain. He has captured over 84 awards and had over 62 nominations.

            He grew up in Taiwan with a very traditional family with very traditional Taiwanese culture. He had a father that did not accept him as the great director that he was and is today. Ang Lee’s father believed that Ang should be a teacher or a college professor. At one point, Ang Lee came home to show his father his accomplishments however his father said, “good, now go be a teacher.” He acted as if Ang’s passion for film was just a thing to get out of his system before he started his career.

            Little did his father know that Ang, in his own right, was/is a teacher of cinematography.  Ang’s films introduced high action packed computer graphics, outdoor settings of splendor to display time, and an underlining message regarding family dynamics in generational and cultural environments. His films would reach the audience in emotion, action, and reaction.

            Ang attended the National Taiwan College of Arts, the University of Illinois, and University of New York. He specialized in Theater Direction and Film production. He was accepted to be assistant director of student film, “Joe’s Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads.” (1983) He also was an actor when the need arose but to his admission, it was better to be director than for himself to act.

           Computer graphics added in films was one of his passions. He played with the possibilities in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hulk, and The Life of PI. He recently won an Academy award for Life of PI  for 3D animation, score, and visual effects in 2013. 

One constant in all of his films is his sense of family dynamics. The family isn’t always obvious but it is always a part of his films. Because of his traditional family upbringing, he incorporates into his films. Mostly, he breaks tradition with gender roles, sexuality, dysfunctional, and psychological attributes.        

Ang Lee’s film, Eat Drink Man Woman, he captured the traditional family unit of a father raising three girls. He maintains tradition in the Sunday dinner of the Chinese cuisine from the beginning where the food is bought and grown to the preparation of the meal, up to the presentation of the meal. There are only four people but the father fixes plenty of food to feed an army or in his case a banquet hall full of people. Mr. Lee shows how tradition is thrown out of the window when two of the three daughters leave the home due to nontraditional means such as pregnancy and Christian marriage. The third daughter so badly wants to follow in her father’s footsteps but is not customary for a woman to be a Chef. As she attends college, she breaks tradition by not marrying and becoming the youngest executive for an airline company. Thus giving a shift in gender roles from a traditional married stay home woman to a high executive.

 Other conflicts are the dysfunctional family ties, where a family friend is more than a cousin or an uncle, which leads to disgrace and humiliation. But the eldest daughter doesn’t deviate from loving her father and wanting to be like him. In the end she cooks for him a Sunday meal just like he use to do for his daughters.

            Ang Lee depicts stage settings to showcase change and time. This is a common theme in many of his movies.  Time is so hard to capture on film, but here in Eat Drink Man Woman, he utilizes various settings to show time going by. First in the hospital, when Chef Chu is going in for an appointment he is in a robe and slippers. Time lapses by just a look of a man in a hospital bed being pushed by the eldest daughter as she waits for her father to come out of the room. The next time you see the father, the lighting the hallway has changed to reflect time has lapsed and he is in regular clothes heading to the elevator.

            Then stage setting focuses again in Chef Chu’s lush garden. In the beginning the garden is well manicured, full of color, and well-tended but in the end when he moves the garden is dark and dull. Nothing seems to be growing among the foliage and flowerbeds in which it gives an idea of an ending of one’s former life and tradition.

            Ang Lee loves being a director and loves to be challenged. He doesn’t have one particular genre to follow. He captures the heart of each film with his ideas of culture, traditions, and most importantly the structures of family dynamics.

Work Cited

Bower, Anne. Reel Food: Essays on Food and Film. New York: Routledge, 2004. Print.

"Ang Lee." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 28 May 2014.

"Ang Lee: Full Biography." NY Times. All Media Guide, 2010. Web. 26 May 2014. <http://www.nytimes.com/movies/person/166472/Ang-Lee/biography>.

"Ang Lee." IMDb.com. Amazon.com, n.d. Web. 26 May 2014. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000487/>.

What's Cooking?

Blixen's story

By the way, if you want to read the source of the film.  Here's a link to Isak Dinesen's original story (of the same title) from her collection Anecdotes of Destiny.  The story of its writing  is that someone dared her she couldn't break into the American magazine short story market, which even in the Fifties, when the challenge was made, was still fairly lucrative.  She said that she decided to write a story about food because Americans are obsessed with it, so apparently (at least from a Danish perspective) this isn't a recent phenomenon.  In any case, the story was published in 1950 in the Ladies Home Journal.

By the way, you can find Blixen's original collection through the openlibrary.org, an internet library with free registration.

Babette's mystic meal

In Like Water for Chocolate food is a magical substance, communicating Tita's message to Pedro and finding embodiment in Gertrudis.  In Babette's Feast, as we discussed, it's similarly magical, reconciling the the apparently irreconcilable--body and spirit.  Her meal has religious overtones, especially given the religious nature of the group and the gathering (the founder's centennial). This gives food a mystic overtone in Babette.  Christian mystics often experience physical extremity that transform into spiritual ecstasy.  The meal does have a Last Supper feel to it with 12 guests and Babette as its spiritual leader to further the religious associations.

  However, I'd stop short of suggesting Blixen (or Axel) is promoting a specifically religious message (though she does comment on religion and its social efficacy, and does ultimately assert the spiritual value of Art).  For Blixen, as for other modernists, Art is what we have instead of God, as a Hemingway character says slightly different context.  Babette is a thoroughly modern artist (despite her nineteenth century setting--truly avant garde) isolated, self-perpetuating and self-validating, needing nothing besides her art and her space to create it.  

Babette's Feast Panel Paper-Casey Tulley-Religion and Food

Films can often be classified as being from more than just a single genre.  Babette’s Feast is one of those movies.  While food obviously plays a rather important and outward role in the film, it can be seen that religion and religious overtones are ever present throughout the film.  The ways in which the characters behave and make decisions, how they interact with other characters, especially males, and even some of the meals they eat can be seen coming directly from a specific religious upbringing. Babette’s Feast is a great example of how food in film can be used in conjunction with other overarching characteristics to compliment and better convey the story and overall message.

The most overt sign that Babette’s Feast is a religious movie is that two of the main characters, Philippa and Martine, are the daughters of a man who was essentially the founder of a group of Christians who dedicated themselves to plain and simple lives, even in the food that they eat.  In the opening scene the sisters are shown delivering meals to some of the villagers. The simple pots are opened to reveal a basic broth, something that would be nourishing but adherent to the values their strict Christian father instilled in the community. The influence of both food and religion are further seen early in the movie as Babette is first introduced serving tea to a group of religious elders who are meeting and singing hymns. Babette is charged with preparing meals for the sisters and for the community for the sisters to pass out. Though she is very good at what she does she yearns for making more than the cod stew and bread.

Food and religion again come back in to play when it is revealed that Babette has won the lottery back home in France. With the extra money she decides to make a full French meal to be served at the village’s major celebration. Being that she is a servant to Martine and Philippa she must get their consent beforehand. They wanted to have a modest dinner, in keeping with how their group usually does everything, but eventually agree to let Babette cook a French feast for the people, using her winnings. As the sisters see the ingredients Babette is bringing in for the feast they begin to change their minds and worry that a meal of such magnitude will corrupt the pious people who will be attending. They tell the rest of the group to be cautious and all agree to attend the feast but to focus on something other than the food, intending to try not to taste it. A major contrast is shown at this point in the movie as the group arrives for a magnificent French feast in very drab clothing.

The major turning point in the movie, from a religious standpoint, involves the celebration meal. General Lowenhielm, a one-time suitor of Martine has returned to be with his aunt, one of the members of the religious sect. As he does not prescribe to the same religious convictions as the group he is attending with the general is enamored with the feast and begins recounting a tale of the best chef in Paris and the meals she would make. The general’s story mixed with the party wine helps to open up the conversation among party goers. The once stoic group of pious folks begins to reconcile with each other for past transgressions. The group is not changed so much in the foundations of their belief but it seems that the meal has opened the sect up to a bit more inclusion and understanding.

It is easy to see with a less than analytic eye that Babette’s Feast combines both religion and food to create the overall story. It is the blending of the two together that is so well done.  The way in which meals are prepared and the meals themselves are obviously passed down from the original leader of the sect in a very specifically religious way. Babette’s Feast is, therefore, a wonderful example of using food, in combination with other elements, to create a great story and entertaining movie.

            For my film panel on Babette’s Feast, which I will refer to as Babette, I chose to focus on the critical reception of the film. In addition I also will be delving into the financial success of the film, since I believe a lot of the time these two factors can have direct correlations. I decided on these topics, because even when I was as early as eleven years old I can remember spending Friday’s on the bus ride home reading movie reviews out of the newspaper, and then predicting that weekend’s box office total. So naturally critical reception and financial success seemed like an obvious choice for my topics.

            Babette’s Feast, or Babette’s Gaestebud as it’s originally known, premiered at Cannes film festival in May of 1987. The film was well received and the director, and writer, Gabriel Axel was awarded an honorable mention for the film in the “Un certain Reguard” category for “original and different” films. After Cannes, the film was released in Denmark in August of 1987. Upon release it was met with instant critical success. The movie was, and is still is praised for acting that is “impeccable”, being “beautifully crafted”, and being “the golden standard for food movies”. The main negatives pointed out were the films “predictability” and, with the exception of Babette, it’s “fuzzily sketched forgettable characters”.

            After a few select festivals in late 1987 the film was finally unveiled to America and many other parts of the world in small theatrical runs starting in March of 1988. The film garnered more buzz and positive reviews. The big break for Babette came later in 1988 when it was nominated, and won the Oscar for best foreign language film. The success didn't stop there as the following year, 1989, Babette was nominated for a golden globe and six BAFTA, British Academy of Film and Television Arts, awards. Despite being nominated for six BAFTA awards, Babette only took home one award for best film not in the English language. However, still being nominated for categories such as best film, best actress, and best direction firmly cemented the movie as being one of the best of the year. The success continued after that however not nearly as fast, as the film was released in other parts of the world and was nominated and winning various awards in places such as Italy, Scandinavia, and France.

            Turning an eye towards financial success, Babette is a slightly complicated nut to crack for two different reasons. First, the US box office numbers are easy to read and analyze, however I was unable to find any other box office information outside of the US and Argentina. In addition to that nowhere has the actual, or even an estimated, production cost for Babette. With that being said it is a very safe assumption to make that Babette was a great financial success. The movie earned over 4.3 million dollars in its US release, adjusted for inflation that would be a little over eight and a half million dollars. In addition there were nearly 870,000 tickets sold, or admissions, to the film in Argentina. This would average out to over six million dollars after inflation. So total between US and Argentina, after inflation, the film would have earned almost fifteen million dollars. The last important aspect to consider is that this is only accounting for two countries out of the sixteen that had releases for the film. It’s a safe bet that the film also had pretty substantial box office totals in numerous other countries such as Britain, where it was nominated for six BAFTA awards, and Denmark, where it was made. While we don't know the production cost of the film it’s safe to assume from watching the film it was not anywhere near a high budget film and that the film was a great financial success.

           

           

Work’s Cited

Rosenbaum, Jonathan, and Jeffrey M. Anderson. "Babettes Gæstebud (Babette's Feast)." Rotten Tomatoes: Movies. IGN, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Babette's Feast (1988) - Box Office Mojo." Babette's Feast (1988) - Box Office Mojo. IMDB, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Babette's Feast." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

"Juries." Festival De Cannes. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 May 2014.

Fairy tale Form/Magical Realism

When discussing the form of Like Water for Chocolate, we noted its fairy tale-like structure (three daughters of a evil (step)mother, fantastic events, etc.).  One could also label it under the category of magical realism, a mode typically associated with Latin American fiction the work of the late great Gabriel Garcia Marquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude, Love in the Time of Cholera, etc.).  Like Water seems closer to the former in some ways than the latter, but it nevertheless seems related to the latter as well.

Death by Tradition: Symbolic Punishment in Like Water for Chocolate

Themes of independence and defiance of authority have been a narrative commonplace for as long as anyone can tell, and the use of these themes has been used to encourage or enforce complacency as well as to subvert and reject it. In Alfonso Arau’s adaptation of Like Water for Chocolate, we not only find a rejection of tradition but an understanding that a strict adherence to tradition carries deadly consequences. In many cases those consequences are “deserved”, and the enforcers of tradition are, at best, hypocritical or, at worst, monstrous (in a nearly literal sense). We further find in the film that this deadly sense of confinement is at once physical and metaphysical, and that an attempt to escape it can also be destructive. Like the womb that Dr. Brown describes, there is a subconscious yearning to return to it and that yearning complicates and ultimately ends the life of Tita. Tradition is at once prison guard and prison, and the inmates of that prison often have difficultly existing outside of it, and when Tita escapes for the first time, the narrator informs us that,

Tita, whose hands were now free of her mother’s orders, didn’t know what to ask of them. They could do anything or change into anything. If they could just turn into birds and fly away! She’d like them to take her far, far away. To fly away from herself. She didn’t want to think or make decisions. Above all, she never wanted to speak again. She didn’t want her words to scream out her pain (Arau).

Yet, she does exactly the opposite the second that Chencha, a maid from the ranch, arrives. She doesn’t escape. She speaks. She thinks and makes new decisions. She fails to leave her old life behind.         

            Throughout the film, Tita is repressed by her mother, Elena, forbidding her to marry because it is tradition that the youngest daughter remain at home to take care of the mother’s every need, and when Tita is of a marriageable age and has fallen in love, her mother forbids it, forcing Tita to maintain a strictly domestic existence. In a strange a cruel maneuver, Elena then suggests that Tita’s suitor, Pedro, marry Tita’s older sister, Rosaura. Bizarrely, Pedro agrees to marry Rosaura so that he can remain close to Tita. One hesitates to speculate about “would haves” and “could haves” when dealing with the confines of a particular narrative, but there is no clear reason for Pedro to accept these circumstances, as even his father chides him for it. It seems that Pedro could have just as easily “kidnapped” Tita and run away to live “happily ever after”—just as Tita suggests to him in the latter third of the film. However, this narrative is not just about defying tradition, it is about the power that tradition has to imprison even its reluctant adherents.  We also see the emotional turmoil that such a decision invites, and by accepting these circumstances, Pedro becomes a part of the oppressive tradition that keeps Tita trapped and ultimately guides her to her end.

            Lest we get too far ahead of ourselves, and jump to Tita’s ultimate fate, let us first consider the ways in which the film punishes others who enforce and adhere to tradition while rewarding those who abandon it completely. Let us first begin with Mamá Elena. Although she is the film’s primary villain, she does not necessarily begin as such. It is revealed early on that she had an affair, which resulted in her pregnancy with Tita. When Tita discovers this secret, she feels a small amount of sympathy for her mother because she, like Tita, was frustrated by love and confined by familial and cultural expectation—a role that likely made her into the person she became. It also reveals her, and authority figures like her, as parrots for societal norms that they refused to follow themselves, rendering the ultimate goal of such authorities as power and control instead of maintaining a more reasonable sense of societal order. Consider also Elena’s reaction towards the revolutionaries, when she says that, “the revolution isn’t so bad.” Again, this helps to establish Elena not as one who is legitimately concerned with tradition and the old order as much as she is concerned with maintaining personal control over her family and Tita. It is with no small degree of irony that it is those very revolutionaries that she supported who take her life. For Mamá Elena, she suffers in that she could never be with her lover, Tita’s father, and she suffers again when she is attacked by the revolutionaries, leading to her death. It is my contention, that this suffering is a symbolic, if not direct, punishment for her adherence to the sin of tradition, and this punishment extends to the other members of Tita’s family as well.

            Rosaura also plays by the rules of the family’s tradition when she agrees to marry Pedro. At no

point does she proclaim her love for him, only that she will be his wife and will fulfill her duty as Mamá Elena has decreed. Worse yet, Rosaura and Pedro’s second child is a girl, Esperanza,[1] and Rosaura

promises to force her into the same domestic life that Tita was doomed to. The narrative could not tolerate such crimes against the human spirit, and as such, Rosaura must be “punished.” By this point in the story, Rosaura is already trapped in a loveless marriage with a man who wishes nothing but to be without her and her first-born son has died,[2] she becomes tremendously fat, she is stricken with severe flatulence problems, and has unbearable halitosis—each only happen after Tita learns of her plans for Esperanza, and they only disappear once Tita’s ability to influence the situation improves. However, once the relationship between Tita and Rosaura completely deteriorates and it is certain that Esperanza will be held captive by the same fate as Tita, Rosaura dies from “severe digestive problems”—which, somewhat humorously, seems to be related to her flatulence. The correlation between Rosaura’s troubles and her adherence to tradition is made most plain in the time between she begs Tita to help her with her weight, flatulence, and breath along and the time that she learns of Tita and Pedro’s sexual encounter. So long as Esparanza was safe from harm and the doom of taking care of her mother, Rosuara appeared to be in reasonably good spirits and health; once that changed, she was put in immediate physical and emotional danger. The argument could be made that Tita is the major contributing factor here—and she is—but even if that is the case it is only so because of the circumstances created by Mamá Elena’s demand that family tradition be upheld.

            Of the three sisters, it is only Gertrudis that escapes death and psychological torment. She runs away with a soldier in the heat of passion and never returns to the ranch, except after her mother dies. It

is that escape to freedom that allowed her to live as she saw fit, even placing her in a position of power, a general with the revolutionary army. These circumstances are hardly accidental; they are a direct result of her ability to abandon the ranch. Unlike Tita, she did not seek a return to the womb, she sought to abandon it completely—even if that meant becoming a “disobedient woman [who would] wallow in the river of sin.” Tita, too, chose revolt, but not to the degree of her older sister. Instead, Tita’s revolt was more martyr like and dealt with in destructive half-measures,[3] as she never truly escaped from her mother or the ranch.

            Although Tita did finally rid herself of her mother when she confronted the woman’s ghost and proclaimed that she could live as she pleases, Tita never really lived as she pleased. Instead, she

retreated back to the ranch and Pedro where she waited twenty years for Rosaura to die so that she could be with Pedro. Indeed, if this was her living as she pleased, then so be it. However, that choice to return to the womb of the ranch had severe consequences. It meant that she could not be with Dr. Brown, who offered her a safe, but bland, existence, and it meant that she would have to face the judgment of her community after she moved in with Pedro. It is not that Tita felt threatened by these prospects, but they are an indication that she never really left to live as she wanted. This is not the truly free path of Gertrudis, who was bound by no expectations but her own. Tita’s half-measures ensured that she would endure some kind of suffering, but they, like the actions of Hester Prynne in The Scarlett Letter, would ensure that Esparanza would be able to live up to her name and destroy the traditions that bound Tita and those women who came before her. Tita’s death in the barn confirms her inability to truly escape and belie her desire to even want escape. Instead she chose to return to the womb; she chose death over a life without Pedro; she chose her past instead of her future.

             Tony Spanos argues that Esquivel’s original novel for Like Water for Chocolate “reclaim[s] the kitchen as a place or space of artistic and creative power and not just a place of mere confinement or oppression” (32). I agree with him as far as that goes; it is not the kitchen that confines Tita. It is the

kitchen that allows Tita an illusion of freedom and a very real sense of power over the ranch. It is a place of hope, but that hope can only thrive when it escapes the familial traditions demanded by the ranch—traditions that result in death, loss, and suffering. It is only that Esparanza escapes the ranch with Alex Brown in her marriage to him that she is able to survive and share the story of Tia Tita and what she endured so others could be free.

Works Cited

Arau, Alfonso, dir. Like Water for Chocolate. Screenplay by Laura Esquivel. 1992. Miramax. Netflix. Web. 19 May 2014.

Spanos, Tony. "The Paradoxical Metaphors of the Kitchen in Laura Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate." Letras Femeninas 21.1/2 (1995): 29-36. JSTOR. Web. 18 May 2014.

---

[1] Esperanza translates to “hope” in Spanish. Such a naming is hardly coincidental as Esperanza represents the one chance for the family’s tradition to be destroyed and for the women of the family to truly be free to live as they see fit.

[2] I contend that each of these is direct result of her obedience to her mother’s wishes to marry Pedro and move to San Antonio, away from Tita.

[3] In many ways, Tita’s revolt against her captors is similar to Hester Prynne’s in The Scarlett Letter and even leaves her in a similar state. A comparative approach between Esquivel’s novel and Hawthorne’s has the potential to really open up the narrative of Tita’s life.

Food and Corporality

Food Films often meditate on the contradiction between the corporality of food, its fleshly substance, and its emotional or even spiritual effect.  We discussed it in regard to Tita's Quails in Rose Petal Sauce, where she sends a message to Pedro of her love through her food.  Their first intercourse one could say, here gender reversed according to the usual male/female positions.

Do we see other instances of this in the film?

Alfonso Arau Biography

With a long and fruitful career spanning more than 60 years, Alfonso Arau has become one of the more noticeable filmmakers of the Latino community in Hollywood. Whether as an actor, producer or director, he has shown an innate ability to be an extraordinary entertainer and storyteller.

Arau was born on January 11^th, 1932 in Mexico City, Mexico. His father was a dentist, which allowed him to have a privileged upbringing. However, Alfonso attended the city’s public schools due to his father’s desire for him to have compassion for his countrymen (Grimm).  He became attracted to the performing arts at a young age, excelling at ballet and tap dancing, singing, and comedic acting. Upon enrolling at Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Arau initially planned to study medicine, until a meeting with a ballerina helped him to fall in love again with dance (Dent).

After attempting to be a professional dancer, Arau noticed his skills as a comedic actor were in demand in Mexico’s film industry. In 1954, he secured his first role in the Mexican comedy “El Casto Susano”. That role led to other comedic roles in 1957 and 1960. He migrated to Cuba in 1958 to host his own variety show. Later, he made his way to East Germany to star in “…und Deine Liebe auch”, which premiered in 1962. He returned home in 1964 to star along side legendary Mexican filmmaker, Luis Buñuel, in “There Are No Thieves in This Village” (Grimm).

After studying in Europe, Arau returned to North America and attended the prestigious film school at UCLA. By the late 1960’s, and early 1970’s, he took on roles with directors who would become well known: Sam Peckinpah and Alejandro Jodorowsky. In these films, The Wild Bunch and El Topo, he played stereotypical bandito Mexican characters, which were described as “wild, dirty, and savage-like” (Dent). He eventually gained more recognition with his films in the 70’s, including Calzonzín Inspector, which won two Ariel Awards. The Ariel Awards were the equivalent of the Academy Award in the United States (Dent). While teaching a screenwriting class, he began a relationship with another instructor and aspiring writer, Laura Esquivel. They married in 1975 and worked on several films together until they divorced in 1993 (Grimm).

The 1980’s brought Arau some of his more memorable supporting roles in American films. In 1980, he starred alongside Kurt Russell in Robert Zemeckis’ comedy Used Cars, where he played a very dedicated tow truck driver. 1984 and 1986 saw him slip back into his stereotypical bandito roles with supporting nods in Romancing The Stone and The Three Amigos. Additional roles in the late 80’s led up to what many considered to be his best and most well known film, except this would take him behind the camera again as the director of Like Water For Chocolate (Grimm).

Adapted from his wife’s successful book of the same title, Arau produced and directed Like Water For Chocolate. It was made with a small budget of $2 million dollars, but was able to gross $22 million in revenues in the US alone (Grimm). Although it failed to gather any Academy Award nominations, it did sweep the Ariel Awards by winning all 11 categories the film was nominated in. Despite the overwhelming success of the film, the creative process put a strain on the relationship between Arau and Esquivel, which led to their divorce and a lawsuit in which Esquivel was seeking $19 million of the film’s profits (Grimm).

Arau directed seven more films after Like Water For Chocolate with varying degrees of success. A Walk In The Clouds, starring Keanu Reeves, was a “darkhorse chick-flick hit” (Grimm) and brought in $50 million in the US. He also was involved in making a couple of movies for television. Most notable of these was The Magnificent Ambersons, in 2002, which was the film Orson Welles made, in 1942, but never saw his original, uncut version, released (IMDB). Although his career has slowed down, Alfonso Arau continues to be an influential figure in Hollywood for the Latin Community.

                                                              Works Cited:

1. Dent, David W. "Encyclopedia." Encyclopedia of Modern Mexico. 376th ed. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow, 2002. 6. Print.

2. Grimm, Matthew. "Alfonso Arau Biography." Http://www.tcm.com. TCM, 2014. Web. 18 May 2014. http://www.tcm.com/tcmdb/person/5077%7C10351/Alfonso-Arau/biography.html

3. "Alfonso Arau." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 20 May 2014          <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000778/>.

Audience Panel/Questions

A separate (and much easier) assignment is to ensure our panel gets some initial thoughtful questions from the audience and spark discussion. Everyone will sign up to ask questions for each film. Your duties here are basically to find out something about the film beforehand (read some reviews, look for background info) and form some questions.

Obviously, you will sign up for a film other than the one you'll be presenting on. Post your questions as comments to the presentation/posts on the blog (and of course ask them during the class).

Sign Up for Audience Questioner

Film Panel Description

Everyone will be choosing a film panel to participate on. It involves choosing an element of the three or four basic areas of a film or the director’s work: biography (their lives), filmography (their films), production, distribution of the film, critical reception (reviews) or something related to the food in the film.

Info for films is available either through books (highest points--ACPL has a strong film collection), magazine articles (equally high points--see Ebsco search) or Internet (this will likely be less useful for many of the films—fewer points). For contemporary reviews see rottentomatoes.com site; for information about the production (how it was made) and distribution (how it came to the public), see books, film magazines, and newspaper articles (high points).
These aspects are not the only possible topics for a paper. You may have other questions you want to pursue about particular actors, other food-related items. Don’t hesitate to do so. Coordinate the various sections with the various presenters.

Basically, you're trying to find points of interest to start us thinking about the film and to intrigue us.

Post your presentation to the blog BEFORE you present it to the class, especially any visuals (which can then be shown during your presentation. Be sure to tailor your posting to this format. In other words, you won't just plunk a chunk of text here, but some manageable portion with some links for further information and pertinent visuals.

Sign Up For a Panel (click link)

Food Film Schedule

The following are free and open to the public.  Bring your family, friends, and neighbors.  The discussions afterward are also open to the public.

Cinema Center, 437 East Berry, Fort Wayne, IN.  

1. May 20 Arau, Like Water For Chocolate

22 Axel, Babette’s Feast

2.         27 Chadha, What’s Cooking

29 Lee, Eat Drink Man Woman

3. June 3 Scott, Big Night

4.         10 Jeunet, Delicatessen

12 Payne, Sideways

5.         17 Itami, Tampopo

19 Dayma, Ramji Londonwaley

6.         24 Ephron, Julie and Julia

Posting to Food Film Blog

Posting on the blog may seem intimidating if you haven't done it before, but the following link should help.  Be sure you've signed into the blog first (see sign in in upper right corner).  Otherwise you won't be able to author posts.
     The key for most will be to make sure to choose the "Compose" tab when Posting rather than getting into the Html editing  (located under the other tab), which requires more knowledge and trouble.

Also, don't be afraid to ask questions if you run into problems.

Food Programming and Celebrity

We can't get enough of watching people eat and prepare food on television.  These articles are a few years old, but nothing has changed about the situation.  In fact, it's even more true now.
   The first link discusses the second all-food channel to complement the popular Food Network--the Cooking Channel.

The next follows an appearance by Katie Lee, a newer food celebrity.  Networks large and small recognize the same with restaurant/cooking shows such as Top Chef Hell's Kitchen or shows that focus on our eating habits or their aftereffects in Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and Biggest Loser.

Welcome to the Food Film Blog

Welcome to the IPFW Summer Film blog.  Post your observations and comments on this blog.  You should have received a link from me to register for it.  If you haven't let me know.  You'll need to register to post your panel presentation and comments.

Your posts should be thoughtful and engaged.  You needn't be formal, but do make it as readable as possible--and polite.

You can comment on the various posts by clicking the "comment" link at the bottom of the posts.  If you're in the course, you'll need to sign up for a gmail account so that your posts will be identified.

Notice in the left margin you can easily link the blog to your favored reader (through the RSS feed) or to Facebook (please put your comments, however, on the blog itself).

Food Film Syllabus