Cinema Studies; The Key Concepts

Hi guys! I'm back and today I am going to talk about my first secondary resource and talk about some quotes, which made me think of DiCaprio and Kate separately and as a pair..

Source:  Susan Hayward, Cinema Studies; The Key Concepts, (third edition, Routledge 2006, pp 375-384)

Book cover

Quotes from 'A first definition: star as capital value'

Quote 1: "Meanwhile male stars became more complex.  No longer just heroes, they could be anti-heroes, rebels-as-heroes, socially aware of heroes, and so on"
Page:375

• This quote made me think of Leonardo DiCaprio individually This is because DiCaprio hasn't played just one particular role, he has played all different roles.  For example, in Titanic (1997) he was playing Jack Dawson - Dawson was a third class young boy who luckily won a game at poker and won 2 tickets to go onto Titanic where he met Rose (Winslet).  In 2013, DiCaprio played Jay Gatsby who is a millionaire and holds a lot of parties with other millionaires This shows us that DiCaprio can perform different characters that have different status'.

DiCaprio playing different roles

Quote 2: "For some film stars 'going to Hollywood' could make them into megastars"
Page: 376

• This quote reminded me of Kate Winslet.  This is because Winslet was born in Reading, UK which means she isn't an American actress. When Gwyneth Paltrow, Claire Danes and Gabrielle Anmar were offered the role of Rose, they all turned it down.  This is when Winslet campaigned heavily for the role, she sent daily notes to David Cameron (director of Titanic) from UK and then with the help of her agent, Cameron finally invited her to Hollywood for an audition. With Kate Winslet's persistence and her talent, Cameron offered her the role of Rose Dawson.  The film became the highest-grossing film of all time with $2.1 billion box office receipts world-wide.  Titanic transformed Winslet into a commercial movie star, she later won 'Best British Actress' from Empire Awards for her role in Titanic.

                                                      Winslet's first screen-test for Titanic



Quote 3: "Traditions of performance, then, have national as well as individual resonates and need to be borne in mind when analysing a star's performance style."
Page: 376/77

•  This quote is going towards DiCaprio and Winslet. DiCaprio is an American actor with a German mother and half Italian and half German father, DiCaprio can speak fluent German.  Winslet is a British actress and before she got a mega-star she was typically 'the girl next door'.  
• In Titanic and Revolutionary Road they both played a couple, but in a different way.  For example, in Titanic the two characters they play (Rose and Jack) fall in love and their different class doesn't matter to them.  Sadly, Jack (DiCaprio) dies in the film from hypothermia.
• However, in Revolutionary Road Leonardo and Winslet play a newly married couple (Frank and April) but their relationship is troubled.  In this film, April (Winslet) died from an abortion going wrong.

DiCaprio and Winslet in Titanic (left) and Revolutionary Road (right)