The film Summer in February is a beautiful film, similar to the style of a Shakespearian tragedy, that invites the viewer into a private group of people to experience their love, hardships, blessings and losses. The screenplay, Summer in February, directed by Christopher Menaul is based on a novel originally written by Jonathan Smith. The story is based on true events that took place in a Bohemian artist community in the early 20th century. This film portrays close friends finding love, beauty, possession, and jealousy and how it affects the lives two men who are friends and a woman who is involved with both.
Storytelling
The narrative structure of the story is introduced by the actors in the opening lines of the film by the artist walking on the rocky Cornish coast of the Lamorna Valley estate. A woman is is lying on the beach nude while being painted. It is here her and her student painter friend discuss why they are there and how they arrived. From this point of the film, the main character, Florence, acted by Emily Browning, is explaining to another artist about her schooling here.
The plot in chronological order starting sometime about 1914. The story take place of the Cornish coast in England. There is a conflict between “the incendiary anti-Modernist Munnings, now regarded as one of Britain’s most sought-after artists, who is at the centre of the complex love triangle, involving aspiring artist Florence Carter-Wood and Gilbert Evans, the land agent in charge of the Lamorna Valley estate” (IMDb, 2013). The characters experience an internal conflict because the lead artist Munnings seeks to possess and cherish the pretty and refined Florence but he does not love her the way Gilbert Evans does. Florence always struggles with the feelings of being bored and looking for excitement that artist Munnings provides but he is a wild card and does not provide the love that she knows Gilbert Evans can provide her. Gibert Evans seeks the male companionship of artist Munnings but also seeks the love and affection of Florence even though she still believes artist Munnings loves her and will some someday be famous.
The film contains obvious symbolism. Artist Munnings has a love for horses. He does not subscribe to an organized society. He likes to be wild and free like the horses that run along the ocean side. The land agent Gilbert Evans owns the Lamorna Valley estate and the co-owner, has a beautiful car representing his wealth. The car is another internal conflict for artist Munnings because it represents a life style that is stuffy but he wants to be well known and rich at the same time.
The irony in this film is the father of the daughter also lives close to this community on this estate and when approached by artist Munnings for his daughters hand in marriage, her father automatically assumes because he is living a gypy styly life that she is not wealthy enough to support her but he tells him he and procedes to marry her. The day of Florences wedding, the day that is supposed to be her happiest day, she attempts to kill herself with poison but lives. Further irony, her father insists that she, artist Munnings and the land agent Gilbert Events, her other love interest, all live in the same accommodations for her own sake. Her love grows Gilbert and Munnings grows angry and his relationship with both his wife and his male friend falters drastically. Later, she stows away in her drawing hut supplied by her lover and becomes pregnant. While they are lying on the hillside he and she look up at the sun and she says it is like summer and he says it is like “Summer in February”. This was symbolic for a love at the wrong time. He then goes off to war.
At a party three months later, one of the gypsy artist girls notices artist Munnings wife stomach showing with pregnancy and artist Munnings observers this conversations and stops the party and banishes his wife to her hut on the coastal cliff. It is here she commits suicide with the rest of the poison. When Gilbert Evans returns from war in Africa, his friends great him and the owner of the estate gives him the painting that artist Munnings painted of his wife. Artist Munnigs left the painting as a gift to his old friend Gilbert Evans before his left the artist colony for good. The message here could be that he forgave him his love for his wife. The film helps you relate to the characters in the storyline making you feel like you were a part of their world. The characters were realistic to everyday people and the film addressed everyday situations and issues in relationships.
Acting
The main actors in this film are Dominic Cooper, Emily Browning, and Dan Stevens. They are acting out the true events of three main people which include, Alfred Munnings (Dominic Cooper), Florence Carter-Wood (Emily Browning), and Gilbert Evans (Dan Stevens). These specific actors are classified as impersonators since they are replicating the life and behaviors of the actual lives of the historical individuals that the screenplay is about. Since this screenplay is based on a novel that written about true events and about real people, the supporting actors in this film are character actors and actresses. They are trained to act out a specific genre and time period to make it believable. The type of acting is stylized for period acting. The actors and actresses appeared to be natural in their roles for the early 1900s. The actors convey the story’s meaning by the way that they interpret their characters by the way they use facial expressions, English dialect, and wearing period costumes. The actors’ performances might attribute to the director because they had to mimic the story in the novel originally written by Jonathan Smith. Sometimes it can be challenging to the actors to incorporate their acting skills and performance knowledge with what the director wants to convey to the audience being there is a preconception about how the movie should be. The ways the actors are placed and move around in the settings contribute to my understanding of their characters and of the story by placing the characters in small groups that interacted on a personal level. The conversations between the characters were simple and uncomplicated. The only time multiple characters were placed together on a set was for a party or artist gathering.
Cinematography
The mise en scène is mostly bright and shows many scenic views of the coast of England. When a scene is inside and it is a group shot, the background is usually dark and rich hued and the camera light is bright on the faces on the actors. When a party was being held, the colors were very cloudy and saturated; however, when a breakfast scene was taking place the colors were bright and very clear. The sunlight shone brightly through the windows illuminating the room creating a warm feeling.
The camera angle was focused toward the faces the actors, but, the background rarely was close up in any of the scenes. The only close up facial shots were when Florence, the wife of artist Munnings, was in distress or took poison. This helped create an intense feeling. In the scene where of her taking the final poison she lay dead across the distressed wood floor of the disheveled ocean hut that overlooks the sea. She is alone and the colors are soft hued. Her layers of silken dress frills are strewn about her as she was beautiful even death. The wind catches the broken window shutter and fiercely slams it open and shut creating the feeling of absolute defeat. The camera pans out to the sea and the water crashes against the rocks and the wind howls. The scenic coastline is classic to a romance genre and creates the feel of longing for yesterday or the future.
Editing
The screen play opens with a long establishing shot with a woman observing another woman painting a nude woman lying on a beach. The shots were in chronological order and easy to follow. There was very little material cut out of information left to the viewer’s imagination. The scene transitions flowed smoothly from a gentle fade from one shot to another. The use of continuity editing helped the viewer keep track of the passing time without getting confused. There was only one scene were the editing led the viewer to believe that the wife of the artist and the land agent had intimate relations but you did not actually see it. The couple starts to kiss and that is all you actually see. It was day one moment and night the next and then it was the next day and the couple was still together. To create this sense of time, the scene fades out to dark as in the passing of the day into the night and gradually fades in to express the new day. When using this type of editing, an editor “can also make audiences believe they saw something that never really happened, sometimes eliminating the need for expensive special effects that might simulate it” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011, Kindle Location 2857). This is accomplished by cutting out scenes but keeping the scene shots in a certain order and a certain eye height, also referred to as the eye line match (180 degrees), to help the viewer believe watch the film with minimal choppiness and confusion in the timeline.
Sound
The kind of sound is present in the film is predominantly dialogue accented by occasional music. The dialogue we hear most in the film is between artist Munnings, Florence, and Gilbert Evens. The only significant sound effects that we hear in this film are horse neighing, a gunshot that scares a horse, a car driving down the street, and the rush of waves against the gorgeous coast line. Light classical music is present when a couple is kissing or having a romantic stare but it is not a predominant feature of the film. There is no there a voice–over narrators. The story is told by the films characters as they are acting the story out, which makes it very easy to understand the characters and their purpose in this film.
Style and Directing
The director of this film, Christopher Menaul is a British film and television drama director. While he has many credits for made for television sitcoms and movies, is has two newer films that were in theater; Summer in February (2013) and First Night (2010). His style is mostly driven from real events that are reenacted. In the Summer in February, he is replicating a novel written by Jonathan Smith so he is using his technical skills to create a pleasing film that is not going to disappoint an audience that may already know the storyline. His directing does not take on the high publicity that an auteur; because as a director, he is not portraying his own point of view or interjecting his own personality. He is contributing to the overall film by overseeing the creation of the period customs, the set, choosing the acting location and the cast.
Impact of Society on the Film and Vice Versa
When watching period romance movies like this one, it makes me feel as if escaping my daily life. While this version of the movie did not have any censorship evident, it would be best not shown to pre-teen children because of the full front nudity poses. The few female nude poses for art class paintings and the one scene of a man and woman running nude on the ocean were in general context but probably not appropriate for young children under thirteen. In the movie, the director seems to imply that the artist colony to have many relations with the gypsy girls they paint nude. There appears to be an external society conflict or issue concerning sex with unwed partners. The evidence is shown at the parties when the artists get together and multiple men are seeking the attention of the younger girls they paint for the art classes.
Genre
The genres this film fit most closely with are biography, drama and romance. The biography is about a group of Bohemian artist on the Cornish Coast of England and is set as a period romance during a time where artist flourished across the country side and life was carefree. The main characters that this biography is about are: Alfred Munnings (Dominic Cooper), Florence Carter-Wood (Emily Browning), and Gilbert Evans (Dan Stevens). These three actors participate in drama where romance leads to a forbidden love that turns into a dangerous love triangle.
Approach to Analysis and Interpretation
This film focused on the use of the culturist approach; “seeing the film as symptomatic of the culture in which it was created” (Goodykoontz & Jacobs, 2011, Kindle Location 5852). This means the director is creating this screenplay using the culture of the Bohemian artist life style of the early 20th century to help us to relate in the characters and storyline of the novel that he was recreating for film. The Bohemian lifestyle has many different ideals in many groups of people. For this group of artist of the coast of England, it meant a life free of conventional living and rules made and adhered to by themselves. In The Doctrine of Bohemianism “Bohemians believe that life is a wonderful gift that is meant to be enjoyed. Life is not merely a test. It should be cherished and celebrated, each in his or her own way” (Subculturelist.com, 2014).
In conclusion, the film Summer in February is a beautiful film, similar to the style of a Shakespearian tragedy, that invites the viewer into a private group of people to experience their love, hardships, blessings and losses. The screenplay, Summer in February, helps the viewer understand the internal conflict that develop inside a person when they are faced with decisions that are hard to make. The movie also helps understand the external conflict between multiple characters when these issues are not resolved.
References
Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2011). Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
IMDb (2013). Summer in February. Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2184287/
Subculture List (2014). The Doctrine of Bohemianism. Retrieved from http://subcultureslist.com/bohemianism/
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