Pleasantville
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Gary Ross
Written by	Gary Ross
Produced by	Gary Ross Jon Kilik Robert J. Degus Steven Soderbergh
Starring	Tobey Maguire Reese Witherspoon Jeff Daniels Joan Allen William H. Macy J. T. Walsh Don Knotts
Cinematography	John Lindley
Edited by	William Goldenberg
Music by	Randy Newman
Production company	Larger Than Life Productions
Distributed by	New Line Cinema
Release date	October 23, 1998 (1998-10-23)
Running time	124 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$60 million[1]
Box office	$49.8 million

Pleasantville is a 1998 American teen fantasy comedy-drama film written, co-produced, and directed by Gary Ross. It stars Tobey Maguire, Jeff Daniels, Joan Allen, William H. Macy, J. T. Walsh, and Reese Witherspoon, with Don Knotts, Paul Walker, Marley Shelton, and Jane Kaczmarek in supporting roles. The story centers on two siblings who wind up trapped in a 1950s TV show, set in a small Midwest town, where residents are seemingly perfect.

The film was one of J. T. Walsh's final performances and was dedicated to his memory. It was also the final on-screen film appearance of Don Knotts, who would subsequently take on voice acting roles until his death.

Plot

One evening while their mother is away, high-schoolers David and his sister Jennifer fight over the television, breaking the remote control. A TV repairman arrives and, impressed by David's knowledge and love of Pleasantville, a black-and-white 1950s sitcom about the idyllic Parker family, gives him an unusual remote control before departing. When they use it, David and Jennifer are transported into the Pleasantville's black-and-white world, finding themselves in the Parkers' house. George and Betty Parker believe them to be their children, Bud and Mary Sue. Communicating through the Parkers' television, David tries to reason with the repairman, who is offended that they want to come home, thinking they should be lucky to live in Pleasantville.

Forced to act as the show's characters, David and Jennifer explore the town. Fire does not exist and firefighters merely rescue cats from trees, and every citizen is unaware that anything exists outside of their town, as all roads circle back into it. David tells Jennifer they must stay in character and not disrupt Pleasantville, but she rebelliously goes on a date with Mary Sue's boyfriend, Skip Martin. She has sex with Skip, who is shocked by the experience, which leads to the first bursts of color appearing in town.

Bill Johnson, owner of the soda fountain where Bud works, experiences an existential crisis after realizing the repetitive, monotonous nature of his life. David tries to help him break out of his routine, and notices an apparent attraction between Bill and Betty.

Jennifer continues to influence other teenagers, parts of Pleasantville continue to become colorized, including some of the residents. Books in the library, previously blank, begin to fill with words after David and Jennifer summarize the plot to their classmates. When Jennifer gives a curious Betty an explanation about sex and tells her how to masturbate, Betty has an orgasm that results in her colorization and a fire in a tree outside.

Another foreign concepts such as rain begin to appear. David shows Bill a book of modern art, which overwhelms and inspires him to begin painting and to pursue a romance with Betty. Jennifer loses interest in sex and partying and becomes colorized after finding passion in literature. David pursues a romance with Margaret but is confused and disappointed to find he is still black and white.

Betty leaves George to be with Bill, bewildering him. The town leaders, including the mayor, Big Bob, and others who remain black and white are suspicious of all of these changes and begin to discriminate against the "colored" people, considering them a threat to Pleasantville's values.

A riot is ignited by Bill's nude painting of Betty on the window of his malt shop. The soda fountain is destroyed, books are burned and colored people are harassed in the street. David defends Betty from a gang of teenage boys, punching one of them, and scares the rest away, demonstrating newfound courage that turns him colored.

The town council bans colored citizens from public venues, closes Lover's Lane, outlaws reading, rock music and using colorful paint. In protest, David and Bill paint a colorful mural outside the soda fountain depicting the beauty of love, sex, rain, music and literature. They are arrested and brought to trial in front of the entire town. David confronts George about losing Betty, persuading him to admit he does not just miss the cooking and the cleaning. George becomes colorized and the rest of the town, except for Big Bob, become colorized as well. When David drives him to fury over the suggestion that one day there could be a world where women go off to work and men stay home and cook, Big Bob becomes colored and flees in shock and shame.

Celebrating their victory, David notices that the television store now sells color televisions that are broadcasting new programs and footage of other countries—and that the town's roads now lead to other cities. With Pleasantville changed, Jennifer chooses to continue her new life in the TV world. Bidding farewell to her, Margaret and Betty, David uses the remote control to return to the real world and finds that only an hour has passed back there. He comforts his mother, who had left to meet a man only to get cold feet, and assures her that nothing has to be perfect. In Pleasantville, citizens enjoy their new lives, Jennifer attends college, and Betty, George, and Bill contemplate the future.

Cast

Production

This was the first time that a new feature film was created by scanning and digitizing recorded film footage for the purpose of removing or manipulating colors. The black-and-white-meets-color world portrayed in the movie was filmed entirely in color; in all, approximately 163,000 frames of 35 mm footage were scanned, in order to selectively desaturate and adjust contrast digitally. The scanning was done in Los Angeles by Cinesite, utilizing a Spirit DataCine for scanning at 2K resolution^[2] and a MegaDef Colour Correction System from Pandora International. Principal photography took place from March 1 to July 2, 1997.

The death of camera operator Brent Hershman, who fell asleep driving home after a 19-hour workday on the set of the film, resulted in a wrongful death suit, claiming that New Line Cinema, New Line Productions and Juno Pix Inc. were responsible for the death as a result of the lengthy work hours imposed on the set.^[3][4] In response to Hershman's death, crew members launched a petition for 'Brent’s Rule', which would limit workdays to a maximum of 14 hours; the petition was ultimately unsuccessful.^[5][6]

The film is dedicated to Hershman, as well as to director Ross's mother, Gail, and actor J. T. Walsh, who also died before the film's release.^[7]

Shortly before and during the film's release, an online contest was held to visit the real Pleasantville, Iowa.^[8] Over 30,000 people entered. The winner, who remained anonymous, declined the trip and opted to receive the $10,000 cash prize instead.

Themes

Director Gary Ross stated, "This movie is about the fact that personal repression gives rise to larger political oppression...That when we're afraid of certain things in ourselves or we're afraid of change, we project those fears on to other things, and a lot of very ugly social situations can develop."^[9]

Robert Beuka says in his book SuburbiaNation, "Pleasantville is a morality tale concerning the values of contemporary suburban America by holding that social landscape up against both the Utopian and the dystopian visions of suburbia that emerged in the 1950s."^[10]

Robert McDaniel of Film & History described the town as the perfect place, "It never rains, the highs and lows rest at 72 degrees, the fire department exists only to rescue treed cats, and the basketball team never misses the hoop." However, McDaniel says, "Pleasantville is a false hope. David's journey tells him only that there is no 'right' life, no model for how things are 'supposed to be'."^[11]

Warren Epstein of The Gazette wrote, "This use of color as a metaphor in black-and-white films certainly has a rich tradition, from the over-the-rainbow land in The Wizard of Oz to the girl in the red dress who made the Holocaust real for Oskar Schindler in Schindler's List. In Pleasantville, color represents the transformation from repression to enlightenment. People—and their surroundings—change from black-and-white to color when they connect with the essence of who they really are."^[12]

Reception

Soundtrack

The soundtrack features music from the 1950s and 1960s such as "Be-Bop-A-Lula" by Gene Vincent, "Take Five" by The Dave Brubeck Quartet, "So What" by Miles Davis and "At Last" by Etta James. The main score was composed by Randy Newman; he received an Oscar nomination in the original music category. A score release is also in distribution, although the suite track is only available on the standard soundtrack. Among the Pleasantville DVD "Special Features" is a music-only feature with commentary by Randy Newman.

The music video for Fiona Apple's version of "Across the Universe", directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, uses the set of the diner from the film. AllMusic rated the album two-and-a-half stars out of five.^[43]

Notes

References

Further reading

• Millar, Jeff. "Pleasantville" (review). Houston Chronicle. October 23, 1998.

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Pleasantville.

• Pleasantville at IMDb
• Pleasantville at AllMovie
• Pleasantville at Rotten Tomatoes
• Pleasantville at Box Office Mojo