Pleasantville (film)

High-schoolers David and his sister Jennifer lead very different lives: Jennifer is shallow, while David spends most of his time watching Pleasantville, a black-and-white 1950s sitcom about the idyllic Parker family. One evening while their mother is away, David and Jennifer fight over the television, breaking the remote control.

A mysterious TV repairman arrives and, impressed by David's knowledge of Pleasantville, gives him a strange remote control before departing. When they use the remote control, David and Jennifer are transported into the black-and-white world of Pleasantville, finding themselves in the Parkers' living room. David tries to reason with the repairman, communicating through the Parkers' television, but the repairman declares that the world of Pleasantville is better than the real world and they should be lucky to live in it.

Forced to act as the show's characters, Bud and Mary Sue Parker, David and Jennifer explore the wholesome but peculiar town. Fire does not exist and firefighters merely rescue cats from trees, and the citizens of Pleasantville are unaware that anything exists outside of their town, as all roads circle back into town with no escape. David tells Jennifer they must stay in character and not disrupt the town. Trying to maintain the show's plot, Jennifer dates a boy from school and tells him about what dating is like for her, a concept unknown to him and everyone else in town.

Slowly, parts of Pleasantville change from black-and-white to color, including flowers and the faces of people who experience new bursts of emotion, and foreign concepts such as books, fire, and rain begin to appear. After Jennifer introduces new ideas to her peers, many of her classmates go to the garden to read, becoming "colored" in the process.

David introduces Bill Johnson, owner of the soda fountain where Bud works, to colorful modern art via a book from the library, sparking Bill's interest in painting. After learning about caring for herself, Betty starts a fire and becomes colorized. Jennifer/Mary Sue becomes colorized after developing a newfound interest in literature. Bill and Betty fall in love, and she leaves home, bewildering her husband George. Only the town fathers remain unchanged. Led by the mayor, Big Bob, who views the changes as a threat to Pleasantville's values, they resolve to do something about their increasingly independent wives and rebellious children.

As the townsfolk become more colorful, a ban on "colored" people is initiated in public venues. 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 people who are "colored" are harassed in the street, while Betty is harassed by non-colored teenage boys. David/Bud punches one of the boys and scares them away, demonstrating newfound courage that turns him colored. The town fathers forbid people from visiting the library, playing loud music, or using colorful paint.

In protest, David and Bill paint a colorful mural depicting their world, prompting their arrest. Brought to trial in front of the entire town, David and Bill defend their actions and arouse enough anger and indignation in Big Bob that he becomes colored as well, and flees. 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 his sister, his new girlfriend, and Betty, David uses the remote control to return to the real world, where he finds that only an hour has passed back in the 'real world'. 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.

A montage reveals the citizens of Pleasantville enjoying their new lives, Jennifer/Mary Sue attending college, and Betty, George, and Bill contemplating the future.

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.

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]

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]

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

Wikiquote has quotations related to Pleasantville.

• Pleasantville at IMDb
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• Pleasantville at Box Office Mojo