Select a full-length film and identify the title, writer, director, major actors, and the year it was released
Title: The Notebook
Writer: Jeremy Leven
Director: Nick Cassavetes
Major Actors: James Garner, Gena Rowlands, Ryan Gosling, Rachel McAdams
Release Year: 2004
Summarize the story and plot of your chosen movie.
This movie is about a true love that many people only dream of. A love of two people that stands the tests of time and conquers all the ups and downs life has to throw at them, till the end of their lives. The movie starts out with an elderly man reading to an elderly woman in a nursing home. The story that is being read is about Allie and Noah and their young summer romance that ended because Allies parents did not approve of Noah because he was from a different social class than they were. Allies parents moved her away and eventually fell in love with someone that her parents did approve of because she thought Noah had not tried to reach her, only he had, and her mother was keeping his mail from her. The story went on and right before she was preparing to get married she decided she wanted to go see Noah and the mansion that he promised to restore for her. While visiting they had a lot to talk about including why he had never tried to contact her, and that was when she found out exactly why she had went there to see him. He did try, and now she knew it. At this point the movie goes back to the elderly people in the nursing home. As the viewer, you start putting everything together and start to realize this is a story about them, when their children and grandchildren come to visit. You find out that the love that Allie and Noah shared had prevailed and now here they were much older and Allie with dementia, Noah would read their story to her every day in hopes to bring her back to him even if just for a few minutes. As the viewer you witnessed this happen between them and you could see and feel the amazing love they had. The story ended with them lying in bed together in the nursing home and the nurse coming into the room in the morning and finding them both dead, they had died in each other’s arms that evening.
Discuss whether your film is presented chronologically or non-linearly. Was the film presented chronologically or non-linearly? How did this aesthetic choice contribute to the general effect on the audience?
This film was a story within a story. I feel it was told both chronologically and non-linearly. As the viewer you were unaware that the story being told within the film was actually the story of them so it seemed to go chronologically. Once you were able to put the entire movie together you could see it was non-linearly. It starts with the couple being in their later years of life, moves to the very beginning of their romance, then back to them as an elderly couple again. As the viewer you could see the love between the two by getting to know the characters within the story Noah was telling. Having not gotten to know them and see their love, your emotions would not have been so deeply involved in their love story at the end. When it hits you that these two people are the people in the story and Noah tries so desperately to get Allie to come back to him, that when she does, you can’t help but to be ecstatic for them and then that is quickly taken away when she no longer remembers and it is absolutely heart breaking. Another part of the movie that draws your emotions in is when you realize the nursing home is the plantation that Noah had promised to restore and did exactly the way Allie wanted it. The ending is perfect, who wouldn’t want to go away from this life with their one true love? I just feel like the way the story was told drew your emotions in and you couldn’t help but to feel so much happiness and sadness at the same time.
How are elements like character development or foreshadowing impacted by the choice of storytelling methods?
Foreshadowing was not used in this movie. The characters knew more than the audience throughout the entire movie. The impact this had on the viewer when they finally realized exactly how the two stories meshed together was tremendous. The way the writer pulled your emotions in was by character development. By getting to know these two characters and by seeing the love they had and what it had conquered made the ending of the movie that much more intense and emotional.
If the film had followed a different presentation style, how would the general effect on the audience have been different?
If this film had been told from the very beginning of their relationship chronologically, you wouldn’t have had to piece it together. The power of realizing the story being told was the story of this elderly couple and finding out this was what Noah did every day just to get Allie to remember him and their love, was amazing.
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