Pleasantville
Nothing is as simple as black and white.
Country
Production
Budget
$60 000 000
Box office
$49 805 462
Director
Actors
Scenario
Producer
Camera operator
John Lindley
Composer
Artist
Jeannine Oppewall
Audition
Debra Zane, Ellen Lewis
Short description
Geeky teenager David and his popular twin sister, Jennifer, get sucked into the black-and-white world of a 1950s TV sitcom called "Pleasantville," and find a world where everything is peachy keen all the time. But when Jennifer's modern attitude disrupts Pleasantville's peaceful but boring routine, she literally brings color into its life.
What's left behind the scenes
- The film is dedicated to the mother of director Gary Ross, actor J.T. Walsh (1943-1998), and camera assistant Brent Lon Hershman, who died in a car accident during the filming of "Pleasantville."
- The character played by Tobey Maguire retells teenagers stories from "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" (Mark Twain, 1884) and "The Catcher in the Rye" (J.D. Salinger, 1951). These are precisely the works that top the lists of banned literature in most educational institutions in the United States.
- Filming took place in California from March 1 to July 2, 1997.
- Upon entering Pleasantville, Jennifer becomes a Mary Sue. This is the name given to a character that the author endows with exaggerated, unrealistic virtues, abilities, and luck. It is believed that the author identifies with their Mary Sue (Marty Stu for male characters) and embodies their complexes from real life.
- Mr. Johnson’s music machine is a 1952 Seeburg M100C, known among collectors as the “Happy Days” machine. This exact model appears in the opening and closing shots of episodes of the ABC-TV television series.
- In the bowling alley scene, the operator uses a technique known as the “Dutch angle.” It was very popular in the era of black and white cinema and was used, for example, by Alfred Hitchcock. The technique is used to convey a character’s emotional turmoil or tense state – the camera looks up at them from below, while the horizon is tilted to one side.
- Gary Ross's directorial debut.
- The film's promotional campaign included a contest in which winners were promised a trip to Pleasantville, Iowa (the smallest town with that name in the United States).
- The book "The World of Art" by Edward Bissel, which David Wagner brings to Mr. Johnson, never existed. It is a prop created solely for the film.
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