Culminating Ideas

MY FAIR LADY

George Cukor filmed it in 1964, with Audrey Hepburn and Rex Harrison in the leads, and for the film's 30th anniversary it has been restored by Bob Harris.

Contents

Synopsis

Meet Eliza Doolittle

Mise en scËne

Cecil Beaton & the Royal Ascot influence

Cultural & Social influences

Colour

Textiles

Mood

Silhouette & Form

Muse

Synopsis

SYNOPSIS OF MY FAIR LADY

SETTING: London, March 1912.

This is the story of a Cockey flower girl turn lady. Protagonist Eliza Doolittle journeys on a transformation tale from rags-to-riches. With her thick cockney accent she bustles about Covent Garden selling flowers.

A Professor Henry Higgins takes Eliza into his home as an experiment, promising to transform her into a duchess. Higginsí friend. Colonel, Pickering, agrees to this wager.

ìEliza, you are to stay here for the next six months learning to speak beautifully, like a lady in a floristís shop. If you work hard and do as youíre told, you shall sleep in a proper bedroom, have lots to eat, and money to buy chocolates and go for rides in taxis. But if you are naughty and idle, you shall sleep in the back kitchen amongst the black beetles, and be wolloped by Mrs. Pearce with a broomstick. At the end of six months you will be taken to Buckingham Palace, in a carriage, beautifully dressed. If the king finds out you are not a lady, you will be taken to the Tower of London, where your head will be cut off as a warning to other presumptuous flower girls! But if you are not found out, you shall have a present... of, ah... seven and six to start life with as a lady in a shop. If you refuse this offer, you will be the most ungrateful, wicked girl, and the angels will weep for you.î

Eliza begins lessons on how to act, dress and talk like a lady. 

After a long and frustrating period of time, Eliza properly pronounces ìThe rain in Spain falls mainly on the plainî. She finally figures out how to lose her cockney accent.

Eliza makes her debut as the Ascot Races where elegant ladies and gentleman exhibit proper mannerisms. Although looking every bit like a proper lady, her cockney dialect reveals itself here and there. She tarnishes herself even more with unladylike cherring. "Come on, Dover, move yer bloominí arse!" Freddy Eynsford-Hill falls in love with Elizaís charm and waits in front of her residence singing ìOn the Street Where You Liveî

Acting precisely as if she were royalty, she enters her final test, the embassy ball. Higginsí experiment proves a great success as Eliza is admired by all and even though to be a Hungarian Royal.

Afterwards, whilst Higgins and Pickering revel in their success, they do not recognise Elizaís part in the experiment. Eliza wonders if she would be better off staying a simple flower girl.

Upset, she eventually returns to the flower market where she once belonged. No one recognises her, not even her own father Alfred Doolittle. 

Meanwhile, Higgins realises that Eliza has become an entirely independent and admirable human being. He realises she may have actually meant something to him. He sings the song ìIíve Grown Accustomed to Her Faceî. 

Eliza walks in on Higgins confessing that he cannot live without her. 

The story ends as he notices her and sighs ìEliza? Where the devil are my slippers?î

A dissapointment for many as the love story that may have been, turns out to be a dejected version of the conventional love story that audiences were hoping for. This is therefore deemed a romantic comedy with no declaration for love, no nudity, no sex and no kissing. 

Introducing Eliza Doolittle

PRE-TRANSFORMATION

Eliza Doolittle is a poor Cockney girl who lives and works on the streets of Covent Garden as a flower girl.

She is loud-mouthed, shrewed, independent and feisty, yet charming.

Her howling is somewhat of a comic relief.

She has a thick Cockney accent and incorrect grammer in her speech

She is indignant.

She is the inspirational heroine.

ELIZA’S LOOK

Eliza dresses in long woolen coats and velvet blazers.

Her look is drabby lower class, especially in the choice of colour - browns greens, maroons.

However her clothes pre-transformation still somewhat embody feminine tailoring and attention to detail.

When we first meet her, she is styled in a long green tailored woolen coat, with a single button cinching the waist. She accompanies this with a maroon scarf and a brown flat brimmed hat. We recognise that Eliza has some form of aesthetic consideration for her dress and whilst the colour may a little drabby, the overall look compliments her confident version on femininity.

Afterwards, we see her in a luscious brown velvet blazer with Oriental frog closures down the front. She also wears an eccentric fushia and orange bonnet, full of soft fluffy feathers. The emphasis on precious feminine detailing exists in Eliza’a character from the beginning; that is, pre transformation. 

POST TRANSFORMATION

Eliza is sophisticated, poised and confident.

Her look is refined and elegant. We are besotted by beautiful tailoring and intracite detailing of embroidery or embellishment as well as accessorizing. The motif of the hat stays prevalent in Eliza’s look throughout her entire journey.

Mise en Scene

Much of this film uses stage drama in the props, costuming, decor and backdrops. Everything is theatrical and dramatic. From perfectly symmetrical street settings to Higgin's immaculate library full of books and phonetic apparatus', the director encapsulates a real sense of theatre, along with the strong costuming which distinguishes a clear distinction between character class. Likewise, when characters want to express their deepest emotion in the film, they burst into song and dance with specific camera angles and cutting on action to symbolize their differing character demeanors. 

These elements all work together to form a mise en scene that is charming and engaging.

Probably the most famous scene in the film is the Ascot race day scene where Eliza makes her first debut as a lady. T

he mise-en-scène epitomizes high-class society. First, the use of high-key lighting makes this scene seems bright and elegant. The use of colour is also carefully considered; black and white are the prominent colours in this scene, signifying timeless elegance and classicism. Finally, the movements of the characters are delicate and graceful, showing the manners of the aristocracy. This scene successfully portrays the aristocratic style.

Aesthetic and film style

This is a musical film and character and crowd movement coordinates perfectly with the rhythm of the songs and music.

Many parts in the film have a distinct upbeat and fast-paced rhythm. This compliments the "musical" style of the film. It also adds to the often comical mood. The upbeat rhythm is created in the use of cheerful songs and dance, as well as energetic gestures of characters. The director also uses fast panning followed by image freezes and then fast panning again. It is a metaphor for capturing a single moment in time in the fast bustle of these characters lives. Mostly, this becomes an amusement for the viewer. It creates a sense of movement and animation.

The Flower Motif

The opening title sequence of the film combines a series of pan shots of various beautiful flowers. Whites, pinks, lilacs and pastels are used within the colour of this sequence to add softness and femininity, a sign of what is to come in the outcome of the film's narrative. This imagery denotes a sense of elegance and nobility, a metaphor for what is to become of Eliza.

The notion of the flower is continued when we first meet Eliza who is a poor Cockney girl on the streets of Covent Garden. Eliza is carrying precious little bunch of purple flowers; low and behold she is a flower girl! This idea of the flower stands as a metaphor for prosperity. Just the same as a flower, Eliza flourishes and thrives throughout the movie on her journey to become a lady.

Cecil Beaton & the Ascot influence

Cecil Beaton designed the production, the sets and costumes, from a remarkably realistic Covent Garden to the famous scene at Ascot, in which the many extras are dressed in whites, blacks and greys - a backdrop for Henry, in his sensible brown tweed suit, and Eliza, who has a touch of red in her dress. 


The Ascot sequence in the film is quite possibly the most significant moment in terms of costuming. 

Ascot Racecourse ( /ˈæskət/) is a famous English racecourse, located in the small town of Ascot, Berkshire, used for thoroughbred horse racing. It is one of the leading racecourses in the United Kingdom, hosting 9 of the UK's 32 annual Group 1 races. The course is closely associated with the British Royal Family, being approximately six miles from Windsor Castle, and owned by Ascot Racecourse Ltd.^[1]

Ascot today stages twenty-six days of racing over the course of the year, comprising eighteen Flat meetings held between the months of May and October inclusive. The Royal Meeting, held in June, remains a major draw, the highlight being the Ascot Gold Cup. The most prestigious race is the King George VI and Queen Elizabeth Stakes run over the course in July.

Cultural & Social Influences

It began as a Greek legend and was retold in Elizabethan and Victorian times and reached its present form as George Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" (1912), with its clear-eyed dissection of the British class system. When Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Lowe chose Shaw's play as the story for "My Fair Lady," it must have seemed unlikely material. It has stood the test of time by cleverly marrying Shaw’s barbed and articulate dialog with wonderful songs.

At the time the movie was produced, society was heavily bound by class distinction. Aristocracy was the epitome of social status. 

The story expresses boundless optimism. You can see it reflected in the decor of Henry Higgins' home, which is packed with the latest mechanical gadgets for teaching people how to speak better. (Including an ingenious gas flame that leaps up when Eliza pronounces her H's correctly.) You can see it, too, in Shaw's notion that if accent is the marker of class, then change your accent, and you can change your class. 

Mr. Higgins certainly believed that a person’s accent and tone of voice determine his/her prospects in society and that ‘verbal class distinction could be extinct if the English taught their children how to speak.’ 

This was a revolutionary (if dubious) message in England in 1912, and is still thought-provoking.

This idea dominates the whole film in the chauvinistic songs - the efforts to become aristocrat.

On a thematic level, Eliza serves to show us how messed up society is. Her transformation is a testament to the power of education and language. Her difficulties demonstrate how little “the system” appreciates her kind of intelligence. She’s an inspiration and a warning, and she’s anything but a cliché.

Bernard Shaw's "Pygmalion" was a socialist attack on the British class system, and on the truth (as true when the film was made as when Shaw wrote his play) that an Englishman's destiny was largely determined by his accent. It allowed others to place him, and to keep him in his place. BY ROGER EBERT / January 1, 2006 / My Fair Lady / Chicago Sun-Times / viewed 21 July 2011 / <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060101/REVIEWS08/601010301/1023>

Some examples where satire has been used as an attack on aristocracy: 

When Eliza starts to have a day-dream of being a duchess, the director uses soft iris effect to show that it is unreal. This scene is very interesting because she even imagined the image of king. Second, I notice that when the noble are watching the horse's races, they all stand still and hold same position. They just act like robots. In my opinion, this is sarcastic because they are so well-behaved to such an incredible extent. 

Warner Brothers produced it with a sumptuous budget and wasn't afraid of its wit, its literacy, its ideas.

Concepts

We are introduced to the notion of arrogance in Henry Higgins. Higgins seems hardly to notice the girl, except as the object of his experiment. The low angle shots of Higgin's standing high on the 2nd level of his library looking down convey his sense of arrogance and inconsiderate approach to anyone else's secondary status.

What the story celebrates is not true romance after all, but intelligence - about being liberated from ignorance and set free to realize your potential.

However, throughout Eliza's battle with class distinction and becoming a lady, we are forced to question if

 her freedom lost in a world of material culture and clothes? This is particularly relevant in today's society which is heavily consumer based.

The turning point is when Eliza realises that in selling herself as a lady, she cannot sell herself as anything more. She has reached the epitome of a lady, a duchess and does not know what to make of this, or where to use the skills she has learnt.

Class distinctions - one is rich, one is poor, one is educated, one is ignorant.

Source: BY ROGER EBERT / September 23, 1994 / My Fair Lady / Chicago Sun-Times / viewed 21 July 2011 / <http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19940923/REVIEWS/409230302/1023>