Semiotic Analysis of the movie PLEASANTVILLE
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The movie Pleasantville, is a movie that is so much more than the obvious moving pictures we see when watching it. All movies are supposed to have some point to them and many have different ways of getting them across. Pleasantville is a film that communicates not only to the characters of the story, but to all the watchers through many different tactics that we are often unaware of.
From the very first few scenes, we are seeing forms of communication. There's Toby Maguire's character, David, standing trying to talk to the pretty popular girl. We then realize that she's too far away to hear him. This shows that our hero, David, is not the usual "hero" in that he's shy and unpopular. Then there is David's sister Jennifer (Reese Witherspoon) smoking and hanging out with the popular girls looking for the popular guys. Just from seeing the difference in these two siblings, we know that there is going to be some sort of conflict between them.
The real world that David and Jennifer are in is mocked but also insinuated to be how the real world should be...