Auntie Mame Essay

Auntie Mame is one of my all-time favorite movies. I have seen the movie at least one hundred times and adore it more after each viewing. The movie is, I believe, a lesson in chronological time manipulation in film. The movie begins as young Patrick comes to live with his eccentric aunt, growing into a young man, then a married father.

The movie begins by establishing a solid date. Edwin Dennis, Patrick’s father, is writing a will in regards of what will happen to his son in the event of his death. His will is dated September 14, 1928. The next scene of the film shows a newspaper date of September 15, 1928. As Norah and Patrick are in the cab on the way to Mame’s home, Patrick mentions that Norah has been reading the article about his father’s death for a week. In just three scenes, the film has covered at least a week and a half of time in Patrick’s life.

The next time that the viewer is told of a time lapse, a new scene opens on Mame’s chandelier fading from an Oriental style to a crystal and metal design. Norah is talking to the workmen about the redecoration and says, “Two weeks I’ve been here and they’ve had thirteen cocktail parties!”. The filmmakers chose to

After Mr. Babcock and Mame have a discussion regarding Patrick’s education, the following scene shows Mame returning from a shopping trip to find Babcock waiting to berate her finding Patrick in a progressive school. A few minutes later in the same scene, Mame, Lindsay, and Vera find out that the stock market has crashed. The stock market crash in question actually happened in October of 1929, a full year after Patrick came to live with his aunt. This would mean that Patrick had been in the progressive school for over a year, before Babcock found out about it. This doesn’t seem reasonable since Babcock was so adamant about the school in which Patrick should attend and his opinions about Mame’s ability to properly parent