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The legend of sleepy hollow critical essay
The legend of sleepy hollow critical essay
The legend of sleepy hollow critical essay
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‘Sleepy Hollow’ film Review
Blood and murder usually go down a treat for the people who love gore but this is not the case in the movie ‘Sleepy Hollow’. Repetition is the key to an ultimately predictable film. Just as in any other film we see a substance with a resemblance to blood fall onto a piece of paper. This tells our minds the movie will have elements of horror. Then two hands, male and female, clasp. A headless horseman then appears decapitating an innocent man on the run in the woods. This all sets the rest of the film as a romantic horror. There is still one element that is left to be seen but not to worry. While the ghoulish headless horseman is out decapitation people Ichabod Crane, a detective from New York, is having a hard time keeping a straight face. The expression of utter disgust as he finds a body in the river is comical enough as it stands. Now as he is sent to Sleepy Hollow (a near by village where the headless horseman lies) to try and get his head around the gruesome decapitations of the people. His fear of bugs makes him an easy target and often means this film becomes comedy
Johnny Depp is the actor who plays Ichabod Crane, the New York detective. When he arrives in the little village Sleepy Hollow he meets the beautiful Katrina Van Tassel. Played by Christina Ricci, Katrina is a local teenager who is starting to really like Ichabod. She wants to protect him; I guess every film needs a beauty. But where’s the beast? Most films nowadays consist of a beast that whenever they show their face on screen frightens the socks off the audience. This is not the case in the film ‘Sleepy Hollow’ seeing as Christopher Walker’s (the actor who plays the headless horseman) head is never shown on screen. Although this film consists mainly of tacky fog and bad graphics, the acting is not to blame. Maybe the fact that the main characters were played by American actors but yet tried to speak with English accents made the film seem very cheap. If you are going to hire American actors to play the main parts don’t try and pass them off as English actors.
Some people might think that by making the entire movie dull, dark, and devoid of colour makes the blood stand out much more. This is true but are you really motivated to watch a movie which starts of in black and white? This movie was aimed at younger people but younger people change the channel when...
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...appeared we saw the same murky fog swirl around the screen. Tim Burton turned the short story by Washington Irving from a descriptive bed time story into a fake.
To me this movie was pure comedy. Although it was meant to be horror it was comical to count how many times the horseman appeared. Every time he appeared it was the same fog and sounds as the headless horseman took out his sword to kill another victim. The movie seemed to rely on the fact that Johnny Depp is gorgeous. Tim Burton has directed most of my favorite movies. Most of them did not have gorgeous actors in them but they all had a good plot. This movie did not have a good plot. It had things in it that were completely irrelevant to the rest of the film. I did not feel for the characters, the main reason being they were in black and white. This made them seem cold and emotionless. The main character in the film, Ichabod Crane was very squeamish. If this movie was aimed to be semi-serious why have a main character in it who faints at the sight of blood. In my opinion this movie had poor graphics and was very predictable. I did not enjoy it at all and if you know what is good for you you won’t bother to see it either.
...en in the form of black and white. The movie was able to hold on to my gaze through all the suspense. I enjoyed the score composed by Bernard Herrmann in the film because it would hint at something that might happen and I felt myself tense up whenever the music came on. The characters were relatable and incidences that occurred in the film were realistic, which made the movie more comprehendible. I would warn people about how mind-boggling the film gets after the shower scene because everything afterwards becomes very fast paced. I feel the viewer would need time to think about the film and pausing is a must in order to fully understand what is going on. I would recommend this film to suspense lovers especially because Psycho is one of Hitchcock’s greatest works of art. I am glad I chose this movie to watch because the movie was well sorted out and very engaging.
Throughout Irving’s story, he used characterization, irony, the dreams, and other literacy devices to bring The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to life for Irving’s audience.
When we compare Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to the 1980 television movie The Legend of Sleepy Hollow starring Meg Foster, Dick Butkus, and Jeff Goldblum, we find that while there are several similarities between the two, there are also some key differences. When we look at various characters as well as the storyline, we see those similarities and differences.
Instead, he made Ichabod Crane a detective who had his own vision on how to solve crimes. In the movie Ichabod is sent to the small village of Sleepy Hollow where a murder of three town’s people has occurred and they want him to solve it. Soon enough, he meets Katrina, whom Ichabod falls in love with, similar to Irving’s original story. Brom once again becomes jealous of this situation. The beginning of the story is very much similar to Washington Irving’s original. However, the main difference is that Ichabod is a detective; he is attempting to resolve a murder mystery. The murder consists of three people who had their heads cut off yet the heads are not being found anywhere. Even though Tim Burton did incorporate Washington Irving’s original story, he chose to include his own version of what happened. Only in the beginning does he chose to show Brom pretending to the cloaked horseman. Burton does include a sudden alteration; he decided to introduce magic and witchcraft. A witch controls an actual demon who was behind the killing who is the horseman. Katrina’s stepmother, who is the true witch, now possesses greed and
Fifteen years separate Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” with Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story, “Young Goodman Brown.” The two share an eerie connection because of the trepidation the two protagonists endure throughout the story. The style of writing between the two is not similar because of the different literary elements they choose to exploit. Irving’s “Sleepy Hollow” chronicles Ichabod Crane’s failed courtship of Katrina Van Tassel as well as his obsession over the legend of the Headless Horseman. Hawthorne’s story follows the spiritual journey of the protagonist, Young Goodman Brown, through the woods of Puritan New England where he looses his religious faith. However, Hawthorne’s work with “Young Goodman Brown” is of higher quality than Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” because Hawthorne succeeds in exploiting symbols, developing characters, and incorporating worthwhile themes.
The original story by Washington Irving starts out in a small town of Sleepy Hollow. Irving paints an image of bountiful crops, beautiful scenery, and prosperous landowners. Ichabod Crane was a local pedagogue, who taught at the local schoolhouse. He was known for his strict ways and yet he was very popular amongst the families of his students- especially the ones who had ?pretty sisters.? Ichabod enjoyed spending fall evenings with the old widows as they sat by a fire and told stories of ghosts and demons and other supernatural beings. One story that was always told was one of the legendary Headless Horsemen. The tale tells of a soldier who had his head shot off with a cannon ball. His ghost now roamed Sleepy Hollow on his horse, looking for his lost head. In place of his head, sits a jack-o-lantern, which had a fiery glow.
Over time the language of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Irving has been reworked to accommodate the change in audience. The Heath Anthology of American Literature has an unabridged version of the original wording (1354-1373). A complete copy of the original text of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" can be found in the young adolescent classic section of a bookstore or the juvenile section in the library. A juvenile edition of the text adapted by Arthur Rackham from 1928 was a replicate of the original it is filled with seven colored illustrations and numerous sketching. A young adolescent version adapted by Bryan Brown from 2001 has been abridged to accommodate the current young reader. The format is changed in Brownâs edition. The yo...
Irving, Washington. “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” The American Tradition in Literature. Vol 1. Eds. George Perkins, et al. 7th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1990: 544-563. 2 vols.
in creating his vision of the town of Sleepy Hollow and the headless horseman, Katrina,
Irving uses imagery to help readers imagine the past and also impact the theme of supernatural. Irving writes, “The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions; star shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols. The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a figure on horseback, without a head” (Irving 3-4). Once again, Irving makes a reference to the hessian soldier, the Headless Horseman, which brings back the past of the revolutionary war, he does this by using imagery in explaining what he looks like. This also ties in with the theme of supernatural. Irving also describes, “ There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land” (Irving 1). This helps us readers imagine the atmosphere and the theme of supernatural within the town. The mentioning of the hauntings brings up the past once
On a stormy night, Mr. Van Garrett is making his way through the fields in a horse drawn carriage, with a mysterious figure on horseback not far behind him. With the sound of a “swoosh” by a sword, his horseman’s head comes off, forcing Van Garrett to abandon the carriage. As he makes his way through the cornfields, he too meets his fate as the same figure slices his head clean off of his body.
This is an ironic and unfortunate example of a film that would have really been considered a lot better than it is if it were not for the book upon which it is based. It is clear that the film is strong and that it is well made, but when compared to Shelley's novel, it's really a pretty sad mess. The film by itself is more than able to captivate and impress, but to someone who knows the original story, it is a weak attempt to bring the story of Frankenstein and his monster to the big screen.
Benoit, Raymond. Irving's The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." The Explicator. Washington: Heldref Publications, 1996. "
...cenery of the town and the often odd spiritual occurrences that take place in the town. "Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvellous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions; and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions." (Irving 1). Using words and descriptions like he did, Irving makes Knickerbocker's stories more believeable because he makes the reader feel like they are actually in the town of Sleepy Hollow. With just a little imagination he turned a ghost story into a credible account of actions that actually took place just by using his fake historian Knickerbocker.
...as a film is far different from Irving’s original interpretation from 1820. By vastly changing the plot, Burton’s film fails to capture several of the elements that Irving incorporates. Both works have differences in plot, character, theme, point of view, but their setting allows the two to remain connected in their grim similarities.