Who Will Come to Like Mary Lennox?: Agnieszka Holland’s “The Secret Garden” and Contemporary Family Cinema
Abstract
The Secret Garden (1993), the first film made by Agnieszka Holland in Hollywood, is based on a novel by Frances Hodgson Burnett, that is widely recognised as a classic of children’s literature. The author argues that this film is the result of various negotiations between the many different models and aesthetic traditions of cinema - mainly Hollywood family cinema and the European art cinema. In the first part of the article the author discusses the context of production of The Secret Garden and its influence on the final artistic shape of the film. Then the analysis turns to the category of family cinema, to which Holland’s film is said to belong. In the analytical part of the article the author analyses in detail the initial and final sequences of the film, and using them as an example, she discusses the process of aesthetic and ideological negotiations.
Keywords:
Agnieszka Holland, Frances Hodgson Burnett, family cinemaReferences
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Authors
Elżbieta Ostrowska-Chmurakwartalnik.filmowy@ispan.pl
University of Alberta Canada
Wykłada na Uniwersytecie Alberty w Edmonton (Kanada). Ostatnio opublikowała: Women in Polish Cinema (współautorka Ewa Mazierska, 2006), The Cinema of Roman Polanski. Dark Spaces of the World (współredaktor John Orr, 2006), The Cinema of Andrzej Wajda. The Art of Irony and Defiance (współredaktor John Orr, 2003).
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Copyright (c) 2013 Elżbieta Ostrowska-Chmura
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