My Fair Lady: 1964

I watched My Fair Lady once, but since I was in high school and thought I knew everything but really didn't, I don't think I appreciated the film the way I should have. I remember liking the music, but I don't think I paid much attention to Eliza's situation after she has been transformed into a "proper lady." After Professor Higgins teaches Eliza how to dress, behave, and speak, she no longer fits into her old life as a flower girl, selling small bouquets of flowers on the streets of London. Yet she doesn't feel as if she belongs in high class society either. Eliza becomes homeless in a sense, as she has no place in society to belong. And the worst of it is that Professor Higgins doesn't understand her problem nor does he seem to care. He's far too busy gloating over his success at changing her while Eliza is beginning to realize that she didn't need to be changed in the first place...all she needed was someone to treat her with some respect, with some kindness. Eliza's story, then, becomes a commentary on social classes and early 20th century London: the lower classes shouldn't change who they are, the higher classes should change their perception.

As far as the cinematography, the film has some interesting transitions. When Eliza's father is about to enter the scene and a new day has started, the director has the extras enter the scene in small groups, take their places, and freeze. After several groups have entered and the scene seems full, the groups remain frozen for just a moment, and then, as if a switch has been flipped, the scene comes to life. Similarly, for the horse race scene, the director starts the scene with everyone frozen in place:

Of all the films I've watched thus far, I don't remember any of them using this technique to change scenes. The director only uses it a few times, but it's effective for showing the differences between the two social classes. The first transition with working class people shows individuals starting work for the day; that scene has them entering and freezing whereas the race scene all the upper class people are already in place, as if they don't have the same urgency to get to work. It's subtle in how the two transitions differ, but the transitions themselves really stand out in the film.

As for the music, it seems like My Fair Lady had more songs than West Side Story but the songs were much shorter. In that way, My Fair Lady makes me think of a typical musical: characters break into song whenever and wherever and just as easily stop singing  when they've expressed whatever they wanted to express in song. So for someone who doesn't care for musicals, this one would probably be more difficult to sit through than others.