373. Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961)

Directed by Blake Edwards

Synopsis

A film about a poser with whom poser fans identify with while missing the whole point of the film.

Review

I really like Breakfast at Tiffany's. In fact it has a special significance for me as it was the first film me and my wife went to see at the cinema after we started going out together. Ahhh young romance.

Now some things are pretty objectionable about the film, first and foremost the character of Yunioshi, played by Mickey Rooney, "yellowing-up" for the part, is pretty disgustingly racist, from round glasses to buck-teeth to tea ceremony to exaggerated accent it still rings terribly of WWII propaganda. Blake Edwards seemed to have a penchant for racial stereotyping. Just at the pretty disgusting The Party from 1968 where Peter Sellars "browns-up" to play a comic Indian character again with all the comedy appealing the the most basic racial stereotypes... and this is not even mentioning the Pink Panther series where French(Inspector Closeau) and Asian (Kato) stereotypes are the basis for the whole series of films. At least Kato was actually Chinese.

However Yunioshi is very much a secondary character of the film and his presence should not let you stop from appreciating it. Audrey Hepburn is dazzling throughout the film even if she plays a character which is at the same time sweet and a complete air-head with her heart in very much the wrong place. It is George Peppard who is the real hero here, no matter what all the movie posters tell you. He is the one who is able to shift his life from superficiality due to his own initiative and eventually save Hepburn from herself. It is in the realisation of the emptiness of the "stylish-life" that the great moral teaching of the film appears, there is more to life than this, which is what most fans of the film seem to miss.

On the positive side the film is immensely pretty, the set and clothing are great throughout and with such good taste that they sometimes look downright timeless. Mancini's soundtrack is one of the great plus points of the film creating a completely adequate atmosphere throughout. The acting is passable... Hepburn not being such a great actress but looking pretty.

Final Grade

8/10

Trivia

From Wikipedia:

In the 45th anniversary edition DVD release, producer Richard Shepherd repeatedly apologizes, saying, "If we could just change Mickey Rooney, I'd be thrilled with the movie."Director Blake Edwards stated, "Looking back, I wish I had never done it...and I would give anything to be able to recast it, but it's there, and onward and upward."In a 2008 interview about the film, 87-year-old Rooney said he was heartbroken about the criticism and that he had never received any complaints about his portrayal of the character.

A free outdoor screening in Sacramento, California, scheduled for August 23, 2008, was replaced with the animated film Ratatouille after protests about the character Mr. Yunioshi. The protest was led by Christina Fa of the Asian American Media Watch. In light of the protest, Sacramento vice mayor Steven Cohn stated that "the intent was never to create controversy, to make political statements or to be on the avant garde of the movie world, let alone to offend significant members of our community."

Film's on youtube, part 1: