Roman Holiday Film Review: \"Roman

Roman Holiday

Film Review: "Roman Holiday' (1953)

Roman Holiday" is a fantasy film, a kind of Cinderella-story in reverse. It tells the story of a princess, played by Audrey Hepburn, who must pretend to be a commoner, and pursue common rather than aristocratic pleasures, to find her true self. She rides on a Vespa motor scooter, eats an ice cream cone, and sees tourist sites with an ordinary man, who just happens to be a journalist. She gains a new sense of personal authority and autonomy that makes her more mature and able to fulfill her official duties. To pull off the difficult feat of creating a fantasy romantic film where the romantic protagonists never have any real hope of 'being together,' the film is set in Rome, but a never-never land of Rome with a carnival atmosphere where a princess can easily get lost (except from the watchful eyes of the international press and paparazzi). The examination of the filmic technique of mise en scene is particularly useful in analyzing this film, given that the fantastic, fairy-tale aesthetic qualities and tone of the film are more important than the evolution of the rather transparent plot.

The film opens with a newsreel, describing the actions of the Princess Ann. This creates a mood that is at once realistic, since it is conveying 'the news' but is also unrealistic in its use of a princess from an unnamed nation. The black-and-white newsreel style film would be familiar for most viewers' reference points at the time and for a contemporary viewer it recalls historical newsreels of the era. Even for viewers of the 1950s, the black-and-white cinematography used throughout the film, not just in the newsreel, would have created a feeling of old Hollywood, a combination of the screwball silent film comedies of the 1930s and the even more remote silent films that glamorized female beauty. There was a clear nostalgia for this era in the 1950s, as evidenced by such films as "Singing in the Rain" and "Sunset Boulevard." The choice of black-and-white cinematography thus allows director William Wyler to have it both ways -- it creates a sense of an observer gazing upon a real newsreel and Hollywood classic at the same time. The film is, at least on its surface 'about' the media and revolves around the question if the character Joe Bradley, played by Gregory Peck, will use what he knows to his financial or personal advantage, or if he will be a commoner prince and gentleman in love, respecting the princess' need for privacy.

The princess' lack of privacy is conveyed as she is first shown amongst others, rather than with herself. She is presented to a variety of dignitaries, but during the course of an elaborate dinner, loses her shoe. The dull, serious, and formal 'above table' talk makes a stark contrast with the princess' stocking-clad, wriggling foot. This evokes the Cinderella motif of the princess as a character immediately, as well as suggests that she is yearning to breathe free and explore her naked sexuality beneath the chaste appearance of the girlish princess. The fact that this appearance is constructed by others is reinforced when Princess Ann is tucked in like a child by her attendant, forced to wear a childish nightgown, and given a glass of milk to calm her down.

In this scene, the whiteness of the sheets conveys the princess' inexperience, as does the whiteness of the milk, even while she challenges her female attendant that some people wear pajamas or "sleep with nothing on at all," as opposed to wearing nightgowns, which she hates. This Cinderella will put on the clothes of a commoner after, in a drugged stupor, she goes into the night, is discovered asleep and vulnerable not by a prince, but the reporter Joe Bradley, and has to wear the man's pajamas rather than a silk gown to become introduced to sexuality through role confusion and changing clothes, like the housemaid Cinderella becomes a princess in the night when wearing a gown. But all this is accomplished without Ann really becoming sexualized and disturbing the delicate tone of the film. The sleeping draught itself that brings her to Joe Bradley is another fairy-tale like conceit, as he tries but comically fails to rouse her. Instead of protecting her from harm, Ann's commoner 'prince' takes her into the temptations of Italy, teaching her to drive a motor scooter and smoke cigarettes but never really makes truly propositional moves that would impinge upon her chastity.

The film's script contains many fairytale 'world upside down' scenes, such as the Princess Ann' decision to get her hair cropped off, symbolizing her freedom and a kind of a reverse, physical transformation into a more ordinary, modern person rather than into a princess. In the scene in the hairdresser's, the Princess walks incognito through the crowds of busily talking Italians as she strolls down the street. These parallel the equally talkative, domineering people who were telling her what to do and trying to schedule and control her life before, in the palace. But in contrast to that scene, where the princess is being vocally and physically dominated as the advisors encroach upon her physical space, the Princess in the streets of Italy seems confident, even though she goes forth unrecognized. She sees a young, common woman with short hair and decides she wants to be like that woman, like that commoner, in an ironic reversal of the presumed fact that every commoner wants to be a princess. "All off," she says, trying to rid herself of her identity and responsibilities. She says she wants to be unrecognizable, unlike fairytale princesses in disguise who are usually desperate to prove their true identity, like Cinderella proved that she was worthy of the prince by putting on her shoe and revealing to everyone her true identity.

There are also obviously sexualized scenes such as when Ann and Joe as a couple go to the famous spurting fountain that will eat the hand of those who are liars: "The Mouth of Truth. Legend is that if you're given to lying, you put your hand in there, it'll be bitten off," says Joe. The fountain spits water, Peck puts his hand in the stone mouth and pretends to have it 'eaten' in a way that seems to simulate sexuality in the form of an implied proposition but also symbolically emasculates him before the more politically powerful princess, whose good graces he must win to get his story. The presence of the Mouth of Truth reveals symbolically that both characters are liars -- Joe lies about his occupation, so Ann will not know that he is a reporter trying to get a 'scoop' on her, he knows Ann is lying about the fact that she has run away 'from school' and both of them even delight in the fantasy of pretending to get married, telling a policeman who tries to arrest them for reckless driving that they are going to the church to be married.

Each scene revolves around a power dynamic that is generated by identity confusion and reinforces the fairytale motif. The Princess Ann has power over Joe because of her royal status, his greater age and experience gives him power over her youthful guilelessness, he has power over her because he knows her true identity and could reveal it to the world, but she also has the power of beauty, of making him fall in love with her. And Rome has power over both of them. Even though the film is not so unrealistic that the two run off together, the scenes such as the fountain, the fact that the Princess falls asleep in Joe's bed and the sights of the ruins of Rome introduce a sexual, pagan element to the prim, controlled life the Princess had lead thus far, and also the mundane world of the American Joe.