Interesteg What makes it different from others?

SpecialsTarget Disturbing yet enthralling

SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Ivan Lalic Since the mid 1950s, Hollywood stood at the forefront of changing the public opinion and controversy that his movies brought were meant to appeal to the average viewer and make him/her think and/or question the deeply rooted conservative attitudes. Elia Kazan's mastered the subject of forbidden love, social prejudices and tragic romance in his movies, while simultaneously managing to create some of the most famous male and female couplings in the history of western cinema. "Splendor in the grass" has turned the public's eye to a young and handsome Warren Beatty and also enthroned Natalie Wood as the tragic heroine of love stories in that era. The two actors perfectly clicked both on and off the screen and managed to guide the viewers all the way through one love story that started as a beautiful thing but resulted in one of the most heartbreaking ending scenes of all times. "Splendor in the grass" is a true, real life, tough, beautiful and tragic love story for all times.

elvircorhodzic SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS is a romantic drama about a teenage love, passion, temptation, suffering and acceptance. A beautiful and modest teenage girl, who lives with her parents in Kansas, follows her mother's advice to resist her desire for sex with her boyfriend. He is the son of one of the most prosperous families in their town. They are very nervous and impatient. A young man, reluctantly, follows the advice of his father, who suggests that he find another kind of girl with whom to satisfy his desires. His older sister, who loves a hedonistic lifestyle, is sexually promiscuous. His parents are ashamed of her. A love couple is exposed to constant emotional pressure. He has accepted his father's advice. She, slowly, starts to lose her mind...An economic depression, a parental domination and a conflict between traditional and modern ways of life are thematic segments analyzed in this story. It is interesting that love and passion very quickly turn into an obsession. The love affair between two young people is full of temptations and mutual suffering. A harsh social drama, which is quite explicit, is „dovetailed" between the material and spiritual crisis. That is a time, in which emotions are unpleasant but very sincere. Sexual frustrations, or sexual riots are, in this case, are a reflection of the isolation of a society. These teenage lives are quite sensitive to any sudden change. Characterization is very good.Natalie Wood as Wilma Dean "Deanie" Loomis has shown strong form of an emotional stress, which is caused by violent passions, sexual desire, traditional environment and personal depression. The innocence in her eyes and a little embarrassed smile on her face have further enhance that effect. Ms. Wood is, in my opinion, one of the most beautiful actress of all time. Warren Beatty as Bud Stamper has offered a very decent performance. A little bit rebellious son, who has tried to escape from his father's lap. His character is somewhat pathetic. His emotional exhaustion and impatience have closed a door of his happiness.However, he has, in the end, stayed in the traditional environment, while Deanie has made an uncertain, but a decisive step into the world.Their support are Pat Hingle (Ace Stamper) as an unreasonable father, who inexorably separates his son from his happiness and Audrey Christie as Mrs. Loomis as a soft-spoken mother, who has built a „prison cell" around her daughter.Mr. Kazan has very well described this social disorder, in which, missed opportunities and youthful fears have eliminated every crumb of optimism.

MartinHafer "Splendor in the Grass" has a very high rating of 7.8 on IMDb and most of the reviews are very positive. Well, this is a case where I am out of step with prevailing opinion and I'd like to explain why. Although the plot was interesting and somewhat like the great French film "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg", the execution of this plot was very problematic to me. Often instead of being reasonable, the actors overact and the director SHOULD have reigned them in...though I am certainly in the minority on this one. The story is about two high school students (Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood) who are desperately in love...but his father wants the son to go off to college and graduate before he considers marrying anyone. But the youngsters are insistent...and eventually the girl inexplicably loses her mind and things DON'T work out as they should.So let's talk about the problems. Beatty and Wood were about 23 each playing 17 year-olds. This was obvious and the parts should have gone to much younger actors. And, the whole going off the deep end because she DIDN'T have sex was truly bizarre--a weird re-working of the rotten film "Sex Madness". In "Sex Madness", premarital sex leads to insanity and here in "Splendor in the Grass" NOT having sex has the same effect!! This is just dumb...as is Wood's overacting when she loses her mind. It was almost laughable. So, despite a lot of great ratings and reviews, I found the film just didn't cut it and seems silly and dated.

clanciai The amazing thing about each and every film directed by Elia Kazan is what he gets out of his actors to make them perform better than in almost any film by any other director. He must have been the most knowledgeable person instructor ever in films. Here it is worth while concentrating on watching the performance of Natalie Wood especially in the first crisis scenes. There is nothing like it in film history - the extreme sensitivity, the close-up following of her mind, how he lets the camera wander as she gropes her way through a reality that has become her enemy, her questioning looks, her invisible but extreme terror - he catches all this on film, and no wonder she was after this film given the role of Maria in "West Side Story". The film is all hers, he has given it to her almost like a personal offering, while Warren Beatty in his first major appearance is no more than what he is intended to be - almost a helpless dummy. When Natalie gets affected he is at a total loss and can't handle any emotionalism at all, while all he can do is to escape into the arms of another as an abject coward, which is what he does, leaving Natalie stranded in her emotional psychosis, like watching a drowning victim out there in the storm from the shore and doing nothing. His father, on the other hand, is another extremely remarkable performance, he overacts from the beginning and keeps overacting and even worsening it until the end, and he is the real tragedy of the story - like his son, he doesn't understand anything and least of all what is right. It's a simple story about the first love of youths and how it must burn you, it always does, but Elia Kazan's treatment of it turns it into a tremendous heart-breaker. And it's the same with every film by him - he turns his actors into more than just living, burning, and self-consuming people but toweringly passionate, and more alive, convincing and sympathetic persons than if they were real.