Preview

Vera Farmiga’s Performance in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1110 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Vera Farmiga’s Performance in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
Vera Farmiga’s Performance in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

In the movie The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, Vera Farmiga takes on the role of Elsa, being Bruno and Gretel’s mother, and Ralph’s wife. She acts oblivious towards Bruno when it comes to the actualities of their surrounding, yet resents Ralph because she knows the truth. The movie takes place during World War II in Germany when women were treated a lot different than in today’s society. She plays, on one side of the spectrum, as a worried mother trying to protect her children from the outside world. In contrast, she plays a wife conflicted with the harsh realities of her husband’s job and her feelings on war. Vera Farmiga plays a strong, uplifting role as Elsa in The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. As a mother, Vera tries to keep Bruno in the dark when it comes to war, but she ridicules her husband because of it. To keep Bruno’s innocence, she resists from telling Bruno what kind of soldier his father actually is. She tells Bruno as little as possible in order to prevent him from knowing the truth about the “farmers” that live within their midst, and at times remains silent to Bruno’s construed ideas of who the “farmers” actually are. Elsa is unaware of how in tune to his surroundings Bruno is, and plays it off like she knows nothing in order to keep him safe. On the other hand, she doesn’t keep it from her husband that she knows what he’s really doing in his line of work. She resents him for moving them so close to a concentration camp, and is upset that the “farmers” are in the same house as them. As a wife, Vera is also conflicted that Ralph had turned a fellow soldier in for not turning his father in for fleeing the country. This bothers her when the crime is just the same for Ralph not having turned his own mother in due to non loyalties against the country. Elsa had to be oblivious and knowing when each was appropriate, and Vera Farmiga did a great job at portraying that. Vera Farmiga plays a

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Told almost entirely from a young, naive German boy’s point of view, Mark Herman’s The Boy in the Striped Pajamas is a hard-hitting Holocaust tale that will render audiences speechless. After arriving home, Bruno (Asa Butterfield) learns that his family will have to move because his father (David Thewlis) achieved a promotion in the Nazi army. Bruno noticed what he believed to be farmers living just past a stretch of woods near their new home. One day, not long after being told not to go near the “farmers,” Bruno leaves his home and heads towards the camp. There he meets Shmuel (Jack Scanlon), a young Jewish boy. While trying to understand what is happening in the world around them, the boys become friends. While…

    • 626 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Almost fifty years after WWII, director Steven Spielberg creates the award winning film Schindler's List. Following the true story of Oskar Schindler, a Czech who joined the Nazi party to secure a fortune as a factory owner, has a change of heart after seeing Jews being persecuted. Schindler goes from exploiting Jews to saving over one thousand Jews by the end of the war. Schindler’s List is recognized as one of the most historically accurate Holocaust films, even so, there still can be problems with the film. "As a natural consequence of this process, the memory of the Holocaust has taken on specific American forms." (Dochartaigh) It is important to create films of historical events to shed light on tragedies, however, these films must be…

    • 1691 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the film ‘The Boy in Striped Pyjamas’ directed by Mark Herman, an important character who undergoes change throughout the movie is Elsa.…

    • 658 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Best Essays

    Over the course of history it was taught through textbooks and actual footage of what occurred, but now in this time period movies have been made to recreate the footage in modern times. Debates over the years has been is history actually being portrayed accurately and if it gives accurate knowledge of the event. Producers of television series and movies of this generation have become the most powerful historians. Movies expose the viewer to possibly see what history was truly resembling, or it can even give a singularity of knowledge. Hollywood created many motion pictures about previous events, but added in things that was not a part in the true event. During 1989 in the New York Times, it was discussed if movies can accurately grasp the understanding of history. Richard Bernstein researched Mississippi Burning stating it showed violence with realistic detail, but it transformed one of the key events of the recent American experience of the civil workers. During The Final Days it was a highly imaginative reconstruction of the end of Richard Nixon’s final presidency, yet the television series showed accurate knowledge on the tense issue of history (Bernstein). The fictional fable of The Boy in the Striped Pajamas created a motion picture of a representation of the time period of the Holocaust. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas accurately represents the Holocaust and what occurred to all the Jewish Orthodox, yet inaccurately represents history with the impossible actions with the overall plot.…

    • 1719 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Good Essays

    Are physical or mental barriers necessary in life? Are they there to protect us, or to hide secrets from us? John Boyne explains in his novel that barriers are made to temporarily hold us back from secrets in life. But in the end, our minds will demolish the barrier dividing us from the truth. Bruno, a young boy in the novel, learns this first hand. He is presented with a physical barrier, separating him from his home and hundreds of people. His father implants Bruno with a mental barrier, telling him that he cannot go on the other side of the fence. In the end Bruno’s interest in the fence took over and destroyed both barriers leading him to a path full of answers. Barriers are made in life to keep the truth hidden, they are lies built on lies.…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    “Childhood is measured out by sounds and smells and sights, before the dark hour of reason grows.” This quote states that when you are a kid you do not know much about reason or understand sarcasm and things like that and so the other part of the quote means that instead of reason a child understands only what they see for themselves of what people have told them.…

    • 513 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Boy in Striped Pajamas

    • 1479 Words
    • 6 Pages

    The film is an emotional experience highlighting the tragedy of innocence, using the point of view of an eight-year-old German boy to expose the raw psychological devastation of the era. It's an unnerving film with a knockout punch for an ending, but it feels more acceptable as an educational piece than a profoundly rewarding work of drama.…

    • 1479 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the movie, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, the holocaust which happened in history was clearly depicted. It was shown in the film how the Jews were poorly treated by the Nazis at that time. Hence, here are some instances in the film where prejudice, bias, discrimination and ethnocentrism were depicted. First is prejudice—Merriam-Webster describes prejudice as an injury or damage resulting from some judgment or action of another in disregard of one’s rights. Prejudice was most evident in the ending scene where the Jews from the concentration camp were put inside a large gas chamber, and they were made to believe that they were just going to take a bath, but the truth is they are to face their death. Also, the fact that they were confined inside a concentration camp was already a huge example of prejudice since this has taken away their freedom.…

    • 389 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The movies is called “The boy in the striped pajamas”. It was released on November 7th, 2008 by the director Mark Herman. The movie takes place in Nazi Germany, first the protagonist lived in Berlin, but his family and himself had to move close to a death camp called Auschwitz. The time that the movie takes place is during World War II, between the years 1939 and 1945. The main character of the movie is a wealthy boy named Bruno that likes to make friends and play with them. Also, he doesn’t see things the way they are, he is sort of an ignorant. There are different things that can be the antagonist of the movie, but the main antagonists are the Nazis, that includes Bruno’s father and Lt. Kotler. Bruno’s father is a commander and he is very strict about his family and his duties. Lt. Kotler is a Nazi soldier that works for Bruno’s father and he can’t stand Jewish people and he treats them viciously.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In the novel, The Boy in the Striped Pajamas, by John Boyne, the main characters, Bruno and Shmuel, have a very close relationship even though they are from two completely different worlds. The novel begins with Bruno, a nine year old, German boy, and his family are forced to move out of Berlin and into Auschwitz where Bruno is told by his parents that he is not allowed to go past certain boundary points. Bruno disobeys his parents and explores the new territory of Auschwitz. On this adventure, Bruno meets a boy named Shmuel who is behind an enclosed fence. Shmuel is a Jewish, nine year old boy and is an inmate in the death camp of Auschwitz. Bruno comes and visits Shmuel as much as he can and brings him food, but the friends are irritated because they cannot play and explore together on one side of the fence. Also, Shmuel is frightened because of the fact that he cannot find his father, so Bruno vows that he will help him try to find his father. To do so, Shmuel gets Bruno a pair of striped pajamas, or the uniform the inmates wore, so Bruno could blend in. In the end, when Bruno and Shmuel go to look for Shmuel’s father, the guards take them into the gas chamber where they die hand in hand.…

    • 281 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    In John Boyne's novel “The Boy In The Striped Pajamas”, it is proved that evil tends to arise out of the tendency of ordinary people to follow orders, to accept what their told by authorities, and to conform. The characters effectively show how influencing a conception can be by the exaggerating changes of their behavior and speech. When Bruno had asked about the people on the other side of the fence, his father had explained in a way Bruno could not understand. “Those people...well, they're not people at all.” In the novel, Bruno's father, Ralph takes position as a caring father, a responsible husband, and a trustworthy son. However, his career seemed to disappoint his loved ones, particularly his mother and wife. Ralph had always bonded…

    • 281 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Many details in the article are meaningful, especially the body language. The moment Vera met the man, “she raised her veil and unbuttoned her high fur collar”.…

    • 334 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The story “The Boy in the Striped Pajamas” is about two innocent 9 year olds trying to find friendship facing the most unlikeliest odds. When Bruno, the son of a Nazi commandant moves to a new house, an unfamiliar place called "Out-With" (Auschwitz), he soon becomes very lonely and misses his “Three Best Friends For Life”. After he first arrived at his new house he looked out of his bedroom window and noticed an unfriendly looking camp with barbed wire fencing and a lot of people wearing “striped pajamas”, this is where Bruno’s story begins. After a week of being bored out of his mind he decides to make a swing and goes to Lieutenant Kotler for help getting a tire after getting some string. Upon asking him for help Kotler orders the vegetable…

    • 1153 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Boy In The Striped pajamas offers the unsettling truth behind the Holocaust. The concentration camp in the film that is implied to be Auschwitz, is where the adventures of a curious eight year old boy take place. From beginning to end, this movie shows an incredible story, and gives some insights of what Jewish people really did go through. This movie is heartbreaking, but will make you smile at the same time.…

    • 1145 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Bruno a nine year old boy at the time of the war, stands completely oblivious to the horrific goings-on of the war that continue to take place around him, even with his father being a Nazi commandant. The title of the book is evidence to this as Bruno perceives their concentration camp uniforms as "striped pyjamas". Deeper into the book we discover Bruno's interpretation of many Nazi words which gives us further evidence as he is unable to pronounce these important names "the Fury," (the Furher) and "Out-With" (Auschwitz). Bruno and Shmuel, his young Jewish friend share many similarities but what is most apparent is their naivety to the position they are in. Bruno unaware that his father is a Nazi commandant and that his home is in walking distance of Auschwitz. Shmuel, imprisoned in the camp doesn't seem to fully register the severity of his situation. So when his father goes missing he fails to grasp that he has been taken to the gas chambers .…

    • 789 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays