Heat Personal Response

Heat is a 1972 film produced by Andrew Warhola, it parodies Sunset Boulevard, and was seen as controversial for it’s time due to some of it’s subject matter. The film was produced on a low budget with improvisational dialogue, retakes were not done and this can be seen in the ‘trashiness’ of some of the scenes. This can be particularly seen in the scene in which Lydia and Sally Todd are discussing their involvement with the main character Joey Davis. The two of them are essentially gossiping and trying to belittle the other and this is originally done by Lydia telling Sally that ‘she had Joey’, this soon turns into the two of them repeatedly asking each other ‘What do you mean?’ with the response of ‘What do you mean what do I mean?’ I found this poor improvisational dialogue incredibly amusing and is clear evidence for the lack of budget, film was expensive and a reshoot of a scene would cost far too much. Personally, I think that this lack of reshooting made the text seem a lot more natural, there are many elements of the social realism genre within this scene such a the handheld camera work and it being at eye level, the improvised dialogue and lack of reshoots enforces this idea. For me this made text a lot more entertaining and although personally, I have never gone through such an experience, it seemed to be relatable as if I could be a guest at this motel prying into other people’s business. Later, when there is a visit to Sally Todd’s ex husband we are presented with again an almost documentary like positioning the scene is shot using mainly mid shots to show the interaction between this misfit family. There are also close ups of Joey’s face more than anyone else’s, this is to show his reaction to what is going on around him and as such he essentially shows the audience how we should be feeling. This use of reaction shots within such a strange and uncomfortable situation are a good way to get across just how weird the lives of ‘stars’ can be. The whole film enforces this idea, but Joey’s reactions show, that in Hollywood, scandals topple the stars, this can be especially seen my Sally’s ex husband’s new partner. He is now in a hidden homosexual relationship, this is hidden due to the controversy of such a relationship, the same can be seen with Sally when she is asked a lot about her daughter’s relationships. Heat is a comedic film but essentially has the theme of not being able to show true colours within Hollywood and that Warhol wished to change this, this can be seen by his earlier work such as his screen tests, in which he placed people in front of a camera and left them to be themselves essentially. Heat does a good job of conveying such a message and although it is ‘trash cinema’ personally I think it is a brilliant text simply because of it’s taboo topics and the expression of them.