"Revolutionary Road" - A Film Reflection

I loved Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio in James Cameron's blockbuster, "Titanic," and I knew their inherent electricity together would charge their latest collaboration in "Revolutionary Road," directed by Kate's husband, Sam Mendes.
The film is set in the mid 50's when people still smoked cigarettes in their business offices, and is based on a novel (published in 1961) by Richard Yates. We follow two characters, Frank Wheeler and his wife, April, as their life together takes unexpected turns.
Kate could be the emotional doppelganger of poet and novelist, Sylvia Plath, who was so distraught by having children and being forced into the mold of "mother and housewife,Nike Jordan Retro XXI," her last act of defiance was to place her head in an oven with the gas turned on. Kate and Frank have two children together but there are hints throughout the movie that April would rather have committed her talents to acting. Clearly there is little to no support of that. Still, the 50's family structure - of working father, two boisterous kids and the role of model homemaker - do not fit into April's scheme of things. So when Frank agrees to her carefully-considered plan to move the family to Paris, where she will take on a position as secretary while Frank discovers his true talents, April is ecstatic. There is a bright, new feeling to their relationship as they inform neighbors and coworkers of their plan to move to Paris. The "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf" portion of their life appears to be far behind them. Now, like a pair of giggling teens, they are delighted to be moving forward in the same direction.
But the Frank who is willing to drop out of the company where his father before him worked for decades (and whom nobody at the firm seems to remember) is now irresistible as an asset to his bosses who make him an offer he cannot refuse, to stay put. Of course April, who is the voice of reason through all this, cannot comprehend that the bottom has just fallen out of her big plan - even after she's purchased their airline tickets and started packing. On top of all that, she is pregnant with no desire to carry a third child to term, in the Revolutionay Road home to which she has already said goodbye.
In an interview published in Ploughshares in 1972, author Richard Yates said, "During the Fifties there was a general lust for conformity all over this country, by no means only in the suburbs - a kind of blind, desperate clinging to safety and security at any price, as exemplified politically in the Eisenhower administration and the Joe McCarthy witchhunts. Anyway, a great many Americans were deeply disturbed by all that - felt it to be an outright betrayal of our best and bravest revolutionary spirit - and that was the spirit I tried to embody in the character of April Wheeler. I meant the title to suggest that the revolutionary road of 1776 had come to something very much like a dead end in the Fifties."
Many of us tend to think of the 50's as the good old days, but not in terms of a woman's right to choose whether or not to have a family. And yet, how is the 21st century now any different? People still feel they must cling to what they have and not take any chances to change their circumstances. Most pregnant women as depicted in current media choose to have the baby. Juno, in a "break-away" film chooses to have the baby and give it away. Back in the "real world," a humanitarian doctor by the name of George Tiller is murdered by a so-called "right-to-lifer" (if that isn't an irony, then what is?)
When asked about the theme of his book, Yates told the interviewer, "If my work has a theme, I suspect it is a simple one: that most human beings are inescapably alone, and therein lies their tragedy." If we humans could only walk a mile in our neighbor's shoes (as my dad was once fond of saying), we might surprise ourselves at how similar we really are in wanting our lives to be comfortable yet remarkable.
Once you have created a Marketable Image, and you have written Quality Songs, your next step is to begin building a Fan Base.Fan Base Building a Fan Base can be a daunting task, but it is an absolute necessity if you hope for any record label to take you seriously. One piece of advice I will give you is to seek out any help you can find in completing this requirement, because building a Fan Base will likely take some assistance.One key person to enlist is a Manager. Managers often have many connections in the industry including club owners, promoters, other artists, and even record label executives. Of course, you will have to do a lot of marketing on your own, but the help of a qualified Manager can be the difference between your success and failure.
In the early stages of your career you may not be able to find a qualified manager to take you on as their client. If this is the case, don't be afraid to allow a close friend or family member, who is HIGHLY motivated, assist you for the time being. If someone close to you sees your potential and is willing to help you get started, they can be even more helpful than a Manager who puts you on the back burner for his more established clients.At this point you should be marketing yourself through every avenue possible. This means getting your music in the hands... and ears... of as many people as possible. Artists have taken many different approaches to this over the years as technology continues to evolve.