Thelma and Louise

Thelma and Louise is a American Film of Ridley Scott carried out in 1991, telling the history of two women whose the one weekend excursion is transformed into mare through the the United States, which received the Oscar of the best scenario.

The film

General description

Synopsis

Thelma Yvonne Dickinson, about thirty, is the frustrated and subjected wife of Darryl, Archétype of the Macho all the more perfectly unconscious of its ridiculous that its superiority complex is reinforced by its professional success. Louise Elizabeth Sawyer, her friend, ten years its elder, convinced it to escape for one weekend with the mountain. Leaving the Arkansas, they are well decided to benefit from these hours of freedom. They stop in the course of road, in a box where Thelma misuses alcohol. Whereas a man tries to violate it on the carpark, Louise arrives in extremis, leaves a revolver and prevents the rape. In front of the vulgarity and the aggressiveness of the man, it kills it. Louise categorically refuses to go to the police force and decides to take the direction of the Mexico, involving Thelma in her mare.

Louise telephones her Jimmy boyfriend so that it sends to him money with a motel of Oklahoma City, but mysteriously she does not want to pass by the state of the Texas. The murder having been discovered, the police force, after a rapid inquires, is on the track of the two women. Agents, cash on a phone call which would make it possible to locate them, are installed in the presence of Darryl in the house of Thelma. Arrived at Oklahoma City, they find there Jimmy which brought the money, and which benefits from it to require of Louise to marry it; she refuses taking into account the situation. During this time, Thelma takes pleasure with a hitch-hiker, young person and rebel, who will steal the money to them which will miss to them to continue their way to Mexico.

Thelma is conscious of its responsibility again in the turning which have just taken the things. Noting the despair in which Louise because of her negligence sinks, it does not find a better idea to make a Braquage, directly inspired by the confidences which it tenderly tore off with the bed of the mouth of her robber. Continuing their research, the police officers, progressing all the more quickly as the offense of Thelma was filmed by a surveillance camera, find Jimmy, then the hitch-hiker who direct them towards the Arizona. One of the police officers, having learned that Louise was violated in Texas, a long time ago, understands that they are not really responsible for this history.

Again on the road, the two women make then an excess speed and are stopped by a police officer. They then exhibent their revolver to threaten it, in order to neutralize it by locking up it in the trunk of the car of patrol so that it does not give an indication making it possible to locate them. They continue their way and are brought to again double a truck driver who, like twice before, challenges them with insistence by remarks and gestures obscenes. This time, they stop it to obtain from him excuses and explode its Camion-citerne.

The mare ends with the Large Canyon in the Arizona. Taken with the trap by an army of police cars, Thelma and Louise prefer death: in an ultimate acceleration, their car jumps in the chasm.

Distribution

Data sheet

  • original Title: Thelma & Louise
  • French Version (France): Thelma & Louise
  • French Version (Canada): Thelma and Louise
  • Realization: Ridley Scott
  • Scenario: Callie Khouri
  • Assembly: Noble Thom
  • Production: Ridley Scott, Mimi Polk, Dean O' Brien, Callie Khouri - MGM and Pathé Entertainment
  • Photography: Adrian Biddle
  • Music: Hans Zimmer (additional: Pete Haycock)
  • Kind: dramatic comedy/road-movie
  • Lasted: 129 minutes
  • Budget: 16,5 million American dollars
  • Comings out date:
  • Boxoffice: 45,3 million American dollars (only in the United States)

Genesis of film

Scenario

The Scenario of Thelma & Louise was written by Callie Khouri and received the Oscar of the best original screenplay in 1991. Khouri wanted to put in scene two women in a kind up to that point exclusively male. Its idea had been born from a lassitude vis-a-vis American films proposing only too rare goods roles for women, in particular of the roles which make it possible to the characters to make their own decisions and to control their own destiny. “I wanted to write something which had never been carried to the cinema before. As a film enthusiast, I was nourished passive role of the women. They never led the history because they never drove the car. ” .

The scenario writer was closely associated with the realization of film, so that it is sometimes called the “third woman” of Thelma & Louise . She lengthily collaborated with Ridley Scott in the preparation of film, took part in the choice of the actors and was present on turning. It has consequently been able to weigh on options scenaristic retained, so that it could maintain sequences which were expensive to him, in particular the sequence of the rape and the final scene.

Producer and realizer

Callie Khouri wanted initially to carry out film itself while counting on a bugdet of a million dollars, and contacted various producers in this direction. She was confronted with many refusal. Its scenario arrived in the hands of Mimi Polk Giltin which, it, adored it: it made it possible to carry out a film which gave capacity to the women, encouraged them to listen to and carry out their dreams and called in question the design which one has of the masculine roles and female. It increased the budget to 16 million dollars, had a presentiment of Michelle Pfeiffer and Jodie Foster in the roles of Thelma and Louise, and subjected the scenario with Ridley Scott at the beginning to associate it as producer. It was then put in search of a realizer. Many potential realizers to whom it submitted the project were being wary and suggested to him carrying it out itself. Finally, Ridley Scott was convinced to carry out Thelma & Louise itself. Susan Sarandon found the character of Louise very interesting because it was not more slap-with-the eye, was to try to remain on the right track in spite of its wounds, and allowed him to lead the history to the clean direction as with illustrated. It found exciting to play the bad girls.

Harvey Keitel was the third of the actors known at the time of the exit of film, all the others having played only of small roles up to that point. It received the role of the inspector Hal Slocombe, a very important character in film, pulled about between its mission of investigator and police officer, and the sympathy which it tests for the two women. He is indeed the only man sensitive to the condition of the women and which consequently includes/understands the gestures and motivations of Thelma and Louise. Besides a sequence not selected shows it with the bed with his wife whom tenderly it asks in which circumstances she would be able to make a murder. Harvey Keitel played for the first time the part of nice

Michael Madsen was known of Callie Khouri to have played in a film of her husband. The team initially proposed the role of the rapist to him, but he refused it. He then received the role of Jimmy, the friend of Louise. He much contributed to the sequence where Louise and Jimmy are found in the room of the motel, very different from what was envisaged in the scenario, partly rewritten by Susan Sarandon. He interpreted his character at the same time sympathizing, violent one and vulnerable, and introduced the idea of the proposal.

Stephen Tobolowsky had just finished the turning of the Mississippi Burning when one proposed to him the role of the agent of the F.B.I. He saw the character of max like a force, a pressure continues all along the history.

Jason Beghe was retained for the role of the police officer because, during hearing, it had the idea to make cry his character what was not envisaged in the scenario. As for Marco St John , it agreed to incarnate the truck-driver obscene while fearing that nobody any more would like of him after this role

Road movie
The essence of the action occurs on the road. Two heroins cross sumptuous landscapes between Arkansas and Arizona, in a convertible Ford Thunderbird 1966, the hair with the wind, which contributes so that the film evokes a feeling of great freedom. In addition to the many plans presenting the car moving, the places are strong “meaning” North-American lifestyle, related to the distance, the road and its stages: petrol stations, motels, stores and services intended for the truck drivers.

Ridley Scott explains why the fact of being European was an advantage for the turning of this film. “ the Americans live surrounded by a heap of things which they do not even see because they form integral part of their culture… But me, as an uninitiated person, I can drive car through the desert of south-west and me extasier in front of kilometers and telephone kilometers of posts, which the average American regards as completely normal. ”

Western
Ridley Scott re-used the cinematographic techniques of the westerns of the Années 1950. It is turned over on the spot of turning of many westerns in Utah, in the surroundings of Moab, which had not been used any more for feature-length films since the time of John Wayne of the traditional key periods of this cinematographic kind: Two heroins sat in the very first plan, of back, while looking with calm and determination the approach of “malicious”, small compared to the mass of its gigantic truck, in waiting of decisive confrontation, the combat between the good and the evil. Each one of it then carries an attribute identifying the mytholology of the western inevitably: Louise, on the right out of white tee-shirt, wears a hat of cow-boy (the hat texan that it exchanged with the old man against his jewels), before removing it by making it pass right in the middle of the screen, like insisting near the spectator on the “code”. Thelma, in black, with the hand on the right hip, in perfect position to seize the stick of the revolver whose gun is slipped on its kidneys into the belt of its jean. Would there be clearer reference? Is the spectator interested only in the truck-driver approaching and with its showing off of dredger and he does not see the stick of the perfectly projecting weapon on his hip, as those which one sees carried in the sheath hung with the belt of the characters of the universe of John Ford and John Wayne? Then, they make as a contest of address to the shooting with the revolver. Following what, their enemy finally overcome and ridiculed, they jump in their car without opening the doors of them, exactly as the heroes of the “ Western savage ” enfourchent their horse in precipitation. And they start in waterspout to do one or two turns of victory, by pushing the famous cry of the West, around the malicious one which stumbles in dust, whereas the camera rises to give broadth to their departure for new adventures.

One will have in the noticed passing that it quite as traditional image of the Rodéo (and its test of address to collect something on the ground while considering its mounting launched to the gallop) is the occasion for the momentary one of Thunderbird to recover the Trophée of their victory, the cap decorated with the face with the American flag which their adversary at the time of the blast of the explosion lost. The analogy of this scene to the cap with those showing of the cinematographic Indians to take along the Scalp of a White is obvious.

The film also contains a sequence where the car crosses a herd of cows kept by cowboys to horse, a emblematic scene in the westerns.

Police film
It is about the history of two women whom the chance or the destiny pushes with becoming Hors-la-loi, to make crimes by Nécessité, because constantly in hillock with rough and brutal men. With its batch of escapes, continuations, committed crimes with weapons, sequences alternating heroins in action and the police force which seeks them, Thelma & Louise falls under the line of the police films traditional. It is often compared with Bonnie and Clyde and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance kid .

Comedy
Humor is present in Thelma & Louise . The film starts like a Comédie: after having made morals with two young customers on the harmfulness of the tobacco, Louise takes a pause by lighting a cigarette. Then, Louise telephones Thelma which asks whether she works, it to him what Louise answers “ Non, I pose for Playboy ”. The scene follows where Darryl precipitately leaves its house to go to work and, in the purest tradition of the Comedy situation, ridicules itself while falling on construction materials beside its car. Then the alternation of plans showing Thelma and Louise, each one preparing its bag of voyage (announcing not the simple concomitance but illustrating with insistence their difference in character), lends to smiling. Lastly, short a sequence Louise watch in the crammed toilets of the Saloon, surrounded women being pushed mutually for remaquiller and recoiffer in front of the mirror. The ton of the comedy takes brutally fine at the time of the sequence of the rape and the feeling of incapacity of the company to return justice to the victims of rape which pushes Thelma and Louise to escape. Dramatic dimension is also illustrated by the succession of events which involuntarily involve the two women in a spiral to which they do not manage any more to escape. Thelma is initially victim of an assault with intent to commit rape which is countered by the murder of the rapist, which obliges them to flee towards Mexico. They are then seen stealing the money which enabled them to carry on their road, which encourages Thelma to make an armed robbery. They must finally neutralize the police officer continuation an excess speed, to avoid being localized and stopped. This succession of events transform them into dangerous criminal with the eyes of the law. Their mare takes tragically fine by a scene of Anthologie where they propel their car in the Large Canyon.

Besides Louise realizes quickly of the fatal gears in which they are involved. She probably yields little by little the control of forwarding to Thelma because she has a presentiment of that their adventure will finish in tragedy. In spite of the melted with the final white, Scott does not arrive to completely occulting the tragic Destin of its characters, which part of the public feels like a total loss of control of the two women on the events and the course of their existence.

Places of turning

The scenario provides that heroins leave the Arkansas, circumvent the Texas while passing by the Oklahoma then the Nouveau Mexico, and arrive in Arizona (Large Canyon).

After having carried out itself this way for purposes of locations, Ridley Scott estimated that it would be too expensive to take along its team in such a voyage. It then chose to carry out the turnings in a smaller ray, starting from three bases

  • Bakersfield , near Los Angeles, which offers irrigated plains and landscapes similar to those of Arkansas. The final scene was turned not in the Large Canyon, but to Dead Horse Point, a smaller Canyon located near Moab.

Music

The music of Thelma & Louise is an original composition of Hans Zimmer, a type-setter considered in the cinema world. He writes the music of Thelma & Louise after having conceived those of Rain man and of Jours of thunder . The purpose of its music, a mixture of electronic sonorities accompanied by the guitar of Pete Haycock, is, like all the film musics, to support the action and to reinforce the emotions produced by the image.

The film also contains pieces resulting from the Rock and Country, in order to anchor film well in the American culture. It is mainly about diegetic musics, i.e. of musics which the characters hear. The film starts with Little Honey (Kelly Willis) which is played in background music in the restaurant where Louise works. Tennessee Plates is interpreted in Live by Charlie Sexton in the saloon where two heroins stop. In the car, they accompany by singing the piece The Way You Do The Things You Do (The Temptations) diffused by the car radio. As for the cyclist rasta, he directly does not hear the calls using the police officer locked up in the trunk of his car, because he listens to I Edge See Clearly Now (Johnny Nash) on his Baladeur. The only piece extradiegetic is The Balad Of Lucy Jordan of Marianne Faithfull used in sound illustration of the sequence where Thelma and Louise roll night while taking turns. It is of a background music being used to put the spectators in condition and not about a music heard by the characters because of nontemporal coherence between the image and the sound. Indeed, the assembly of the sequence suggests that they roll to the paddle while changing place behind the wheel whereas the piece lasts only a few minutes. It is not imagined probable, consequently, that they are saoûlent the whole night of the same last piece of music in loop.

The choice of these pieces is directly related to the topic of film, so that not only the music, but also the words appuyent the scenario: “I do not want to play house” ( I Don' T Wanna Play House of Tammy Wynette), “does not look at behind” ( Don' T Look Back of Grayson Hugh). Or “I cannot be detached from you” ( I Can' T Untie You From Me of Grayson Hugh) like background music in the motel in the small hour right before the departure of Jimmy. As for the piece The Balad Off Lucy Jordan of Marianne Faithfull, it seems to summarize with him only the character of Thelma: “ At the age of thirty-seven years, it realizes that it rolled forever through Paris in a sport scar, a hot wind in the hair (...) Her husband is with work, his children are at the school, it could clean during hours or rearrange the flowers, or run naked in the shaded streets by shouting all along the way (...) ”.

The last piece of film is Better Not Look Down of B.B. King, that the two women listen when they meet for the third time the truck-driver. The scenario writer Callie Khouri in the beginning expected that this song accompanies the final scene. Indeed, the words “ Mieux is worth not to look to the bottom if you want continer to steal ” would have judiciously supported this last sequence. Ridley Scott finally preferred to use it in accompaniment of the sequence of the tanker, probably estimating that the words “ Mieux is worth not to look in bottom, steps on the gas, guard your high speed ” could be also addressed to the truck-driver.

Thunderbird 1966

The convertible Ford Thunderbird of 1966 green of Louise occupies an important place in this roadmovie. It is the car which makes it possible to the two women to leave in weekend in the mountains and involves them towards their fatal outcome. Although this model is particularly inadequate to carry out long distances, it presents another function of the vehicle: to expose its driver Throughout their mare, the two women give up their possessions. Louise loses her money, undoubtedly also her work and her friend, but it keeps its car.

It is however the car which leads heroins to their loss. As explains it the Hal inspector in Darryl, of the witnesses saw T-66 green leaving the carpark after the murder. It is on the basis of this description that Hal finds the identity of Louise Sawyer by consulting a database on the computer. The car becomes finally the most crucial element in the final scene.

Description
After having temporarily sown the police vehicles at the time of the final continuation, Louise brutally stops the car at the edge of the Large Canyon. A helicopter emerges in front of them, while the police force bars their retirement by pointing their rifles in their direction and intimating the order to them to go. Hall tries last once to be opposed to his/her colleagues: “ Good blood, but how much time is necessary it that they are made kiss! ”. Louise charges her revolver explaining with Thelma that she does not want to go.

Thelma: “Louise Listening. One will not let oneself take. ”

Louise: “What do you want to say? ”
Thelma: “Let us continue to advance. ”
Louise: “I.e.? ”
Thelma, by indicating the direction of the canyon: “Go ahead. ”
Louise, outlining a smile: “You are sure? ”
Thelma: “Yes, do it. ”

Louise embraces Thelma and starts the car, Hal springs with their continuation while running. Alternation of plans showing the car which accelerates and Hall, with the idle, trying to catch up with them and to retain them by beating arm to draw their attention. The two women give each other the hand, the instantaneous photograph taken at the beginning of film flies away back seat. They exchange a smile, with the same expression that they had at the beginning of film when they began their voyage. Louise appuye on the accelerator. The car springs in the canyon, its flight planed in the vacuum is supported by the Bande-son in particular made up of voice. The car, filmed in Low-angle shot, traverses with the idle an arc of circle in the clouds. Freeze frame on the car in the center of the screen, melted to the white, generic of end.

Design
Callie Khouri had the idea of film by initially imagining the final jump of heroins in the Large Canyon. She wrote the scenario while starting with this end.

She then had to face the refusal of good number of producers fearing that such an end would be badly accepted by the spectators. Khouri nevertheless fought so that this scene appears in film, estimating that a traditional end would have made this film banal and ordinary.

An ambivalent emotion
This end causes an ambivalent emotion. The scene is felt at the same time like a total release and an impossibility of differently escaping its fate than by death. It is perceived sometimes like the victory of heroins, sometimes like the fine tragedy of two victims of an abusive system.

The people who criticize the fine pessimist of film, Susan Sarandon answers however: “During all film, the characters become outlaw. It would be rather a failure which finally to reinstate them in the system”.

The fact that heroins smile when the car sinks towards the clouds and that this sequence is completed by a molten with the white gives for this purpose a mystical dimension . Neither the death of the two women, nor the crushing of the vehicle on the rocks are shown, which lets consider the idea that they continue to live, in particular in a form of Au-delà

Other end
Ridley Scott envisaged a slightly different end, finally not selected. This fine alternative is the following one:

The sequence starts in the same way, but instead of the freeze frame followed of melted to the white, the car continues its movement, and its fall towards the bottom of the canyon is filmed with the idle. Hall runs to the edge of the canyon and looks to the bottom, whereas the helicopter flies behind him. The police officers deposit their weapons and walk to the edge of the chasm. A rather long plan shows Hal looking at sadly towards the pit. Before the car touches the bottom, change of plan, the film finishes by a plan of the car rolling towards the horizon on an overland route by raising dust, in the middle of the green landscape extending to a dark mountain.

This green landscape appears besides in Fixed plan during the credits of beginning, then once again at the beginning of the final continuation, the purpose of which is to announce the nearest end of heroins.

Although it is more explicit in its message which wants than the two women carry on their road, this end is more pessimistic. One sees the car falling into the canyon and this sequence gives more attention to the shocked, guilty or sad reactions of the men. Ridley Scott preferred the version selected because it is focused on the two women and their decision does not eclipse.

Anecdotes

  • In the script, it was not expected that Darryl (Christopher McDonald) falls beside its car by precipitately leaving its house to go to work. Christopher McDonald carried slipping new shoes and fell at the time of the first catch of sight. It decided to continue to play whereas the camera turned. At the end of the catch, Ridley Scott declared that the team could remake some additional catches, but that the first catch was the good one.

  • At the time of the scene where Louise vomits beside the car, Susan Sarandon actually spits of the egg white.

  • Certains plans of the sequence of the rape was interpreted by a Doublure of Geena Davis. On the other hand, although it was proposed to him to be also made replace by a lining for the turning of the sexual scene with Brad Pitt, Geena Davis preferred to interpret it itself.

  • In the scene where Darryl continues J.D., Christopher McDonald wanted literally to kill Brat Pitt and was retained by six men. It owed rejouer eight times the scene, so that it had aches of it the following day.

  • At the time of the scene of the explosion of the tanker, of the cameras filmed the face of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon. It was envisaged to use their real reactions. At the time of the explosion, their face remained fixed. It was thus necessary to reinstall the material of turning, to simulate the breath and the light of the explosion and to ask them to play a more expressive reaction.

Topics of film

Freedom

A first feeling which emerges from film is the feeling of Liberté. Two heroins agree to escape, the one weekend time, of gravities of the couple, the very limited horizon of its city and of the greyness of the daily newspaper, then hurl their car in desert big spaces as far as the eye can see and cross the natural landscapes sublimes. Or to know for the first time satisfaction at the time of a Sexual relation, because the access to freedom is erotic ', to commit crimes in a kind of “ merry despair ”.

This freedom will be however only of short duration. Scott succeeds in seizing America with the blue sky and the green plains of the myths and legends, promising of freedom, but not for everyone. This distance between promise and lasts reality gives to film its corrosive and its incisive feature on the dreams, the truths and the limits of America.

The rape

See also: Topic of the rape in the film Thelma and Louise

The topic of the Viol is omnipresent in film. The scene of the rape of Thelma and the murder of the rapist by Louise is the fundamental sequence on which all the Trame rests film since it transforms a simple stay in the mountains into a track race through the United States. This topic is also a characteristic of the character of Louise, and is evoked from the levelling point of view throughout film.

Emancipation and the achievement of oneself

See also: Topic of the emancipation in the film Thelma and Louise

A third topic of film is that of the female emancipation, the personal achievement, the takeover of the women on their life, the Empowerment . Thelma and Louise are confronted with évémenents which push them to choose another life. This takeover on their body and their life passes by the reappropriation of the Revolver, an object occupying a central role in American mythology like instrument of Autonomie. The emancipation is also a characteristic of the character of Thelma which is seen transformed throughout film.

Some point out that this achievement of oneself passes by the awakening by heroins of the fate which they precisely assume because they fought some, with “ a crude energy ”, the gears, the weight and the consequences.

Distinctions

  • 6 nominations with the Oscars, of which the nomination of Geena Davis and Susan Sarandon with the Oscar of the best actress for their respective interpretations of Thelma and Louise.
  • Oscar of the best original screenplay in 1991
  • 4 nominations with the Golden Globe Awards
  • Golden Globe of the best scenario in 1992
  • Nomination with the César of best foreign film in 1992

Reception of film by the public

Polemic at the exit of film

At its exit, the film created a Polémique in the United States. Some regarded it as a formidable film, others like a dangerous film. One could read very enthusiastic reactions: “ It is the first film which I saw telling the true truth ”, “ I saw my life played in front of my eyes ”. On the other hand, other people held of the hostile remarks: “ It is the praise of a transformative violence… A fascistic topic explicitly ”, “ It justifies the steerings with weapons, the massacre of men and the driving under influence of chronic intoxication like exercises of rise without conscience ”

The polemic around Thelma & Louise exceeded the strictly cinematographic framework at the point to make the cover of the Time Magazine on June 24th, 1991.

A feminist film

Thelma & Louise is a feminist film . It is taken again as such in the feminist catalogs of films.

The exact range of its feminist nature makes however debate within the movements antisexists. Some reproach him for introducing two women having a behavior of men or reacting only according to acts made by men. Others criticize the fact that Thelma and Louise give an bad image of women who release themselves from the Oppression machist by making offenses and by taking their revenge on the men, which serves the feminist cause. Others still wonder about the feminist character of film because of the fine tragedy of two heroins. Nevertheless Thelma & Louise is one of very rare films where two women are the main characters, who shows how these women answer the injustices which surround them because of their sex, and which treats from the feminist point of view several related questions with the inequalities between women and men, such as the female emancipation and the rape. While being spectators of situations sexists (subjected housewife) and of sexual violences (rape, harassing) which they for the majority themselves lived, and by seeing the characters reacting to it by taking the top, they feel emotions particularly liberators.

Many women recognized themselves consequently in this “emancipation of the women through their escapades” and regard work as a Film worship. Women went to the Large Canyon in 2001 to commemorate the ten years of film, others will visit the places of turning.

DEBATEs on the character misandre of film

According to some critical denouncing the character misandre of Thelma & Louise , the film is “anti-men” because it presents them under their worst aspect: a husband macho, a rapist, a truck-driver obscene. “ All the men are bastards (...). Men harmful, vicious, petty, frustrate and brutal, who do not have of cease to persecute them ”. In addition, the film glorifie heroins which are caught some with these men, returns them sympathetic nerves, and clears their behavior while making take the responsibility for their misdeeds to the men. The counterpart of the inspector to the hitch-hiker “I will return to you personally responsible for part of what will fall to them” above is quoted in support this last thesis. Among the characters of third order, it there with the honest grocer who suggests in Thelma buying alcohol in greater conditioning. Or the old man with whom Louise exchanges his jewels against his hat in a scene where they seem to share the same living conditions in a place of the end of the world and to have spontaneously developed a complicity allowing them to include itself/understand by a simple glance. Conversely, all the women are not introduced under their best day. If one excludes Thelma, Louise and the waitress (who, the beginning, asks Harlan not to annoy her customers before convincing Hal of the innocence of the two women), the female characters are introduced negatively: in the toilets of the saloon a scene takes place where the women hustle themselves ridiculously in front of the mirror for recoiffer and remaquiller; the waitress of the motel in Oklahoma makes a reflection idiot and moved in Louise right after Jimmy left it.

DEBATEs on the character violate film

Part of the public perceives Thelma & Louise like a film very violent one. Some critical evoke the “paroxism of free violence” of which proof two heroins make, go until comparing Thelma and Louise with serial killers. As example, Khouri proposes to imagine the scene of the assault with intent to commit rape with a male character in the place of Louise: a man tries to rape a woman, the friend of this woman intervenes, ends up killing the rapist, then “foutons-the-camp from here” tells him. This scene played by a man would be quite simply banal in an action film. On the other hand, if she is played by a woman, she is perceived like much more violent, even completely subversive. Susan Sarandon adds that the violence contained in Thelma & Louise is of a level quite less than in the majority of traditional action films where the hero is a white man. And to quote Total Recall where Arnold Schwarzenegger kills a woman of a ball in the head by saying “that Regards as a Divorce” , which did not raise same indignation at all as Thelma & Louise : the fact that two heroins break their relation with their respective partner, live adventures who bring them closer, decide to conclude their tour by death together, exchange a kiss, then launch their car in the vacuum by being held the hand, leaving all the men behind them.

This film was positively accommodated by movements lesbians and fact part of the catalog of films lesbian.

Certain detractors of Thelma & Louise also call upon the supposed homosexuality of heroins, by generally adding to it considerations lesbophobes, like additional argument to justify their rejection of the film' In the work “homosexuality with the cinema” , Thelma & Louise is quoted only among works concerned with a “allusive use of a potential homosexuality” .

Reception of film in France

A large majority of the public and critics in France did not want to see and another thing in this work only a effective Action film does not see, with for only originality showing women in roles up to that point reserved to the men, carried by the set of two motivated actresses, with the service of a history scratching a “ American cinema readily misogynist ” and denouncing the persistence of “ the brutality of deep America ”, where “ the women are always regarded as lower beings ”.

“ In deep America (...) the emancipation of the woman is obviously, for Ridley Scott, a problem which could be regulated only in another life: afterwards many misfortunes, Thelma and Louise joyeusement make a last snook with all the men while precipitating in the Large Canyon at the wheel of their car, finally opened out and heuseuses. ”

“Thelma & Louise live”

self-adhesive badges and proclaiming “Thelma & live Louise” (“Thelma & Louise live”) are still today in circulation in the United States. Their message is in charge of significances symbolic systems. Some see there the symbol of two women outlaw who address ultimate a “will make you F ***” with the patriarchate, the triumph of the life on death, of oppressed on the oppressor, the claim of a justice not sexist and of an immortality of the Amazon. Others compare the badge with that proclaiming “Jesus lives” (“Jesus saw”) and attach a mystical significance to it which wants that an eternal life succeeds a physical death.

Later influences of Thelma & Louise

Thelma & Louise obtained a great success and is regarded today as traditional. It is the object of many references in the popular culture, and influences various artistic creations.

Influences on the cinema

Thelma & Louise was a film-key in the history of the Road movie because it opened the way with female films of this kind. Several scenarios were inspired some: normal Leaving (1992), made up Crimes (2000), a blonde in mare (2000) and the Italian film Gasoline (2001). In France, the film gilded Jeunesse (2001) tells the tour of two teenagers left to make a photo report, whose meetings allow them the first personal construction. From its homosexual dimension, Thelma & Louise initiated a series of roadmovies not only lesbians, such as the film adaptation of Even cowgirls get the blues (1993) and the film With or without man (1995), but also gay like My own private Idaho (1991), The living room end (1992) and Extravagances (1995).

The film contains a sequence where a cyclist rasta, after having noticed the police officer locked up in the trunk of his car, blows the smoke of sound joint in the air vents made by Thelma. This scene, in particular the fact that the police officer is tiny room to a white little finger indicating the site of the keys, was interpreted like fine the symbolic system of the exclusive presence of the white man heterosexual in the Far West. After Thelma & Louise , the coloured persons consequently saw themselves recognizing a more important place in the Hollywood feature-length films devoted to the road, which gave to birth to drunk Get one the (1996) and Liens of steel (1996).

Thelma & Louise is also one of very first films putting in scene women answering by the weapons the violence of kind. It inspired by other films on this topic: initially the film adaptation of the novel Dirty weekend (1992) of Helen Zahavi which, with the image of the polemic caused by the exit of film of Ridley Scott, is the latest to date of the works of literature to have been the subject of a request for prohibition to the Parlement of London due to immoralism; then the adaptation of the novel Baise me (2000) of Virginia Despentes, although the latter explains not to have thought of Thelma & Louise to carry out her film, even if it liked it much.

References

References in the cinema and the televised series

The end of film is parodied by Wayne and Garth in Wayne's World 2 . The final sequence of Thelma & Louise is presented as being a possible end of film, but the heroes finally decide to test another of them.

Other films contain references to Thelma & Louise : in Leon , Natalie Portman says that Thelma and Louise do not only work, and in Set It Off , the character interpreted by Jada Pinkett Smith calls “Thelma and Louise” the characters played by Queen Latifah and Vivica A. Fox.

Several televised series refer also to film. An episode of the 8th season of Roseanne puts in Roseanne scene and its Jackie sister in situations parodying certain sequences of film: they take a photograph of themselves by mimant Thelma and Louise and later are confronted with a truck-driver and the police officers. One also finds references to film in Griffin (2nd season, episode Road to Rhode Island ), in Seinfeld (9th season, episode The Dealership ), and in several episodes of the Simpson (3rd season, episode Homer with the hearth ; 5th season episode Margin in mare ; 10th season, episode a woman at the wheel ).

References in the literature

In her novel the muzzle , Laurence Villani written “two heroins of film find this freedom only by throwing in the Large Canyon” , after having quoted a first supervising of named prison … Louise Thelmar.

References in the music

After having seen film, the singer Tori Amos wrote “Me and has Gun” (album Little Earthquakes ), the history of the rape which it underwent seven years earlier and about which it had never spoken: “I went to see Thelma & Louise, only, on a blow of head, and my life changed. When Susan Sarandon killed the rapist, I breathed for the first time in seven years” . Two hours later, it composed its piece.

Songs of other artists refer to film:

  • in French: “Louise and Thelma” of Anise (album the chance ), “Like Louise and Thelma” of Drunksouls (album One will see later… ).
  • in English: “Today 4 U” of the musical comedy Rent, “Individual I' m” of Deirdre Flint (album The Shuffleboard Queens ), “Bang” of Eve 6 (album Horrorscope ), “Post-Modern Sleaze” of Sneaker Pimps (album Becoming X ) and the individual “Friends Forever” of Thunderbugs.
  • in Spanish: “Back dias in emptied” ( “Two days in a life” ) of Fito Paez (album El amor despues LED amor ) and “Susan surrender” of Kevin Johansen (album Logo ) dedicated to the character of Susan Sarandon.

Reference in the video games

In the Video game The Legend off Zelda: Twilight Princess , an important character is called Thelma, and its cat, Louise.

References in the media and the company

In 1995, two women (a nursery nurse and a mother of two children) made a series of steerings to weapons with the Texas, then are flee towards the Canada. They were immediately called “Thelma and Louise” by the media. The police force of Houston also called “Thelma and Louise” four young women of “good family” having made a series of crimes
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