A Room with a View Film Reflection

 As part of my English Literature class we were assigned to watch the movie A Room with a View.  The main idea was to watch the movie in the resemblance of the difference between a traveler and a tourist presented in the book A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. A Room with a View is a film based on E. M. Forster's novel of the same name.  The movie takes place during the early 1900's.  It shows the story of Lucy Honeychurch, a young woman from England, whom visits Florence for the first time.  She meets there a young man named George Emerson; a quiet unconventional guy for whom she begins to feel a growing attraction.  When Lucy returns to England she has to make a choice between continuing with her marriage plans with her fiancé or following her heart and her developing feelings for George. 

  A tourist is someone who visits a place largely driven by the promotion and publicity that a certain place gets throughout the world. I believe that a key aspect that makes a tourist is the fact that they go through a certain place without really taking the time of analyzing the culture, the problems, the costumes and the reality of the people that live there, like Jamaica Kincaid explained in her book A Small Place. Kincaid explain this idea when she said: “Tourist gaze here and there and eat this and that” she describes the tourists as “ugly human beings”. To me Lucy and her cousin Charlotte represents the tourist character.  At the beginning of the movie Lucy Honeychurch clearly states that “she was a tourist in Italy” so that confirms the evaluation we may do to her character. Lucy said: “Italians are so kind, so lovable, but at the same time so violent.” With this quote Lucy demonstrate that she was not aware about the violence and situation in Italy.  The tourists in Italy were ignorant about the culture like in Antigua. Charlotte acts like a tourist when says that: “she wants a view of the river and of the bridge”. That to me reflects the typical tourist way of thinking. She wanted a scenery, like a painting, something magical and like a paradise. But, when confronted with the reality of a street, where Italians pass by, running errands, etc. she didn't like it. And, therefore, starts making assumptions and judging the Italians and says that they don't follow instructions.

On the other hand, a traveler distinguishes himself because he travels for the pleasure of knowledge and understanding. A traveler merges in between the people of the places he travels and becomes one of them. To me a traveler is someone who goes all around different places developing his/her own culture as a mixture of everything that he has gathered along his journey.  In the movie I would consider George and Mr. Emerson are the travelers.  George is the one in the movie who shows a great amount of concern for what happens around him to the people of Italy. He is the one who evaluates different points of view, enriching himself with all the experiences he lives. Another traveler is Miss Eleanor Lavish, a novelist that insists on visiting Italy not as a tourist. There Miss Lavish is fascinated by the architecture. She decides that this trip is an adventure and thinks one should be open when visiting a new place. But, Charlotte is visibly uncomfortable with how dirty and smelly the place is. But, Miss Lavish says that exactly there is where the “true beauty of a city is”. I think that if Jamaica Kincaid had to talk to Charlotte and Lucy, she would criticize them for being ugly tourist, she would almost insult them. 

The trailer of the movie A Room with a View