A Room with a View Film Reflection

The film, A Room with a View, takes place in Florence, Italy. Lucy Honeychurch, Charlotte Barlett, Eleanor Lavish, Mr. Emerson and his son, George Emerson are all tourists in this movie. All six of these characters are staying at a hotel in Florence. At the beginning of the movie Lucy and Charlotte are sitting at the dining table with the other guests from the hotel. They all share thoughts and talk about the hotel, food and experience. Lucy clearly desires a room with a view. She had told Charlotte before they went to eat. At the dinner table they have a small discussion about their rooms. Mr. Emerson over hears the conversation. He then tells Charlotte that they are welcome to exchange rooms. Mr. Emerson and George’s rooms have a view to Florence and Italy. According to Lucy’s desire for a view from her hotel room shows her admiration for the place that she is visiting. The next day both cousins go out to observe the city. Charlotte is joined by Eleanor Lavish who is a writer. She tells Charlotte “Two lone females in an unknown city, now that’s what I call an adventure”. She is opened minded, very free-spirited and willing to explore Italy. Lucy on the other hand wanders alone throughout Florence. She observes many things and is astonished when she was present at a scene of violence between two men at the public square. The young man was entirely knocked out, full of blood and was taken away, Lucy suddenly fainted and George Emerson was luckily present to help her. She then tells him “Italians are so kind, so lovable, but at the same time so violent.” She is not aware about the violence and the many things that happen day in and day out in Italy. Jamaica Kincaid well explains this characteristic of the tourist in one of her essays in her first essay of “A Small Place”. When Kincaid mentions “Tourist gaze here and there and eat this and that” she describes the tourists as “ugly human beings”. They are not aware of the real situation. They only see the beautiful sceneries and taste the amazing food. 
Later on in the film, as Charlotte, Lucy and Eleanor take a ride, Reverend Eager explains how the residents view the tourists. “We residents sometimes pity you poor tourists not a little. Handed about like parcels of goods from Venice to Florence, from Florence to Rome, living herded together in pensions or hotels quite unconscious of anything that is outside Baedeker, their one anxiety to get ‘done’ or ‘through’ and go on somewhere else. The result is they mix up towns, rivers, palaces in one inextricable whirl.” Mr. Eager’s arrogance well portrays the ignorance of the majority of the tourists who visit Italy. He explains how they are unaware of many details and information about Italy and how they are mixed up and confused during their whole stay. Tourists are there to escape reality and leave behind their daily routines. He later on mocks Americans tourists and how they talk to one another.

Eleanor takes a moment to observe the beauty that Italy has to offer, like any tourist would do. “I have a theory that there is something in the Italian landscape which inclines even the most stolid nature to romance”. She acclaims the beauty that the country has to offer. At the end of the movie while the newlywed couple, Lucy and George have dinner at a hotel in France, a couple of ladies have a small discussion about their rooms. “Don’t you agree that on one’s first visit to France one must have a room with a view?” This takes us back to the beginning of the movie where Lucy exclaims this to her cousin Charlotte. It is very evident that tourists during their visits want to see the beauty day after day and what better way than the moment you wake up.

After viewing this film and comparing it to Kincaid’s essay about tourists, it is likely that she would view British women visiting Italy the same way she views the tourist in Antigua. They are ignorant to what occurs truly in Italy, as well as the tourists in Antigua. They do not know many things about the attractions and how to get around, for example when Charlotte and Eleanor got lost during their stay in Italy.

I do believe tourists are portrayed the way Jamaica Kincaid exposes in her essay and the way Lucy, Charlotte and the others are described in the film. Each tourist has a purpose for their visit. Tourists visit different places to explore and see new things. They will be looked at as strange human beings, as outsiders and very naïve. We are residents who live on a small island which is visited by many people each year. We are more than aware of the situation and can well describe how a tourist is seen to us when they visit Puerto Rico. We see it in literature, films and in our everyday life.