Magnolia (1999)

Directed by: Paul Thomas Anderson

Cast: Tom Cruise [Frank T.J. Mackey], Philip Seymour Hoffman [Phil Parma], Julianne Moore [Linda Patridge]

On a random day in San Fernando Valley, a dying father, a young wife, a male caretaker, a famous lost son, a police officer in love, a boy genius, an ex-boy genius, an ex-boy genius, a game show host and an estranged daughter will each become part of a dazzling multiplicity of plots, but of one story.

My rating: 8/10

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Narrative aspects

‘Magnolia’ is a film that has its storyline divided into different sections with the obvious weather forecast headings like ‘Light Showers. 99% Humidity. Winds SE 12 MPH.‘, and also the more frequent use of various characters and their lives which switch between each other. This allows the audience to finds breaks within the story and to shift their focus from one idea to the next, keeping them engaged in the film and attentive towards the plot point and perhaps the implicit details as well. Moreover, divisions between ideas are important for a film that is as long as two average length films, to not overwhelm an audience with an abundance of information for just one character. The length of this film is justified by the in-depth use of so many characters and backstories that seem to not connect but then eventually do. All characters relate to each other in some way, acting as parallels to each other, whether biologically or visited by another at a public place. It shows that even in reality, people’s lives can, in fact, overlap and a person may be going through the same situation or emotions as another. Though at the beginning of ‘Magnolia’ the similarity between the characters is unclear. However, an audience would expect that such a combination of characters coming together in the same town would eventually take place, otherwise the director of the film would not show these characters’ stories.

The film is covered in themes exhibiting key ideas that help an audience to sympathise, despise or understand characters and situations better, though also including Biblical allusions that serve as the interpretation of the famous frog scene in the film.

(covered in detail in the ‘favourite scene’ section)

• Relationships – The film depicts different kinds of human interactions like a husband and wife, a presenter and an audience, a father and a son or a nurse and a patient. These relationships allow the audience to observe various angles of probable life and understand the mood and atmosphere created. It is a theme since it is relationships that drive characters to make choices like committing suicide, meeting someone new or facing their fears, and it is this that allows the characters to grow and the story to progress forward.
• Pain – This involves both emotional and physical pain felt by the characters in the film. Every character has their own source of pain like Frank who is living with the emotional pain of his lost parents and Stanley who is pushed by his father to compete and succeed in a trivia game show. Moreover, physical pain is felt by Earl Patridge and Jimmy Gator in the form of their ever-growing cancer, which brings emotional pain to the loved ones around them. The film explores the different situations and reasons for pain and depicts how a certain individual could act and respond to it.
• Impurity – The film depicts characters that are going through a dose of ‘impurity’ like Claudia Gator and her drug intake, Linda Partridge and her adultery and Frank T.J. Mackey and his continuing game of lies revolving around his past. To add on, the other characters also display impurities in relation to their situation and story. In the end, all characters are seen with the struggle and the heavy-weight their guilt and regretful actions have put on them emotionally that they are seen broken down, with the aim of getting some help and being saved from the nightmare their sadly enduring. This drives the story to progress and also adds the suspense and tension which keeps the film engaging since the audience would not know how and if the characters would come out of the situation with success.
• Repentance & forgiveness – Characters look out for the forgiveness by their relatives and acquaintances for the ‘impurities’ they are guilty for throughout the film and in the past of their lives. Characters aim to restore their dignity and improve as people with an inner self-awakening and this drives them towards being committed in the film and pushing the plot forward.

Infer & Deduce: There are many ideas involved in finding a reason for naming the film ‘Magnolia’. The flower comes to mind at first, signifying the life cycle of an animate object which can be seen throughout the film where characters seem to be content at first but then something in their life tears them apart and brings them to their lowest. Flowers, in general, could symbolise blooming juxtaposed to withering. The meaning of Magnolias depends on the colour of the flower as well as the attitude of the person giving and receiving the flowers. White magnolias, in particular, symbolize purity and dignity which in the case of the film is quite ironic since every character is going through a state of impurity, whether it is the use of drugs, the abuse of parents or infidelity, which brings them to their downfall.

According to IMDb.com, ‘Magnolia’ may signify:

• Magnolia Blvd. is a street in the San Fernando Valley where the film takes place.
• Magnolia sounds similar to “Magonia”, a term created by Charles Fort (who wrote about strange phenomena and is referenced in the film’s closing credits) which is an alleged place in the sky where things are kept until they fall from it.
• There is a legend that the bark of the Magnolia tree can cure cancer.

All of the above points do apply to the film’s characters, plot and settings, further re-instating the fact that there is not only one reason for the film to be called ‘Magnolia’ and rather than just like the characters with varying identities, Magnolia’s meaning is subjective and can be applied to all of them.

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Technical Aspects

Along with the astounding attention to detail in the narrative part of the film, ‘Magnolia’ exhibits an array of camera techniques used to convey certain emotions or plot points throughout the 3-hour time span of it. The ratio of freeze-frames (where the camera is still) to shots where camera movements are involved is significantly low.

• Pan and Tilt movements – These types of movements are used to follow characters in a scene. Panning is used as they walk from the left to the right, or vice-versa, parallel to the camera, moving on a fixed axis point. While titling involves the same concept though is done from top to bottom, or vice-versa, on a fixed axis point. These kinds of camera movements are not as active as dolly movements where the entire camera follows the subject, and allow an audience to observe the scene with more stability. An interesting use of the pan and tilt camera movements is with the Whip-Pan or Swish Pan, where the camera moves very quickly on the pan or tilt axis which causes a blur and can create a seamless continuous transition from one scene to another even if they have been shot at two different times and put together in post-production. In the film, it is used to transition from one character’s story to the other character, and appear to connect both timelines.
• Dolly and Zoon movements – This is a major technique used in various instances in the film to denote a sense of suspense and a rise in tension. The frame goes from a wide shot to a medium or closeup shot very swiftly, creating a fastened pace while emphasising on a certain character or object in a scene. This technique is achieved by using a dolly and physically moving the character towards or further away from the subject, or by using the internal built-in feature, zooming in or out, of the camera. While dolly is used to increase the intimacy between characters and other subjects, zooming in or out gives more of an on-looker sort of feeling, as if the audience is spying on the subject in the frame.
• Framing – The type of shots mostly consist of medium to medium-closeup shots of the subject, especially people, and are at eye level, whether they are standing or sitting. It is rarely done that the angle is higher or lower than that of the normal eye-level of a person. In terms of significance, it allows audiences to view all characters, regardless of what they are going through, how their personality is exhibited and what choices they make, to be assessed and judged as equals to each other. All the people in the film are going through their own subjective experiences and form them as individuals who either grow into greater individuals or succumb to the expectations of reality. What someone goes through, no matter how small or large, does not make them inferior or greater than anyone else. At our core, we are all equal and the perception of the clothes characters where, or where they live alters their status in our eyes.
• Other – Tracking shots that are not necessarily on a dolly (are hand-held, most likely being a Steadicam) are used in one particular scene where Stanley, the young boy visits the TV studio that conducts the trivia show he had been studying for, is being shown around the premises and the camera follows him but then shifts to following the presenter’s wife. The camera does not seem to make a cut and it follows the character like some sort of ever-watching entity, paying attention to all actions made by the character. This effect engages the audience’s attention into following the on-screen characters on their narrative journeys.

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Favourite Scene

Up to this scene appearing on screen, the film captivated me through its multi-layered character portrayal and development and how the seemingly varied people linked up in some ways. Though once the first frog fell from the sky onto the windshield of Officer Jim Kurring’s police car, I was introduced to a wave of confusion, bewilderment and incapability of holding my laughter in. The rain of frogs was hilarious for me and I felt that it was so random for a film that made perfect sense up to this point. It was after the film ended that I researched the scene’s significance and found that it is quite symbolic.

The film uses a Biblical allusion of the plague of frogs to mirror the modern day situation to history:

(1) And the Lord spake unto Moses, Go unto Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord, Let my people go, that they may serve me. (2) And if thou refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite all thy borders with frogs.

Exodus 8:1 & 2

The film refers to the numbers ‘8’ and ‘2’, at times even together, many times in hidden places subliminally. This clearly alludes to Exodus 8:2, a verse that happens to also mention frogs and an abundance of them, just like the film depicts. According to IMDb.com, the places where the numbers appear are as follows:

1. Weather forecast: 82% chance of rain
2. A gambler needs a 2 in blackjack but gets an 8
3. Sydney Barringer’s mother and father’s apartment number is 682
4. Right after Jim Kurring sees Donnie Smith climbing up the building, you can see a flash of a sign on the side of the road that says “Exodus 8:2? (it’s visible again when the frogs fall and hit Kurring’s car)
5. In Marcy’s mugshots, her criminal record number is 82082082082
6. In the bar scene, there is a chalkboard with two teams, the frog and the clouds, the score is 8 to 2
7. A member of the game show crowd holds a placard with Exodus 8:2 written on it
8. Jim says he gets off work at 8:00, and Claudia suggests they meet 2 hours later for a date

These are just a few of the examples where Paul Thomas Anderson uses the cleverness of scriptwriting and set design to really leave clues for the attentive members of the audience to spot and draw the connection to this very confusing frog scene. The verse from Exodus 8:2 refers to the story of Moses and how he was given a mission from God to convince the Pharaoh of Egypt to let the prisoners go so they may worship Him, and if the Pharaoh refuses, God “will plague all [the Pharoah’s] territory with frogs”. In the context of the film, it could refer to the ways in which the characters have drowned themselves in self-doubt and wrong-doings that it is time for them to turn to repent for their mistakes. The “Pharoah” could be a symbolism of the characters’ addictions (drugs), jobs (motivational speaker), relationships (husband and wife) and agendas (winning a competition), and that these people should prioritise and focus on the bigger picture and meaning of life and improve themselves. Though however, the audience sees the characters continue on the same path they started on and become rather worse in their behaviour or emotionally unstable which causes a rain of frogs to “cleanse” out the impurities caused by the ‘naive’ characters.

To add to the peculiarity of this scene, on the 28th of June in 1957 a weather phenomenon took place. Thousands of small fish, frogs and crayfish fell during a rainstorm at Magnolia Terminal near Thomasville, AL. Whether it is a coincidence that the numbers 8 and 2 were part of the date and the location of the incident was named Magnolia Terminal, or an act of a powerful entity on purpose is beyond comprehensible. It is quite interesting to ponder upon, being that this occurrence took place years before the film was produced and released. Paul Thomas Anderson could have taken some inspiration from this event which lines up very well with the Biblical verse.

Source: Climatological Data, Alabama

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What would I do differently?

I immensely enjoyed the film, not expecting it’s extended length to deliver worthy entertainment and a story that was captivating in every scene. The two aspects I would alter would be the length since, for me, I feel that it would put off people from watching the film since it would seem like taking a major life decision since it takes a lot of time out of someone’s life. However, when considering the story and how heavily its audience captivation depends on the various characters having detailed backgrounds and somehow linking to one another, the 3-hour length seems to be appropriate. Regardless of this, the film did not seem boring at any point. To add on, the other aspect I would change would be the explicitness of the film, especially regarding Tom Cruise’s character. Though however, his actions and attitude did contribute to the understanding and interpretation of his personality and reasons behind what he chooses to do.

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Further Research Areas:

Meaning of frogs in the movie “Magnolia”

ABUNDANCE OF SYMBOLS IN `MAGNOLIA’ HAS FILMGOERS LOOKING FOR CLUES – Chicago Tribune

Magnolia and Meaning – Culture Snob

The Magnolia Flower: Its Meanings and Symbolism

Magnolia Film Review – Roger Ebert

The Exorcist (1973)

Directed by: William Friedkin

Cast: Linda Blair [Regan MacNeil], Ellen Burstyn [Chris MacNeil], Jason Miller [Damien Karras]

When Regan starts acting odd her worried mother seeks medical help, only to hit a dead end with the expertise. A local priest, however, thinks the girl may be seized by an evil entity. The priest makes a request to perform an exorcism on the girl and the church sends an expert to help with the task, though it does not go how they would hope for it to be.

Based on: ‘The Exorcist’ by William Peter Blatty

Inspired by: The real exorcism of Roland Doe

My rating: 7.5/10

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Narrative aspects

‘The Exorcist’ explores the real-life exorcism of Rolan Doe, a horrific event that this film contains many detail parallels to. This film contains different storylines and follows the characters from different parts

• Northern Iraq – Father Merrin, a priest and archaeologist, is unearthing ancient objects that are believed to hold some evil powers.
• Georgetown, D.C – Chris MacNeil, actress, is working on a new script she has received for a film. She is seen spending time with her daughter Regan and investigating the sounds coming from the attic.
• Georgetown – Father Karras walks out from Georgetown University where the film is being shot and heads towards visiting his ill mother.

These characters are seen in different settings and completing different tasks that seem to not relate in any way. It makes an audience wonder what their significance is to the film and its plot until Regan MacNeil gets possessed by an evil entity and all the varying storylines start to piece together and connect with one another. This assures the audience that nothing in the film is shown or said for no reason, everything serves a purpose and every character plays a part in the broader story leading towards helping Regan get better. The different strands of storylines help keep the film engaging as it does not overly focus on one or two characters or a particular scene alone. It involves an audience to figure out the mystery element in the film while characters on screen do so as well.

To add on, the film contains the main themes of family and religion prominently which both complement the story and add the rationale and emotion that helps drive the story forward:

• Family – This film explores the concept of family through the relationship between characters, especially Chris and her daughter Regan where she goes to great extents to help her and make sure the young girl goes back to being her normal self after the possession. It is the innate maternal affection and protection that is seen in Chris and would probably resonate with mothers in the audience that would do anything to keep their children safe. The interaction between characters also gives a sense of familial ties even though they may not be biologically related, like with Chris and Father Karras who ends up helping her with the demonic exorcism of her daughter. These kinds of relationships help enhance the emotions created by the story and allow the audience to feel sympathy, happiness or despair for these fictional characters
• Religion – A major theme in this film is the relation of the plot towards religion, which is a factor that triumphed over all the other methods of making Regan better. Throughout the film there are multiple schools of thought or explanations to help Regan out that her mother exhausts, starting from science and biology by visiting a medical doctor, then psychology by visiting a psychiatrist for therapy then finally settling on faith, religion and the act of exorcism carried out by priests from the Catholic church. In the end, the spiritual belief system ended up doing the most good and in conclusion supports religion as an ideology that should be considered in situations, which nowadays is mostly seen as a coping mechanism or myth in a time where science rules the way in which we lead out lives for explanations.

Infer & Deduce: According to www.cambridge.com, an ‘Exorcist’ is “someone who forces an evil spirit to leave a person or place by using prayers or magic”. Clearly, this would refer to the priests who, in the end, make the most difference to young Regan’s possessive state. For the film’s title, it could refer to both the act and the person as a final resort that turns out to work the best than any other researched areas of expertise. To add on, the film’s title directly refers to the novel it is based on so the choice of name could be to make the relation between film and book easier.

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Technical Aspects

‘The Exorcist’ is probably the most famous horror film in history, and will likely remain to be in the future. Other than the story and the trials faced by characters, for the film’s time of creation in the 1970s the techniques used to make it are quite phenomenal. It contains a variety of elaborate set designs with a large group of extras, like the setting of Northern Iraq in the beginning scene, and the movie shoot sequence with Chris Macneil. This allows the scenes to look more realistic as well as it provides further context for the characters’ personality and actions, and the plot. Further on in the appearance category, this film without doubt heavily depends on special effects like editing and makeup to convey certain emotions or plot points in the story. Special effects like the appearance of the demon’s face in the shadows when Regan’s mother opens the door to her room are used to subliminally imply fear and dread, while the obvious use of special effects makeup is used on Regan while she is possessed for her flaky and bumpy skin, cuts on her cheeks and the contact lenses to change her eyes to a bright yellow colour.

In terms of the more visually technical aspects in the film, interesting camera movements and angles are used for certain shots to capture a certain mood. While camera pans and tilts track the characters’ movements across the scene to keep the audience on their feet and let them view the entire set as a whole affecting the plot, low and high angled shots allow the perspective of different characters to be seen by the audience. Another interesting technique this film uses is zooming in and out. While this keeps a shot ever-moving and avoids the scene from distracting the audience from the lack of movement, it also narrows down the attention and field of vision as the camera focuses on a particular person or object in the shot. To add on, it gives the scenes a feeling as if the audience is secretly eavesdropping and watching the characters converse, completing the mystery and eeriness of the film. On the other hand, the technique of lighting also aids the story’s perception by the audience. The film plays with illumination and shadows, especially in scenes that take place at night as it enhances the element of mystery and the unknown that triggers the feeling of fear and anxiety in the audience that is much needed in a film of the horror genre. A lot of realistic lighting sources are used in scenes light lamps or candles that the audience can see in the film. This compliments the realism of the film, which makes the story and the emotions depicted by characters more convincing.

Another interesting point of play by the director is the use of sound in the film, which is a significant tool for the horror genre to portray added control over the emotions of the audience. The score in the film is very limited, mainly appearing for the title sequence and at some heightened moments of tension. Though, however, the lack of music complimenting the film is even more intriguing. There is a sense of naturalism and a realistic vibe that immerses an audience into the film and gives it a sense of non-fiction since in real life, there is no such thing as a background score. Furthermore, characters are seen playing music too, like in the scene where Chris MacNeil holds a party at her house with the member of the movie she is acting in. A man plays the piano and everyone standing around him sings along, associating music with an activity of leisure and entertainment. It compensates for the lack of soundtrack in the film and adds the music element in a more realistic way, through characters providing it. Other than music, the sounds of cars driving, people chattering and the wind blowing all are part of the soundscape in the film and create a naturalistic ambience and a greater depth to the scenes.

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Favourite Scene

As Damien enters the possessed girl’s bedroom after calming his nerves, he finds Father Merrin on his knees with his head on the bed, dead. Bursting with anger, Damien charges for the Regan and attacks her, finally asking the demon to “take him” instead of her. He gets possessed and then sacrifices his life for the girl by jumping out of the window and presumably ending the demon.

This scene acts as the finale and climax of the film, giving the audience a sense of closure that the plot has come to an end and has been resolved. The ambiguous ending can be interpreted from various angles since a clear indication is not given to the audience, other than Damien sacrificing himself then jumping out of the window and dying. It allows an audience to remain entertained and involved in the film much after the film is over and the credits start rolling. My take on the end is that:

• Damien had been reminded of his dead mother by the demon as it had imitated her and caused him to step out of the room, letting Father Mirren continue on his own
• Damien allows the demon to possess him mainly because that it would help save the young girl but moreover, he would feel guilty for causing Father Mirren to die as he wasn’t in the room, as well as, feeling emotional about the loss of his mother.
• Damien jumped out of the window to perhaps have a chance at killing the demon (even though demons can’t be killed and can transfer themselves into another vessel) and also since being a priest, having been possessed by a demon is as low as reputation can get. To add on, since the expertise of Father Mirren in exorcism did not work on the girl who is to say that there would be any luck with Damien, which ultimately probably led to him committing suicide.

Moreover, special effects on characters like makeup add another layer of realism and convince an audience that whatever is happening in this fictional film (in this case based on a true story) is an actuality for the characters but also could be an actuality for the audience themselves. Makeup also helps an audience clearly understand the horror of the demonic possession by the way the girl looks and how different it is to normal human beings, as well as the bruises and cuts on a character’s face,  display the pain they would be going through. To add on, the effects created with camera angles and movement also enhance the atmosphere created for the audience to be impacted from. Low and high angle shots give a particular perspective and sometimes portray what the viewing field of the characters are while tracking the movement of a character in the room in this scene impacts the pace and tension as Damien starts to panic and fight with the possessed girl Regan.

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What would I do differently?

The film has aged surprisingly well for one from the horror genre, though of course, visual effects have grown to be better with time due to the progression of technology. I would personally work on furthering the realistic outlook of the demonic-possession and not depend on make-up alone for the look and perhaps use the motion-capture technology or some degree of CGI for it. This would allow a modern day audience to enjoy the film much better since it would be up to the visual standards of the current film industry and production. Moreover, I found the opening scene quite interesting since it explained a hint of backstory history for the artefact that could have caused the demon possession to take place, however, this plot point isn’t explained explicitly in the film. Some symbols do appear in the scene that are shown once again later on, as the demon statue, though the direct link between everything is not given to the audience clearly.

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Further Research Areas:

Is The Exorcist based on a true story? Real-life tale of Roland Doe’s possession that’s more terrifying than the film and TV show

20 Fascinating Facts About The Exorcist

The untold truth of The Exorcist

Venice: William Friedkin on Shooting a Real Exorcism: ‘It Was Terrifying!’

Book vs Movie: The Exorcist

Sound in Filmmaking (PDF)

Filmmaking: Use Sound to Tell Your Story

Film Language Sound (PDF)

THE EXORCIST – Film Review (Roger Ebert)

Google Scholar – Psychology of Religion

The Ultimate Conflict Between Science and Religion

The Night Of The Hunter (1955)

Directed by: Charles Laughton

Cast: Robert Mitchum [Harry Powell], Billy Chapin [John Harper], Lillian Gish [Rachel Cooper]

Serving time in prison for car theft Rev. Harry Powell (Robert Mitchum), who is a religious fanatic and serial killer, meets murderer Ben Harper (Peter Graves) who confesses that he hid $10,000 that he had stolen. After being released from jail, Powell is obsessed with taking the money for himself and tracks down Harper’s widow Willa (Shelley Winters) and her two children John (Billy Chapin) and Pearl (Sally Jane Bruce).

Based on: ‘The Night of the Hunter’ written by David Grubb

My rating: 8/10

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Narrative aspects

‘The Night of the Hunter’, a film based on a book about how greed can lead to a human being losing his or her conscience and way in life, is still relatable in today’s world. The narrative progresses from one point tot he other gradually, allowing viewers to absorb and understand what is taking place within the plot without overwhelming them. Every scene contains a level of suspense and a hint of dread as the audience fell in favour of the children, the protagonists of the film, and want them to succeed. In many of the film’s moments, tension rises and falls, being replaced with another instance where John and Pearl are faced with a fate-changing situation. Though this film is a crime and thriller, in its essence it is a mystery of where the money is hidden, which spirals into the survival of the children. From the moment Ben Harper, John and Peral’s biological father, reaches home with the money in his hands, the money’s real hiding place is kept hidden and is not shown or mentioned. This involves the audience and heightens the effect that the mystery genre creates.

This film has a variety of underlying themes that provide a better understanding of the plot, characters and their emotions:

• Religion – The belief system of human beings plays an im[portant role in this film, where all characters either use religion as a basis for their own advantage or show strong faith and practice. Henry Powell, the protagonist in the film, is a serial killer posing as a preacher to sway the people around him into a trance that whatever he says and does should be accepted and followed blindly without questioning. He is a tool in the brainwashing practice he follows with anyone he meets, like when marrying the widow and mother of John and Pearl, Willa Harper. He uses religious biblical verses out of context and bends their meanings to fit his own personal interests and get away with the deceiving-kind attitude he presents to the outside world. It makes an audience question what is right and wrong since someone posing as a preacher could commit heinous crimes in a film does not mean it cannot happen in reality. To juxtapose his character, Ms Rachel Cooper, an old woman who has devoted her like to taking care of young children that don’t have a home, is one of strong belief and uses it in the correct ways while sharing biblical triumphs and stories with the children to allow them to understand the situations they encounter in their everyday lives. The film starts with Ms Cooper telling a story to the children she cares for which references some verses from the Bible which actually does foreshadow the story that would proceed in the film:

Now, you remember children how I told you last Sunday about the good Lord going up into the mountain and talking to the people… And then the good Lord went on to say, ‘Beware of false prophets which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly, they are ravening wolves. Ye shall know them by their fruits. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Wherefore by their fruits, ye shall know them.’

• Authority – The film has constant references towards authority and how character’s sacrifice their individuality and free-will in the hands of much superior force, whether human or other. This relationship is seen in Henry Powell and his -not-so-genuine belief in God and religion and using that level of authority to get away with his disgraceful choices. Moreover, Ben Harper is an authority figure to his son John Harper, who is given the task to guard the secret of where the money his father stole is hidden with his life. This commitment completely changes the way young John lives his life and the way he acts, becoming a more mature child and acting as the caretaker of his sister when his parents cannot. Similarly, Henry Powell is an authority figure in the eyes of Willa Harper, John and Peal’s mother, while also Ms Cooper is someone the children look up to and obey. The film’s theme of authority battles between giving authority to the correct person for the correct purpose against depending on authority to help you escape impossible situations for which one is guilty.
• Good (Innocence) vs. Evil (Greed and Deception) – Without a doubt, the concept of ‘Good vs. Evil’ is linked to every scene, plot point, character and theme as well. While Henry Powell acts as a manifestation of Evil in the film, the people around him are, in a surface-level sense, the counter Good. Powell is fueled by his greed and materialistic behaviour while also using the art of deception to sneak past unsuspecting town-folk and achieve his goals. The saying ‘Looks can be deceiving’ is one that is the main message of the film where, while Powell seems good because he’s a ‘preacher’ and spreads the ‘word of God’ but is completely far from it, John comes out as being a strong-willed individual with the loyalty towards his father in his possession and the determination to bring injustice to his step-father. On the other side, when looking at greed and deception, the persistence in manipulating a child, like Powell does with Pearl and asks her to play the ‘secrets game’, exhibits the level of inhumanity a person can possess to confirm that they succeed in their business. It is a sad and devastating reality of the world and how many people use this tool for their own selfish desires. In this way, this film is very relatable in any time period since the characteristic of being selfish or greedy is close to being innate in people.

To add on, the film sports a few parallel moments, ones that are visually similar and others that reference other characters in literature. Firstly, the film’s starting involves a scene where John watches his biological father, Ben Harper, being taken down and arrested by the police to be sentenced to hanging. This causes the boy to feel extremely distressed and angry, shouting out to the policemen to stop hurting his father. While the audience is met with the young boy’s courage and determination to keep his father’s secret safe, the film exposes John to another moment towards the end that mirrors the way in which his father was taken away, but this time having Henry Powell to be the subject being arrested. John is taken aback by the similarity to something that happened very recently in his life and is immediately distressed as he lives through this ‘deja vu’ moment once again. To move forward, other parallels in the film include the story of Blue Beard and the concept of Old Mother Goose, which are both allusions to literature. Blue Beard shares a similar story to ‘The Night of the Hunter’ while Old Mother Goose is seen to be similar to the way Ms Cooper acts and cares for the children in her care.

Infer & Deduce: The choice for the film’s title could be because it is based on the book by the same name. This way, people can relate their understanding to the book and may even want to seek out the book after enjoying the film, and reading it for further entertainment. Though, digging deeper into the overall meaning and significance, ‘The Night of the Hunter’ could be a literal order of words put together. Many of the scenes and especially important plot-progressors, do take place at night, the film plays around very intelligently with shadows and the main Antagonist, Henry Powell, is depicted quite like a hunter who is after the money hidden by the children, whom he refers to as ‘lambs’.

An interesting thing to note about the film is the biblical references Henry Powell communicates with the letter markings on his hands, the left hand spelling out ‘HATE’ and the right-hand spelling ‘LOVE’. What is an implicit and subliminal reference to the plot and the character in the film turns out to actually be something very intelligent, with on the film’s poster the left hand’s knuckles being on display pointing straight to the camera. Before even watching the film, a viewer would notice and understand that the character in the picture, Powell, is associated with negativity.

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Technical Aspects

The film uses a variety of technical aspects to get its implicit meaning across to the audience. While shot types and angles, like bird’s eye view and close-ups to establish the setting and convey deep emotions felt by the characters, respectively, are used with their significance to capture a moment in the film with ambiguity but still providing a lot of information, music in ‘The Night of the Hunter’ plays a key role in the suspense and thriller atmosphere heightened throughout. The loud booming soundtrack adds a sense of danger to the backdrop of the film while the lyrical songs scattered across which are sung by different characters give the film an eerie feel, for example, the song that Powell sings ‘Leaning on the Everlasting Arms’ (‘a hymn published in 1887 with music by Anthony J. Showalter and lyrics by Showalter and Elisha Hoffman.’ – Wikipedia) may have an innocent and soothing nature and meaning though it becomes associated with Powell committing his acts of crime.

Along with the above, the major aspect of the film, for which it is famous for, is the use of lighting to complement the nature of the scenes. Lighting in the film is used to maintain a degree of secrecy, ambiguity and mystery, in a film that is all about its suspense. The play with shadows in the film impact the way in which characters and scenes are perceived by the audience. The expressionistic usage of light, rather than realistic, is what makes Henry Powell a cunning criminal with psychopathic tendencies, and on the other hand, the light technique makes the audience feel pity for the children while being shadowed in the large and devasting world they live in. These messages are constantly switched from one to another and it adds to the ever-changing attitude of the audience towards the way certain characters act. To add on, the lighting setup is done decently well, with accuracy and consideration given to the time of day and the source of light (like the position of the sun and moon, or lamps and candles inside or outside the setting). It seems as though a lot of the day scenes have been shot with natural lighting and a limited use of added external lights to enhance the scene. This allows the characters to seem more realistic rather than over-exposed. Though on the other hand, many of the scenes take place in the night and this compliments the shadowy, eerie feeling portrayed throughout the film. An interesting concept in relation to lighting is that in a couple of scenes the lighting technique creates the shape of a triangle around characters. Being a film with a major influence of faith and belief, the triangular shape of light could symbolise the Holy Trinity.

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Favourite Scene

When Henry Powell is out to catch John and Pearl once and for all, they escape his villainous capture by rowing a book down a river bank and letting the current guide them to wherever they can find shelter. This scene is one of the more calmer and non-distressing parts of the movie that actually makes one quite sad for the poor children who never asked for such a complicated life. The first significant thing about the clip is the song that young Pearl sings to herself and her doll:

Once upon a time there was a pretty fly
He had a pretty wife, this pretty fly
But one day she flew away, flew away
She had two pretty children
But one night these two pretty children flew away… flew away
Into the sky
Into the moon

The lullaby bears a lot of similarities to the situation John and Pearl are in the middle of, involving their own parents and the fact that they have been taken away or have ‘flown away’ from them. The effect of this song in this scene makes the audience feel more emotional and sympathetic towards the children, growing their desire to see them have a happy ending and find a family once again. The symbolism in this song is strong, with comparing the children and their parents to bugs and ‘normal folk’ whose lives are pretty insignificant to the dominating predators, like human beings and in this case, Henry Powell, who could just swat these ‘flies’ away in order to successfully receive his desires.

Another interesting concept portrayed in this scene is how the children, in their wooden boat, pass by a couple of animals who are seen living in their homes, like a spider on its web and a frog by the water. This could perhaps symbolise that through the children progressing forward down the river, they have no home or place of belonging, compared to these animals who seem to have a satisfactory system of survival. John and Pearl are drifting forward with no idea about what the future could have for them and yet desperately needing to escape the comfort of their home since the threat of Henry Powell rules over them.

Another brilliant aspect used in the film, regarding mise-en-scene, is the use of lighting to portray a certain tone and mood in scenes. Though the lighting angle constantly changes, where at one point the character’s face is illuminated and the next it is not, the use of ‘natural’ moonlight appearing to shimmer and glisten as a reflection on the river adds a fairytale-like feel and atmosphere as John and Pearl drift ahead in the clam and dark night. The moonlight alone is enough to illuminate the scene and yet keep some aspects hidden in the shadows to continue the ambiguity the film has created for the audience. The scene is very simplistic and it is this point that deepens the meaning and the emotions projected onto the audience. The fact that children of such a young age as John and Pearl have to suffer such tragic and horrific times makes the audience feel more sympathetic towards them. One loophole in the lighting choice and direction is that during a wide shot of the boat on the water, the stars shine down on the characters but the moon, that is clearly seen reflected in the water, does not appear in the sky. This is a lacking on the design part since the backdrop omitted such a large part of the setting that would make the lighting logical and natural.

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What would I do differently?

I thoroughly enjoyed this film’s plot and method of production. For the time, it looks incredible and it is brilliant that the story is still applicable in today’s time. If I were to create this film, I would aim to have a better continuity with the lighting. In many scenes the direction of light changes with the type of shot like, for instance, the scene where Ms Cooper is sitting near a window with her gun while singing a song. When the shot transitions from a medium shot to a close-up, the lighting changes. Though it is done to create an effect to imply certain hidden messages of the character’s emotions, it is pretty illogical since light definitely does not work like that in life. Moreover, I would use a better grade of special effects along with making the film in full colour. This would enable a modern audience to connect with the film better as it would be of the standard that films are of nowadays.

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Further Research Areas:

How To Keep Your Audience In Suspense Using Music

How to Create Suspense Using Music

How Low-Key Lighting Can Instantly Make Your Film Dramatic

Light in Filmmaking – PDF

Reverend Harry Powell – Wikipedia

Night of the Hunter: a masterpiece of American cinema

Robert Mitchum as Reverend Harry Powell: 10 Quotes About Iconic Role

Blue Beard – Character Profile

The Story of Blue Beard

Mother Goose – Wikipedia

Harry Powers: Bluebeard of Quiet Dell

True crime: America’s most notorious lady killer

Vertigo (1958)

Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock

Cast: Kim Novak [Judy Barton, Madeleine Elster], James Stewart [John Ferguson], Barbara Bel Geddes [Midge Wood]

John Ferguson (James Stewart) retires from being a police officer after experiencing an intense fear of heights and suffering from vertigo. He is hired to protect his old friend’s wife from committing suicide though along the way unravels a mystery that leaves Ferguson speechless.

Based on: “D’entre les morts (From Among the Dead)”, written by Boileau-Narcejac

My rating: 8.5/10

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Narrative aspects

‘Vertigo’, like any other Alfred Hitchcock film, has a brilliant, multi-layered storyline filled with characters settings with intricate details that give clues about the narrative to the audience. The film begins right within the action of a police chase, with establishing shots of the city night-life on top of building roofs. This choice of the scene immediately captures the audience’s attention while also setting up the main plot point of the film is the fear of heights and sensation of vertigo felt by John Ferguson (James Stewart). Following the first scene, Ferguson and Midge Wood, his friend for years, are sitting in an apartment conversing. The topic of the discussion serves as an explanation of what followed the horrific, near-death experience for Ferguson, his medical state as well as providing more details about the major characters in the film by introducing the audience to Wood’s home and relationship with Ferguson.

This film has a mise-en-scene filled with implicit details that allow the audience to reduce further characteristics of the story. While the acting style of the actors applied well to the character’s personality and portrayed the key traits that aid in the understanding of the film, Hitchcock focused on using colours to establish a certain mood or atmosphere in a particular scene:

• Red and Brown – These colours are mostly used as the backdrop and colour for settings and props, like Mr Elster’s office and the restaurant Ernie’s. The former has a lot of leather work which displays a sense of high status and professionalism, being that Mr Elster is an esteemed individual in a secondary sector business. Like his office, the restaurant has walls covered in dark red wallpaper and paint. Dark colours make a room look smaller but specifically, the colour red symbolises energy, excitement, strength, power, love, passion among others. For Mr Elster’s office, ‘strength’ and ‘power’ would apply well since he is a man of great superiority, while the restaurant having many couples of formal dressing could emit the feelings of ‘love’ and ‘passion’ with the colour red. Brown is a complementary colour as it is primarily for anything wooden, or as said before leather, which also displays a sense of class.
• Grey – This is the colour of the formal suit worn by Madeleine Elster, along with other plain colours like black and white. These colours, in John Ferguson’s eyes, compliment the natural look she carries, with virtually no make-up on her face, and giving Ferguson a clean palette that catches his attention. Since grey is a colour that is a result of black and white, looking at the symbolism of those colours should apply to it as well. Black is seen as the colour of elegance, wealth, mystery, sadness and depth, while white is seen as purity, humility, love, protection and reverence. Many of these characteristics apply to Mrs Elster as she is a combination of a mysterious woman from a wealthy background, who has a multi-layered personality.
• Blue – This colour is worn by John Ferguson quite significantly after the death of Madeleine at the roof of the church. For the court case, he wears a bright blue suit and again at Ernie’s he is seen in the same suit. The kind of clothing worn for a court case is a very important factor that the jury take notice of subliminally. Blue is often seen as contentment, tranquillity, stability, confidence, security and depression. Though the last description would apply accurately to the state of Ferguson, the colour of choice is a striking shade of blue which stands out from the plain decor of the courtroom. The conventional descriptors of the colour blue all seem to oppose the feelings that Ferguson would be going through after the woman he had affections for died. In this situation, it seems as if the colour is used ironically, to showcase the wishful state he would want everyone to see him in but is far from it in reality. After Ferguson is happy with the ‘new’ Madeleine, Judy Barton, he returns to wearing the colours he was seen before, black and brown.
• Green – While Madeleine Elster is seen interacting with a lot of green coloured items, like her car, many of her clothes and the hue from the Hotel Empire, she is also seen with different, and rather, pastel colours. On the other hand, Judy Barton is a character that wears prominent makeup with brighter colours. They are complete character foils of each other. Green symbolises self-awareness, perseverance, youth, soothing, jealousy and more. What is interesting is that none of these descriptors really apply to the either Judy or Madeleine, since both characters are quite conflicted. Again, the significance of the colour could be ironic, traits that both Judy and Madeleine are seeking to possess. Even though Judy wears much more makeup and different styles of clothing, John Ferguson, upon seeing her, is convinced that she is linked to Madeleine in some way., which heightens the suspense and mystery of the film.
• Purple – Judy Barton is seen wearing a light purple dress when on a dinner outing with John Ferguson for the first time. Of course, to Ferguson, she is a complete stranger but Judy chooses the colour and dress either to be depicted with the same colourful choice that she is known for or to project a certain mood onto him. Purple signifies mystery, enlightenment, mourning, intimacy, transformation among other traits. ‘Transformation’ is a trait that applies well to the situation, other than ‘intimacy’, which Judy feels for John. ‘Transformation’ would refer to the changes made to ‘Madeleine’ and how, now, the reality of Judy is what she wants Ferguson to see and love.
• Colour Combination – The way Hitchcock presented the nightmares, hallucinations, that Ferguson sees takes a major use of colours to depict a certain mood felt by the character, in a rather subliminal way. The colours blue, purple and red, along with green, are all used at alternating instances. While each colour could signify a certain message, a display of a mixture of them could suggest the confused and mercurial nature of Ferguson’s emotions relating to his job to follow Mrs Elster, along with his inner latent feelings about his acrophobia and vertigo. There is a lot of surrealist imagery in the sequence, adding to the peculiar nature of dreams as a whole.

‘Vertigo’ focuses a lot on character portrayal, to aid the story’s progression as well as sways the sympathies of the audience a certain way. John Ferguson, on the job to follow and keep an eye on Mr Elster’s wife, he keeps his distance but ends up starting to like her. When he is following Madeleine in his car, while she drives ahead, there are no spoken dialogues for the entire sequence and only background music to compliment the suspense of the situation. The lack of verbal interaction and the soundtrack give the scene the feeling of ‘spying’ and that the audience is involved with it as well. Another interesting aspect about Ferguson’s character is the inner conflict he endures relating to the deaths he indirectly caused to take place. Firstly, his fellow police officer fell off the roof of a building while trying to save Ferguson, which triggered his awareness of having acrophobia and vertigo. Secondly, because of his phobia, he was not successful in saving Madeleine from jumping off the roof of the church. These two occurrences are enough to lead him into acting aggressive and dominating over Judy and create an image of her that pleases him mentally and gives him the satisfaction of another chance at love. Though, sadly, Judy also falls to her death now because of Ferguson’s controlling attitude. All this guilt piling up within him would cause him a rather permanent psychological trauma.

To add on, another interesting moment in the film is when Judy, after being insisted on accepting a dinner invitation with John Ferguson, looks to the camera and triggers a flashback of the church stunt encounter to ensue. She does not drift off while looking to the floor or at her own reflection in the mirror, but looks straight to the camera, at perhaps the audience as if telling them something she could never let anyone else know and that anyone could understand greatly. As an audience watching the film, only we can truly understand the emotions and difficulty that the characters go through in situations. It is as if Judy is asking the audience for some needed guidance since they are the only people who she can escape to for help. From a film-viewing standpoint, it creates a moment of truth for the audience since this plot twist is completely unexpected while also giving the feeling of desperate aid directly from the character Judy.

The ending of the film is probably the most captivating part of it. After ‘Madeleine’ dies, the film takes a spiral since John Ferguson becomes an unstable character and then the appearance of a ‘ghost’ named Judy enters into his life. The audience starts to question the plot and where it is headed and after Carlotta’s necklace is seen around Judy’s neck, and Ferguson draws parallels to what he saw earlier in the painting, everything becomes clear. There are two ‘twists’ in this film that bring about some uneasiness. The first is when Judy has a flashback to the event of Mrs Elster’s death, but from her point of view (i.e. the camera follows her) and it is revealed that she was a doppelganger of the real Mrs Elster the entire time. This re-viewing of the situation puts things into perspective for the audience as well as a close-to-intimate moment is shared between the character on screen, as she ‘breaks the fourth wall’ and looks directly into the camera. The reality of the film is kept between the character and the audience, which is quite an impactful effect within a scene so tense and emotional since Judy is battling between moving on or staying with Ferguson and continue to remain in his delusion. The second ‘twist’ moment is not entirely a plot twist but serves as an encounter of equilibrium, as it could be described. History repeats itself when Judy is startled by the sudden presence of a nun in the shadows and lose her balance, causing her to fall out the open window exactly the same way Madeleine had died. Whether it is a choice to act as the symbolism of Ferguson getting over his fears and his pastor to intensify the confusion of a film it is, it seems to act out as an appropriate end for it. It rounds off the film, leaving John in the state he was in after initially believing that Madeleine had died.

Infer & Deduce: The film’s title, ‘Vertigo’, clearly indicates towards the main character’s fear of heights and the feeling of dizziness he feels when at a high place, though one may argue that it could be referring to the problems that his fear has caused him which was, firstly, the death of his fellow police colleague then, secondly, the death of Judy at the top of the church. Both people of significance to him in some way died because of heights. Moreover, the film leaves Ferguson in a vertigo-type of state because of the sense of déjà vu, where he watches the same woman die again, but for real the second time. It also leaves an audience watching in a trance because of the topsy-turvy mood the entire film conveys, even before the idea of a plot twist. In conclusion, ‘Vertigo’ could point to the direct plot itself, the flaw in character or what the audience could feel at a particular level for the film.

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Technical Aspects

This film begins with an eye and mind-bending credit sequence made up of graphical designs and extreme close-up shots of what one would assume are the main character of the film. This sense of immediate proximity to the subject in the shot sparks up the initial discomfort within an audience, which later develops at multiple points in the film. The film uses an array of shots and camera techniques which are quite fitting for the scenes, like establishing and wide angled shots to set the scene and show the audience when and where the film takes place, as in the shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. Conversations are portrayed through long takes at times where the camera pans to follow characters around a room, or with medium shots to show the surrounding background and props rather than the usual over-the-shoulder shots. Some medium close up shots, especially when the subject in the frame is a person, have a still or rack focus to direct the audience’s attention to particular parts in the frame. An example of this is when Ferguson goes over to Midge’s house after she left him a note asking about his whereabouts. At times in the scene, the camera is focused on Midge alone, walking around her apartment, showing her facial expressions. Moreover, another brilliant camera technique is used when Ferguson ends up in the art gallery while following Mrs Elster, who is sitting on a bench looking at a painting of Carlotta, her great-grandmother. The camera follows Ferguson’s gaze, allowing the audience to understanding what he has noticed and drawn conclusions from, zooming in on aspects from Mrs Elster then zooming into parts of the painting to show the similarities, like the same bouquet of flowers and the way her hair is done in the scene. Though one technique that triumphs all the others is the dolly-zoom, which is known as the vertigo shot, where the camera moves forwards or backwards and is zoomed in or out in the opposite direction of the movement simultaneously. This shot is used in various films now and to convey different kinds of feelings, whether to enhance the suspense, add a comedic effect of alarm or to fulfil the purpose it was created for: emphasise the height of something.

The film does not waste its potential on using music to complement the occurrences in scenes or at what stage the plot is at. The film’s soundtrack, composed by Bernard Hermann, is fitting for a thriller mystery since chords and music notes are not necessarily in the conventional progression order that a listener would expect them to be. Due to this, it gives the overall film a background of uneasiness and suspense. Music can have a strong impact on the emotions and mood of an audience, and this creates a much more impactful effect of the film on them.

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Favourite Scene

John Ferguson, after noticing the necklace around Judy’s neck bearing resemblance to Carlotta’s necklace, drives his dinner date to the Church where Madeleine fell to her death to complete one final task to let go of his past. Since Judy is the same Madeleine, she immediately senses some sort of suspicion and feels nervous. This scene is quite powerful in terms of the way John Ferguson as a character has developed. He seems to be more bold and confident in this sequence compared to the rest of the film and isn’t hesitant to face his fears at the thought of finding out what really happened to Madeleine.

This scene stands out from the rest because of the interesting parallels and irony portrayed through the dialogues of Ferguson and the way he acts towards Judy. Taking a short sequence where he forces Judy to climb up the stairs to the top of the Church, John Ferguson says the following (04:50 minutes in the clip above):

You were the copy. You were the counterfeit, weren’t you? … You wanted to stop it, why did you scream? You tricked me so well up till then. You played the wife very well Judy! He made you over didn’t he? He made you over just like I made you over, only better. Not only the clothes or the hair, but the looks and the manner and the words… and those beautiful phony trances and you jumped into the bay, didn’t you? I bet you’re a wonderful swimmer, aren’t you? And then what did he do? Did he train you? Did he rehearse you? Did he tell you exactly what to do, what to say? You were a very apt pupil, weren’t you?

These words are ironic because while Ferguson feels betrayed and deceived, he did the exact same thing to Judy when he met her so that she could look just like Madeleine and he could come to terms with his horrid past. The way in which these words are said, in disgust and rage, is actually pretty hypocritical since Ferguson showed no compromise and hesitation to fulfil his own desires, just like Mr Elster did with the desire to kill his wife. Where Mr Elster took advantage of Ferguson’s fear of heights, Ferguson took advantage of Judy and her submissive character as she would do anything for his love, and turned it towards trying to get back what he lost. In addition to this, the words ‘train’, ‘rehearse’ and ‘played’, along with the phrase ‘tell you exactly what to do’ all apply to what a production director does to their actors, changing their appearance to fit the character envisioned in their mind and the script and tell them to do exactly what is written for them in the part. Hitchcock was known to have a specific vision and choice for actors, choosing blonde and white women for the female roles. It is interesting to infer that the scene, and the script, are aware of this nature in film production, enhancing the element of irony. While Elster was cruel to murder his own wife, take a non-suspecting man like Ferguson and use him as a tool in the crime to clear Elster’s name, Ferguson is really no different than the criminal himself in this matter as in a broad sense, he did all that to Judy, without murder being involved.

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What would I do differently?

‘Vertigo’ is a masterpiece with a great story that I couldn’t change to anything better. Though some people may feel that its length is quite long, I feel as if it is apt since it allows the audience to get acquainted with the characters on screen enough to feel the empathy for and impact of the plot twists. Though aspects I would enhance in the film are the special effects and the set design in terms of the quality of projected displays used for the background of room and car windows, as well as shots from the top of buildings. In a modern day, with the latest technology, it would look far more realistic and improve the film from a minor technical standpoint.

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Further Research Areas:

Acrophobia (The Fear of Heights)

Acrophobia: the Fear of Heights – VeryWellMind

Everything you need to know about vertigo (condition)

Vertigo: Ending Explained

BOOK VS FILM – Vertigo and D’entre les Morts

Vertigo – Spark Notes

Color Wheel Pro – See Color Theory in Action

Color Meaning and Psychology of Red, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange, Pink and Violet colors.

Colour Meanings and Symbolism

12 Colors and Their Meanings

The Definitive Guide to Guilt

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

Directed by: Stanley Kubrick

Cast: Keir Dullea [David Bowman], Gary Lockwood [Frank Poole], Douglas Rain [HAL 9000]

HAL 9000, Dr Dave Bowman’s ship’s computer system, begins displaying increasingly strange behaviour when sent with other astronauts on a mysterious mission. This leads up to a tense clash between man and machine that results in a mind-bending trek through space and time.

Based on: “2001: A Space Odyssey”, written by Arthur C. Clarke

My rating: 8.5/10

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Narrative aspects

Stanley Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ tells the story through four divided sections of different time frames, all with a significant purpose of deepening the meaning of the plot’s purpose:

1. The Dawn of Man – with primates living and thriving early in time
2. Unnamed section 2 – revolving around Dr Frank Poole investigating the moon excavation
3. Jupiter Mission (18 months later) – Dave Bowman and his team on the mission to Jupiter
4. Jupiter (and beyond the infinite) – The foreign entity takes Bowman into custody

These four divisions act as a passage of time, marked by a sleek black three-dimensional object called a Monolith, that sort of advances the characters on-screen as well as the story to the next stage of advancement, according to alien beings. The significance of starting with the apes interacting and learning could signify some sort of foreshadowing at first, to a maybe darker future humankind are headed for after the apes learn to use bones as weapons. Though however it only foreshadows to the fact that humans first used bones as a tool but now, literally jump-cutting to a million years into the future, they use technology and systems that could never be conjured up before in the mind. Besides the film being faintly about physical evolution, it is about the mental evolution where we have become beings of high intelligence of knowledge and emotion.

Kubrick touches upon topics that are apt for reality as well as current time, even though the film is fifty years old. Other than evolution, the concept of AI (artificial intelligence) is till date one that has been on the minds of many. This film captures the capabilities of such a technological advancement brilliantly, with having virtually no errors and sort of being an omniscient creation. It is interesting to note that in the film HAL 9000, which is the computer installed into the system of Dave Bowman’s spacecraft, is in fact much more emotionally aware and responsive than the humans on board, with showing signs of guilt, remorse and anger. It is as if there’s an underlying message of technology being so advanced that they are more human than the actual humans themselves. Looking at the way in which AI is being developed and researched on, that idea may not be far from reality.

In a film criticism video created by Crash Course, the educational YouTube channel, on ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’, they noted a key detail in the film that again addresses the point of evolution and advancement. Every section has some sort of symbol for ‘birth’ whether through dialogue or a physically obvious sign, or even through some abstract concept. In the first section, ‘The Dawn of Man’ in itself is another way of expressing ‘the birth of mankind’. Section two involves Dr Poole wishing his daughter, who is back on Earth, a happy birthday on a video call, while section three has Bowman’s birthday with his parents sending him a recorded message. The last section has an overall battle between ageing, life and death through the film ends with a large fetus-like creature growing closer towards Earth, which is, of course, a symbol for birth once again.

Below the overall themes in the film, Kubrick uses smaller details towards manipulating audio, visual and demonstration of scenes to capture a certain plot point, mood or message. The film includes many prolonged moments of silence where there is either no sound at all or the atmospheric white noise and breathing. These moments heighten the tension and anticipation in the viewer because they expect something to appear or happen which would excite them at any following moment, thus waiting and watching the scenes intently. Music plays an important role in this effect too as Kubrick has arranged a score that is captivating, rich and perfect for the theme and style of the film. The music acts as a trigger and if there is any to be heard, an audience knows that the scene is important. Moreover, the realism of space is shown through music and even the lack of it where when showing scenes out in space, there is a complete mute and at times music stops abruptly. The serenity of space and slowness of its pace is captured through audio alone and visuals keep the audience interested, enthralled and curious.

Infer & Deduce: To figure out the meaning of the film’s title, its literal definition can be examined. With 2001 being the year in which the film is set (being a distant future for when it was made), Odyssey means “a long wandering or voyage usually marked by many changes of fortune” or “an intellectual or spiritual wandering or quest”. Both these definitions apply to the film as it is a long journey the characters and the audience go through, from as early as the dawn of man till the close-to-peak of technology thousands of years into the future. Moreover, the second definition clearly applies to the evolutionary concept the film sheds light on as well as how there is a celestial touch brought on to Dave Bowman at the end of the film.

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Technical Aspects

Kubrick’s film may comprise of a simple storyline, with a few characters and lightly developed characters but to counter, his film is extremely intricate in its visual appeal and techniques. The limitations of technology in the 1960s did not stop Kubrick from achieving his visions for the look of the film, going to lengths of having multiple sets built or mechanisms created just to get a specific shot. One example of this is during ‘The Dawn of Man’ scene that took place in a desert environment. The immediate set was built to the best accuracy of real-life conditions although the far background stretch was actually a projection of desert stock shots that the crew team had gathered to avoid the harsh conditions the cast and crew would have to work in.

Other aspects of set design include the consistency of keeping the space atmosphere and the centrifugal motion of the ship in mind, with backdrops outside the windows rotating depending on what kind of ship it is and where. To add on, the entire mise-en-scène is apt for the locations as well as in the realistic terms, which could have deceived the audience of the 1960s that the actors actually did go to space.

Another point about the film conveying meaning through mediums other than the characters is through the music score, which is a compilation of different temporary tracks along with compositions by Alex North. There are two sequences, the beginning and after the intermission, which are rather confusing moments in the film where there is no visual input and just music playing in the background for two to three minutes. Music from Strauss, “Sprach Zarathustra”, was the theme for the film and is now used in many productions to depict a sense of triumph. The music in the film speaks much more than the characters do, for sure.

In the post-production aspect of the film, brilliant visual effects are used, for instance, the colour filters during the scene of Dave Bowman travelling through time and space in the fourth section of the film, which gives the sequence a very eerie and frightening look that portrays Bowman’s own horror of the unknown. When thinking of ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ one does not forget about the most iconic jump-cut in the history of film, where an ape throws a bone into the air which twirls around and as it is falling the scene cuts to a ship flying in space, that closely resembles the shape of the bone. It implies on the time skip from being the most basic of beings till creating these magnificent machines we call spaceships, while also signifying on the reason for showing the scene with the apes as being important since Kubrick could have just started with the film set in space.

Similarly, HAL 9000 has many interactions with the crew aboard the spacecraft and it is interesting to observe the way in which Kubrick depicted the point of view of this supercomputer, with having a fish-eye sort of filter or lens that gives it a spherical and convex appearance. This gives the audience a direct dive into seeing the world from HAL’s view and could also be used to show how he thinks, while based on the way he sees. Moreover, when Bowman and his partner are discussing HAL in a space pod with him unable to hear, while HAL is lip reading there is a rounded mask that fills the screen with softened edges, again emphasising on the narrow and directed viewing field of this AI program.

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Favourite Scene

This is a masterpiece of a scene, like the entirety of the film, but what strikes out for me is the lack of a physical character HAL 9000 is although is the most developed and self-aware than any of the others. Dave Bowman, in search for his partner that seems to have lost communication with the ship after heading outside to make a repair, is in the middle of a heated argument with the computer on-board who has supposedly gone rogue. Amidst the frustration and disbelief felt by Bowman, HAL objects his every attempt to convince him of opening the doors, giving him an idea to eventually use the emergency hatch.

This scene puts HAL and Dave into the spotlight, verbally battling it out against each other. The brilliant thing about this scene is the broader presentation of mankind and how at times, even though we are superior and intellectual beings, we lose power against something we have created: technology and machines. This shift in power further develops when Bowman enters back into the ship and starts removing HAL’s memory cards, where outside Bowman could only ask and talk HAL out of not following orders while now HAL can do nothing but talk.

HAL is a well-portrayed character who feels in details that other characters don’t like the emotions felt towards the mission and its weight and in fact any emotion in general, which is something quite alien to a machine. HAL has no physical body, no ability to use facial expressions and has a close to monotone voice in any given situation, yet he is one of the most fascinating characters. Kubrick has presented HAL in an intimidating way, with an extreme close-up of his red ‘eye’ watching eternally at the humans aboard the ship. The lack of expression gives him a personality, and that is the least we can expect from a computer system. Without a doubt, Kubrick created a character with mystery and suspicion, though perhaps the schema of someone watching, especially from modern days, would influence the perception of HAL, with the paranoia of technology and camera place everywhere with who knows watching an individual at any given moment.

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What would I do differently?

Stanley Kubrick, being a brilliant auteur, intended on every single ambiguous moment in the film industry’s most iconic science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The lack of dialogue and the presence in scenes where most appropriate do not overpower the film and yet do not take away from the plot. Viewers focus on the visuals in front of them and feel involved by interpreting the cues without characters directly indicating a certain viewpoint or plot direction. His method of presentation of such a timeless idea is phenomenal for the time in which it was made. Personally, I would really not change anything about it since as it is, it is a creation of a man with an idea in his mind done one particular way. With that being said, however, if I were making my own version of the novel, with Kubrick completely out of the picture, I would have added more dialogue to the film with a greater emphasis on how human beings are impacted by evolution and the harm that could be caused by technology, along with the effects of wider existence in the universe.

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Further Research Areas:

What’s the Difference Between Stanley Kubrick’s & Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (A Side-by-Side Comparison)

The differences between the ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ movie and book you may not have noticed

2001: A Space Odyssey (soundtrack)

How the iconic music of 2001: A Space Odyssey came to be

The original score for 2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s Iconic ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ Sci-Fi Film Explained (Infographic)

THE AMAZINGLY ACCURATE FUTURISM OF 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

A scientific fact-check of 2001: A Space Odyssey

How Kubrick made 2001: A Space Odyssey – Part 1: The Dawn of Man (YouTube)

Stanley Kubrick | 2001 A Space Odyssey (1968) | Making of a Myth (YouTube)

“2001: A Space Odyssey”: What It Means, and How It Was Made

Behind the Scenes of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the Strangest Blockbuster in Hollywood History

2001: A Space Odyssey – Ending Explained (YouTube)

Monolith – Wikipedia

— C A T E G O R I E S —

Pick a module code OR an area of interest on the left-hand side to sort posts according to my projects or film analysis!

• Movie-Mix: Films I watched and analysed in my free time, for the fun of it
• FLM 1100 – Screen Storytelling & FLM 1200 – Screen Aesthetics: Films part of my Film degree module
• Practical projects (FLM 1300 & FLM 1301): Projects done as part of my practical work modules