The Shining (Blog 2 response)

The Shining is a movie directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on a Stephen King novel. While watching this movie, I didn’t think it was as scary as everyone said it was. Instead, what made is scary was the way it was filmed and the sound elements that were in it. I found this movie to be very interesting. Like Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, The Shining gives a more extreme example of how barbaric people can become when there isn’t anyone there to correct them. 

The book references the interview scene when Jack is a civilized man at one point. In Figure 4.5 in the book, it says “lines in the set are used to reinforced the idea of a conflict between civility and animality in human life” (Ryan, 98). Honestly, if the book didn’t mention that, I would have never picked up that the particular scene was figuratively splitting his head in two and showing a human conflict. 

Later in the movie, Jack falls asleep at his workstation and has a dream that he brutally murders Wendy, his wife, and Danny, his young son. Danny comes in the room, and we see that he has a huge bruise on his neck. Wendy accuses Jack of hurting him, because there was as previous instance where he hurt him, and the look on Jack’s face is confused, but he also looks evil. I think that this is where he starts to turn hostile, although the textbook says otherwise. The art direction in this scene is the music that is being played, Jack’s outfit, and the room they are in. The music is sharp with a scary tone, but being paired with the shot of the room is what makes it scary. This room is so big, and it shows just how alone this family is. Jack’s outfit is half blue and half red.

In the textbook, the authors mention that the colors red and blue are very meaningful in this movie. “Blue is linked to civility, self-control and empathy [...] red is linked to violence, rage, and animal-like behavior...” (Ryan, 108). At some point in the movie, the three main characters will be shown wearing one of these colors on top of each other. This symbolizes the animality within civility. In the scene where he meets with the butler in the bathroom, and when the butler convinces him to “do something about his family”, the bathroom is a very bright red color; this is when he makes his commitment. In the scene where Wendy starts to notice Jack’s transition, Jack is still wearing the blue and red combination, showing that Jack has not done any physical harm. We see him changing through his speech, and body language; art direction can also come from the actor. If Jack did that monologue without the aggressive hand motions, and facial expressions, the scene could have played out in a more sympathetic way.  

Overall, I thought the movie was very good and there are many subtle clues that give foreshadowing, which makes viewing the movie exciting.

The Graduate (Blog Response 1)

  In the movie, The Graduate, Ben Braddock is having trouble dealing with life after college. In a way, he is still like a kid after he comes home. He obeys what everyone says, and and seems very young. In the movie, mise en scene plays a very big role. Everything we see, the different house settings, the water, and even the cigarettes, are in the movie is for a reason.

In the Braddock house, every thing is black and white. While this may look sleek and be reflective of the times, it has symbolism in the movie. The black and white may symbolize a prison. His room is wallpapered with black and white stripes, and this gives the viewers a feeling of entrapment. Since Ben is worried about his future, this anxiety may make him feel like he is trapped. The directors of the film didn’t just randomly pick black and white for the colors of the Braddock household, they carefully picked out these colors to give the viewer a sense of the dullness in Ben’s life.

  To get rid of this dullness, Ben has an affair with Mrs. Robinson, who happens to be friends with his parents. Is this really the way to start growing up? Maybe not, but it helps Ben break out of conformity. Throughout the film, water is a recurring role. To me, the water symbolizes purity. After Ben is starting to realize the affair is no good and he wants to clean up his act, there is a scene where he is in his room and we see, out of the window, Mr. Braddock skimming the pool. This scene really stuck out to me. Although it wasn’t Ben skimming the pool, the act of this father skimming it symbolizes that Ben wasn’t pure anymore, but was trying to erase all of the really bad things that he did.

      Although cigarettes are considered bad today, in the 60s, they were a sign of sophistication. In the beginning of the movie, when Mrs. Robinson goes into Ben’s room with a cigarette, he is totally repulsed by the smoke and wipes her ashes into the trashcan. After one of the turning points in the movie, when sleeps with Mrs. Robinson for the first time, we start to see Ben breaking out of his perfect child role; he is starting to grow up. Because he has this new sense of being an adult, he starts smoking cigarettes. In the beginning, he is known as this track star from college, and his parents are pushing him to go to graduate school. Ben doesn’t want to do that, and has other plans for himself. When Ben starts smoking, this is a sign that he is defying what his parents want him to do, and he is not under the control of his parents anymore.