Sequence Analysis of Carol PDF

Preview

Summary

Sequence Analysis of Carol. A close description and evaluation of the plot devices and techniques used in the film Carol (2016)...

Description

Alexzia Shobe

Sequence Analysis of Carol 9:30 – 11:30 The camera allows the audience to gaze at Therese from a customer’s point of view. Todd Haynes frames Therese behind the counter to illustrate her likeliness to the dolls that are on display behind her. She is wearing clothes and a hat that was picked out for her, and she is playing the dutiful role of an ordinary and pleasant woman who is eager to serve. She is a doll who has been dressed, groomed, and put on display. This analogy is demonstrated further later in the scene wherein Therese states, “I would show you, but I’m sort of confined to this desk.” Several people walk through the shot and various people can be heard in the background which alludes to the unimportance of Therese in the eyes of the customers. The camera takes Therese’s point of view as she scans the store, her gaze flits around unsteadily and is slightly hazy/unfocused, until her eyes (and the lens of the camera) comes to a rest on Carol. The shot sharpens and steadies as she gazes at Carol from her spot behind the counter, and after Carol briefly looks down at the trainset (bringing the camera with her) they make eye contact causing the commotion around them to quiet and it seems as if they are the only ones in the room for a moment since no one walks through the shot during this brief encounter. The camera quickly shifts away from Carol and focuses on a woman as she asks where the ladies room is, and the audience is shown how Therese struggles to drag her gaze away from Carol to grudgingly address the customer in front of her. The quick movement of the camera feels almost shameful, like she was caught doing something she shouldn’t, and this reinforces the feeling of voyeurism the audience may feel as they gaze at Carol through Therese’s eyes. When the customer leaves the camera instantly shifts to where Carol had been standing, and when it comes to rest on the barren spot there is a palpable feeling of disappointment. Rooney Mara

Alexzia Shobe

enhances this feeling pursing her lips and dropping her arms dejectedly before resigning to return to work. When Carol suddenly approaches the counter, the camera is zoomed in as she throws down her gloves which allows the audience to see the wedding ring on Carol’s finger. Therese notices it as well; Rooney first glances at it as she rises up from beneath the counter and again when Carol fidgets with her hair. When Carol expresses her frustration at hearing that the doll her daughter wanted is out of stock Therese restlessly begins moving around and describing the other dolls they have for sale in a desperate attempt to please and console Carol despite having just met her. Therese brakes the façade of being the perfect model of the typical woman when she reveals that she preferred trains over dolls when she was a child. Trains are a recurring motif throughout the film representing a bridge between the old world and the new, and they imply history moving forward into the future. Their relationship is sparked with a modern trainset centered between them, this is a visual cue from Hayes, informing us not only of the pairs determination to deviate from gender conformity but also their detachment from the symbolic model of women in 1950’s society. Trainsets are often viewed as ‘boy toys,’ and it’s assumed that a man would have more knowledge of trains than a woman. The trains also imply a bridge connecting two women who are from different eras. Carol’s fur coat, elegance, and ignorance of modern smoking prohibitions are clues to her older age. Therese wears more modern and trendy clothes for that period and introduces her to a modern electric trainset. Hayes uses their love to illustrate how the ways of the past encounter modernity and consequently modernity moves towards a hopeful future.

Alexzia Shobe

Contextual Analysis of Killer of Sheep Killer of Sheep’s director Charles Burnett was born in 1944. Charles’ family moved to Watts, California, where this film was made, when he was three years old. Watts was a lowincome and volatile black community. In 1965 violent riots erupted in Watts; thirty-four people died, and more than one thousand people were injured. Burnett bore witness to many violent events and saw several families in emotional and financial turmoil which influenced the writing of this film. When asked about his inspiration Burnett stated, “I come from a working-class environment and I wanted to express what the realities were. People were trying to get jobs, and once they found jobs they were fully concerned with keeping them. And they were confronted with other problems, with serious problems at home for example, which made things much more difficult.” Burnett’s experience in college also inspired him, and this film was created for his UCLA master's thesis. There were many setbacks that prolonged the release of this film, which is similar to the endless inconveniences within Killer of the Sheep; an actor was incarcerated during production, and Burnett was unable to release the film due to copywrite issues with the score. Rather than adjust the score to fit his budget Burnett stalled the release of the money and stressed the importance of including music created by exalted African American artists; Etta James, Dinah Washington, Gershwin, Rachmaninov, Paul Robeson, and Earth Wind & Fire. Burnett coveted and exhibited black culture. Killer of the Sheep’s score played a vital role in the deliverance of each scene. Although this film’s production only cost ten thousand dollars Burnett payed $150,000 for the rights to the

Alexzia Shobe

music he selected. The intricate interplay of hope and despair in African-American music, especially the blues, is used to illustrate the same melancholy within poor urban neighborhoods such as Watts. At 18:40 in the film Stan’s daughter sings Reasons by Earth, Wind, & Fire. The lyrics, “And I'm longing to love you just for a night… Please let me love you with all my might” are sung in the background while Stan’s wife puts on make-up and does her hair in anticipation of her husband returning from a long day at work. She longs to rekindle their connection, and fears they won’t be able to escape the feeling of hopelessness in their environment “The reasons that we fear our feelings won't disappear.” Their daughter is singing this song which illustrates that their children are the reasons that they have stayed together, and consequently why Stan must work so hard. When Stan returns home the distinct absence of music amplifies Stan’s silence and emotional unavailability. At 22:40 The House I Live in by Frank Sinatra begins while a group of young black kids are playing in an abandoned train lot amongst, and with, dangerous tools and rubble. They are visibly poor, and the only actual toy there is a cheap spinning top. Their neighborhood assumedly does not have a playground, and the government would not waste money building one in a black neighborhood. The House I Live In playing during this scene brings attention to the institutionalized racism within America. Neighborhoods such as Watts are victims of the Federal Housing Administration which was instated in 1934, and lasted until 1968. The FHA explicitly refused to back loans to black people or even other people who lived near black people, and they assisted white people who fled newly integrated neighborhoods. Municipal governments, state and federal courts, mortgage lenders, and a host of federal housing and development programs collaborated to; draw definitive neighborhood boundaries, deny

Alexzia Shobe

equal access to countless places, and produce obscene disparities in wealth, opportunity and basic quality of life. Our modern-day communities continue to reflect that sour history today. 44:00. Stan and Gene cashed their checks and bought an engine so they could fix up a car. As they take slow and laborious steps down the stairs while lugging the heavy engine the sound of children playing and cars driving past hums on in the background. The world does not stop for them or anyone else in this film. The camera moves underneath the bannister and the stairwell getting shots of bent knees, straining arms, and clenched fingers. The actors scrunch up their faces in concentration and communicate with each other to safely get the engine down the stairs. This accentuates the hard labor, and strips the individuality of the two men by constantly losing focus of their identifying features. They are just two black men performing heavy labor. After getting the engine down the stairs Gene’s hand is hurt while they are loading it on the truck, so he doesn’t want to push it any further, and he insists that they can leave it at the edge of the truck bed. When the two men are driving back the engine falls off the truck bed and all of their hard work is rendered meaningless. This scene was a metaphor for the struggle to rise out of poverty in a society wherein racism is institutionalized. For centuries black people have labored away for endless hours, shed blood and tears, and have had the faint taste of hope on their tongue only to be broken down once more. Many people of color such as Stan, in neighborhoods like Watts, worked all day but remained poor and never were able to create a better life for themselves. Another metaphor would be the fight to end segregation. Black Americans fought tirelessly to integrate this nation; it was a slow-moving and painstaking movement very much like the struggling journey Stan and Gene took down the steps, and in the end African Americans were temporarily victorious. Segregation was abolished, although many were hurt and lives were lost, and it brought a

Alexzia Shobe

moment of respite for African Americans bringing a sense of relief like what the two men felt when they finally loaded the engine onto the bed of the truck. Many black people insisted that the end of segregation would be a turn of a new leaf in America, they thought it would put an end to centuries of struggling to establish equality, and that attitude resembled Gene’s attitude when he insisted that the engine would stay put. The introduction of the FHA, several jobs, schools, and neighborhoods discriminating against black people were all factors to the proverbial engine falling off the truck. All that work for nothing. At 1:10:00 Stan, his family, and his friends are taking a trip out the country to see the races. Bracy talks animatedly about the races and is clearly excited about the prospect of what he is sure to be easy money. The score during the car ride is timidly hopeful and upbeat blues. Later, their tire goes flat. They don’t have a spare, and so they ride back home on the rim, further damaging the car. Once again Burnett is illustrating the heartbreaking sense of hopelessness and frustration that is prevalent in neighborhoods like Watts through the plights of this family. Burnett visualizes the burdened lives of low income African Americans in the late 1900s through episodic vignettes. He shows the dead-end opportunities, hopelessness, and entrapment that weighs heavy in neighborhoods like Watts by emphasizing the parallels between the sheep Stan butchers and the young black children. He makes hard cuts from children playing to the butchery and vice versa. 59:00-1:00:40 Stan and his coworkers are hanging sheep upside down from hooks and skinning them. Mean Old World by Little Walter plays in the background, and this aids the scene by directly acknowledging the cruelty of the world. Not only are the workers desensitized to the cruelty of the butchery, but they are desensitized to the plight within their community.

Alexzia Shobe

Cut to the next scene and two black boys are doing handstands against a wall of Stan’s house, their forms echoing those of the hanging sheep, while another boy counts the number of seconds they can hold their positions. Eventually the child loses count and gives up. This prompts the audience to question how long these boys can survive in these circumstances. The boys are sheep because they follow in the example of the older men in their lives, but the older men have to do things they aren’t proud of to make ends meet, and if they aren’t doing anything disreputable they aren’t home because they need to work 9-5 in order to provide for their family which leaves them exhausted and emotionally unavailable. Burnett compares the sheep to these boys to allude to the limitations of the inner-city slums, and to suggest the plight of the boys; not that they will be slaughtered but rather to suggest the affects and the danger of the monotonous routines and faceless surroundings on the neighborhood’s inhabitants. The sheep are indistinguishable, as are the boys, who are generally faceless amongst the large group of youth that inhabit the toxic and stagnant environment. This is further supported by the fact that so many of the characters within this film remain unnamed, unidentified, and have no lasting effect on the plot or their environment. There is also a parallel between the innocence and contentment before the sheep meet their ends, and the children happily playing because they know no better, they are blissfully ignorant of the dead-end that poverty may cause.

Extra Credit -Still Analysis – Pulp Fiction

Alexzia Shobe

This takes place in Lance’s apartment. The poster and various bizarre furnishings add perfectly to the typical druggie room. In this scene Vincent is venting about his car getting keyed. The room is dark and there are many shadows which enhances the shadiness of Lance and the drug dealing transaction. The lack of light in this scene also exemplifies Vincent’s dark mood, and amplifies the effect of Vincent wishing he could have caught the man who keyed his car in the act. Vincent is slightly off center in the frame which perfectly fits the off-kilter mood of this character. He is agitated and restless which is shown in the set of Travolta’s mouth and the way he is fidgeting with the money in his hand. Half of his face is submerged in shadows, which illustrates Vincent’s half-baked ideas of morality. He is in the middle of a speech concerning the lack of morality and masculinity portrayed when ‘keying another man’s car,’ but is about to buy a sizeable amount of heroin. Vincent’s face being halfway in shadow also illustrates how this character is falling into darkness. His morals get even more skewed, he becomes more reckless, and endangers himself along with the people around him. He is wearing an inconspicuous trench coat with formal attire beneath which is severely contrasts with Vincent’s indolent and discourteous personality. It is clear how much he covets money in the way he looks down at it and gently clasps it within his

Alexzia Shobe

hands. He almost seems to be in prayer which is complimentary to various religious themes in the film. He is not religious, rather nihilistic, so it is interesting to think he may hold money in a position that other may hold God. Money influences many of his decisions, and due to his nasty drug habit, he is dependent on a large income which consequently means the presence of money in his life will determine his happiness and overall health....