I have chosen the genre of crime films to study and make connections with. The texts that I have chosen to help me make these connections are: Witness, directed by Peter Weir, Out Of The Blue, directed by Robert Sarkies, The Shawshank Redemption, directed by Frank Darabont, and the last text that I will be studying is Boy, directed by Taika Waititi. In Witness, it is shown that a small Amish child from a secluded community who witnesses a brutal murder. With Out of the Blue, it is about a schizophrenic who is pushed over the edge to commit multiple murders which turns out to be the biggest massacre in New Zealand. The setting for this film is small town New Zealand. The Shawshank Redemption film is about a man who is accused of murder and who has to go through multiple violent acts before he emerges as a new person. With the film Boy, is about a young boy that is introduced to crime and violence when his dad comes back into the picture.In the two films, Witness and Out of the Blue, the theme that is in these films is a crime that is unexpected. The other theme that related to the other two films, Boy and The Shawshank Redemption was violent crime. I saw a connection through the aspect of music in the films Boy and Witness.
In the film Witness the director shows the theme unexpected violence, this is shown when the young Amish boy was in Philadelphia on a trip to see his Aunt, Samuel and his Mother were in the train station where everything is calm and people are going to their lives normally. Samuel then goes to the bathrooms, everything is still normal and Samuel smiles at the man who is washing his hands. Samuel goes into the bathroom stall when suddenly he sees two men starting to attack the man who was washing his hands. Samuel hears the struggle from the man who gets a bag held over his face, Samuel stays quiet as his can and just peeps through the crack of the door. The viewers see this by having a close-up shot of his eye. The victim is held still while one of the other murders suddenly brings out a knife and slits his throat, the director shows the murder from Samuel’s perspective and uses a point of view shot of a child looking up, with this you see blood squirting out of the victim’s neck and going all over the victim’s body, while his body spasms. The two murderers search through the victim’s possessions, clean themselves up, making sure there is no evidence that they had committed the crime and leave. This film teaches me that unexpected violence can happen anywhere at anytime with anyone involved. The director’s purpose for this scene to show that the community of the Amish is trying to protect their people from witnessing crime and violence, but that when they come into the western world, they can no longer be protected from these types of things. The director also wanted to show that it was a child witnessing the crime was innocent and had never known anything like crime and violence before, and so with this incident, Samuel loses his innocence and he starts to become aware of what can happen in the world. The director uses dialogue to reinforce this loss of innocence. Eli Lapp: “Would you kill another man?”Samuel Lapp: “I would only kill the bad man.”Eli Lapp: “Only the bad man. I see. And you know these bad men by sight? You are able to look into their hearts and see this badness?”Samuel Lapp: “I can see what they do. I have seen it.”
In the film Out Of The Blue the director shows the theme unexpected violence, this is shown with David who is a paranoid schizophrenic. David thinks that everyone is out to get him and going against him. David starts to get antsy about his neighbours coming on to his property and trespassing. When he is in his home he notices Chiquita, one of the kids from next door on his land, he angrily comes out and starts yelling at her to get off his yard, which starts a heated verbal argument with Chiquita dads, Gary Holden. David Gray: “Get out of it, you trespassing Holden!”Garry Holden: “Hey don’t talk to my kids like that. Calm down David.”David Gray: “Don’t you tell me what to do! Think you’re king of Aramoana”.David goes inside of his house and then suddenly comes back out with his Norinco 84S semi-automatic rifle, and shoots Gray multiple times until he dies. David then goes on to murder another twelve people and injure another three. The next day, police and the Armed Offenders Squad officers locate where David had based himself for the night, the officers surrounded the house and threw tear-gas into the house. David came out of the house and starts to shoot wildly from his hip and the waiting officers fire their guns and hit David multiple times and collapses in front of the officers,who then restrains David and wait and watch him die of his wounds.This film teaches the viewers that everything isn’t as it appears it seems, and as you get deeper into an issue, it can reveal the truth. Even the smallest, quietest towns can be a murder scene. The director also wanted to show the viewers that it could be anyone to break down, even if you have friends with them for years if you say or do the wrong thing you could be in trouble. This would of brought it home to many people’s lives who were involved, who knew the victims and also many people in New Zealand.
In the film The Shawshank Redemption the director shows the theme violent crime, this is shown in many scenes throughout the film. It was shown with officers beating up inmates, inmates smuggling in supplies,and also inmates sexually harassing other inmates. The first obvious violence that was shown in the prison is when one of the ‘fish’ or new inmates starts crying and making a lot of noise, he gets taken out of his cell and beaten by the officers until he was unconscious and left to die. The director shows the violence by having a mid shot of the beating of the inmate and the officers dragging him out of the cell room. The director does this to show the dark, gloomy, dirty environment that the prisoners were in and how each person in that environment was treated. The director also showed crime within the film when the inmate Red would smuggle the wants and needs of the other men into the prison. The director showed the secrecy of what Red was by having close ups of every man’s hand it came into to get to Red. Red has his own little business going in jail and had men involved who could be compared to employees because they would get paid with cigarettes and other things they would want. Another way the theme violent crime was shown when three of the inmates who called themselves “the sisters” started to find an interest in Andy, they would corner him and sexual harrass him, the director does not show these actions on screen but the viewers are able to tell what is happening by the dialogue that is given. “BOGS:”That’s it, fight. Better that way.” Andy starts screaming, muffled by the rag. Camera pulls back, slowly widening. The big washer blocks our view. All we see is Andy’s screaming face and the men holding him down and camera drifts from the room, leaving the dark place and the dingy act behind, moving up empty corridors, past concrete walls and steel pipes.” This film teaches the viewers we can never know what is happening behind closed doors, and also people will not let another know when sexual harassment is taking place to be able to keep the rest of their sanity and dignity. The film also teaches us that crime can still take place in environments that are supposed to prevent illegal crime and violence, but even so these types of actions can happen without people who are free knowing what is happening. The director wanted to show that everything is not as it seems most of the time, a lot of things can be hidden and they may only be hidden in a man’s thoughts and knowings.
In the film Boy, the theme that connects is also violence and crime. The director shows the theme violence and crime in multiple ways throughout the film. The ones that stood out to me and possibly other viewers was when Boy and his dad would start stealing marijuana for his dad, who later gets beaten up by the owners for taking the marijuana while the boy is watching. In the middle of the film we see Boy helping one of his friends picking marijuana for her job, Boy takes some and puts it in his pocket and takes it back to his dad to impress him. When Boy gives the little present to his dad, he requests for more and that is exactly what Boy does, after a while Boy’s father wants to go to the special spot where the marijuana was being grown, and take lots and lots of himself, his friends and also to sell. This gives a bad influence onto Boy, and can make him think that stealing and taking illegal substances is okay, and can lead to bigger and worse things when he grows up because of what he was shown when he was younger. After this incident the real owners of the marijuana come to find the Crazy Horses ( the fathers gang ) to confront them about stealing their weed and also beat them up. We see this from Boys and his brother point of view from the car it was a long shot of the whole bar and the gang getting beaten up, while this was happening, Boy and his brother were watching the whole thing, while going home it does a close up of the three men in the gang of the bloody faces looking disappointed with their main man, “ We got our asses kicked” “ What fight were you in, man? We landed some good hits”. The director showed the viewers and Boy that when someone steals your possessions it is okay to go up to them and beat them up when in reality it can get both sets of people in a lot of trouble. The reason why in the film it wasn’t shown to be a big deal was because of the location that it took place and also the year when it was happening. The director wanted to show the viewers that young children can be introduced to crime and violence from a very young age and can make them lose their innocence, from seeing these things from the everyday life, that can either learn from it and make a difference for when they grow up or live it just like his dad did.
In Boy and Witness, the aspect of Music is shown in both of these films. The director of the film Boy shows the aspect music at the end of the film when he mixes the cultural song and dance of New Zealand which is known as the Haka with the Michael Jackson Thriller song and dance .This is shown with a long shot of all the main characters dancing to the music. This shows the mixes of cultures between American and Kiwis. It also enhances the background of Boy that he loves but also shows the love for the superstar Michael Jackson, Boy also thinks Michael and his dad are very similar. The director also shows the love of both cultures through music and costume because the characters wear similar clothes to Michael Jackson but also bring out pois for the girls to use in the middle of the song. The director of the film Witness also shows the aspect of music in the middle/ending of the film when John and Rachel are shown in the dimmed, candle lit barn, where the radio of John Books car is playing music, the director chooses a long shot so the viewers are able to see both characters fully. The director shows Rachel aware of what she is doing as she knows it is against the rules to listen to music even though it is giving her happiness. In the Amish community, the Amish have no music whatsoever, not even in churches. So for Rachel to be doing this, it would be not approved by the elders. The director also chose this song to be able to let the two characters relate their feelings to the music and tell each other their feelings through the lyrics of the song.
In conclusion the purpose of each film is to show the viewers that there is a lot to look past to get the full picture, that in the film Boy, Boy started getting involved in crime and violence but are blinded by who they are trying to impress. In the film The Shawshank Redemption, there is a lot more than meets the eye, you have to look far beyond reality to find the truth. With the film Out of the blue, the purpose that is shown is that even the biggest things can happen in the smallest places and no one can ever predict what can and will happen. Lastly the film Witness, the purpose of the film was that even though everyone tries to protect the innocence of a human, there will always be something to scar many lives included, babies, kids, teens, adults and elders, no one is really protected from facing and experiencing the real world. My personal response to violence and crime is that it is everywhere we look and go, no one can deny it, there are so many rules for the law and so many rules for society, no one is safe, people can be living around so many types of crime and violence. The categories that can come underneath these topics are close to the hundreds, from illegal drugs that are keeping you alive to domestic violence, from stealing food to keep your family from starving to terrorist attacks, no can be safe from these topics, we see them in real life, we hear them on our radios and we see live footage on our television. Even though everyone wants to get rid of violence and crime, it’s been around for decades and I don’t think we are going to be able to get rid of it anytime soon. Violence and Crime are just a part of everybody’s everyday life.
http://www.imsdb.com/scripts/Shawshank-Redemption,-The.html
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out_of_the_Blue_(2006_film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0839938/quotes
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