Blindside: an Analysis - Essay Example

?Blindside: An Analysis Blindside is a film that takes the viewer down one road, only to end up on a completely different avenue. The film utilizes some very specific choices in production design as it intends to mimic the tenets of the genre of film noir, a specific set of guidelines used to frame the general context of the way in which it is presented. The music that is chosen, the nature of using black and white interlaced with colour film, and the angles of the cinematography all combine to generate the thematic nature of the film. The ending creates a twist for the viewer, allowing the film makers to inject the nature of the thriller with a macabre sense of humour. The film accomplishes its goal in creating an unexpected ending, but some of the work in the beginning could better frame the intentions for the reactions of the viewer. Blindside is a film that provides a classic point of view with a cleanly performed twist at the end. The film genre that Blindside is most similar to is that of the film noir, although just as film noir does, it slips effortlessly into the many aspects of the thriller. One of the aspects of film noir is in the crisis of masculinity that is defined through alienation and despair (Silver, 5). The two male characters in Blindside create two sides of the criminal aspects of masculine crisis and alienation and despair. As the viewer first watches the film, the alienation and despair of seeking a criminal that commits horrific and bloody crimes is clear in the way in which the first character, named Michael, is framed as he works with seriousness and intensity at his desk, while the frailty of life and the vulnerability of the human existence is exampled in the way in which Neeson, the second character, is at the side of the road, shivering in the wind as he waits for Michael to appear at the crime scene. One of the most obvious ways in which the filmmakers recreate an example of the genre of film noir is through filming most of the short in black and white. However, the film does diverge from this type of film when scenes from the murder are revealed in short bursts of cinematic cuts. However, a film needs to exhibit more qualities other than the simple quality of being black and white in order to be a type of film noir. The film must build suspense and must have an essential number of basic characteristics in the building of its storyline. Silver frames these themes which are embodied in characters as follows: Alienated characters < = > Existentialism Obsessed characters < = > Freudianism Proletarian characters < = > Marxism Femme fatales < = > Feminism All of the above < = > Structuralism While this short film does not have the space in which to reflect all of these concepts, the two main characters have a duality that both reflects alienated and obsessed characters, thus providing for existentialist aspects and Freudian aspects of characterization. In addition, they appear to have the working class aspect of their character, reflected through the subterfuge which fools the audience into believing they are police, as well as through the type of clothes they wear, the cars they drive, and their working class nature as they move through their scenes. The primary aspect of this structure that is missing is the femme fatale, the woman who represents betrayal and masculine femininity. In the case of Blindside, the female character is purely the victim. She represents the impending release of the masculine build up of crisis, the According to Gates, the next evolution from film noir was to create the serial killer which moved away from the femme fatale and the victim-hero towards the relationship of the male-male connectivity of the investigator and the killer. The noir film was replaced with films that denied the masculine crisis through a “masquerade of masculinity” (123). In Blindside, the two male leads reflect the potential variations of the investigator, whether the victim-hero or the overtly masculine through displays of machismo, until they reveal themselves for the other half of the entity, the serial killers themselves. This duality complicates the specification of genre, but adds philosophical dimension as well as the viewer explores what it means for what appears to be representing the side of sanity and order, becomes the embodiment of chaos. The beginning of the film provides a short montage as the opening music and credits begin to play. The montage smoothly transitions from the computer screen, to a white board, and to the face of the man examining all of the evidence in the space he is occupying. He sits at the computer as he flips through crime scene photos, drinking coffee in a suggestion that he is working a case. This all leads the viewer toward the intended assumption, that the man is a police officer in the midst of studying the evidence from a murder. The drinking of the coffee and the intensity on the man’s face cleanly leads the viewer to this assumption. The montage is put together with the use of specific camera angles, switching from mid close ups to extreme close ups. The only criticism of this well constructed montage as it contains a large amount of information in a very short time is that there are two shots of the white board, emphasizing the location which may be intentional as a clue to the film, but the second shot appears redundant rather than explicit. Andrew suggests that montage has several different types of illustrative purposes. He says that there is mathematical metric montage where “conflict is created strictly in the length or duration of shots” and he describes what is called intellectual montage “where meaning is the result of a conscious leap made by the spectator between two terms of a visual metaphor or figure” (52). In the case of Blindside, an intellectual storyline is revealed within the montage with the viewer discovering that the story is about murder and that the murders were gruesome and were relevant to serial killing. From this platform, the next leap the viewer makes is to the point where the identity of the main character appears to be that of a criminal investigator, most likely with the police. Thus, in a few short moments through the use of intellectual montage, a great deal of information is passed to the viewer. Through visual cues, the viewer is lead down a direct path that suggests that the two men as they meet up are criminal investigators. Continuity is achieved in editing as the visual elements do not seem out of line or as if they have not been made continuous throughout the short film. Continuity is “concerned with myriad infinitesimal details in each of the related scenes“(Miller, 7). The visual continuity appears to consistent, the differing aspects of wardrobe, props, and actor placement kept in line so that each scene flows into the next without seeming to have been cut together from a bunch of raw footage. The scenes are fluid, leading the viewer down the path intended by the filmmakers. The sound in the film is done with the specific intention of setting a mood. While the black and white tone of the film sets one aspect of the mood, so does the suspenseful music that is played in the background. According to Derry, the music in a film provides contextual clues to the narrative, often standing in for characters that are unseen and creating a foreboding of what will come next (290). The sense of alienation and despair that was discussed in reference to the nature of a film noir is enhanced by the melancholy nature of the music. The opening scene with its odd angles and montage of information about murder is enhanced by music that sets the stage for what will be the action of the film. The visual and auditory atmosphere of the film suggests the insanity that is associated with serial killers. While there is no direct information that suggests that the film is about a serial murderer, all of the cultural cues in regard to the crime suggest that this is the case. The music is central to the way in which this point is made to the viewer. As well, the way in which the dialogue is delivered suggests a crime drama is taking place. The two male actors are almost monotone, revealing different aspects of the crime through clinical and professional tones of voice. There is little emotion that passes between the two men as they discuss the crime dispassionately, but with a seriousness that suggests the nature of the business they are discussing. Only at the end does Neeson give a small smile to the camera to reveal something of the truth in how they feel about the crime they have been describing. The emotional detachment provides fewer clues than does the sound within the film, the almost monotone delivery combined with the suspenseful music informing the viewer of the structure of the narrative as much, if not more, than the dialogue. The lighting of the film when shot in black and white is rather flat, without expressive shadowing or bursts of hazy light. This neglect does leave something from the work as creating a more shadowed film might have provided for a much larger impact of suspense on the viewer. As exampled by the American television collection of series that are formed around CSI (Crime Scene Investigator units (i.e. CSI, Crime Scene Investigation, CSI: NY and CSI: Miami), it is always much more suspenseful to investigate in the dark than in the light of day. As a viewer, it is always curious that they investigate by the light of flashlights, rather than just flipping the light switch so they can see the whole room at once. However, the mystery of shadows provides a heightened sense of suspense that the short film Blindside might have benefited from in regard to atmosphere. However, this does stand in contrast to the harsh lighting and bright color of the murder scenes. The lighting is raw and without refinement, an intentional glare of madness upon the heinous murder of a young girl. In this contrast, the black and white filming stands against the color film footage, creating an emotional separation between the discussion between the supposed investigators and the event of the murder. The lighting choices in regard to the contrasts between the two types of filming are successful, even if the lighting contrasts in the black and white portion of the film could have been a bit more dramatic. According to Ascher and Pincus, good contrast is essential in making an impact with black and white, however, that aspect of Blindside was not fully explored (250). The true narrative of the film does not lie within the dialogue of the movie, but within the deciphering of the visual cues that tell the truth of the story. As any good mystery will, it is only in reflection that the narrative comes to life. During the blossoming of understanding at the end, when the still alive girl walks through the door, the viewer suddenly sees all of the action and the interactions between the males in a new light. This is continuous from the duality of the nature of their character development. The film recounts the event of the murder, from the exploration of serial killing through the visual montage near the beginning to the way in which the continuation of montage provides differing angles of experience in order to convey meanings that have yet to be fully revealed. According to Rosen, a film must include a diegresis which is within the space, time and world of the fictional setting (9). This represents the first stage of the narrative as the viewer is given a perspective based upon setting. In this film , the setting is staged by the nature of the props, the type of home that is seen, the creation of a world in which two men are within a space that is defined on their terms, although this is not necessarily understood from the beginning. In reflection, the control of the world of the film is in the hands of the two male leads, where initially the viewer believes that these two men will be at the will of the killer until they subdue him. In this way, it is the expectation of familiar structures that controls the perception of the viewer about the narrative. Fabe discusses French psychoanalyst and philosopher Jacque Lacon in relationship to narrative in film. Lacon has suggested that the sense of self is defined by a series of fragmented, illusionary fictions that create the totality of the self. In this way, film provides its own fragmentation in order to create a whole narrative (174). In the example of Blindside, the narrative is broken down into segments of understanding that reflect one version of the truth, where the ending creates an entirely different perspective on the truth. In the way in which the fragments are assembled, the truth cannot be revealed until the chronology is reordered through the reconstruction of the narrative through the revelation at the end of the film. There is one element that could have been handled a bit differently to expand upon the effect of the twist at the end of the film. During the film, the first character scene in the movie, Michael Collins, is the less emotional of the two male leads. In the end, it is Neeson who gives the short smile that reveals the true nature of the narrative in the film. However, because he was the more emotional of the two men, it might have made it a bit more interesting to see Collins provide the revealing smile, appearing to finally engage emotionally with the dialogue that comes before that moment. The conflicts of emotion within the film are represented by the difference in perspective in believing that the heightened emotional state of the murder in contrast to the clinical coolness of the investigator is reversed in that the past is made into the future as the investigators are discovered to be the killers. In this emotional contrast, ending with Collins, having begun the film with Collins, might have brought the contrasts into a full circle for the purpose of the narrative. However, in separating Collins from any emotional attachment to the crime, it is possible that the horror that is felt as the thrills of the film are resolved in the revelation of the truth might have occurred so that Collins is always kept as an enigma of emotion. In films about serial killers, the one important aspect of the killer is in finding the way in which he is the victim (Grodal, 92). Neeson states at one point “Now you’re thinking, you’re starting to think like a killer” (Blindside), thus putting him as the mentor as Collins appears to be his apprentice. Thus, if Neeson finds the joy in the impending murder, perhaps we can see the victimization of Collins, thus supplying an important aspect of the relationship of the serial killer to the audience. However, this is not fully made clear through the narrative. Blindside is an inventive piece of filmmaking, successful for holding back its climax and twist until the viewer is explicitly led to the revelation at the end. While the use of black and white film is not fully explored for the capacity that the medium has for emotional content absent the obvious emotional content of dialogue, it still provides a startling contrast to the highly emotional nature of the flash forward/flashbacks of the event of the murder. The sound within the film is well done, the music that is chosen to represent the mood of the piece crafted to elicit the right type of emotions in order to open the viewer up to the experience of the film. In the end, the film is successful for the way in which the viewer is manipulated by the filmmakers, experiencing it in the way in which the story is intended to be experienced. The viewer does not necessarily see the end coming and is engaged by the way in which the film has been constructed. Through the careful use of the theories of film noir as then combined with the masculinity of the male to male theoretical narrative, the masculine crisis is resolved through the empowerment of the male leads. While it mimics the film noir, it is not chained to its theoretical devices and provides the chaotic insanity of the serial killer aesthetic in order to balance the universe of the film through order defined by the chaos of madness. Bibliography Ascher, Steven, and Edward Pincus. The Filmmaker's Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for the Digital Age. New York: Plume, 2007. Andrew, Dudley. The Major Film Theories: An Introduction. London: Oxford University Press, 1976. Blindside. Dir. Turker Mehmet, Ollie Dickens, and Andrew Campbell. Perf. Mehmet Cihan Altay, Ollie Dickens, and Ruth Champion, Youtube, 2011. Derry, Charles. The Suspense Thriller: Films in the Shadow of Alfred Hitchcock. Jefferson, N.C: McFarland Classics/McFarland, 2001. Fabe, Marilyn. Closely Watched Films: An Introduction to the Art of Narrative Film Technique. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Gates, Philippa. Detecting Men: Masculinity and the Hollywood Detective Film. Albany: State Univ. of New York Press, 2006. Grodal, Torben K. Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture, and Film. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Miller, Pat P. Script Supervising and Film Continuity. Boston: Focal Press, 1999. Rosen, Philip. Narrative, Apparatus, Ideology: A Film Theory Reader. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986. Silver, Alain, and James Ursini. Film Noir Reader. New York: Limelight Editions, 2003. Read More