Jim Kitses

WILDERNESS CIVILIZATION

the individual the community

freedom restriction

honor institutions

integrity compromise

solipsism democracy

nature culture

purity corruption

experience knowledge

brutalization refinement

agrarianism industrialisation

savagery humanity

America Europe

the Frontier America

equality class

tradition change

the past the future

Well you know what they say.....

Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

Don't put your eggs all in one basket

Don't count your chickens

Who are 'they' anyway?

A bunch of wise old prats that feel compelled to come up with farmyard metaphors for every lesson in life

Clip Analysis of Edward Scissorhands

The clip presented comes at the beginning of the film Edward Scissorhands (Burton, 1990), and presents the main protagonist of the story to the audience and the character Peg. A brief synopsis of the clip will be presented, followed by an analysis of the technical procedures implemented and the effects these may have had on an audience. Possible creative influences shall also be explored and how these are evident in the clip. Focus will be made on Gothic Fiction, the Fairytale and German Expressionism.

The clip begins with a lady driving towards a hill rising out of the middle of a suburban landscape. The lady ventures up the hill to a house. At the top is a dilapidated, Gothic mansion and a secluded inner garden that is perfectly manicured. The lady is carrying a briefcase and enters the house looking for the occupant. She introduces herself as Peg, an Avon representative. At the top of the house she finds an attic that shows signs of occupation and the inhabitant emerges from the shadows. He is pale, strange looking and has scissors for hands. This is the audience’s introduction to the title character, Edward Scissorhands.

The first establishing shot of the clip featured introduces the location of the clip. The hill is grey and almost looks as if it is a dark cloud looming on the horizon above the suburb. It stands in direct contrast to the colourfulness of the suburb and blue sky around it. The few white clouds in the sky appear perfect and white; they have an almost cartoon-like quality. Presenting these contrasts aids in exaggerating the gothic look of the hill. The symbolism of a dark cloud on the horizon may also have an effect on the audience, putting them on edge.

As the car comes to the end of the road we get a shot of it through trees that look stripped of their branches. This along with the lack of colour gives the audience the impression of death and decay. The end of the road is a circle and the purpose of this could be to show that the only reason anyone should be driving there would be to turn around again. At the entrance the car drives towards the camera and exits below the shot, we are left to guess the appearance of the rest of the drive. This can be unnerving for the audience, and only showing parts of a set at a time works to create suspense.

The inner garden is perfectly manicured and has a number of large topiary. All of the topiary is of animate objects such as a stag, and at the centre a giant topiary hand. The audience may realise the significance of this from the title, but placing it there before introducing the audience to Edward aids in maintaining intrigue. The camera pans and tilts around the garden emulating Peg’s line of sight, creating point of view shots. Cutting back and forth between her reaction and the surroundings, we are taken in by the wonder of it all just like Peg. The door to the house has an oversized knocker and handle. These are examples of the amplified and exaggerated design used by the Production Designer Bo Welch.

In the Score, we hear instruments such as the harp, and angelic singing, it is light and almost otherworldly. As she enters the main hall of the mansion following the line of light caused by one of the windows, the music goes quiet. The audience is again put on edge, as there is very little noise, and Peg tiptoeing into the centre of the room exaggerates this. At the end of the hall we are given lingering shot of machinery that is robotic in style. There is a large metal circular drum with what appears to be arms, legs and a head. There is also a black belt around it with a large circular buckle.

The attic of the house is mostly empty, with crooked wooden floorboards, a gaping hole in the roof. Peg walks to a large fireplace that has a small cot bed set into it and clippings stuck to the back wall. This and the garden is the only evidence we have of habitation. In a detail shot, we see clippings posted to the wall. There is a headline ‘Boy born without eyes reads with his hands’, and magazine clippings of a garden matching the style of the one outside. Not only does this area give the audience proof that someone is living at the house, but also introduces us to his character. The hand in the garden and clippings of persons overcoming deformity is beginning to build a picture of the protagonist before we meet him.

Throughout the whole of this clip we only get to see what Peg sees and therefore we share in her emotion when meeting Edward for the first time.

When Edward appears we see that he has black matted hair and wears a costume of black leather with buckles that matches the style of the machinery downstairs. His skin is white, his eyes are deep-set and his lips purplish. As Peg sees him clearly she appears to be overcome with pity and asks what happened to him. He raises his hands and says ‘I’m not finished yet’.

The audience receives a number of clues that the story is similar the Gothic novel Frankenstein (Shelley, 1818). The similarity of Edward’s costume and the machinery, and Edward’s obsession with animate objects, manifesting in his topiary, are but a few. Edward’s line, ‘I’m not finished yet’ confirms that he is man made. The audience is being introduced to themes of loneliness and not belonging. Edward like the creation is secluded from society and they are both deformed. This examination of the life of an outsider is a recurring theme in Burton’s work such as his earlier films Beetle Juice (1988), and Batman (1989).

The novel Frankenstein has been linked to the Romantic Movement because of its preoccupation with nature and what is natural. The use of colour in the clip highlights fixation with nature in the film. The colours of the garden are extremely vivid in contrast to the soft tones of the suburbia below. It makes us think that civilization is attempting to compete with nature. Edward is almost devoid of colour, and the use of colour to signify nature could also be seen as a clue that Edward is man made. The long shots of the castle exterior show that it is made of dark granite-like stone, it includes towers, turrets and arched windows, all of which is indicative of a gothic design. It also looks similar to our idea of a haunted castle, like the sets used in the old horror films of Universal.

The castle also puts us in mind of a fairytale, and it has similarities with the witch’s castle in Disney’s Sleeping Beauty (1958). Throughout the clip we are given an awareness of size. A lot of tilt and long shots are used to achieve this. The door of the house has an extremely large knocker and door handle, and even the floorboards of the attic are oversized. Like the embellishment of size, the characters are exaggerated and form archetypes. The character of Peg is very feminine and she has an almost childlike naivety, entering a property that looks the complete stereotype of a haunted castle without any fear. Most fairytales begin with ‘Once Upon a Time’ and the clip also lacks a definitive time setting. An example of this is Peg’s costume. On quick glance she looks as if she is dressed in a suit from the sixties, but the large glasses and baby pink lipstick look as if they belong in the eighties. A fairytale and likewise the clip contain a far-fetched series of events that require a suspension of belief.

The Mise en Scène of the clip shows influences from the German Expressionist movement. The design of the film could be seen to invoke and reflect emotion more than advance the story. Comparisons can be made between the Attic and the set of the Expressionist film The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1919); both invoke feelings of horror and fantasy. The look of Edward is similar to the somnambulist in Caligari, but Burton subverts the villain and casts Edward as the hero. Expressionistic influences can also be seen in the chiaroscuro lighting. The interior of the house has distinct areas of light and darkness. The light that is in the building mostly penetrates through doorways and windows creating sharp, angular lines. The experimentation of different lines and angles is seen in of the German Expressionist movement, and this is also evident in the clip. The movement of the characters is also angular and exaggerated. As Edward emerges from the shadows he shuffles uncomfortably, and his arms are held out stiffly at his sides. The characters movements reflect their surroundings.

The interior of the house features several staircases and the main set is long and curving. Staircases featured a lot in the films of Expressionists and around the time that the films were being made, the Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung was writing on the symbols of subconscious. The symbolism of stairs has been linked to seeking knowledge and understanding and could be representative Peg’s curiosity. The stairs also aid in the design as they create lines to mirror the Gothic architecture. Although the lines are rough and curving and this makes the house look almost organic, as if it has grown which links us back to the portrayal of nature in Gothic and Romantic literature.

The clip presented gives examples of how technical procedures such as cinematography, design, lighting and music, are used to enhance the audience’s emotion, as well as advance the story. Tim Burton is perhaps mostly known for his fixation with gothic design, but this theme is intertwined with many movements such as the romantic, the fairytale and cinematic expressionism. As well as recurring themes in the narrative, each of these themes are evident in the design of his work.

Semiotics in the Opening Sequence of Apocalypse Now

Semiotics was a study that explored the concept of language as a series of signs. An audience reads imagery and technical devices as a series of signs. Focus will be made on these devices and the imagery in the clip, and how the influence of earlier practices effect audience’s interpretation, known as ‘trace’. Jacques Derrida developed the idea of ‘trace’ into ‘graft’. He believed that the interpretation of a sign is altered by its context. The use of the helicopter in the clip will be analysed with attention to its historical context. Finally, a study of Roland Barthes' theory of how a director has the intention to influence the audiences reading, and how individual interpretation makes this difficult.

Ferdinand De Saussare established two stages of signs, the signifier as the form the sign takes, and the signified stimulating a mental image. He believed that we develop a way of reading signs. Christian Metz applied the work of semiotics to film. Metz outlined ‘syntactical procedures that, after frequent use as speech, come to appear in later films as a language system’ (1974, p.41). The use of different conventions in film over time established a system of communication through interpretation.

In Apocalypse Now (Coppola, 1979) we are introduced to some of these devices, such as the montage and multiple exposures allowing Coppola to build up multiple layers of meaning. Keeping Willard’s face in the frame with the action of the burning jungle behind creates a link between Willard and the jungle. Willard is also linked to the jungle scene with smoke. At the beginning of the clip we see yellow smoke billowing up and while the forest burns the image of Willard smoking is also in the frame. The audience could translate the images as a flashback, something Willard has experienced in the past. However, whilst the use of double exposures and dissolves in this clip may seem innovative and new, Metz pointed out that the spectator cannot ‘clarify the plot of a film unless the spectator has already seen other films in which dissolves and double exposures were used intelligibly’ (1974, p.41). He used the term trace, as traces are left with the audiences of technical practices and imagery used in earlier films.

Jacques Derrida developed the theory of ‘trace’ into the post structualist term ‘graft’. Concerned with the idea that a signifier could create multiple signs, that the ‘signifier of the signifier describes (…) the movement of language’ (1976, p.7). He also believed that they could be altered according to their context. In the clip the audience is bombarded with the image and sound of the helicopter, even the blades of the ceiling fan recall the blades of the helicopter gunship, ‘the singular icon of the Vietnam War’ (2006, p.63). To understand the significance of the helicopter in this clip, the audience needs to place it in its historical context. The use of the helicopter for combat was a relatively new technology and was heavily deployed in Vietnam. Media coverage of the Vietnam War was highly televised. With this in mind it is not difficult to see why the helicopter became synonymous with the image of the Vietnam War. An audience watching Apocalypse Now would have seen the images of the war, and that would have informed their reading of the film, but the interpretation changes with the audience. An individual’s experience would influence their interpretation. For example, a Vietnam veteran would see the depiction of the napalming, in the clip, very differently than a peace protester. Interpretation also changes over time and this serves to illustrate Derridas’ idea that meaning is not fixed. Due to the clip’s place in popular culture it is possible people could come to associate the sound of the helicopter with the film, or the song ‘The End’ (Morrison, 1967, track 11) re-mixed and re-released with the film.

The chosen clip could be seen as an example of a ‘new richly metaphoric language of war’ (Westwell, 2006, p.63) in which established codes and conventions were altered to reflect the experiences of the individual Vietnam veteran. The close up requires the audience to empathise with Willard, but so does the position of his face. Having the face upside down draws the audience’s focus to Willard’s eyes. Turning Willard’s face upside down has a dizzying effect so as to mirror his psychological disorientation. A closer reading of the film could reflect the psychological state of Willard. As the camera pans across the burning tree line the silhouette of the trees fall across Willard’s face as if to represents bars, Willard imprisoned in his hallucinatory state. Overall the clip seems to suggest that images can no longer be placed in the ‘clear structure of the World War II combat movie’ and could represent ‘anxiety about the war’s legacy and by the expedient the Vietnam War is thoroughly psychologised’ (Westwell, 2006, p.64).

In the Le Plaisir du Texte (1975) Barthes described the text of ‘Jouissance’ as a text in which the author’s intentions were imposed on the reader. Metz gives an example of the close up to illustrate this. The close up ‘is one of the main ways in which an object is transformed into a sign ‘by selectively representing one part of the object, thereby choosing the meaning one wants to give it’ (1975, p.195). Coppola’s use of ‘The End’ (Morrison, 1967, track 11) by The Doors could be seen as an attempt to influence the audiences attention, juxtaposing the songs lyrics ‘I’ll never look into your eyes again’ as Willard’s face appears in the frame. However, Barthes also stated, that signs are ’motivated by the concepts which they represent, while not yet, by a long way, covering the sum of its possibilities of representation’ (1957, p.127), that the choice of interpretation lies with the audience, regardless of the filmmaker’s intention.

In conclusion, the director’s attempt to influence an audiences reading is made difficult by multiple interpretations of the audience, depending on their historical context and the audiences understanding of technical devices. In the clip we are introduced to technical devices that may seem innovative, but their use and meaning have been established in earlier films. It is through the use of the formal elements as standard practice that audiences and filmmakers alike build up a language of film. But as popular semiotic meaning is created through repeated use, so to can it alter.