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Cinematic Elements in A Beautiful Mind

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Under discussion:

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Usually, when we ask a person what they enjoyed about a film they will say they enjoyed the story, characters, or the surprise twist at the ending. Rarely does the average viewer take into account the cinematic elements that work to communicate all of those details in an intriguing or enjoyable way. Furthermore, it seems as though few films that we would agree have excellent stories or characters could also be poorly produced. These things tend to go hand-in-hand for filmic narratives simply because in order for a story to be good it has to be told well, which, for film, implies the proper use of elements such as the score, mise en scene, and cinematography, just to name a few. For example, A Beautiful Mind, directed by Ron Howard and released in 2001, relies heavily on these elements to tell a story and construct a compelling plot over a progression of time.
A Beautiful Mind, winner of the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2001, was based on the book by Sylvia Nasar and adapted for the screen by Akiva Goldsman. This biography of John Forbes Nash is a compelling portrait of his mathematical genius and mental illness. The film begins with John Nash (Russell Crowe) in his early university years at Princeton while he is on a quest for an “original idea”. During this stretch of time we are introduced to the complexity of his mind as well as the flaws of his character. After Nash makes great discoveries in game theory, he is given a position at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he meets Alicia (Jennifer Connelly), a beautiful and bright student whom he falls in love with and then marries. However, what seemed reasonable earlier in the film as part of Nash’s world begins to approach paranoia and eccentricity. As his marriage, family, and career begin to deteriorate, Nash is finally diagnosed as schizophrenic and he must begin the slow and difficult journey toward mental health.
The score for A Beautiful Mind works well to tell the story of Nash’s progression from genius to paranoia to determination. Composed by James Horner, it contains complex rhythms and layers of instrumentation, all working to convey the complexity of the character and the mood of his abstract world. A dominant theme in the film is numbers; their structure and yet artfulness. This is beautifully expressed through the music as it follows the standard conventions for composition, yet contains elements that pull out the extra-ordinary. This can be seen in the use of Charlotte Church’s vocal background, which conveys not only grace, but also a more mature timbre that seems to inspire awe quite well. As the story progresses, as with all scores for film, there are certain themes that continue to reemerge, but also there are variations to give a sense of the passage of time that has taken place. In some ways, as Horner describes, it is almost like a constantly shifting weather system. All of this working together provides a greater sense of emotion and continuity in the narrative story line.
Another element of cinema that in necessary to conveying meaning and story in this film is the Mise en Scene. This is a French term that literally means “put in the scene”, but more generally refers to everything that is within the composed shot. Considering that this story takes place over about 40 or 50 years, there were a lot of details that had to have gone into considering the basic elements in costuming, set design, and even diagetic sound. What is most impressive is not only their ability to convincingly transform the world in which Nash lives, but also the aging of the characters; they had to go through about 9 stages of aging over the course of the whole film. This steady progression creates a high degree of verisimilitude or suspended disbelief for the audience and a sense of familiarity as the audience feels they have spent half a lifetime watching these characters age and mature.
While the music and the design of the scene are important, the cinematography is crucial to how meaning is conveyed in a film. Specifically, for a film that is portraying the mental illness of the main character, which occurs internally, it’s all about perspective. The point-of-view shot is not only important for understanding the ideas and emotions of John Nash, but also of all the people that interact with him. However, it is interesting how this is done in such a way that at first the audience is part of the constructed inner world of Nash and is unable to discern fiction from reality. However, as the film proceeds, the viewers are slowly allowed into the reality of the other character’s perspectives and therefore the truth of Nash’s illness. This is achieved by coupling point-of-view shots; first what Nash sees, then the reality of what the other character sees. This can prove to be either humorous or scary depending on the situation, but contributes greatly to the viewer’s involvement in the film by being pulled into the world of a genius only to have that world disassembled. Because of the way it is shot, the viewer is more effectively brought into the full range of emotions that are experienced by the main character throughout the film, which makes the story not only more enjoyable, but more believable as well.
While a viewer might state that the story was the best quality of a film, what they heard, saw, and experienced is really what shaped their idea of the perceived story. Cinematic elements such as the score, mise en scene, and cinematography are just three of many components that are part of constructing an effective narrative for film. Winner of four Academy Awards, A Beautiful Mind, masterfully utilizes these elements to present an intriguing story and a compelling plot. This film pulled these areas together in a way that brought the story to life and gave it the kind of depth and emotion that create a lasting impression.

Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 10:15 AM by csprague | with 1 comments

Antithesis Through Relational Tension

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Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000)

As one of the characters in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon said “When it comes to emotions, even great heroes can be idiots.” Such are the way of things in this film, which quickly became a classic after its theatrical release in 2000. The story follows the adventure of two warriors, Li Mu bai (Chow Yun-Fat) and Shu Lien (Michelle Yeoh), as they track a criminal, Jade Fox, and a young and talented thief, Jen, who is at a relational crossroad in her own life. As with much of Asian culture, it manages the feature of antithesis on many levels. This is beautifully illustrated in the statement of one of the main characters, Li Mu Bai, when he says “No growth without assistance. No action without reaction. No desire without restraint.” The tension that is displayed in these character’s relationships not only contributes to the plot structure, but also to the overall theme of antithesis.
The relational counterpart to Li Mu Bai is Shu Lien, his long time friend and fighting partner. The audience first encounters their relational tension in the opening scene as Li Mu Bai arrives in the town of Shu Lien after presumably being gone for quite some time. It is in his announcement of relinquishing his sword that there is an understanding exchanged. However, it is actually in the introduction of the character Jen that we become acquainted with the factors in the relationship between Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien. Jen is in the midst of her own relational struggle as she has been promised in marriage. Though she longs for a life of true love and freedom, she does not want to dishonor or be rejected by her family by refusing to marry. Ironically, it is the action of Li Mu Bai turning over his sword that leads Shu Lien’s and Jen’s paths to cross. The intersection of their stories is the catalytic event that propels the rest of the story forward.
The conversation between Shu Lien and Jen reveals the basic conflict in both of their situations to the audience. Shu Lien recounts to Jen how she and Li Mu Bai have chosen not to become romantically involved so as not to dishonor the memory of Shu Lien’s deceased love who was also Li Mu Bai’s best friend. Their choice has led them to a friendship of mutual trust, respect, and unspoken commitment to each other and their duties, but it is in him relinquishing his sword that there is also an action of movement toward each other. Unlike the resistance of their story, Jen’s moves on a path that flashes back to reveal her passionate embrace of love in an episode that introduces the character Lo, who is known as the desert bandit, Dark Cloud. Instead of allowing Jen to sacrifice her family’s honor and acceptance by remaining with him in the desert, Lo had sent her back to her family in hopes of securing her hand through honorable means, which, in the end, proves to be impossible. Thus Jen is still forced to decided between a life of dishonor with love and a life of honor with out love.
Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai had chosen between a life of honor and commitment with out intimacy over a life of commitment and intimacy without honor. However, as Yu Shu Lien said “To repress one's feelings only makes them stronger” and it calls into question whether the pursuit of commitment and honor was all a waste or if it was, in the end, what mattered most. It is in Li Mu Bai’s dying words that we finally grasp the regret and yet the depth of this sacrifice. He said “I've already wasted my whole life. I want to tell you with my last breath that I have always loved you. I would rather be a ghost, drifting by your side as a condemned soul, than enter heaven without you. Because of your love, I will never be a lonely spirit.”
For Jen she must choose between a life of duty in marriage without love and a life of exile from her family with love. She cannot understand the life of honor; why Shu Lien and Li Mu Bai would choose not to dishonor the memory of their dead friend for the sake of love. Yet, why does she jump off the mountain in the final scene? Perhaps in watching Li Mu Bai die in the arms of Shu Lien she realized that she could not live in the tension between dishonor and duty; that eventually all things end and what is most important in this life is how you lived. There is also the possible theme of atonement as Jen seemed to be overwhelmed with the guilt of not only Li Mu Bai’s death, but also her actions that had prevented Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien from pursuing a life of happiness together.
In jumping from the mountain side Jen is not only escaping from the tension, but also from the guilt of her life. However, while this would appear to be suicide, it was actually an act of sacrifice according to the folktale that Lo had told her, which said “A faithful heart makes wishes come true.” Her leap into oblivion was supposedly for the benefit of those that are left behind, unfortunately we don’t know what she or Lo wished for at that moment, and one can only assume that it was some thing redemptive. It is also possible that she finally realized the same truth as Li Mu Bai, who said “The things we touch have no permanence. My master would say: there is nothing we can hold onto in this world. Only by letting go can we truly possess what is real.” It was only in this final act of letting go that she was able to be true to herself and also to possess what is most real in this life, love.
Antithesis as portrayed through the dynamics of these character’s relationships adds to the plot structure and the over arching themes in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. In one of the final scenes, as the realization of Li Mu bai’s poisoning becomes immanent and Jen proclaims that there is an antidote, Shu Lien says “Everything has an antithesis.” And so the film is finally pulled together in this one statement that encapsulates the beauty of the balance of opposites. Would Li Mu Bai and Shu Lien’s love have been so deep if there were not also resistance? It is harder to say for Jen. Perhaps she would not have been able to finally let go if she had not first learned what it truly means to possess.

Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 9:55 AM by csprague | with 0 comments

The Influence of Film on Cognition

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Under discussion:

The Village (2004)

Before you read this, be forewarned, this is an analysis of film in communication theory, it uses film analysis, and might lead to a greater appreciation of this film, but it is first and foremost an academic piece.

Since the early 20th century, film began to develop in many forms from shorts to documentaries to full length feature presentations. Today the most prevalent type of film is full length feature narrative fiction, which can commonly be seen at the local cinema or movie rental store. Because of the accessibility of film to a large audience it is possibly one of the most influential mediums on our attempts to share meaning and form relationships. The narrative film’s use of production components such as setting, lighting, shots, and sound conveys meaning in order to involve the audience in the film and ultimately influence their cognition of concepts such as grief, fear, and love.
While the use of one film might seem to limit my support, I believe that there is enough material in this film, which is similar to so many others, to sufficiently support my analysis. The film that I will use is both an excellent example of mise-en-scene and cinematography. The Village; written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, was wide released in 2004. It was marketed mainly to an audience composed of fans from Shyamalan’s last several films such as The Sixth Sense, Signs, and Unbreakable. The basic story line involves a village of people, who live in a time and place to which we are given very few clues. The main conflict of the story is the tension between “those we do not speak of” who dwell in the woods surrounding the village and the supposed agreement that is maintained between the people and the creatures. When the one of the main characters, Lucius, is injured, the heroine of the film, Ivy, embarks on a mission to travel through the forbidden woods to the “wicked” towns to fetch medicine.
In order to analyze film as a medium it would be helpful to first define how the technology works with the physiology of the human body to create this form of communication known as film. First, vision itself is basically the process of reflected or projected light hitting the retina of the eye and creating an image. The medium of photography imitates vision in the way it imprints images on to film, but is not continuous. Thus where photography is limited to a single frame, moving image connects the single frames into a continuous series to create an even more convincing imitation of actual vision (Chesebro 76). This imitation creates the illusion of realism and leads to suspended disbelief, allowing the audience to become emotionally involved with the narrative.
The ability of film technology to create a world that moves before your eyes as you remain stationary in a seat is an amazing idea that we take for granted in our technology driven culture. Furthermore, it is this ability to create convincing worlds for viewers that holds the power to influence the thoughts and emotions of the viewer as if they are actually in the world where the story is happening. Whether we know it or not we become part of the story and are deeply impacted by the thoughts and ideas that are conveyed within.
There are two major components of production in film that help to convey meaning to the viewer: mise-en-scene and cinematography. Mise-en-scene is “those elements of a movie scene that are put in position before the filming actually begins and are employed in certain ways once the filming does begin” (Chesebro 42). Mise-en-scene includes, but is not limited to props, acting, blocking, costume, make-up, and lighting. Cinematography is “motion picture photography, literally ‘writing in movement’” (Chesebro 77). The core of cinematography is found in the shot. There are several different types of shots that can be used to influence or convey meaning to the audience.
In the film The Village, one aspect of Mise-en-scene is the setting. The village itself is a replica of an actual working village from the colonial era complete with stonewall buildings, barns, a meeting hall, and other structures common to a more communal way of life. The characters are dressed in costume that would be appropriate to the time period and even speak in the rhetoric that we would assume would have been used during that time. The smallest details from the production of food and chores to the social norms and traditions of the assumed era are reproduced in the world that is created by the production designer. Essentially, they achieve as authentic an environment as possible which engages the viewer as an active participant in the way of life that the characters are portraying.
Another component of Mise-en-scene that influences the emotions of the scenes is lighting. It follows from the setting that there is no electricity in the village; therefore all of the lighting is from fire light. The characters are often lit from the front with low fill lighting and barely any rim/back light. This creates an atmosphere of secrecy and unknown that seems to haunt the entire village. This is also symbolized in the black boxes that each of the elders keeps in their home and the arbitrary language of the monsters in the woods, i.e. “Those we do not speak of.” As the viewer you are pulled into the mystery and the general discomfort of not knowing the whole story.
Another way of inviting the audience into the story is through the cinematography. The use of camera shots and sound appeal to our pathos and we experience the same emotions that the characters express from joy to sadness to anger to fear. The paradigm for communicating emotion in The Village is done through the perception of the created world through the main character, Ivy Walker, who is blind. This is a very important element of the film and seems to be the element around which most of the film is built. All are modeled after the heightened senses of a person who is blind. This is an effective method of inspiring fear in an audience since most people fear what they cannot see or understand. Often the focus is placed on sound from Ivy’s point of view or on her hands as they experience the world around her. The shots from her shoulder that look straight at the things that she cannot see encourage a reaction from the viewer to communicate with her as and involved character who knows something she does not. This is especially true when she looks in the direction of exaggerated sound, as the audience is conditioned to respond to this over the course of the film. This creates a sense of tension and the illusion of the ability to influence the conflict.
   As effectively as the Mise-en-scene and cinematography communicate certain types of information, they also effectively exclude certain information. The time period, geography, and history of the village are largely a mystery that is slowly revealed by moderated bits of information that are gradually fed to the audience over the course of the film. The use of arbitrary language does not necessarily convince the audience of the time period as much as it leaves room for uncertainty. As the stories of the characters are revealed there are small clues here and there to allow a story to begin to emerge. Even as the viewer is on the verge of putting the pieces together, the film is edited to show scenes out of order as to prevent the necessary information from being revealed. This, overall, adds to the secrecy, mystery, and general fear of the unknown that we feel. The intentional application of these concepts communicates ideas about the fear, mistrust, and ignorance that can be faced in the real world.
Different people would be prone to interpret these messages differently. A person who knows someone who is blind might be twice as sensitive to the authenticity, struggle of the character, and the themes presented. Their understanding of the world of a blind person gives them a perspective that someone who has no concept of blindness would miss. Also, people who have dealt with significant loss of tragedy might relate differently to the themes of preservation and protection from the outside world in varied ways. The medium can communicate its intended ideas, however there will always be the variable of the stories that the audience bring to the viewing and the prejudices that they might have of the movie even before they have seen it. For example, most people thought they would be seeing a horror film when they went to see The Village and were mostly disappointed to find that it was more about content and theme then simple, mindless fear games.
   Sociologically, The Village attempts to question the systems of fear that are used to control and manipulate society for the common good. The elders of the village sought to preserve innocence, yet found that evil can still come from within. Similarly, it could be said that our American society has attempted to do the same things to justify censorship and more recently to justify war. Good films reach beyond the world that they have created to speak to the one in which the audience exists.
   Assuming that a person is engaged and influenced by the film and its implications, it could potentially impact the way they understand and thus respond to different aspects of life. The Village hits on a lot of basic ideas of what it means to be human in a broken world and points toward both hope and darkness at its conclusion; it is never simply one or the other, there is always a mixture of both. There is an intentional element to the dialogue and certain shots at the end of the film that contribute to these themes or ideas about the world. Hope, love, and innocence, are contrasted by darkness, secrecy and fear. These elements are conveyed in several ways such as Ivy’s blindness (Darkness), the character Lucius’ name (luce= light), all the shots of light on people’s faces in the midst of shadows, and the countless verbal references to hope, love and innocence. Through the use of mise-en-scene and cinematography the audience becomes involved in the story in order to influence their cognition of contrasting themes. It is from this contrast that we can understand the beauty of living in the balance and can appreciate the one because of the existence of the other.

Bibliography:
Chesebro, James W., and Dale A. Bertelsen. Analyzing Media: Communiation Technologies As Symbolic and Cognitive Systems. Vol. 1. New York: The Guilford Press, 1996. 1 vols.
Corrigan, Timothy, and Patricia White. The Film Experience: An Introduction. Vol. 1. 1th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2004. 1 vols.
The Village. Dir. M N. Shyamalan. 2004. DVD. Touchstone Home Entertainment, 2005.

Posted Friday, June 29, 2007 9:51 AM by csprague | with 2 comments

The 2007 Water Front Film Festival

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Under discussion:

Ordinary People (1980)

American Beauty (1999)

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Napoleon Dynamite (2004)

Vanaja (2007)

The Go-Getter (2007)

American Fork (2006)

I have never been to a Film Festival before, so I was pretty fresh to the scene at Water Front in Saugatuck, MI this year. It was a small, quiet resort town, mostly untainted by hype or the onslaught of cinephiles. There were just a lot of people, anywhere between the ages of 1 and 80, who simply came out to enjoy the films and maybe meet a few other film-lovers. The festival itself flowed pretty smoothly (except Fed-Ex some how managed to misplace several films, which then had to be shown in digital instead of celluloid; much to the film-purists chagrin), which is pretty incredible considering it is a completely volunteer-run festival. Even the promotional media that they showed before films seemed well-done, and were at the very least clever and humorous.

The first film I watched while I was there was The Go-Getter, a film by Martin Hynes; his second after a film he made in 1999. The Go-Getter stars Nick Offerman, Jena Malone, William Lee Scott, Zooey Deschanel, and Lou Taylor Pucci. The main character, Mercer, is played by Lou Taylor Pucci who, although he had a bit of a shaky start, pulled off a pretty convincing character through which I was reminded of the strange transition between adolescence and adulthood with all of its awkward and scary moments. The film follows Mercer on a crime-initiated road trip after the death of his mother. At first, I was a little unsure of how the movie would unfold. The first half hour took a little too long dwelling in abstract character development that didn’t really give the audience much with which to work. I think the initial frustration is the lack of information that would ordinarily accompany opening sequences and give the viewer some footing from which to understand the rest of the narrative. In this case, that information is given in very small pieces as the film progresses, through new characters and flashback, we begin to put together the back story of why Mercer (and the viewer) are on this crazy trip. This isn’t a new concept in terms of narrative structure, although I would say the rate at which information is communicated is a bit slower and even delayed in this film.

The Go-Getter opens with a suburban establishing shot and follows a kid (Pucci) on a bike from a birds-eye-view until he arrives at the high school. If I remember correctly this is where the voice over narration begins. Mercer says something to the effect of “then I realized how to not be stuck.” It reminded me a lot of the opening of American Beauty or Ordinary People; wide shot of a middle class neighborhood that gradually moves in with a voice over narrator who pulls you into their world. They are isolated people in the midst of a crowded existence.

Upon his revelation of “ how not to be stuck”, Mercer sets in motion a plan to steal a car and begin a road trip. Of course, at first we don’t know what he is doing, he simply skips out of school and goes to borrow his friend’s uniform. When he shows up in uniform at a carwash, you can only assume that he is there to steal a car. Its interesting how they use the Point of View shots here, they show pretty much everything from inside the car with Mercer, until he pulls out into the road, then we switch to the perspective of the person whose car was stolen. The carwash attendant is freaking out and we never see the reaction of the person who just lost their car. Its an interesting piece of set up, unless you have already read the synopsis and you know that this person will eventually befriend Mercer and their anonymity will be part of the intrigue between them.

You would assume it’s a coming of age kind of flick, but you don’t see any character growth until about half way through when Jenna Malone’s character is introduced. Or perhaps during Mercer’s first stop at a Pottery Studio, where he smokes pot and starts spilling his guts over the dinner table about his Mom dying and how he just wants to find his brother since its been 9 months and he thinks Arlen should know. This is the first time we really see any emotion from his character that even hints at why he has begun this journey.

Even if the narrative and characters were a little shaky from the beginning, I still enjoyed the production quite a bit. The cinematography was great. They played with contrasts in artificial and natural light and incorporated the landscape into the different segments of the journey. The writing didn’t seem so great when the film started, there were a couple of initial exchanges that seemed a little forced or cliché, not at all thoughtful. In fact, I was pretty sure the main character was going to annoy the hell out of me the whole time. Luckily enough he became likeable, or at least I could have some allegiance to him considering the subject matter. I also enjoyed the soundtrack although some songs became slightly redundant. What I liked best was that the film embodied all of the characteristics of an Epic Journey narrative. It seemed to have this intention all along, but it didn’t really come into the full style until later on. As the main character becomes more adamant about his mission to find his brother the narrative seems to take shape, like a hero embarking on an epic journey.

We get a lot of information about Mercer through his conversations with Kate, the girl whose car he stole to begin his journey. And through their, and several other, interactions we get flashbacks that fill in the blanks of who the main character really is. The transitions into and out of flashbacks were very good in that they were seamlessly oriented around an object or a natural break in the frame. They used light a lot for these as well. One of the best parts of any Epic journey is the characters and worlds that the hero encounters along the way. For Mercer, the pot-head pottery guy, the woman in the pet-shop who makes him help out with their community-service project, the crazy-sexy girl he used to know in junior high, the pornographer, and Kate at the other end of the cell phone, contribute not just as catalysts towards his goal but also as agents of change who participate in the process of peeling back the layers of his character and revealing to him some important ideas about life, death, and who we can be in the world. One of my favorite moments is when Kate and Mercer are talking and she asks “Doesn’t anyone know anybody anymore?” which digs into the real question of the film. Is it possible to truly be known? Or will we always be strangers no matter how close we become? For Mercer and Kate, this question presents itself and then slips into irrelevance as they continue down the path of acquaintance. …because the answers to these questions might very well be “yes”, but that is hardly a good enough reason not to try.

The second film I saw at The Water Front Film Festival was Vanaja, the story of a young Indian girl who goes to live in the house of her landlady and ends up being raped by the landlady’s son. The story is told with humor and yet maintains a balanced perspective between the childhood-esque and the difficult issues that surround being a low-caste female in the Indian world. The director did a great job creating a believable world and representing the caste and patriarchal systems that are in place to keep people in their place. The narrative flowed pretty smoothly in a linear fashion and was accented along they way by beautiful dance sequences as performed by the main character, Vanaja, who was played by Umila Ramachandriah.

Vanaja leaves her home and her drunken father at the age of 15 to go and live and work for the landlady of the town. Her ulterior motive is to have the landlady teach her how to sing and dance well. This is not an easy task as the landlady is extremely stubborn and stern with everyone, but she eventually relents and begins to teach Vanaja. The story develops more when the landlady’s son returns from the University in America to run for political office. He is, unfortunately, a very arrogant and self-centered young man who ends up raping Vanaja and then blackmailing her into silence. She becomes pregnant and the truth is finally revealed to the landlady who tries to make her have an abortion. In desperation, Vanaja’s father hides her out in the country with some friends until the child is born. When it is, she is asked to give him up to the landlady.

This story is not really a surprising story line, it seemed predictable at times, yet was not boring. I remember feeling as though it was a little long and very depressing, but that’s what happens when you watch something that doesn’t come from the Classical Hollywood machine. I am used to being entertained and filled with warm fuzzies after good triumphs over evil and the hero gets the girl. But what I have found in most foreign film is that often good doesn’t triumph over evil, and love doesn’t always find the main characters. This doesn’t make the film bad, its just makes it harder to watch. Vanaja is actually a very good film. The acting, production, soundtrack, and design were all well done and in a way the narrative does come full circle so as to make the viewer feel some sense of relief on behalf of the main character. Yet, its not what the traditional American audience would expect and so, it is easy to write off. But don’t, give it a chance and at least try to enlarge your sympathies for what life is like for the rest of the world.

The third, and final, film that I saw at Water Front was American Fork, by director Chris Bowman, produced by the same guy who also did the cult-classic Napoleon Dynamite. American Fork stars Hubbel Palmer as the very large and extremely naïve Tracy Orbison who works at a run-down grocery store and struggles with his weight and inability to pass his drivers license exam. Also in the cast is William Baldwin who plays Tracy’s acting coach Truman Hope (a washed up community theater actor who I could swear recites monologues from other films, specifically A Beautiful Mind). Tracy, like most people, is just looking to find his niche, the one thing that will make him stand out and give him something to live for. At first, he believes that acting is "the thing" and he sets out to become the best he can be. Unfortunately, because of his insecurity, naivety, and eagerness to please, he allows his acting coach to use him, which makes for some major disappointment. With acting out of the picture, Tracy turns to befriending some of the local troubled teens. Once again, eager to make a difference and too easily convinced of their intentions, he finds himself in some compromising situations. Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, his sister starts dating his old acting coach and they try to do an intervention in his life based on false accusations about his character. At the center of all of this are the constant jokes and angry remarks about Tracy’s weight. One sequence, probably at one of the lowest points of the film, the narrative crosscuts between Tracy’s sister with Truman Hope and Tracy binge eating everything in the refrigerator. It’s almost painful to watch and yet is a reminder of the destructive things we do to deal with our pain. This is one the only movies that I can think of currently that addresses eating as an addiction and not simply a coping mechanism, especially for a male.

American Fork has a lot of strong points including casting, writing, acting, production design, and soundtrack. All of these things pull together a tight narrative that keeps you emotionally involved, not bored or distracted. As a viewer, you are either laughing hysterically at the awkward escapades or wanting to cry from depression, after all it is extremely frustrating to watch a person get walked all over for two hours. There isn’t really anything remarkable about the production except the fact that it is seamless and unnoticeable, which, unless there is something intentionally going, is the point of continuity in production. The use of several kinds of lighting at home, work, and in other settings plays on what is done in the light versus in the dark; out in the open or in secret. The truth about all of the characters was that while they might pick on Tracy for his weight, they all had something to be guilty of that they were trying to hide or that controlled them as a false identity. American Fork, for me, was an interesting and entertaining film with compelling characters and a quirky storyline; I’m hoping it does well in the future with further release.

Posted Wednesday, June 20, 2007 10:35 AM by csprague | with 1 comments