How does Peter Medak gain the viewer's sympathy for Derek Bentley in this film?
How does Peter Medak gain the viewer’s sympathy for Derek Bentley in this film?
I think that Peter Medak made the film “let him have it” to show his views of Capital Punishment. He does this in many ways by showing the court case to show how unfair the sentence and also to show some things of Derek Bentley’s point of view.
The story starts with Derek Bentley under a pile of rubble of his house in World War 2 and some people hear a voice under the rubble and so they take away the rubble releasing Derek Bentley under there looking shocked and moving his head. Whilst the people release Derek Bentley the camera zooms in from a long shot to a close up and also this shows the audience that here he became epileptic. Derek Bentley was a child when he was in the war under the pile of rubble. Later it jumps to the scene when he’s in an Approved School. Derek when he becomes a teenager gets scared of going outside, so his sister makes him go outside by telling him that everything will be ok and that his sister will be by his side wherever he goes. Derek meets Chris, who is more like a gangster type, they become good friends and they always end up meeting outside to do something’s together. Derek and Chris try to rob a bakery shop and so they climb up to the roof and end up shooting a police officer.
