Edward Cullen is charming, polite, serious, intelligent, determined, and very stubborn, much like Bella. He is frozen in a 17 year old body, but actually is 108. He is very protective over her and puts her safety, humanity and welfare before anything else. He often over-analyzes situations and has a tendency to overreact, especially in situations where Bella's safety is at risk. He often uses outdated speech from his human life in the early 20th century, and can be very romantic. Edward sees himself as a monster, and after falling in love with Bella, he desperately wishes that he were human instead of a vampire. As a vampire he has extreme strength and speed.
James, Victoria and Laurent are the evil vampires that feed off human blood. James is a ‘tracker’, which means he has a gift that helps him to find people and he wont stop until he's got what he wants; in this case Bella’s blood. He is the leader of this coven. Victoria is in love with James and his death makes her want revenge against Edward and the Cullen’s. At the end of Twilight, we see Victoria spying on Edward and Bella, leaving suspense on the audience, making them want to see the next film to find out what she does next. Laurent is the third member of this coven, but when James and Victoria become obsessed with Bella, Laurent was “fed up with his (James) games” and decided to leave the coven so travelled north to find another to join.
The rest of the Cullen family; Carlisle, Esme, Alice, Emmett, Rosalie and Jasper are quite unusual when it comes to the world of vampires. They live a strict diet of only feeding on animal blood (they call themselves vegetarians as a private joke), rather than humans, so that they can try and fit into society and appear as human and normal as possible, to help them keep a permanent residence in the town of Forks, (Jasper finds the temptation to resist human blood, harder than the rest of the family, and so takes some time to get used to Bella). As none of the family are actually related, Carlisle 9who is also the covens leader) and Esme are the rest of the family’s adoptive parents, ‘for all intents and purposes’. Carlisle and Esme are married, along with Rosalie and Emmett and Alice and Jasper. The Cullen’s are a good family, who love Bella and treat her as part of the family, right from the beginning in Twilight, and will do almost anything to protect her. They all find her interesting, except for Rosalie who seems to dislike her for some unknown reason (later found out in the sequels). Alice is particularly fond of Bella, because as she has visions of the future, she has seen that her and Bella will be ‘good friends’.
Charlie Swan aka Chief Swan, is Bella’s father. When Bella moves to Forks, it is her dad that she goes to live with, which at first is slightly awkward, as when Bella was a little girl she used to visit him every summer, but she hasn’t seen him for over three years now. Charlie is very similar to Bella, as in Bella’s own words, “He doesn’t hover,” and he isn’t really good at letting his feelings out, appearing quite a shy person. Charlie married Bella's mother, Renée, just after they both graduated high school and they soon had Bella. Renée divorced Charlie not long after and moved to Phoenix, Arizona, with Bella. Charlie was still in love with her, but had gotten past the fact that she didn't love him anymore. He became accustomed to living alone, which is probably part of the reason he is quite shy and likes to be alone sometimes.
Renée Dwyer, previously Renée Swan, is Bella’s mother, and is an eccentric, silly person who will brave new things (like skydiving and book clubs) and come to her senses later. Bella always felt that she was the mother of their relationship, having to guide Renée away from doing ridiculous things, and Renée thought of Bella as her middle-aged child. Renée remarries a much younger baseball player, Phil Dwyer, Bella unselfishly sends herself to live with her dad in Forks so that Renée and Phil can travel together. Renée’s appearances in Twilight are brief, but it is still noticeable of her young, lively personality.
Jacob Black is only a minor role in Twilight, but later he becomes one of the major characters. He is a Quileute Native American and later he becomes able to shape shift into a werewolf. His father Billy Black is Charlie Swans best friend. When Jacob and Bella were little, they used to ‘make mud pies together’. The two are reunited right when Bella first moves back to Forks, which is essentially the start of a great, new friendship, which lasts forever.
The camera angles in Twilight are very ‘visually dynamic’. The best example from the film is a scene near the end where James (the ‘evil’ vampire), tricked Bella, so that he could kill her and drink her blood, by sending her to her old ballet studio. The setting for this particular scene is chosen as the studio holds many mirrors on its walls. The mirrors are a good way of camera trickery and the appearance that there is more than one camera, as the focus is reflected and shown from many different angles in one shot. In this scene, James even comments on the setting himself, while he is filming his kill on a home video recorder, by saying, “I choose my stage well, very…visually dynamic…”.
Another good example, of the brilliant uses of camera angles is a scene where Edward is running through the trees, up to the mountain, with Bella on his back. It is a very fast moving scene, that shows the speed vey well, as the camera moves along with the characters, most likely on a track, as if you are running up the mountain at that speed too.
Another fast moving scene that is very well shot, is the baseball scene. It is the Cullen family/coven playing and so the characters are moving inhumanely fast. In one part of the scene, when Edward and Emmett jump and crash into each other, although it is actually happening very quick, it goes in slow motion, and shows every part of it, in detail.
The lighting in the film, is pretty low-key throughout the whole thing. This dark, dusky feel makes Twilight more mysterious. A particular example of lighting in the film, is when Bella and Edward reach the top of the mountain, there is a single ray of sun light, which Edward steps into. When he steps into the light, his whole body begins to shimmer as if it is encrusted with millions of little diamonds. The little light makes the ‘diamonds’ glimmer, and look extremely realistic.
The music that is in Twilight, complements its brilliantly, and sets the whole mood for the film. In any upbeat, fast, tension building scenes, there is upbeat music playing, for example the baseball scene again. In this scene the song ‘Super-Massive Blackhole’ by Muse is playing. This song starts with a long introduction, which has a fast tempo, which I think is played on an electric guitar.
In the sad or slow-moving scenes, a slow, gradually building song is played quietly in the background. A good example is the last scene, where Bella and Edward are slow-dancing at prom, ‘Flightless Bird’ by Iron and Wine is the song they are dancing to and it really, lets the balloon down after the ‘fight’ scene.
The mise-en-scéne of the film is excellent. The setting for Twilight (Forks, Washington) was chosen, because one it is the place that Stephanie Meyer chose for it to be set in the book version of Twilight, and two because it is a dark, mysterious and most of all rainy place.
The costumes, worn by the characters, suit them amazingly. They really help to show their personalities, for example the Cullen’s all wear posh, dark, casual but elegant clothes, showing their gracefulness and richness. James however, wears an worn leather jacket, that shows he is a bit rugged and shows his toughness.
The props used in Twilight are very subtle, but pull the whole thing together, for example, in one scene near the beginning, Bella walks into the science lab, in front of a fan, and you see her hair blow, then it shows Edward watching her from his desk, and his paper blows up, showing the fan has hit him.
The make-up in Twilight, is very important, as the vampires have to appear extremely pale, nearly white. Their make-up is done well, as it still looks realistic, but it is clear that they are much paler than the humans. Also there is make up and special effects in the scene where Edward shows Bella, what he looks like in the sun and his whole body glimmers like he is covered in millions of diamonds.
The editing in Twilight, is fabulously done. There are many flashbacks in the movie, where someone, usually Bella, has a vision of something in the near past. In one particular scene, after Bella was bitten by James, and Edward is trying to save her, by sucking the venom out, he has many flashbacks all in one go, showing how close he and Bella had become in the past few months, which helped him to stop sucking before he killed her. Straight after this scene, it then slowly fades to the next scene, where we see Bella waking up in hospital. Here it didn’t suddenly jump to the hospital scene as you would probably have lost the emotion, where as when it fades out, it keeps you emotion and suspense, wanting to find out if Bella is still alive.
Twilight is set in the wet, rainy town of Forks, Washington. Forks is a small place, with a population that is so small that everyone knows everyone and all their businesses. When Bella first moves to Forks, she remembers how small the town is, as everywhere she goes the people all know who she is and what she’s called. The quietness of the town is what attracted the Cullen family to Forks, when they first moved there, as there isn’t enough people to tempt them, and to keep to themselves a bit easier.
As you can see, I really enjoyed Twilight and am a big fan. I have seen the movie a trillion times and would recommend anyone else to go and see it too. I can’t wait for the next movie to come out, later this year and I hope you see Twilight soon, so you can see how fantastic it is too!!!
