Analysing and comparing two production versions of the play 'Death of a salesman' by Arthur Miller

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I intend to analyse and compare two production versions of the play ‘Death of a salesman’ by Arthur Miller. Both clips that I will be studying are of the same scene in the play in which the protagonist, Willy Loman, has a time – lapse of a former lover. I will be studying the way in which each director represents the time – lapse by their use of; camera work, soundtrack and audio, props, setting and other effects such as positioning and lighting. The first production was made as a bbc2 drama staring warren mitchel and directed by David Thacker. The second production was made as a film and directed by Volker Schlondorff.

In terms of camera work each director has shown individual techniques of filming. Thacker has shown generally tighter and closer angles throughout the clip. He uses a selection of close up shots during Willy’s time-lapse enabling him to show the character emotions in good detail and saving excess expense on props large setting as no big budget would be provided for this production. Thacker also uses lighting and positioning to portray different situations. During Willy’s Time-lapse, the lover appears behind Willy as if she is inviting him backwards into his mind. She also appears in a brighter light than Willy when she appears from his mind; this shows that from his mind Willy recalls the memory as from a brighter or happier time of his life than he is in now. Schlondorff’s techniques are different to Thacker’s in that Schlondorff uses wider camera angles consisting of medium and medium-long shots. He sets the scene more than Thacker and uses wide panning shots to show whole settings and rather than showing closer shots with more emotional detail he instead creates more detail of the surrounding scenes.

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Schlondorff and Thacker have each expressed independent ideas towards the soundtrack. In the film version, setting aside dialogue, there is a gentile variation across swing and authentic jazz music which adjusts as the setting moves across from the restaurant to the toilet and then through Willy’s mind into the hotel room. In the restaurant the music is quick beat swing music which brings an uplifting feel to the setting with a dominant level of volume in the scene. As the shot moves through into the toilet the volume dies slightly, and as Willy’s thoughts of his lover begin to ...

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