Describe The Elements Of Style And Narrative Applied To The Films "Hard Candy" And "Silence Of The Lambs" And How They Cause Emotional Response

by 003212 (student)

JOE MOORCROFT 13G

Two elements of two chosen texts and how they cause emotional response

My two chosen texts are Hard Candy and Silence of the Lambs. In these films many film techniques and elements are relevant and vital to the construction of emotionally captivating and encouraging sequences. The two main and most important elements are style and narrative. A film element is something used by a media producer or a film company to create a desired emotional response and a desired positioning from the spectator. This process is called mediation and it is the most vital thing to cause emotional responses in films, as it has the ability to portray an ideology onto the audience and captivate those who wish to be targeted, and also expose emotionally, those that are in the line of fire.

Film narrative is the depiction in the medium of film of a series of events in cause and effect relationship occurring in time. Loosely speaking film narrative is a story constructed from production and story elements. Story telling in film is dependent on production processes. Production elements of camera, sound, editing, lighting, acting, visual composition (or mis-en-scene: sets, props, costume, make-up), and special effects (such as CGI) combine with story elements of character, setting, plot, cause and effect and create the power behind enforcing an emotional response from audiences and spectators.

Every film and media text is a result of many elements coming together in a harmonious and meaningful way. A good film production should be a combination of style, plot, and narration. When these three aspects are taken care of sufficiently, the film produced and the creation after this combination is genuine and classy and easily will evoke a desired emotional response from spectators and audiences.

Though style, plot, and narration need to collectively culminate into a striking and emotionally evoking film all the elements are important. The plot deals with the sequence of events in the story. The style is the usage of language, and film codes and presentation by the filmmaker. Narration can be explained as the way in which the director makes the spectator understand the story. The fact that for a story to be interesting, the plot should be good and the style perfect is a widely known feature of a successful film. Though narratives are important, style has the ability to make even a story with mediocre plot go from being nothing to successful.

When you look at Silence of the Lambs, the narrative is very enticing. Young FBI agent Clarice Starling is assigned to help find a missing woman to save her from a psychopathic serial killer who skins his victims. Clarice attempts to gain a better insight into the twisted mind of the killer by talking to another psychopath Hannibal Lecter, who used to be a respected psychiatrist. FBI agent Jack Crawford believes that Lecter, who is also a very powerful and clever mind manipulator, has the answers to their questions and can help locate the killer. However, Clarice must first gain Lecter's confidence before the inmate will give away any information.

Many different people will have varied emotional responses to The Silence of the Lambs, as a spectator I was shocked to see how brutal and sadistic the elements in the film were, but it was also interesting to see the element of voyeurism we as humans get from watching such subject matter.

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The overall issue in the film revolve around members of society that cannot feel secure with serial killers on the loose, and expect the FBI to remove that threat. No amount of security, even steel bars and plexiglass walls seems to protect society, and especially Dr. Chilton, from Hannibal Lecter. The overall message could be conjured up to - you are never safe in the harsh realities of society. Most people with a mainly realists ideology will have a preferred and dominant reading (Stuart Hall) of this text as they will realise what life really consists of, and that nothing is ever perfect and life’s narrative is not a fairytale. Clarice’s sense of security as a child was destroyed by her father’s death and seeing and hearing lambs slaughtered. A connotation of this denotation would be that; in society there is always suffering, the weak people are those who suffer and the ones who prevail are the ones who cause it.

When focusing on narrative theories for Silence of the Lambs, an interesting perspective to take would be that of Todorov, as this film starts in the disruption. It begins while Buffalo Bill is on a rampage. The film also kind of beings with the resolution as the FBI are trying to catch the killer from the beginning, but to add a twist they are using Hannibal, an already convicted criminal, and this gives you a sense of “resolution”, as when he gives Starling the information she needs, that is when the “resolution” really beings to play and flow. Then the ending once again does not fit, it is supposed to finish with a new equilibrium as it didn’t start with one, however it ends with Hannibal walking off into the distance to commit another murder. This stuns audience as this crime drama and police procedural of a “whydoneit” nature, gives audiences so much information at once they are so taken back they have to simply watch and see what happens instead of making assumptions.

When you are positioned as an audience, this can be defined as what you are motivated to do because of the content and iconography of a media text which depend on the ideology of media producers during the mediation of their product. The positioning of most people with Silence of the Lambs is one of horror and psychological disarray. You don’t know what to think. The killer, a noticeably abnormal and intelligent psychopath, has escaped. The killer has won. Most people will be positioned on the side of Lecter as his cunning and courageous agency as a character places him, as an avidly evil antagonist, far above the socially moral and acceptable standings of the main protagonist, Clarice.

With Clarice being the main character with the most time on screen, compared to Hannibal’s measly and seemingly insignificant 17 minutes, he is the most influential when it comes to the emotional response. He, the avidly evil and noticeable antagonist, contains the most surreal sense of control, compared to the main protagonist’s frequent self doubt.

The Cannibal’s never fluctuating sense of accomplishment with manipulation and control gives him a male dominance prospective and an eerie essence of constant character knowledge. The intelligence of the main male in the film will inspire a preferred reading from males, as you can see, even with Buffalo Bill; women are always submissive to them and are noticeably fragile within the narrative of Silence of the Lambs. Even though the majority of screen time is for a leading female, which will give women a preferred reading and males, an oppositional one, she is still shown as a lesser character of importance within the narrative, as male intelligence is still prosperous with the enigmatic final scene.

Agency is the most powerful element this film has to offer. It drives the narrative along on a far more emotionally evoking path, to substantially evolve the dialogue to a more piercing, gripping and thrilling nature. This captivates spectators and audiences as it pulls in their social anxieties and leaves no room for escape. Lecter knows what you’re thinking and he is always five steps ahead of you. The light-hearted will have an incredibly oppositional reading to such a text, as it challenges the way they view the world, the bubble-wrapped cocoon of a life they live in disintegrates substantially after being pierced with the subject matter of this film.

The macro elements of this films content focus around the sadistic elements of the imbalanced human mind. The psychologist within each spectator will have themselves naturally and subconsciously evaluating Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter, and the characters alike as the film progresses. The emotionally piercing features will leave people in a state of confusion as to why the typical narrative of a “cop drama” has not been followed. The human race has a dark side and this film is the embodiment of that state of mind. The confusion, the pain, the brutality of life, the struggle and most of all the constant fear of death is within this films soul. It is the essence of metaphoric realism. This film captures all darkness and captivates all those who understand it scares and horrifies those who don’t, and most of all, perfectly describes the fragility of the human race and the psyche’s that it is made up of.

With my other focus film; Hard Candy, it is another onslaught of positioning transformation and this is very noticeable and important when it comes to emotional response.

After three weeks of chatting with the thirty-two year old photographer Jeff Kohlver over the Internet, fourteen year old Hayley Stark meets him in the Nighthawks coffee shop. Hayley flirts with him in spite of the age difference and proposes to go to his house. Once there, she prepares a screwdriver for them and Jeff passes out. When he awakes, he is tied up to a chair, and Hayley accuses him of paedophilia. Jeff denies the accusation, and Hayley begins to torture him in a cat and mouse game. Hard Candy begins with a chat-room style sequence, which is clearly a flirtatious one between the two characters. You quickly gather the two are about to meet up through the on-screen conversation. When Jeff and Hayley are first introduced the conversation between the two reveals a lot to the audience about their characters as we quickly find out that there’s 18 years difference between the two as Hayley Stark is 14 years old and Jeff Kohlver is 32 years old.

Ideological shock takes place as you conclude him being a paedophile and trying to groom Hayley. The scene in the Nighthawks coffee bar where the camera is set between Hayley and Jeff is clever as it reveals the missing poster of Donna Mauer. We subconsciously jump to the conclusion that her disappearance may be linked with Jeff as the girl on the poster is quite young, a lot like Hayley. From a male point of view, Hayley is being flirtatious with Jeff, despite her being aware of the age-gap.

Parts of Jeff's dialogue build up the audiences growing suspicions of him being a paedophile as his reply to Hayley showing herself at the toilet door in her bra is: “You’ve got to stop teasing me like that‟. Even just the fact that Hayley appears in her bra is a shock, as the theme of youngsters being sexual in contemporary cinema is frowned upon and is a very controversial element to put into a film. Also other aspects of his dialogue makes the audience uncomfortable as he says to Hayley "You look older than you are…you certainly act older than you are‟. The shots used of him looking down on her, as well as his constant fixated gaze upon Hayley also add to the tension and the audience’s suspicion.

The cinematography is effective at the start of the film as a lot of the shots are high angles looking down on Hayley or shots which appear to be from a voyeuristic point of view she's initially shown to be vulnerable and weak and innocent- however her youthful looks are contrasted by her short boyish hair and the connotations of danger and caution of her red hoodie. This leaves clues to the audience that there may be more to her character.

The balance of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds is interesting to reflect the film genre as we have a lot of diegetic sounds of the computer keyboard being typed on, as well as the public, safe atmosphere in the coffee bar. However the non-diegetic sounds come in at first when Jeff licks the chocolate off her bottom lip. The scene gives the genre a thriller-style tone through the over-saturated lighting and slow-motion camera shots when the two are in the car on the way back to Jeff’s. This is more in relation to genre but it is an important stylistic element that should not be overlooked.

At Jeff's another shock is unleashed onto the audience; Jeff takes photographs of underage models. The subtle context of how he words it absorbs some of the shock as he goes on to say the girls are all clothed and that he offers them their big break. The red and grey colours of his home may be illustrating their direct connotations of danger and caution, as Hayleys hoodie suggested, because of this it is avidly clear how important style is to drive emotional responses into the minds of spectators.

Through the film we are placed more from Hayley's perspective as she's the first on-screen character and she seems the innocent one, the only time this changes is when Jeff wakes up tied to a chair. Instantly we have evidence of shock in the narrative as the perceived innocent 14 year old girl has taken advantage of the perceived paedophile and drugged him and tied him up.

Hayleys look is instantly changed as the colour turns to grey when she declares to Jeff “Playtime is over”. Her exterior changes and she suddenly becomes sweaty and psychotic as the editing pace is increased to reflect her mental state as she becomes intent on hurting Jeff. The film takes a twist as we are placed in Jeff's perspective at times, like for example when he is tearfully telling a childhood story of when he was "mistakenly‟ accused of abusing his younger cousin. For some reason, the director puts us in his position and we start to believe that he may be the innocent one who is mistaken, especially as Hayley is shown out to be some sort of crazy manic person.

In the film, the messages that some sequences appear to give off questions many of the audience’s ideologies’ when Hayley, although mocking Jeff, labels him a “Cute paedophile”, this is something that is simply unfathomable. It confuses the audience as to where we are being positioned in the film; maybe the comment was purposely placed in the screenplay to soften and reason with Jeff and give the audience a false illusion that maybe he might be innocent and by doing this the audience are being torn between the two characters perspectives and unsure of who to side with or who is the one in the right.

The roles change as she says “when I am ready to go, I’ll call a cab and call another one to let you loose”. This contrasts the opening of the film as the roles reverse from Jeff being the overpowering, older male; his glasses represent knowledge and his suit represents professionalism whereas Hayley was the vulnerable 14 year old girl with no knowledge and seemingly unaware of the dangers of internet dating. But the roles reverse as it is Jeff who is being overpowered and made helpless; we now have a lot of high angles of him and voyeuristic cinematography which is combined with low angles of Hayley to show her apparent power over him.

The castration scene is effective as it has separate effects on audience on terms of gender. Males watch this scene through gritted teeth and found it incredibly uncomfortable to watch as it's impossible not to imagine yourself in Jeff's position. The disturbing scrapes of the razor as she shaves him and then the squelching as she "cuts‟ him was enough to make you nauseous and the effective mixture of tool shots and shots from Hayley's point of view and Jeff's face makes you feel trapped.

Castration is one of the worst themes ever to think of and the unexplainable pain that it inevitably brings. Many see castration as literally losing your status as a man, obviously in technical terms this isn't true but in many people's opinions and in society it is true. So, by having Hayley "castrate‟ Jeff, she is taking away his pride as a man and effectively ending his days as a paedophile- highlighted by a euphemism she states as “-preventative maintenance”. Audiences will almost definitely share her motives but find it uncomfortable to watch.

In conclusion it is clear to see that narrative is driven by style to create an emotional response, and when this is applied to films of control and noticeable agency it adds an even more captivating and bold effect that leaves an audience craving more and more.

Joe Moorcroft 13G FILM STUDIES A2