The second visual motif found was when Louise walked over to the second table and told the girls they were to young to be smoking. This was a shot reverse shot between the two girls and Louise. The purpose of this was to allow the audience to view the faces of the characters. Then the next scene is when Louise calls Thelma at home and She is rushing to get the phone. This was a hand-held shot; it stressed the moment of tension.
And this was very useful because at this time Thelma is trying to be as good to Daryl as she possibly can, because she wants to go on the trip with Louise. Then she gets off the phone with Louise and moves to the center of the kitchen doorway to tell Daryl to get ready for work. This shot was taken with a mobile frame, because Thelma is always moving trying to get her husband ready for work.
Daryl enters the room and Thelma fastens his cuffs on his shirt and brings him some coffee, which suggests that Daryl can't do anything himself and that this is a daily occurrence. In this shot I noticed there was a black heart with pink frills around it on the fridge. This was in the silhouette, above her fastening his cuffs. Which symbolizes that there is no love in Thelma's marriage and also the fact that it is on the fridge suggests the coldness in their relationship. The black heart on the set was a good choice for the setting and time of this shot.
There is a sense of suspense that was created as I waited for her to ask her husband Daryl if she can go away for the weekend, but when she gets the opportunity she stutters and doesn't ask him the question intended. Daryl brushes his hair in the kitchen and looks in the mirror a lot, this suggests that he is obsessed with his self, and is very vain. Thelma asks him if he wants anything special for tea and he rudely replies that he doesn't care what they have; therefore Thelma feels rejected and she turns her back on him to symbolize this.
She seems to gain confidence after he rejected her and she continued scraping the food in the garbage. As she did this she began to talk about why people would want to buy a carpet on a Friday night indicating that she knew that he was sleeping around.
Daryl then swings his keys and implies that he is the boss at work; therefore implying that he is also the boss of Thelma. He also swings the keys like he is holding a gun and at the same time points his finger to look like a gun, which gave a hint to the next shooting scene. The next shot is of Daryl walking outside towards his car. Ellipses are used from when he finishes his conversation with Thelma to when he walks down the driveway.
Daryl has a great sense of pride and doesn't like to be late; this is shown in the way that he continuously looks at his watch and the way that he shouts at the gardeners for tripping up over their tools. He talks to himself as well which suggests that he is self-absorbed and he uses blasphemy in every sentence, which could be offensive.
When Daryl has left Thelma phones Louise again and a middle-aged man answers who is presented as a charming man and he obviously has feelings for Thelma, the way he treats Thelma is completely different to the way that Daryl does. Louise is in the background and she monitors the conversation; and just before it is time for Thelma to answer the middle-aged mans question, Louise takes the phone from the man and rescues Louise. There are six cuts in this scene with the phone conversation between Thelma and Louise. Thelma tends to open and close the fridge a lot, in each cut because she can’t prevent herself from eating the chocolate bar in the freezer.
The next scene has several cuts between what the two women are doing in terms of getting ready for the trip. There is a wide shot taken of Louise as she is driving away in her car. The use of this shot was to give the viewer a wide view of the set. As the women were getting their bags packed the camera gave many close up shots of what they were packing in their bags, giving extreme details to how Louise packed her shoes in plastic bags, and neatly folded her clothes. Verses Thelma who was just throwing things into her bags. The camera made quick close up shots indicating that Thelma was kind of nervous.
I noticed that the shot of the gun in the draw was a subjective shot; the purpose of this shot was set up so the viewer could see what Thelma was seeing. There were many visual motifs I found within the film that were the right choice for chosen to communicate the theme/ drama/ and viewpoint of this film. The use of symbols, sets and the different clues or hints that linked the next scene.
The Art of Film and Video
Communication 104
Shaena Sinclair
11/16/04
Paper 2
