Central and A-Central Imagining

Central Imagining

In A Clockwork Orange, the spectator relies on the observer of the film, Alex. In this scene, Alex is nearly drowned to death by the police, who were his former gangmembers. There are strange sound disorientating sound effects each time Alex is hit by the baton, symbolising his pain. The use of the long take signifies his suffering and ordeal. The location of the scene which occurs in a damp forest surrounded by dead trees and quite far from anything shows the hopelessness of Alex's predicament. The costumes of a police officer show corruption in the dystopian world  A clockwork orange is set in. The non-diagetic music in the background is the theme of the film, strange electronic synth music, which is being drowned out by the sound of Alex's agony.

In Shaun Of The Dead, the character David is ripped apart by zombies, with screams and zombies eating him being the sound and foley we hear. We see gore effects, disgusting the spectator. Eventually, it gets so over the top and extreme, his friends rip his own legs off trying to save him. The film's genre as a horror comedy means whilst the scene may be conventionally gruesome, it is meant to be a piece of dark humour, especially when the friends are trying to save him when he is clearly already dead.

In Only God Forgives, there is a long extended fight scene where Ryan Gosling gets the shit beaten out of him. The fight is very dramatic with dramatic music and slow motion shots. The camera shows every punch and kick, the audience is supposed to be in awe at the fight scene. The characters costumes and appearences are not conventional. At first glance, you would expect Ryan Gosling's character to be able to beat up the Thai man quite easily but he doesnt even get a single hit in. This scene demonstrates the removal of Ryan Goslings character's masculinity as he is beaten up in front of his date and his mum. The thai man is hinted at to be a symbolic version of god, which is interesting considering the face towards the side of him and the red lighting in the background.




A-Central Imagining

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In Looper, The character Seth finds that his limbs are slowly being cut off. The scene

is not shockingly explicit in his limbs dissapearing but it is so surreal to the spectator

that they imagine more than they actually see. You feel sorry for the character.

In Inglorious Basterds, in the opening scene, Sgt Hans Landa orders the nazi's

to kill jewish people hiding in the floorboards of a house. Rather than showing the actual killings,

Tarantino just shows shooting the floorboards, so the spectator has to imagine the jewish people

being killed. An interesting shot is the mis-en-scene when you see Shoshanna run out into the field from the doorway. You see the silhouette of Hans Landa and the house interior contrasted against the traditionally beautiful French landscape, a metaphor for the german invasion of France. This could be symbolic as Hans Landa as a personification of pure evil as he is just pure black. The score is also very dramatic which adds to the a-central reading of the scene.

In American Werewolf in Paris, this man is chased by the werewolf, however

we do not actually see the werewolf until right at the end of the clip.

This makes the audience imagine what the man is so frightened

at seeing and keeps them in suspense. The location is a familar one to the audience which makes the 

suspense even stranger. The narrow curved hallways are used to hide what is actually chasing him.