I will compare and contrast Mike Newell’s Dance with a Stranger and
Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave in terms of alienation. The reasoning
behind my choice is that these two films have explicit characteristics
in the frame of alienation. Both highlight modern alienation in terms
of alienated sexuality, isolation, normlessness whereas Newell
discusses alienation also in class and gender difference perspective;
Boyle discusses alienation in the working place as an alienated
labour.
To begin with, when we examine Dance with a Stranger, we see Ruth,
David, Desmond and Andy as film’s main characters. Ruth is the most
alienated character in this film. Firstly, she was a manager of a
night club, she was taking care of the customers, singing, dancing and
seemed all right but after having met David, her life was totally
changed she lost her job and she began to have obsessive feelings
about David. She sheltered near Desmond with her son Andy and day by
day she started to get distant from the world. She began to feel
despair and disconnected from social world. The scene in which Andy
was watching the television, in the background she was drinking and
looked like a ghost then in the next shot Desmond entered the room
The Essay on Adds Tension Andy Film Audience
How does the director create a sense of tension and the unexpected in the escape scene of The Shawshank Redemption? The Shawshank Redemption is an impressive, engrossing piece of film-making from director Frank Darabont who adapted horror master Stephen King's 1982 novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption for his first feature film. Through out the film, tension is added in many ways. In the ...
shouted at Andy, and the child goes to another room without knowing
what he is going to do, and then cuts to the Desmond and Ruth’s
alienated making love scene. Because of Ruth’s powerlessness situation
she couldn’t sustain anything her self identity became normless, so
her bad experiences alienates her.
Secondly, at the beginning of the film David describes nightclubs as
“glorified brothels”, and Ruth ironically introduced herself
“glorified brothel keeper”, in the film characters’ relationships are
cheap and rough like in glorified brothels. Sexuality in these places
are alienated and uncertain, there is lack of love. Also the
relationship between Ruth and David is uncertain and cheap. Ruth
fancies David and David likes the way she looks like, there is no sign
of an ideal relationship among them also David hit Ruth, treated
violently and Ruth as an alienated one has no power over him accepted
his attitude. Moreover, David has a fiancée however he was interesting
in Ruth to fulfill only his sexual needs. Thus, this whole situation
provides alienated sexuality with violence.
A further indication that, in the ballroom scene while Ruth and
Desmond were dancing, Ruth didn’t pay attention to Desmond but her
eyes followed David and his fiancée. Dancing requires paying attention
to your partner, however Ruth failed to do this, she couldn’t overcome
her desires and create self-sustain bounds. So these failures of her,
lead to social alienation in modern society.
Yet another means, the visual elements of Dance with a Stranger
displays specific lighting techniques to clarify the ambiguity about
the characters behavior and relationships. In the foggy scene,
everything is in dark; there is incapability of seeing the whole. This
emphasizes the uncertainty in the world by means of alienation
The Essay on Romeo and Juliet Unit Review
Romeo goes to Capulet’s ball even though the Montague and the Capulet are sworn enemies -he decides to marry Juliet even though she is a Capulet -he kills Tybalt to avenge Mercutio 2. –she’s not more mature than the average 13 year old -she marries Romeo without any consent from her parents -she almost kills herself because Romeo is banished after killing Tybalt -she kills herself in the end after ...
problem, lack of understanding the whole. Soon after foggy scene,
sequence goes on in darkness, just two characters in shots and there
is no other people around them their relationship alienated from
society’s regular relationships. there is impossibility of clear
vision which points out our perspective is limited to see and give
meanings to all the things which are going on in our social world,
this brings meaninglessness likewise alienation.
Similarly, Danny Boyle’s Shallow Grave has alienated characters in
modern society. David*, Juliet and Alex are the main characters of the
film. After having cut the dead body of the forth roommate, David*
began to behave strange. He isolated himself from others and moved to
loft. He escaped from his social responsibilities and didn’t go to his
workplace. He realized that how he could be violent, he feels
insecurity because the modern life seemed unpredictable and dangerous
to him. Therefore, he is alienated from social world. He tries to
overcome his alienation by violation, when two murders came to find
Hugo’s money. They bounded Juliet and Alex and went to loft one by one
then we hear fighting sounds but there is a shot of Alex and Juliet
then David* threw dead bodies of murders from top to down. Alex
started to worry about David*’s weird behaviors because day by day
David* gets away from his friends and lives isolated and therefore
alienated from social world.
In the same way with Dance with a Stranger there is alienated
sexuality between characters in Shallow Grave. There was an implicit
relationship between Alex and Juliet but then Juliet began to be with
David*, although she didn’t feel anything to him. Also she put a
“LOVE” writing to Alex’ table but she chose David* who knew the place
of the bag with full of money. Here we see Juliet is alienated from
true love and friendship in order to get money, she lost her norm. So
the relationship between Juliet and David* is an example of alienated
sexuality. In the last sequences of the film, we witness that each of
The Term Paper on The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet with Alternate Endings
Romeo and Juliet, written by William Shakespeare, is the story of a pair of star-crossed lovers that results in great tragedy. One may ask, “Why would Shakespeare choose such a tragic ending for his heroes? ” Hopefully this essay will answer that very question for you. Over the years, Romeo and Juliet has remained one of the most popular and most studied literary works of all time. With this ...
them made plans not to share the money between them. Every single of
them displays that their friendship has no trust at all. They are
alienated characters by the power of materialistic reasons.
Furthermore, before David hides the bag in loft, Juliet and Alex
consumed some money. They bought meaningless things without knowing
where to spend money. They lost their identities and became someone
else; they have no responsibility for the money they just consumed
without consciousness. They don’t care how much costs the camera that
they bought, they exchanged their self-control with self-benefits and
they became alienated individuals in society.
Similarly to the Dance with a Stranger, Shallow Grave represents
visual aspects of ambiguity and uncertainness. The film opens with
David*’s spinning head and voice over, the close-up of David*
topsy-turry image describes a complex and uncertain situation. Later
on we see that the owner of this head experienced confusion and
uncertain events and became alienated.
If we go back to the Dance with a Stranger, we observe explicit
class difference between Ruth and David. David belongs to upper class
and Ruth was an ex-prostitute. Although she left her past behind, she
can’t be belong to David’s world. The scenes in which Ruth and David
went to David’s home, Ruth expressed her discomfort. In the scene that
she looked at David’s house, she realized that she cannot enter
David’s world. She cannot put herself into neither David’s world nor
her past, she again alienates from social world because not having any
clear social strata.
The Essay on Middle Class Walter Dream Money
Society in the 1959 was full of racial discrimination. White and blacks were still living in their own 'areas', the public as a whole was very slow to accept the concept of mixed neighborhoods - blacks and white living together. This book, A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, tells the story of a lower-class black family's struggle to gain middle -class acceptance in the Southside of ...
On the contrary, in Shallow Grave there is no class alienation and
difference. Juliet is a doctor, Alex is a journalist and finally
David* is an accountant. There are shots in film from David’s boring
workplace. There are other people like David who work for a man to
make him richer without gaining any personal fulfillment while doing
their jobs. They are just a wheel in the machine, they don’t know the
whole job so they generate false consciousness they don’t find do
display their talents. So David as an accountant shows us alienated
labor in modern society.
Thus, the modern alienation in Dance with a Stranger and Shallow
Grave is similar in terms of losing self identity, normlessness and
isolation and apart from these norms each film come up with a
different type of alienation. Alienation which caused by class
difference is discussed in Dance with a Stranger, on the other hand
there is no class difference in Shallow Grave but there exists another
type of alienation which is caused by modern work places that leads to
alienated labor.
