Bauer: Presumed Innocent

The scene in the end of Presumed Innocent is very important to the plot. Rusty is outside fixing the fence and reaches for a hammer wen he finds the hammer has blood on it. He goes into the basement to clean it off and as he does so, he hears his wife say "I did it." She goes on to explain that she killed Carolyn because it was ruining their family.

This scene is important because it makes Rusty feel responsible for her murder on some level. If he had not been having an affair with her, his would have never killed her. It ties him to the murder and although he is not directly responsible for killing her, he feels as if he is. He already feels guilty for his sexual promiscuity with Carolyn and now that he realizes that is also what got her killed, he feels even more guilty. Rather than pin the fault on his wife, Rusty thinks that he is ultimately at fault for Carolyn's murder.

McCay K 19 Blog Prompt

K 19 represents a contrast between two types of patriarchy. Captain Mikhail Polenin (Liam Neeson) represents one type and Captain Alexi Vostrikov (Harrison Ford) represents another. Find a scene for each character that you think best illustrates the type of patriarchy each represents and show how the scene reveals the character's relationship with the crew.

Triay - Witness/Mosquito Coast

Peter Weir's films Witness and Mosquito Coast both deal with similar themes. Exile of the protagonist, and a sharp maturation of the children within the films (both in a sense becoming wiser than their elders).

Witness:

When the Amish child Samuel Lapp witnesses a policeman commit a murder in a train station bathroom, his life is instantly brought into the violent American/English world. This one incident for Samuel marks a transition in his life. Until this moment, all he had known was the world of his family, the Amish, on their farm. After John Book exiles himself to the family farm, he begins to have a great influence on the child. When Samuel's grandfather discovers him playing with Book's gun, the two have a discussion. Samuel reveals to his grandfather his thoughts on violence, which, now having directly experienced a great act of violence, greatly differ with his grandfather's. Samuel is shown to be sympathetic towards violence, which Grandfather Lapp and the Amish community greatly do not support. This scene is shot wonderfully, with the camera proxemics intimately keeping the two very close together, revealing their great affection for each other, regardless of their now different opinions. The gun lies on the table out of focus, showing how the violence will always be indirectly related to their personal history.


Mosquito Coast:

After Fox exiles his family to South America for his ideal Swiss Family Robinson-esque fantasy of living off the land while "helping the natives" begins to fall apart, Ford's son Charlie begins to break away from his support of his father. The scene in which Fox's machine begins to explode after Fox kills three men reveals this great diverge in trust and support. The flames within Fox's eye glasses show just how far off the deep end he has gone. The quick cut to Charlie backing slowly away and his disheveled appearance reveal his now fractured image of his father. He has surpassed his father in sanity and now he's stuck with him in South America.

Triay - Presumed Innocent

Ford in Presumed Innocent is a flawed anti-hero. The film deals with a great amount of guilt placed upon Ford's character, Rusty Sabich. Sabich is accused of murdering a young woman named Carolyn, with whom the audience knows he has been having an affair with. The audience does not know whether Sabich truly did murder Carolyn, and with building evidence including finding Sabich's sperm inside of her after the autopsy greatly affect the audience's ability to trust Ford as the hero, the good guy. The audience can feel the guilt that Sabich is dealing with throughout the whole picture.



The film's final scene involves the revelation that Sabich's wife was the one who murdered Carolyn. She discovered Sabich's affair and, led to insanity, murdered Carolyn. The couple must now continue to live together, with this fractured notion of trust between them. Guilt is manifested within this broken sense of threatened trust, a trust that is based upon an "I've killed before, I'll kill again" ideal. This unsettling idea of the couple sticking together brings about an immense feeling of guilt on Sabich's behalf, as if he had remained faithful to his wife, none of this would have ever happened.

HENRY, Devil's Own

The Devil's Own is actually a pretty good movie. This movies shows many elements of family, and some even relate back to Frankie's childhood. Frankie Devany is the bad boy in the movie that has had a rough childhood. Due to this fact, he is forced to find family outside of the natural realm. This is where the IRA comes in, of courses this turns out to be a horrible decision. However, before this decision goes completely wrong he depends on the kindness of strangers. This is where the lovely Tom O'Meara takes Frankie in and seems happy the he is there. I start to get the feeling that Frankie is the son that he has always wanted, but never had. When he shows Frankie where he will be living, Tom say's " Sure is nice to have someone in the house that stands up to pee." This is one of those signs of acceptance. Later that night, at dinner, the nuclear family scene comes into play. At this moment there is a soft side to Frankie, that is really only displays when he is with the O'Meara's. He looks at the Tom, as he gazes at Tom as he gazed at his father before he was killed. The scene that really welcomed Frankie is the celebration for Tom's daughter. In that scene there is a picture taken, with Tom, his partner, and Frankie. This scene tells a lot about how Tom feels about Frankie, it also gives insight on how Frankie loves them. If you notice, he turns away, then back again to take the photo. Tom knows that his family is essential to survival because he trys all that he could to combat Frankie into doing the right thing. Even when it means that he is going have to take Frankie into custody. Frankie is not even his family, throughout the movie we see their relationship evolve. At the end of the movie ande element of Frankie childhood returned to him. They are on the boat, both Frankie and Tom are shot, yet Frankie retreats back to childhood memories. Frankie's father was a fisherman, so it could be inferred that dying on water would be very peaceful for him. The movie opens and closes with a boat scene, which is the beginning of life and the ending of life for Frankie.

Triay - Leia as a Goddess/Temptress

In the original Star Wars trilogy, Princess Leia serves a duel role as both Joseph Campbell's Goddess and Temptress. One could argue that there are two heros in the Trilogy, Luke and Han; however, there is only one heroine, Leia. Leia as a Goddess has unconditional love from the hero. This is demonstrated in A New Hope by Luke's compelling desire to seek out Leia and help her after receiving her distress call. She becomes Luke's initial goal in Episode IV, to save the damsel in distress. This unconditional love for our hero changes over the next two films. It is revealed that Leia is Luke's sister. The Campbell idea of unconditional love shifts to an unconditional sibling love, binding the two together.


Leia is also seen as a temptress, particularly in regards to Han Solo. Leia understands the necessity of having Han Solo on the rebel's side. She engages in a cat and mouse, "playing hard to get" game with Han. As a temptress, she inspires Han to stick around and stay on the Rebel side. However, they begin to truly fall for each other, developing yet another Campbell sort of "unconditional love."

Madere - The Devil's Own

With its opening scene, The Devil's Own shows how family is a central theme of the plot. This scene opens with the Irish countryside, showing the possible and natural peacefulness and beauty of the country. Frankie Maquire is fishing with his father and returns home to have a family meal with his mother and little sister. The peacefulness of the scene does not last long, however, as Frankie's father is brutally murdered at point-blank range right in front of his eyes. In some ways, this scene shows how family ties can be someone's downfall. Not only does Frankie's father's supposed family ties to republican sympathizers prove to be the reason for his death, but as seen in Frankie's young, horrified eyes after his father's murder, his love and ties to his father has caused him to feel as if he's lost everything. On the other hand, however, this scene and its implications about family also end up being the way in which Frankie comes to believe he can regain all he lost with his father's murder. Frankie forms ties to the IRA and finds a family. Not only do these people fight with him in the cause, but they offer him protection and refuge, even leading him to America where he encounters the O'Meara family and once again finds refuge and forms family ties. His family with the IRA also gives him a cause to achieve--to exact revenge on the people who killed his father, which in turn gives him a purpose and reason for living.