Rogers- Witness and Mosquito Coast

In these pictures from both Witness and Mosquito Coast, the most important aspect of the scene is where the young men are looking. Samuel is looking directly at Book and Charlie is looking directly at Allie. These show that in these scenes, relationship between patriarch and son are extremely important themes. In Witness, Samuel has seen violence penetrate his life in ways that it never had before. He had known nothing except non-violence his entire life until that point. His grandfather was the most important male figure in his life and he looked to him for guidance. The character proxemics show the change in role models for Samuel. He is looking directly at Book as Book threatens the punk kids. Samuel finds violence intriguing and has already revealed the possibility of using it if necessary against "bad men." The lighting in the scene is rather bright which shows that the violence entering Samuel's life isn't really a bad thing. He's experiencing new things and learning from them. In Mosquito Coast, Allie Fox drives his family apart with his quests to set up a utopia away from America. The family experiences hardships they'd never expected as Allie gets more and more consumed with his goals and cares less about his family's well-being. The change of Charlie from an adoring son to a family leader is displayed in this scene. Charlie is looking skeptically at Allie's smug, contented face. There's a lot of budding anger in Charlie's face as he is beginning to doubt his father's plans. The darkness of the scene underlies the seriousness of the scene. This scene makes Charlie's later actions when he takes a large role in the family's decision-making seem like a long time in the making. He has evolved and been disillusioned with his father, and created his own role.