Koeferl- Devil's Own

Frankie/Rory's father was killed when he was only a boy, and thus he grew up with an incomplete family. When he arrived in America and met Tom O'Meara, he began to be part of the O'Meara family. Tom served as a kind of father figure for Rory, and Rory became the son that Tom never had. The pool game (Irish v. Italians) was a bonding experience between the two. Rory fit right into the family; the daughters all liked him, and he was just as much of Tom's family as his partner Eddie was at the confirmation party. It's very important that Rory was housed with this large, functional family. It represents what Frankie's life could have been like if his father hadn't been murdered. If this movie was an "American story", Frankie might have given up his life of violence and live with the O'Meara family as a normal house guest. Since it's an "Irish story", it has no happy ending, so it had to finish with Frankie's death, because he was not going to be incarcerated willingly. Family was very important to Tom O'Meara; he treated Rory as a son, so the realization that he was actually Frankie McGuire was a tough blow. His trust was betrayed, and he knew he had to try and arrest the same person that he recently housed as an honorary member of his family. The movie had a tragic ending because Tom was unwilling to slack off on his job and let Frankie go free, and Frankie was stubborn and wanted to go back to Belfast, even if it wasn't safe for him there. It was very symbolic when Tom clasped hands with Rory as he died; even though he had to stop Rory from leaving, he still respected him as a person and cared for him. Both men liked each other and shared a bond, but their characters (the cop and the criminal) had to be opposed by the nature of their roles.

Koeferl- Frantic

Three noir elements that recur in the film Frantic are isolation, helplessness and anxiety; these elements create an impression of psychological entrapment for Richard Walker. He feels isolated because he's in a foreign country where everyone speaks a foreign language; he is an outsider. The fact that there is a language barrier between him and most people in Paris only makes him feel more helpless and alone. In a few scenes he tries desperately to communicate with strangers to find out where his wife might be. The difficulty communicating with the French compounded with his growing suspicions that something terrible has happened to his wife leads to Walker feeling very frustrated and anxious (It is only when he finds his wife's broken jewelry on the ground near the pub that he knows she has been kidnapped). The psychological entrapment that Walker feels is felt by the audience as well, because we know just as much about his wife's disappearance as he does. Walker does not encounter any life-threatening physical conflicts in the first half of the movie; it gives the illusion that nothing is really wrong, so Walker might just be paranoid. Everyone around him is living a normal day, and the first things that prove that some serious stuff is going on is the broken jewelry and Dede's dead body.


The scene involving Walker making his way into Michelle's apartment on top of the roof is a great scene, because Walker has so much trouble with his surroundings. He slides around in his loafers, so he can't move around properly, and when he takes off his shoes they just slide off the building. I found it very hard to watch this scene, because it kept getting worse and worse (I got very anxious watching everything collapse in front of him). The bag gets stuck, he tries to retrieve it, and most of the contents slide off the roof. Walker is very helpless and anxious in this scene. He could not accomplish such a simple thing as walking across a roof, and his fragile environment wasn't doing him any favors. The lighting in this scene is very bright; it is only midday. The framing is tight because although Walker is outside on a roof, he doesn't really have very much room to move around in if he wants to survive his little predicament. The roof's surface is very smooth, so he has to move very slowly using that radio pole thing he broke to help him. This is a full shot, which means it's a social shot. The purpose of this camera proxemic is to show the audience exactly what Walker's immediate surroundings are, and how dependent his life is on his next actions. This scene does an excellent job in making the audience (me, namely) feel very anxious and uncomfortable.

Koeferl- Presumed Innocent

A major theme in this movie is the justice system. Rusty is convicted of a crime that he did not directly commit, but he finds out at the end of the movie that he is indeed guilty of sparking a chain of events that led to Carolyn's murder. The film challenges us to decide who is guilty and who is innocent. Is Rusty guilty of the murder of Carolyn because he provoked his wife to kill her? Is the wife guilty because she physically murdered her? I think that the wife was put into a very tough situation; she could have talked with Rusty about Carolyn and forced him to stop his affair (and maybe she did, but knew that he still had feelings for her). Perhaps the only way she would ever feel at ease was knowing that Carolyn was dead.

I do not think that anyone is completely innocent in this movie (except the kid, who hasn't grown up yet). The judge and the lawyers are all corrupt somehow, taking bribes and sleeping with Carolyn, etc. Carolyn is certainly not innocent; I consider her the guiltiest of all the characters in the movie. She singlehandedly corrupts two innocent people: Rusty Sabich and his wife. Her actions, rather than Rusty's, cause the chain of events that lead to her own death. She seduces Rusty, a married man, so that she can better her own career. Rusty did not seek out a relationship with Carolyn; she sought after him. Rusty's wife only murdered Carolyn because she was trying to get her husband to love her again. Both Rusty and his wife were acted upon.

Although I see Carolyn as the guilty one in this film, Rusty feels guilty. In the conversation with his wife in the end, he realizes that he is responsible both for damaging his relationship with his wife, and for the murder of Carolyn Polhemus. He seeks punishment for his behavior; in the end this punishment takes the form of having to live the rest of his life knowing that his wife murdered Carolyn, and nobody else will know this (they think that Rusty most likely committed the murder). This final conversation with the wife, along with other final conversations with other characters in the movie, poses the question: was justice served? One way to look at the situation is that it was served; his wife murdered the "destroyer" (home wrecker), which was just, because she was trying to preserve her family. Carolyn died, which is just, because she caused so much corruption within this family. Rusty, who cheated on his wife, now has to live with guilt for the rest of his life. Justice was served, but not in the courtroom.

Koeferl- Witness and The Mosquito Coast

The scene with Samuel and Eli with the pistol illustrates the change that Samuel has experienced since he lost his innocence by witnessing the murder. The scene immediately before this one is important; Book and Rachel try to hide the pistol after Samuel finds it, but Samuel is so intrigued by the weapon that he looks for and finds it again. When Eli asks him if he would ever take a life, Samuel replies, “If it’s a bad man.” He is expanding himself beyond the teachings of the Amish and creating his own set of rules. The dominant in the beginning of this scene is the pistol, since that was the focus of the previous scene; the eye is then attracted to Samuel and Eli. In terms of character proxemics, the two are very close because Samuel is sitting on Eli’s lap. Eli is worried that Samuel will abandon the Amish code, and is trying to get him to believe that all forms of violence are bad. Although in this scene the two are physically close, they are emotionally distant.

In The Mosquito Coast, the moment where Charlie understands that his father isn’t the great man he thought he was is when he watches as the three men die in Allie’s monstrous creation. This scene rotates between the machine and the different family members, namely Allie and Charlie. The dominant is the machine itself, and it symbolizes the mental debilitation of Allie as it burns to the ground. The character proxemics show the audience that none of the family members are very close to each other; they are all just watching hopelessly as the ice machine blows up. The look on Charlie’s face suggests that he regrets helping his father kill the men, and feels bad at the same time that everyone’s hard work in building the machine, along with Allie’s hopes and aspirations, were destroyed.

This is a parallel to Witness, because John Book also has to deal with three “bad men” (although only two of them die in Witness). The difference between the two instances is that John Book had to kill the men, because if he didn’t, they would have killed him. The three men in The Mosquito Coast might not have harmed the Fox family physically, even if they were being very obtrusive. Although they were very threatening with their guns and hardened attitudes, Allie made the first violent move. Samuel lived by the Amish code for his entire life, and started to think independently from it when he witnessed a murder. Charlie lived his life believing everything that his father believed, and started to question his beliefs when he witnessed his father murder the three armed men. Both Charlie’s and Samuel’s experience learning from the patriarch and then exceeding the knowledge of the father involved violence.

Koeferl- Harrison Ford's apotheosis on the bridge

Indiana Jones is trapped- enemies are closing in on him from both sides of the bridge. This represents the two paths that he can take. We do not yet know whether he will try to sell the stones or give them back to the village people (he still has all three stones). Back in the temple, Jones throws a rock at one of the Thuggee in an attempt to help the children. As he's escaping the temple, he makes the decision to rescue the children as well as themselves. Although he cares for the children, we know that he also cares about his fortune and glory. On the bridge, we know that Indie is going to try to survive one way or the other, but it is not until he accesses the power of the stones that he understands the significance of the religion. He realized that the remaining stone was more important to these villagers than to anyone else (even himself!).

Theology and religious beliefs are rhyming elements in the Indiana Jones series. In both Temple of Doom and Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indie is confronted with religious artifacts and until the end of each of these films, he doesn't believe in any "mumbo jumbo" spiritual beliefs. An apotheosis is the "exaltation of a subject to a divine level". In the end of the bridge scene of Temple of Doom, Indie comes to believe in the power of the stones, and actually uses them to cast the antagonist into the crocodile-infested ravine. In that moment, Indiana Jones experiences an apotheosis and reaches a godlike level.

It might seem like Indie used the stones only to survive and not because he actually believed in the stones' power or in any religion (this is what I thought at first). However, he wouldn't have been able to use the stones if he wanted to keep them for himself or if he was planning to turn them in for personal wealth or glory. If that were the case, he wouldn't have truly believed in the religion. Indie was able to overcome the priest because the priest had betrayed Shiva, and Indie was trying to return the stones to the village. He was fighting for the right reasons, and the priest wanted the stones for the wrong reasons. He could use the stones only because he believed in the power of the religion.