Film as art Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Film as art - Essay Example The twist in the story comes when Sean realizes that he could not be the reincarnation of Anna’s husband since he had loved another woman while he was in his previous life. Anna and Sean stop seeing each other, though they continued to write letters on occasion. Anna married Joseph, finally obtaining the closure that she desperately needed. The film opens with a black screen and a voice over of adult Sean explaining his disbelief in the concept of reincarnation. Despite this, he makes it known that if Anna died and were to come back as a bird, he would be accepting of it and continue to live with her. The scene that follows is a continuous long shot of Sean running through bleak and wintry Central Park. Sean’s face is never revealed to us, making him an abstract character regardless of his importance to the story. This lack of identity begins the mystery of who Sean really is. Nothing else is revealed about Sean except that he dies from a heart attack while jogging. Imm ediately after Sean’s death, the shot cuts abruptly to a clip of a baby being born, emerging from the water of a birthing tub. The following scene, after script reads Ten years later, Anna is shown standing at the grave of her late husband. The quick scene jumps reveal how all three events - Sean’s death, the baby’s birth, and Anna paying respect to her husband - are closely related to one another (Ebert, 2004). The shots, though clearly different from one another, are shown so quickly that they could have easily been one in the same, revealing the same message -- the never-ending cycle of life and death. Grazer uses only a few different camera angles and shots in the film, but his decision on what angles and shots to use and when helps to show the torment that Anna is experiencing as she continues to suffer from her husband’s death and as she tries to come to terms with the presence of young Sean. For example, the sex scene between Anna and Joseph begins as a medium close-up, but the slowly camera pulls back into a long shot as Anna discusses young Sean’s pleas for Anna not to marry Joseph. This sudden distance shows how far apart from Joseph that Anna is, even though they could not be any closer to one another. The physical distance between the camera and the couple reveals the mental and emotional distance that Anna is from Joseph. Another intense camera shot is the continuous close-up of Anna while she is at the orchestra. The music, similar to what is heard throughout the rest of the movie, picks up with intensity the longer that the camera rests on Anna, displaying the emotional changes that she goes through in the elongated scene. Anna’s features â€Å"run the full gamut of traumatized emotions, from barely suppressed terror, through claustrophobic anxiety, to heartbreaking acceptance (Kermode 45).† This is when Anna fully comes to accept that young Sean is who he claims to be. Grazer also plays on the me aning of color in the movie, implementing green in many scenes. The walls of Anna’s apartment kitchen are green, as are Sean’s sweatshirt, the blanket he uses while staying overnight at Anna’s, and the couch. The color green represents balance, life, and wellbeing (Ascher & Pincus 122), which are three important aspects seen constantly in the film. Green appears with Anna and Sean, separately, but also when they