Romilly's Film Blog: My Analysis of Bloomington

Analysis of a Film Extract - Bloomington

Analysis of the way Cinematography and Editing create meaning in a scene from ‘Bloomington’

The scene: 1:9:45 - 1:13:00

Word Count: 1548

This is a coming of age drama about a former child actress called Jackie ( Sarah Stouffer) attending college in order to become more independent and free but with this freedom she becomes romantically involved with one of the professors Catherine (Allison Mctee) causing problems throughout the film.

As the scene begins you are introduced to Lillian’s (Katherine Ann McGregor) accommodation who is Jackie’s mother. The scene is being shown to us in a long shot. Surrounded by other houses close by it shows that Lillian is living in a close community (Image 1). This informs us that Lillian and her family are some what rich and come from quite a middle class background due to the houses being shown to us. This contributes to the perception the audience have already identified about Lillian of disapproval and disinterest which she shows earlier in the film towards Jackie. Additionally, the house tells us that Lillian prefers to stay home and not travel due to the permanent routes she has made with the house, it isn’t just a flat or caravan it is a large suburban house in a neighbourhood telling us she knows the people there and is friends with many of them. You are able to see that Jackie does not reside at home and this is due to the old and slightly childlike room (Image 2). You are able to identify that it is a childish room due to the bunkbed which is mainly identified with young children, which could mean that Jackie has not been home for a while. This is identified in the earlier parts of the film when you learn that Jackie is a young actress and has been on a film set for most of her youth and resided with her manager rather than her family, this might be telling us the relationship between Jackie and her mother. The travelling contrasts greatly with her mother as you see that she most probably hardly leaves were she feels comfortable unlike Jackie who ventures to whole knew surroundings and experiences. This connotes to the audience that Jackie seems to hold the power and dominance in the relationship between herself and her mother or she would not have gone of because it seems her mother did not agree with many of Jackie’s decisions.

In the bedroom scene the director has used a variety of shots including a long shot (Image 3) which is used to show in this moment that Lillian is being inferior to Jackie as she is standing tall and not backing down to Jackie, this tells us that in this moment she feels she is stronger but this however is contradicted as Jackie is the one packing her boxes ready it seems to leave telling us that Jackie is in fact the inferior in this scene and is leaving again from her selfish it seems mother. When the scene starts you get a feel for the great performances being portrayed. You are able to see that Jackie is very independent which is shown when she is packing her room up instead of getting any help from anyone and this is due to the mother just standing and it seems being selfish as ever, there is no offer to help her in any way and when she offers it just seems like they are empty words.

When Lillian enters the room the camera stays fixed on Jackie not moving up to see Lillian meaning that Jackie is the focal point in this shot (Image 4). There is an over the shoulder shot and a close up which is used to highlight the character’s relation between each other and emotions. The performance is outstanding when you feel that Jackie and her mother are slowly becoming closer by Lillian saying “It will be hard getting used to not having you around here again" and Jackie responds with “same here”. At this point i felt that maybe after everything they may be becoming more like a real mother and daughter, however then Lillian states “we will make do”, this response truly opens my eyes to the real dysfunctional relationship presented to us between Lillian and Jackie which tells us that not every family has a great relationship and many present issues in the everyday life.

Jackie seems to have a certain angered and mysterious expressions about her due to the stillness of her expressions and her face which is being projected to hold everything in and not let it out with her expressions (Image 5). While her mother’s face and body stance is quite scrunched up and her arms crossed showing that she is with held and not open to much or scared to open up to face the consequences (Image 6). In relation to the context, this seems to be perfect as her mother seems to hold everything back emotionally and Jackie is holding everything back physically and emotionally it seems, so in the end this connects them in the situation and also the relation between the characters.

The camera is used in this section of the scene to communicate the two sides of things, Jackie’s side were she feels she need to leave and get away from her mother as she seems unwanted and uncared for and her mother’s side of everything that communicates that she seems held back from her feelings towards her daughter and doesn’t feel she really has a say in things as she really hasn’t cared for Jackie or her career for a long time so she is really there just because she is the mother and feels she has to be seen in shoots to show the dysfunctional relationship.

In this next section of the scene you are able to see how elements have been edited and drawn together to help create a two sided story presented as one. The scene starts with the lighting being imminent with Jackie, she is important with the lights on her and really the attention (Image 7), while Catherine has a dull and unimportant light it seems (Image8). This reflects to us that Jackie seems to be doing well and going somewhere due to the light showing hope and then it seems Catherine is going no where or is but not forwards. The two viewpoints edited together are cleverly presented as you see that they are going through the same sequence however totally different situations. The over the shoulder shot has been used for both situations (Image 9&10), the over the shoulder for Catherine is used to show the emotion she is feeling using a slight close up, the emotion shown is slightly confused and scared it seems while Jackie seems all bright and happy. This is evident due to the emotion being shown in the shot and the amazing portray that each character is performing. The editing really opens this scene up with the same music playing more each character which seems to me that both Catherine and Jackie are connected still and not everything is lost.

The next few snippets show the similarities between the situation that Catherine and Jackie are both in but not the same circumstances in the end. The similarity here is the pieces of paper being presented to both Jackie and Catherine (Image 11&12), however you are able to see that Jackie’s is going to be around her future and the show while Catherine’s you get an idea of the paper being something bad and life changing. This is clear to us (Image 13) as Catherine is given the pictures of herself and Jackie while their relationship was going on showing that it has been found out, the emotion is clear that now everything will change and for Jackie that means her career taking of and for Catherine it seems that the career is at an end. This edit is clever in showing near exactly the same thing happened however the shots showing totally different viewpoints and situations. The side view of Catherine and the boss shows clear tension (Image 9) while the over the shoulder shows a quite intimate shot (Image 10).

The best piece of editing i feel was the edit of both the hand shaking (Image 14&15) which was done by cutting the two frames together to fit each other, the lighting also carries on throughout this scene showing the difference between a bright future and a career that has just ended showing there doesn’t really seem to be a bright future ahead. The farming of both the two scenes and two viewpoints shows both the similarities of the path ahead but now thing you see is when it is all over there is still a hope it seems for both of the with the light in the corner (Image 16) and the dull but imminent light on the board in the classroom(Image 17), showing how both their lives are about to change but they still have the connection they once had and that one day they would be connected again.

To conclude, the director has applied Cinematography and Editing to create meaning effectively and intelligently. This was done and shown as power and futures. The director has also ensured that the audience understands and the plot of the scene being presented which was greatly done.

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