Hello from week two(?) of self-isolation! It's come to my attention that I've missed some work on my blog, especially from my English class. So... Yeah, here's some more stuff I've been doing!
First up, group work. I worked with Jess because she's cool. We haven't finished everything yet, so sorry :)
And now some individual work. This is a step towards what creates my final essay.
And finally, this is my essay so far. You can find the film that it's on--Let It Be--in the slide show above.
Death and losing someone close to you is something many people struggle to come to terms with. Everyone deals with grief in different ways, and those who stand beside someone with a terminal illness tend to grieve before their loss. Bertie Gilbert’s ‘Let It Be’—cleverly named after the 1968 song by The Beatles—follows these ideas in a less than obvious way. Though up to interpretation, Gilbert uses motifs, camera shots, blocking, and visual contrast to show his ideas.
Camera shots are important in all films, but ‘Let It Be’ uses its shots to delve deeper into the characters and their relationships between each other. For instance, in our opening scene, we get an insert shot of Savannah Brown’s character, ‘Death.’ It’s a closeup shot, right after a shot of the ground where only dialogue and music is heard, framed so we can only see the look of focused hesitation in her expression and the blurred blob that is in the background. The shot doesn’t linger for too long, cutting to a closeup insert shot of the gun held in her hand. We do not get to see what the gun is pointed at until after these shots, almost making the first shot a point of shot too. When we are given a long shot of Death, we see the gun is pointed towards a black dog that stares up at her in blissful ignorance. She maintains the hesitance on her face throughout the shots. This helps us understand Death doesn’t like what she does, it’s given to us an introduction to her character as the manifestation of the Grim Reaper. In the same scene, we’re given another example of this. Throughout our introduction of Death, we can hear Dodie Clark’s character, ‘Martha,’ before we see her. While we’re shown the shots of the ground and Death’s face, Martha and Bertie Gilbert’s character, ‘Carl,’ are talking about something like “everyone prefers their later stuff.” When we’re shown Death’s reaction to the two’s arrival in a medium shot, we hear Martha say “excuse me” before she moves closer, resulting in an over the shoulder shot. This OTS immediately connects the two characters. Gilbert did this to show us as an audience that there is some kind of relationship or correlation between Martha and Death. This working with a visual contrast between the two characters, little visual connection between Carl and Death, and that it’s later revealed Martha herself is dying due to cancer, solidifies the idea that in the film Death is Martha’s idea of death. Death appeared to kill Martha but couldn’t bring herself to do it. She instead goes to kill their dog, ‘Ringo,’ in Martha’s position. In the beginning, Martha is almost in denial surrounding the idea of Death yet is more willing to go along with it than Carl is. Martha dresses Death up as a skeleton and seems to have more of a connection with her than anyone else; running to her when uncomfortable at the Halloween party. Over-the-shoulder shots are used similarly in the HBO series ‘Westworld’. They use the OTS shot alongside single shots to connect and disconnect Theresa and Dr Robert Ford during their meeting over lunch. This shows that their relationship is important to the story.
The Beatles are brought up religiously throughout the film, each mention having its own form of symbolism. So much so, it becomes a verbal motif. And on that note, motifs used in ‘Let It Be’ help create a deeper meaning within the short film. As previously mentioned, The Beatles are a very specific motif used a lot. For example, Ringo is the reason Martha isn’t killed in the beginning. Death doesn’t want to take Martha’s life and instead tries to take Ringo’s. And Ringo shows up at the end again, he’s there for Martha when she’s talking about accepting that death is a part of life. Right before we find out Ringo is there, Carl implies he wishes for Ringo to die first. It’s not as obvious, but this is a double meaning. He could mean he wants Ringo Starr, drummer for the Beatles, to die first out of the two remaining ex-members or that he’s rather Ringo, the dog, to die before Martha does. In a later scene, Martha mentions she likes to think they, The Beatles, never really broke up. In the scene beforehand, we find out Martha and Carl broke up. We, and Carl, don’t know why this is. Because of this line, it seems like Martha didn’t actually want to break up with Carl. Despite this hesitance, when asked to give him clarity, she says, “I just don’t feel that way about you anymore.” The last example is when Carl talks about liking their later stuff. This is because it’s more complex, more complete. We also find out Martha prefers their older stuff. Martha later explains to Death, who is in a bathtub, it’s because she likes the young, fun, unrestricted feel of their earlier stuff. It’s free from jade and politics, unlike their later songs. This tells us a lot about each of their personalities. Carl is more uptight, strict, he’s logical. Martha goes with the flow, she’s simple and has fun. The director has to have done this on purpose. It’s a simple yet effective way of showing a character through their likes. Their outfits in these scenes only help solidify the ideas we’re given about them. When paired with the way they dress, it gives the viewers a good idea of what characters we are watching. Martha wears dungarees, 80s-esque clothing. Her closet is full of bright blues, reds, and yellows. Carl’s clothing consists of band tees and jeans. He wears beige, black, white, and grey. He was even Steve Jobs for Halloween. This reminds me of the motifs used in Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’, with Romeo constantly comparing Juliet to light. ‘Romeo and Juliet’ has a lot of themes of the light vs the dark, so this gives us insight within the characters. It deepens the relationship in the audience’s eyes.
The blocking throughout the film is constantly—and excellently—used to play to our emotions. For example, while Carl and Martha are talking before the Halloween party, Death is playing operation. This alone is foreshadowing for Martha’s death, but it tells us something about Death, without actually saying it. Both scenes use blocking purposefully. Either to make us feel trapped and too big for a conversation, or alone and small in an almost empty room. We first see Carl and Martha together. They are both in a small, dark hallway. It’s back-lit and confined, and the audience feels trapped in the square-like scene we’re watching. It traps us in the conversation the same way the characters feel as though they are. We then see blocking used again in a similar way but for a different effect, Death is on the couch playing operation. We get a few insert shots of her playing, but then she gives up. The camera pulls out, and she’s framed to look small. There is a lot of space around her. Space that isn’t that important when we compare it to Death, one of the main characters. Death feels small in this, she’s frustrated and it’s possible she feels like a failure because it’s impossible for her to play Operation. She doesn’t say this, but we can see how the room looks big in comparison. The director wants us to know that in this scene, Death feels, or just plain is, inferior. When these two scenes are connected and combined with eerie sound effects, it really amplifies the sense of isolation we see. We’re feeling alongside these people. Not only that, but it also strengthens and deepens the relationship between the three characters. They all feel alone in one way or another. This is a lot like an earlier scene. Death is on the same couch, but it’s the first time she’s been in this house. The scene starts with a mid-close-up shot and cuts to a full shot seconds after. The camera isn’t as drawn-out though, it’s possible she feels less isolated at this point, that something about Carl and Martha’s arguing, or the fact she sucks at operation, is threatening to her.
I previously spoke of costumes and contrast, Gilbert uses different aspects, such as colour and art direction, to show a visual contrast. For example, the main characters’ costumes. Costumes are a part of the art direction of a movie. Before, I said how we see Carl and Martha’s appearance. Martha wears overalls and bright colours. In the film itself, we see her wearing a green shirt under brown dungarees with a very colourful jacket, designed like the seat covers on public buses. On the other hand, we see Carl wearing a beige, brown jacket over a dark blue ‘bite me’ shirt. They have two completely different styles, one bright and the other monochrome. At the Halloween party, Martha is a dog, something we can see at face value. Carl goes as Steve Jobs, something that requires a little more thought. We clearly notice the huge difference here. This shows that while, yes, opposites attracted, it’s clear that something about the two doesn’t click right, at least as partners. They seem to do all right as friends, but they disagree a lot throughout the story. Their thought processes and their personalities seem to clash so much, but they obviously love each other despite it. Further than this, Carl almost resents Death. Death is this whole other thing. She wears huge eyeliner, black on black, and faux fur. She is very different when compared to Carl and Martha, both in the way they dress and how they act. The director wanted these costumes and the way they conflict with each other to show a visual way of how their personalities both clash and work together. When combined with a visual contrast between scenes, that of which brightness is used to set a mood of a scene (light when something good or happy is happening, darker when the feel of the scene is more mellow), it makes the film work well. This can be contrasted to later in the film when the costumes work together to have the opposite effect. Jack Howard’s character, ‘Mitch’, is dressed in a very similar way to Death, with his skeleton face paint and black trench coat. We see Death connect with him in their conversation early in the party scenes.
‘Let It Be’ uses a multitude of film aspects to create a fuller sense of depth to its short duration. We can see excellent uses of visual contrast, motifs and symbolism, camera shots, and blocking. I believe the strongest film aspect is the camera shots because we can tell so much about relationships and what’s important out of so little. He did this by combining camera shots with blocking, dialogue, and music. This film watches Bertie Gilbert beautifully challenge the stigma of Death.
