Irreversible Consequences and Personal Detachment: Elephant

"The point of this movie is to raise questions, not to answer them."

Meet: Michelle

Michelle: Music

• quiet girl, works in the library
• first to die
• In the locker room
• can hear her being made fun of

Irreversible Consequences

Play 00:32:15 - 00:32:55

• No music
• What do we hear?

Michelle: Filming

• showers
• whispers
• giggles

Synopsis

• Bullying
• Death
• Parents Influence

Irreversible Actions:

Teasing/Bullying

Personal Detachment

A Story of the

Columbine Shootings

Isolation

• Isolation
• Internalizing

-Gus Van Sant

• closeup
• 3rd person
• profile view - emotions
• red shirt
• shallow focus
• character proxemics -girls behind her in frame: on her shoulders

Meet: John and Acadia

2003

Irreversible Consequences

and Personal Detachment

John and Acadia: Filming

John and Acadia: Music

Personal Detachment:

internalizing emotions

Samantha Carlson

International Film and Music

January 2012

Camera

• closeup
• camera angled to his side
• 3rd person
• shallow focus
• Acadia walks in from the left - standard
• no camera movement

• Power of lack of music
• What do we hear?

Unusual for our culture

Dramatic Effects

• sigh
• holding back tears
• kiss

Elephant in the Room

Meet: Alex and Eric

Meet: Brittney, Jordan, and Nicole

Play 00:15:45 - 00:16:25

Absence of Music in Elephant

Alex

Irreversable Actions

Watch for the use of red and yellow - color symbolism

Musique Concrete

Eric

Filming and Music

piano lessons, grown to dislike piano

• bulemic, eat lunch together and throw up together
• medium shot to show all three girls

Personal Detachment

Play 00:45:07 - 00:45:30

Filming

Alex

Zooming in

Closeup shows facial expressions

The Shooting: Music

Eric

The Shooting: Filming

Final Scene: The Shooting

Back of his head

dark lighting creates uneasy mood

• Audience experiences the shooting
• Permanent consequences, oblivious?
• Ending of the movie

• Natural sounds - birds
• Classic horror film electronic and synthesized sounds
• No beat or rhythm
• Mood

• Shallow focus
• Lighting
• Camera follows
• Zooms away from Eric

Hildegard Westerkamp

• Composer, Radio Artist, Sound Ecologist
• Works not originally written for Elephant
• Taking music and putting it in an environment it was not originally created for...fits in with movie
• Van Sant also used her works in another film, Last Days

Scene 5: Planning the Act

Music: Beethoven

Planning the Act: Filming

-Boys looking at a map of the school

-Foreshadowing clips

-Theme: Irreversible consequences...

• Piano: dramatic, lonely
• Tempo slower than it is supposed to be
• Harmony: minor cords
• Tone: sad and melancholy
• Volume gets louder when it shows video games

-Worm's eye POV

-Facial expressions

- Symbolic area of the frame - top center

- Foreshadowing clips create suspense

-color symbolism revealed

Play 00:48:30 – 00:49:00 and 00:50:00 – 00:51:00

Moonlight Sonata

Planning the Act: Music

1801

First movement

dark, whisper-like

mysterious

-Fits well with the movie

-Lack of music

-Serious

-Focus on tones of voices

Play 1:02:10 – 1:03:42