Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Emotional Rejects

Emotions are something film makers have tried to control in their viewers for years. Using the powers of emotional resonance and emotional contagions they can make you feel a certain way about a certain character or experience an emotional reaction to an on screen event.

One of the directors that i relate most to being able to totally mess with their audiences emotions is Rob Zombie. The scene that best shows his exceptional skill is the final scene in 'The Devil's Rejects'. Throughout the whole movie you're witnessing the outrageously violent acts of the main characters building up emotional hatred towards them, but the final scene is shot in such a way that most viewers end up being tricked in to feeling sorry and rooting for the murderers.


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2 comments:

Deborah said...

Hey Dave!

I haven't seen this movie, but I heard it was pretty controversial.

This topic definitely raises interesting questions about the ethics of filmmaking.
As I commented in Diana's post,
"Do filmmakers have to keep pushing and grossing us out or offending us in order to resonate emotionally?
I wonder, can filmmakers go too far in the name of entertainment?"

This also makes me think about the movie, "Life is Beautiful." We don't see any violence in that movie (even though it takes place in a concentration camp).

Two very different approaches to filmmaking, so there's a lot here worth investigating.

Also, maybe we could compile a lot of clips like this for our final website.

Diana Reichenbach said...

Oh dear, that was something else. I do think the slow pans and slow motion definitely aided there- and of course, the music played a big part. In fact, for me, the music had the most impact.