Shoot Me

I chose to analyze the scene immediately after they shoot the sniper and she is lying on the ground, barely alive, while the soldiers discuss what to do. This scene is particularly interesting because it serves as the climax to the whole narrative, and as such is highly intense and emotional. In order to achieve this extremely disturbing feeling, Kubrick obviously put a lot of attention into every detail, especially the misè-en-scene, sound cues, and camera shots.

Misè-en-scene is a term that covers basically all visual aspects of a film, and is generally broken down into setting, staging, costuming and lighting, and Kubrick’s particular decisions in all four of these areas are worthy of note. The choice of setting is one of his most obvious methods of establishing strong, somber emotions in the viewers. First, it is very dark and poorly lit as the physical location itself is an enflamed, crumbling building; an obvious tactic used by Kubrick to insight uneasiness and heightened emotions in the audience. The only visible light sources are the flames strewn about the room, creating flickering and highly contrasted lighting. Kubrick also crafted the set to emphasize geometric shapes in a particular manner. The wide shots of the whole scene, like in this picture, reveal very few circular or rounded objects. Everything is squared-off and pointed. This gives this room a very harsh feeling. Kubrick even went so far as to replace what most likely should have been rounded arches between the pillars with block-like, jagged stepping-stones. Also, the railings are made up of a complex series of horizontal and vertical lines, nothing rounded or organic. Also, he furthers this emphasis on lines with his staging. The girl is lying horizontally on the ground while the soldiers and pillars create vertical lines, also shown in the picture. Kubrick even continues this theme in his costuming. Joker’s glasses and pace sign represent the only noticeably round objects in the whole scene, while Animal Mother’s bullet chains further the harsh, jagged style visuals of the rest of the setting. In doing this, Kubrick emphasizes Jokers compassion in comparison to the rest of the scene. Although Joker may not be the poster boy for kindness, he has more warmth about him than anyone or anything else in that room.

Kubrick also creates a heightened emotional state through his careful use of music and sound. In many war movies, climactic scenes are punctuated by dropping out or diminishing the dialogue and placing strong emphasis on music. However, Kubrick takes a different approach. Every sound emanating from the room and every spoken word is just as prominent as it has been throughout the rest of the movie. Also, he does use music, but it only consists of slight tones, no percussion to drive the scene along. Instead of a percussion track, he uses carefully timed and delivered dialogue. The characters’ words themselves act as the percussion, keeping time and beat. No character ever raises their voice. All lines are delivered equally slow and paced, and characters alternate their lines in a very rhythmic and cadenced manner. This technique is most clear when the girl starts repeatedly reciting “shoot me” amidst deep, gasping breaths. A common trait of various movies is an extremely audible heartbeat during moments of great emotional intensity, but in this scene, Kubrick substitutes the girls line for the heartbeat. She repeats it over and over, steadily and in time, only slightly speeding up and increasing her intensity as the moment draws nearer to where Joker finally indulges her wish. By executing the scene in this manner, Kubrick achieves the same state of emotional intensity as other similar movies, but he does so in a much more natural and realistic way. Instead of relying mainly on music, Kubrick steadily increases the scene’s power through what is actually being said and done.

Finally, Kubrick also makes some very deliberate choices about how shots are set up and framed to increase the viewer’s emotions throughout the scene. At the beginning, he uses a lot of wide shots, showing the whole room and letting viewers get a feel for how dark, depressing, and dangerous this time and place really is for the soldiers. By showing so much in each shot, he invites viewers to explore the whole room, giving them a chance to relate to the current conditions of the soldiers. Then, after he has done this, he transitions to more close-ups. By the end, every shot is an alternating close-up of the different soldiers, eventually ending on Joker. This then makes viewers switch their attention from the setting to the soldiers. In the last shots, the soldiers are the only objects in focus, and therefore the only objects the audience can focus on. Kubrick is creating an emotional connection between viewers and these soldiers. Another way he creates this connection is by using only static shots. Throughout the scene, none of the shots zoom, pan or track. Also, a lot of the shots are relatively long, and every line of dialogue in shown on screen. Kubrick is absorbing viewers into the scene. It’s almost as if he’s shooting the scene how an observer would look at it if he or she was there. Never moving around, always following and being fully absorbed in what is going on and what is being said. One other technique that he uses to create this connection is a particular attention to space in his shots. In the wide shots at the beginning, he uses a lot of relatively deep space. There are multiple planes of action or interest, some far away, some near. This creates a feeling of freedom. The soldiers were in danger but now they no longer are. The only shots at the beginning that have shallow space are of the girl. All shots of her are looking straight down, creating a very flat, claustrophobic feeling as if she’s trapped. However, as the scene advances and the shots progress closer and closer to the soldiers, their freedom turns into anxiety as they struggle to deal with their new situation. Kubrick reflects this change of emotions through progressively confining the space in his shots. By the end, each shot has a single plane of interest: the one with the soldier.