Elephant

Director: Gus Van Sant
Genre: Crime/Drama
Production Details: USA ( John Adams High School )
2003

The film is about teenagers living their normal lives at high school, everything seems to be normal, But two teenagers seem to have different views of everyone else. This triggers their minds to explode leading to a massive execution of the high school kids.

Aerial shot from the beginning of the film seeing a car swerving, you think it may be a teenager stolen the car, but it ends up being a drunk father. His son who is sat in the car with him, is forced to take over driving. The camera is placed upon the bonnet of the car, seeing the car start up as we see the camera shake when the engine is turned on.

Mid-close up shots are used to focus on the characters you get to know the characters lives in this angle. As they are followed round using a steady camera effect. So it feels like your just someone who is in the situation with them living their day to day lives.

Shallow focus depth of field is used to empathse the way they are just having a normal day and you really get to see how they view their lives. For example, when some of the characters are walking down the hallway, some of the images were blurred as they just wanted to get to where they were going and not really think about anything else around them.

I didn't really see the point of benny being in the film as he wasn't really a character he came into the scene walked around a bit, helped a girl out of the window and then was shot. But the interesting thing was if you looked through the film closely he was the only black guy in the film.

Then again, he could of been a hero in the film, he helps the girl out of the window. Faces the other way to face the drama, he could save the day but he doesnt't. It gives the impression that no one can stop these guys causing havoc. No one really expects it.