"Thelma and Louise" -Rachel K

Watching Thelma and Louise was truly a learning experience.  I found so many film techniques, such as camera movements, color, lighting, filters, photography, angles, mise en scene, and editing.  As I read through different articles, it was truly apparent that this was a film that rattled people.  Screenwriter, Callie Khouri really moved the audience and Hollywood into a new direction of film that had never been attempted before: two women outlaws.  

The very first scene of the movie was truly beautiful.  There was a tracking scene of the Grand Canyons in the west.  There was then a slight tilt of the camera moving up.  At this point, everything is in black and white, but the photography changes into this magnificent landscape that turns into color.  You can compare how these women's lives have changed from the first scene.  Their lives are boring, meaningless, dull, and everything is in black and white.  However, they went on a incredible journey that changed their lives for the better, bringing color, meaning, and happiness back into their lives.  There is then fade out of the scene, into the diner that Louise works at.  

I found that there was an amazing use of mise en scene was when Thelma and Louise are packing for this amazing road trip they are to go on.  The audience sees the parallel cutting of the two women in their houses, that both signify their personalities.  Thelma is stuffing every little piece of clothing into her suitcase, to the point that she can barely zip it shut.  It is almost as if she is packing, ready to throw away her life with her husband, but she doesn't know it yet.  Her house is messy and disturbed.  Altogether, Thelma is unsure of what she really wants from life: her husband, friendships, work, and relationships.  On the other hand, Louise is packing everything into plastic bags.  Everything is so neatly placed in her suit case.  Things in her house are deliberately placed with confidence and neatness.  The two of them couldn't be more of polar opposites.  

Then there is the scene when the two of them enter smoky, low key, and dark bar.  As Thelma and Louise sit at the table there is the 180 degree rule editing in order to respond to their emotions.  The environment of the bar is closed and tight frame, it is crowded and it feels as if the camera is a hand held.  Then there is a great shock cut to the crowd square dancing; we instantly jump to a scene of a low angle with dancing feet.  After Louise kills Harlan, the two of them are driving and arguing.  There is a telephoto shot of Louise, then it jumps from deep focus from one to the other and back again, truly showing selective Focusing.

                                     

On the other hand, the camera moves so swiftly throughout the movie.  This is definitely seen on the road as the two women were driving.  First the camera would focus on a medium shot of the two of them in full frontal shots of the car.  Then the camera would be on the side of the car, like it was traveling with them, then the camera would focus on different cars traveling.  The camera would track the car from beside, then finally let the car move on.  The movement of objects and the camera were changing.  The end of this clip left the view of the car from behind, moving away from the camera, letting the women be free.  

Another great scene is when Thelma is robbing the convenience store.  There is panning of Louise, as she is stuck in the car, and when Thelma is robbing the convenience store the way JD had taught her.  There is a cutaway of Louise in the car staring off into the distance then off at this old couple in the window of a restaurant.  There is full eye contact with old lady and Louise.  I think it was then that Louise realized that she didn’t want to have the average insignificant life.

I love the scene with the lyrics with "Lucy Jordan."  This song truly expressed what these two women were feeling.  They didn't feel alive before this trip.  Even though they were doing everything wrong, by the standards of the world.  They were finally letting go of the unimportant aspects of their lives and focusing on the prominent parts.  The camera tracks from behind.  The two are night driving, which involves a lot of dissolves, which symbolizes their true vacation!  They are tired, but truly happy.  

"Traveling to the End" clip was also great.  The camera was infront of the car statsis, then on Thelma and Louise.  The 180 degree rule is obvious during this scene.  Everything become more musty and dark.  The two of them are running away from the law, this is obvious by the crane shot of the helicopter in the air.  This is an extreme long shot, as well as great panning.  It seems that in this scene that the director used a red and orange filter to make everything feel like it was coming to an end.  Then it feels like there is a hand held camera of the two of them almost falling off the Grand Canyon.  

I watched the clips from Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid.  Just from watching these short clips I discovered so many similarities between the two movies.  They both focus on outlaws with style.  In the other movie they rob trains and banks, but in Thelma and Louise they kill a guy and rob a convenience store.  However, I noticed that in the other movie, women did not actually have that much respect, they just did what they were told.  I think this is what made Thelma and Louise such a great but confrontational movie.  As Callie Khouri stated, she felt like she was an instrument when she screen wrote Thelma and Louise, she really didn't have any intentions of making the similarities between the movies.  She wrote an outlaw movie that focused on women in a society who asked them to be narrowly defined and untrue to their nature. Also, I loved that the jump scene and the ending car scene were both so similar.  They could either die, or live a awful life being told what to do.  Which would they rather do?  They chose to jump in both instances, rather than face the unhappy lives in prison.  They expected to die, but in Thelma and Louise, it never literally shows their death.  It was more of a symbolic and metaphorical meaning, rather than a literal one.  There is great slow motion used as the detective is running after the girls.  It seemed like he was the only one who really wanted to save them.  Then there is a great zoom of the girls holding hands as the car jumps over the Grand Canyons into a beautiful freeze frame, which later ends the movie with flashbacks of the Thelma and Louise’s road trip.

Works Cited:

Giannetti, Louis.  Understanding Movies.  Upper Saddle River: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2011.  Print.