The Consequence Of Bad Upbringing In The Movie "An Elephant"
Elephant is a movie from 2003, its written and directed by Gus Van Sant. it is a drama film that takes place in the suburbs of Portland. The movie is based on the school shooting in colombia 1999. The movie takes place on a regular day in a group of high school students life. We get to follow each character/teenager during their day and their routines. The high school experience for each student we meet in the movie is different The movie begins with John, a sweet laid back student who lives a troubled life with his alcoholic father.
The next character we meet is elias, he is a photographer. He mostly spend his time photographing other students and then scrutinizing his pictures in a dark room. Next we are presented to the schools most popular couple Nathan and Carrie together with the typical high school trio Jordan, Nicole and brittany. Their day consists of gossiping, talking about typical teenage problems and throwing up their food. The last girl we are introduced to is Michelle, a very plain, slightly shy girl who works in the library. Eventually Eric and Alex shows up. They are two close friends who easily plan and perform a mass shooting of their classmates and teachers. There is no major difference from them to ordinary students boys. Eric play video games and Alex plays the piano. Small indications say that they are bullied in school. Together they watch hitler propaganda and order guns online. They prepare for the shooting and then jumps into the car riding towards their goal in silence.
On their way into the school they meet John, they tell him to get out of there. John realizes what's about to happen so he tries to warn his surrounding not to enter but not many listens to him. Alex and Eric's enters but their first plan to bomb fails so they immediately starts shooting in the library. Students and teachers are starting to realize the gunfire and panicking, everybody tries to escape the building. At the same time a student called Benny is walking around the school trying to help others. The boys continues their shooting around the school separately. The girls trio gets killed, Benny and the principal. Finally the boys meet in the cafeteria, it's quiet and surrounded by dead bodys and food. In the middle of their conversation Alex shoots Eric, with no feelings shown at all. Alex then discovers the couple, Nathan and Carrie hiding in the freezer. To decide who he is going to kill first he counts the chant “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe”, without seeing who it lands on our a shotgun the film cuts and it leaves us with an unanswered end.
Narration: Enunciation and Narrator (Who is Telling the Story?)
The narration in this movie is internal. The characters or the students are the ones telling the story. From the beginning of the film to the end the camera follows each student from behind. To long tracking shots gets you to really know the person, we see how they walk and how they interact with others. You could also say that the camera is the narrator since the movies is all about following the students in the school halls in endless tracking shots. The narrative construction is quite loose.
As written in Bordwell and Thompson's book Film art:an introduction “we shall consider narrative to be a chain of events in cause-effect relationship occurring in time and space”. In Elephant this is not exactly the case. The director really plays with time in this movie. It is interesting to see how events in the film are slowly unfolded and then forces the viewers to truly think how it actually and exactly took place. The viewer have to put together the looping narrative but also has to put it in a larger context. Because several times in the film we get to see the same event happening again but from a different character's perspective. For example in the beginning when we are in John perspective he meets Alex and Eric while they are on their way into the school with their camo clothes carrying their gun bags, but then it's cuts and jumps to the next character. Not until the movie starts to reach its end, we are introduced to Alex and Eric's story which eventually ends up to that scene again and lets the audience see what's happening next. In summary, this has made the viewers during almost the whole movie wonder who these boys are, if they are the shooters, and when is it going to happen. So when the scene comes back again the viewer understands their story and plan.
Another important point when talking about the narration is that the movie does not have the classic hollywood narrative. This, because the characters aren't correctly organized in line with the happening events. The audience isn't introduced to any of the characters wishes, conflicts or goals. Therefore the classic narrative of individuation does not exist, it doesn't develop characters. In this case it doesn't matter. The narrative development still works. The main point of this is that the movie turns us, the audience into observers. We get to observe the most regular and ordinary day of their lives. This shows that in movies something doesn't have to happen exactly the whole time. It can have an unclear direction, and uneventful scenes but still give us a mood or a feeling that are important to the story.
Meanings (Explicit/Implicit)
Implicit Meaning
In this movie many people are getting shot, innocent people are being shot to death. But the movie itself isn't violent, the way they are shot isn't violent. The scene where Alex and Eric is going in and starts shooting their classmates arnet pumped up, stylish, special or effects added. It just happens, they just go in with no emotions shown at all and perform it. And then it just ends. It doesn't give the viewers any explanation or insight of the killers, nor any theories regarding these teenagers, guns or psychopathic behavior. This could make it hard for the audience to accepts the end and move on. It could also give the impression that Van Sant didn't seem to think there was a reason or solution for the columbine shooting. Our opinion is that it tells us that we need to make our own conclusions and observations about thy they did it.
Explicit Meaning
Reasons for these happenings can never be clear. It is next to impossible to find solutions. Nothing is making sense. Van Sant provides us with several clues of what could have been the reason for the boys behavior. Could it for example have something to do with the kiss Alex and Eric had in the shower, could it be the hitler propaganda they watched, or the violent video game the played? Or was it because of the boys that was throwing spitballs at Alex? It seems that Van Sant doesnt know and that's why we are not given any answers in the movie. Easily put, the statement is that these things happens and it could easily happen again.
Characters Function
Gus Van Sant's script consist first of all of actors that aren't professionals. Most of them are real high school students who in the movie uses their real name and own clothes. It is a ordinary day in everyone's life and the movies is built so that can see each perspective of the day loop around each others. Due to these matters the director escapes the feeling of classical entertainment. Everything goes by natural. Secondly it could therefore be hard to divide the characters into different roles, most of them are equal.
From one perspective Benny could be the subject, the hero. He has the look of a strong, tall and confident boy. The camera follows him in a very long tracking shot when he walks around the halls, helping one girl out of a window. He makes the viewers believe that he is the hero that is going to stop it and save everybody but all of a sudden he is dead.
It is obvious that Alex and Eric are the opponents but it is still a complex situation. Because the reason isn't there. It almost feels like one piece of the puzzle is missing. They both seem fairly innocent except that Alex is the obvious leader of the plan and Eric just goes with it. The confusing part of this, why it's hard to definitely define them as the opponents or the bad guys is that there is no sense of anger, rage or hate in them. While they are on their way in it rather seems like they are eager to do it, example of that is that Alex says to Eric “Have fun man!”.
In most movies like these it's usually the grown ups fault, it's easy to blame them. Not in this case, the adult are described as irresponsible considering John's dad, absent considering Alex's mom and dad, and then there is the principle who we don't get to know well enough to have an opinion about. So from start to end the grown up characters are exposed as powerless and unimportant.
