Arie and Ella - Anatomy of A Scene: The Crow

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16FC6tNEWIfms_6x0Tjqqtd8XaVeOuajm/view

Ella Travis, Arie Melvin Larissa Pahomov Reel Reading May 20, 2022

The Crow Transcript

Ella: In this shot, dolly tracking is being used as Eric crawls to his dead fiance’s tombstone, Low key lighting is used to darken his surroundings. The camera is at eye level with Eric to make the viewers sympathize emotionally with him as he shivers in this cold and vulnerable state. Having defeayed all his enemies and completed all his unfinished business his tortured soul can finally rest, which he is doing in this dark, gothic cemetery. His costume is ripped, makeup smeared, and for the first time in the film he looks absolutely exhausted. As said in the Attack from Planet B review “the movie specializes in gothic style, architecture, fashion and the unbelievable score by Graeme Revell. Proyas(the director) is let off from swaying from the source material because he keeps one key element evident, its pain.” followed by “Cinematically, The Crow is beautiful”.

Arie: As the scene continues, we get a long shot of Shelly as she walks closer to the camera with a backlight behind her. This gives off the feeling that she is angelic and that she is here to take Eric back to the afterlife with him. We then get a close-up shot of Shelly then puts her hand on Eric, who is relieved to see his lover standing next to him. The scene gives off a feeling of “warmth” and reassurance, Eric has finally brought revenge on the people who wronged him and his fiancée. Now he’s finally able to embrace her, and just be with her. As they come in for the kiss, you can see less and less of Eric’s breath, signifying to us, that he is finally moving on to the afterlife with her, as the backlight is now behind him as well to prove it to us this fact as well. Finally, we get a medium shot of Eric and Shelly’s gravestones with Eric’s crow perching on his gravestone with the ring on his mouth. This can be depicted as a parting gift, a final thing to give to Sarah as a way to say goodbye to her, given that he couldn’t get the chance to do it before. At the end of that scene, we get one final shot of the city with Sarah bringing one final message to the viewer. It beautifully ties the movie to a close, establishing that true love last forever even after death, and what Eric did proved that, as he tried to get vengeance for the one he loves in order to gain peace and be with them. In fact, Eric isn’t the only one who lost someone. The writer, James O’Barr who worked on both the film and the original series, lost his fiancée to a drunk driver and he began working on The Crow comic book series to help with the grief of losing her. With this in mind, the scene also gives off a sense of being very personal and reflects on the writer with everything he went through in the past. In one interview, we see that the director of the movie, Alex Proyas, also has a personal connection to the movie as well. His mother died when he was at a young age, and he felt very touched by the idea of a character trying their best to reunite with their loved one by crossing the bridge into the afterlife and Eric did that with a vengeance. As said in the Dead End Follies review, “… The Crow is not entirely about murder and revenge. It’s a lot about murder and revenge, but it’s also about reestablishing a moral order by combatting greed.”