Thelma & Louise (1991) - Image Analysis

     Directed by Ridley Scott, this film was released on 12 July 1991. It was nominated for 6 Academy Awards (USA) - but only won 1 of the nominations for 'Best Writing'. It was also nominated for 8 BAFTA awards. 

     Ridley Scott utilises Thriller conventions in an interesting way to establish the genre, but he also mixes them with unusual conventions to challenge the genre and the social context at the time that the film was made. He achieves this by manipulating usual Thriller conventions and changing them to something unexpected; especially in the conformity and representation of gender. 

    One of the ways that Scott uses these Thriller conventions is through Location. The location of a car park behind a bar is perfect for a Thriller and is a typical convention of the thriller as it is an enclosed/claustrophobic space, but feels open because it is so large, although barriers are present when in a car park. This could be used to represent that Louise has enclosed the man to this point, in location and time, and therefore he has nowhere to go both literally and metaphorically - thus this is used to make the location and scene much more threatening towards the man. Another Thriller convention used here is the enigmatic white van behind the man - which could represent that the man himself is an enigma as he is unknown to the women in this film, but he is trying to become known to them - the same as a white van is used to create mystery and an eerie feel to a scene. 

Jackie Brown 1997

     The use of characters is another Thriller convention, but challenges the genre in the roles of these characters. Firstly, upon looking at facial expression we can see that the man teeth are gritted and his eyes are looking back towards Louise and her eye direction is directly towards him. This is used to establish a negative relationship and that she has a negative attitude towards him, but his eye direction is still quite sly and sadistic like he thinks he is still going to get away with it because he's a man and she's a woman. However, the audience can see that the woman is very dominant in the shot although there is a clear height difference. The difference in height is used to challenge gender conformity in that although she is significantly smaller than he is, Louise still is dominant and makes him show fear. Showing that just because someone is larger than you, it doesn't necessarily mean that they are stronger or more dominant, which challenges the social context for women at the time as the Femme Fatale and woman dominated men in film was unknown at the time. This reminds me of the scene in 'Jackie Brown'  (above) when she pulls a gun out against the dominant man in the scene - showing a reversal of gender roles and also challenging the representation of women. 



Heavenly Creatures 1994

       Furthermore, lighting is another Thriller convention used in this shot. It is non-ambient lighting, meaning that studio lighting has been used to increase the amount of light in the shot - we can see this from the lighting being a bright white lighting and evening lighting or ambient lighting from indoor lights would have a yellow tone to the light. A similar technique is used in 'Heavenly Creatures' (right) to add more light to the scene. This type of lighting is used to put the audience's focus onto the characters in the foreground of the scene. It also dulls the background even more to make sure the audience doesn't stray off from the action to a brighter object in the background, therefore the background is kept dark and unlit. This lighting puts a lot of focus onto the gun as it makes it the brightest part of the shot and a person's viewpoint will always go towards the brightest part of a shot before looking at the rest of it - therefore it establishes the situation very clearly and abruptly to the audience. Another use of camera and lighting is that a depth of field is used, meaning that the background is blurred/out of focus, as the foreground remains in focus. This technique is used in Photography a lot - shown by the ladybird (above) - as Photographers will want the audience to focus on a specific point before looking at the rest of the image. This is a concious decision as the background could be in focus in the photo (above) and the Ridley Scott's shot here. Therefore he chose to use the blur in this instance to make the audience focus very clearly on the situation and characters in the shot. 


     The use of camera angles is key to this shot/scene as it establishes the characters. This shot is a medium close up of the two main characters of this scene. In the shot as a whole, Louise is very much more dominant in the shot and her arm is stretched out, thus making the man have to stand straight and still, being less dominant in the shot. This is used to show her overall dominance in the situation and that she has the upper hand by having a gun pointed to his head. This camera angle is also used to make it much more limited in the use of space as not much of the background is used - meaning that the these two characters are very important and that they are the only two characters that matter in this shot. 

Essex Boys 2000

    Props are also used in this scene which have Thriller conventions. The gun is obviously the main conventional prop used here and is used to show violence and establish Louise as a 'Femme Fatale'. It also challenges the genre because it is not normally women who hold guns or shoot people in films or Thrillers even though the Femme Fatale in not uncommon, shown by Jackie holding the gun in 'Jackie Brown'. The clothes are a key prop as the man's shirt is white in colour which is a colour that connotes innocence and purity, however the colour is more of an off-white colour - showing that he is a not innocence or pure, but he is trying to appear to be. This is shown when he tries to 'kiss' Thelma as an innocent act, but then turns violent when the act is refused. The blue jacket that Louise is wearing is used to show a complete contrast between her and the man. The use of prop in film to represent a character is used a lot as it can compliment or contrast their character and personality, which reminds me of Jason in 'Essex Boys' as he is wearing a very loud, obnoxious shirt - which is used to reflect his obnoxious, selfish and vain personality.