Screening Analysis of Footloose
For my screening analysis, I decided to use Footloose directed by Herbert Ross in the year 1984. This film is about teenagers of a small town trying to have fun and be teenagers, and the way it uses many visual components allows for the story to be understood by many. Using the book “The Visual Story” by Bruce Block, I could pinpoint a few specific aspects that worked for the film. The one most important visual component was the use of tone. “Tone refers to the brightness of objects” as stated by Block. He says that it can be used to, “help direct the audience’s attention” and “affect its mood and emotional feeling.”
This movie’s use of tone really showed the most important parts of the movie. Scenes would be dark in the most emotional parts of the movie, while bright scenes would be whenever these teenagers were just living freely. The entire movie is filled with bright scenes that show happiness, whether the main characters are dancing or playing around. In the first picture, a teenager named Ariel is standing on two cars as they drive down the street. Although there is an oncoming truck, she is happy to be out of the control of her father and the bright lighting shows this. She seems to not have a care in the world even though she is in so much danger. The second picture is from a sequence where the main character, Ren, is teaching his friend how to dance. Being that dancing is banned in the city they are in, they are so happy that they get to have fun and be teenagers. The bright lighting and colors show how exciting this is for them.
Then, there are a few scenes that are mostly dark and shadowed that show the opposite of the emotions in the past two pictures. These next two pictures show anger and sadness that the teenagers feel inside when they are unable to do what they want. The first picture is when the main character gets yelled at for causing too much trouble when he is truly not. He gets stressed out and runs off to an abandoned warehouse to let off some steam, and the dark shadows all over him show the audience his emotions. The second picture is of the character Ariel being told off by her father, she is told that she was out too late and to not hang out with Ren anymore. This image from within the scene shows how closed in she feels. The darkness displays how unhappy she is with the situation and that she wishes to just be a teenager and live free. Another thing I noticed within these pictures is that they both have white shirts on that contrast from the background along with lights shining onto their faces, which allows the audience to be able to see them and their emotions during the scenes.
