My favorite movie of all time would have to be “TAKEN” that came out in 2008. It is a movie about a retired CIA agent, who’s daughter gets kidnapped when she goes on a trip to Europe. He has to go to Europe and use his skills to hopefully find is daughter alive. The reason why I love this movie is about it is action packed, it taught me little techniques to find hidden clues, and it showed just how much a parent would do to save their child. The first time I watched this movie, I fell in love. I have probably watched this movie 100 times LITERALLY.
In Ebert’s journal, “Reading A Movie” , he made a lot of points about movies that I have never payed attention to. The reading was very interesting and it made me want to watch more moves and pay more attention to them. Mainly for the “A shot a time” ; which is just pausing the film at random times and telling what you see. I picked up other key points from the reading that I want to elaborate one.
The first point I want to make is how Ebert talks about how the tilting of a shot can make a difference. Tilt shots symbolize that the world is out of balance. In this scene from taken, Liam Neeson plays the CIA agent/father, and he is talking to the kidnappers. You can tell by the look on his face that he feels helpless that someone has taken his daughter and he cannot find her. I am not a parent but I am sure that having someone take your child and you don’t know where they are leaves you helpless.
“Left tilts to me suggest helplessness, sadness, resignation. ” – Roger Ebert.
The next point Ebert made in his journal was how the standing positions can make a difference in the scene. When a actor/actress just stands in the middle of the screen it seems weird because it doesn’t really create a mood. If the actor/actress is standing to the right or the left they can make the scene negative or positive . A person that is standing to the right seems positive, a person standing to the left seems negative. I personally, never paid attention to that, until I thought back to “TAKEN” and found it present. In this scene, he is interrogation someone that might know where his daughter is. The “might be kidnapper” is negative, and the father is positive in this scene.
“the person on the right will “seem” dominant over the person on the left.” -Roger Ebert
I originally looked up the genre of this movie and then used the TV Tropes Site to see if they were the same. Sadly, they weren’t. Online the genre for “TAKEN” was an Action, Crime, Thriller. But in my opinion, and my research from the Tv Tropes Site and I think it is an Evidence Scavenger Hunt. The definition of a Evidence Scavenger Hunt is “the section of a crime and punishment show where the cast chases down clues.” Throughout the whole movie the father, keeps finding clues that lead him to new people and places. Each time he gets to the next place, he finds more evidence that leads him someone else. Until he finally reaches his daughters location. I am not at all saying that the genre I found online was wrong, I just think the Evidence Scavenger Hunt suits the film more.
