Avengers: Assemble - Scene Analysis

The scene I have chosen to do from this movie is undoubtedly my favorite scene within it. Even among all of the frivolous and extraordinarily intense action scenes, my favorite scene begins at 1 hour 42 minutes and 30 seconds into the film, it depicts Thor’s last effort to convince his brother, not to surrender, but to stop, to amend and to go home.

For the first time, we see Loki at equal level with another character.

Throughout the movie, we’ve only ever seen him faces with offensive affronts, and confrontational contact, or the camera angle has placed us at a low point, aiming for a high angle shot, enhancing his superiority, or extreme close-ups that are quite frankly, deeply unsettling.

So, as I’ve said earlier, equal footing, for the first time throughout the movie:

 The camera shows both Loki and Thor, flickering back and forth between the two.

The lighting is deliberately bright at this scene, and also very deliberately done with a close-up shot, so you could clearly see all of the facial features of the two characters.

A shot of a decimated New York is then shown just as Thor shouts, “Look at this! Look around you!”, to Loki, pleading with his brother to see reason, to realize the severity of the situation.

This long-shot CGI shot of New York makes US realize the severity of the damage caused, and that will be caused just as much as Thor is aiming for Loki to see, as we see this from Loki’s point of view, as he glances over. The fact that a point-of-view shot is added puts us for once in a position where we are able to empathize wit Loki. This is essential due to what unfolds further on in the scene.

The rest of the scene depicts a heated conversation between brothers.

Now, for my favorite part, the intricacy of this astounds me:

 Tom Hiddleston (Loki) has very clear, blue eyes. In Avengers, this is enhanced:

This is probably to mimic the effect his scepter has upon whom it touches, indoctrinating them with information solely for the purpose of helping Loki, and in turn, making their eyes a sharp, ethereal blue.

There is a theory that this may suggest, sub-textually, that Loki was under the violating influence of the Tesseract the entire time. The Tesseract is a burden, it gives those who touch it false, malevolent purpose, and as Loki says: “I am Loki, and I am burdened with glorious purpose”. (My favorite line)

 This scene is actually supportive of this theory.

Back to the eyes – So Tom Hiddleston’s eyes are an enhanced blue, this is most apparent when he’s at his most evil, the coldest and most antagonistic.

Now, there’s something I must make clear; I personally don’t believe that Loki is inherently evil. He is a Norse God, the God of Mischief, the Trickster. All of which are not embodiments of evil, which I obviously do not believe him to be. With Loki, Joss Whedon creates a perfect Xanatos Gambit, because even though Loki portrays that he is set out to destroy Earth, the truth is, he couldn’t care less about the Midgardian world of Earth! All he wants is to go home. So, win or loose the prizefight, Loki still goes home, so Loki still wins.

Because of Loki’s intelligence, he is reasonable, so he can be swayed. This scene depicts such a thing.

Canonically, in both Comic and Norse-Mythos, Loki’s eyes are emphasized greatly as being green. Green, always green (except for when he shape shifts or has a eight legged horse baby called Sleipnir, but that’s besides the point – Norse Mythology is terribly befuddling)

When he’s good, at least. And when since we only see Loki (in this movie. Pretend Thor never existed) in his antagonistic role, we don’t get to see him as good.

BUT, when faced with his pleading brother…let’s compare.

The change is noticeable. The scene also has noticeably warmer, greener lighting, this is probably to emphasize that Loki is feeling, he’s feeling, and his big brother is there, and he’s just that little boy with the green eyes again, stuck in his brother’s shadow.

The close up of Loki’s face in this is to make us see that Loki is not unfeeling, not inexorable. And the post-production editing focused on eyes adds to this. And then all of a sudden…BAM! Loki gathers himself, his ‘glorious purpose’, and stabs

Thor:

The music abruptly changed from solemn violins to a jolting, hard melody.

And once again, we are viewing Loki from afar, from a low angle, as he is no longer at equals with Thor; he has regained his superiority.

Lonely superiority that he resigns himself to with a sad smile, a gentle, almost surprised whisper of: “sentiment” and a single tear, falling out of an almost-green eye:

Needless to say, Loki is in fact my favourite character from this particular film.

This film could have easily become just another superhero movie, with cliche' and deus ex machina coming out of it's ears, however, I believe that the complexity of Loki, the antagonist, relieves this movie of the susceptibility of succumbing to any of these unfortunate tropes.



He is indeed a wonderful depiction of an equally wonderful comic book, and mythological character.

- By Islah Jagan.

Media Studies AS Film Exercise.

North By Northwest.

North By Northwest by Alfred Hitchcock contains all the elements of a good thriller, from the resourceful hero, the red herrings, to the villain. It's very cliche' and predictable in that manner, but it is categorically sound and fits into its genre snugly.

Cary Grant portrays the hero of the movie (even though for the greater half of the film all he does is proclaim: "I'm not Kaplin!" multiple times) and the villain is portrayed by James Mason, and the stereotypical (if not misogynistic) portrayal of the damsel that needs eventual rescuing by the hero, is played by Eve Marie Saint.

The obvious use of a Maguffin (the secret tapes? Statue? What statue?) is an element which helped fit this movie into the thriller genre perfectly.


Hitchcock said thrillers allow the audience, "to put their toe in the cold water of fear to see what it's like” I personally think that this movie does not embody this at all. I didn't feel any form of 'fear' during watching this movie aside from the fear that it was going to get even more predictable. Maybe I felt something when they were hanging off the cliff in that atrocious visual pun of a 'cliffhanger', but aside from that, nope, I don't think this movie particularly embodies this goal. Perhaps it did when it was first released, but my modernised mind tells me no.

Psycho: the Shower Scene.

Psycho is undoubtably one of the most fundamentally disturbing films I've seen in a very long time, the age of it does not subtract from it's worth.

I believe this to be culpable of the fact that, throughout the movie, we feel something is amiss, however we are abysmally lacking information so to ascertain as to what exactly it was and so were unwittingly unsettled by it.

It is a structurally brilliant Thriller, with an established villain, however lacks a definite hero, many of the characters seem to take on this roll.

There are many iconic scenes in this film.

But primarily, let's discuss the famous shower scene.

The tension is initially built by having very few cuts, and mostly diegetic sound involved. There are no long shots, which makes you believe that you're not seeing everything, because you're limited to the small frame which you've been allowed to see, as depicted in the GIF I made below:

In the direct lead up to the zenith of the action, there is no non-diegetic sound, only the resounding sound of the shower, coupled by the downwards angle of the camera, making the female protagonist seem vulnerable, and not just physically naked. She is at the complete unprecedented mercy of what is about to happen to her:

Then, after a few seconds of the imminent approach of looming danger as only we can see behind her, it happens:

And along with the extreme close-ups and the silhouette shot of her estranged killer, the unhinged screeching of the violins I'm sure we can all subconsciously produce in our heads just looking at this scene, make it very a impactful scene indeed.

As she is being stabbed, we again see her from a high angle, portraying her absolute helplessness:

I must say, the character of Norman Bates is thoroughly interesting to me, if not very unnerving. I'm vey glad I got the opportunity to watch this film.

 - Islah

Thrillers.

Trillers are a genre of movie that are abundant in qualities from other genres such as Horror and Action featuring fast-paced and frequent action.
They often feature an estranged but resourceful hero up against a villain with a greater amount of power, who's often better equipped.
Villains will often be at an advantage to the hero.
Example of a villain:

(Loki Laufeyson from Avengers: Assemble & Thor played by Tom Hiddleston)

Thrillers are categorized as a broad and plentiful genre, including numerous overlapping sub-genre's. As Alfred Hitchchock said, the human condition is that they like: "to put their toe in the cold water of fear and see what it's like"
There is often a Maguffin, a plot device used to move the movie along that usually no one really cares about.
And Enigma, or mystery is also often present.