Gran Torino Response
Film Response: Gran Torino (Draft) By Clint Eastwood
There are many things for the director to take into consideration in order to portray their movie in a specific way, such as background music/ noise, lighting, cast, camera angles and many more. These variables within a movie can emphasise different atmospheres throughout, such as dominance, innocence, happiness and other emotions or character supremacies. The film Gran Torino, directed by Clint Eastwood uses all of these key factors with such grace that the audience can not help but be enthralled in the story line. The purpose of this essay is to uncover how the use of camera angles and other techniques, indicate and represent different characteristics within a scene, and also to discuss the conflicts between the two races and Walt’s point of view towards them.
Gran Torino is a story that follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world. Walt's young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt's prized 1972 Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang. Walt prevents the theft with his rifle and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family having to face his own racial prejudice head on. Walt developed his racial preconception as a result of serving in the Korean War, so when his neighborhood quickly began to fill with people of different cultures Walt began o feel uneasy and did not reside his new neighbors. Instead he saw them as intruders, made racial slurs at them, for example calling them Gooks, and African Americans, Spooks. Walt took no interest in interacting with his foreign neighbors.
Throughout the movie, camera angles help the audience distinguish who the alpha male with in the scene is, for example, when Walt is beating up Spider (a Hmong gang member) the cameras set up in a low angle shot then switches to over-shoulder shot, both signifying that Walt is above
There are many things for the director to take into consideration in order to portray their movie in a specific way, such as background music/ noise, lighting, cast, camera angles and many more. These variables within a movie can emphasise different atmospheres throughout, such as dominance, innocence, happiness and other emotions or character supremacies. The film Gran Torino, directed by Clint Eastwood uses all of these key factors with such grace that the audience can not help but be enthralled in the story line. The purpose of this essay is to uncover how the use of camera angles and other techniques, indicate and represent different characteristics within a scene, and also to discuss the conflicts between the two races and Walt’s point of view towards them.
Gran Torino is a story that follows Walt Kowalski, a recently widowed Korean War veteran alienated from his family and angry at the world. Walt's young neighbor, Thao Vang Lor, is pressured by his cousin into stealing Walt's prized 1972 Ford Torino for his initiation into a gang. Walt prevents the theft with his rifle and subsequently develops a relationship with the boy and his family having to face his own racial prejudice head on. Walt developed his racial preconception as a result of serving in the Korean War, so when his neighborhood quickly began to fill with people of different cultures Walt began o feel uneasy and did not reside his new neighbors. Instead he saw them as intruders, made racial slurs at them, for example calling them Gooks, and African Americans, Spooks. Walt took no interest in interacting with his foreign neighbors.
Throughout the movie, camera angles help the audience distinguish who the alpha male with in the scene is, for example, when Walt is beating up Spider (a Hmong gang member) the cameras set up in a low angle shot then switches to over-shoulder shot, both signifying that Walt is above