Film critique assignment

The direct cuts of Ralston filming himself behind a hand held camcorder and jumping back showing the entire scene shows a different sense of lighting and camera angles. The lighting changes with the passing of the days as well. The desert is extremely dark at night and very bright during the day so those changes are significant for him to plan his escape. Almost making it as a documentary style, Bayle uses the night lighting, which turns to greens and blacks, from the camcorder to show how Ralston continues to talk to himself, keep track of time, portion his water and food rations, and how the slow escape unravels.

Revealing all of his plans that were unsuccessful and fruitless to the camera, the angles of that camera make it easy to see where he is positioned and how almost impossible an escape would be, especially while alone. Not being able to see much for most f the film, the crevice where Ralston is lodged is very deep but narrow. The most visible things are the top of the crevice, the huge boulder, and the walls of the crevice. It almost gives the audience a sense of claustrophobia to see what little space Ralston had to survive in for more than five days.

This would not so much be a controversial issue, but a moral one. What dramatic measures would you take to save your own life? It would all individually depend on situation and circumstance along with will to live, of course. 127 Hours fits in the genre off drama film. Being drawn as a documentary, the emotional factor involved with real life characters places it in this genre. Ralston is at a crucial moment in his life which places him eternally between life and death. The tragic resolution to his problem is either die where he is at or to amputate his own limb.

Ultimately choosing the latter, the film has a happy ending but changes his life forever. To analyze this film, the best approach to use would be the Formalist approach. Here, film form is important and how the basic elements are organized. (Goodnight, 2011 ) The use of the camera involves the audience into Ralston story and focusing in on the objects that surround him, like the huge boulder he is using as a shelf, the climbing gear, his water and food portions, and the camcorder are al considerable pieces of miss en scene. Without these pieces, parts of the Story would fall apart or not be as substantial as they should.