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Topic: Empty chair (Read 542 times) |
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Isabelle6
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Empty chair
« Thread started on: Jan 28th, 2005, 9:15pm » |
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Three seperate shots in The Village of an empty chair. Night doesn't waste shots. Any idea what it means?
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classicamaro
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Re: Empty chair
« Reply #1 on: Nov 26th, 2005, 04:07am » |
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Yes-
I actually posted this same question when I saw the movie in theaters, because what the heck could the symbolism behind a chair be? Theres way more than 3 shots of an empty chair. Watch the movie again, in many of the scenes, there is a chair in the background. And in fact, there are four shots during the film where the empty chair is the main focus. Once is in the 'quiet' room, one is on the porch facing outward from the home, one is in the middle of the field facing the forest for no other apparant reason, and finally, what I believe is one of the most beautiful shots in the movie: after the creatures come back for the second time, during the reception for the wedding, there is a shot of the reception room, basked in the yellow (good) light, with chairs randomly spaced around the room, and the camera slowly zooms in on one chair, turned on its side... That one really got me thinking about chairs, absolutely beautiful. Then I watched the film just looking for the chairs, and noticed them in the background. One line that gave me a clue was when Ivy's father said that he was sitting in the same chair when he found out she was deaf, or something along those lines. Noah also sits in the chair in the quiet room later in the movie, althought I don't think this has any symbolic aspect. In regards to the symbolism behind the other chairs, its very speculative. One may use a chair for support, and the fact that the townspeople either do not sit or sit on benches without a back like a chair may allude to the fact that they must find support elsewhere (i.e. their sense of community). A theme of the movie, I believe, is innocense, and maybe the chairs have something to do with that. But Shayamalan likes playing with people's minds, so maybe he's just playing with those isightful enough to notice such minor details. Let me know if this inspires you to come up with a better answer, because It's been killing me since the movie came out.
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Robertrodent
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A little more on Empty chairs
« Reply #3 on: Jan 14th, 2006, 2:27pm » |
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Shyamalan wanted the landscape and visuals of the film to be stark: “I do prefer one chair on a porch rather than all kinds of things on the porch, so to speak. That alone helps create a certain sense of isolation. One of my inspirations for The Village was McCabe & Mrs. Miller, which has more of a residue after you’ve seen it — you feel you were there and experienced the feelings of those characters, as opposed to what you encounter in the normal summer movie. So the question is, can you release McCabe & Mrs. Miller as a normal summer movie?”
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http://www.geocities.com/robertrodent/village.html
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