Kevin Teta
Anita Allyn
COM 343-01
May 31, 2013
Film Analysis: Moonrise Kingdom
Moonrise Kingdom, released in 2012 and directed by Wes Anderson is a coming of age romantic-comedy drama that details three days in the lives of Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky. The narrative takes place on the fictional, New England island of New Penzance where the characters are isolated from the surrounding towns and creates an intimate setting and community atmosphere. Moonrise Kingdom, through its use of mise-en-scene creates a world that plays with ordinary premises and a story line that deals with youth and love in a fantastic fashion. The cinematography of Moonrise Kingdom ,with the use of different shots in scenes, creates a sense of emotional closeness and distance between the characters as well. For this film analysis, I will look closely at the film and how it looks into the desires of the character of Suzy Bishop and Sam Shakusky and their roles as voyeurs and how they represent different versions of the male gaze. I will look at the representation of women and men in the film and how they are portrayed and how this affects the overall narrative of the film. Because the main characters are only twelve and dealing with adult subject matters, I will also discuss an overall message of innocence and forgiveness throughout the film where the characters learn through their experiences growing up and the difficulty it causes in their lives.
According to Devin Oregon in his article: La Camera-Crayola: Authorship Comes of Age in the Cinema of Wes Anderson, Wes Anderson’s films are about “childhood-literal and prolonged” where the characters have a feeling of abandonment from their families and they have an intense need to create a sense of community in its place to fill that void in their lives (pg. 42). His characters that occupy his films are generally all flawed in some way, but they all have a redeeming quality when they interact with the other characters and they are interdependent and rely on each other to feel complete and fulfilled. Where other Wes Anderson films deal with adult characters dealing with childhood traumas extending into their adult lives and them dealing with them later in their lives, in Moonrise Kingdom, the childhood disturbance is happening currently in the main characters lives and it set in a time where they are both twelve years old. The main characters are introduced very differently in the film and this adds the differences of representation we see between men and women. The character of Suzy Bishop is shown to be isolated in her home from her parents and her brothers and does not have a strong connection with anyone presently in her life. Through the use of cinematography in the beginning of the film , we see the camera panning through a cross-section of the Bishop house, where Suzy is roaming around each room alone constantly observing life through the use of her binoculars that become a metaphor of how she views the world around her. Her parents are shown through this scene as never being in the same room at the same time, showing their isolation and distance they have from each other and foreshadowing the issues they will later face in their marriage. Suzy’s three brothers are always shown together and the close relationship they share with each other that does not include their older sister Suzy. We learn of Sam Shakusky through other people primarily and an image of him is not shown in the movie until eleven minutes in. We learn through the character of Scout Master Ward played by Ed Norton, that Sam has run away from the camp and has resigned from his position as a khaki scout. We also see through the conversations the characters of Captain Sharp played by Bruce Willis and Mr Billingsley, Sam’s foster parent, have that Sam is an orphan where his parents died at younger age. Through this conversation, there is a shot cut in of Sam’s scout information with his picture and this is the first image we see of the character in the movie. We see through this introduction to the characters in the film, the way the camera frames Suzy differently from Sam and how that adds to the objectification of Suzy as a female character in the film that I will later touch on in this analysis.
When looking at the Male Gaze in Moonrise Kingdom, there can be seen a relationship with feminist theorist Laura Mulvey’s ideas of how women are viewed in film. Ann Kaplan goes over three different ways that Laura Mulvey looked at male gazes in film in her book Feminism and Film (120). I will look at each one separately and how it pertains to different scenes of the film. The first one described “is the look of the camera in the situation where the events are being filmed and that this look is inherently voyeuristic and male because it is generally man that is doing the filming”(pgs. 120-121). Because Wes Anderson is a male director and writer of the film, it is shot with a male perspective regardless if Anderson wanted to discuss the idea of femininity or masculinity represented in his film. Although the film may seem neutral to the effects of the male gaze in this sense, some of the cinematography choices can be seen as promoting the use of the male gaze. From the very beginning, and with the introduction of the main characters, Suzy and her actions were on display through the entire sequence and there is combination of long shot, medium shots , and close-ups of her face that have her on display and framed in the center of the shot. Her eyes are highlighted with blue eye shadow and she generally looks directly into the camera or off slightly to the right or left and that keeps a major focus on her face. With the introduction of Sam, as stated before, we do not directly meet Sam and it when we finally are shown a scene with his character in it where he is traveling to meet Suzy for the first time, his actions are highlighted more than his body and self. The props and his tools are shown to be an important part of his character and represent his wilderness sensibilities and they are the objects and not himself. The second look that Kaplan mentions is how men within the narrative look and how they make women objects of their gaze (pg. 121). This is seen throughout the film and how it is shot with Sam and Suzy looking at each other and the way they look to the side of the camera in their close-ups. In the scene of their first meeting where Suzy plays the raven there is intense male gaze present. The fact that Sam is in the audience during the play and Suzy is the actress affirms the role of Sam as the spectator and the owner of the gaze. When they meet in the dressing room, Sam came out behind the rack of clothes , clears his throat and the girls immediately turn toward him where Suzy is again framed in the center of the shot with eyes highlighted in thick black make-up. When Sam asks “What kind of bird are you?” , it is very indirect where the girls do not know who he is referring to. When the girl beside her starts to tell what birds they are, He restates his question and points saying, “No, what type of bird are You?”. Suzy answers in a lower voice than that of Sam and after she responds, Sam see that she has an injured hand, that is found to be self inflicted from her losing her temper. The girl beside Suzy mentions to him that it is “not polite to stare’” and an adult comes in the room and shoos him out of there. The next shots are back to the play where Suzy is in the center and there comes a close-up of her character and her face again, to show how that she is the object of the gaze. There is a continual use of close-ups to show the emotional connection between these two characters and how they both show a desire towards one another. The last way the gaze is perceived is through the male audience watching the film in the cinematic apparatus and they can potentially imitate the first two gaze after viewing these images (pg. 121). These certain elements in the film can be looked as part of the male gaze, but because of the age of the characters, the desire aspect and the objectification is shown to be innocent and not necessarily coming from a sexual place.
One of the main features that Mulvey looks at with her theory are the roles and split between the active male and passive female (Mulvey, 19). In the movie, Sam Shakusky is seen being a dominant figure and one that has masculine characteristics of being resourceful, outdoorsy, and rugged. He is heroic in a way by taking Suzy on this adventure and taking her away from the troubles she is facing with her family at home. This shows him controlling the film fantasy and the structure is set around his actions and therefore the spectator can identify more with his character (Mulvey, pg. 20). The different shots add to his perception that Sam is the main protagonist of the film and that he has a power over the screen and the he creates the action. Suzy is shown to be in isolation and an object of the gaze often in the film. She is passive in most of the movie where she goes along with Sam’s suggestion and has him teach her about the wilderness even if what he suggests sound incorrect or not the most sound advice. When they first meet, Sam tells her that she can suck on rocks if she gets thirsty and it will produce more saliva or rub leaves on your head to cool you down. She comments quietly when he mentions the leaves that it would help if you did not wear a fur hat, which had shown that she thought reasonably about the idea but Sam disregarded her comment and went on showing her how to survive the wild. There is also a comparison of what they brought on their trip together to help them survive on their journey. Sam is seen to be more practical in his packing, bringing camping supplies, while Suzy brings her cat, her lucky lefty scissors, numerous cans of cat food, a record player, a suitcase full of books, and numerous other things that would not be considered “practical” when camping out in the wilderness. Suzy puts more of her emotional and affective needs first when determining her essentials needs while Sam looks at more of his physical needs which are very representative of society and how women an men are generally looked at. Sam is continually looked at as more stoic and control of his emotions through his actions. He continually disregards her comments as he did with the fur hat comment. When Suzy talks about her parents thinking of her as troubled child, Sam starts to laugh and immediately Suzy gets emotional and storms off, saying that Sam does not know how to make friends. Sam quickly apologizes and says that he is on her side, and she forgives him immediately showing that she can change her moods easily. When they get to the tidal inlet, again Suzy expresses her emotions when talking about Sam being an orphan. Suzy sees his broach on his uniform and asks how he earned it. He explains that it was his mothers and that it is meant for a woman but he does not “give a damn”. She says that sometimes she wishes she was an orphan. Sam pauses for a second and says that he loves her but she has no idea what she is talking about. Suzy reciprocates by saying that she loves Sam too but disregards completely that she felt that way about her family life. The film coincides with Mulvey’s explanation of the passive female and active male roles in theater and we continue to see the heterosexual division of labour in the movie (20). The film is dominantly shown with a large representation of male characters versus the the amount of female characters of the film. Men control much of the narrative where there is massive group of boy khaki scouts, Captain Sharp as the male police officer, and Suzy having three brothers. The female representation aside from Suzy is her mother, the telephone operator, social services and Mrs. Billingsley and two of these characters have few to no lines in the entire film. This shows that the male presence runs the narrative and controls most of the story.
Voyeurism is looked at in different ways in the film and from different perspectives of the characters. Mulvey describes how sadism plays in to the role of voyeurism by asserting control over the guilty person through punishment or forgiveness and can be represented as a change in the character. One scene that shows a type of punishment of Suzy is the scene where she given a gift of “earrings” from Sam and she is put in a position where she get her ears pierces in way that causes her pain. In this scene we see that Suzy is continually looked at more and more as a young women instead of a child and that she is making adult decisions. We see that when Suzy is given the earrings and does not have pierced ears, she has a decision to accept the gift and become more womanly for Sam or reject it and show that she still is a child. She agrees to have him pierce her ears, which leads to her having to go through the trauma of putting holes in her ears and when we see the first one in, and the blood running down her neck, we can see that it was a very painful experience for her. After seeing the first one, though, she instructs Sam to pierce her other ear to show that she received some type of pleasure from this event and finds the punishment of female beauty worth the final result. This represents a change in her character and further control placed in the character of Sam and how she has accepted that role in her life. She also has self-inflicted punishment when she is shown with a cut on her hand and it is explained that she “got hit in the mirror by losing her temper on herself”. This type of pain that Suzy feels is a release of tension and emotion she feels on a daily basis and helps her deal with her everyday life.
Voyeurism is looked at in another way with Suzy as her being in control of the gaze and how she has pleasure in looking as well that is similar to male gaze that the other male characters possess. As discuss earlier in the analysis, Suzy is seen with binoculars throughout the film and some of the frames and shots of the film are shown through her perspective by having the audience view the action of the movie as if they were looking through her binoculars. In a scene at the tidal inlet, Sam asks about her binoculars and why she uses them so frequently. She explains that they help her to see things close-up even if they are not that far away. She explains that it is like her special power. Sam sees these statements as poetry and he can see the significance, both literally and metaphorically, the binoculars play in her life. With having the shots show what Suzy sees through the use of the binoculars and framing the shots these ways, she is shown to have control over the story at that time and that the movie is now seen through the female perspective. Through her voyeurism she is able to see the actions of her mother’s affair with Captain Sharp and create a judgment of her mother without her mother knowing that she is being seen. She also views through the binoculars where she knows the subject knows it is being watching, like in the scene where they are in the woods looking at the deer. She has a scopophilic tendencies where she feels a pleasure from looking and that fact that her subjects are aware or unaware of her gaze adds to her pleasure. This use of the female perspective of voyeurism adds a sense of equality to use of the gaze between men and women and gives the movie an opportunity to downplay the dominant roles that male characters play in this film.
Women are represented in other ways in the film with the characters of Suzy’s mom, Laura Bishop, and also the character of Social Services. When meeting Laura Bishop in the beginning of the film, we see that she isolated, just like Suzy, and there is a disconnect between her husband and her family by them not ever being in the same room as each other. We find that both her and her husband are both lawyers and they work together frequently. They are shown that they really do not display an emotional connection to each other and is juxtaposed by showing them at a distance from one another while the relationship between Sam and Suzy is shown very intimately and very loving. Suzy’s Mom is shown to be not in control of her daughter and when she tries to show emotion towards her daughter, like in the bathtub scene after Suzy has returned home from her trip with Sam, Suzy dismisses the affection and pushes her mother away from her emotionally. She tells her mother she hates her and says it intentionally to hurt her. Suzy reveals that she knows about her mother’s affair with the police officer and that she looks at it as her mother wasting her time with a silly, stupid man. Laura admits that the man is kind of silly but it is something that she should not have acknowledged or even discussed with her daughter, showing weakness in her character. Suzy sees that her mother is disengaged and does not know the meaning of her love for Sam and Laura has a hard time understanding love on her own. Motherhood, being such a strong female role in life, has been undermined in many of Wes Anderson films and we see this trend of characters searching for affection from mother figures but never finding it and having to try to fulfill this desire in other ways (Gooch, 40). Social Services is an institutional view of women and also shares the same coldness that we find from Suzy’s mother. The character, played by Tilda Swinton in the film is not even given a proper name showing the institutional nature of the role and how they are treating an emotional situation of Sam going to juvenile refuge and possibly receiving electro-shock therapy as an everyday occurrence and something that does not register personally to Social Services. Social Service is represented the same way we see Mr Billingsley in the telephone conversations where there is split screen where one side is that of Captain Sharp, Scout Master Ward and the Telephone Operator and the other shot either Mr Billingsley or Social Services on the phone in a monochromatic setting (The one of Social Services is highlighted by dark blues and grays to give an institutional feel). Social Services has no personal connection to the characters and just doing her job. These two characters represent a contrasting view of how we view women and how Suzy is viewed in the film. Suzy being full of emotion, is generally the accepted way that we view women , but the roles of Laura Bishop and Social Services lack that emotional drive in their actions and causes them to look less like a woman to the spectator.
With everything discussed about this film with different representations of the male gaze, voyeurism and the representation of women , there is an overarching theme of innocence of youth in Moonrise Kingdom, that creates a feeling that these ways of looking are not a factor because of the age of the main characters. Suzy being looked at as an object of desire for Sam is awkward for the audience to feel because there is taboo implications when looking at young love this way. It is not usually acceptable in society to objectify young women in the way that Suzy is represented, with her face and body consistently being shot in close-ups and her eyes highlighted by the blue eye shadow and her looking into the camera directly at the audience. This is looked at as acceptable though because Sam is the same age as her and that it can be looked at as the male gaze being harmless and not violating Suzy. With the relationships between other men and women like Suzy’s mom and dad being flawed and falling apart, the relationship between Sam and Suzy can be looked at as love in its purest, least complicated form and proof that love can happen at any age and does not need to be messy. This “love story” also has a happy ending and shows that the desire that is shown throughout movie is mutual and strong and they are equally committed to each other in the relationship.
Through analyzing Moonrise Kingdom, although it does not explicitly call out for these feminist critical analysis of narratives by Laura Mulvey and deeper thinking into the roles of men and women in film, there is evidence to show that they are still present. This movie was very interesting to view through this lens and allows myself to further analyze other films in this fashion. It is always important to understand the role of the audience and be literate of the creators of the films being watched to fully understand the overall message being portrayed and see how gender is constantly being defined in our culture and the media we survey.
References
Gooch, J (2007). Making a Go of It: Paternity and Prohibition in the Films of Wes Ander son. Cinema Journal, 47,26-48.
Kaplan E.A. (2000). Feminism and Film. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Mulvey, L. (1989). Visual and Other Pleasures. Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press.
Oregon, D. (2007). La Camera-Crayola: Authorship Comes of Age in the Cinema of Wes Anderson. Cinema Jouranl, 46, 40-65.
