The film Good Will Hunting is an award-winning screenplay directed by Gus Van Sant. Released in 1997 the film has not only been loved by many for its dramatic, yet feel good story line but also by English teachers for its effective use of filming techniques. The techniques, which include a variety of close shots, low shots and panning shots along with the lighting, used throughout help to create a better understanding of the story line and the character’s development throughout the film. The main themes of the film, non-conformity, abandonment and love help to portray the message of living your life to the fullest to the viewers.
Good Will Hunting is a film that follows the emotional development of the protagonist, Will Hunting. Will is an
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Van Sant uses the protagonist to help show how abandonment is a message he is trying to deliver to the audience through his film. Will is a young man who has been an orphan throughout his life, scared to ever try and form a meaningful relationship with anyone he becomes close with in his life due to the fear of being hurt. Will is used by the film’s director as a type of character who the audience can relate to, a person who has been mistreated or hurt in the past and is hesitant to put themselves in the same position for the fear they have that being hurt Will happen again. A key scene where this is evident is when Skylar and Will have an argument about moving with Skylar to California. Skylar tries to tell Will that he is afraid and Will responds by saying, “I’m afraid? What am I afraid of? What the f*** am I afraid of?” It is clear to the audience that Will is trying to defend his insecurities by the angry tone he uses. The film technique used in this scene also helps to add to its strength by using a low angle shot focused on Will while he speaks, trying to show that Will is strong and powerful. The scene ends after Skylar and Will finish arguing and the camera angle used solely on Skylar is a high angle shot showing that she is weak and fragile after she had just listened to Will say, “No, I don’t love you”, which crushes her
After experiencing a traumatic car crash, Michelle, the protagonist of director Dan Trachtenberg’s film 10 Cloverfield Lane, wakes up in an underground bunker owned by a man named Howard. Howard claims to have saved her from a widespread chemical attack that has contaminated the air, with his bunker being the only place to take refuge for the next couple of years. Yet as the film progresses, Howard’s controlling and threatening demeanor eventually brings Michelle to escape, allowing her to come across the actuality of the situation outside the isolated bunker. Throughout the production, Trachtenberg arranges close frames, manipulates the camera’s focus, and chooses specific lighting to create an ominous tone that mystifies and disturbs viewers.
This synthesis will examine the motion picture Good Will Hunting and an essay by an author Bell Hooks entitled Keeping Close to Home: Class and Education. Both of these accounts tell of a struggle that the protagonist character in the story had to deal with. Each of these charters comes from similar backgrounds but one deals with emotional conflict while the other character deals with the problem of economic classification. In either way each of these selections both deal with the struggles of an higher education.
The clinical disorders are mainly due to the abuse that was inflicted by his foster family which has led him to have a fear of facing other fear and being defensive as a mechanism to protect himself (Gubala, 2014). The lack of empathy from his family contributed to the stress disorder. Will can display his inferior complex in his relationships since he only befriends people of lower intellect than himself and he regards himself to be not good enough in his relationship with the protagonist. He believes that the abuse he received was his fault which is a sign of an unstable
For example, impulsive Will Hunting confronts a man at a bar and asks him to solve his argument with his friends through fighting. This scene clearly demonstrates how he resorts violence, not through conversation. Also, the police arrested Will for many crimes including assault, grand theft auto, impersonating a police officer, resisting arrest, and shoplifting. Therefore, Will’s negative disposition is a result of the childhood abuse he
In “Good Will Hunting”, Gus Van Sant presents the characters’ state of mind and emotions through the use of their facial expressions and body language, allowing the responders to analyse and be part of the characters. This is evident in the scene where Shane McGuire, Will’s psychologist gets Will to repeat, “It’s not my fault”, which helped him to break through his childhood scars and enabled him to cry. Will’s facial expressions show his fear of admitting his desires to embrace his new opportunities in life, as it would be betraying his friends and class status. In the scene where Will and Skylar break up and he says hurtful things, Will is pushing her away because he doesn 't think he deserves her. The composer shows this by the use of Will and Skylar’s body language, reluctant to let their partners go but expressing the opposite physically. The utilisation of close up camera techniques is effectively used in illustrating the details of the characters’ body language and facial expressions, for the responders to analyse and gain greater understanding of the
Good Will Hunting is the graceful tale of a young gentleman’s struggle to find out where he belongs in the world, by first finding out who he himself is. In this film, Matt Damon takes on the role of a disturbed genius that has a keen understanding of the deepness of human character. The film is a voyage through the mind of Will Hunting as he is required to undergo psychotherapy as an alternative to serving jail time. With the assistance of a psychologist, played by Robin Williams, Will learns about himself and recognizes his individual worth in the world by comprehending what is most important to him in his own life. This motion picture serves as a source of superb example for film technique. Gus Van Sant’s directing ability joined with the writing skills of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck, who also plays Will’s best buddy, Chuckie, is a vibrant mixture of technical features used to induce sentiment and compassion amongst the viewers of this heart-warming film. Characteristics of the color, angles, shots, camera movement, editing, and distortions are all each particularly noteworthy to the general composition of Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting.
The character this film is primarily centered around is Will Hunting. Will lives in a tattered house in a bad neighborhood in the city of Boston. He grew up in foster care where he sustained continual physical abuse as a child. Will has a few close friends he is always with but never opens up about anything below surface level. Will is incredibly gifted with intelligence however he works as a custodian at the highly prestigious school, MIT. Professor Lambeau teaches advanced mathematics at MIT and is the one who discovers Will’s incredible talent for solving advanced mathematical theory. Professor Lambeau has high hopes for Will and pushes him into getting jobs with prestigious employers so that his gift is not wasted working as a custodian. Chuckie Sullivan is one of the closest of Will’s friends. They’ve known each other for years and Chuckie drives Will to work every day. Chuckie cares for Will and realizes the gift that he has and tries to convince Will he should be doing something of greater importance with his life. Skylar is a college stu...
While it was a huge success financially and critically acclaimed as well, the movie, Good Will Hunting, offers vivid focus on a young math savant from the socioeconomic realities of Boston’s South End, an underserved section of town that is not unlike inner city environments across the country. I will review and critique the film from the perspective of sociology and the changes a marginalized youth is able to go through thanks to his hitherto unknown brilliance in math. The striking contrast between the bad Will and examples of the good Will, and the juxtaposition between the economic deprivations that Will grew up in – including being
The “Bad Girls Club” display groups of women who are obsess with drinking and violent behavior to handle their situations, shining the light on negative stereotypes, defining a “bad girls” and the influencing young girls in today’s society. The way these girls act on TV is the way the media portray women as vulnerable and in need of male attention. By depicting women solely as physical objects, we rarely see them as powerful. Women have often seen each other as competition in many realms of their lives and so have become adept at quickly sizing up their female competition as to what makes a women’s woman (Kramer 210).The show 's has a foundation of seven women with personal, social and psychological problems, who consider their self to be
In Will’s therapy sessions, Sean conveyed his empathy for Will. According to Myers, “Empathy is the Vicarious experience of another’s feelings; putting oneself in another’s shoes” (Myer, 2002, p.473). Since Sean demonstrated the ability to recognize Will 's indignity and fear, it helped subdue Will 's anxiety and promoted Will’s realistic connection with himself and others. In the Movie, Will recognizes the commonality with Sean allowing him to acknowledge the nurturing relationship that Sean offers. It appears that Sean was the surrogate caregiver that Will never had, satisfying the gaps of Will 's development. Sean 's experiences provided Will with a sense of belonging as Will was provided with insight as to how life should be in an unbroken/normal home. Since Will was never exposed to recognize real intimacy between a man and woman, Sean often shared his loved and experiences from his marriage. This allowed Will to reflect on the closeness of Sean’s marriage and the splendor found in trusting and loving others with all their
The purpose of this report is to analyse the personality of the character, Will Hunting from the film Good Will Hunting using the psychodynamic and humanistic theories of personality. The main characters discussed in this text and their relationship to Will can be seen in appendix 1.
...erhaps in another social location, with different social forces, Will may not have become a deviant but rather took on another role. If Will had been socialized properly, with normal parents and friends, perhaps his role and identity would be different. In different social locations, there are different institutions what require different roles and there are different social forces to control these roles. The sociological perspective has many concepts that examine the underlying reasons for why Will’s actions and identity are the way they are. Social location determines all aspects of one’s life, how they are going to be socialized, what friends they are going to have, what career, what role they will take on, etc.
An individual is shaped and molded by how they are treated by those that surround them. Most people value the opinions of those they care about and want to act in accord. Consequently, the choices people make are greatly influenced by the people in their lives. Sometimes, someone will become close with people who are different from each other. Such is the case in Good Will Hunting. Will Hunting (Matt Damon) struggles between the people that created him and the people that discovered him.
(Erikson, 1980) Erikson’s psychosocial stages of development theory are in my opinion one of the best ways to look at Will Hunting’s changing personality and behaviour in the movie. Will’s avoidant and defensive personality is due to his abusive foster parents, he never received sympathy from his foster parents which made him accept the abuse as well as him becoming the abuser, as we see in the film when Will fights a former classmate that bullied him in kindergarten years ago. Another example of abuse is in the form of psychological abuse towards the marriage of Macguire and his deceased wife in which Will continually insults. Will seems to fluctuate stages throughout the movie, due to being an orphan and abuse from his foster parents he is fluctuating between the stages of basic trust vs. mistrust, and Initiative vs. guilt. Then when he meets Skylar (Minnie Driver) his development shifts to intimacy vs. isolation. (Erikson,
An Analysis of the Movie ?Good Will Hunting? and the Main Characters Will Hunting and Sean Mcguire