Never Let Me Go

Never Let Me Go dir, Mark Romanek

This dystopian film draws on a number of techniques to reflect on the ethics of cloning.  The director encourages the viewer to empathize with the clones, while the human characters are often portrayed as colourless and emotionally detached.  For instance, the direction to most of the actors playing human roles seems to be to limit any smiling and to speak in monotone.  This provides a constant ironic backdrop since the clones strive (or are tasked) to prove how human they are. Not only do we know this is going to be futile, the viewer can be pleased that they will fail.

Flashback editing techniques are used from the off (fig 1) when the “flashback is introduced with Kathy’s voiceover in which she begins to narrate the past” (Corrigan and White, 155). This scene is all done from her point of view which “recreates a character’s perspective as seen through the camera.”, (Corrigan and White, 104).  By using narration Kathy’s ‘humanity’ is given emphasis and the audience is encouraged to see all subsequent events as unfolding through her eyes. 

One scene in particular (Fig 2) highlights the unsympathetic nature of humans who casually walk out of the hospital room in which Ruth has just died. This mise-en-scene shows the complete emotional detachment humans have in this world for what looks to us to be also a perfectly normal human. The lighting is dimmed in the background to throw emphasise on Ruth’s body, which is lit up “to comment on Ruth in a way the narrative does not”, (Corrigan and White, 82). Throughout a large portion of the movie, the audience is not encouraged to like Ruth very much.  But here at her death we are finally encouraged to empathize and the lighting and white sheet under which she bleeds, combine to make her appear almost Christ like.  

Contrast this with the parallel death bed scene for Tommy, the central character’s boyfriend.  Unlike Ruth, Tommy has a comforter and he dies staring into her eyes.  The cinematography in this still (fig 3), shows a disembodied reflection of Tommy in the glass.  Not only does this image conjure thoughts of a ‘soul’, the image seems carefully placed over the form of his girlfriend staring back through the glass.  In reality she’s just staring at him through a window, but the comparison with Ruth’s lonely passing couldn’t be more stark.   The camera movement is static which helps to assist in focusing on the narration and the action taking place. 

The mise-en-scene in fig 4 depicts a well-lit room. Dispassionate and emotionless doctors are distributed throughout the sterile hospital environment.  They serve to remind us what we imagine clones to be. Whereas Kathy is shown on the verge of crying and Tommy smiles back at her in exactly the way their teachers never did.  The nurses wear clinical white, but angelic they are not, whereas Kathy wears brown, the colour of healing, warmth and passivity. In this way the “mise-en-scene dramatizes how Cathy establishes her identity through interaction with the hospital room.” (Corrigan and White, 87). The contrast between the coldness of the nurses and the love depicted between the two clones could not have been made more clear.

Works Cited

Never Let Me Go Directed by Mark Romanek, Fox searchlight pictures, 2010.

Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White.  The Film Experience: An introduction. ^4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Print.

 

The Island

The Island deals with similar issues to Never Let Me Go.  We see the world through the eyes of clones and are caused to empathize with their fate, while the humans are generally unethical and cruel. But while the clones in Never let me Go passively accept their fate, the clones in the Island are proactive.  They eventually succeed in liberating themselves and other clones from their physical confinement, their gruesome fate as ‘replacement parts’, and from the quasi heaven like delusion they know as ‘the island’.

Cinematography and mise-en-scène within The Island, depicts a dystopia that humans will not want to be a part of. The camera is shaky and distorts what’s happening within the scene to form a permanence of suspense. In fig 1. the surrogate mother is depicted as serene at the beginning of the scene and this is contrasted to her writhing sporadically on the bed at the end (fig 2).   

 The natural emotional distress felt by the audience is contrasted with the emotionless nurse, who’s neutral face is the bare minimum necessary to calm the dying clone.  This documents the superiority humans in this film believe they have over their “Inferior” clones.  The lighting is heavily saturated and is in no way naturalistic and this creates an ‘otherworldly’ effect. The mother is lying down and nurses are stood up which creates a power struggle between them and her but her struggles are futile. Through glass (once again!) Lincoln 6 Echo is mostly seen in a medium close up which is used “to capture his facial expressions” (Corrigan and White, 111).  These lurch from an initial elation to horror and disbelief. (fig 3) Once again, it is the clone that reflects our emotional response, and not the humans in the scene.

Film Editing is an important feature during the scene depicted in Fig 3. This scene takes place after the clone has died. To highlight the fact that humans are superior, the camera shows the dead clone and then switches to the nurse carrying the baby which “generates emotions and ideas through the construction of the two scenes” (Corrigan and White 161). She gives the baby to the clone’s human counterpart who is, by every means extremely happy. This non continuous editing helps to juxtapose the painful ending that the clone (or product) had to endure with the woman’s joy of her new child. This emphasises the fact that clones are treated like scrap metal and are forced to give away parts for the benefit of human kind, and are disposed of when there is no more use for them. We are not meant to like the humans in this world, who must be aware of the fates of their clones, but who are untroubled ethically.  The discontinuous editing also serves a further purpose.  As the nurse carries the new born baby to the human parents the editing seems to depict the sterile and emotionless world of the cloners as a bridge - between the selfish emotional world of the humans, and the genuine and innocent emotions of the clones themselves. When we see the look of disgust on Lincoln 6 Echo’ face the director leaves us no doubt as to which side of this bridge we’d prefer to be on.

 Works Cited

The Island, Dir Michael Bay, Dreamworks. 2005

Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White.  The Film Experience: An introduction. ^4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Print.

Moon

In Moon, the clones are depicted in a way that makes us unable to compare them to humans. In this world, artificial life is all we can see. Sam’s only form of company happens to be himself. Though he is not a real person and GERTY, a robot with a specific amount of things it can say. Cinematography and sound help to emphasize the suspense driven by the two characters in a way that forms issues surrounding the idea of cloning.

 The non-diegetic sound during the scene depicted in fig 1 and the music in clip 1 adds to the emotional outlook that Sam constructs in his head. “Non-diegetic music does not belong in Sam’s world” (Corrigan and White, 183) but rather in the world of the audience. The death of his wife makes a means for the change in music as the constant theme linked with Sam changes dramatically. It forms a change in character and a change in motivation. Similar to how the theme becomes quicker during the clip shown in fig 2 and heard in clip 2

                               

  This non-diegetic sound, clip 2 assists in highlighting the frantic behaviour Sam adopts when he realizes he can leave. We want him so desperately to leave which only adds to the tension and stress we acquire throughout that scene. This is a blunt comparison to the virtually quiet scene Sam has with himself in fig 3 which emphasizes the mutual respect these two clones have for each other. If there was music playing the background, the conversation between the two would not seem as important.

As the realization of the clones finding out that they are in fact clones sinks in, we become inebriated in the ongoing theme which provides an emotional outlook on artificial life. Unlike Never Let Me Go and The Island, one of the clones in Moon hates to accept the knowledge that he isn’t the real thing in Fig 4.

  Thus cinematography assists in conveying expressions that help us understand the sheer conflict within these characters. The characters are mostly presented in a medium long shot which “shows a three-quarter-length view of Sam” (Corrigan and White, 110). The scene then cuts to a mid-shot of the assertive version of Sam to show how incredulous the idea of him being a clone is. This whole scene is driven by “the way we depict the idea of the Sam we’ve known from the beginning which implies that we have a kind of control over him.” (Corrigan and White, 123) We do not know for sure that he is a clone but we can only assume that he is. In fig 4, Sam on the right is slightly hunched over but the more recent clone is stood in a way that shows he has control over the situation. There is a definite hierarchy between the two and we see that through the way they are stationed and characterized.

Works Cited 

Corrigan, Timothy and Patricia White.  The Film Experience: An introduction. ^4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2015. Print.

 Duncan Jones, Moon, Sony Pictures, 2009. Film