The film in this context is known as the “Mid-90s,” which features a fascinating story of a young boy in his early teens struggling to navigate life as an adolescent amidst an older brother with whom he has a frail relationship. The film is typically dark toned, with shadowy depictions, although it gets contrasted with sharp lighting, and the characters in the film are fascinatingly entertaining. The specific scene this paper focuses on starts at [01:55] to [04:45], showing Stevie and his elder brother, who is also physically bigger. The big brother beats up Stevie, who is incapable of protecting himself, and he gets bruised in the arm as he is pushed against a green wall. After the brief fight, Stevie is shown sneaking into his elder brother’s room. The most intriguing part of the scene shows Stevie wearing his brother’s red hat, looking at the mirror, and mimicking his elder brother’s typical behaviors while admiring his perfectly organized room. Using “Agony (The Cave)” and “Our Celebrities Ourselves” texts demonstrate the elements of escape from reality in Stevie’s brother, the quest for fulfillment in Stevie, and the identity conflicts that exist between the two brothers.
The film scene under this analysis contains superb depictions of various visual elements that the film’s director employed to implicitly convey various messages to the audience that are way deeper beyond surface-level observation. Notably, the visual elements that this paper finds the most interesting include body language, the sound in the film, and the camera angle techniques that the director chooses to employ to make the film more interesting. The film scene showcases various body languages of the characters, mainly from Stevie, whose actions and expressions alone speak silently to the viewers, revealing some essential details. The part where Stevie mimics his brother’s behaviors while wearing his clothes in front of a mirror implicitly demonstrates that he wishes and admires his brother’s “world,” which he creates for himself, with no concern for other people. The scene also contains very soft, low-toned music and is mostly silent, which implicitly conveys the congruency of a calm environment to suit the characters’ mood. The camera angles also contain their implicit narratives, the long shots, for example, that the director uses, and how he avoids showing their faces in the scene when “documenting” the scene where the brother’s fight contains essential information that will be discussed using the two lenses.
Notably the text by McKenzie Wark, known as “Agony (The Cave),” which by itself seems to carry very implicit meanings that illustrate human behavior in video gaming. Using this text as a lens to view the scene in question, it is easier to outline what the scene communicates explicitly as Wark’s assertions and the film scene seem to have a connection. First, it is essential to understand Wark’s position that the “game” influences people significantly, mostly taking them out of the real world and immersing them in an imaginary one (McKenzie 8). Wark takes the position that games often colonize reality, and not only that, but they also remain the ideal world for people who get addicted to gaming (McKenzie 8). The argument here is that what people cannot attain easily in the real world, such as honor, pleasure, and glory, can be achieved through gaming easily. Therefore, gaming and its elements significantly have a more significant impact on people’s views. In the film scene, Stevie enters his brother’s room, admires the possessions and the excellently organized things, and even decides to wear some clothes and make jokes to mimic his brother. The director employs in this point some long close-up shots of the showroom and the fascination that Stevie has admiring all the possessions of his violent brother.
The scene focuses more on the excellent tidiness and beauty that Stevie finds in his brother’s room and, most importantly, the fascination he develops when he sees the perfectly organized music records that his brother has for himself, which he is obsessed with. The application of “Agony (The Cave)” in this scene explicitly shows the imaginary “world” that one creates for oneself in gaming, which is not consistent with the real world that Wark talks about in the gaming analogy, the realm that Stevie’s brother has created for himself, fuelled by self-obsession. He is primarily unhappy and violent in real life but certainly gains happiness and comfort from this world he lives in of music records and the meticulous beauty of his room. This is an example of a clash of identity, whereby Stevie’s brother’s behaviors are inconsistent with what he seems to like. He is violent and self-centered, but on the other hand, he is very organized and tidy and immerses himself in the calm world he has in his room with fascinating music records.
The other essential lens from the course applicable in clarifying the meaning of the selected scene is the text by Neal Gabler, “Our Celebrities Ourselves.” First, it is essential to understand what Neal Gabler meant and holds in the text used here as a lens and its connection to the scene. Notably, Gabler argues that “all the narratives that exist are dependent on the emotional connection we have, which is also reinforced by the anticipation of how things will happen and also what happens” (Neal n p). Gabler goes ahead to say that the more care people give to something, the more obsessed they become with it, which is an implicit statement that means that when someone gives it all to something, they tend to have more concern about the process and the outcome (Neal n p). Using this lens and its meaning, we can see the body language of Stevie as shown by the director by his typical long shots and up close camera angles. The body language, his facial expressions, and his “acting” of mimicking his brother while wearing his red hat explicitly communicate his admiration of the bother’s realm. The director portrays the room’s tidiness, the exceptional organization of the clothes, and the music records that Stevie’s brother demonstrates. This scene, as revealed using the lens and the visual elements, portrays the inconsistency that exists between the real-world behaviors of Stevie’s brother, who is always violent and uncaring with the “perfectly looking” caring and organized objects in his “world” or “realm.” The scene demonstrates that the more a particular thing that one has, the more one wants the opposite.
Conclusively, the film scene in the film “Mid90s” as illustrated using the text analysis lenses, including “Agony (the Cave)” and “Our Celebrities Ourselves,” both of which show the way people find themselves in juxtapositions of conflicting identities in real world and realm they create for themselves. After looking at the scene from these two perspectives influenced by the lenses, the film makes more sense as I can see things more clearly and explicitly such that I understand why these two characters behaved in certain ways. The major takeaway from this analysis is that no matter how fascinated and obsessed with the things that generate happiness and pleasure we create by ourselves, it is essential to be considerate of other people by stepping out into our world and looking at things from the real world perspective. This means that in the film, we can see Stevie’s brother only immersed in his world and not caring about his brother, which may have a negative connotation for Stevie. On the other hand, we can see Stevie stepping out of his world as a calm and humble boy delving into his brother’s world when he invades his room and admires his belongings and behaviors.
Works Cited
McKenzie Wark. “Agony (on The Cave)” Gamer Theory Publisher: Harvard University Press City published: Cambridge, MA Year published: 2007 Pages 1–25.
Neal Gabler. “Our Celebrities, Ourselves” Publisher: The Chronicle of Higher Education Website: Chronicle.com Volume: 49 Issue: 27 Year published: 2003 Date of access: 15 April 2015 Pages: n.p.
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