Painters use colors to create images. Musicians, notes. Writers, words. But filmmakers use everything. So much thought and decision making go into every single frame of film being shown. It transcends mere composition. It has to consider locus and connotation. Imagery in poetry is creating pictures in the mind’s eye through words. In film it begins with light. And what’s light without the darkness.
The Cell is a psychological horror film from 2000 that is one of the most visually stunning and disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Its power lies in the balance of binaries. Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Monster/Victim, and Right/Wrong all get balanced representation in this film. And the most interesting thing this film accomplishes is how disturbing that balance may become.
The Cell is a psychological horror film from 2000 that is one of the most visually stunning and disturbing movies I’ve ever seen. Its power lies in the balance of binaries. Light/Dark, Good/Evil, Monster/Victim, and Right/Wrong all get balanced representation in this film. And the most interesting thing this film accomplishes is how disturbing that balance may become.
We’ve already discussed two major villains in this blog. They are memorable for different reasons. Raoul Silva from Skyfall has a quiet yet burning drive based on a mission of revenge. The Joker, from The Dark Knight, while I have argued is evil, he is far from insane. The Cell gives us our next psycho to look at:
Carl Stargher as portrayed by amazing character actor Vincent D’Onofrio.
Carl Stargher as portrayed by amazing character actor Vincent D’Onofrio.
Stargher is more than just another run-of-the-mill cruel serial killer, and how the film organizes and presents this information is what makes knowing him so disturbing for viewers. I mean, come on, we’ve seen women brutalized before. We’ve seen the sexual fetish thing before. But you’ve never seen it done in such a visually artistic way. Not only does this film borrow iconic images from different religions, it flat out purloins images from famous paintings. It would be easy to dismiss this as plagiarism; however, having these vaguely familiar images incorporated into the narrative imbues the viewer with a sense of familiarity we do not wish to share with the experiences begin portrayed. If what we see bears an echo of recognition, the danger becomes that we recognize, even if it’s vaguely, echoes of ourselves in Stargher. And that frightens. Let’s look at the visual imagery used to create Stargher.
Vincent D'Onofrio in "Adventures in Babysitting" Already we begin with a binary. We’re not meant to like him (obviously) so our code calls for Stargher to him ugly, yet we’re given D’Onofrio…a handsome actor. Sure Stargher’s hair is unkempt and looks a little greasy, but come on…it’s D’Onofrio. Did you see him in Adventures in Babysitting?
We see him do these horrible things. Okay, back on track. He’s a murder, not only that but he kills in a particular sadistic way, prolonging his victims’ terror and videotaping it to use for his sexual pleasure with their dead corpse later.
Well…yuck…to say the least. Great. That’s all we the viewers need to code him as BAD GUY…handsome Bad Guy…but bad guy none the less.
Well…yuck…to say the least. Great. That’s all we the viewers need to code him as BAD GUY…handsome Bad Guy…but bad guy none the less.
This gets complicated by information we learn throughout the movie. Like he is the
way he is because of a brain virus he has that eventually puts him in a coma. He’s not like Raoul Silva in that he is exacting a kind of malignant cosmic justice on his persecutors. He is not like The Joker who simply yearns for chaos and makes choices. He’s the victim of a congenital brain virus. That’s right…cards stacked against him from birth. Hmmm…so he does heinous things, but it’s due to his brain being all whammied! Getting a little more complicated. Add to that we find out that he was brutalized as a boy by his own sadistic father. HMMMMMMMMmmmmmm….. You see where this is going? Complexity. It’s what separates a story from an amazing narrative.
way he is because of a brain virus he has that eventually puts him in a coma. He’s not like Raoul Silva in that he is exacting a kind of malignant cosmic justice on his persecutors. He is not like The Joker who simply yearns for chaos and makes choices. He’s the victim of a congenital brain virus. That’s right…cards stacked against him from birth. Hmmm…so he does heinous things, but it’s due to his brain being all whammied! Getting a little more complicated. Add to that we find out that he was brutalized as a boy by his own sadistic father. HMMMMMMMMmmmmmm….. You see where this is going? Complexity. It’s what separates a story from an amazing narrative.
Not trying to spoil too much, but the plot of this film allows us a new way to see a character. It splits him in half. Due to another character being able to put herself into the consciousness of another person, we get to see both the psychotic killer side of Stargher as well as the little innocent, abused boy side. The question of the act of killing becomes extremely complicated when we see Stargher’s pathology begin with the mercy killing of a bird, what appears to be an act of release. That’s important because our female protagonist (Jenifer Lopez…code her very VERY beautiful, which means we are supposed to very VERY much like her! Hehehe) has to make an equally merciful choice by the end of the film. Same act as our bad guy, yet we’re twisted to see it as the right choice.
The question, “What can turn someone into a murder, especially a child,” seems straightforward. The answer, as presented so visually, is what The Cell wrestles with so that we may wrestle as well. The canvas in this film is the world of the mind, the harbor of both dreams and nightmares. Many of the images are disturbing; many, iconic and hopeful. D’Onofrio morphs more physically in this film than I’ve ever seen before and that’s part of the
disturbing resonance.
disturbing resonance.
Imagery is vitality. It’s what poets strive to achieve, artists try to capture, and filmmakers attempt to illuminate.
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