Visual Coding and Social Class in
On the Waterfront
Jeffrey Chown
Yankee Illinois University
Let us begin with the end. A jokes success hangs on the
appropriateness of its punch line. A fill out story depends on the
revelation of whether boy and girl attain union. Mysteries are
made not mysterious by the last frame. Whodunnits proclaim us who
did it. Quests end in success or failure. Tensions in a narrative
generally demand resolution. However, in the case of narratives
or so social chores, such as labor detriment, corporate greed,
racism, sexism, the enquire of closure is necessarily more
complicated. Social task films depend upon arousing
affects in the audience that go beyond the resolution of the
immediate story. Our concern just about the problem posed in the
narrative has a dual function in that the concern exists both in the
space of the story enacted on the screen as headspring as in a perceived
real world that exists beyond the fictional screen. The ending of
the story foregrounds the incompatibility of the two worlds. atomic number 18 we
supposed to walk out of the theatre feeling that the problem in the
screen story was satisfactorily resolved in time though the real
world concern aroused by the observance of a social problem
should not be sated, less we sour apathetic?
The audience
generally expects either explicit calls to action against the putative
injustice or implicit inspirational solutions based upon heroic
models of action. Social problem films should advance our ethical
and empathic spirits. We want to feel ennobled by our concern
about the issue; that in itself is a form of closure.
If the above has any(prenominal) truth, then the ending of On the Waterfront
does not clearly couple generic expectations. The ending is
disquieting, even as the film itself is surely entertaining and
artistically satisfying. The endings ambiguity has been notorious
and extensively discussed, especially in a 1954 polemic by
Lindsay Anderson in Sight and Sound...If you want to issue forth a full essay, order it on our website: Ordercustompaper.com
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