ET 2: Yourself as Audience

Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

          Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge is a French film set in the 1950s and was adapted from an American story by  Ambrose Bierce.  Unlike the other films that I have been exposed to, this is the first black and white film that I have watched, and I must say that it was a rather interesting film and definitely not something that I expected it to be. Nonetheless, it showed me a side of cinema that I probably would have been ignorant to see before this. This film affected me in various ways, especially through the emotions and thoughts that stirred inside me throughout the film. I’ve heard of the Twilight Zone series and I must say that the intro of the whole thing- which carried the non -diagetic elements played a very important role in setting the overall emotions of the audience. I, personally felt scared, as if I was about to watch a horror movie because honestly I had no idea what the genre of the film was and the intro was enough to make me feel all tensed up. I was actually EXPECTING some monster to pop up in the beginning of the film.

           The beginning managed to capture my attention though, starting with the scene before the hanging. I mean, it was the beginning of the film and therefore I paid close attention, I was squinting my eyes while watching actually and wondering why this guy was standing on the plank. Reminded me of those planks on pirate ships. When the guards started to put the rope around his neck , it became clear that an execution was about to be carried out and I felt so uncomfortable. I personally don’t like watching people get killed or executed in this case, and I was very fidgety, moving my body around . If you’re talking about a physical manifestation of any emotion, it would have occurred right at the beginning where the soldier fired a gun shot. My whole body sort of jolted off my chair for a second, and my heart was pumping really hard.  I did get bored in the beginning as well, I mean, the attention to detail of every aspect of the situation from the facial expression of the man about to be executed to the attention to his whole surroundings was very well thought of but for me, it was too elaborate and I got pretty bored after a while. I began to look around at everyone else. I looked at the ceiling and started rubbing my nose. I have this habit of rubbing my nose when I’m bored. When he had his flashback of his memory of his wife and family, I did feel slightly sad, but not sad enough to want to cry and I knew he had a family that he was going to leave, which then followed by his tears.

       

             My reaction changed after the gunshot and as he fell into the water. I began to pay a lot of attention and I still remember my exact thoughts at that moment when he fell in and started to untie himself. I was wondering how on earth he could have fallen into the water in the first place because he was supposed to be hanged, and the main point of the rope around his neck was for him to remain hanging and not fall into the water, so that was weird to me.  Then, as he started escaping and swimming and swimming and continued swimming, my emotions changed from being tensed up to bored again. There was just too much of the same thing going on and on and I do understand that it was done to create suspense but I may have felt more interested if it was in colour instead of black and white but through this film, I’ve seen a different side of film that can affect me differently even by the small difference in colour. There was a scene when the officer was speaking loudly and I wasn’t sure whether it was supposed to be in slow motion but his voice came out weird to me. He sounded like an alien and I was going to laugh, at first I noticed that my eyes opened wider than usual and my facial expression probably looked pretty hilarious. When he got himself on shore and started laughing and rolling around in the sand, I REALLY wanted to laugh out loud, I just found it so extremely funny and I did let loose a few small giggles in class. I then realized that somehow no one else was laughing, so I tried my best to tighten my lips together and not make a sound. Till now, I still find it extremely funny. I thought the man was crazy. Then he started running, and once again, I felt bored and started looking around again, my body was uncomfortable so I bent forward and rested my head on both my hands. He just continued running, but I must admit that the non diagetic elements such as the drumming as the background music which accompanied him as he ran helped cause that excitement in the audience and I could feel my heart beat in accordance with the drum beats. When he FINALLY reached this huge house, I was silently thanking God that all the running stopped, yes, I was quite bored.  The first thought that came into my mind as he reached this huge gate and white house was that he encountered a haunted house in the middle of nowhere. I just expected something like that to happened because of the whole Rod Serling introduction that just gave me the impression that it was going to be an eerie, horror movie. I have to admit though, I felt rather disappointed that it wasn’t a horror movie. When he saw his wife and the whole running in slow motion into her arms moment got me bored again, I was waiting for him to finally reach her because it seemed to take forever.  When he reached her and touched her, and you could hear the snap sound, I just went “WOW’. I think my heart stopped beating when he dropped down from the plank and was hanged. I remember my eyes were so wide opened, and I cant even remember whether I was breathing during those few seconds. My jaw dropped open, and I stared at the screen, stuck in my position. I felt so disturbed. I remember looking at Jon and he looked as freaked out as I was. To me, this was THE most powerful change of my emotions throughout the entire film.

             At the end of the film, all I felt was disturbed. The only part of the film that kept replaying itself in my mind was the ending. It’s like the feeling I got when I watched Inception, only this was ten times more disturbing because I realized that the whole thing about him running and escaping was just a figment of his imagination and this, although wasn’t real, but it IS something that can happen in reality and for humans in general, we always wonder what goes on in a persons mind before we die, what we see right before we die, and to see that on screen in such a way, I still feel disturbed. It’s like a mixture of feeling weirded out and disturbed. Due to being in a class in ADP while watching this film, I made sure that my emotions were kept controlled to a certain extent, for example, when I really wanted to laugh, I didn’t because firstly I didn’t want to be disturbing the class and secondly, was due to the fact that nobody was laughing and I didn’t want to seem crazy. It would have definitely been different if I was watching it by myself or outside the confinement of the classroom . I would have laughed out loud when I felt like it, I would have yawned and been more expressive when I felt bored and I would have been talking a lot throughout the show. Up till now, the one thing I still remember vividly was the rolling around in the sand and the ending. I think the reason I remember both of these events so clearly is because it stirred my emotions much more compared to the rest of the film. One part made me want to laugh so bad and the other which still sends shivers down my spine.