Making a short film is never easy. Filmmakers have very limited time to tell a story. In a short period time like five minutes to twenty minutes, the audience expects an interesting storytelling, very well-established characters, a background environment that sets off the characters, and allows people to better understand the circumstances of the story and the motivation behind the characters' choices. Imagine how challenging it is to convey so much information to an audience in such a short period of time and to develop your own style. But 'Some folks call it a sling blade', this masterpiece, just tells a thought-provoking story in its entirety, while also creating its own unique style and keep it in my mind for a long time.
Sling Blade tells the story of two female journalists who try to go to a mental hospital to interview Karl, a murderer who is about to be released after living there for 25 years. After making a fuss about the reporter's gender, the director of the mental hospital agreed to the female reporter's request for interviews. After all, Karl will have to talk to more people after he left this place. And after knowing Karl's childhood and his criminal experience, the female reporter let go of her previous prejudices.
This short film looks like a horror movie, but its use of audio-visual language is different from ordinary horror movies. Meanwhile the screenwriter and starring are the same person, which has to be admired. The dialogue, actor's performance, camera movement, sound design, and even narrative strategy reflect the creator's unique style. And this style is not too detached, so that the audience is only surprised by the visual spectacle created by the camera, but the audio-visual language of the style painting has also been transformed into the character of the film itself, using this repeated audio-visual pattern to create A unique movie.
The first shot of the film is a master shoot in the hallway, the camera level is very low, creating a peeping feeling for the audience, the balance of the symmetrical framing is broken by a naked man who walking out from the left side of the hallway, through the corridor, and slowly into the door on the right side of the frame, followed by a man in uniform running into the fram from the backside of camera and entering through the same door, seemingly chasing the naked man. First of all, the composition of the picture is symmetrical, the lower camera level combine the principle of perspective to place the vanishing point in the middle of the picture, creating a particularly stable composition. But the action of the naked man who walking into the frame brokes this stability, not only in terms of blocking, but also visually, because he was completely naked. In terms of sound, the film uses the sound of the broadcast of the game and the sound of the piano. The broadcast of the sports game symbolizes the ordinary daily life that everyone has, but we have not heard anyone talking about the game which is not normal, and the piano has the opposite effect, again creating contradictions and suspense with the sound. The comprehensive use of these audio-visual elements not only stirs the dynamics of the picture, but also leaves questions in the audience's mind, what kind of place is this? It seems ordinary, but such a strange thing can happen here. From the first shot of the whole film, the creators have been trying to build up the tension, and in a very natural way that the audience can't see the traces, I have to admire the director's meticulous consideration. Then we see a man rubbing his hands uneasily, a shot that adds more tension to the film. At the same time, we also heard the sound of the toilet flushing in the restroom. The function of the sound here is to pave the way in advance, and it is an auditory match cut. What followed was a long dolly take, the camera was behind glass the whole time, and the camera level remained the same as the previous shot, again enhancing the feeling of peeping and observing. We saw a middle-aged man in a white robe coming out of the toilet who kill a cigarette with the sole of his shoe and started walking to the right of the frame, this boring man tried to ge thet attention but failed anyway, so he was walking through the room, pulled up a chair and sat next to a guy, telling him about how he find a prostitute. In the process, we learned that this seems to be a mental hospital, because the people in the room seem to be abnormal, all of them are only indulging in their own world, and no one interacts with this man. Why use long take here? It looks like a very boring scene, and there is no interaction between the characters. Is it worth wasting so much time in this place? This long take allows the audience to understand what kind of place this room is while creates a sense of reality. On the one hand, the audience can actually feel the oppressive atmosphere in the room; on the other hand,the boring man is actually an observer arranged by the director for the audience, let the audience enter this role, let him lead the audience to try to interact with this space, even if there is no interaction in the end, but foreshadowing, let the audience think This man is the protagonist of the story.
The sound design is also telling the story. A large section of this shot is covered by radio, which echoes the radio in the first shot of the whole film. Now the audience finally knows why they only hear the radio but no one is talking about it. At the same time, the sound design here also provides a smooth transition to the picture, until the boring man starts forcing others to listen to his prostitute stories. So this shot doesn't seem to say anything, but it actually a very smart establish shot that allow the audience can feel that the place is creepy.
In the next shot we see two ladies chatting, from their conversation we know that one of the ladies is very nervous, because she is going to interview a murderer later, she also expresses her concern and fear for these insane murderers who may continuing to commit crimes after being released. Another woman put forward the opposite opinion, saying that the murderer committed crime 25 years ago when he was a teenager, and he probably can't remember it now. Finally, in the fifth minute of the film, we have some clues about the thread of the story. Then we came to the next scene, an old man was walking slowly in the hallway talking to himself with a drip, as if to prove that the people in this place are not dangerous, and then two ladies just appeared in the corridor and continued the discussion The harm of the prisoners to society after being released, then they walked into the office of Jerry Woolridge, who is the leader of the institution. Jerry seemed a little surprised by the presence of the two ladies. After they introduced themselves, Jerry stood there for a while before inviting them to sit down. The first sentence after sitting down was: "It's this all of you?" Seems like he still waiting for someone else to show up. From the conversation we find out the interview that Jerry were expecting was really not the same as what these two ladies were expecting. At the beginning of this conversation, we found that the camera level was rather low, which made the frame look a bit strange. Jerry looked very restrained, especially when he leaned back, only his head could be seen in the picture, which made the audience feel him does not want to talk and hid behind some kind of cover. The shot of the two ladies was a mid shoot. We could see the upper body of them. Judging from the frame alone, Jerry was not in the dominant position. It seemed that the two girls were the owner of the room. Moreover, when Jerry speaks, he avoids eye contact with the two ladies. He speaks very fast, and his breathing is also tight and cramped, but when Marsha speaks, she is very confident. All in all, Jerry's performance makes people feel that he had staying here for too long and became a patient. The way Jerry said that Karl didn't want to talk to girls, so he had to be interviewed by a male reporter, and he didn't want to be photographed, made people think that this was not Karl's idea, but Jerry's own idea. Combining the pictures and the content of the dialogue, I think the director is using jerry as a symbol of Karl in this scene, creating suspense and making the audience more and more curious about what kind of person Karl is. In the next shot, we return to the first room, the boring man continues to force the guy to listen to his peach stories. In this shot, he dominates the picture and the frame is narrower than before, which brings more oppressive sense, then Marsha confidently insists on an interview, then cuts back to the two men talking with a tighter frame. A parallel montage editing technique is used here to make the audience think that the chattering neurotic man is Karl, (at least I thought so when I first watched it) while also creating tension.
The next scene is, jerry leads them through the hallway after Marsha convincing jerry to let her try to interview Karl, theresa sees a young man in the hallway playing the piano, now we know where the piano music at the beginning of the film comes from, and then cut back to the two men talking, I think the purpose of this scene is to highlight the different styles of the patients in this place. The next scene is that Jerry takes her two into a black out old classroom. Jerry begins to tell them about Karl's dark childhood in the darkness, and then Marsha, who asks for the truth, turns on the lights in the room. This behavior symbolizes her curiosity and thirst for story as a journalist; after the light is on, jerry is standing under the light, his eyes have not yet adapted, the camera is still at low camera level, and jerry's position in the frame still looks strange. After telling some basics about Karl, Jerry left the house.
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