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Steven Spielberg's Use Of Happy Endings In Hollywood

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It is undeniable that the enemy never win over the protagonist, and this construction is not only happens in Hollywood war cinema but in most of popular culture product. In Hollywood war cinema itself the "happy ending" closure is used to offer redemption to the loss in the actual war (Kellner, p. 6). Sometimes the “happy ending” is also to promote the ideology that “us” the good guys always win over “evil”. Many movies are intended to glorify the WWII with happy endings for example in Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan (1998), Terrence Malik’s The Thin Red Line (1998) and Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001) (Kabiling, 2010). These war movies serves as a mean to light up the Americans spirit in seeing the war. The status of who wins over who will be divided into two point of views from the victimized protagonists: Shosanna’s and the Basterds’. …show more content…

The low key lighting set from his side profile gives a clear view of his disappointment in his face. As he talks, his voice keeps raising and he points a finger at her to show an authoritative gesture. In this sequence it is also interesting to note that the lighting play in the shots between Shosanna and Fredrick are different, when it shoots Fredrick’s point of view of her face, the lighting always shows a backlight, making her face seclude from the light and create an image of unexplained expressions. Meanwhile from Shosanna’s point of view, the light always comes from behind or Fredrick’s side, it shows a side of his illuminated face and the other side shows darker shadow. The low key lighting here serves to evoke Shosanna’s uneasiness. To top it all the frame is taken from Shosanna’s head level, making him look tall and dominating. In summary it can be said that the different lighting in these frames shows how they perceive each other, Shosanna views Fredrick as a threat while Fredrick sees her as someone he does not

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