The Jupiter Mission Movie Essay

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FTV: 2329496c Essay 2
“Question 2: Write a close textual analysis of the use of the point-of-view shot in ONE film or television programme.”

The POV shot, or “point of view shot”, is a way of storytelling used by various directors. It is called so as it is meant to represent what a character sees as it “records the scene from a particular player’s viewpoint.” (Mascelli, 1965 pp.22)1. The shot was brought to prominence as a narrative tool, mainly by Hitchcock, in the “Classical Hollywood” era of filmmaking. (Sallitt, 1980)2. The shot can be seen as allowing a character to control the movie, due to the audience seeing it from their eyes. It also allows us to recognise a character’s emotional attachment towards certain ideas and people, as we look at what they …show more content…

Kubrick produced the film as well and distributed by MGM.

The chief cinematographer of the film was Geoffrey Unsworth, and his work on this film won Unsworth a BAFTA award for best cinematography.

The film is broken into three parts; however, I will only be focusing on one part of the film: The Jupiter Mission (part two of three). Set 18 months after the first section, this “episode” follows 2 men; Dave (Keir Dullea) and Frank (Gary Lockwood) as they embark on a manned mission to Jupiter with the ship’s computer, HAL 9000 (voiced by Douglas Rain). HAL proceeds to be riddled with errors and malfunctions, which causes the A.I. Machine to malfunction and begin killing members of the crew. Including all three men in hibernation. It is only after Dave shuts down HAL is he safe from him.

We watch a POV shot from HAL’s perspective three times in the film and I will discuss each of them.

This first shot occurs one hour into the film (1:05:53). This scene is when HAL is talking to Dave about possible concerns for the mission and its purpose. It then follows up with HAL reporting a fault the