Beginning Of Raising Arizona Ed And Hi example essay topic

Media Essay How are the characters Ed and Hi established throughout the beginning of Raising Arizona? Raising Arizona is directed by the Coen brothers. The genre of the film is a Romance with an element of comedy. The film is set in Arizona and is about the two main characters Ed and Hi's relationship, how it starts and how it changes throughout the film. In this essay I'm going to discuss how Ed and Hi as characters and their relationship with each other is established during the introduction to the film, showing how the Coen brothers use Costumes, Settings, Music, Narrative and Camera Work. In the beginning of 'Raising Arizona' Ed and Hi are portrayed as exact opposites in every way possible.

Ed is a police officer and Hi is a criminal, his profession is breaking the law and hers is keeping it. You can see Ed and Hi's differences after the first few seconds of the film from their appearance. Hi is untidy and unstructured, dressed in bright flowery shirt, jeans and an un tucked white vest with wild messy hair (a Coen brothers trade mark.) Ed on the other hand is well dressed, structured and well turned out in a plain black police uniform; her hair is pinned back in a neat bun. The connotations for a flowery shirt would suggest a free, fun loving, happy life style not unlike that of the criminals in the film Raising Arizona and that the person wearing it would be relaxed and good fun to be around, the bright colours of the flowery shirt also contrast the plain black of the police uniform. Flowery shirts in the film come to represent the criminals as they all wear them. I think the shirts become the criminal uniform so that they can be as easily identified as the police by uniform.

The connotations for a black uniform are utilitarian and plain, neat and tidy; a black uniform also suggests the wearer would be reliable and structured. Use of uniform is a major technique of the film maker and is used to distinguish characters, we can see this from the wedding scene where Hi's guests, all on one side, are all dressed in bright flowery shirts and Ed's on the other are all in police uniforms. Ed and Hi's clothes in Raising Arizona reflect their personalities and how they are feeling at certain points throughout the film and are therefore changing constantly. This change is important to show how Ed and Hi's relationship is developing throughout the film. When Ed and Hi feel close their clothes begin to merge together, Hi begins to wear smarter clothes and Ed clothes get messier. When Ed and Hi are just married they watch the sunset together and in this scene they are wearing the same outfit, jeans and plain white tops.

This shows you at this moment in time they are feeling particularly close. Jeans and a white top might have been chosen as the outfit for this scene because this is a common and casual outfit for a person to be wearing when they are relaxing and shows how Ed and Hi are feeling very relaxed with their lives. Alternatively when Ed and Hi have fallen out they begin to wear the clothes they were first seen in before they had even met for example when Ed and Hi go looking for Nathan Jr. Hi puts back on his flowery shirt and Ed puts on her police uniform even though she has left the police force. As I have already mentioned mad Hair styles like Hi's in 'Raising Arizona' are a Coen Brothers trade mark. In Coen Brothers films the style of a characters hair often symbolizes certain attitudes in a characters personality.

Hairstyles are used in the same way as the clothes to show emotions and states of mind. 'Raising Arizona' is set in the Arizona desert and in the introduction of the film there are two main settings, the prison and the desert. The desert as a setting has two functions in the film. The first is the contrast between the enclosed isolation of the prison with the wide open spaces of the desert. The second is how it mirrors 'Ed' and 'Hi's' lives, the barren rocky landscape of the desert symbolizing the fact that 'Ed' is barren. When Ed and Hi are talking to the Doctor, Hi describes Ed using the metaphor '... fertile as a desert flower' but then realises her insides like the desert, were a barren rocky place where his seed could find no purchase.

I think this link with the desert makes Ed's barrenness seem more real and makes us find their situation easier to understand. In the background of the scene where Ed and Hi are talking to the Doctor a whistling wind sound is playing making this realisation seem even more wild and desolate I think this sound was put in to once again link with the desert. The music in the introduction, Beethoven's 9th symphony is played continuously throughout. This is to keep all the parts of the introduction neatly together and to keep the pace fast moving and interesting to watch. The instrument used is a banjo and the 9th symphony is hummed, whistled or yodel led over the top. The country and western banjo and yodeling establish the setting.

Beethoven's 9th symphony is famously linked with the film Clockwork Orange written / directed by Stanley Kubrick. The only reason why I can think that the Coen brothers chose a piece of music so famously linked with a torture scene in a horror film is to try and give a strange or eerie feel. The only change in the music is when the melody is being whistled and when it's being hummed. The whistling represents a happy frame of mind and starts at the being of the film and continues all through Ed and His engagement and marriage. The music changes to humming (representing an unhappy frame of mind) when Hi says he starts to feel the pains of imprisonment and after Ed tells Hi she's Barren. The music also starts to be whistled again after Ed and Hi have the idea of kidnapping Nathan Jr.

This change of music shows, like the change of appearance, Ed and Hi's relationship is constantly moving and sets this concept up for the rest of the film. Raising Arizona as I have already mentioned is set in the Mid-West and from the characters accents we can tell they are Hillbillies. Although Ed and Hi break some of the Hillbilly stereotypes, in some ways they are very typical. A stereotypical Hillbilly is slow to catch on, not very bright and unsophisticated. We can see this in Ed's character, as she is not so bright and is always being reminded to do things. Every time Ed is photographing Hi a voice reminds her to do something, like not forget his finger prints.

This also happens before the wedding when the same voice reminds her not to forget her bouquet, a bride would have to be pretty stupid to do this. Ed and Hi's parochial out look on life and family values is another thing about them that is consistent with a stereotypical view. Ed and Hi never venture outside the local area through the whole film and have old fashioned values about family life we can see this when Ed and Hi arrive home after kidnapping Nathan Jr. Ed and Hi's playing along to stereotypes sets them up as characters by using ideas already planted in our minds, i.e. that Ed, like a stereotypical 'Hillbilly' is not so bright.

I think stereotypes are a short cut way of conveying ideas or a lot of information quickly, because a stereotyped character already has character traits, values and a way of life which provide an immediate view about a character, setting them up accordingly. Although Hi is a criminal at the beginning of the film he is portrayed so that we don't resent him for breaking the law, stealing or having an untrustworthy profession. This is achieved by emphasising his kindness, politeness and courtesy. Hi is what we could call a 'nice' criminal. He is polite to the police people calling them 'sir' or 'mam' and he also tells them how he doesn't use live ammo because he doesn't want to hurt anyone.

This 'nice' image of Hi is important because to be able to feel sympathy and relate to Hi's character we need to be able to see him as the 'goodie', the hero of the film and that his crimes are necessary and justified. We can also tell Hi is popular and well liked by the other inmates. Straight after he's proposed to Ed he says 'hello' to the man she was photographing, also later on in the film when Gail and Elvis break out of jail its Hi they go to see. Gail and Elvis are one of what you could say 'evil' forces in the film, they tell Hi that he could never adjust to family life and that he should leave Ed and Nathan Jr, which he nearly does. This concept Gail and Elvis have, that stealing is more important than family is discovered in the introduction of the film when the counsellor asks Hi why he's in jail when most men his age are getting married and setting up a family, Gail and Elvis then answer for Hi that 'sometimes career has to come before family' All the additional characters in the film help to establish Ed and Hi, and are put in to show differences between the two main characters. The councillor is used as a tool to introduce us to the characters of Gail and Elvis, and is used to establish the relationship between them and Hi which is important later in the film.

The mopping man shows a difference in Hi's character throughout the film, and how he changes as the introduction progresses. The mopping man's changing opinion of Hi coincides with him meeting Ed and changing his way of life. The Doctors only use is to confirm Ed's barrenness. This is essentially what the film is about because it changes their lives dramatically. The use of these smaller characters shows us how Ed and Hi change and develop. The fast cutting between scenes in the film keeps it fast moving and interesting to watch.

These shots establish the characters by giving us short sections of information. The quick cutting of shots between Ed and Hi is a technique used by the director to show the differences between them at the start of the film. The range of shots changes throughout the film, but most of the shots in the intro are the same type of static shots to build up a picture of the characters. This changes however for the final shot of the introduction where there is a movement shot, which follows Ed and Hi's car and then rises into the sky where the title of the film 'Raising Arizona' materialise's from the sunset. These dramatic devices create an atmospheric effect for the rest of the play. The title then fades out into darkness suggesting the end of the first section of the film.

The movement of this shot also suggests that now the characters have been set up the rest of the film is about to ensue. The narrative of the intro is like a separate storey in its own right. It conveys a lot of information quickly in a short time. The pace then slows down for the rest of the film. The narrative follows Ed and Hi's relationship through them meeting, getting engaged, married then stealing Nathan Jr.

I felt the film was well made, with the Coen Brothers using good cinematography to convey this love story. Their great range of shots made the film enjoyable to watch, and kept me interested throughout. The ending left me satisfied and I felt that it was well ended. The characters were very engaging, and I could start to relate to them and their feelings throughout the film.