Popular Culture Review Vol. 2, No. 2, July 1991 | Page 46

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The Popular Culture Review

inherent in our natures, or merely a product of the symbols and images
which surround us and against which we hold ourselves?
The controversy surrounding this film reflects not only the
complexity of the film itself but, more importantly, the degree to
which these questions are unanswerable. When faced with powerful,
fictional imagery projected as a facsmile of "reality" (with regard to
the degree to which questions of verisimilitude are answered by
modem cinema and its technically sophisticated audience), repressed
groups, such as women and homosexuals, are offended deeply,
precisely because they are unable to point to satisfactory societal
images of themselves in "reality".
That this is not a woman's film is clear. That Clarise is the
"lead character" does not in itself guarantee that the film is
developed from her point of view. Through both the camera-work
and the storyline, we are shown how she is cut off from her own
identity, manipulated by the two major male characters and
terrorized by the third. From the beginning the camera is above her,
trained on the gray, misty sky seen between silhouetted branches. It
then cranes down to the obstacle course. Clarise is seen as a tiny
struggling figure, straining toward the camera. She makes the incline
and is now held in close-up as she turns her head deciding which way
to go next. All of this is done in a single take and lends a sense of
foreboding to the opening of the film. This foreshadows the mazes,
both physical and psychological, which she will face and also the
preference of the camera to capture her indecision and struggle.
Throughout the opening sequence the camera is generally
ahead of her, sometimes even circling her as she attempts some
strenuous maneuver. As she makes her way to Jack Crawford's office
for the first time, the camera is more interested in how she appears to
others than how she sees the world through which she is moving. A
large man walks from behind camera to inform her that she is wanted
by Crawford and we are struck by her diminutive size. Also the
camera zooms in and holds his face in close-up after she has exited
the frame. He is a granite-faced white male wearing an FBI cap and
she is a soft-spoken little girl. Next we see her as a soft gray figure
descending into the building's entrance followed by not only the
camera, but also the stares of the numerous male recruits exercising
together. From there the camera watches her from outside the
building which she has just entered. When the camera does enter the