Todd Giles
Ward turns the page, the camera panning out to reveal a staged tableau of
Michelangelo’s The Last Supper with everyone seated on the far side to the
table as Scout Master Ward notices that there is a Khaki Scout missing from
even blew.
up Sam’s orphan orchestra. In a nod to The Last Picture Show, Anderson
uses diegetic 1950s country music to accompany most of the scenes in which
introduced to Captain Sharp right after Scout Master Ward learns of Sam’s
shack sits. “Take these Chains from My Heart” plays on the radio, highlighting
Sharp’s soon-to-be explained feelings for Laura Bishop. It is also here that
we meet Sam’s foster parents, Mr. and Mrs. Billingsley of the Billingsley
Foster Family for Boys. In a split-screen phone conversation with Captain
Sharp and Scout Master Ward (with Becky, the town’s operator listening in),
we learn that Mr. and Mrs. Billingsley have decided not to invite Sam back
to the home “’because this is only the most recent incident involving Sam’s
troubles.’” Sam’s only option now, according to Social Services (played by
Tilda Swinton), whom we will meet in another split-screen phone conversation
the name of Swinton’s character; that is, she is a nameless representative for
children without their own true lineage.
The Fourth Movement closes, as in Britten’s work, when all four
“families” have been introduced. What remains in both are a series of variations
on the original themes, which, in the case of Moonrise Kingdom, is that of
consists of a series of escapes and chases, with a few peaceful interludes
for Sam and Suzy as they pitch camp and have, what is for them, the closest
thing to a family life together. The repeated escape theme is seen in Sam’s
escape from camp (and Suzy’s escape from home), their subsequent escape
from the pursuing scouts in the woods, Sam’s escape from Sharp’s trailer (and
Suzy’s second escape from home with the help of the same scouts who were
near-death escape from atop the lightning-struck church steeple, and Sam’s
Britten’s music is once again heard playing inside the Bishop household
From Act 2 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
June of 1960, we hear, barely audible, “On the Ground, Sleep Sound,” which
is precisely what Sam is doing in the previous scene as Suzy reads to him from
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