Across The Universe

        

Within this scene of Across the Universe, movement is utilized to portray the emotion of anger and loss of Jude, Lucy, and Max. The musical genre and this scene use stylized shots and music as a convention to symbolize emotion. From the first frame, Jude's cigarette smoke moves upward in a close, medium, tight shot to symbolize Max's heartbreak of feeling his girlfriend slip away. His face is completely in the shadows of darkness entrapping him within the emotion of the moment. Using a panning point of view shot, the camera moves with Jude's head turn to a new scene of him pinning the strawberries upon the canvas. The sharp contrast of the darkness and the bright red strawberries appearing like hearts, both within the song and on the canvas, serve as kinetic symbolism for Jude's heart being broken. The movement of the strawberry dripping on the canvas as the long shot moves toward the audience elongating the canvas and blurring Jude's face serves as an additional convention of separation from love. Within the same scene, a extreme close up tightly framed shot of Lucy conveys similar emotions. Again she is entrapped within the loss of Jude and Max within the darkness and shadows around her as a single tear moves down her face. A movement as simple as a tear rolling down a face can convey so much feeling. In addition, the montage uses found film of the Vietnam War layered and flickering over Lucy's face to portray the kinetic symbolism of her thoughts and worries for her brother. A similar tactic is used within the scene with 

extreme tightly framed close ups of both Jude and Max's faces. Their faces pan in a cyclical motion as jump cuts of found footage of bombs going off coincide with the movement of strawberries being thrown at the canvas. All of this red serves as the kinetic symbolism of the character's anger, heartbreak, and the violence of the war. "Strawberry Fields Forever" uses movement within this scene to portray the emotions of anger and loss for the characters.

The opening scene of Across the Universe uses movement to foreshadow the plot and portray Jude's isolating emotion. An extreme loosely framed long shot finds Jude's back on the beach in complete isolation. The only movement is the waves rolling in as Jude sits in complete stillness. The loosely framed shot usually suggests freedom, but Jude could not be more constrained by his loss of Lucy. The water represents the emotion and deep psychological reflection which Jude seems to be experiencing as he reflects on the good times and now separation he has with Lucy. The camera cuts to a medium close up shot as it slowly zooms in with Jude's head turn towards the audience. The dominate of the darkness of Jude's sweatshirt and hair contrasts greatly with the cooler colors around him. The only motion in the close, tight shot is Jude. It allows the audience to focus on what he is feeling through the haunting lyrics conveying Jude's emotion. Eventually reaching the extreme close up shot, the audience finally sees the tightly framed constraint of the character. Although not aware of who this character is, the audience can understand his pain through the intimate close up into his facial expression movement. The scene cuts to a new song "Helter Skelter" which is increasingly more violent and intense. The movement becomes violent with

the song representing the kinetic symbolism often used in the musical genre. Waves move from right to left suggesting a psychological abnormalcy as layered cuts foreshadowing the riot crass with the waves.  Having the waves crashing down represents the demise of Jude and Lucy's relationship and the angry which comes in ending a relationship. Using movement, the opening scene foreshadows plot while portraying Jude's emotions about losing Lucy.