Vanilla Sky

Within Vanilla Sky, editing is used to demonstrate the confusion and paranoia of David's dream to illustrate the role fears play on the sub conscience. When driving along the empty streets, a series of sequence shots create a feeling of confusion for David. Establishing shots of his surroundings (the empty streets, sidewalks, a red stoplight) transition to reaction shots of David's confused demeanor. The flash forward foreshadows later events and establishes the idea of entrapment within a world which was created by himself. What's interesting about dreams, particularly within Vanilla Sky, is they are defined as being controllable, yet some elements of the sub conscience mind are uncontrollable. Sometimes a persons fears aren't even realized or faceable until they are confronted in the sub conscience. David creates a "lucid dream" to escape the inevitability of confronting his fears, yet they always come back to him. This first scene and David's confusion demonstrates the unpredicability of dreams, and their ability to create based on sub conscience thought. As the scene continues into Times Square, the camera pans in a 180 around David focusing on the dominant of his face as he begins to run in the opposite direction afraid to confront the reality of isolation. Juxtaposing long, medium, and close up jump cuts of David running and various advertisements in Times Square create a feeling of paranoia and fear of being isolated in this new world. David is isolated in his own

life, yet he fails to realize it because of the flashing lights of his surroundings (Times Square) in a rich

lifestyle. A low angle circularly panning around David in the Christ crucifixion position cross cuts to the parallel shot of him waking up from the dream in a similar position. Not only does this foreshadow his death, but it illustrates the true fear the dream caused David. Feeling trapped he screams for a way out and the ability "to open his eyes" and see the faults of his own life. Editing demonstrates the confusion and paranoia of David's dream in contrast to the role of fear on the sub conscience.

Within Vanilla Sky, editing is used to discover a person's defined meaning of happiness. Throughout the film, David is asked the question, "What does happiness mean to you?" A series of sequence shots jumping between dialogue to reaction shots illustrate David's realization of what he created by entering the lucid dream. Although he desired to escape and create his own perfect world, all he was able to create was a fantasy. Yes, he has positive memories of it all, but is it happiness if it isn't real? In reality, the lucid dream is nothing more than a more efficient blinding. The jump cuts to flashbacks of his lucid dream move with the upward motion of the elevator as the floors pass behind him. The voice over of the tech support man adds meaning to the fast cut of these scenes. In addition, parallel editing fades from the scenes in the "lucid dream" to the real world examples that inspired them. By creating this nostalgic thematic montage, David's character is able to separate reality from the dream. Although their is so much beauty in the world which he created, remembering the unreality of it causes David to choose to "open his eyes". Happiness for David was in

the real world. Life, even a dream, is not all sweet. A person must go through the sour as well. It takes David his experience in a dream to realize what it truly means to live.Vanilla Sky utilizes editing to create a personal meaning of happiness.