The long walk home - analysis of Christmas scene essays

The long walk home - analysis of Christmas scene essays In this snippet of the film The Long Walk Home the director uses music to create atmosphere and to make a clear connection between the different scenes. Since the same piece of music is used throughout these scenes, the viewer is led to connect the two sleeping figures and to see the contrast in their bedrooms. The music used is wistful and gentle, moving quietly on through the sleeping Mary-Catherine, the outdoor Christmas scenes, Herbert asleep at the Cotters home and Odessa preparing to go to work on Christmas Day. As she moves quietly in the house, the music too is gentle and quiet enough for the viewer to hear tiny sounds of her preparation, such as slight creaking of the floorboards and the crinkling sound of wrapping paper. The music is not a well-known, cheerful celebration of the season, but is reflective and sad. At first the soft music seems to match the sleeping characters and empty, quiet night-time scenes. Towards the end of this section of the film, however, the sad t ones help the viewer reach the conclusion that it is tough on Odessa that she should have to go to work. The first time that Odessa is in the viewers thoughts, however, is when one side of the bed is noticeably empty. The shot is taken in the main bedroom where someone is sleeping on one side of the double bed. The lighting is such that it does not reveal who is asleep, but shows the blanket flat on the empty side and humped, coarse and rough over the sleeping person on the other side. It is obviously late at night or very early in the morning. As the camera pivots slowly around the room, from the head of the bed to the doorway leading to the kitchen, which is revealed as the light source, the viewer feels that he/she is an onlooker, in the room, but invisible to the characters taking part. Framed by the doorway and sitting at the kitchen table we see Odessa, fully dressed with her bag waiting on another chair. She appears to be busy wit ...