J Edgar

Research J Edgar : 

It might seem to be a strange idea to research the biographical film “J Edgar” for my project which is to do with crime but I think that in order to make a good film about crime it is important to see the other side of it in order to have more thorough research. The idea behind looking into this film is that it is a film about detection which is the opposite side of criminality. 

The film starts with a voice over the voice of J Edgar and then it shows an establishing shot of the film which is the FBI office and it is made to look like it is significant to the audience but perhaps more ambiguous to everyone within the world of the film who see the street and building as just any other. The camera then zooms up on to the flag that is hanging off the building to show that there is dedication and patriotism to the country of the narrators origin which is America. The idea of having started with a low level camera using a high angled shot is to set the scene of the film and to show the audience what time period is being talked about because of course a biographical film has to have historical elements and the most obvious one is usually time. 

The camera then jump cuts into the time where the voice is almost as if it were following the sound and again we see the people who are in the office and the way they are dressed which again establishes the period of the film. There is then a single man who the camera focuses on in a close up for the audience to grasp that the man in the shot is the narrator and therefore the centre of the story. 

The man in the shot is sitting down and he is talking to someone else who is stood up. The man who is stood up is shown in a low angle shot to show that he has power over the narrator J Edgar and from the speech he makes the audience realizes that the character who has had this inter change is an antagonistic character. 

The phone then rings and J Edgar says to the woman on the phone that he wants the man who is coming to write about him to write about it so that a new generation can hear J Edgar’s “Side of the story” which sets up the premise for the film.

There is then a flashback to a point that J Edgar wishes to talk about and the sequence unfolds to the events of that time which still being narrated by Edgar are a show of a man who Edgar idolizes and that this man was attacked in his house by a bomb. The man we are then told was a communist and that that was not the only attack. This is added to the film so that the audience can understand that there is a reason for Edgar’s hatred towards the communists so there is the idea of the root of the problem. The scene then continues to show how Edgar help to change the face of the way detectives worked.

This would be useful to me if I made a film from the point of view of a man who wanted to be apart of a certain organization whether it is crime or the solving of crimes. It is kind of a way to show the consequence of deep rooted bias and hero worship.