Film: Film Analysis Of The Film Contagion

1197 Words3 Pages

Contagion The blank screen seen with coughing heard in the background. Something is invading the unexpected lives of the people from around the world and by the time they realize how bad it is they are dead. How can one unforeseen microbe cause so much destruction that it sends the world into chaos and panic? At the beginning of Contagion (Soderbergh, 2011), the director presents the background of the disease by showing several shots around the world of people who were sick The idea presented to the audience is that people are getting ill and is dying from something. A cough heard in the background is the backdrop of something sinister is going on. Who is coughing and why, will become apparent soon, as will the fear and chaos. The fact …show more content…

Throughout the film, the director's emphasized is in the development and transmitting of the disease more than the characters who contracted the disease. In addition, the film promotes the effects of the disease not only on the physical aspect of the people but also on their emotional aspect of their lives. For example, when the people are in line for a vaccine to possibly prevent the disease, one can see the fear and anger brought on when the vaccines ran out. Furthermore, the rations for food and water brought about more emotions, fear, and the fight for survival. The concept of kill or be killed apparently at this time. The people would fight, push, and or kill to save themselves or their loved ones from this …show more content…

At the beginning of the film, the director used to background noise such as Beth coughing in at the airport, Soderbergh, also used close-up shots, full shots, and establishing shots as part of the editing showing the effects of the pandemic up close thus, capturing the audience's emotions as the disease spreads. The sequences used throughout the film made not only the film more interesting, but the staging of the sequences is what kept the audience informed as to what was going on, regarding the pandemic from around the world by using jump-cuts. To be able to see each person, coughing, gasping for air and some eventually dying as the camera moves from one scene to another helps not only with the flow of the movie, but helps show the how detrimental the disease can

Show More
Related

  • Demon In The Freezer

    969 Words  | 2 Pages

    The book jumps to a distressing story about Peter Los in 1970 in West Germany who became ill due to smallpox. After ten days he was hospitalized but medical staff did not realize he had smallpox, which is highly contagious. Preston gives vivid descriptions of the disease and how it ravages the body. Los survived his illness, but caused an epidemic that killed many others that had become exposed to him. “Today, the people who plan for a smallpox emergency can’t get the image of the Meschede hospital out of their minds.

    Read More

  • Sickness In The Road By Cormac Mccarthy

    241 Words  | 1 Pages

    It’s the year 2028, and the world we used to know as bright and beautiful is no longer thriving with light. A disease similar to the plague broke out and caused great havoc. Although it may seem like forever ago, sickness spread only a few years ago. The Road by Cormac McCarthy is about a man and his son who fortunately survived this sickness; although they made it, the struggle to keep going is tough. Before most of the population became deceased, people went insane. They started to bomb houses, burn down businesses and towns, and destroy the environment. Anyone who had the disease was bad blood. Many saw it as the end of the world, which in many cases was true.

    Read More

  • Film Analysis: Hocus Pocus

    607 Words  | 2 Pages

    Hocus Pocus is a 1993 film directed by Kenny Ortega. It is a very enjoyable movie with a good cast. The movie genre is comedy, horror, and fantasy. The film is based on a story about Garris and David Kirchner. And it is starring Bette Midler, Kathy Najimy, and Sarah Jessica Parker. The story follows the villainous trio of witches, who are inadvertently resurrected by a teenage male virgin. It takes place in Salem, Massachusetts.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Steven Soderbergh's Film Contagion

    915 Words  | 2 Pages

    The story moves away from how these elements spread the disease to how they can be used to solve the mysteries of the virus. Soderbergh accomplishes this by using editing to transition between shots showing individual researchers combating the virus in various cities. They use cell phones to keep in touch and computers to gather data, predict transmission, and plan intervention. They use digital models to map the virus’ surface, and to explain how it functions. The use travel to monitor outbreaks and find the source, and they study video feeds to discover patient zero. Contrasting the positive and negative aspects of technology and connectedness, he balances the dread felt by watching the spread of the disease with the hope that these same elements can reveal the weaknesses of the virus and provide a

    Read More

  • Summary Of The Panic Virus

    1041 Words  | 3 Pages

    After reading The Panic Virus, it became evident that this book can in fact be extremely useful. Perhaps people prefer not to educate themselves about vaccination on the grounds that medical language can be dry, confusing, and uninteresting. Perhaps they don’t wish to listen to medical professionals due to the fact that they feel that they have an agenda to protect themselves. Whatever the reason, the need for Mnookin’s The Panic Virus is to provide a strong argument for pro-vaccination that is given by a member of the reader’s peers. Mnookin is not a medical professional, and has no personal gain from defending the medical field; therefore, his argument is ‘by the people, for the people’. Mnookin’s tone throughout the novel also makes The Panic Virus a page-turner. Mnookin uses a tone that is at times formal and factual and at other times snide and informal, engaging the reader with every

    Read More

  • Cannibal To Zombie And Back Again By Chera Kee's Better Off Dead

    1643 Words  | 4 Pages

    The fight against the zombie metaphor within World War Z gives the reader a purpose for finding a way to hold on to hope, and to ultimately celebrate life, ideally a healthy one, itself. With the zombie metaphor referring to uncontrollable fears in today’s modern society, the thriller is a realistic speculation about an airborne virus entering the human species and spreading on a global scale. With influenza outbreaks being a familiar scenario within modern society, the fear of an uncontrollable disease sends shockwaves of fear through the human race, especially when a vaccine has yet to be found and distributed, as in the film. The fear of a viral infection spreading stems from the idea that people do not simply “give” another individual the virus; a virus is a form of life that evolves and mutates in order to survive environmental changes.

    Read More

  • Observational Analysis: Being Lost In Classical Hollywood Cinema

    767 Words  | 2 Pages

    Classical Hollywood Cinema is a chain of events that has a cause – effect relationship within a time and space. The environment looks realistic and believable to the viewers because the style is predictable, and the time is linear throughout the film. Each scene with the development of the plot and story is motivated by cause and effect. The filmmaking process involves four major steps that cut across the board. The process revolves around these levels that make it orderly to every individual involved in filming. The process has the following stages: Idea and Development, Pre-Production, Production and Post- Production. In Idea and Development it is normally

    Read More

  • Sociological Analysis Of The Movie Essay

    1060 Words  | 3 Pages

    Before the civil rights movement could begin, a few courageous individuals had to guide the way. Dr. Vernon Johns was one of those individuals. Dr. Vernon Johns was a pastor and civil rights activist in the 1920s. Johns became the pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama in the late 1940s. During his time as a pastor, Johns preached many sermons on how African American people were being treated not only in the community but in society. Johns on multiple occasions upset his community through his ideas on social change. Through a sociologist perspective, many sociological concepts were displayed in The Vernon Johns Story. Some of those concepts included: ascribed status, conflict theory, deviant behavior, alienation, and

    Read More

  • Exploring Ebola: A Review of 'The Hot Zone'

    494 Words  | 1 Pages

    Quammen takes a more clinical and realistic tone in regard to the Ebola crisis of 2014. By speaking in a more clinical tone he his is increasing his credibility to the audience. Quammen takes time to point out the overall dramatic moments in Preston’s novel. In comparison to Preston, Quammen takes time in the interview to promote his own novel Ebola: The Natural and human history of a deadly virus to the audience. He points this out with the intent to correct the panic and fear that Preston created. He mainly addresses the skeptics of The Hot Zone along with terrified population. Quammen states, and believes, that Ebola is the “dress rehearsal” of dieses yet to come. He doesn’t romanticize the Ebola viruses, he simple states that it needs to be “controlled and stopped”, he does not create Ebola into a disease that needs to be feared. He believes that through Preston’s novel Ebola is miscocepted and interrupted. He is attempting to change the fear into

    Read More

  • How To Survive A Plague Analysis

    1180 Words  | 3 Pages

    How to Survive a Plague (2012) is a documentary about the story of two coalitions, ACT-UP and TAG (Treatment Action Group). Both groups dedicate their time and energy to stop AIDS from being the deadly disease that it has been for years and is only getting worse. Those affected by the disease were primarily of the LGBT community. Those with AIDS struggled to see progress with research for a cure because of those who held leadership roles had in certain religious views along with a lack of political interest. As millions of individuals were dying from this abhorrent disease, the two coalitions continued to protest and advocate for change. Through their actions, an effective treatment was found for AIDS. Their actions even led to the LGBT community

    Read More

  • Experiencing The Polio Epidemic

    1062 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fear and guilt seemed to hang in the atmosphere, because although no one knew what caused the virus, everyone seemed to feel it was something they did that caused them to get sick. Parents especially, felt guilty because they were overwhelmed with the unknown, and the thought of one of their children becoming paralyzed or worse, dying, always led to almost daily admonitions to stay away from the drinking fountains and away from pools where groups of strangers swam. There seemed to be a general consensus that the disease was water borne.

    Read More

  • The Black Death

    569 Words  | 2 Pages

    When the plague first reached Europe, people panicked. They wanted to survive, many began to abandon what they had and moved to villages and country sides in hope of not catching the disease. Families abandoned each other and left children to die. The horror that people in Europe were feeling was traumatic...

    Read More

  • The 1918 Pandemic: An Infectious Disease

    1021 Words  | 3 Pages

    A pandemic is an outbreak of an infectious disease that spreads through human populations across a large region, whether that be multiple continents or worldwide. In order to be considered a pandemic, a disease must cross international boundaries and be contagious or infectious. Pandemics are usually caused by a new virus strain that humans have either very little or no immunity against. This contagious virus spreads easily from person to person, through direct contact or coughing and sneezing. A serious illness is caused worldwide from the virus, wiping out entire populations. Some of the deadliest pandemics include the Black Death, the Spanish influenza, and the second cholera pandemic.

    Read More

  • Mandatory Vaccination in the United States

    786 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...reintroduces an eradicated, contagious virus into a society where the majority of people are not immune to it. It could lead to deaths of some of the most-integral members of society while preventing a projected #% of these people from going to work, for multiple days due to illness. Additionally, those healthcare professionals who directly treat the immunocompromised on a daily basis could potentially spread illness to those whom they care for, as well as to other people whom they interact with most often such as their family-members (7). The risk of illness is not shared equally by all U.S. citizens, just by those vaccinated. The immunocompromised may be put at high risk for disease for the sake of the American public. The authenticity...”achieving a goal in a manner consistent with what is valued about the performance and seen as essential (or true) to its nature”

    Read More

  • An Essay On The Bubonic Plague

    675 Words  | 2 Pages

    In conclusion the virus that had raged its way through Europe was so deadly, virulent and lethal that victims were reported to go to bed healthy and died in their sleep. This disease ripped society apart. This plague has killed many and ruined the lives of others.

    Read More

More about Film: Film Analysis Of The Film Contagion

Open Document