Stutterer (2015), Oscar award winning live action short for 2016 and directed by Ben Cleary (Wave & Love is a Sting) tell the story of a “A man whose lush inner thoughts are rendered mute by a crippling stutter feels isolated from the world despite a flourishing online relationship.” (IMDb, 2015). In this short present protagonist, Greenwood Carsen (Matthew Needham) as a stutterer that is fighting his place in society.
This motion picture starts with Carsen making a phone call to a customer service agency without success. The initial conflict is presented then, he has difficulties in pronouncing words in an expected “normal” time, so the customer service representative hangs up before resolving Greenwood problem.
In that introductory scene we are confronted to the disjunction between his actual thoughts and his incapability for pronounced them. The voice over from the operator call will keep as a leitmotif through the first part of the short film. To dig deeply into the characterization of the protagonist, director Cleary presents him as a loner. The stutterer will have everything a person needs to live, but he feels alone. As the actions keeps developing, the audience realizes that the stutterer is an autodidact, that he is immersed in sign language studies and that he works as a typographer. We will see him passing time with his father, an old man that seems to be with him and who share a minimalist verbal communication.
Carsen’s job as a typographer is one that doesn’t requires talking to anybody, because of that the screenplay brings to the public another struggle on Greenwoods ‘s life, the necessity of hiding his true self through a writing social media. As it is reveal at the midpoint, Carsen have been exchanging messages for three years with a girl called Ellie Parks. This cyber relationship takes a turn when Parks ask him to meet in person. After not knowing how to respond, the stutter will struggle now with himself to overcome the fact that he will not be able to use the computer as a shield or safe place. He will feel unable to communicate with her.
The action of this character vs society or character vs himself plot can be divided in three parts, being the first one the protagonist presentation and development. In this portion, spectators are presented with the minutiae of a life with this kind of speech disorder. The second partition presents the struggles being a stutterer in society, especially in one who don’t give the mute persons the tools to communicate with them in a daily basis. Director Clearly uses these two scenes to accomplish that task. First, protagonist Greenwood Carsen will be asked to help an old woman with the direction of a place, and later, by playing with his dad. The only difference with those two situations is that he shows the old woman that he can’t help her because the language systems they speech is not the same. In the second case, his father will wait patiently to hear his song, but will reply him with and short sentence that doesn’t make any difference in Greenwood’s life.
After that, the plot evolves into the turning point, the stutterer is not telling the truth about his condition to his cyber girlfriend, he is afraid of that. Before the film’s resolution, we never know if Greenwood has been entire sincere with Ellie, but when he starts feeling lonely again, he will reply to her, so their encounter can be accomplished. Somehow, he will manage to embrace it and accept Ellie’s invitation to meet. At the end, we are surprised with the fact that she was mute, just like him, and that she also uses sign language to communicate. Director Ben Cleary’s storytelling plot twist works great and positions this movie inside the romantic and drama genres and put love as an important topic.
An important part of this Oscar winning film is the director’s treatment in cinematography. He uses color tones that are very meaningful to every scene. For example, lightning inside the house is always in a yellow tone, a color that symbolize security. He always wears dark tones or neutrals, meaning that he feels excluded from that comfort sensation. In the street or outside the house, neutral grays and greens will prevail as a symbol of his vulnerability.
Besides from the color cinematography details and for emphasizing Greenwood disorder, Ben Clearly uses close ups takes at the beginning that focus on the mouth of the protagonist. By doing so he can present the stutter problem as a real thing to the audience. Later, he will prefer over the shoulders shots or mid shots to tell Greenwood’s story without the need of words.
Other important characteristic of Stutterer is his locations choices. They are used to connect or disconnect the protagonist to the real world. In that case, the more normal the location is, the more Greenwood will feel distant. For example, he will make up judgements about people he encounters in everyday places just as form of connecting to them true his thoughts in a way of replacing actual interactions. The aesthetics implied through the locations represents the use the theory of the other, implied by Michael Foucault. Foucault challenges the idea that power is wielded by people or groups (Gaventa, 2003). The movie also includes a montage easily done through the social network in his computer screen, when he is reviewing Ellie’s life and admiring her as a charismatic person.
Other aspect that makes this short film an Oscar winner is the score. The sounds serve as the perfect atmosphere for creating Greenwood’s isolated world. The score will start every time he is fighting with himself, when he is thinking how to resolve a situation or as way of eluding reality. In addition, music behaves as a character itself. At the beginning, it will represents struggle as the phone customer service machine keeps repeating itself, ironically without actually resolving anything to Carsen.
Voice overs are used for connecting the audience to Carsen’s thoughts contrasting his speech to his way of thinking. To merge Carsen’s thoughts with the score gives the film a melancholy feeling that can put spectators in the protagonist’s shoes.
A valuable scene is added of Greenwood defending a girl at the bus station. This specific scene can represent the dramatic questions of the film: “Are words are really necessary? The ability of someone to speech gave them the right to offend others or to shout at them?”. The Stutter will interfere to show the public the good in his heart as he cannot let himself testify the abuse to a woman. Even if he cannot speech to the attacker with words, he will do it through his acts.
After that, and while waiting for Ellie’s response, the protagonist will judge himself as an invisible, who communication skills are equal to an infant. Being so the case, this movie is about facing inner demons and overcoming society judgements. Only by stepping above those fears things will change like it happens to Greenwood and Ellie.
Stutterer can helps make a short film better by applying the same aesthetics. The use of color as a symbol is a good consideration before making any film. The other valor of the film resides is the topic. The protagonist conflict isn’t aboard in many movies, so that make this one to be remembered. The other thing is to use a combination of good storytelling and the perfect score. Like in this masterpiece, music can be used as an entity. Knowing that before shooting or after will add a personal feeling to connect with the masses.
Cleary, B. (2016, October 18) 2016 Oscar-Winning Short: “Stutterer” | The Screening Room |
The New Yorker. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2m_VTZR5MU0
Stutterer (2015, September 9) Retrieved from http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4817576/
Gaventa, J. (2003, no date) Foucault: power is everywhere. Retrieved from
http://www.powercube.net/other-forms-of-power/foucault-power-is-everywhere/
