Scene Composition Review

The film adaption of William Goldings critically acclaimed novel "lord of the flies", portrays the intensity and importance of the scene of Simon’s death with a series of rapid shots, in contrast to the static shots used in the rest of the film. Goldings novel illustrates the degeneration of a group of british schoolboys who crash land on an island during an imaginary World War III. The rapid pace of the shots alters the audiences perception of the murder scene causing a significant contribution to the storytelling of the film. There is a mixture of both silence and noise in this scene that collaborate in order to emphasize and depict the degeneration that the boys have taken. In the the narrative Simon is the christ figure, which is why in the scenes where he is shown the specific shots are silent in order to represent his spirituality. When the boys are shot there is allot of movement in the camera with a combination of primitive screams to emphasize savage behavior. The wide shot is used to show Simon coming out of the woods into the clearing, where the boys are chanting with painted faces that hide their identities. The shots grow in pace when approaching the climax, in this case the climax is Simons death. I feel like the cuts for this scene are obvious to create fast transitions causing a combination of bulky and smooth shots. The murder is bulky, whereas the shot where the ocean waves transition into a floating dead body gradually become smooth.