Cold Mountain - More on the importance of moral

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0159365/

Spoiler ahead!

Cold Mountain plays in the US civil war. The main plot is about a young soldier, INMAN (Jude Law), who deserts the South Army to go back home where his loved one, ADA (Nicole Kidman) is waiting.

At this point in the movie (01.42.15) Inman has spent the night in the house of a woman, SARA (Natalie Portman) in the middle of nowhere. She, as so many others, lost her husband to the war and is now struggling to make a living for herself and her little baby.

There are three points I would like to make on this very emotional and dramatic sequence.

The first is about theme. Thematicly Cold Mountain is about what the war makes to the people or put in another way,what the war makes people do to each other. From this point of view this sequence is a very good example how the theme is conveyed in a dramatic way. Not verbally, by preaching about the theme, but by showing the logical consequenses of war and trusting the audience will get the message. Very convincing indeed!

The next point is about how cleverly the suspence is built. First we see the brutality of the first soldier as ha takes the baby out, and puts it on the ground to force Sara to tell them where to find food. We understand these three soldiers are really desperate.

But when the first soldier has taken Sara into the house, to rape her, one of the soldiers wants to help the baby. The third one tells him not to care.

Now the "caring" soldier is approaching the baby. Throughout the movie, We have seen all this the cruelty and and loss of moral values. We have seen the desperation of these hungry men and we really have no idea what this guy is capable of doing.

The soldier kneels down in front of the screaming baby. Is he going to he cover the baby or kill it? It is really a terrible moment of suspense before he takes action and starts covering the baby.

My third point is about the emotional impact of the scene. I have previously tried to show how the moral of a character is crucial for the way the aucience will respond. (In the two clips from THE LIVES OF OTHERS). This scene is another example how character moral is the essential component in creating emotional impact.

Inman, after killing the two other "bad soldiers", now points his gun at the soldier sitting with the baby on the yard. Now we see he has taken of his own coat to cover it. This is obvoiusly a good guy. Inman, in fury and rage points the gun at him and tells him to undress. Inman does not have the complete picture. He did not see the soldier take care. Maybe he notices the coat covering the baby, but still, no doubt, one wrong move from the soldier and Inman will shoot.

One more time, terrible suspense. We don't want the soldier shot. BECAUSE HE IS A GOOD PERSON.

And then Sara rushes ot the door with her gun. Sara has not seen anything. From her point of view the soldier is just one of the evilminded perpetrators. Sara is full of hate, she has good reasons to be, and she just shoots the soldier dead right on. And it breaks our hearts.

And we realize, without a word spoken about it, the cruelty of war, what it makes people do. This way the sequence should be seen as "role model" way of expressing theme, by showing, not telling.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Cold
• Mountain
• scriptwriting
• screenwriting
• theme
• moral
• emotional
• impact

[missmoreawesomethanu]

I have to say though, the youngest soldier was obviously scared of what the two others might do to him if he didn't obey their sadistic orders. He was sweet and I feel bad that he had to die.

[TheIncredibleTapsi]

I think it's the most impressing scene in the whole movie! And I totally agree with your comment!

[swiv2d]

He didn't deserve that, what a ho

[mrfreeze0054]

damn i love women with southern accents

[redshark618]

@LyricsArFun I guess you missed the point entirely...

[redshark618]

sad, but great scene

[inkey2]

so in the story line....would these yanks have been deserters. They had no food, there was only 3 of them. I'm thinking they were AWOL

[StonewallJackson26]

Yankee scum!

[cinemapsycho91]

@slipknotmaggotful I see. Well...to each there own.

[slipknotmaggotful]

@cinemapsycho91 never really cared for her

[cinemapsycho91]

@slipknotmaggotful Why is that?

[slipknotmaggotful]

god i hate natalie portman