Toshiro Mifune
Scene Analysis
This is the second clip I am editing. It is a clip of Toshiro Mifune trying to give a woman medicine.
The film itself is from Red Beard, (1965)
The film itself is from Red Beard, (1965)
The original clip that I have edited can be seen here...
The things I have chosen to focus on is mainly eye contact and body language. The thing that made me select this particular scene was the overall engaging performance from all of the characters.
The premise of the scene is that the female is sick and the male on the right is trying to give her some medicine; the male on the left is perhaps the husband of the female or at least a relative. They are wary of what is being offered.
Below the left male is staring at the woman, it shows that his concern is with her. As the right male pours some medicine onto a spoon, he obviously looks where he is pouring, nothing special happening here. While he is pouring though the female stares directly at the spoon showing her curiosity towards the contents being poured. This is human nature to look at the spoon at this moment, she is curious and wants to see what the male is doing.
When the right male moves the spoon over towards the woman it takes an 'S' shaped curves towards her, I can't explain this properly but I can assume that the right male did it this way to help emphasise the small spoon, much in the same way a comedic actor over acts to draw attention before a gag. The right male exaggerates his movements of the spoon so the audience have time to register his action.
It has been quite difficult to gauge where the left male is looking sometimes but here is appears he is looking at the right male as the right male offers the medicine to the female. the left male's brows are not quite down but they are not particularly up either. This to me suggests he is not being overly aggressive towards the right male but is acting assertive. He stares at the right male trying to mask his emotion which shows some distrust towards him.
Obviously the female is looking at the medicine that is being presented to her.
In this image below, the female has just hit the medicine away from the spoon. The left male naturally moves back suddenly due to the surprise while he looks at the female. He looks at the female to see her facial reaction. He does this because humans look at others faces to read emotions. He is trying to see the females face to see if she is distressed during this.
This image below has the right male sitting with the empty spoon now and the left male is still looking at the female, still trying to gauge her emotions.
He now looks at the right male with a facial expression that suggests he is taken aback by the situation.
Now as the right male pours more medicine onto the spoon, the left male then looks back at the female. His expression though seems more of unrest; he is looking at the woman because he doesn't know how she will react now as he sees her as being unpredictable.
Again, the female looks at the actions of the right male. There is also something about how the right male brings the medicine up and the spoon across while turning his head; it all just seems to click in the scene. This of course is acting and making sure the objects he is manipulating are visible and obvious to the audience.
Now the right male looks at the spoon he is moving, an obvious move to make sure he does not spill the medicine. The female also looks at the spoon to inspect what is being offered to her. The left male looks at the female still, in my opinion to gauge her reaction and to see what she is thinking.
Now as the right male moves the spoon over, the female looks at him instead of the spoon. In the context of the scene, she looks at him then back at the spoon. This is as if she is now looking to him for assurance, to see if he is being honest in his emotions and is not giving her something harmful.
Now the left male looks at the right male, perhaps to look at his intentions with the medicine.
Here the left male looks back at the female, to look at her face to see her emotions. This male could either be the husband/relative of the female or he could be a colleague of the right male. He switches his eye focus between the two characters at times almost as if he is neutral in this situation.
Now again, his eyes change focus to the right male.
A nice head turn from the right male. This head turn in the scene makes him the focus of that particular moment, it draws the audience over to that side of the screen.
Now the left male and the female are looking for the right males next move.
They both look at the spoon (action). This also tells the audience to look at the spoon. Another note is where the female's hands are. They have been there for the whole scene; this is her closing her body off to the right male. This shows she is insecure about his presence and doesn't trust him. This fits in with the overall scene of her refusing the medicine twice before accepting it on the third time.
She keeps looking at the spoon and the left male looks back at her. He still seems to be observing this situation by looking back and forth between the other two characters.
The might male motions taking the medicine to show the female what to do when the spoon comes towards her.
Now the left male looks at the spoon, implying he doesn't know what it is, which would mean that he is connected to the female, and not the right male.
The right male moves his head up then down a little bit to try and gesture her to lift up her head so he can get the spoon cleanly to her mouth.
Now they make eye contact, this feels like the female finally trusts the right male, she has accepted him or is at least willing to trust him in this moment.
at this point the right males jaw is open, this is hard to see but in the video you can see his jaw close into the frame below. This whole time, the left male has been looking at the female. out of concern?
The female and right male keep eye contact while she takes the medicine. This is similar to a child holding their mother's hand and looking at her while they are getting an injection. It helps to reassure them.
Now the left male is coming around to look at the female, this feels like he is curious to see what her reaction is to this medicine.
psychology of human behaviour study?
Summary:
This analysis has focused on human behaviour, I particularly focused on eye contact. The left male's eyes change focus constantly throughout the scene. If I were to animate more than one character, then I would keep this scene analysis in mind for the eye contact more than anything.
There is also a strong performance by the right male, he manages to capture the eye of the audience when he is pouring the medicine. It is the way that he exaggerates the movements but not in a pantomime way. It is subtle but effective, it shows what he is doing clearly.
After I had finished this, I looked up this film and found that the left male is the apprentice of the right male who is a doctor. This makes sense now, I thought his looks towards the woman were perhaps concern for her (some of it was I presume) but I was captivated by the way his eyes changed focus constantly and it is now clear that he was doing that in an observational way to see what his tutor was doing.
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