Sci-Fi Thriller Heroine

Running head: HEROINE

Sci-Fi Thriller Heroine

Mitra Cline

[email protected]

Purpose and Power of Moving Image; HMC 180

Track X, First Year

Elizabeth Fergus-Jean, Ph.D.

August 18, 2015

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Sci-Fi Thriller Heroine

The major motion picture Sci-Fi thriller, Gravity (Cuarón,

Heyman, & Cuarón, 2013) was released in 2013. It won seven Oscars

in the following year, including best cinematography, directing,

and film editing. According to IMBD.com the film grossed over 270

million dollars by 2014. Without a doubt, these achievements

reflect how the film captured the imagination of people across

the world. This paper is a unique look at the popular film Gravity

because it focuses specifically on the character development of

the heroine, Ryan Stone, played by actress Sandra Bullock.

Stone’s adventure in space is similar to the types of challenges

everyday women experience in their real-life journeys toward

wholeness. In the following paragraphs I will give details on the

nature of the challenges that women face growing up and how the

film Gravity represents them in the moving image.

To begin with, it is important to take a moment for a closer

look at the term, moving image. In the context of this paper,

moving image does not only describe filmic qualities but it also

describes psychological qualities. Depth psychology uses another

term, which is archetypal, for images that are associated with

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recognizable psychological patterns (Jung, 2012). In the film

Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013) our main character, Stone,

experiences an archetypal psychological journey. The universal

emotional qualities in the Sci-Fi thriller are one reason why so

many people can relate to the character, even though not many

people have actually been in space. Following a familiar story

pattern or legend is one technique that directors use when

developing their ideas for a film (Rabiger & Hurbis-Cherrier,

2013).

The language of film is multidimensional in the sense that

it uses image in more than one way. In the first dimension an

image is primarily psychological because human beings have memory

and dream images. The second dimension is created with the

language of words. The third and fourth dimension are the actual

photographic image and other musical or ambient sounds. With a

major motion picture, such as Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013), all

these images are expertly combined together in order to create a

multidimensional experience for the viewer. The technical

creative skills like sound, cinematography, and editing are

commonly described in special terms known as a filmic language.

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In this paper, I reference filmic language terms, also known as

‘Grammar’ of Television and Film, from Chandler (1994-2012) to

explain how Gravity uses moving image to give new form to an

ancient archetypal pattern.

Spoiler alert for anyone who has not yet seen the film

Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013), please read no farther. The

archetypal pattern that will be explored in depth is The Heroine’s

Journey (Murdock, 2013), and it is about reconnecting after

separation. The journey to wholeness for women is cyclical in its

nature and has personal, cultural, and mythic themes. Gravity is a

modern story that builds off older stories but fits the “spirit

of the time” (Izod, 2001 p. 53). This paper uses the

psychological pattern, provided by Murdock (2013), about the

stages in The Heroine’s Journey and compares them to the film Gravity

(Cuarón et al., 2013). Murdock (2013) explained that the task of

the journey is, “to heal the internal split that tells us to

override the feelings, intuition, and dream images that inform us

of the truth of life” (p. 11). Gravity’s heroine, Stone, expresses

the qualities, such as courage, that are required. The heroine’s

path is difficult and new films, like Gravity, represent a change

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in our culture that has a history of repressing the development

of female power. As Frankel (2010) has pointed out, “to women,

struggling to discover the Self, centuries of literature and

symbolism that consider her man’s helpmate and support undermine

her journey” (p. 175).

One of the key archetypal images, that of journey, in the

film Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013) starts immediately and

continues throughout the film. It is conveyed with the use of

sound, camera angle, and movement. The first establishing shot of

the film sets a pattern for conveying the concept of a great

distance being traveled, and it is repeated in the film. The

scene starts with an expansive and steady birds-eye view looking

down at earth from space. It is a quiet environment and there is

no sound at first, but then slowly the volume increases as

simultaneously a spaceship approaches from the right side of the

screen. As the spaceship gets closer, we see more details, and

the sound gets louder so we hear more details as well. The

combination of movement and sound coming into and out of range is

repeated in the film to convey distance required to reach the

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next step in the journey. Figure 1 is a still from Gravity that

illustrates distance of journey in filmic language.

Figure 1. Establishing shot (1:48) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

The first major plot point in the film I want to focus on

matches Murdock’s (2013) model for the heroine’s journey and that

is separation from the feminine. In Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013),

mother earth and Stone represent the feminine primarily. The

crew, including Stone, is in constant communication with mission

control based on earth during their normal space flight activity.

Due to an anomaly of space debris, the crew is warned that all

communications are going down. When the communication with earth

is severed, the heroine’s adventure begins and it ends when she

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is reunited with mother earth and hears the voice of mission

control again. The filmic language used to represent the

separation process is both visual and auditory. In contrast to

the establishing shot of things coming into view, this scene

includes images of the spaceship breaking apart. The experience

of sudden change is expressed with a quick cut rate and

disorienting rhythmic spinning of objects accentuated by the

direct sound of panicked breathing. Figure 2 shows these elements

of the film that are used repeatedly at each pivotal point in the

plot to convey transition.

Figure 2. Still of separation (12:43) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

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Murdock (2013) explained, “the second stage of the heroine’s

journey a woman wishes to identify with the masculine or to be

rescued by the masculine” (p. 36). In Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013)

we see this stage expressed quite clearly as Stone is rescued by

her commanding officer, Matt Kowalski, played by actor George

Clooney see in Figure 3. The identification is visually

represented, with the medium close-up two-shot and visually as Matt

attaches a tether to Ryan and drags her behind him. Kowalski is a

chatty character, almost like a voice-over narrator, and he asks

Stone questions as a way of calming her down. In the process, we

as the viewers, get to learn more about the characters.

Figure 3. Identification with the masculine (17:46) from Gravity

(Cuarón et al., 2013).

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Together, Stone and Kowalski experience a series of

challenges, including deprecating levels of oxygen, damaged

equipment, and lack of fuel. These challenges are represented

visually with violent collisions in space between the astronauts

and the spaceships expressed with sudden changes in sound, camera

movement, and editing. Rhythmic blinking warning lights,

breathing, and buzzer warning sounds can be heard when viewers

are placed inside the helmet and given the point-of-view of Stone.

Kowalski knows the challenges ahead. As the experienced

commander, he tells Stone what to do verbally. Ultimately, this

arrangement cannot last if our heroine is to succeed. This stage

of the heroine’s journey is referred to as the road of trials in

Murdock’s (2013) model and it leads the illusory boon of success.

In Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013), the next stage in the

cycle, an illusory boon of success, is reaching the safety of a

functional spaceship. Stone is able to achieve this goal, but

Kowalski gets lost in space during the process, making Stone the

sole survivor. Up until this point in the film our heroine has

been fearful and reluctant to speak or act on her own. When she

reaches the spaceship she transforms. The transformation is

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visually represented by her short nap, in the fetal position,

upon reaching safety. Like a baby born in space, seen incubating

in Figure 4, she awakens as a changed woman.

Figure 4. Boone of Success (39:47) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

Stone’s first desire upon awakening is to communicate with

Kowalski. Her newfound voice is part of the heroine’s cycle

because “strengthening her skills of communication helps the

heroine to get along with different types of people. And having

the courage to present her vision inspires other women to trust

their images and words” (Murdock, 2013 p. 15). Stone is unable to

contact Kowalski, and she is unable to contact mission control on

earth. She continues on her journey alone, and things do not get

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any easier for her after this point; they seem to get impossibly

hard. It is in this stage of the archetypal pattern that a woman

can come to realize that no matter what she does it is not

enough. This is part of realizing the inner masculine figure, who

demands perfect, can never be satisfied (Murdock, 2013).

The most transformative moment for Stone happens a few

scenes later when she gives up on herself and resigns to die in

space. This stage Murdock (2013) calls, awakening to death. In the

filmic language, a slowing down, dimming, blurring, and cooling

of temperature represents this movement toward death. For me, and

I imagine many people, this is one of the most emotional scenes

in the film. I found it transformative to watch it again with the

lens of the heroine’s journey. Rather than interpreting surrender

as failure, I saw the moment as a critical step in reclaiming the

lost feminine. In filmic language, the experience of ambiguous

time includes primal being and surrender, seen in Figure 5, that

is expressed with sound in the combination of animal howling and

a the narration over that radio with a baby crying.

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Figure 5. Awakening to death (1:00:22) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

This death as transformation illustrates the tricky but

important point about cyclical feminine development that is,

“When a woman stops doing she must learn how to simply be. Being

is not a luxury, it is a discipline. . . . Anything less than

that aborts growth, denies change, and reverses transformation.

Being takes courage and demands sacrifice” (Murdock, 2013 p. 83).

What happens next in the film is mysterious and magical.

Kowalski appears outside the spaceship and enters the cabin. He

is cheery, optimistic, and playful in delivering a pep talk to

Stone about not giving up on life. This moment in the film

creates a magical sense of time. At first, we are not sure if the

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scene is real or imagined. This distortion of time and reality is

also an element of the film throughout, with fade ins and out,

but in this scene it is most prominent. We are near the end of

the journey. However, in the model of the heroine’s cycle there

has not been enough time to work through all the stages of the

cycle. The distortion of time is a filmic language tool used to

include all the stages within the constraints of the movie

timeline.

In the scene following Kowalski’s mysterious appearance and

disappearance we are reminded that Stone has been depressed for a

long time. The loss of her daughter gave her depression. This

stage of darkness, just now reached in the film, is actually the

emotional state where Stone has been the whole time. Murdock

(2013) called this Initiation and Decent of the Goddess, and it typically

starts when there is a big loss, like the loss of a child. In

this scene, shown in Figure 6, Stone imagines talking to Kowalski

even though she no longer sees him. In her dialog with him she

quickly moves through the next few stages of the heroine’s

journey, which include healing the mother-daughter split and

healing the wounded masculine. I feel this is an important but

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understated moment because it illustrates the power of imaginal

dialog (Watkins, 2000). Stone is empowered by hearing the voices of

others from her memories because it allows her to be reunited

with her love for her lost daughter and for Kowalski.

Figure 6. Imaginal Dialog (1:09:53) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

The final stage in the heroine’s journey and the final scene

in the film are both about being reunited. There are several

visual qualities that represent this idea but the strongest is

the notion of landing and the return of gravity, which requires a

balance to walk on two legs. As Stone approaches earth, the

frequency and level of heat increase. In the final scene is a

rich mixture of the basic elements such as earth, air, fire, and

water. We also hear the return of the radio communication from

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mission control. Stone has completed her heroine’s journey and

reconnected with mother earth and has balanced her masculine and

feminine sides as is seen with her walking in Figure 7. She is

ready to move on with her life from a new place of love for life

and empowerment. The camera now tilts up from the ground to see her

from a worm’s eye view.

Figure 7. Balance and new life (1:23:05) from Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013).

Stone, a whole woman, brings us wisdom about the

interconnectedness life and teaches how to cohabitate in the

vessel called earth and also helps others reclaim the feminine

(Murdock, 2013). The cycle for the heroine is ongoing and the

result is never complete wholeness or perfection. It is about

finding and staying in balance and having the courage to simply

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be enough as we are. I personally feel a strong desire to give

voice to this inner journey of the heroine, as I believe it is

key in regenerating life on earth. We are at a time when life on

the plant is threatened due to climate change. A film such as

Gravity (Cuarón et al., 2013) highlights the preciousness of the

environment we have here on our unique home planet. I love this

quote about what our task is from Murdock (2013):

Our task is to heal the internal split that tells us to

override the feelings, intuition, and dream images that

inform us of the truth of life. We must have the courage to

live with paradox, the strength to hold the tension of not

knowing the answers, and the willingness to listen to our

inner wisdom and the wisdom of the planet, which begs for

change. (p. 11)

In conclusion, film has a unique creative potential to

animate archetypal energies in its form as moving image. We have

seen how ancient psychological patterns can be applied to new

narratives like the Sci-Fi fantasy movie Gravity (Cuarón et al.,

2013). We have looked at how filmic language is used to express

archetypal images using both image and sound. With this analysis

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it is clear how movies bring to life powerful stories, like the

heroine’s journey, and reach a global audience. The role of

moving image to influence beliefs on personal, cultural, and

mythic level is arguably one of the most important at this time

in history because film can impact how the hero’s and heroine’s

of our culture respond to growing climate challenges.

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References

Chandler, D. (1994-2012). The ‘grammar’ of television and film. Retrieved

from

http://mypage.siu.edu/markpease/readings/grammarTVfilm.pdf

Cuarón, A. & Heyman, D. (Producers), & Cuarón, A. (Director).

(2013). Gravity [Motion picture]. USA: Warner Brothers

Pictures.

Frankel, V. E. (2010). From girl to goddess: The heroine’s journey through

myth and legend. Jefferson, NC: McFarland.

Izod, J. (2001). Myth, mind and the screen: Understanding the heroes of our

time. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Jung, C. G. (2012). Man and his symbols. New York, NY: Dell.

Murdock, M. (2013). The heroine’s journey: Woman’s quest for wholeness.

Boston, MA: Shambhala.

Rabiger, M., & Hurbis-Cherrier, M. (2013). Directing: Film techniques

and aesthetics (5th ed.). Waltham, MA: Focal Press.

Watkins, M. (2000). Invisible guests. Woodstock, CT: Spring

Publications.

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