Image Analysis - ‘Heathers’

This image is from the film ‘Heathers’, directed by Michael Lehmann, because I am analysing this script for my script analysis so I thought it would be relevant to analyse this specific image, shown below, in the film ‘Heathers’. I found this picture interesting because I thought it would be interesting to analyse with all the colours and lighting used. Heathers is all about a girl called Veronica Sawyer who wants to be part of this popular group in her high school called the Heathers. She then meets a boy called Jason Dean or JD as he is known in the film. However, JD is known to be quite psychotic and uses Veronica to make their high school a better place by killing off one of the Heathers, Heather Chandler, and the main two bullies that bullied Veronica, and her best friend Martha Dunnstock, called Kurt Kelly and Ram Sweeney.  

I chose this picture in the film because I thought was an interesting picture to analyse as I can analyse the colour used, the lighting and the composition. The colour that the director of Heathers, Michael Lehmann, used was a lot of cool colours. I think that he did this to  signify that it was getting dark and  close to the end of the night in the film, signifying that time is going very fast. Some evidence to prove my point of this is on page 17 of the script, as shown here, circled in red.

 

As seen here in the script, the writer meant for it to be night, proving my point that time is at night and that the colour blue was to help emphasise this, using cold lighting. Using cold lighting can help us believe that the light coming from the blinds in the clip are coming from outside the building from the sky. This image also uses low-key lighting from the front of the actress. I can tell this because in the picture we can see the shadow behind Veronica and behind the set of drawers. The composition of this picture easily suggests that the scene is set in a bedroom as the set is shown in the image to have a bed and a set of drawers in which is most common in bedrooms.  The colour blue is also used to represent the main protagonist, Veronica, as she wears a lot of blue, according to a Rhode Island college students website review they state:

“Blue is a colour that is often associated with trust, so it makes sense that our protagonist Veronica would be given the colour. Blue is also associated with calmness and intelligence, which Veronica is when compared to other characters like Heather Chandler. Also, in the musical, when Veronica breaks the fourth wall and talks to the audience in a "dear diary" style, the lighting of the stage changes to blue, bringing us into Veronica's thoughts.” (Rhode Island College, 2019)

I think this proves my point because it helps us get into Veronica’s thoughts as the quote states above. I think this gets us into Veronica’s thoughts because she is pouring out her feelings to the audience, making them feel a lot of sympathy for her, feeling bad for her for what she has experienced.


Bibliography:

Rhode Island College (2019) The Use of Color In “Heathers" How both the film and the musical use color to reflect the characters. At: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/colors-in-heathers (Accessed on 1/12/20)