Pacing

"I picture my books as movies when I get stuck, and when I'm working on a new idea, the first thing I do is hit the theaters to work out pacing" - Maggie Stiefvater

For as much as I liked the movie, parts of Atonement seemed quite boring to me. I don't know why, but I seem to hold a different standard to movies in terms of how I react to "slow movement" of a plot than I do with books. It is quite weird for me actually because I recognize that I have this high opinion about my taste in films but I seem to dislike "Part 2" of the film entirely because of its close attention to detail that forces the plot to retard. I say that that I find this to be somewhat of a difference in standards because it was for this exact reason that I loved certain parts of the novel. Perhaps though it was this disparity in where the choices were made to change paces, especially between the Director and Author, that seems to be annoying me. Sure... We'll go with that. But really though, when I think more about it, it seems that the choice to highlight certain areas of the plot by going into greater detail almost says something completely different when you decide to change it from the original. At the very least, it shows what the creative force behind these decision wants the audience to take away, and in the case of the movie I disagree with Wright. As you'll come to understand as I have, the decision to change the pacing of the original novel when adapting it to film was based on superficial motives. The guy wanted to make money.

In the Novel:

One of the most likable qualities of McEwan's writing is without a doubt the expressive quality of his language and how he is able to use this to great effect in delving into great detail. The first example that comes to mind has to be his descriptions of the sex scene from Robbie's point of view. The scene remain forever one of the greatest descriptions of sex from 20th-century fiction - at least that's what they tell me. I can certainly say I enjoyed it, and not for unstably-hormonal reasons, but rather for the intimately beautiful way he describes the moment; there are at least 3 pages of detail used in creating as realistically passionate a moment as I could ever hope to sext. Joking aside though, it really was beautiful, but this level of detail wasn't specific to only Chapter 11 in the novel. It was when I was made to prepare for a seminar with discussion questions that I was asked to answer "How does the careful attention to detail affect the pace of Part 1?" This question opened my eyes to the striking differences between the pacing of this entire first part and everything else thereafter. Why I appreciated this so much is that, in itself, the change of pace says something about Briony as a character, and her maturity through the years. While it might seem counter-intuitive to say that her younger-self's attention to detail is a sign of immaturity, this is entirely the reason it was so slow. As a writer who clearly struggles with keeping things "short and sweet" - "Keep It Simple, Stupid; KISS it - I can vouch for the younger Briony that we use overly complicated language in an attempt to mask the insecurities of unfocused writing. "Vigorous writing is concise." Is how William Strunk, Jr. puts it, and I couldn't agree more. The fact that McEwan is able to show this to me as a reader is fascinating to me and I applaud his artistic use of pacing.

 

In the Movie: 

Now for the conspiracy theory: why the decision to change the pacing to something different from the novel shows that Joe Wright is driven by superficial motives. Someone call the National Inquirer... So, in looking at it objectively, you have to ask yourself what does it mean to go into "greater detail", or to have give "careful attention to detail", between the two different mediums?

Well, in a novel you're required to spend more time discussing it; or rather, you use more words. So why might this be undesirable? Well as Rick Riordan put it: For me, writing for kids is harder because they're a more discriminating audience. While adults might stay with you, if you lose your pacing or if you have pages of extraneous description, a kid's not going to do that. They will drop the book." Despite this, McEwan insists on using advanced language in order to maintain his level of detail. For him, inaccessibility is unimportant; the art is crucial.

In a movie, however, how do you show you are going into greater detail about anything? Really, it's just a matter of time: the longer you spend on something compared to another, the more important this thing seems to the audience; everything is contextual when you have X minutes in a movie. For instance, if I was making a movie and decided to spend 120 seconds on a single shot of a flower blowing in the wind, it is heavy implied that this flower is important - "it's totally symbolic for the frailty of the democratic system in a corporate-run aristocracy, man. Give Peace a chance." This concept applies to pacing as well. If you spend 80% of the movie discussing one thing, the remaining 20% is much harder to remember and obviously less important. This is the case for Wright's adaptation of Atonement, he decides to spend much more time than the book does in specifically focusing on the war element of the book while almost completely ignoring the conflicts of Briony's life and atonement. The frustrations I discussed having were initially brought to a head when watching the film and now seem to make sense of this inner hypocrisy I struggled with. Because I loved the level of detail McEwan put into his first part, to find Wright glaze over it in a matter of 20 minutes (the vase, for instance, appearing in the movie for 2 minutes, if that) was very frustrating when you know he spent 5 minutes of film on a continuous shot on the beach. I do understand and acknowledge the brilliance of the shot, don't get me wrong, but when you do look at it objectively it's quite clear why this topic is the main focus. The theme of "romance in the time of warfare", and "the horrors of mankind in wartime" is way more marketable to the masses. If you're looking to make a '$', people are going to pay to watch soft-core library porn with everyone's favourite Keira Knightley and the love story that ensues (oh, and some explosions while you're at it!) way before they're going to pay to watch a 77-year-old go into detail about her life after watching the production of her childhood play or a 13-year-old's struggles with the life of a playwright.

Thankfully for Wright, going into detail with a movie doesn't require "pages of extraneous detail", because in order to make the most money off of a movie you have to attract the "everyman", and I don't think it's a stretch to consider the everyman as that far off from a kid when looking to keep their attention. It's a shame that he had to sacrifice some of the artistic merit of the novel in order to do this but as far as I'm concerned he still felt the consequences. No Country for Old Men is 122 minutes of artistic brilliance, and the Coen brothers didn't sacrifice an ounce of pace to earn their Oscar. 

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Setting and Landscape Design

"Location, location, location."

Don't ask me who said this one. There's way too many internet debates on who to credit for this famous answer to the three most important factors when determining the desirability of a property. There's a show that happens to have this exact title and deals with... wait for it... determining the most desirable home for buyers on a weekly basis. Lucky for me, this is made somewhat more relevant in that it happens to be a show made in the UK. I say that because, if it wasn't already clear, Atonement is pretty darn British: written by an Englishman, directed by an Englishman, and (who would've guessed that it's) set in England. I choose to connect this idea of "location" not because the actual location of the filming happened to be in England as well, but mostly because, in the other sense of the word, the movie was filmed "on location". This is to say that, as opposed to an in-studio simulation, the movie is filmed in an actual place or natural setting. The importance of this, and how it effected how the viewer interprets the adaptation by comparison, is what I choose to go into detail about in this particular blog post.

Part One:

Everyone has an idea in their head of what the setting looks like as described by the author and how it relates to their own experiences. Maybe it was because of the immense detail in this first part of the novel, or maybe it's because Wright and I see things the same way, but the setting is exactly how I'd imagined it. For the sake of humility, I'll stick with the attention to detail argument, but, either way, credit deserves to go to both because the adaptation of the setting to screen fits the description as well as allowing for theme development through cinematography. 

The grandeur of the estate and the relation of the fountain to the mansion are exactly how I imagined it.

What I mean by allowing for thematic cinematography is that certain shots displayed perfectly the playfully imaginative quality of how Briony must have viewed her property and this seems only possible given how surrealistic certain areas of the landscape exist.

This shot of a garden tunnel is as if we are embarking on a journey into the playfully dreamlike thoughts of Briony.

Part Two:

Here again there is a very accurate adaptation of the descriptions made in the novel. Part of the novel's premise is to put on display the horrors of wartime and more than anything the setting was meant to reflect that with pathetic fallacy. The one scene that sticks out more than any when you discuss both cinematography and setting has to be that of the one on the beach. Again, this is an intelligent choice of location and landscape design because the setting of the beach being riddled with the destructive souvenirs of wartime is exactly how I would've imagined it as a reader of the original novel. As I discussed in my "Pacing" blog post, the director has made it clear here that he chooses to focus on the topic of war much more in comparison to the original. One look at the sets of this second part and you wouldn't have to have watched the movie to make the assumption that the focus is here. I mean, just look at it; Joe Wright would need to have been related to Uncle Pennybags to make this scene happen. Plot twist: Joe Wright is actually Jack Tallis.

Very Chernobyl-meets-Saving Private Ryan

  

Part Three:

This third part mainly revolves around Briony and her time spent at the hospital. It took me until my second viewing but I was able to note that there are similarities of significance between this part and the first that should be addressed when discussing symbolic importance of setting. Because of the colours, the misery and even the music, the hospital scene is interpretable as being depressing, at least from the perspective of Briony. When I was creating notes for this second viewing I discussed, it was in the first couple of scenes that I noted that parts of the Tallis house resembled some kind of a hospital with its similar choice of dreary colouring.

It was this shot specifically that made me feel as a viewer that there were comparisons that could be made.

As the movie went on, I was astonished to find that the hospital that Briony works in is almost a replica of this exact wall painting and lighting:

Because of this similarity I couldn't help but make the comparison between the two and they might be perceived in the same light - by Briony at least. To say that her childhood house acted almost like a hospital stays accurate to the point McEwan was trying to get across in his novel: that Briony felt isolated, closed-off from the rest of the world in a bleak loneliness - like an insane asylum (to refer to some points made in earlier blog posts again).

To conclude, I think that the setting plays an important role in assuring a seamless adaptation from book to screen. If the author is able to create a relatable image of the of whatever you might have come up with on your own when reading it by yourself, then I consider that a sucess. Joe Wright does that and more with his careful selection of location.

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Motifs and Symbolism

"The poetic act consists of suddenly seeing than an idea splits up into a number of equal motifs and of grouping them." - Stéphane Mallarmé

Coming off of writing a post that goes into detail discussing the thematic and artistic impact of the visual component of a film's adaptation, it makes sense to me that I go from there to discuss the symbolism of things that appear often enough to be considered motifs. That word, motif,  "très-français" in its pronunciation happens to come from the 19th-century French for "a decorative design or pattern". It really is just that: an artistic (decorative) recurrence (pattern) used to imply inherent symbolism. Just as they were used so frequently in the novel, Joe Wright applies motifs to great effect in his motion picture adaptation. In his cinematic adaptation, however, he chooses to introduce his own unique symbols as well as replicating motifs found commonly in McEwan's creation. This is important to identify before moving into the analyzation because it shows that Wright has the confidence to add his own creative flare to the adaptation while still managing to stay true to the integrity of the piece. I like to think of it like Michael Bublé covering Frank Sinatra: his cover of "Come Fly With Me" sounds enough like the original  to pay homage to the "Chairman of the Board", but different enough to have my sister making comments like "he's way easier on the eyes compared to that older guy." In the same way, the Joe Wright plays the role of Canadian crooner to show that he can still "sound" like the instant-classic while using his own variety of repeated "half-smiles" and "two-finger beckons", capable of bringing any 30-something to their knees, to stay unique. Not sure if Wright's motifs will land him a supermodel wife like it did for Bublé, but they still make for an interesting "cover" nonetheless. 

Don't think he needs the supermodel anyway. I'd dropkick Luisana Lopilato to get to Ravi Shankar's daughter (his real wife) any day of the week.

Example 1:

The first motif worth being discussed in detail has to be that of the bee. It is when Briony is talking with the twins and Lola that you begin to hear the buzzing. At first, you brush it off as part of the aesthetic - just something for background noise - but as the conversation nears an end it intensifies to the point of focus. The camera then focuses entirely on the bee as a focal point which then makes sense of Briony's heightened interest in the insect ultimately resulting in her stumbling onto the fountain scene from her window. When the focus changes to Cecelia and Robbie's point of view, those same bees can be heard outside as well, showing that its significance isn't unique to the one scene.

This motif in particular happens to be one of those few which happen to be a creative addition to the adaptation that I alluded to in the beginning of this post. So then why add it, what's the point? Well, to be fair there is never really a need for this kind of motif in an actual novel because transitions between scenes can be made with the use of chapters - what happens in between the end of the chapter and the beginning of the next is allowed to be ambiguous. However, with the film, there must always be context, or some kind of sense made for why, and how, you get between those scenes. The bee serves the role of giving this context for how and why Briony could have ever had the urge to look out the window. More than this though, it functions on a deeper level as well. In a way, symbolically of course, Briony is the bee herself. By stumbling onto the fountain scene and arriving at a multitude of preconceived notions, she "stung" Robbie; that is, she inflicted her damage on his life, and like the bee, is condemned to a helpless demise after her sting is left behind. As a motif, the bee provides both context and symbolic significance for a unique approach to the double-perception of the fountain scene.

Example 2:

With the "two-finger beckons" out of the way, I need to point out how some of the motifs from the novel were adapted to the big screen if I'm gonna have any chance at justifying my unorthodox Bublé analogy. So here goes: 

Water, water, everywhere. It's true. Now, I'm not going to try and force some Coleridge reference on you here because it really won't make any sense. But I'm trying to push this whole poem motif in my blog, so bear with me. Again, it's true. Throughout the entire novel, the most obvious of all symbolic recurrences has to be water. You find it in the fountain, the bath, the swimming pool, the lake of attempted adolescent suicide; I could type you three full lines of this repeated concept but I this assignment has me playing Price is Right where the "actual retail word-count" is 250 words - I don't think I'm gonna meet Bob. Or is it Drew? Anyways... The motif seems to me like the Swiss Army Knife of symbolism with this novel in that you know there's a bunch of different ways you can use it but you have trouble settling on what the one seems the most fit for the job. What I mean by that is that "water" as a symbol doesn't seem to have one umbrella meaning in Atonement. In one scene it might symbolize how Briony's excessive hand washing is her way of trying to proverbially "wash away all of her sins" - Atone - and in another it suggests a representation of Robbie and Cecelia's love. Does that mean that when Briony tries to drown herself as a cry for attention she's essentially "drowning in their love"? No. But the essential repetition of this concept of water allows for the reader to assume that it must have some kind of meaning and forces them to search for whatever the particular instance of it might be. Joe Wright's decision to replicate this idea in his movie is a wonderful tip-of-the-hat to this unique application of the motif and his presentation of it is all the more uniquely beautiful. Shots of Cecelia sunbathing on a diving board and Robbie attempting to quell the ripples in the fountain are both exact recreations from the novel but are made more memorable through their cinematic twin. 

To sum it up, Joe Wright is basically Briony Tallis. As if this post didn't have enough analogies already, what I mean to say is that he has a fantastic mind for the dramatic, creative and artistic. I especially enjoyed his use of repetitive symbolism throughout the entire movie as it payed tasteful respect to the creator. I don't know exactly how he comes up with these ideas for recreating this symbolism. You might say that this use of le motif adds a certain "je ne sais quoi".

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Casting

"Sometimes, it's all about the casting" - Roger Ebert

I've gotta agree with you there, Rog. It's hard for me to imagine American Psycho without Christian Bale, or on that note, The Dark Knight without Heath Ledger. Damn, I miss him... Although the saying does go "There are no small parts, only small actors", I'd like to say I disagree with that. Saying that almost implies that any role can be fulfilled better by the "best" actors, but like those roles I mentioned, it seems like those actors chosen were made for the role, and I don't think they could have been outdone by the likes of Daniel Day-Lewis, Marlon Brando or Laurence Olivier. This is why "it's all about the casting", because so much of the success of the movie is dependent on how believable the character is. It's the uniqueness of the actor's personality that assures me that no, Leonardo Di Caprio would not have been a better Patrick Bateman (Go watch Wolf of Wall Street if you don't believe me). This is exactly why actors like Day-Lewis, Bale and Ledger submit themselves to the process of method acting. They fully recognize the importance of the believability-factor and devote their everyday life to becoming this character they seek to emulate.

In the case of Atonement, the level of commitment to the roles is not of this same calibre, but, to be fair, neither is 95% of Hollywood. But, I do feel like it would be hard for me to imagine certain roles being played by many other actresses, and I stick with the feminine plural because the two that knocked it out of the park for me were Keira Knightley as Cecelia and Saoirse Ronan as Young Briony. For the sake of brevity I choose to focus on the brilliant performance by the 12-year old actress in this blog post.

Saoirse Ronan:

Don't panic. No that isn't a Douglas Adams reference because I realize that the pronunciation of Saoirse Ronan's name isn't a laughing matter, it gave me anxiety trying to figure it out. So when I finally realized that Google was a thing I did the job of finding it for you. So here. Thank me later. Alright, now that that's out of the way I can spend the next half an hour attempting to give this acting job justice by giving it as sufficient an amount of praise possible without sounding like I've got a crush on a 13-year-old. 

Wish me luck. 

To start off I think it's important to point out how difficult the casting crew found it to choose a suitable actress for this role because many actresses at this age can't possibly understand the level of acting required to portray the complexity of inner emotions that exist within Briony Tallis. Ian McEwan really didn't make it easy for any young actress because so much of the character's emotions are necessary to be portrayed without the use of words; that is, the introverted characteristics of Briony have to be portrayed through non-verbal expression mostly. Despite her age though, Saoirse is able to do this with the command of a fully matured actress in her 20's. I remember as I was taking notes for this blog upon watching the movie for the first time that I was made to feel that, more than just the "introverted loner", Briony was almost psychopathic. It was partly the way she walked around, back straight, in her petite frame - like dry spaghetti - as if to remind me of the twins from The Shining. 

From Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of  Stephen King's The Shining.

Eerily similar choice of wall paint in Atonement.

Partly that, but mostly her facial expressions: those depressingly emotionless eyes whose pale-blue irises reflect the lame personality so beautifully. McEwan himself even applauds this subtlety having said "She gives us thought processes right on screen, even before she speaks, and conveys so much with her eyes."

 

The complete lack of any muscular tension in the rest of her face that compliments these eyes so well again adds to this emotionless impression that is left for the viewer. All of this contributes to this image of psychopathy. To return again to my American Psycho, I take a quote from Patrick Bateman: "There is an idea of a Patrick Bateman; some kind of abstraction. But there is no real me: only an entity, something illusory... I am simply not there." In the same way, Saoirse's psychopathic emulation shows us just how empty the character of Briony Tallis really is.

Christian Bale as Patrick Bateman

Saoirse Ronan as Young Briony

As a whole, the cast of Atonement was very well chosen and played their parts magnificently, but it was Saoirse Ronan who was most deserving of the "Best Supporting Actress" nomination she received (one of the youngest actresses in history, might I add). It is true though that, more often than not, we choose to buy into watching these films because Roger was right when he said that "sometimes it's all about" who's acting in it and how much we like them. I can say that one upcoming film that has me itching to spend money on it, if only for the cast, has to be Grand Budapest Hotel. I mean, come on, it's a stacked bill: Ralph Fiennes, Adrien Brody, Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Jude Law, BILL MURRAY, Edward Norton (yessss), Jason Schwartzman, Tilda Swinton, Owen Wilson. Oh yeah, AND Saoirse Ronan. Here's hoping she gets the win this time. 

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Music

"If music be the food of [film], play on!"

Debussy's Clair de Lune. Ugh.. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Even typing its name now, staring over the collection of italicized Time New Roman's that make up its name, brings a subtle grin to my face. As I search through YouTube for a version to embed in this blog post I'm having trouble keeping my emotions in check. I settled on this: ("Clair de Lune" by Angela Hewitt) because I think it's only fair I refer to a recording by one of my nation's hidden gems. Watching the video, the only thing that might have struck me more than the piece itself had to be her dress (her facial expressions a close second though). It must've been this comparative "zone" I'm in right now but right away it reminded me of that green dress Cecelia was wearing when she confronted Robbie about the letter and continued on to the library. Thinking about it now, I feel it's not too much of a stretch to say that the music of the film outshines the beauty of that green dress, maybe even Keira herself. (My girlfriend would shoot me for that, so let's hope she doesn't find this blog) Thankfully, the Academy seemed to agree with me because Dario Marianelli received the Oscar for "Best Original Score" in 2007 - the only Oscar win Atonement took home in all. 

As a student hoping to go on to major in the performance of classical music maybe I'm a little biased. But, for me at least, the soundtrack will remain an all-time favourite without a doubt. As we move on to discuss the emotional and artistic impact that the music had on the film I encourage you to listen to the soundtrack as you continue on through my blog. As it did for the movie, I find it compliments my writing in all the right places. (I could probably use the help anyway)

I think it goes without saying that the most important of those factors that affect how a movie is adapted to film is most definitely the choice of music, in my opinion anyway. Ask anybody what their favourite "#Epic" movie is and 9 times out of 10 it's a movie containing the music of Hans Zimmer. I encourage you to check out his works right now if you aren't familiar as he is, without a doubt, the most famous composer of mood music. Being that Clair de Lune is the only song in the movie that isn't original, for creating the music that does so well in embellishing the mood of almost every scene Dario Marianelli fully deserves his nod. The following are a couple original songs by Marianelli that did the best, by my ears and eye, in embellishing the mood and theme of Atonement:

Example 1:

Flowers and the fountain (Cecelia): Here I found the artistic capabilities of music in film shone the brightest. In the moments that immediately precede what is shown in the video (when Cecelia enters the room and pre-arranges the flowers) "Briony's Theme" had been playing from the scene before only to quiet down and reintroduce only the drivingly-tense descending triads that can be found in the theme as well. So here, when I say "artistic capabilities" I mean that it seems to do the job of the theme music implies that there is a "driving tension" that exists for within her. The connection comes when Cecelia plucks a string on a piano in the room that happens to be identical in pitch to the tonic (lowest note) of the descending triad in the music; that is, it's the same as the last note before the the theme cuts out completely. This fully justifies the claim that the tension existed "within her" by suggesting that the music must've been in her head and there existed a need to express it on the piano itself. When I recognized that this is how the director and composer chose to move between scenes I couldn't but feel like it was pretty clever; if sitting beside the director I would've certainly turned to him to say "Ohhh, I see what you did there... Very artistic." 
of connecting the scenes beautifully as well as providing insight into the characters. In this contemplative state that we find Cecelia in as she pre-arranges the flowers, the isolated element (broken piano chords)

This aesthetically pleasing musical editing continues when returning to Briony's perspective because there is a reintroduction of the descending piano triads as soon as the window closes and reveals Briony in that same contemplative state of her sister in the scene prior. This can only serve to force the viewer to make these same conclusions about the mood that I've managed to describe while also staying artistic to a T. 

Example 2:

 Briony's Theme: This song is the easily the one most often played and plays into stereotypical mood music motifs while still maintaining its uniqueness. The theme is introduced in the first scene of the play where Briony is finishing writing Trials of Arabella. The choice to place it right after the viewer is clearly shown how much command Briony possesses over the typewriter is brilliant because the viewer is immediately aware of it as a theme. It starts with the rhythmic beating of the typing and soon adds that stereotypical "drivingly-tense" triads in succession I alluded to before. This, of course, serves to drive the pace and embody Briony as a character at the same time, showing again the multifaceted role of the score in this film. As her "theme music", having the mysterious/suspenseful air (brought about by the frantic strumming of minor passages by the cellos and viola) seems to suggest that Briony - the (type)writer - is equally as complicated, quick/intelligent, and melancholy.

I could go on for hours writing about each individual song and how well it compliments the film but I've already far surpassed the word count for this project. As hard as it is to believe, this was me being concise. Anyways.. I can only hope that through the reading of this post a greater understanding was reached of the influence that music has on film. This is just one of the many reasons I hope to explore in this blog for why the novel-to-movie adaptation is so fascinating.  

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Cinematography

"The truth is that every experience, every feeling, every film you see, becomes part of the sensibilities you apply to making a movie." - Conrad Hall

Ci-ne-ma-to-graphy. Yeah. That's a mouthful... I used to watch the Oscars as a kid and couldn't figure out why they were celebrating a bunch of scientists at the same time as my favourite movie stars. When I finally figured out that making a career out of something that ends in "phy" doesn't automatically qualify you as a scientist I still got hung up on what it is they actually did. Well, if you were anything like me, it might help to know that cinematography is "the art of motion picture photography" and no, this isn't who they're celebrating when they hand out "Best Picture" awards either (I thought that too) Really though, that isn't a bad way to think of it. The way I like to see it the cinematographer and the director differ, for instance, in that the director "calls the shots" and the cinematographer "makes the shots"; that is, he sets out to make art with the visual aspect of the film. Being that a motion picture is literally a series of unique frames connected to create motion for the viewing audience, you could say that a movie is really just a "collection of photos". So, when compared to the literary medium, the cinematographer is really a "photographic author". The author makes his visual art with the "collection of words", and the cinematographer with the "collection of photos". With that said, in this blog post I attempt to take a closer look at the aspects of cinematography that contribute to the successful adaptation of Ian McEwan's Atonement to the motion picture.

Example 1:

The first photo from the film that struck me was actually the opening shot of the doll house in Briony's room. Having analyzed the themes of the novel thoroughly already, I immediately interpreted this as a symbolic demonstration of the playfully imaginative mind of Briony. Besides that though, it really just looks gorgeous.. That lighting, the bland colouring, symmetry - it all just works in establishing this theme of Briony's need for creativity in a world all too lifeless without much human contact.

The prop (and cinematographic focus) immediately becomes more symbolically relevant because we are showed soon after that the doll house is a perfect replica of the mansion she lives in. It seems quite blatant that there was a concerted effort for the shots to be almost identical when comparing the two which implies that the director wishes for the viewer to make some sort of a connection. This is almost to say that, like Briony's doll house, this world that her 77-year-old self creates in her novel is her own playground as well; the setting is the dollhouse of the author.

Example 2:

As the camera pans down, you start to think of just how wealthy and spacious the entire estate must be until it hits you: there they are, perfectly symmetrical in the frame are the two sisters who lay there on the emerald lawn - Cecelia on her stomach reading a book, and Briony lost in her thoughts as she watches the clouds. Between the two, the more striking of course being how bright Briony appears in her white dress, especially when placed beside her sister for comparison. I touch on the importance of this as you continue reading.
With the wealth of breathtaking shots in this movie, it didn't take me very long to be taken aback by the cinematography again. Actually, it came just seconds after the shot I just finished discussing when the camera scrolls down  to reveal Cecelia and Briony laying innocently on the lawn. 

What I find most interesting about this shot though is how it seems to comment on the personalities of the characters in much the same way the last pictures did:

For Cecelia it seems to suggest an air of apathy - on her stomach; as if to doze off - too disinterested to pay attention to Briony that she decides to place her thoughts elsewhere by reading. 

For Briony though, her artistic mind is most definitely content watching the clouds move across the sky, a hobby she must have become accustomed to in her years of solidarity. To quote Wordsworth: "I wandered lonely as a cloud". Maybe she can relate? Either way, "do notice her please", the photographer seems to say with this shot. How can you not when she stands out "continuous as the stars that shine" (Wordsworth)?

I'll stop right there, though. Only three minutes into the movie and a wealth of character development is felt without ever having to hear a sound. With that said, I think I've stumbled onto a perfect segueway for the next post I have lined up where I've decided to investigate how this sonic aspect of the movie compliments these visuals so well in a way only a movie can accomplish. I encourage you to explore these collections of photos - this scrapbook we may call Atonement - after you finish reading. There really is so much more to be seen. For me, I feel I can only quote Wordsworth again to sum up the experiences I've gained through this analysis when I say "What wealth the show to me had brought."

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