A notable moment is when Ron is asking her to come over to his place for the first time. As they are talking about him leaving and he first asks her to go with him the film alternates between medium close ups of the two characters but after he asks it cuts to a medium shot of Cary. As she emotionally distances herself and makes the “right” decision not to go the camera distances itself as well. Another interesting thing about this moment is that when she starts to change her mind Ron gets closer to the camera making it a close up on him, this is a repeating occurrence when Ron is reaching out to Cary and she is struggling to welcome it.
We also see the camera getting progressively closer during the first scene in the mill as it builds up to their kiss. As they start talking about Ron’s future with the girl of his choosing it goes from a wider shot to medium shots and then right before the kiss as Cary almost makes the decision to leave the camera moves in and the characters simultaneously move closer to the camera making it a medium close up. It then cuts to a close up of Cary as she pulls away from the kiss and you see her realize what she has done and make the decision to turn around and walk away. The editing and the shot composition together build up the tension to the kiss, demonstrating the tension occurring between the characters, and then gives us access to Cary’s reaction.
We move again into a medium close up when Ron first proposes. Throughout their entire deliberation of marriage the shots are medium close ups until Cary makes the final decision that the idea of marriage was silly and they are over. Immediately after that line she moves away and there is a match on action as it cuts to the next shot, a long shot, showing her forced detachment while we still have a medium close up on Ron who is still trying to work it out, similar to their conversation before.
When Cary comes back to the mill after seeing the effect her relationship has had on her children we get another moment where Cary leaves, during a long shot, and when we cut back to Ron it is a close up showing, again, him reaching out to her and wanting to be with her but she can’t do it. This is one of the longest close ups we get of Ron and a moment that in my opinion, gives us the most access to his character. We see him start to seemingly cry after Cary has left with his head I his hands, one of my critiques of this movie is that we don’t get a lot of emotional access to Ron, we don’t see him make decisions, but in this moment we truly see how much Cary leaving his life has affected him.
There is a specific moment I want to point out where this moment is reverse, at the Christmas tree market. The shot of Cary is a medium close up as she is opening herself up now that she has seen him again. Ron, however, is still in a medium shot, which makes sense when we see the other girl come up to him. From Cary’s perspective their situations have been reversed, Cary is ready for them again but Ron has moved on, even if we later find out that’s not true.
The last moment I will touch on is the ending. As Ron wakes up we finally have both of them in close ups with neither of them pulling away or distancing themselves. This shows the viewers that while we might not see them get married or see Ron recover we know that they are finally on the same page and both ready to be together.
Hi Meredith,
I found your analysis of how the different shot types throughout the film reflect Cary and Ron’s feelings towards each other, to be super interesting. I really agreed with your insight about how the camera would go closer to Ron when Cary’s feelings toward him started to magnify. I thought this was interesting when I saw the film, as I read this as Ron is now taking up more of Cary’s head space and we are more focused on him. I thought that this method of reflecting shifting emotions was very useful and increased the film’s continuity all together, as I felt that I was getting a personal insight into either Ron or Cary’s mind when the camera would switch to the other.
I also like how you discussed the scene of Ron and Cary discussing their relationship in front of the window and really liked your insight with how the medium wide shot showed their distance. However I wish you highlighted the color in this scene. The contrast of the warm reds illuminated by the fireplace behind Ron, stood in stark contrast to the cold blues of the snowy window behind Cary. Not only was this visually striking but it also further displayed their distance, and the mismatch of their emotions. We see Ron’s continued passion matched by the fire behind him, as well as Cary growing cold to the idea of their marriage due to the societal and familial pressure it has put her under.