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There are bookshelves in the very first shot of Wes Craven's Scream, you guys! They're not in the very first frame - the camera starts on the telephone (natch) and then pans up to Casey (Drew Barrymore) answering the phone, but what should she be surrounded by? Shelves and shelves of books!
The bookshelves actually frame her for much of this rightly celebrated opening sequence - I've made reference before to the fact that I wrote a sixty-page paper on this film (and Freud, ha!) in college as my final thesis, and it's been a long time since I looked at that (I'm sure it's cringeworthy now) but I remember making mention to Casey hiding behind the television screen in this scene; I don't remember that I ever said anything about the bookshelves though!
So let's! This scene is about testing Casey's knowledge right? Do we think it's a mistake that Craven - who let's not forget was an actual English Professor before becoming a film-maker! - literally situates her smack-dab between a television screen and stacks of books at this moment? She tries to defend herself with a letter opener, for god's sake.
You might've stayed safe wedged there in your knowledge nook, Casey, but no you had to run out the door. Dumb-dumb. Anyway after that point shelves pop up sporadically over the course of the film -- tellingly for a movie so pointed (heh) in its dissection (hehehe) of High School Movie Tropes there's no typical scene in the school library - that scene is replaced by a scene at the Video Store!
This is where we get our knowledge from now, folks.
Look at the bookshelves at Billy's house
during the big party turned bloodbath:
Hardly any books at all - just stereo-equipment and CDs.
And we wonder why the kids are dying...
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1 comment:
wow, that's great, actually
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