Motion in the basic and simple functions in a movie or artistic work is to break the monotony that could accrue from still scenes. When the actors and actresses move about during the film, it helps the viewer or the audience in general to accept and appreciate newer scenes that would be equally interesting. This is one benefit that the motion has over still scenes and still films, where all the scenes are acted, or role played in a still or stagnant place. The overriding disadvantage of motion is that the viewer or the audience may lose grip and control of what is happening especially when the motion is articulated in a swift manner (Badenhausen 7). Casual scenes, on the other hand, help the viewer or the audience as a whole to relax especially when tense scenes are preceding or succeeding the casual scene. It serves as a comic relief so that the viewer or the audience calms down their nerves and tension from scenes that arouse passion and tension on the part of the audience. On the contrary, too much casual could make a film or the production to lose the seriousness that would otherwise be accorded to the film. For instance, the overriding theme in the film could be downplayed by casual aspects in the film or the production.
Clothing as a costume speaks to the audience more and helps the viewer understand scenes that have not been articulated yet. For instance, if a person wears regalia that are similar to those that the King, queen and the royalty in general wear, then the viewer and the general audience would have been given the requisite heads-up. This is to inform the viewer and the audience of what to expect in the ensuing scenes. This means that the audience would understand that the person involved is royalty or not-if the dress code is less than what the king, queen and the princes usually wear. But when the actors wear masks then it is as if they are hiding something.
In the film and production Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, which was adapted and produced by the legendary Tyrone Guthrie, I find that the theatre setting or its designing gives the entire performance the feeling of a sacred ritual rather than a drama based on the Greek story (Porter, 19). The story in its original text is supposed to highlight the emotions and illusions in which human beings are involved. In general, I believe that the adoption was speaking to the viewers and the audience in general to believe that the “the following film with characters wearing masks is not real but rather an enactment of a sacrifice.”
All the actors speak with literal and artistic grace and clarity that makes the audience get the feel that the actors and the actresses are in control of the scenes that are ensuing. However, when the blind Tiresias, wears a mask and costume that speaks as a representation of a giant bird. The general performance of the original adaptation has the ritualistic sort which appears unreal because of the heavy laden of mask. The actors and actresses have the ritualistic dissertation implying how fate is not flexible. I am of the opinion that the film Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex ought to be a spectacular and awesome if the actors and actresses were articulate with the issues addressed above.
Works Cited
Badenhausen, Richard. "The Modern Academy Raging in the Dark: Misreading Mamet's Political Incorrectness in theatre College Literature (1998): 1-19.
Porter, Thomas E. "Postmodernism and articulation." Modern Drama 43.1 (2000): 13-31.
