It is true to say that a film without any kind of symbolism would be rather vague and not as intriguing. It is also quite normal or rather obvious for film directors to employ the use of symbolism in the films they direct to emphasize a particular point. Hardie (2001), in quoting Don Frederikson, states in his research, “A symbol is alive only as long as it is pregnant with meaning” (p.377). Whether something is a symbol or not greatly depends on what the observing audience perceive. Between a film’s obvious message, cool graphics and special effects, it’s easy to miss the more subtle point a film is getting across. For example, some obvious blockbuster movies caused so much excitement among people that only the surface meaning of the movie was understood. They include:
Wizard of Oz.
This movie is a metaphor for maintaining the gold standard in the US, over paper currency or silver based currency. Oz is the unit of measure of precious metals while silver (Dorothy’s silver slippers) meant that farmers wanted the value of a dollar to be a balance between gold and silver, a monetary issue at the time.
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Ace Ventura: Pet Detective
There is a subtle hint given as to Detective Einhom’s true gender as shown by the apples in the bowl.
Vertigo
This movie employs the use of spirals to represent the dizzy feeling you get when you suffer from that condition.
Of these three, the symbolism in Vertigo was the most enlightening. This is because the title of the movie is a well-known medical condition. However, the storyline itself alludes to the sense of imbalance, which is a clear symbolism of the imbalance that exists within most of the characters in the movie due to one reason or another. This revelation truly added to my enjoyment of the film as I now had a deeper understanding of what exactly the director intended to allude. This just goes to prove that it is often the ignored parts of the movie that indeed hold water and could change the whole concept of the movie.
References
Hardie, A. (2011). Symbolic Cinema & Audience Engagement. Participations: Journal of
Audience & Reception Studies , 9 , 375-391.
