Minority Report Spider Scene Analysis

In the narrative Minority Report directed by Steven Spielberg, he uses different cinematography techniques in order to portray and enhance the dystopian genre that creates this film. Two of these techniques include the use of sound and camera angles. They are each used to complement one another as the events that take place are used to capture emotion and thought from the audience who may be watching. Through the different camera angles that are used, whether it be birds eye or close up, are used to tell a story. Birds eye shots are used to show how much technology controls and corrupts the minds and bodies of the people who live in this society. In this specific scene we see the animatronic spiders in search for the main character, John Anderton. To do this they must go through many rooms in the apartment, which the viewers are taken through with the use of a birds eye shot. These rooms hold everything from a couple in a heated argument, to a man sitting on a toilet, to a couple making love, which I believe parallels the fighting to the love making in the narrative quite well. They invade the small amounts of privacy that the members of society have, that technology hasn’t consumed and stripped away from them. The spiders are used to scan the eyes of them to find who they need, meaning they have to infiltrate their corrupted minds. Not only does this particular shot show how privacy is taken, it also shows the types of places where these people live and how the government has taken hold of basically everything. Houses, cars, jobs and worst of all; the people. They are living in a world in which they are no longer independent for the objects they ‘own’

There are important sounds which are used in this scene, that are made by the spiders and the music. This is their small feet walking upon the wooden floors, but shown as being louder, and the screeching sounds that are used when they believe they have found someone. The sounds being louder than in reality of the feet on the pannels have deliberately been used by the dirctor to show their influence on this part. This is shown when John is lying in an ice bath, and a bubble is created and emphasised when it pops. This is when the sound is amplified and suspensful music is used to show that this is crucial in the scene. There is then a close up shown on John showing fear in his eyes and how the spiders hold more power and a higher social status than he does. This effects the viewer through showing how much technology, over time, has actually taken hold of us and how much we rely on it. The portrayal of technology in this scene, does hold some truth for todays world, through how much control a phone or another piece of technology has over the human race. There is also irony in this scene alone through when we see the spiders climb over the bath to find John, and we see it from a point of view shot. It is expressing how they are the ones controlling anything or anyone that is deemed human. The audience get to experience how technology holds a higher status above the ones who should be mastering them, not just through a visual sense but also in a realistic sense. Fear is created through this when the music becomes louder the tension builds higher and higher. This is highlighting how these people don’t actually have any freedom which can be cross referenced in todays world being so dependent and attached to the screens in front of us.

Technology is used in this film to keep the society and the people in order. It expresses how much power technology actually has begun to have over everybody. The spiders in the film hold technological and humanistic traits because of how often it is used as days go by. This is showing the viewers how technology isn’t just something that we sometimes use, or sometimes rely on in our lives, it has become us. It is no longer just deemed as being useful or a want; it is a need.