Second example

Lottie is described as an obstinate, spoiled child in the original novel. The following scene which is also present in the book serves as a good opportunity to explain Lottie's character to the viewers. A simple monotonous recitation of the action would not be enough. The description in the book is also rather general and a sequence of distinct actions must be developed from it.

frame 1

Poor Miss Amelia! Whatever she tries, Lottie's wails will not stop. Her failed attempts to console Lottie make her even more precarious. She does not even suspect that Lottie continues just because of her attempts to comfort her.

frame 2

"Watch ou..." Too late. You know, the phrase "kicking and screaming" can be taken literally here. This action is not present in the book. We will soon see, why this is so.

frame 3

Ouch.
The situation is this: the description says that Miss Amelia also threatens to use force although she does not really want it. So she is rather undecided and her efforts are a mixture of coaxing and strictness. The book does not provide any further information, especially concerning what really happens.

frame 4

This is the reason why Kurokawa made Lottie kick Miss Amelia. It would be difficult to imagine that someone threatens with a beating for no reason. Of course Miss Amelia does mean no real harm. She is much too good-natured for that.

frame 5

You know, Lottie is very well aware of what happens around her. If you keep an eye on her, you will see that she occasionally checks her surroundings by briefly opening one eye. It is necessary to inform herself because she needs more reasons to justify her cries.

frame 6

Miss Amelia's raised hand is a welcome excuse for Lottie to continue the uproar. Although she does not really has to fear to be beaten she can accuse Miss Amelia of cruelty nevertheless. It is no surprise then, that Miss Amelia loses all energy soon afterwards and despondently sinks down. So we reached our goal.

What was the goal again? Both Lottie's character and Miss Amelia's shakiness have been sufficiently described. She could try the two methods to cope with Lottie (and failed doing so). The two themes have been integrated into the scene in an ideal way. And besides that it was clearly shown how stubborn children deal with helpless parents. Needless to say that force should be never a solution.

Many thanks that you held out up to here. ^_^ But there is still a little more than that, although you might think that everything has already been said. I have introduced many aspects of directing and I think you now get a good picture of a director's work. But I still want to go more into the details. Film-making is full of delicacies and a director needs to do much precision work. Such polishing is not really necessary but it adds much to the atmosphere as you can see on the next page, which has the a bit mysterious title "Parts of the whole". But things will soon clear up.

  1. Some examples
  2. The three-dimensional dilemma
  3. To tell a story
  4. Parts of the whole
  5. Forgotten anything?

Back to the introduction
Taro Rehrl (e-mail), 1998-09-20, 2002-08-17