Form and Meaning

    The form and meaning of films are always important aspects when it comes to filmmaking. This is because it really sets the tone and mood of the film and is important when it comes to the audience and viewers of the film. When it comes to films based on drugs and drug use the meanings of the film ranges depending upon the movie and what meaning they are trying to convey. According to Nelson, “Style, in its broadest sense, includes all the important ways in which artistic "content" is expressed by the materials and forms of a given medium”. A film that I think is a good example of a film with meaning is, Thirteen (2003), directed by Catherine Hardwicke. This film looks at the story of a young girl who at the beginning of the film is an innocent thirteen year old who is a good student and rarely gets into trouble. Despite doing well in school, all she really wants is to become popular and fit in with the “cooler” crowd. Another classmate of her befriends her and right away you see a turn for the worse and from there it just a downward spiral of drug use, sex, crimes, etc. The story expresses meaning to young people who want to fit in and who do things for all the wrong reasons. As a viewer you get the sense of this young girl just completely breaking down and losing everything she has worked for because of her new found drug problem and substance abuse problem. This film really conveys the sense that the director really wanted to catch the attention of the viewer and almost scare them in a way. I believe that the director wanted to put you in the character’s shoes and feel what she had to endure throughout the movie. According to Cape, “Drugs and drug use have become embedded in the popular mythologies of Western culture… there is also a worldwide increase in the use of a number of drugs including amphetamines, hallucinogens and cannabis, with the age of initiation decreasing”. The implicit meaning of this film is that despite having to deal with the want to fit in it and dealing with the complicated life of an adolescent it does not mean to do things that you know are wrong such as drugs and to not cave in to peer-pressure. 

    The next film that I will be mentioning in this blog may not have as direct meaning as the previous movie that I mentioned, but definitely has an underlying meaning that you realize after watching the film. The film, Dazed and Confused (1993), directed by Richard Linklater, which was about several groups of students from both high school and junior high and their last day of school. This is a fun and exciting film that incorporates substance and drug-use, mainly just marijuana.  I believe that this film is an example of a film with symptomatic meaning because you get the sense after watching the film how you must value the time you have and learn from the mistakes you’ve made in your life. With this particular film they try to form the movie around relating the characters to common groups such as athletes, nerds, stoners, etc. Viewers get this sense of finding commonalities between the characters and themselves or maybe some of the people they knew growing up.

“Man, it's the same bullshit they tried to pull in my day. If it ain't that piece of paper, there's some other choice they're gonna try and make for you. You gotta do what Randall Pink Floyd wants to do, man. Let me tell you this, the older you do get the more rules they're gonna try to get you to follow. You just gotta keep livin' man, L-I-V-I-N”.

-Dazed and Confused

Nelson, T. (1979). Film Styles And Film Meanings. Film Criticism, 3(3), 2-17.

Cape, G.S. (2003). Addiction, Stigma and Movie. Acta Psychiatr Scand, (107), 163–169.