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This article describes describes how Chris' POV throughout the film added to the film's message. The viewer really gets to see racism through the eyes of a black man in America. I used this source to help with my own analysis of Chris' character.

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Jordan Peele's fantastic film relies heavily on the sense of sight to amplify its racial horror.

Universal Pictures

This post includes spoilers for the entirety of Get Out.
One of the most popular promotional images of the new horror-comedy film Get Out is that of a young black man staring straight at the camera. Little details stand out about him if you look long enough-he's wearing a gray hoodie and T-shirt, there's a slight crease on his forehead-but these are otherwise hard to really notice because of his eyes, which are wide and wet and red and give the unmistakable impression of a person frozen in pure, cold fear.

As the protagonist of Get Out, Chris Washington tells a great deal of the story using only his eyes. This is of course a testament to the excellent work of the actor, Daniel Kaluuya, who plays him. But it's also evidence of the film's subtle obsession with ways of seeing-whether through cameras or through (literally) different pairs of eyes. Part racial satire, Get Out follows Chris as he meets his girlfriend's parents for the first time at their secluded home far from the city. The girlfriend, Rose Armitage (played perfectly by Allison Williams), is white, and Chris is a little nervous about how her family will react despite her reassurances to him ("They're not racists. I would have told you"). Throughout the film, the director Jordan Peele uses the sense of sight to amplify imbalances of power and control-imbalances often drawn along racial lines.

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Notably, Chris is a photographer, and apparently a very good and respected one. Get Out introduces viewers to him through his art: Before we even see Chris, we're shown black-and-white prints of his work on the walls of his Brooklyn apartment in a sequence set to Childish Gambino's "Redbone" (" Now don't you close your eyes ...). It's the kind of collection that could be reasonably described as "raw" and "honest," -unpretentious snapshots of New York streets and the diverse range of people who spend time there. The main plot quickly spins into motion as Chris and Rose set out on their trip, but in its first minutes Get Out has already established that Chris's profession-he is basically a trained observer-will be crucial to the rest of the story. What he notices, and doesn't notice, will take on a life-or-death importance.

Chris's job is an excuse for him to bring his trusty DSLR with him to the Armitage residence. Constantly slung around his neck, the camera functions as a kind of protective shield between Chris and the odd behavior he encounters-namely from the family's large group of white friends and neighbors, and their two black house-servants, Walter and Georgina. The camera simultaneously creates distance and closeness between Chris and his subjects; it's a way to both observe and to escape. It's through this lens that Chris manages to spot another black person (Lakeith Stanfield) at one of the Armitages' gatherings-but when Chris goes to introduce himself, the other man turns around with a glassy, far-off stare and introduces himself as Logan. From his eyes, it's immediately obvious something's wrong.

The trailer for Get Out hinted at one major way cameras might matter in the film. In one pivotal scene, Chris tries to take a photo of the oddly dressed Logan to send to his friend, who's worried for Chris's safety. But when the flash goes off it triggers a bizarre transformation: Logan's expression turns to fear, his nose begins to bleed, and he launches at Chris, screaming, "Get out!" It seems like an act of aggression, but Chris senses it's something else-it isn't until later that he understands Logan was trying to save him. It was hard not to watch that scene without thinking of how important camera phones and video recordings have been for many African Americans experiencing police violence-especially in light of an earlier scene in which Chris is the apparent target of racial profiling by an officer. Cameras, Get Out suggests somewhat plainly, have the power to reveal. It's no coincidence that photographic evidence later provides Chris with his biggest clues as he tries to uncover the Armitage family's secrets.

In many ways, Chris's camera is a mechanical extension of his own eyes. During the Armitages' big party, he wanders off with his camera and meets Jim Hudson, a white art dealer who is blind but who speaks glowingly of Chris's work. At that point in Get Out, the encounter offers relief: Jim doesn't seem quite like the other white people at the party, and Chris relaxes visibly in his presence after being ogled at and appraised by the Armitages' friends. His relative comfort comes in part from Jim's demeanor but also from Jim's inability to actually see Chris; as a result, the once-heightened difference of his race is diminished, if not fully erased. But like almost every moment of calm in the film, the scene is later revealed to be a big lie.

In the final harrowing act of Get Out, Chris has been hypnotized and strapped to a chair in the Armitages' basement. An old TV before him flickers on, and who else is there but Jim Hudson, lying in what looks like an operating room. Jim tells Chris the true nature of the mysterious process the Armitages are subjecting him to: transplantation. Tears fall from Chris's eyes as he realizes what must have been done to Logan, Georgina, and Walter, and what will soon be done to him-Jim's brain will be transplanted into his head, and Jim will take full control of his body, while Chris looks on from a corner of his consciousness. When Chris asks, "Why us? Why black people?" Jim scoffs, saying he couldn't care less what race Chris is. He has loftier, artistic reasons. "I want your eyes, man," Jim growls, in one of the film's creepier lines. "I want those things you see through."

It's a terrifying, revealing exchange in a film rife with terrifying, revealing exchanges. It is also of a piece with Get Out's broader social commentary, particularly its clear takedown of well-meaning white liberals and those who believe in a post-racial America. So, of course the man who wants to steal Chris's body from him is not only blind, but also "colorblind." He comes off as the kind of person who'd say he doesn't "see race" while caring very little about the wellbeing of black Americans.

But Jim wants something much more existentially fraught than Chris's artistic sensibility: He wants to possess the particular way that Chris views the world. I want those things you see through. In other words, I want to look at the world through your eyes. He wants to inhabit Chris's body for what he sees as its superior physical abilities. But it's hard to believe that Jim wants, or even fully grasps, any of the specific challenges or complexities that come with actually being black. To people like Jim, as Steven Thrasher noted in Esquire, "'black muscle' can be useful if separated from its black mind, emotions, and politics." And indeed, Get Out is broadly concerned with race and body politics, as others have thoughtfully written about.

Still, over the other bodily senses, vision has long been the most intuitive metaphor for discussing subjective experience. Just as the sense of touch is often evoked to discuss compassion or empathy ("I feel you"), vision is closely linked to a person's unique way of knowing the world. Peele himself has used the language of sight when discussing how he wanted Get Out to be an inclusive film: "You can ask a white person to see the world through the eyes of a black person for an hour and a half." It would seem a more casual word choice if not for how literally Get Out uses vision-via eyes or camera lens-to underscore Chris's very justified paranoia, discomfort, and fear in response to the story's white characters. Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody argued that, in radically portraying a world seen through a black man's eyes, Get Out also "contains some of the most piercing, painful point-of-view shots in the recent cinema."

There's much more to say about how Get Out continues or subverts the horror genre's tradition of weaponizing voyeurism and surveillance ( Cabin in the Woods, Saw, Scream, Psycho, and many others) or its preoccupation with cameras (the entire found-footage canon). But Get Out cleverly takes these tropes and uses them to unique, thought-provoking ends: to probe the very real anxieties produced by racism. Though the film is readily appreciated without deep analysis of its sight-related references, their effects are undeniably powerful-from the eerie stares of the Armitages' black victims to the hungry glare of Jim's eyes after he informs Chris of his fate. Get Out works perfectly well as a wildly entertaining scare-fest. But thanks to Peele's ingenuity it's also much, much more.

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unpretentious snapshots of new york streets

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The Meaning of Eyes and Cameras in 'Get Out'

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Jordan Peele's fantastic film relies heavily on the sense of sight to amplify its racial horror. This post includes spoilers for the entirety of Get Out . One of the most popular promotional images of the new horror-comedy film Get Out is that of a young black man staring straight at the camera.

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I used this source to learn about Du Bois' idea of double consciousness. This source explains how his idea relates to the film. I discuss this connection in the paper.

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Jordan Peele's directorial debut, the horror-thriller Get Out, was released last year to critical acclaim. The film was a box office success, turning a net profit of$124 million, becoming the tenth most profitable film of 2017 and one of the most profitable horror films in recent years. As a result of the film's success at the box office and with critics it won numerous accolades - the Academy Award for Best Screenplay, nominations for Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor, and at the British Film Academy Awards, Daniel Kaluuya was nominated for Best Actor in a Leading Role for his breathtaking and highly praised performance as the film's protagonist.

The film pays homage to many of the usual tropes of the horror genre, which keeps viewers on the edge of their seat, but what makes Get Out so compelling is its incisive social commentary and unwavering allegory for race relations in America, which succeeds in making its white liberal audiences feel extremely uncomfortable when coming out of the film. As someone who has never been a massive fan of the horror genre, these sociological observations made it an extremely fulfilling experience, and a film I can re-watch over and over again.

The basic premise of the film is that a young black photographer, Chris agrees to visit his girlfriend Rose's white, suburban, liberal family (neurosurgeon Dean, hypnotherapist Missy and creepy brother Jeremy) at their fancy estate in the middle of the woods. At the house, Chris notices strange behaviour from the Armitage's black workers (housekeeper Georgina and groundskeeper Walter), and has several awkward encounters with some more wealthy white people at the family's annual get together. It's suffice to say that from there, things get particularly disturbing.

There is so much in the film to analyse from a sociological standpoint. For example, the dozens of microaggressions and subtle comments about race displayed through the dialogue of the white characters ("I would have voted Obama for a third time if I could", "You know I met Tiger [Woods]", "So is it true, the lovemaking, is it better?") that are seemingly well intentioned, but actually show that the white characters in the film can only view Chris as a black man, and place his race as the sole component of his identity in relation to them. And these kinds of comments in the second act of the film, that foreshadow into the terrifying events of the third act, mirror how instances of misinformation and ignorance actually reflect deep-rooted and systematic oppression when looked into further.

When I reflected on the opening of the film, that's when I first made the connection to W.E.B. Du Bois' theory of " double consciousness". DuBois first wrote about this concept in The Souls of Black Folk and it describes the "internal conflicts experienced by subordinated groups in an oppressive society". More specifically it refers to the psychological challenge that African Americans faced of constantly having to view themselves through the eyes of a racist white society, therefore not only having their consciousness as a black person, but being hyper aware of how white people perceived them and their actions:

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, - an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder." (Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk, p.3)

The first scene of the film shows a young black man walking alone at night through a suburban street. A car shows up behind him and starts slowly following him. The man gets scared, and walks in the other direction but by then the car is parked and from out of nowhere a man in a helmet (who we later find out to be your frat-boy-worst-nightmare Jeremy) attacks the man and drags his body to the car. From the subtext of race relations in the film, Peele subverts the perceived fear from larger white society of an African American walking through their suburban neighbourhood, to envisioning black people as potential victims of violence. This can be examined through Du Bois' theory of double consciousness. This scene shows how ethnic minorities, black people in particular, would be aware of how their presence in a white suburban neighbourhood may be perceived by the residents of that neighbourhood, because of prejudiced assumptions, as well as just having the fear of racially aggravated physical assault and hate crimes.

However, perhaps the most striking connection to Du Bois' theory of double consciousness is seen when Chris is subjected to the "Coagula process". We discover that the beginning of this process is what we have been witnessing so far throughout the film and it comes to a head in the third act. It involves each member of the Armitage family performing different tasks so that neurosurgeon Dean can transfer the brain of one of the family's wealthy white friends into the body of a young black person (which is what would have happened to Chris but fortunately he manages to kill several members of the family, escapes and is eventually rescued by his best friend and the wonderful comic relief of the film, Rod from TSA). Part of the process involved hypnotherapist Missy performing hypnosis on Chris and relegating his mind to what she calls "The Sunken Place". We see how this works through the character of Logan/Andre, it pushes the consciousness of the black host to the very back, and they become a helpless observer as the new mind of the white person takes over. Through this, Peele demonstrates what double consciousness would look like in the hands of a dominant oppressive white society. The black mind is not seen as equal, it is colonised and put to the back. There is no "second sight" as the ideals of white society take over.

Finally, something that is not really explored in the film but is worth thinking about is the newer concept of "triple consciousness", which revisits Du Bois' theory but includes another intersecting identity that may impact on someone's experiences in society. For example, black women would have to view themselves not only through the lens of blackness and whiteness, but as a woman they would have to view themselves through the lens of the patriarchy also. It is interesting to wonder how the subtleties of microaggressions and the subtext of race relations would play out in the film if the protagonist was a black woman rather than a black man.

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Examining 'Get Out' through Du Bois' theory of "double consciousness" - Sociology in Film

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Jordan Peele's directorial debut, the horror-thriller Get Out, was released last year to critical acclaim. The film was a box office success, turning a net profit of$124 million, becoming the tenth most profitable film of 2017 and one of the most profitable horror films in recent years.

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I used this source to get more information on Rose's character. Her character had a huge shift later in the film. This source gives the directors perspective on the twist.

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No movie in 2017 garnered more positive word of mouth than Get Out, the result of unique storytelling, an idea that seemed to sadly resonate with the current environment, and a shocking twist. Here, writer and director Jordan Peele breaks down the big reveal, which he called his film's "hardest scene to shoot."
Click here for more Best of 2017 (Behind the Scenes) stories.
Move over, Seven and the mysterious box, because we've got a new iconic movie question to ask: "Where are those keys?!" Since Ashton Kutcher and Seann William Scott, perhaps no character has ever been more determined to get to a car than Get Out 's Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya).

From the beginning, something was off with the young African-American photographer's trip to the Armitage estate, home to his white girlfriend Rose's (Allison Williams) parents. Chris' disturbing therapy session with Missy (Catherine Keener), encounter with the man formerly known as Andre (Lakeith Stanfield), and the foreboding auction are all warning signs, but the cherry on the frightening sundae starts with the discovery of Rose's not-so-diverse dating history.

After finding pictures of Rose with numerous black partners, including Walter (Marcus Henderson) and Georgina (Betty Gabriel), Chris expedites his exit plan with Rose in tow. There's only one slight problem: She can't find the keys to their car. As she frantically looks through her purse, Jeremy (Caleb Landry Jones) blocks the door and Dean (Bradley Whitford) delivers a monologue about being "Gods." Chris repeatedly screams for an emotional Rose to give him the keys, eventually asking one last time. "You know I can't give you the keys, right babe?" a suddenly stone-faced Rose says as he she pulls the keys out. Chris' brief attempt to escape by brute force is quickly thwarted by Missy's spoon tap on her teacup, sending their visitor to the Sunken Place.

"This is an introduction of the person we didn't realize she was," Peele tells EW of the Rose twist. "It's hard to say why I chose to do it like that, but I think I was sort of backing into what I thought would be the most effective way to reveal the character to the audience."

For EW's Best of 2017 (Behind the Scenes) collection, Peele is pulling back the curtain on the pivotal scene of his Golden Globe-nominated film ( a total riot according to the HFPA) and addressing why he refused to allow the key moment to be tipped off in the trailer.

An open closet door catches Chris' eye, leading to the first of Peele's two reveals of Rose's true self. Despite the suspicious pictures, Chris tries to rush out of the house with his girlfriend.

"When he sees the photographs, the intention is that without enough time to process what that means, he knows that she's been keeping something very dark and very important from him," shares Peele. "He doesn't have time to think it through, but he knows she's evil, he knows at the very least she's part of the problem he's sensing. I wanted to make a movie that would have an intelligent protagonist in it, a horror movie where the lead does the right thing. And my first instinct when creating that was like, 'Okay, at that moment, you punch the girl and you jump out the window and start running.' [ Laughs]. But I wanted to make Chris a little bit smarter than that and that is to say, look, he's in the middle of nowhere, he could run, but they could catch him. And if there's a possibility that they don't know that he knows what he knows or that Rose doesn't, that if he just plays it cool, he can get out of the house without alerting them to the fact and getting a head start. So his goal at that point becomes, 'If I can get the car keys, I can get out of here.' That's his goal."

"It would be too reckless to go straight into violence," Peele explains, "and so, for the rest of that scene, I think there's a little bit of doubt in his head, or at least he's hoping there's something he's not thinking of. Maybe [Rose] was hypnotized by her mother, maybe these are all just past boyfriends of hers and she didn't tell him because she didn't want him to know. But as the scene progresses and she can't deliver those keys, he knows in his heart of hearts that it's not right. And the only thing that by the end is pushing Chris to continue to fight for those keys, it becomes less about the keys and more about communicating, 'I trusted you, you betrayed me, and now's the time to be real for once. So where are those keys?' He's resigned and the keys kind of became a metaphor by the end. His tragic flaw and his sin that he's been dealing with this entire movie is that when he was a child he felt like he abandoned his mother when she was in need. So this character isn't going to just run without knowing for certain that he doesn't have any family here."

With one line, Rose goes from a loving girlfriend to a stone-cold sociopath. Williams has to quickly flip the psycho switch and become a totally different character than the audience has watched for the preceding 70 minutes.

"We had been talking about that scene from the very beginning," says Peele. "Allison and I knew that if we played the movie right that would be a huge moment and it would be the moment where we meet the real Rose for the first time. And I think that's what's so chilling about her performance is that the real Rose in the matter of a line communicates that she has no remorse, has no love for this person, and even with the way she sort of waves at him and says, 'babe,' that there is a disdain for this character she's been sleeping with and pretending to be in love with. I think that was what's so chilling, this idea that you could be next to a sociopath and completely fooled. So what she did was go so dark so fast. And another detail she brought in was, we knew where the character was going and what the wardrobe would be later, and she said, 'I think after this reveal, Rose would pull her hair back up, because that's who the character is, and the second she can get this hair out of her face, she would go for it.' And obviously, I loved it and think it's such a chilling part that the character continues to take the costume off after that moment."

Due to the HFPA's classification, Kaluuya is nominated Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy, but he delivers a compelling dramatic turn, highlighted by his powerhouse performance in the emotionally draining scene.

"That was the hardest scene to shoot," admits Peele. "It was very hard for me to put into words exactly why we were going to be able to reveal this twist twice in a matter of four minutes. But I knew it would work, and I knew after the pictures happened up until the keys moment that we would be in a state of limbo where everyone involved is pretending that they don't know what's going on, but everyone knows what's going on and everybody knows that everybody knows what's going on. So it's this stalemate that is waiting for something to break the pattern and then the action can start. And of course the thing that breaks that pattern is Rose breaks character. The reasons the Armitages don't just come out and click the teacup right there is because Dean has a speech that he likes to make to the vessels, the victims. He likes to explain at least a little piece of the ideology of this group and that's important to him as the patriarch of the family and the weird twisted spirituality that has gone into this procedure. So once he's done and says, 'We are the gods trapped in cocoons,' that is essentially the cue that now we can take him down basically."

He continues: "So for Daniel's performance, we did several takes and each take I was trying to rev him up more and get him to this point where he was going to essentially lash out for the first time in the film. He's been so patient, he's been so contained, he's suppressed so many uncomfortable emotions throughout the movie that this is going to be his chance to lash out in the form of yelling at Rose. I sort of equated it to, there's a scene in Donnie Brasco where Al Pacino is sitting in a car with Johnny Depp's character and Pacino sort of realizes that he's taken this guy under his wing who looks like he's probably an undercover cop. And Pacino looks at him, he's holding his gun to Johnny Depp, and Depp's like, 'What are you doing?' and Pacino says, 'If you're a rat,' and he points the gun toward his own head. And it's this moment that's very powerful to me because it was a moment where it's like, 'I know what you did and you're going to have to say what you've done, but my emotion and my rage is going to be clear in this performance.' We did it several times and it was only the last take that he approached nearly that level of raw emotion. And so it was a very emotional day and I pushed him and pushed him and pushed him and when he gave that performance, I just knew the whole thing was just going to be magical."

In a recent Hollywood Reporter roundtable, low-budget horror film mastermind and Get Out producer Jason Blum revealed that he and Universal wanted the dangling of the keys in the initial trailer. Despite their wishes and testing suggesting they should leave it in, Peele insisted it be withheld. "He was dead right," admits Blum.

"I think there are all sorts of reasons why you might give away certain plot points to entice an audience," Peele says. "But I felt like keeping that twist hidden would be a better experience for the audience, and it would also get an audience leaving the movie to say to their friends, 'Yo, you have to see Get Out and I don't even want to say another word, you just have to see it.' And that to me is always the best way to get me into a theater, if someone says, 'I can't even tell you, you just have to see it.' I had done so much work to protect that twist - we all had - that I would lay down on my sword for that twist."

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Best of 2017 (Behind the Scenes): Jordan Peele goes inside that shocking 'Get Out' reveal

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No movie in 2017 garnered more positive word of mouth than Get Out, the result of unique storytelling, an idea that seemed to sadly resonate with the current environment, and a shocking twist. Here, writer and director Jordan Peele breaks down the big reveal, which he called his film's "hardest scene to shoot."

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I used this source as a reference when analyzing Georgina and Walter's characters. This source does a good job at breaking down what the deeper meaning behind the characters is. I was able to gain a lot of insight after reading this article.

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Behind Georgina and Walter: The Most Complex Characters In 'Get Out' - Blavity

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Everyone's talking about Jordan Peele's fictional horror movie, Get Out. Employing ingenious comedy and unexpected thrill, director Jordan Peele uses this film to highlight race relations between whites and blacks in twentieth-century America. The movie exudes a genius not seen before.

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The Armitage home reminded me of southern architecture, so I wanted to learn more about the specifics of architecture in the south. This article breaks down specific features that southern homes have. I was able to use this to make the connection between the Armitage home and southern roots.

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Get the Look: Southern-Style Architecture

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Learn how to recognize and appreciate Southern-style architecture in its many variations

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This article explains how cinematography was used to further the message of the film. When watching the film, the cinematography really stood out to me. This interview with the cinematographer allowed me to learn his intentions with the cinematography.

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From the moment the first trailer for Get Out dropped, we knew this was going to be something special. We were beyond excited to see comedy genius Jordan Peele ( Key & Peele) take on a horror movie and the final product exceeded all our hopes. Get Out travels from poking fun at the insecurities of race relations in America to dramatizing the terror of racism in a way that has critics becoming philosophers as they try to unpack Peele's genius for tackling sensitive subjects with humor, horror and intelligence.

Australian cinematographer Toby Oliver wasn't familiar with Peele's humor, but after reading the script, he knew the story of Get Out would resonate with audiences. Oliver masterfully framed the psychological thriller that gripped audiences with a whiplash of perfectly placed laughs and scares. His work skillfully lulls the audience into a false sense of security until it's too late to realize you're already in "the sunken place."

We spoke with Oliver about Get Out's timely social commentary, setting the scene of the beautifully creepy Armitage estate, creating the nightmarish moments with Walter and Georgina, and more.
Tickets were sold out for four showings the night I went, and I got lucky when they added a 5th showing. Why do you think there was such a huge response to Get Out?
I think it's really so much about the timing of a movie like this. The social issues and the race issues in the movie are points of discussion today, politically. It's also a really well done piece of entertainment. It's a horror movie, it's got a great cast and crew and a terrific script. People know Jordan from his comedy work. Now he's doing something really quite different. And I think all of those things together somehow have created this perfect storm that make people really want to see the movie that everyone's talking about. It's hard to quantify what's going to be a successful movie. You put all those elements in there and hope for the best.
What attracted your attention to work on Get Out?
The movie holds true to Jordan's script that I read when the movie was in early prep. It's one of those scripts where you read it and, coming from Blumhouse, you obviously know it's going to be horror or a thriller, but it really was intriguing. I didn't know that it was going to have all those elements in it. It's set up like a Meet the Parents kind of scenario, but actually it turns out to be more of a psychological thriller and then develops into a horror. So it really has a unique journey with unique themes that we don't see very much in the horror genre. It's by no means a typical horror movie. Get Out has a strong social commentary that's being wrapped up inside a horror movie storyline. That makes it, to me, completely unique, and gives the movie a lot more gravitas. It gives the movie a sense of being a powerful story that needs to be told. Sometimes horror movies are really there to be entertainment for a couple of hours and then that's kind of it. Get Out is not that kind of movie. It carries a lot more weight.

Rose (Allison Williams) connects with boyfriend Chris (Daniel Kaluuya) in Universal Pictures' Get Out. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin
When we arrive at the Armitage estate, it's a beautiful summery day. Why didn't you decide against the usual foreboding of a house of horrors?
That was really deliberate. That's an idea that we talked about in pre-production before we even got anywhere near the set. We really wanted Chris' world in the city to feel really natural and real and when they arrive at Rose's estate, it would be very warm, a golden glow to the outside and also the inside of the house. It would feel very inviting and very welcoming. When the parents meet him on the doorstep and invite him in and show him around, everything feels nice and inviting and friendly, and we want to reflect that in the color and the lighting. Underneath, something very weird and strange is going on, which Chris slowly starts realizing. The color and the light lull the audience into a false sense of security. We sort of push that all the way through the party scene to the auction scene.
Not long after Chris and Rose arrive, the place feels totally creepy. How did you achieve that without the rain and thunder and darkness we're used to seeing in horror films?
We didn't want to arrive at the house and have it look like a real spooky haunted house that was a scary, rainy, dark sort of place. They were the complete opposite, making him feel at home and a part of the family, since he was going to be a part of the family. And a different part of the family later on. Certainly after the scene that night when he tries to leave and says, "Rose, we've got to go," and she can't find the keys. That's when we started playing around with the lighting and starting to make it creepier. Rose is trying to find the keys and Bradley Whitford's character, is at the fireplace with this creepy fire reflection in his glasses and there's a weird light coming from below. It's little cues like that that start creeping you out. At that point, Chris really knows he's got to get out. This whole family is really crazy. I started playing around with the lighting from that point on and it swung over to more of a horror movie-type feel.
The nighttime scene between Chris and Walter was so startling without making us feel like they were stumbling in the dark. How were you able to do that scene?
Even when it's supposed to be dark and scary, I'm trying to capture a certain sense of beauty, even though it might be a terrifying beauty. The script didn't really call for him to be stumbling around in complete darkness. It wasn't quite that kind of a horror movie. I actually decided to use colors. I had some special gels that I put up on the lights we were using to light up the estate. We used cyans and greens to give the light a slightly unusual texture and tone, and then it's just finding the right places to put the light. For the Walter scene, we had a very large lamp way off in the distance pushing through the trees so that when Walter is moving toward Chris, he's sort of weaving in and out of the shadows as he was coming toward him. You couldn't quite be sure who he was until he got up close. That was something that I decided to do very early on and it ended up working pretty well.

Betty Gabriel as Georgina in Get Out. Photo Credit: Universal Pictures
What type of lenses were you using? There were some really cool and creepy shots like the scene between Chris and Georgina.
We had a set of zoom lenses, which is what Jordan wanted to use. When things were getting weirder or some of the characters were behaving a bit strangely, like Georgina, I let the camera push in quite close to her face and used a wider lens than you would normally use on a close-up. That scene in the bedroom when she unplugs Chris' phone and slowly walks toward him and starts almost bursting into tears in an internal struggle is a really intense scene. We ended up shooting it with the camera literally inches away from her face, moving back as she's slowly moving forward toward him. We used that method a few times during the movie when things are getting really strange. We used it when Chris is strapped into the chair in the games room. We pushed the camera quite close onto his face as he realizes this nightmarish world he's in. It puts the audience in a slightly uncomfortable position. The audience can sense how close you are to the actor, to the character. It's a bit more intense than just shooting it in a standard sort of way. Tools of cinematography are used like that when it's appropriate, but I always like to make sure that when you do things like that it's fully motivated and justified by what's happening in the story or happening to the character.
Featured image: Chris Washington (Daniel Kaluuya) is the guest of a very odd garden party in Universal Pictures' Get Out. Photo Credit: Justin Lubin

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Get Out's Cinematographer Reveals the Methods Behind Jordan Peele's Brilliant Madness | The Credits

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We're sharing some of our favorite interviews of the year this week in our 'Best of 2017' roundup. From the moment the first trailer for Get Out dropped, we knew this was going to be something special. We were beyond excited to see comedy genius Jordan Peele (Key & Peele) take on a horror movie ...

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The sunken place is a big part of the film. This article gives the directors POV in the sunken place. There are many interpretations on what the sunken place represents, including the directors intentions seemed important.

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(Spoiler warning: Don't read if you haven't seen "Get Out.")

A great many things in writer-director Jordan Peele's horror satire "Get Out" have become cultural touchstones that will live on as go-to metaphors for the racial divide in America. But the single most talked about aspect of the film has been "the sunken place."

What is the sunken place? Superficially, it's a brainwashing technique. See, in "Get Out," a young black man visits the family of his white girlfriend, experiencing an increasingly ominous series of microaggressions, until the reveal comes: He has been lured there to be kidnapped, sold into a form of slavery, and lobotomized so that his body can be hijacked by the white person who purchased him. Part of what makes it possible is a kind of hypnosis, which separates the consciousness of the victim from control of the body.

Also Read: 'Get Out' Perfectly Explains Racism Concepts to People Who Don't Get It (Commentary)

It's particularly horrifying because it works as a metaphor for not only the literal history of slavery, but for cultural appropriation and the use of social niceties to enforce social hierarchies. But as Peele explained Thursday on Twitter, "the sunken place" has bigger implications.

We're all in the Sunken Place.

- Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 17, 2017

"We're all in the Sunken Place" he tweeted.

Soon after, he elaborated on what that means. "[W]e're marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us."

The Sunken Place means we're marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.

- Jordan Peele (@JordanPeele) March 17, 2017

The "sunken place" has become an expression of frustration for people who feel more marginalized than ever in the age of Trump. None of that is an accident, it seems, as Peele made clear when he retweeted one of his followers.

...as long as Trump remains president. I finished the sentence for you. https://t.co/sd9NyvgK2D

- Nickisah (@ImTasha_ImTrini) March 17, 2017

Now you know.

17 Movies With 100-Percent Fresh Ratings on Rotten Tomatoes (Photos)

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'Get Out' Director Jordan Peele Explains 'The Sunken Place'

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(Spoiler warning: Don't read if you haven't seen "Get Out.") A great many things in writer-director Jordan Peele's horror satire "Get Out" have become cultural touchstones that will live on as go-to metaphors for the racial divide in America. But the single most talked about aspect of the film has been "the sunken place."

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Before looking at the IMDb page, I wasn't aware of the names of all the cast members. I really wanted to include the names of the cast in my paper. This source details the entire cast.

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This source talks about how the political climate at the time of release impacted the movie. The Trump presidency caused a huge change in race relations in America. I use this source when discussing the huge impact that the film had in the media when it was released.

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In 2015, when Jordan Peele was polishing his script for Get Out, Barack Obama was president and Donald Trump was a late-night punch line. By the time Peele's thriller about racial hypocrisy arrived in theaters last February, Trump had been inaugurated and the way the country talked about race was changing.

"The movie was written in the Obama era, which I've been calling the post-racial lie," Peele said after a Vanity Fair screening of Get Out at the NeueHouse in Hollywood on October 26. "We were in this era where the calling out of racism was almost viewed as a step back . . . Trump was saying that the first black president wasn't a citizen . . . There was this feeling like, 'You know what, there's a black president. Maybe if we just step back, [Trump] can say his bullshit. No one cares. And racism will be gone.' That's the era I imagined this movie would come out in."

Instead, Get Out opened when discussion about police brutality against African Americans was rife, and there was a surge of neo-Nazis and hate crimes. The film-which stars Daniel Kaluuya as a black photographer who reluctantly agrees to meet his white girlfriend's parents-became both a critical and box-office sensation, collecting more than $253 million worldwide. "By the time the movie came out, people were ready to engage in thinking about [racism], and what better way to do it than with a popcorn movie," Peele said.

Now the filmmaker is sharing Get Out with awards voters and continuing the conversations. Speaking to an audience of talent and filmmakers at Vanity Fair's screening, Peele and his film's producer Jason Blum, as well as actors Bradley Whitford and Betty Gabriel, told the unlikely story of the movie's success.

"When I heard what it was about, it was a forehead-knocker," said Whitford, who plays Get Out 's self-consciously liberal white patriarch, one of the movie's layered villains. "Thrillers are about things you can't talk about-sex, death. Then I read it and I was like, 'Oh god, why am I being cast as this person?'"

Peele cited The Stepford Wives, Rosemary's Baby, and Night of the Living Dead as the types of movies that inspired him to use genre to tackle a thorny social issue. "If you do a lecture about race or some social issue, people feel like maybe you're talking down to them, like you're forcing your views on them," Peele said. "If you lead with entertainment, if you get the laugh, if you get the scream, if an audience is propelled to stand and cheer because something happens, then the point is already made and the audience is left to think about why that happened. What truth did that hit on? The moment the police car shows up at the end of this movie, we all know what's going to happen. The fact that we all know what's going to happen is the point. That's the catharsis."

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Jordan Peele on the "post-racial lie" that inspired Get Out

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In 2015, when Jordan Peele was polishing his script for Get Out, Barack Obama was president and Donald Trump was a late-night punch line. By the time Peele's thriller about racial hypocrisy arrived in theaters last February, Trump had been inaugurated and the way the country talked about race was changing.

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This source details the racial themes in the film. It talks about how Peele uses horror to show how scary racism is. I used this source in my intro to discuss this idea.

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Get Out is a horror film about benevolent racism. It’s spine-chilling.

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Jordan Peele’s directorial debut shares DNA with other classics of horror in the best way possible.

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This source serves as a guide to decoding deeper meaning in films. It details what to do before, during, and after the viewing in order to analyze the film. I will use this source when I am conducting my own analysis of 'Get Out.'

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In this source, writer and director of 'Get Out' Jordan is interviewed by the New York Times. This source will help me learn his own views on racism, which is a big theme in the film. Learning his own views will help me gain an understanding of the film's intended message.

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Jordan Peele, who is making his directorial debut with the horror film "Get Out." Credit... Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times

The sketch comedian takes on racial politics and the "liberal elite" in his debut feature, the horror movie "Get Out." Here, he talks about his life and work.

Jordan Peele, who is making his directorial debut with the horror film "Get Out." Credit... Elizabeth Weinberg for The New York Times

No serious fan of the sketch comedy show "Key & Peele" will be surprised that Jordan Peele (the shorter half of its starring duo) is making his directorial debut with a horror film. Their acclaimed Comedy Central series may have been best known for President Obama's "anger translator," but it often lampooned scary movies with a specificity that could come only from a connoisseur of things that go bump in the night. (No one has made a funnier parody of "The Shining.")

In his new movie, "Get Out," he plays the scares straight, writing and directing the rare horror movie that tackles racial politics head on. In a scenario that has been described as "The Stepford Wives" meets "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," Chris (Daniel Kaluuya), an African-American photographer, is about to meet his white girlfriend's parents for the first time when he's rattled to learn that she has not told them he is black. His anxiety increases when her father goes out of his way to tell him that he would have voted for Mr. Obama for a third term and when the forced smiles of the parents' exclusively black servants start seeming a little uncanny. Racial micro-aggressions and ominous signs (bad dreams, dead animals) mount, as this fish-out-of-water story takes a foreboding turn.

"Get Out" is not the first horror film to confront race. In 1968, right after the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., " Night of the Living Dead" resonated with audiences and some critics by presenting a black man's torment by a mob of white zombies before he is killed by law enforcement. Other horror movies like " Candyman" and " Ganja & Hess " have explored miscegenation and assimilation, but Mr. Peele said he set out to make a movie that exposed "the lie" of a post-racial America, one that grew after the election of Mr. Obama.

In an interview at a hotel bar near Columbus Circle, Mr. Peele, who turns 38 this month, recalled the time his white girlfriend took him to meet her parents, discussed why he wanted to make a horror movie for black audiences and explained why the movie takes aim at, in his words, the "liberal elite." Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.

Video

Jordan Peele narrates a sequence from his film. Credit Credit... Justin Lubin/Universal Pictures

What do horror and comedy have in common?
The best comedy and horror feel like they take place in reality. You have a rule or two you are bending or heightening, but the world around it is real. I felt like everything I learned in comedy I could apply to this movie.
When a rule bends, how do you keep horror from becoming comedy?
In horror, the second you have people doing something you know they wouldn't do, you lose the audience. With "Get Out," what needed to be believable was the protagonist's intentions. Why he's there. I followed the "Rosemary's Baby"-"Stepford Wives" model of inching into this crazy situation and alongside, justifying how the character is rationalizing staying.
Ira Levin, who wrote the books those two movies are adapted from, made the audience question if the protagonist was paranoid.
I use that exact same device. This movie is also about how we deal with race. As a black man, sometimes you can't tell if what you're seeing has underlying bigotry, or it's a normal conversation and you're being paranoid. That dynamic in itself is unsettling. I admit sometimes I see race and racism when its not there. It's very disorienting to be aware of certain dynamics.

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Keegan-Michael Key, left, and Mr. Peele on their show, "Key & Peele." Credit... Mike Yarish/Comedy Central

Not at all. Black people who want to do comedy go into standup, where our heroes opened a lot of doors. Improv doesn't have a ton of heroes that you can look to. Chris's experience is very close to mine.
Did you draw on personal experience meeting a girlfriend's parents?
I had a Caucasian girlfriend a while ago. [He's now married to Chelsea Peretti.] I remember specifically asking if the parents knew I was black. She said no. That scared me. It turned out to be totally fine, but I didn't want to even see an adjustment on someone's face when they realized it's not what they thought.
The most painful memory for Chris is watching television as a kid when he thought he should have been with Mother at a critical moment in her life. Did you intend to make watching television a source of guilt?
It's a metaphor for his inaction, and a feeling of guilt where he neglected his family. The fact that the entertainment industry is not necessarily inclusive of the African-American experience is a similar form of neglect and is a symptom of a deeper problem. I wanted to make a film that acknowledges neglect and inaction in the face of the real race monster. In the process, I wanted to give a horror movie to everyone, but really to black audiences, who are loyal horror fans. We watch movies, screaming, "Get out!" in dark rooms at this screen that we cannot affect. It's a symbol for that, which stops us from action.

That's a big piece, but it can't only be representation, because women have been similarly underrepresented. It's such a touchy subject. The way we talk about race seems broken.
"Night of the Living Dead" is one of the few classic horror films about race, but its director, George Romero, said he didn't intend it to be.
I partially believe Romero, but even if that's true, the way that movie handles race is so essential to what makes it great. All social norms break down when this event happens and a black man is caged up in a house with a white woman who is terrified. But you're not sure how much she's terrified at the monsters on the outside or this man on the inside who is now the hero. Also, the end of the movie, that's nothing if it's a white dude.
How would you compare that 1968 film hero to Chris?
Theoretically, their racial perspective is the very skill that helps them. You could write an interesting essay about how the lead in "Night of the Living Dead " is a man living in fear every day, so this is a challenge he is more equipped to take on than the white women living in the house. Chris, in his racial paranoia, is onto something that he wouldn't be if he was a white guy and there was a similar thing going on.

It did. I was making the movie in that period when Trayvon [Martin] was [killed]. What originally started as a movie to combat the lie that America had become post-racial became a movie where the cat is out of bag, and now we're having this conversation. I realized I had to shift it a little bit. It became less about trying to create wokeness and more about trying to offer us a hero out of this turmoil, to offer escape and joy.
Do you think different things scare black and white audiences?
We did one test for this film, and I noticed a striking similarity with the way people experienced it. That brings me a lot of joy. I wanted to make something that has a perspective that you don't often see, but I also wanted it to be an inclusive movie. That's the power of story and genre. You can ask a white person to see the world through the eyes of a black person for an hour and a half.
What was the first movie that really scared you?
"A Nightmare on Elm Street."
There are two schools of thought on that franchise - some fans enjoyed that Freddy increasingly made funny quips, and others thought it hurt the movies. Where do you fall?
As a child, the funnier that Freddy got, the more scared I was. That was an interesting era for horror. The big characters were the monsters. It was more about the audience relating to the killer. We were given the knife as the audience. So when Freddy became funnier and funnier, it was disturbing to me. There was this expectation that I was supposed to identify with him and love it when he killed somebody. As a kid, I was not there.

Yes. At the same time, I feel the movie is more relevant. The liberal elite who communicates that we're not racist in any way is as much of the problem as anything else. This movie is about the lack of acknowledgment that racism exists. In the Trump era, it's way more obvious extreme racism exists. But there are still a lot of people who think: We don't have a racist bone in our bodies. We have to face the racism in ourselves.
Comedians can get nervous if minutes go by without a laugh. Do you feel that way about scares?
A really good horror movie has like three good scares these days. I started off with 20. The first thing I did was make a list of my favorite types of scares in movies, and I said, if I can get 20, I'll have a classic.
What's on your favorite scares list?
I think the greatest scare in horror is turning the corner in "The Shining" and finding the girls at the end of the hallway. It's the same scare as when you first meet Hannibal Lecter. You come down the hallway, and he's just waiting for you. It's the protagonist in motion and something waiting for him, patiently and calmly. Those are so chilling to me. The plane in "North by Northwest" [chasing Cary Grant's character]. One of the great things you can do in movies is fool someone into seeing depth. When you see the plane far away, and it gets closer and closer, it changes your breathing.
In "Key & Peele," Keegan-Michael Key once asked you what scared you most. You made a joke. What's the real answer?
Human beings. What people can do in conjunction with other people is exponentially worse than what they can do alone. Society is the scariest monster.

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Jordan Peele on a Truly Terrifying Monster: Racism

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The sketch comedian takes on racial politics and the "liberal elite" in his debut feature, the horror movie "Get Out." Here, he talks about his life and work. Jordan Peele, who is making his directorial debut with the horror film "Get Out." Credit...

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This source describes some of the things to look for when analyzing a film. I will use this source as a guide for what to watch for when viewing 'Get Out.' Knowing what to look for will help me outline my own analysis.

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The Writing Center * University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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What this handout is about

This handout introduces film analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching film analysis assignments.

Writing the film analysis essay

Writing a film analysis requires you to consider the composition of the film-the individual parts and choices made that come together to create the finished piece. Film analysis goes beyond the analysis of the film as literature to include camera angles, lighting, set design, sound elements, costume choices, editing, etc. in making an argument. The first step to analyzing the film is to watch it with a plan.

Watching the film

First it's important to watch the film carefully with a critical eye. Consider why you've been assigned to watch a film and write an analysis. How does this activity fit into the course? Why have you been assigned this particular film? What are you looking for in connection to the course content? Let's practice with this clip from Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958). Here are some tips on how to watch the clip critically, just as you would an entire film:

Give the clip your undivided attention at least once. Pay close attention to details and make observations that might start leading to bigger questions.

Watch the clip a second time. For this viewing, you will want to focus specifically on those elements of film analysis that your class has focused on, so review your course notes. For example, from whose perspective is this clip shot? What choices help convey that perspective? What is the overall tone, theme, or effect of this clip?

Take notes while you watch for the second time. Notes will help you keep track of what you noticed and when, if you include timestamps in your notes. Timestamps are vital for citing scenes from a film!

For more information on watching a film, check out the Learning Center's handout on watching film analytically. For more resources on researching film, including glossaries of film terms, see UNC Library's research guide on film & cinema.

Brainstorming ideas

Once you've watched the film twice, it's time to brainstorm some ideas based on your notes. Brainstorming is a major step that helps develop and explore ideas. As you brainstorm, you may want to cluster your ideas around central topics or themes that emerge as you review your notes. Did you ask several questions about color? Were you curious about repeated images? Perhaps these are directions you can pursue.

If you're writing an argumentative essay, you can use the connections that you develop while brainstorming to draft a thesis statement. Consider the assignment and prompt when formulating a thesis, as well as what kind of evidence you will present to support your claims. Your evidence could be dialogue, sound edits, cinematography decisions, etc. Much of how you make these decisions will depend on the type of film analysis you are conducting, an important decision covered in the next section.

After brainstorming, you can draft an outline of your film analysis using the same strategies that you would for other writing assignments. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you prepare for this stage of the assignment:

Make sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to do. Remember that this is ultimately an assignment, so your thesis should answer what the prompt asks. Check with your professor if you are unsure.

In most cases, the director's name is used to talk about the film as a whole, for instance, "Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo." However, some writers may want to include the names of other persons who helped to create the film, including the actors, the cinematographer, and the sound editor, among others.

When describing a sequence in a film, use the literary present. An example could be, "In Vertigo, Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection."

Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save you time when compiling citations. But keep in mind that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual product (and these differences might be a topic of discussion!).

Go beyond describing basic film elements by articulating the significance of these elements in support of your particular position. For example, you may have an interpretation of the striking color green in Vertigo, but you would only mention this if it was relevant to your argument. For more help on using evidence effectively, see the section on "using evidence" in our evidence handout.

Also be sure to avoid confusing the terms shot, scene, and sequence. Remember, a shot ends every time the camera cuts; a scene can be composed of several related shots; and a sequence is a set of related scenes.

Different types of film analysis

As you consider your notes, outline, and general thesis about a film, the majority of your assignment will depend on what type of film analysis you are conducting. This section explores some of the different types of film analyses you may have been assigned to write.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotic analysis is the interpretation of signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters within a film. Because symbols have several meanings, writers often need to determine what a particular symbol means in the film and in a broader cultural or historical context.

For instance, a writer could explore the symbolism of the flowers in Vertigo by connecting the images of them falling apart to the vulnerability of the heroine.

Here are a few other questions to consider for this type of analysis:

What objects or images are repeated throughout the film?

How does the director associate a character with small signs, such as certain colors, clothing, food, or language use?

How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects, that is, what is the relationship between the film's signs?

Many films are rich with symbolism, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Remember to bring a semiotic analysis back around to answering the question "So what?" in your thesis.

Narrative analysis

Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. This type of analysis considers the entirety of the film and the story it seeks to tell.

For example, you could take the same object from the previous example-the flowers-which meant one thing in a semiotic analysis, and ask instead about their narrative role. That is, you might analyze how Hitchcock introduces the flowers at the beginning of the film in order to return to them later to draw out the completion of the heroine's character arc.

To create this type of analysis, you could consider questions like:

How does the film correspond to the Three-Act Structure: Act One: Setup; Act Two: Confrontation; and Act Three: Resolution?

What is the plot of the film? How does this plot differ from the narrative, that is, how the story is told? For example, are events presented out of order and to what effect?

Does the plot revolve around one character? Does the plot revolve around multiple characters? How do these characters develop across the film?

When writing a narrative analysis, take care not to spend too time on summarizing at the expense of your argument. See our handout on summarizing for more tips on making summary serve analysis.

Cultural/historical analysis

One of the most common types of analysis is the examination of a film's relationship to its broader cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts. Whether films intentionally comment on their context or not, they are always a product of the culture or period in which they were created. By placing the film in a particular context, this type of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts different types of relations, whether historical, social, or even theoretical.

For example, the clip from Vertigo depicts a man observing a woman without her knowing it. You could examine how this aspect of the film addresses a midcentury social concern about observation, such as the sexual policing of women, or a political one, such as Cold War-era McCarthyism.

A few of the many questions you could ask in this vein include:

How does the film comment on, reinforce, or even critique social and political issues at the time it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?

How might a biographical understanding of the film's creators and their historical moment affect the way you view the film?

How might a specific film theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist Theory, or Marxist Film Theory, provide a language or set of terms for articulating the attributes of the film?

Take advantage of class resources to explore possible approaches to cultural/historical film analyses, and find out whether you will be expected to do additional research into the film's context.

Mise-en-scène analysis

A mise-en-scène analysis attends to how the filmmakers have arranged compositional elements in a film and specifically within a scene or even a single shot. This type of analysis organizes the individual elements of a scene to explore how they come together to produce meaning. You may focus on anything that adds meaning to the formal effect produced by a given scene, including: blocking, lighting, design, color, costume, as well as how these attributes work in conjunction with decisions related to sound, cinematography, and editing. For example, in the clip from Vertigo, a mise-en-scène analysis might ask how numerous elements, from lighting to camera angles, work together to present the viewer with the perspective of Jimmy Stewart's character.

To conduct this type of analysis, you could ask:

What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?

How does this scene represent the theme of the movie?

How does a scene work to express a broader point to the film's plot?

This detailed approach to analyzing the formal elements of film can help you come up with concrete evidence for more general film analysis assignments.

Reviewing your draft

Once you have a draft, it's helpful to get feedback on what you've written to see if your analysis holds together and you've conveyed your point. You may not necessarily need to find someone who has seen the film! Ask a writing coach, roommate, or family member to read over your draft and share key takeaways from what you have written so far.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout's topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial. We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. 1988. L'analyse Des Films. Paris: Nathan.

Media & Design Center. n.d. "Film and Cinema Research." UNC University Libraries. Last updated February 10, 2021. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/filmresearch.

Oxford Royale Academy. n.d. "7 Ways to Watch Film." Oxford Royale Academy. Accessed April 2021. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-watch-films-critically/.

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Film Analysis - The Writing Center * University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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What this handout is about This handout introduces film analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching film analysis assignments. Writing the film analysis essay Writing a film analysis requires you to consider the composition of the film-the individual ... Read more

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This source talks about some of the symbolism used throughout the 'Get Out' film. I will use this source to gain a better understanding of the deeper meaning behind the symbols used in the film. Understanding the symbolism in the movie will help me better understand the film as  a whole.

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It's been a week since the release of the critically-acclaimed thriller Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele. *If you haven't seen Get Out yet, beware of spoilers ahead.*

With this film, Peele veers sharply from his usual lane of comedic genius and brings the terror of being Black in America into focus. Each scene gets creepier than the next as the main character Chris realizes there's something very strange about his White girlfriend's family and their obsession with Blackness. The movie gets so intense, you might have to watch it twice to catch all the symbolic meanings and tropes weaved into the film. Or...you could let us break it down for you.

Let's start unpacking it all, shall we?

From bars to restaurants to musicals, interracial couples give us all the details and discuss the initial chemistry they felt on their first dates.

Writer. Pop culture junkie. Popeyes loyalist.

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We Need to Talk About All of the Symbolism in Get Out

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It's been a week since the release of the critically-acclaimed thriller Get Out, written and directed by Jordan Peele. *If you haven't seen Get Out yet, beware of spoilers ahead.* With this film, Peele veers sharply from his usual lane of comedic genius and brings the terror of being Black in America into focus.

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This article describes how the movie 'Get Out' tackles systematic racism. This source will help inspire my own analysis of the film. It will help me better understand some of techniques used to portray the message throughout the film.

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Jordan Peele discovered halfway through the making of " Get Out " what story he wanted to tell: A horror-thriller for black audiences that delivered a searing satirical critique of systemic racism.

"The writing of (' Get Out') started with me starting to make my favorite horror-thriller that's never been made before," Peele said Wednesday during a keynote conversation at Variety's Inclusion Summit. "Halfway through writing the project is when I realized what it was actually about."

Moderated by Variety chief film critic Peter Debruge, the conversation focused on how Peele approached the making of his first feature film. Before "Get Out," Peele was known as a comic, a sketch artist from his time on Comedy Central's "Key and Peele."

Peele said he wanted to make a film for black audiences, who gravitate toward horror films but often are frustrated with unrealistic decisions made by lead characters. Using "The Amityville Horror" as an example, Peele said the white family remained in the house despite suspicions it was haunted. A black family, he said, would have been long gone at the first sign of spookiness.

"The black audience goes to watch horror-thriller and we are usually very vocal about not getting the movie that we want," Peele said.

But it wasn't a supernatural force, nor a knife-wielding serial killer that would provide the most scares in "Get Out." The film's monster is systemic racism, in this case portrayed through the white characters.

"You find the insidious qualities that white liberals have," Peele said. "The gut punch of the movie is ultimately meant to say that racism is a human problem and the 'woke' people know not to call themselves 'woke.'"

The "sunken place" that the lead character falls into when he's under hypnosis, Peele said, was a metaphor. It's "this state of marginalization that I've never really quite had a word for," he said. "The sunken place is the prison-industrial complex, it's the dark hole we throw black people in."

The metaphor also extends to the multiplex. "The sunken place is the theater that black people are relegated to watching horror movies on the screen. We can scream at the screen but we're not going to get represented on the other side," he said.

Speaking more broadly about the success of films featuring previously untold stories - like "Hidden Figures," which told the story of the black women integral to the U.S. space program - Peele said the common thread was freshness.

"Time and time again you realize that the more truth you're hitting on that people haven't seen put in this way, the more successful it is," he said.

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Jordan Peele on How He Tackled Systemic Racism as Horror in 'Get Out'

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Jordan Peele discovered halfway through the making of " Get Out " what story he wanted to tell: A horror-thriller for black audiences that delivered a searing satirical critique of systemic racism. "The writing of (' Get Out') started with me starting to make my favorite horror-thriller that's never been made before," Peele said Wednesday during a keynote conversation at Variety's Inclusion Summit.