SHOCK REVELATION SHOT IN STEVE MCQUEEN FILM SEEMS DIRECTLY INFLUENCED BY DE PALMA IMAGE
The images above from Steve McQueen's Widows, showing a character sabotaging his sham of a heist and blowing up a van to kill his gang of thieves and fake his own death, full of regret while holding the cell phone remote, seem directly influenced by the beautifully-rendered shot of Claire blowing up a car with Hannah inside of it, remote in hand as she turns her face toward the camera, from Brian De Palma's Mission: Impossible. While both shots come at a point late in each film, meant to shock the viewer with disbelief in what is being shown, there are differences in subjectivity.
In McQueen's film, we are seeing Liam Neeson's character recall the event in his own mind, seemingly filled with regret about the deaths he has caused. In the De Palma shot, we are seeing a subjective possibility within the mind of Tom Cruise's Ethan Hunt, which is why Claire (Emmanuelle Béart) hauntingly turns to look directly at the camera eye, looking at Ethan with a cold stare. Deeply in love with Claire, Ethan immediately tries to wipe that image from his mind, struggling to find a way that it could have been her husband Jim Phelps (Jon Voight) who did the dirty deed. In De Palma's film, the shot is static, and shown in slow motion. McQueen's shot is a choreographed slow dolly or zoom before the film cuts back to Liam Neeson in present day. Both shots are meant as a shock to the system, so to speak.
Updated: Sunday, February 17, 2019 10:07 AM CST
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