The Life of David Gale

I thought this clip did a good job not necessarily portraying different aspects of consciousness, but actually playing with the audiences. At the very end of this scene (perhaps it is even the beginning of the next one?) we see flashes of bold words across the screen which definitely play with our minds. We may not currently be thinking about "guilty" or "condemned," but once these words appear, we are immediately directed to focus on them. Perhaps this is information we have gained from earlier in the movie, or it could just be that we have subconscious assumptions about what these words mean. Even without the context of the rest of the film, our stored knowledge of these words and their social meanings, we draw certain conclusions about Kevin Spacey's situation. Consciousness combines sensation with learning and memory, and allows us to draw on lessons stored in memory. As an audience, we watched "stock" situations happen, which trigger specific emotions or cause us to draw certain conclusions based on what we've stored in our minds previously. I cannot even recall when I first learned that a dog barking at someone usually meant there was some sort of "impending danger," but that's one of the first clues I picked up on in the scene. Our consciousness involves attracting our attention, allowing us to use our senses in order to gain information, and then we use previous, stored experiences to make it all meaningful. My mind has equated "barking dog" with "beware." Music happens to have to same sort of effect. Our consciousness and the filmmaker's decisions to tap into it work together to successfully portray a situation in a stimulating way.

The behavior that David Gale was exhibiting in the front yard in the scene that we watched could have been acceptable behavior in another culture. Some societies are very community-oriented, while others are more individualistic. In general, Western societies such as the United States tend to be the more individualistic societies, where we have our own property lines, and we keep to ourselves. On the other hand, some Asian and African societies they are more community-oriented, where it could be perfectly acceptable for people to be in each other’s lawns hanging out.

I spent some time in northwest Africa last year, and have a good example of this type of community. We were visiting some widows in Burkina Faso, and at one stop, it was not only our team that was there, but pretty much the rest of the surrounding neighbors coming and visiting this one particular widow. It was nothing out of the ordinary for these individuals.

But I also wanted to comment on the use of the music in the scene too. I agreed that the music was picked just to spur on a specific emotion in us. I hate that music and those types of scenes, because they really stress me out. I am easily scared, and refuse to watch scary movies. It is just interesting to me that some people really enjoy watching thriller type movies. I wonder if there is something different about how our brains are wired, that pleasure centers go off in their minds at this type of scene, while my fight or flight sensors are blaring.

As we grow up, we learn to associate certain sounds and images with danger. This learning and conditioning occurs through various means, but one particularly influential medium for this conditioning is the media, specifically movies and television. Dissonant music in and of itself is not dangerous. Neither are train whistles. But, since train whistles signal an oncoming train, which is dangerous, they become frightening themselves. Our involuntary response to a nearby train (which is the unconditioned stimulus) is usually some mild form of fear or alertness. Since train whistles are always associated with trains, we may experience the same alertness or fear at the simple sound of the whistle. The whistle becomes the conditioned stimulus and the alertness becomes the conditioned response. Just as Pavlov’s dogs salivated at the sound of a bell, we become frightened (or at the very least aware of danger) at the mere sound of a train whistle. Dissonant music in movies can be viewed in the same manner. In nearly every scary or dramatic part of a movie, the same type of music plays. Quick, loud, and inharmonious sounds are often followed by something bad. As we grow up and watch more and more movies in which this happens, we begin to associate the music with danger. Fear becomes the conditioned response to the music, which is the conditioned stimulus.

In The Life of David Gale, the dramatic, jarring music we hear throughout the scene, topped off by the train whistle near the end of the scene, elicits a certain feeling of alertness and fear – we know something big, and probably bad, is going to happen soon. We have learned to expect bad things to come when we hear these cues. In psychology, particularly classical conditioning, this association can be viewed as a predictable relationship between the stimuli (unconditioned stimulus of danger and conditioned stimulus of sound).

I'm making somewhat of a jump here, but I'd like to talk more about the psychology of us watching this scene. As an extracted piece of a much larger whole, this scene is very interesting to analyze. We can pick apart the psychology in it, infer character traits and plot outlines, but all the psychology we perceive in it is just that: our own perceptions.

The truth is, for those of us who haven't seen the movie, we don't know who this man is, or where he is, or what's happening to him. To make these leaps, we use information that we already know, we use our own experiences to fill in the gaps. This may include labeling and subsequent stereotypes - for instance, we look at Kevin Spacey versus the man in the cowboy hat, and due to what we have gathered previously about moderately-dressed white men in suburbs and men in cowboy hats who drive pickup trucks, we make different judgments on what the two men are doing, or are likely to do.

And for those who have seen the movie, they use the information they have already gathered about who the man is, where, and what's happening to him to judge the scene. The scene itself, then, is sort of a trivial part of the activity because the results of its analysis depend completely on the analyst.

In our class discussion, before anyone really said "maybe he was having a rough day," people jumped to "abnormal" or "strange" or even "crazy." I think this shows that despite our information pool (be it our own experience or our knowledge of the film) we are more likely to make internal attributions on others, also known as the "fundamental attribution error." We can't understand what he's doing in the yard, or why he's behaving that way, but by pinpointing one of his internal characteristics (in this case, that he's "abnormal") we can easily understand it. And - as I mentioned before, as soon as we have made that attribution, we can use our stereotyping to make more judgments about him. If we make external attributions about him, "he's having a rough day," the situation is more complex.

The scene itself was very interesting, but out of context, it completely relied on our experience and information to make any kind of judgment.

I thought this scene was pretty interesting, and it was cool to hear about all the things that others in the class picked up on that I completely missed. Now, when I watched the clip, I concentrated intently on the sounds of the scene. There wasn't much talking going on (in fact there were only a few words spoken), so it made it easier to pick up on certain things. For instance, I thought there was a bit of editing and "movie magic" applied to certain areas. The first part of the clip I noticed this in was when the truck was pulling up to the house. The sound in the background was apparently the tires on a gravel surface, which made a crinkling sound. When I heard it the first time it seemed a little different than the sound I associate with a truck pulling up, and when I paid closer attention the second time it seemed even more artificial. It was almost like the sound crew crumbled a Dorito's bag after the scene was shot and inserted it into the film to give a louder, rougher sound of the truck pulling up. Whether this was actually the case or not, I can't say. However, it sounded to me like a crumbled chips bag, but in the context of the scene it made sense to probably everyone else that it was just the truck pulling up. I think some editing was also done to the door bell. It had a harsh, loud raspy sound, almost insinuating that danger lurks ahead. It was a tone I'd never heard before, which communicated to me that it was old and spooky, much like the house.

I believe these sounds, especially the "chips bag"/truck pulling up worked very effectively because of our schemas we possess and our conditioning. When I think of the sound of a vehicle pulling up, crushed gravel or sand under tires immediately comes to my mind. What I find fascinating is that the context of the movie convinced us that the sound in the background was that of the truck pulling up. It may well have been the sound of a chips bag, but since the truck was pulling up, it wouldn't make much sense, so our brain interprets it as being attributed to the truck. However, if the same sound was shown in a different scene, perhaps where a character is eating chips, we would perceive it differently. We have been conditioned to associate sounds to events, and even though the sound between two events may be the same, the brain will interpret it differently depending on the context. This effect is very similar to visual illusions, but in this case it is for the ears.

I'm really intrigued by the different forms of stereotyping going on in this scene. First, the stereotype of the man getting out of the pickup. My first impressions of this man came from his beat-up truck, his loose-fitting jeans, baggy t-shirt, hat, boots, and gruff-looking expression. His ominous stance at the door and the dark music in the background adds to his tough image and almost concretes his character for me. On the complete other hand, the woman walking the dog is well-dressed, clean, nice hair and make-up and the dog is pleasant. In addition, the woman at the house looks like she stepped right out of suburbia. (Nice house, clean cut yard, well-dressed, young well-dressed daughter, etc.)

My book talks about stereotypes as an energy-saving device for our brains. They help us quickly process new information and retrieve memories. We can organize our previous experiences and predict how these new people will behave. Stereotypes make a big impact in the media...either playing up the stereotypes (the cop checking out the car in the dark with his flashlight) or showing the opposite (the man swinging...usually stereotypical for a child). While we can sometimes predict people's behavior through stereotypes, we also have to remember than frequently stereotypes can lead us to jump to conclusions that are incorrect instead.

Because there is not much dialogue in these scenes, we must rely on our memory to determine what is happening. I have not seen the movie before, but for those who have, the previous scenes in the movie provide an idea about what is going on in the current scene. Therefore, those that have seen the movie use their memories of what has happened in the movie up to this point in order to put together what his actions mean and why he is displaying this behavior.

For those of us who haven't watched the movie before, we must also use our memories to try to understand what was happening, but in a different way. Because we haven't seen what has happened up to this point in the movie, we try to relate the characters actions to our previous experiences. For example, because he was laying with a stuffed lamb and also had a zebra at the end of the scene, we may infer that he is remembering his childhood, that he may have gotten the animals for a child, or that he just likes animals. Also, as brought up in class the other day,because of his actions, some of us may infer that he has a mental disability. On the other hand, there may be nothing wrong with him at all and he may just be an easy going guy who is enjoying himself on a nice day. There are many different ways that this scene can be interpreted because of the lack of dialogue.

This is where the music comes into play. Because we have experience with music, we know that this particular type of music isn't something that would be played while character is having a jolly old time. Instead, the eerie music creates susupense, and we know that something strange/bad is about to happen. Even though we may have no idea of what the movie is about, our memories help us put the pieces together to at least get a general picture of what is going on.

This is an example of effortful processing because it involves encoding that requires attention and conscious effort to understand what might be happening in the scene.

I agree with Mollie..we all made our own perceptions based on whether or not we have seen the movie and our past experiences. Because I haven't seen the movie, I had to rely solely on that scene, and the thing I found most interesting was the childlike tendencies of the character and in the scene in general. For example, the scene opened up with him playing with his stuffed-animal sheep. He also played on the swing and layed on his back in the middle of the yard. Then, a mother and her CHILD opened the door and asked him what he was doing. Towards the end of the scene, he was sitting in his car petting a zebra/unicorn/some striped animal! Finally, he tried to sleep in his back seat in the fetal position. As I mentioned before, since I have not seen the movie, I don't know if there is an obvious reason for this, but my hypothesis would be that he misses the innocence and simplicity of childhood and is reverting back to that by displaying childlike tendencies.

After we watched this scene in class someone commented that if the music was a happy, cheery tune in the beginning then we would have perceived the man differently in the front yard than the "this is kind of strange" feeling. Exactly right, I would've thought of the scene much differently if it had been that way. Our brains are constantly analyzing the information taken in and trying to make sense of it. With the music being the way it was, and only having this scene to go on, I thought a grown man laying out on his front yard and swinging was quite strange. It makes you want to find out why he is exhibiting a behavior normally seen in children, what happened beforehand, and what is going to happen next to try and figure this odd behavior out. But, if the music had a happier element to it, I would've just interpreted that part of the scene to be a man outside in his front yard reliving his childhood and left it at that. It kind of relates to the visual illusions shown in class, given the same visual stimuli, our brains can interpret it more than one way, sometimes choosing to see it one way over the other. Same applies to the movie scene, it's the same visual stimuli, but whatever musical background there is plays a huge part in determining how our brain interprets the information given.

I’m going to try and separate the fact that I have seen this movie from my interpretation of the scene we watched! First of all, I thought it was very interesting that, except for the woman questioning him, the scene is entirely wordless. I think the director wanted viewers’ interpretation of the scene to be influenced by the music playing and the appearance of the various situations. As we commented in class, the scene would have appeared much less ominous and strange if the music was lighthearted and cheerful. However, the ominous, depressing music in the background gave the scene a gloomy overtone and gave viewers a sense of dread about the upcoming events in the movie.
As far as the activities of the scene, I thought it was interesting that David was holding the child’s toy (a sheep) and swinging on a child’s swing. I think it was intended to give us the feeling that he is trying to reconnect with a long ago childish innocence and convince himself of his incapability of participating in the movie’s crime. At the end of the movie when the words flash across the screen, innocent and guilty are both words that are written on the torn pieces of paper. It’s as though the scene was designed to help us sympathize with David’s past innocence as he lays in the yard and swings on the swing, and then sense his guilt in the scene by the train tracks.
Also, I was struck by the parallelism that existed with the dogs. At first, you get the sense that the same dog is barking in both scenes, and then you realize it’s a different dog! I felt like the dogs were trying to give us a sense of warning … as though both of the men were approaching something dangerous or doing something they shouldn’t. The one dog was a friendly, playful breed, while the other one was much less friendly and potentially harmful. The one being walked by the older lady seemed to be observing the situation and trying to warn the man, while the other dog was trying to protect his territory.

I’m going to try and separate the fact that I have seen this movie from my interpretation of the scene we watched! First of all, I thought it was very interesting that, except for the woman questioning him, the scene is entirely wordless. I think the director wanted viewers’ interpretation of the scene to be influenced by the music playing and the appearance of the various situations. As we commented in class, the scene would have appeared much less ominous and strange if the music was lighthearted and cheerful. However, the ominous, depressing music in the background gave the scene a gloomy overtone and gave viewers a sense of dread about the upcoming events in the movie.

As far as the activities of the scene, I thought it was interesting that David was holding the child’s toy (a sheep) and swinging on a child’s swing. I think it was intended to give us the feeling that he is trying to reconnect with a long ago childish innocence and convince himself of his incapability of participating in the movie’s crime. At the end of the movie when the words flash across the screen, innocent and guilty are both words that are written on the torn pieces of paper. It’s as though the scene was designed to help us sympathize with David’s past innocence as he lays in the yard and swings on the swing, and then sense his guilt in the scene by the train tracks.

Also, I was struck by the parallelism that existed with the dogs. At first, you get the sense that the same dog is barking in both scenes, and then you realize it’s a different dog! I felt like the dogs were trying to give us a sense of warning … as though both of the men were approaching something dangerous or doing something they shouldn’t. The one dog was a friendly, playful breed, while the other one was much less friendly and potentially harmful. The one being walked by the older lady seemed to be observing the situation and trying to warn the man, while the other dog was trying to protect his territory.

I don't think I am very good at analyzing the psychological aspects in these clips we watch because I don't think I know enough about psychology. The main part that I draw from this clip in in the beginning of the scene, when the camera goes on Spacey, he is in a cruzifix position like Jesus. I think it was also really interesting that the scene was called "Death is a Gift". I don't know what the movie in about and I don't know why those two things would relate, I just think it is very interesting. I am very into learning about religion, why people believe what they do, the basis and history of religion, etc, so I would love to learn more about this scene and know why he did that. I just don't know what psychological principle that would be. Maybe he sees himself as a martyr, or that he is doing something great. I tried to find other religious scenes in the clip but I couldn't draw any out.

I loved the use of child-like toys and his child-like acting. Obviously there's a lot going on there, but I am not sure what. That's just not a typical way for an older man to act. Maybe he was reminiscing. I just thought it was really interesting.

Suggestion: I think we should watch some Donny Darco! (The knew one) We would have a hay day with that movie!

I thought I would focus on some biological psychology in this film and discuss the connection between sleep and light. Towards the end of the scene we saw in class, Kevin Spacey is sleeping inside a car and is awoken by an officer shining a flashlight in his face. One may wonder why it is that light can cause us to wake up or makes it difficult for us to fall asleep at times. It is true that we have been conditioned since we were very young to sleep during the night and be awake during the day. However, there is also a lot of biological evidence that light actually interacts with the nervous system in more ways than to just to form a visual image.

Light has been related to the hormone melatonin and the circadian rhythm. Exposure to high intensity light causes melatonin levels to decrease, while being in the dark increases the levels of melatonin. Light is recognized by cells on the retina and a signal is sent along the optic nerve to the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN), a group of neurons in the hypothalamus. The SCN can then signal the pineal gland in the hypothalamus to release the hormone melatonin which binds to a specific receptor on a neuron, causing us to feel sleepy. Melatonin plays an important role in our sleep and also our circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm is our body’s 24 hour “biological clock” that has affects on how alert and sleepy we feel, along with several other biological functions (body temperature, urine production, blood pressure). Exposure to light at odd times can disrupt the circadian rhythm. Some doctors have even used light to treat jet lag individuals who have traveled into different time zones. I did not find any information on how fast this reaction is or how vital melatonin is for sleep, but it seems possible that a quick flash of light could cause a quick drop in melatonin, resulting in someone waking up and feeling more alert.

http://healthlink.mcw.edu/article/922567322.html
http://www.umm.edu/altmed/articles/melatonin-000315.htm

The man in the beginning of the scene was acting in ways which seem strange. He was sleeping outside with a stuffed animal. He was swinging. These are childlike behaviors. These activities would seem normal and acceptable for a child in our society, but for a grown man it isn't. You can see this when the lady comes out and tells him to leave. Although he is acting childlike, he is not accepted to be with other children. The mother feels like she needs to protect her child from him.

The psychology going on with this man seems somewhat Freudian. One of Freud's ideas was that childhood experiences are very important to a person's development. Freud would use free association and Therapeutic alliance and transference to connect with a person's childlike ways. In a similar way, this person's actions were like he was trying to return to a childlike state. He seems rather confused and disoriented about his state of mind though. When he wakes up he looks at the sheep like he is unsure why he is with it. When he is on the swing, he is swinging erratically which is perhaps meant by the movie director to be a physical display of the erratic thoughts going through his mind.

On a different note, I thought the lady's choice of words were interesting. She asked him "can a help you?" Even though the words themselves don't seem like she is trying to get him to leave, the tone of her voice and the look on her face show what she really meant. She was frightened by his behavior and wanted to persuade him to leave. This is a phrase which our society has taken to mean something different than what is literally said. Being a part of that society, he knew what she meant and immediately left.

I'm having a really hard time tying this scene in to health psychology. I think the best thing I can find is these dramatic changes in his moods. I do think it is clear is has some kind of mood disorder or depression. My book, David Meyer's Exploring Psychology, states that depression is a response to past and current loss. It results in a
psychic hibernation" that slows people down, helps people avoid predators, builds support. Depression should not be confused with Major depressive disorder- which is a more chronic, more severe depression. He turns to alcohol in the end of the scene- which is common among those suffering from depression. I think that the beginning of the scene when he is swinging and laying in the yard shows the lethargic component of depression-he's clearly "checked out" from reality.