Trey Edward Shults' transcendent It Comes at Night opens with a surprisingly brutal death. Bud, Sarah's father and Paul's father-in-law, has fallen ill and died from a mysterious disease that has ravaged the Earth. Fearful of succumbing to the disease, Paul, his wife and teenage son rush to bury and subsequently burn his grandfather. Infection would mean death. After getting rid of Bud and starting to cry for Bud, the family returns to their normal routine until their life changes again when they are awakened in the middle of the night by a man rummaging through their food supply, hoping to find some food for his wife and small child. Will, as he is later called, explains his dire situation to the generous family and they agree to help him, but only if he agrees to move his family to Paul's safe house, deep in the woods and hopefully away from any trouble . Will's family arrives and Paul immediately informs them of the rules he and his wife have established for the house: everyone will follow a routine, everyone will do their fair share of work, no one will open the red door and under no circumstances will anyone go out at night . The two families quickly adapt to this routine, but when the red door is mysteriously opened in the middle of the night, tensions rise and tempers flare. This selected scene depicts their heated conversation, leaving the viewer on the edge of their seats. Three elements are vital to this scene: purpose and/or occasion, composition, appeals, and presuppositions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Reflecting on the genesis of the idea for the post-apocalyptic It Comes at Night, Shults noted: “At the time I was grieving as I was writing. I had a difficult relationship with my father; I hadn't seen him for ten years and he became ill of pancreatic cancer. I was with him on his deathbed and he was so full of regret. It was a life-changing thing. Two months later, I started writing and it came out of me in three days." ) This is vital to understanding not only the writer's motivations, but also to understanding the dark tone and themes of his work. Although It Comes at Night is a deeply dark and not optimistic film, it is not without significant themes. Shults made the film with a painful death in mind. Death is first highlighted in one of the film's earliest images: the 1562 painting The Triumph of Death, which depicts the brutal effects of the bubonic plague on a less advanced human race. . The symptoms of the disease depicted in the film mirror the symptoms of the bubonic plague: vomiting black liquid, gangrenous flesh, and discoloration of the skin. Simply, this is meant to demonstrate that history, from the plague to the events depicted in the film, repeats itself. In essence, Shults chose the painting for both personal and cinematic reasons. In the scene, both families argue about who opened the forbidden red door. Before Will's family arrived, Paul's family led seemingly normal lives, mostly free of the vile disease. By all accounts, they were one of the last bastions of humanity. But, after the arrival of Will's family, they fall into the same state of the world: mean, violent, barbaric and mistrustful. The idea of ​​history repeating itself links to Sigmund Freud's idea of ​​a death drive, otherwise known as Thanatos (the Greek god of death). Psychology Today describes what the death drive seeks “The death drive seeks destruction, the return of life to an inorganic state” (Berry). Illness and death are inherently destructive events.The anarchic actions of humans often lead to homicidal behavior, suicidal behavior, or even something as simple as verbal harm, demonstrating the incredible power of the death drive. Compositionally, the best aspect of It Comes at Night's pivotal dinner table scene is the way it uses light—or lack thereof—to tell its story. In the disease-ravaged world of the film, electricity is no longer a viable option to provide. So, Paul's family resorted to using battery-powered lanterns as their main light source. The conversation has two sources of light, both indirect and direct. Indirect light comes from a lantern hanging in a hallway; the direct light of a lantern placed in the center of the table. The shadows this creates add to the ominous tone of the film and highlight the dark situation they find themselves in. Likewise, the fact that in one case Andrew and in another Paul are in silhouette intensifies the mystery of the situation and the character, which adds a rich subtext to the film (Berdan). That is: can and should Paul and Will's family trust each other? Drew Daniels, the film's cinematographer, uses the camera to add depth to the film. Throughout the scene, the camera is fixed on the subjects, suggesting that there is a certain stability even if the situation they find themselves in is precarious. The scene begins with an over-the-shoulder shot, suggesting that the audience is watching the two families talk. This adds suspense to the scene and ensures that the viewer becomes involved in the discussion. We continue to observe the discussion from the same perspective, but after Travis makes the accusation that Andrew, Kim and Will's young son, may have opened the door, we cut to an over-the-shoulder shot of Sarah and Travis. During this exchange, the camera is level. The power dynamics on the scene have not changed; the director is simply using over-the-shoulder shots and the stoic camera to create tension. The next shot, a side profile of Paul, serves much the same purpose as the aforementioned shots: to create tension by giving the audience a bird's eye view of what's going on in his head. The power dynamics of the scene finally shift again after Travis reveals that Andrew had a nightmare, a key and tell-tale symptom of the disease. Paul knows that if Andrew is infected, there is a significant possibility that he has infected everyone else, so his mood changes. Next, the camera is positioned behind and above Andrew, making it clear that he has no power in the situation. The patriarchal Paul sits directly across from Andrew; Paul looks down on Andrew and the camera (and therefore Andrew) looks down on Paul. It is clear: Paul is in a position of power and controls every aspect of the situation; Andrew is not in control. While the next shot of Andrew is mostly unremarkable, the next shot of Paul is cinematically and rhetorically rich. First of all, it is an extreme close-up, which foreshadows the importance of what Paul is about to say. It's also a low angle shot, reinforcing the idea that Paul is in a position of enormous power and is a dominant force to be reckoned with. That said, the close-up of Paul is perhaps the most important shot in the film because everything changes after his appearance. However, we quickly cut back to Andrew to reveal his reaction, only to quickly return to over-the-shoulder shots for almost the rest of the clip. This allows the audience a brief respite from the built-up tension. However, the clip ends on an eerie note: with Paul, in silhouette, looking down at each person, scared of whatit could happen (New York Film Academy). This all relates to the Freudian idea of ​​the id, or basic human instinctive desires. Everyone in the clip acts in a way that seeks to preserve their own personal interests (especially those of their family and their own safety). More specifically, however, it refers to the Freudian concept of eros, or the fervent drive to live. Paul and his family make the decisions they do because they want to prosper while the world suffers and because they don't want to die (Kazlev). In fact, the camerawork in the film serves two very important purposes: to solidify the fact that Paul is in power and to show that the relationship between the two families is mistrustful, dominating and toxic. A great film expertly uses the camera to tell its story; It Comes at Night is certainly no exception. Likewise, a good film uses sound to convey its message. In every film there are two levels of sound: what the characters say and what happens in the background. In the selected clip we hear each of the characters talking, ambient noises in the background, but no soundtrack. The fact that there's no soundtrack – just characters talking and ambient noises – is important because it shows both how ordinary the conversation they're having is becoming and because it adds to the tension of the scene. Another brilliant compositional element of the clip is its editing. The editing, particularly after Paul accuses Andrew of having the disease, is focused, controlled and measured, heightening tension and underlining the film's theme. The sound and editing combine not only to heighten the tension of the scene, but to illuminate how phallocentric, or male-dominated as Lacan describes, the disease-ravaged world of Paul and Will's (Bressler) family. The concept of phallocentrism is rooted in relation to his concepts of the phallic stage of development (the third stage of development which occurs from ages three to six and sees children realizing that their genitals can be a source of pleasure) and the subsequent development of the Oedipus complex, which constitutes a central event in the development of the child's personality. The development of the Oedipus complex causes the child to fixate on the parent of the opposite sex and see the parent of the same sex as a rival for the affection of the parent of the opposite sex (Kazlev). Although the film's audience is a general audience that is able to decipher a layered and complex film (that's why the film is brilliant: it relies on the viewers' intellect to solve the film and explains nothing), It Comes at Night does appeals to the emotions of its viewers by showing that kindness is often repaid by negative behavior and betrayals. He also argues that people should only trust their own family. Almost everyone in the world has a living family, so this is a brilliant, exceptionally relatable theme that appeals to emotions and logic, also called pathos and logos, respectively. The film predominantly uses pathos because it shows very realistic people in extremely realistic situations, but it also uses logos effectively because it shows that when people have logical thoughts and rules (such as the rule that no one can go out at night), they thrive; when they have illogical thoughts, they do not thrive. These emotional and logical appeals are believable because the film shows the devastating negative consequences of trusting people other than one's family and showing that people are intrinsically interested in themselves, and secondarily in their family first (such as Kim who refuses to accept that his son may have opened the door because he was suffering from the disease, thus endangering the lives of everyone present in the house). If the movie had..