Themes in Chicago Hope - Tribute to Alfred Hitchcock
Chicago Hope is a TV Drama. The show uses camera shots and angles', lighting, dialogue and characters to portray the attitudes and values of the director. These are also used to push across themes. The values and attitudes that are strongly pushed across in this episode are Relationships, Law and order, gender and race and Men's health. A major relationship that is focused upon in this episode is the one between Dianne and Margaret, who is supposedly Dianne's lost mother. The fact that Margaret gave Dianne up for adoption at birth means that this reunion will be a very delicate one. The close up of Dianne in the car before she gets out the car to met her mother shows her feelings and makes it known that this is an important moment for both mother and daughter. The extreme close up when Dianne says "I'm the daughter" shows us the full impact of the statement and it makes us feel for Dianne and what she is going through at that moment. When Dianne is in the bathroom and she opens the cabinet it frames her face, when she closes it and there are two figures in it. We are filled with shock, and the suspense of what will happen to her next keeps us involved and interested in the show - the music that is playing
Another issue portrayed strongly by the character Phillip Watters is that of men's health. Dr. Watters says early in the show "If its not broke, don't fix it", this tells us that he wont have a check up of any sort unless there is something wrong with him. If we read more into his we see that he is just too scared that something may be wrong and he doesn't want to have to deal with it so he wont have a check up. When we see the scene with Dianne and Billy getting out the car we have no idea where they are. A low angle shot is used to look up at Dianne then we look straight at a grave. This is done to make us pay attention as something important is coming up that the director wants you to take notice of. Dianne says " It was never about what she was like, it was about her finding out what i'm like" there is a close up of her face to show that she is sad that her mother never knew what she was like and therefore could never be proud of her. As Doctor Wilks keeps telling Phillip to get 'scoped' we see them both in a medium shot, when Phillip answers we get a close up of his face so we can see his resistance to the idea. At the end of the show when Phillip has agreed to be scoped we see Dr. Wilks eye looking through a telescope of some kind and we here Phillip asking if everything is all right. We don't know but we have a suspicion of what he is looking at, it turns out that it was not what we thought and that this was the director adding humor to a subject that is very tense to men. Earlier on in the story when given a medical excuse for why Shawn killed someone, Jack doesn't want to believe it. He asks Dr. Cateria " Who should they have locked up then? My father?" This strongly goes towards the theme of law and order. The fact is that if his dad didn't bash him, then Shawn wouldn't have killed anyone. We are now faced with the question of who was really to blame for the murder? In the morgue scene with Dr. Watters and Roger we find out what happened to Harry. There is a medium level tilt shot, which shows that the doctors are superior to Harry because they are not dead. Harry'
Some common words found in the essay are:
Dianne I'm, Phillip Watters, Dr Cateria, Chicago Hope, Kate Austin's, Dianne Billy, Jack Shawn, Perkins Billy, Margaret Dianne, Dr Watters, chicago hope, men's health, extreme close, story line, dr cateria, dr watters, close dianne, lighting dialogue characters, phillip watters, watters roger, law gender, relationships law gender, dr watters roger, scene dr watters,
Approximate Word count = 1414
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)
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