Let Him Have It

A detailed Summary of Let Him Have It

How does Peter Medak, director of 'Let Him Have It' create sympathy for Derek Bentley?

The opening scene of this film has slow piano solo music playing, with white

Credits on a black background to show that the film is serious. It is actually a drama documentary, which means that as well as being dramatic the film is also factual.

From the start of the film, Peter Medak chose to present Derek Bentley as a victim. The first thing in the film that you see is a high angled shot of Derek trapped under the rubble of a building with fire, destruction and panic going on around him. This gives you the feeling of entrapment. Another reason why Derek is potrayed as a victim is because he has epilepsy with a mental age of about eleven or twelve. His real age is nineteen. He has a fit after being released from the rubble, and there is a close-up of his face. Throughout the film Derek has three epileptic fits which are shown in great detail. You can see the amount of pain and discomfort he is feeling because of this.

The loud and booming music also adds to the mighty effect.

At school the head teacher says, "Derek is easily prayed to bad influences".

Derek has low self-esteem and he doesn'

Chris gives Derek a knuckle-duster as a gift because they are now good friends. Chris starts to climb up the warehouse wall and you can see a little girl praying. This shows different types of behaviour in one shot, (good and bad). She sees Chris and Derek and tells her dad. On the rooftop scene Derek is always shown as a follower of Chris. Police sirens can be heard and when Derek hears them he panic and cries "My dad's gonna kill me!" When the police get onto the roof Chris starts firing shots and tries to hide but a policeman finds him. Chris points his gun at him. He tells Chris to give him the gun but he refuses. Derek shouts "Let him have it Chris!" meaning, 'let him have the gun', but Chris probably thought he meant 'shoot him', so that's what he did. Derek is sympathetic for the policeman and stays close to him. He doesn't like to see people suffering because he knows what it's like, when he has the fits. The camera stays on the body for a while to give an impact and makes you feel sorry for the policeman yourself. Chris fires more shots and wants to kill more policemen but he uses up all his ammunition. Another policeman finds him and Chris tries to shoot him but he has no ammo and he gets mad, showing his short temper. Chris panics and he tries to kill himself by jumping of the building but he goes through some glass, which breaks his fall and his arm.

In court, there is a slow panning shot of the courtroom and then an extreme close-up on Derek's eyes. They look scared, this shows vulnerability. Throughout the whole courtroom scene Derek seems to show confusion and fear from the way he acts. Derek's lawyer tells the people in the courtroom what happened at the warehouse, trying to escape from the police, the shooting of the policeman, threatening to shoot another policeman and what he thought Derek meant when he said 'let him have it Chris', which was 'give him the gun'.

Derek meets Chris Craig at a railway. He is wearing black gangster like clothes and from first meeting him Chris tricks and confuses Derek, by pointing the gum at his head, but he also impresses him, like when he pretends to kill himself by jumping in front of a train. Derek's house is shown as a cosy family home but Chris's home must be different. It doesn't even invite us to imagine what his house is like. At the butchers shop Derek picks the wrong coupon and Chris tries to correct him, but he also gets it wrong and this shows that Chris isn't all that clever either.

t go out for about a year because he is depressed and under stress. He is still giv

Some common words found in the essay are:
Chris Police, Chris Derek, Derek Bentley, Stella Derek, House Commons, Chris Craig, Peter Medak, chris derek, panning shot, chris gun, derek's house, booming music, kill jumping, policeman chris, gang derek, derek epileptic, sad piano music, hanging scene,

Approximate Word count = 1748
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English