Analyzing Action and Power in The Hunger Games

The Hunger Games, directed by Gary Ross, is a well-known Hollywood action movie that depicts a dystopian and futuristic story of a young women’s journey through the Capital’s annual Hunger Games. This movie, released in 2012, has a lifetime gross of $408,010,692, and played in over 4,000 theatres (Box Office Mojo, n.d.). The protagonist Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, volunteers in place of her sister to compete in the Capitol’s annual Hunger Games where a male and female tribute from each of the twelve districts of Panem fight to the death in a high-tech arena for one sole survivor (Ross, 2012, 15:02). The scene I’ve chosen is important to the movie because it gives additional insight to the control that the Capitol Gamemakers have over the tributes in the arena. The Games are a reminder of the unstoppable force that the Capitol holds over the districts, demonstrating their threat of violence to allude resistance and maintain power. This analysis will focus on the editing style of The Hunger Games, looking at mise-en-scène, colour, motion, violence, characters, and effects on society.

In the screenshot, Katniss is fearful of the Capitol-induced fireball approaching quickly while she is running from the flaming trees in the background. The shot is at eye level and nearly right in-front of the character, showing the audience the scared emotion and general location of the incoming fireball. Through the scene, the camera shows close-up, tracking, and wide-angle shots of Katniss during her battle for her life. In the wide-angle shots, the camera is above Katniss, reflecting the Capitol Gamemakers’ authority and how they are watching and controlling her. In this scene, action and violence are depicted in a physical, societal, and political nature.

Lankhuizen et al. explore how the motion of movies affects the audience, saying there is a connection between “perceived motion and arousal, likely a result of our instinctive association of movement with potential danger and excitement” (Lankhuizen et al., 2022, p. 706). The camera on Katniss is shaky making the audience aware of the camera presence and eliciting the realistic feeling of danger and desperation. Motion of the shot “influences the perceived intensity of emotion … viewers perceive faster angry movements as more emotionally intense,” (Armstrong and Cutting, 2023, p. 542). In the Gameroom, the camera is stable reflecting the control of the personnel. The contrast between the two environments explains the differing power and emotion between characters.

The article by Bruckert er al. analyzes how different features of the movie draws the audience’s attention. Bruckert et al. explain how colour brings “continuity editing techniques [that] result in faster re-orientations of gaze after a cut, and that colour contributes to directing attention during edits” (2022, p. 2953). Katniss remains centred in the frame so the cuts of different angles of her running seem continuous because the colours and environment are very similar. The colour through this scene is saturated showing the contrast between the forest and the plain Gameroom.

The white, female protagonist, Katniss Everdeen, is a brave, and powerful role model for young girls demonstrating physical and emotion strength. Kirby explores how Katniss exhibits traditionally masculine attributes such as independence, athleticism, and violence as well as traditional feminine qualities like idealized beauty (Kirby, 2015, p. 469). The character represents empowerment and strength in adversity as Katniss defies odds to create a movement of revolution in the districts (Cronshaw, 2019. p. 121).

The ecology of the action sequence is demonstrated by the artificially constructed fire spreading to Katniss reflecting the action of the Capitol’s need for domination. The differences between the clean, organized Gameroom opposed to the chaos of the blazing forest shows the difference in the power of the opposing members. This reflects the societal systems of Panem as the arena displays vulnerability and fear, while the Gameroom reflects the Capitol’s safety and power.

In examining editing, I was able to identify about 78 cuts in the two minute and eleven second scene. I watched for changes in sequence of time and movement. The fast speed of the cuts between shots brings a feeling of emergency to the audience, heightening attention. The audience is aware of the camera because of the deliberate shaky, handheld movements. The camera remained objective, displaying the scene in the forest and the Gameroom. The contrast of subject environments emphasizes the conflict between the tributes in the arena and the Capitol’s manipulation from their Gameroom.

This scene demonstrates real-life consequences from this type of film on the viewers. The scene elicits emotional, psychological, and cultural responses as the audience perceives the underlying themes of power, control, and resistance. The scene shows the audience how power systems manipulate people and environments for control, creating emotions of concern for societal inequities. As Cronshaw explores, “[t]he Hunger Games are a source of discourse around themes of sovereignty and raise the place of political resistance against unjust authorities,” (Cronshaw, 2019, p. 138). The Hunger Games highlight issues of human rights and inequity, suggesting the awareness of societal and political trends (Cronshaw, 2019, p. 120).

This scene in The Hunger Games exhibits mise-en-scène and editing work to convey a story with tension and emotional depth. The high contrast of clips, camera movement, depiction of violence, and other features of the scene create an attention drawing sequence in the film that demonstrates the on-going conflict between the Capitol and the districts. The quick editing, and deliberate framing immerse viewers in the action. This scene describes the film’s central conflict between the districts and the Capitol, illustrating systems of control. The editing style of The Hunger Games along with camera movements and presence work together to create tension, evoke emotion, and convey movie themes of control and resistance. By analyzing the editing style and mise-en-scène in The Hunger Games, we can understand colour, motion, violence, characters, and effects on society.

References

Armstrong, Kacie L, and James E. Cutting. 2023. On the Physical Variables Filmakers Use
to Engage Viewers. American Psychology Association. https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/c/amz5ui/viewer/pdf/olqb5x4ajz

Box Office Mojo. N.d. “The Hunger Games Franchise.” Accessed November 24, 2024.
https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr239570693/

Bruckert, Alexandre, Marc Christie, and Olivier Le Meur. February 26, 2021. “Where to Look
at the Movies: Analyzing Visual Attention to Understand Movie Editing.” https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/linkprocessor/plink?id=9d49d3e6-8c57-3e27-ac44-ae217b417de7.

Cronshaw, Darren. 2019. “Resisting the Empire in Young Adult Fiction: Lessons from
Hunger Games” International Journal of Public Theology 13 (2): 119–39. https://research-ebsco-com.ezproxy.tru.ca/c/amz5ui/viewer/pdf/pyfjq7vleb

Kirby, Philip. 2015. “The Girl On Fire: The Hunger Games, Feminist Geopolitics and the
Contemporary Female Action Hero.” Geopolitics. (20): 460-78. DOI: 10.1080/14650045.2014.984835.

Lankhuizen et al. 2022. “Shaping Film: A Quantitative Formal Analysis of Contemporary
Empathy-Eliciting Hollywood Cinema.” Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts. (4): 704-18. doi:10.1037/aca0000356.

Ross, Gary, Director. The Hunger Games (2012), Lionsgate, Netflix.