Camera angles in The Breakfast Club
The Breakfast Club is a movie that cases all the typical high school stereotypes as five students join together having all earned a Saturday detention. In the movie, camera angles and shot selection play a big role in helping the audience understand more about the characters in. In the final scene of The Breakfast Club, the camera gives each student eye-level shots. The equally angled shots of everyone ties into the misrepresentation stereotypes give people when in reality all of the characters are equal. The music predicts how the students will act after their day in detention. The film wants to highlight that people from different social groups, family situations, financial statuses are all human beings that can bond and form friendships.
The camera gives all character’s eye level shots to show that they are on the same level as each other. The angle helps the audience understand that they cannot put labels on their social standings. They are all people, one in the same. In Thinking Like a Director, Hui-Yin Wu introduces film editing patterns. He argued that with the framing property Angle, “The camera uses horizontal, vertical, and roll angles with respect to actors to convey inner emotional states of actors, and express power relations between characters” (Wu 81:5). The filmmakers used specific film editing patterns to make the camera angles convey the emotions of the characters in the film. The audience can see that they’re all from different cliques and social standings, but all end up together as part of “The Breakfast Club”. The main characters are John Bender “the criminal”, Andy Clark “the athlete”, Claire Standish “the princess”, Allison Reynolds “the basket case”, and Brian Johnson “the brain.” High schools have always had cliques such as jocks, preps, punks, nerds, and skaters. The fact that it hasn’t changed plays a big part in bringing people to continue to watch this movie today.
Each character portrays a different stereotype that they are forced upon them as high school students. According to James Rinehart, “Stereotypes may function as symbolic expressions of group identification and belongingness. Within groups, certain attitudes and beliefs and norms and values are expressed; each member is expected to believe and act in accordance with these standards” (Rinehart 142). Each of the main characters in the film hold a different high school stereotype. Claire is a very preppy, spoiled, stereotypical popular girl. Her diamond earrings show the audience her higher social standing, and how she wants to be seen by others. Once they get to know each other, they come to realize that they are not all as different as they thought. They all internally struggle with issues and try their best to appear a certain way to the rest of their classmates. Family problems and academic pressures are two examples of things that they’re struggling with at home. Having a certain image is so crucial to each one of them. They feel the pressure to keep up their images because they are afraid of rejection, whether it’s by their peers, friends, or parents. The characters’ stereotypes are conveyed by their actions, attitudes, and by the clothes they wear. Bender “the criminal” is a troublemaker who acts out and doesn’t follow rules; He spends most of his Saturdays in detention for doing things like dealing drugs and playing with fire. He wears ripped jeans, work boots, a torn flannel, and even more layers. He has a tough and rebellious attitude, but you cannot tell that he is physically abused at home. All the layers hide his hardships. Bender hides his battles with his clothes because he doesn’t want to appear weak. He has layers; he has emotions, values, and concerns that he covers up and he hides behind his clothes, behavior, and attitude. He treats others disrespectfully and is very aggressive, but it is because of his struggles at home. Bender learns that he isn’t the only one going through things and it helps unite him with everyone else. Andy “the athlete” fits the dumb jock stereotype. Allison “the basket case” is the crazy, mentally ill girl. Brian is the stereotypical nerd in all of the ‘nerd’ clubs. Difference is what makes each one of them unique even though they all have the same element of being human beings.
The camera angles and music are used to show the way reality is. In the library, the shots are angled more downward, looking down at the students, especially when the principal is around to show his superiority. When they’re all together, they are each pointed at equally to show that they are all the same despite their social standings. The song playing in the final scene is “Don’t you forget about me.” Some important song lyrics are “Don’t you forget about me” and “Will you recognize me? Call my name or walk on by.” Will everyone forget about each other the coming week? This ties into everyone going their own way once detention is over, not knowing what the future holds. They cannot predict the future, but they don’t want their new friendship to be broken by the social groups once they return back to school.
Before parting ways, Allison takes Brian’s patch and Claire gives Bender one of her diamond earrings. The shot of Claire placing the earring into Benders hand shows how she overcame stereotypes and realized that she and the other students are all one in the same, regardless of their social status. Once Claire gets in the car, the camera shows a clear shot of Bender and his emotions. Allison breaks the basket case stereotype by opening up to everyone, falling for an athlete, and getting a complete makeover. In the final shots, the camera is facing at an upward angle of Bender when he throws his arm up in the air, declaring victory. This shot symbolizes Bender overcoming the stereotypes and his freedom from the principal’s power. In the speech “The Role of Visual ‘Literacy’ in Film Communication,” Paul Messaris said, “Analogical Thinking. One of the clearest examples of a formal convention which is encountered very widely in both film and television is that of the use of camera angle as a means of making someone look powerful or powerless” (Messaris 3). He notes that using a low camera angle by shooting from below, is used to make the person in the shot seem more powerful. This makes is evident that the low camera angle in the final scene of Bender was used to make him appear powerful.
By the final scene of The Breakfast Club, all of the students learn that they are going through similar teenage problems. They realize their labels can be broken and the filming techniques with the camera angles help show the audience that they are all equal, regardless of social status.
Works Cited
Wu, Hui-Yin, et al. “Thinking Like a Director: Film Editing Patterns for Virtual Cinematographic Storytelling.” ACM TRANSACTIONS ON MULTIMEDIA COMPUTING COMMUNICATIONS AND APPLICATIONS, vol. 14, no. 4. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1145/3241057. Accessed 18 Apr. 2019.
Messaris, Paul. The Role of Visual “Literacy” in Film Communication. Nov. 1987. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED287186&site=eds-live.
Rinehart, James W. “The Meaning of Stereotypes.” Theory Into Practice, vol. 2, no. 3, 1963, pp. 136–143. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1475640.
