Good Creative Writing On Besides The Aristotelian Appeals, Some Strategies Typical For Movies Are Present In The Movie Under Analysis As Well, They Are:

Inspired by true events

The movie “The Vow” was produced in 2012 by the director Michael Scursy. It is a romantic motion-picture which is rather popular mostly among the young people as they experience life moments outlined in the mentioned movie. Leo and Paige is a married couple, they are totally in love with each other and entrust themselves to their second half, their life is just in blossom and the couple is happy doing their hobbies and dedicating their being to love. But one day, on their way home, Leo and Paige turned to get into a car accident. Both lovers have been injured seriously and when Leo was awaken, he found out they both were in the hospital. He was stricken by the news he heard from the doctor – besides countless scars on her body, Paige lost her memory. Her husband instantly rushed to her bed when he was told that Paige was returning to her consciousness but she wasn’t able even to remember and accept him. Soon after that, Leo was discharged from the hospital he proceeded visiting Paige though in spite of the fact that she regarded him as a stranger. After several months in the hospital doctors discharged Paige from the hospital as well. The woman decided that if she decided to connect her life with this guy, then he constituted an important part of her life, so she moved in together with him again. But later she understood she was absolutely another person than she was before the tragedy happened, she wasn’t any more interested in things she was considering to be her hobby or she was also stricken by the fact that she broke all connections with her sister and parents because of Leo, who hadn’t been accepted in the family. As a result, Paige decided to break the relationships with Leo and start a new life. Leo wasn’t going to quit the sense of all his life, so he decided to struggle for his love. After countless attempts, Paige finally gave him a chance and didn’t regret it.
The movie is aimed at the young generation as they feel everything acutely in the period of life they are going through, love regards no age though so people of middle age or older may be captured by the main idea of the movie as well which is quite sophisticated and striking at the same time. Besides, the director used funny moments in the pictures, the following moment from the movie can serve an example: very intimate and striking moment of marriage Paige and Leo’s giving vows to each other when the security appears and it turns out that they were being married in the museum and their friend was in the role of the priest; humor which young people would mostly understand. Any communication is meant to inform, persuade or influence psychologically the mind and emotions of the target audience. This is one of the types of communication between a creator of an art product and a viewer and as any kind of communication, would it be verbal, body language or television interaction, it uses strategies in order to achieve the aim and make an effect on viewers. Rhetorical strategies have been applied since Aristotle times when a great orator suggested them for use in order to reach the audience.
The first strategy applied in the movie appears from the movie’s logo “Inspired by true events”. This is an exemplification: there has been the case in history and real sufferers from the tragedy do live now, the plot was written on the basis of the real story, such story had happened to Krickitt Carpenter, when having awoken after four months being in coma, the girl couldn’t remember events of two years of her life before the accident; such an example and its reproduction cannot but impress. The work itself is quite saturated and not trivial but a human always is stricken by the facts and events that exist in real life; besides, they correspond to the events from the real story totally.
The next strategy applied in “The Vow” is cause and effect analysis strategy, the first scene that appears on the screen is a car accident, the weather was snowy and only the sound of wind and image of snow was seen on the background of Paige lying on the car’s hood in her red coat; the effect is depicted through the doctors, hospital and diagnosis – amnesia. Creators “play” with the viewer’s emotions by the images rotation: tragedy together with its consequences and the couple’s life is depicted in bright and warm colors which is Leo’s fruit of imagination; such change of fragments proceeds till the moment when Leo asked Paige in the hospital whether she remembered who he was, and how devastated was he to hear from the woman he loved with all his heart that he was her doctor.
Another strategy I found in the movie and the one that made me as a viewer to tune into the beat of the feelings of one of the main characters (Leo) is narration. In the beginning of the story Leo’s voice over describes the so called “moments of the impact”: the moments of love, contact and other feelings which coin our individuals are described by scenes from the Paige’s life before the accident, and within these moments the main scene of the movie is shown, the one where Paige and Leo give their vows in front of their friends to stay together, for good and for bad, and whatever parts them, they will always find the way back to each other”. The image changes: Leo being stricken at his wife’s memory loss in the and the voice over saying: “My theory is that these moments of the impact define who you are but what I never considered was what if one day you could no longer remember any of them”. Leo’s feelings are deeply felt by the viewer and the emotions are brought into his mind so as he could feel the same.
What is Leo was talking about is the Paige’s personality change caused by head injuries which made her a different person no longer even interested in the stuff she had been in for before the tragedy. Such strategy in the film may be defined as the contrast, the author tries to describe Paige before the accident: she was a self-confident and talented woman making arts who was satisfied with her life situation and conditions she lived in, she quitted law department at the University in spite of her father’s will who wanted her to be a lawyer. The new Paige didn’t feel any connection to Leo and she didn’t even know him; she moved to parents again and flirted with her ex-boyfriend Jeremy whom she left more than two years ago; and now she changed her attitude to a lot of things in life.
The division and classification strategy is also applied in “The Vow” when Paige came home from the hospital she couldn’t understand who she was, which was her schedule, what was she doing every day and what interests she had in her “previous life”. Paige tried with the help of videos and photos to organize events in the sequence and to make a life line of her own, and recollect the last moment she remembered. This reflects the division and classification strategy because the whole is divided into the parts.

- Music in theatre performances and movies is one of the main strategies between those applied to a movie. Every melody in the movie corresponds to the scenes pictured on the screen: the moment when the car accident happened and Paige was lying on the hood as a result of her breaking the front window by her head is accompanied by a sad and unenthusiastic melody; music applied in the moment of Paige and Leo’s giving vows is the central melody of the movie, to my mind, it creates a will to live and achieve new goals, and at the same time it makes viewer-hearer to be sensitive to the scene and the words, it beats in the head of the viewer after the moment passed.
- Another movie well-known strategy is shot type. In the book the events, place, feelings and atmosphere of the scene are described with the words. Any movie scenes must be brought into a human’s mind and sense through the angle of the camera, colors and the other techniques. In “The Vow” the colors are “cruel” in sad events (in accident-red and white) and the camera moves from the specific part of picture to the top so as the scene was opening in panorama. In happy and exciting moments like the scene of marriage panorama shot is applied and in the final scene when Paige returned to Leo, the visual effect is applied: Paige appears in the moist, regardless the snowy weather and dark, clear sky. The operator created the effect with the purpose of creating a thrill of waiting and making the viewer to believe in the miracle (Jones, 2008).
These are the main strategies and appeals I found to be the most important in the movie, there exist more of them though. Interpreting of the feelings and emotions through a work of art requires efforts regarding different characters, life situations, conditions and environmental background of the target audience. Strategy is a powerful tool aimed at making the same effect as the creator feels it either on reader or viewer.

Works Cited

Jones, Frances Cole. How to Wow: Proven Strategies for Presenting Your Ideas, Persuading Your Audience, and Perfecting Your Image. New York: Ballantine, 2008. Print.