Appendix 3.1: Analytic methods - 6 films from 1954
maid, Maggie*. In The Glenn Miller Story the central female
character Helen is introduced to the audience by Glenn Miller
(James Stewart) some time before we actually see her. In the
pawnshop at the opening of the narrative he asks about a
string of pearls which he would like as a present ’for my
girlfriend*. We soon learn that despite this appellation he
has not seen her for two years. Slightly later in the
narrative we see him in a phone booth and the film then cuts
directly to a shot of a young woman running downstairs in the
home where she lives with her parents, to answer the phone.
This introduction invites us, the audience, to privilege Glenn
Miller's definition of her as *his girl* despite the fact that
she does not, at first, remember who he is and is also, as we
soon discover, engaged to someone else.
Group 2 characters are all offered through their appearance
and/or location, but in several cases this presentation is
importantly modified by their self presentation through action
and/or speech. It is also important to note that without
exception the characters in this group, considerably larger
than group 1, are all additionally defined for the audience
either at their initial introduction or soon afterwards by
another (male) character. Edie Doyle (Eve Marie Saint) in On
the Waterfront is first seen in a rear view medium shot at
night outside the tenement building where she lives, crouching
over the dead body of her brother. Her loose blonde hair
stands out strikingly amid the general confusion and darkness
of the image, and the film cuts to a medium close up of her
and the priest: she refuses to be comforted by him and accuses
him of ’hiding* in the church. It is she herself who announces
to us the question that will drive her through the narrative,
*Who killed my brother*, a question to which the audience
already knows the answer. But it is her father's angry speech
in the following scene at the morning hiring session which
tells the audience who Edie is:
(to Edie): Now get back to the Sisters where you
belong.
(to the Priest): I'm surprised at you Father, letting her
see things that aint fit for the eyes of a
decent girl.
Edie, her father tells us, is a 'decent girl' which means that
certain events familiar to the community are not 'fit' for her
eyes. In other words she must, because of her 'decentness*,
be protected from knowledge of some of the more problematic
aspects of daily life as experienced by the men of the
community.
Helen Mary (Glynis Johns) in Rob Roy the Highland Roque is
initially seen as one of the many 'highlanders* in the second
scene where the men are returning from battle. It is only
Glynis Johns* star persona that enables the audience to single
her out from the others as a character to whom they should pay
special attention. Before the scene at her parents* inn in
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