Bruce Almighty, A Lesson in Integrity
Tenetta Griffin
English 225
Melissa Rigney
January 14, 2014

Bruce Almighty, A Lesson in Integrity
Jim Carrey is a talented comedian and I have enjoyed every film that I’ve seen him in. I selected Bruce Almighty for an in-depth film analysis because of how the talented actors helped put a unique spin on the whole god/human relationship for the modern day moviegoer. This movie is not designed to be an in-depth expose on the god/human relationship but a platform to gently remind the audience the of how important our decisions affect where we are in life and gives us a moment to pause and think about what kind of future do we really desire. In my opinion, the film Bruce Almighty utilizes Jim Carrey's comedic talents to address the heavy topic of the god/human relationship and the moral issue that the director wants the share with the audience is that our free will should be exercised a modicum of human integrity to effectively resolve our own personal issues/dilemmas.
My first step in analyzing Bruce Almighty involves taking a closer look at plot development and how this movie took the universal truth concerning how mankind in general tends to get frustrated with God when things just don’t go their way while taking it down a unconventional comedic path to help lighten up the seriousness of the topic. The director of Bruce Almighty’s tells the story from a mixed point of view which means we sometimes learn what is going on at the same time as the characters and other times before the character (Goodykoontz, 2011). A prime example is, the scene where Bruce learns about his rival Caroll getting the anchor job that Bruce always wanted. The director uses a series of jump cuts between Jim, his girlfriend watching Bruce while on the job at the daycare center, as it is being aired live at the studio, to the boss in the control both of the studio so that we can see all of their reactions in real time as they play of each characters reaction to what is going on around them. It was a great way to tell that part of the story and the flow was so smooth that if I had never read the text I would not have realized how awesome the story telling was and how much work went into setting that one scene. Bruce Almighty follows a five act structure to relay the overall theme of the movie. According to our text:
A five act structure consists of equally divided sections of exposition–development–crisis–climax–resolution, with varying periods of rising and falling action, tension, and release. Other scripts may rearrange these same elements into a different order or jump back and forth among them, but even scripts designed with a three–act structure still contain all the elements of the five–act structure (Goodykoontz, 2011).
In the exposition stage we see that he is disgruntled with his job and desires a promotion. In the development stage, Bruce meets God and is offered the chance to see if he can do God’s job better. The real crisis occurs when his girlfriend break up with him which leads Bruce to logically seeing the error of his selfish ways.The climax happens when Bruce wants to be rid of his God-given powers and in the process is run over by a truck. The resolution occurs while Bruce is lying in the hospital bed hanging on for dear life. Bruce and his ex-girlfriend reconcile and become engaged.
When you take an even deeper look into other technical storytelling details of Bruce Almighty, the pieces all fit together like a beautiful jigsaw puzzle. The movie is in chronological order. It shows how the main character Bruce Almighty is slowly transformed from a self-center, disgruntled person into a positive person who is content with his lot in life and has finally achieved job satisfaction. The setting is Buffalo, New York. Buffalo is a major metropolitan area. In our text, Chart 2.3, A Few Typical Symbolic Elements, explains how a busy city symbolizes mankind’s worldly, sinful nature (Goodykoontz, 2011). Throughout the movie there are scenes that involve gangs, an automobile accident, a riot, a vixen who only wants Bruce after he becomes successful and the recurring scenes of a homeless man that everyone seems to ignore except Bruce and in one scene thugs actually harass the homeless man.. Through satire the film briefly touches upon the short comings of mankind but it also shows our ability to choose to be good, i.e. Grace’s participation in the blood drive. Buffalo, NY is no small area to be in charge of. Bruce has a combination of internal and external conflict. His obvious external conflicts stems mainly from job dissatisfaction, a work rival, and not being taken seriously by his peers. Bruce is selfish and immature. His internal conflict is the good nature that we see so little of versus his desire for success. Eventually the good shines through in the end but only after he has lost what matters most. When Bruce first starting using his power granted by God, his deeds were self-centered but are presented in a comedic way. For starters, Bruce changed his old car into a Porsche, gave his girlfriend a wildly orgasmic sexual encounter, made his once un-housebroken dog use the toilet like a person and ultimately get his dream job. God had to actually step in and tell Bruce how selfish he was being, get his act together, and start answering the voices in his head which in reality were prayers. At first the symbolism of Bruce’s girlfriend’s name, Grace, is not obvious but as you see the film unfold it becomes clear that it takes grace to save Bruce (Slake, 2003). The universal truth of this film is that it is so easy to blame God for what goes wrong in our life while ignoring the role our poor choices and personal faults may have played in creating our personal predicaments. Life can be hard and we don’t always get what we want in life.
Bruce Almighty has a great cast of actors with two awesome comedians, Jim Carey and Steve Carell, working together to create great comic mini skits throughout the movie. Jim Carrey is Bruce Nolan. Jennifer Aniston is Bruce’s Girlfriend Grace Connelly. Lisa Ann Walter is Grace’s sister Debbie Connelly. Steve Carell is Evan Baxter, Bruce’s work rival. Morgan Freeman portrays God with an approachable, humanistic and slightly comedic down to earth persona with just enough touch of awe that makes you want to scream at Bruce when his actions boarder on and actually crosses over into the realm of blasphemy. The list of great actors who are cast in this film goes on but I’ll focus on just a few of them that were especially influential to the story. Carrey is a star because of his great comedic skills which includes impersonation. Jennifer Aniston is a great supporting actress and a personality actor. Lisa is what I consider a character actress. Her role is small but pivotal in helping to tell the story of Bruce’s transformation into a mature and caring person. While Lisa is at the apartment to get her sister’s things, she bears witness to Bruce’s transformation. When she tells him that Grace prays for him all the time, she unknowingly give him a clue to Grace’s heart and allows him to really see her through God’s eyes. Steve Carrel is also a good comedian, a star and a personality actor. Steve has a great and funny personality. He is sure to deliver laughs in any movie he is cast in. Jack Jozefson was the actual actor who played the homeless man but this character was the persona of God (Morgan Freeman) on earth others perceived it at the Holy Spirit (Waterhouse, 2003). This was a star packed, funny and comedic cast and there no one was miscast.
It is no secret that this film was custom made to accommodate Jim Carey’s persona and acting method. He also helped direct the film. In case you did not know Carey loves to improve. According to an interview with Shadyac, Jim Carey can sometimes require up to 30 takes with a scene before he is satisfied (Miller, 2003). Jim Carey shared the spotlight in this film. He did not hog the glory. He let the laughs flow. God had some funny scenes. Steve Carell had a few funny scenes. Based on the text, I would consider Mr. Carey’s performance to be stylized because his acting is over the top and definitely draws attention to his character which is a stark opposite toe Ms. Aniston who has a natural approach known as realism (Goodykoontz, 2011). Jennifer Aniston naturally has the look for the character of Grace and the scene where she is crying and asking God to take the pain away because she still loves Bruce. For me, that scene struck a chord because I’ve prayed a similar prayer and felt that pain. Towards the end of the movie when God tells Bruce he wants him to use the beads to pray, you can feel the uncertainty that Bruce is struggling with as to how to genuinely pray. God’s quick wit puts him on the right track. Yes I shed a tear at the real heartfelt prayer and it was predictable that God would give him another chance. I was glad that Bruce got that second chance to get it right and be the man that he was meant to be. It was in him all along he just had to find it. In my opinion, the type of acting used in this by almost all of the actors is film acting. There are some scenes that utilize theatrics like stage acting by Carey, i.e. parting of the tomato soup symbolic of the red sea in the bible. However, Jim is known for his theatrics and it works for his. Also his quirky methods add humor to the serious topic of the human/god relationship combined with the why me Lord mentality.
The overall cinematography of the film makes the storyline move smoothly. It totally immersed me into the story line. The movie starts out with Bruce interviewing a bakery shop owner with a few hilarious outtakes. Then it jump cuts to Bruce showing it to Grace for her assessment. I honestly still don’t know if I was with Bruce as he was filming or if all of what I originally saw was on tape. It the background they seem to have brown, soft, muted color theme which eventually ties Grace’s simple down to earth personality and totally contrasts with Bruce’s tantrum about his “mediocre life” (Barber, 2003). In the first scene with Bruce ad Grace as a couple, you see Grace is very family oriented. She is trying to put together a huge photo album of their life together. There is a photo directly behind the sofa where the couple has been placed by the director and another photo on a table by the wall. It is a very warm and soft apartment. The lighting on the apartment is soft. Grace works at a daycare full of colors but purple seems to be a color that sticks out in various shades. In the ending scene, when Grace and Bruce are happily engaged, Grace is now wearing a shirt that is a pretty light shade of purple. I am sure that was the director’s subtle clue that Grace’s life has dramatically improved. In Contrast his work is a sterile environment with grey and dark blue as an overall color scheme, stuffy business suits with a splash of color in the background here and there. Morgan Freeman, prior to you knowing his is God, is first introduced as a janitor mopping a floor in what appears to be an enormous abandoned factory building. Once he reveals himself he is dressed in a nice all white suit to properly symbolize his goodness. However to get technical he is first seen a homeless holding the sign “r u blind” (Barber, 2003). This is not revealed until the very end and only to the audience and not the characters. The camera is subjective because it acts as “an extensions of the characters” (Goodykoontz, 2011, Chap. 4.6).
The director made great use of the following two tools of cinematography, color and visual effects. He made subtle color changes to correlate with the Bruce’s development. When you first see Bruce, he is wearing a blue shirt and lots of people in the background are wearing blue shirts blue. Out text explains that blue can be used to refer “cool moods” (Goodykoontz, 2011, Chap. 4.1). Unemployed Bruce wears grey and white. Bruce as he starts to explore his God powers, fittingly wears a white shirt with clouds but unfittingly and unethically swapped with a store mannequin. Self-absorbed Bruce starts off with a white shirt with blue stripes graduating to a bold dark blue and graduating to fancy deep dark blue at his promotion party. According to an article by Wolfe, Bruce Almighty has a little over 200 special effects (Wolfe, 2003). According to Bill Taylor of Illusion Arts, his studio was in charge the parting of the red soup special effect. Using a mechanical approach, a camera was locked “onto a tipping platform” on top of an oversized bowl measuring almost a foot and a half across, with a slightly off center clear divider, which allowed the camera to film the soup’s movement without showing that it was being tipped up to 80 degrees (Wolfe, 2003, pg. 34). A combination of the bowl’s size, the clear divider, the table being manually tipped by three men, and a plastic cone that was divided into “30 little individual air jets”, and a “Mac G4 computer using Adobe After effects” were the essential tools needed to create the awesome illusion of parting the tomato soup (Wolfe, 2003, pg. 35).
Editing determines the pace of the movie and ultimately how the story is told. Bruce Almighty starts with a fade in. The fade in symbolizes the camera not being turned on yet and you can overhear Bruce and his co-workers discussing the story he is about to do. Another example of editing used in Bruce Almighty is a series of jump cuts that allows the audience to be almost omnipresent when Bruce has a meltdown as a result of not getting the anchor job. In a different scene ,the camera comes in for a close-up on Bruce as he I reading Grace’s prayers and then a wipe is used to show him being teleported outside her bedroom window while she is praying. The movie has a nice steady rhythm with a few face paced scenes like when God send’s Bruce back to Earth. After Morgan Freeman shows he is also the homeless man, with a smile he claps his hands and there is a fade out to black.
Music is strategically used throughout the film to draw the audience into the story. As Bruce is giving his interview on the Bakery there is a soft uplifting orchestra piece playing in the background which picks up in tempo as he announces they broke the world record. Then a different piece of music that is often associated with sports is played with no dialogue as he runs down the street pouring milk into outstretched hands reminiscent to a marathon. Two songs tie for my favorite use of sound to convey emotion which is ‘I’ve got the power’ and ‘If I ruled the world’ which both relate to Bruce’s transformation after being granted God’s powers. When Bruce created an online way to file Buffalo’s prayers, little sound effects were used to emphasize how increasingly fast he was typing and the ever familiar you’ve got mail indicator. The director made sure that the music properly matched the moods both high and low of any scene in the film at any given particular time. The director took extra care to ensure that the music never took away from the dialogue and that the selected music only enhanced the mood being portrayed to the audience.
Jim Carey was fortunate enough to be reunited with Tom Shadyac who also directed Jim in ‘Ace Ventura’ (Miller, 2003). The previous success of ‘Ace Venture’ speaks for itself that together they can make comedy movie magic and have positive work relationship. In order to work with Carey a Director has to be flexible. This comedy has a heavier topic than ‘Ace Ventura’ but it is still a good comedy with just a dash of romantic comedy. I think Shadyac has made his footprint in the sand of directors capable of producing hilarious, comedic movies. In this film Shadyac is not trying to specifically reach out to Christians but to mankind in general and say “Stop looking up.” and “Be the Miracle.” (Barber, Shadyac, 2003). Basically the simple message is if you use a little integrity in your day to day life, problem solving is easier and helps to practically reduce common problems.
Bruce Almighty did cause quite an international stir. I loved it but it did receive mixed reviews. I did not see any evidence of censorship. The movie deals with the sensitive subject of the human/god relationship and puts a comedic spin on it. According to the Associated Press, Egypt banned ‘Bruce Almighty’ because Egyptian authorities felt the whole concept of man being granted God’s powers “infringes on God's sacredness” (The Associated, P., 2003 para.1)In Malaysia, ‘Bruce Almighty’ was subject to review to be banned and its original release date was even postponed until a final decision was made (Thomas, 2003). Based on an interview with Bruce and Shadyac combined with the quality of the movie “Bruce Almighty’ I can honestly say the director has technical competence, a funny distinguishable personality and that his movie has interior meaning (Wedowski, 2003).
Bruce Almighty does not fit neatly into just one genre. It is a mix of comedy, drama, and fantasy. This movie screams poster child for escapism for various reasons. Bruce gets to talk to God and gets to live. Our text explains that, genres often crossover and help us to know what to expect from a movie (Goodyknootz, 2011). The comedy genre lets me know I am in for a barrel of laughs. All the special effect let me know that I have escaped from my reality into a mirror image world like mine but with a comical twist.
Bruce Almighty on the surface is comedy with a deeper referential, explicit, implicit, and symptomatic content. On the surface this film centers around a man who blames God for his “mediocre life” (Barber, Shadyac, 2003). In that sense, Bruce represents a feeling most audience members can relate to which is anger at God for something that you feel is not right in your life. The explicit content or the message of the story is “Be the Miracle” (Barber, Shadyac, 2003). In other words, a decent amount of integrity allows you to make better decisions and greatly reducing the occurrence of some of life’s stressful problems. For example, Bruce took the time finally train the dog, stopped automatically saying yes to everyone’s prayer request. One of my favorite prayers he said yes to a woman’s request for an Oreo cookie diet that she had successfully lost weight too. The fact that the homeless man was actually God in disguise taking time out to communicate with Bruce was an interesting example of implicit content. Free will is how the world has gotten where it is today and represents the symptomatic content of the film. In America, there is a problem with homelessness and gang violence. How the movie only touched upon briefly these issues is a great example of how much effort is really but into effectively combating these societal issues. Where I live, there is no homeless shelter and the closest shelter is over 45 miles away in a big city.
For the movie “Bruce Almighty’, I chose the formalist approach. The elements this assignment asked for just felt like this was a good way to analyze my film selection. However, there were so many memorable scenes that a structuralist approach would have been both time consuming but interesting. I am not qualified for such an in depth analysis. In my formalist approach, I observed how desaturation was used to introduce Bruce and Grace allowing us to focus on the characters and not the background. However, as the movie progresses the movie losses its desaturation. The music worked with all the elements of the film from being background music, to helping keep track of the pace and emotions of a scene, to implying hidden messages like in the scene when Bruce told Grace he got the anchor job. However, I think one of my multiple favorite moments that simply involve the direct relation between the camera and dialogue is when Bruce says sprinkled with nuts and the camera slowly moves to the right to show the owner and baker that was just interviewed. The punch line is that the owner and the baker are the nuts he was revering to instead of literal nuts. It was a subtle and simple storytelling technique. In the end, the film keeps the message simple and understandable the power to solve our problems is within us all but we need to use a little integrity and some commonsense.
References
Barber, G. (Producer), & Shadyac, T. (Director). (2003). Bruce Almighty [Motion picture]. United States: Touchstone Pictures & Universal Pictures.
Goodykoontz, B., & Jacobs, C. P. (2011). Film: From Watching to Seeing. San Diego, CA: Bridgepoint Education, Inc.
Miller, N. (2003). The God Couple. Entertainment Weekly, (706/707), 32. Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
Slake, R. A. (2003). All of the Above. America, 189(1), 22-23. Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
The Associated, P. (2003). Egypt Bans Jim Carrey's 'Bruce Almighty'. AP Online Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
Thomas, A. (2003). Carrey laffer gets go-ahead in Malaysia.('Bruce' Goose)(Malaysian Film Censorship Board and Islamic Development Dept. decide not to ban 'BruceAlmighty')(Brief Article). Vareity, (1).7.Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
Waterhouse, A. (2003). As Close as Our Breath: Jim Carrey plays God with unholy flair in a movie that is Judeo-Christian to its bones. (film).(Movie Review)Christianity Today, 47(7), 67. Retrieved from Ebscohost database.
Wedowski, H. (2003) What’s It All About. Jim Carey Online, Retrieved fromhttp://www.jimcarreyonline.com/movies/brucealmighty.html?p=3
Wolff, E. (2003). Bruce Almighty. Millimeter, 31(5), 34-35. Retrieved from:
Proquest database.