Mia Duan
THTRFLM 1T03
Dr. Glen Norton
March 14th
T03
In two films The Battle of Elderbush Gulch and The Shirt are both talk about colonization that occurred in North America. They illustrated two different and perspectives on colonialism. Based on the group discussion, these two films were happened in two different time periods, this shows the change in discourse about colonial history and the treatment of Native Americans throughout history. However, The Battle of Elderbush Gulch more focus on the white colonialist perspective but The shirt focus on post colonial perspective. Compared to the background, this essay is going to illustrate how the cinematography and background setting portrays the representations of the colonial and postcolonial perspective. These two films start from very different ways in terms of cinematography. By watching the Battle of Elderbush Gulch, majority scenes are using medium shots to telling story, and never moving cameras. Meanwhile, through medium shots, audiences could see more elements which shown in the movie. When film using medium shots, viewers saw white people’s family life, which proves that white people's happy and civilized life. However, native people are trying to eat puppies, which show how native people violent, savage, and uncivilized are. Comparing to Elderbush Gulch, the cinematography of The shirt is not using too many ways. Pan shots are the major shot in the film, and The shirt is more like an art film. Therefore, they using simple ways to recording as well as give audiences more time to focus on the main character and the background. Yellow grass, dry trees, and snow cover the land, the background setting is very bare. The river seems like it is frozen. This dark scene attracts people's attention; therefore the audiences want to keep watching the rest
