Introduction
The movie Twilight was released in 2008 causing the most different feedbacks of the viewers. It is a fantastic love story about a family of vampires who lived under disguise in Forks, a small town near Washington. The film begins with Bella Swan moving to this town to live with her father; she meets Edward who she is suspicious about from her first day at school. With time Bella discovers the truth about Edward and he introduces her to his vampire family.
Surprisingly, but the fact that Edward and his family are not humans does not scare Bella and young people fall in love with each other. As the plot develops, Bella is kidnapped by James, a tracker vampire; Edward and his relatives save her risking their lives and Edward prevents Bella from becoming a vampire after James’ biting her. Later, during the prom, Bella asks Edward to make her a vampire, which he refuses. The movie ends with James’ lover, Victoria, plotting revenge against the young couple for killing her beloved. Twilight is worth the attention of any viewer due to its skillful direction, brilliant acting, and well-selected music which altogether make this movie unforgettable.
Discussion
To begin with, the direction of the movie deserves special praise because, unlike some of the other movies about vampires, it does not produce an impression of fantasy. Twilight is an action-packed love story brought into life by Catherine Hardwicke. Catherine has been working as a director, writer, producer, art director, and production designer since 1986, which means that she has rich experience in the sphere of movie production.
She directed such movies as The Nativity Story (2006), Lords of Dogtown (2005), Thirteen (2003), and Maximum Ride (which will be released in 2010). In addition, she was a production designer of the Martians Go Home (1988), Mad City (1997), Three Kings (1999), Antitrust (2001), Vanilla Sky (2001), and a number of other famous films. The direction of Twilight differs from the rest of the movies about vampires.
It is always hard to evoke in the viewers’ compassion towards the negative characters and not each director succeeds in this. However, Hardwicke managed to intertwine action, murders, panic, chaos, and love into a coherent story about the vampires who lived the lived of ordinary people. Any director knows that shooting a movie basing on the book is extremely difficult. As compared to Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight” (the book), the movie is no less expressive.
All the necessary details were preserved and the plot was in no way distorted. Twilight may be considered as a faithful adaptation to the book owing to the work of Catherine Hardwicke and the team of the filmmakers working under this movie. Thus, Hardwicke’s direction turned Meyer’s “Twilight” into a romantic-fantasy film saturated with visual effects and full of bright memorable moments which make the viewer return to them after finishing watching the movie.
Moreover, the acting of the movie is brilliant and all the actors seem to have lived the lives of their characters for some time. The movie Twilight once again proves that people who try not to resemble the others always get into trouble. Indeed, in most of the films weird things happen to those who avoid being like everybody else, who live in isolation, or have hobbies which the society does not approve. This was the case with the protagonist of this movie, Bella Swan (in reality Kristen Stewart).
In real life Kristen does not look like a loner, but due to her talent, her heroine has loneliness even in the expression of her eyes. Edward Cullen, in his turn, inherited all the charm of Robert Pattinson, an actor with quite a large filmography for his age. Stewart and Pattinson have made this movie alive; the passion which existed between their characters seems impossible to achieve without its taking place in real life.
Other actors of this movie are Billy Burke (as Charley Swan, Bella’s father), Ashley Greene (as Alice Cullen, Edward’s adoptive sister), Nikki Reed (as Rosalie Hale, a girl turned into a vampire by the Cullens), Kellan Lutz (as Emmett Cullen, Rosalie’s beloved husband also turned into a vampire by the Cullens), and others. The cast for this movie was perfectly selected and the actors, especially those who were in the leading roles, have brilliantly coped with their roles.
Finally, the music emphasized the expressiveness of the movie and made it complete. Choosing the right music is extremely important in shooting the movie; inexpressive soundtracks can spoil even the best direction and those which are too loud or too famous can overshadow the play of the actors and the essence of the movie in general. Twilight’s music supervisor, Alexandra Patsavas, succeeded in achieving balance between expressiveness and unobtrusiveness of the music when choosing soundtracks to the movie.
Apart from the Twilight score (which, by the way, perfectly suits the mood of the movie) composed by Carter Burwell, Muse and Linkin Park can be heard in the film. Such a choice of soundtracks is somewhat symbolistic; this music was listened to by Meyer when she was writing the book “Twilight”. Perhaps, this is why Patsavas considered them to be the most suitable to the movie. Apart from the film score, Burwell wrote several other soundtracks to the movie.
His “Bella’s Lullaby” is the variation of a “Love Theme” which was supposed to voice the romantic relations between Bella and Edward. Burwell’s “Predator Theme” opens the movie. This theme is absolutely striking; it plays Edward’s vampire nature and transfers even more emotions than Edward’s look or the expression of his eyes full of resoluteness, defiance, and tenderness at one and the same time. Therefore, it can be stated that the music to Twilight cannot be perceived separately from the movie; they supplement each other and, being a whole, join the actors’ play, the visual effects, and the intricate plot to tell the viewer a story about the forbidden love.
Conclusion
In sum, due to the great work of talented filmmakers, the movie Twilight is able to meet the wishes of any viewer. Its director Catherine Hardwicke did her best in producing the movie of high quality. The cast, in face of Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, and others have brilliantly performed their roles and added reality to the music. A great job has been done by Alexandra Patsavas, the music supervisor, who selected the best-fitting soundtracks to the movie. All these people have created a great movie and turned the fantasy into the reality.
Works Cited
Twilight Movie. Org. News About the Twilight Saga. 2009. Web.