Finding Forrester Essay

Finding Forrester Essay

What are the concerns of Finding Forrester? How does the director position us to understand the central ideas of the text?

In the Gus Van Sant film, ‘Finding Forrester’, a range of film techniques are used to show the main concerns of the film. Stereotyping, friendship, not belonging and overcoming obstacles with the help of other people are the four main concerns that the film covers. These concerns are shown primarily through the characters of Jamal and Forrester, and the Director’s use of film techniques.

Stereotyping is a major problem Jamal faces when he moves to Mailor-Callow, an elite private school in Riverdale. Because he is a black person from the Bronx, his teacher, Professor Crawford, doesn’t think he can be a good writer. When Jamal submits his paper for the writing competition, Professor Crawford refuses to believe that he wrote it himself. Film techniques such as low angle shots in of Professor Crawford, shows his arrogance and superciliousness. There are also high angle shots of Jamal used in the scene where he embarrasses Professor Crawford. These show his vulnerability and how he is looked down upon. Stereotyping can also be seen in the BMW scene. The owner of the BMW assumes Jamal is going to steal or damage his car because he is a black person. He doesn’t think Jamal could possibly know anything about expensive cars because he is black kid from the Bronx. In this scene, the camera pans in an anti-clockwise direction which gives the effect of a hunter circling in on his prey. Jamal shows his cockiness in this scene and this camera panning reinforces his cockiness to us. We can see from this scene that Jamal isn’t like all the other black kids from the Bronx and that being stereotyped annoys him. Stereotyping and looking past the colour of a person’s skin is a main concern in this film.

Another major concern of the film is friendship and learning to trust and like people. This concern can mainly be seen through...