The Crazies Questions

The Crazies 2010 Questions

1.      Does The Crazies follow the CHN? Why or why not?

The Classic Hollywood Narrative has the same plot line, it follows up the happy “Everything is okay” atmosphere in a town or city. The plot then changes by an incident which switches up the plot slightly which needs to find a resolution to solve it. However, in The Crazies the first scene is opened with the town all on fire, with mass destruction. This obviously does not start off like the Classic Hollywood Narrative as the disastrous equilibrium has already been shown right in the first scene. The scene then cuts straight back to two days earlier, jumping back to explain how the town got in this state in the first place.

2.       Hoe many Propp’s character types can be identified in the film?

You have the obvious villain being the infected or “The Crazies” but also you could say that the military are also seen as the villains as they cause more chaos and destruction and are the cause of many of the innocent residents of Oaden Marsh being shot and killed.  David is the hero throughout the whole film, saving Judy on multiple occasions and managing to keep her and their unborn child alive. Russell can be seen as the dispatcher but also as the false hero. He helps and assist David however, he becomes infected it and has both Judy and David at gunpoint, but takes his life to save David and Judy’s. Judy I believe can be seen as the helper, being a nurse and attending to people wounds but also, diverting the principle from impaling Becca. She is also under the princess category as David rescues her from the high school where she was quarantined and also where she is held hostage in the nursey by 2 of the infected.

3.       List Five examples of binary oppositions in the film and explain them briefly.

The humans and infected, so that represents good and evil, also the non-infected and the soldiers are also an example of good and evil. With half the town infected and behaving in an inhumanness way, you can suggest the binary opposites of human and non-human. In addition, known and unknown, so David and Judy are only aware of so much of what is going on whereas the military are in full

operation and fully know what is going on. Finally, the normal and strange, this virus or air-born disease completely turns the way humans react and their mind set. Instead giving a violent personality instead. Which is obviously an abnormal characteristic for a person to have.

 

4.       Identify the three “Durations” and give an estimate of the time each duration covers.

The film length is run over around 92 minutes in total. Thinking about the story time, I believe it could be an estimate of around 2-3 years. For the Trixie biochemical weapon to be produced and then be decided to transport over, it only took a matter of weeks for the water to become contaminated and days for the people of Oaden Mrrsh to drink it and become infected. The plot duration runs over around 3-4 days as an estimate. There is a scene where David, Judy and Russell confront a man from the government and discover that it takes 48 hours for people to become infected, we then realise it had been 3 days already as David and Judy discover meaning that they are coincidentally  immune.

5.       Give two examples of events which cause later events in the film but which occur before it “Starts”

The plane which contains the chemical which contaminated the water caused Rory to be shot by David and also Bill becoming infected and killing his own wife and son by setting the house on fire with them locked inside. Secondly Judy’s pregnancy, due to Judy being pregnant she was mistaken for being infected with a high fever. She was then separated from David which then encouraged him to go back and save her. He then leaves the truck depo where he has been taken with all the other non-infected people. He leaves and goes to the high school to save Judy. We learn then later on in the film, the non-infected people who were at the truck depo had all been shot dead and their bodies were then burnt. Therefore, if it wasn’t for Judy being pregnant and being separated from David, David could have possibly been killed earlier on with all the other non-infected people.

6.       List two events from the 92-minute film that happened in a different time and space to the one we are shown.

One event was the event between when Russell is on the bus and before when him and David discover the infection. We discover that Russell did try to leave Oaden Marsh as he tells David and Judy when they both get on the bus that his tyres got spiked by the military. A second event is when David goes into the area where all the deceased bodies are kept. David discovers a man whose eyes and mouth has been sewn shut. This was not shown on the screen time however we can tell this has happened by what we have seen.