Kaitlin Alfvin

Forever Young

Director: Steve Miner

1992

“Forever Young” falls under the category of romance in the world of film and much of the emotion has to do with what the viewer is seeing, not just what is being said by actors. This is where the importance of good camera work comes it.

In the opening scene Daniel McCormic is first introduced as a test pilot in 1939. As viewers we get a feel right away for his adventurous personality and see him as a risk taker. All that is all picked up in the first scene with a close up of his face flying a plane that is crashing towards the ground. This close up in particular however shows him smiling and laughing as the shot pulls back showing the whole scene of the plane crashing to the ground. In these first few shots as viewers we get a kind of understanding of the type of life this character Daniel McCormic leads.

The car accident that puts Daniel McCormic’s girlfriend Helen in a coma is a carefully filmed scene that took precision to bring the emotion Daniel felt in that moment. Daniel’s face seen with shock was carefully filmed up close as an employee from the diner tells him he must hurry outside because there has been an accident. Next a shot is seen that shows the whole scene, Helen laying in the street as Daniel rushes to her and the car totaled on the side of the street showing the audience exactly what had happened.

When Daniel wakes up from his frozen state he finds himself in a government warehouse in 1992. As he gets up and walks around the town they show a pan shot of the diner bringing back all the feelings from the tragedy with Helen that first made him sign up for this frozen government experiment to stay ‘forever young.’ As he goes into the diner he sits down and a medium shot is shown of him sitting where he last saw Helen, while he is reflecting on his past and now his unknown future.