Introduction:
Stand By Me is a coming-of-age film set in the summer of 1959. The film follows four protagonists: Gordie, Chris, Teddy, and Vern, who are around the age of 12-13, on their journey to find Ray Browers body (boy their age who is missing). Along the journey they encounter many forks in the road, and the path they choose to take builds their characters personality and values. Although the boys have many thoughts of returning to their town Castle Rock, they soldier on and form a deeper understanding of the world and each other. The film teaches its audience two main life lessons about growing up and demonstrates them through the experiences of the boys. Rob Reiner (the director) expresses these themes by using camera, sound, and acting to display how friendships make us who we are and acting to display how your past does not have to be your future.
Friendships Make Us Who We Are
Reiner uses camera and sound to demonstrate how lonely Gordie is in a place where he should feel surrounded by love. He also used acting to show how loved Gordie is by his friends. Gordie walks into his older brother Denny’s room who died recently and gets a flashback to when his brother gifts him his Yankie’s cap. Then Gordie’s dad walks in, cutting off the flashback, and proceeds to tell Gordie of how much of a disappointment he is.
When Gordie’s father walks in the camera instantly switches from a warm frame to a cold frame and the non-diegetic piano melody stops playing. Reiner uses the warm frame with Denny which allows the audience to associate Denny to feeling warm, safe, and calm. The non-diegetic melody promotes a feeling of sadness which allows the audience to empathise with Gordie and how much he still grieves his brother’s death. This is all quickly taken away from him when his father enters the room and the camera shifts into a cold frame to express how in the absence of Denny, Gordie’s life is cold, unkind, and without love. In the absence of Denny, Gordie also begins to believe that what his father says about him is true until Chris steps and says…
‘It’s like god gave you a gift man and said this is what we got for you kid, don’t lose it.’
Chris shows Gordie that his father is wrong, and he is destined for more than just being…
‘Another wise guy with shit for brains.’
Reiner used acting to display how Gordie was traveling down a path he would not be able to find his way out of if Chris didn’t pull him out. He accomplished this by getting both boys to walk when Gordie is deciding to give up on his gift and pause when Chris tells him off for even thinking that was an option. This is so the audience can specifically see how Chris is helping his friends to pause and see the path which will lead him to his dream of being a writer. Reiners use of camera, sound, and acting allowed the audience to see how Gordie’s friendship with Chris shaped who Gordie became in the future, showing how the friendships you have all though your life make you who you are.
Do Not Let The Past Define You
In Reiners film, he uses acting in a conversation between Gordie and Chris to demonstrate how growing up means seeing that your past doesn’t have to be your future. From an early age, Chris was branded with the same stamp of being a “low life Chambers kid” his family had earned by being criminals. Everybody in Castle Rock expected him to turn out just like the rest of his family, so one day Chris decided to do what he was constantly blamed for:
The past haunts a lot of people, but what Gordie helped Chris realise is that his past doesn’t have to be his future. Reiner perfectly used Chris to show this theme because the acting makes the audience empathise with that character. Chris goes from having great posture and holding his head high to slouching, crying, and trying to hold himself together while having a conversation with a friend. This makes the theme of not letting your past hold you back seem even more important to the audience by showing how much the past can affect someone in the future. If any of the other characters were to take Chris’ place in this scene, the message would not hit the audience as hard because all the other characters show much more vulnerability openly compared to Chris. The acting in this scene perfectly describes how important it is to not let the past get in the way of the future.
This theme of continuously moving forward also appears in a family film called Meet the Robinsons. The protagonist is a young boy who is hung up on why his mother left him at the steps of an orphanage when he was a baby. This leads him to create all these ways to meet her. It’s not until the end of the film where he realises that being hung up on the past is holding him back from his future and just decides to…
‘Keep moving forward’
to reach his full potential.
Personal Response
Surprisingly, the theme in this film I felt most connected too, was how Chris felt that his future was set, and it was outside of his control to influence that path. Even though I have a privileged life and prospects compared to Chris, there have been many times where I have also felt like my future was already set in stone, regardless of the additional effort I could put in. However, every time I had that thought I always had one person who did not give up on me, even when I was ready to give up on myself. Without that person I would not be the version of myself I am today. I see this in the way Gordie and Chris challenge and support one other. The Stand By Me film resonated with me given how important that friendship was for the development of my identity as I grew up and specifically not letting the past define who I am in the future.