Sunday, October 20, 2019

Strangers on a Train Essays

Strangers on a Train Essays Strangers on a Train Essay Strangers on a Train Essay Essay Topic: The Stranger Chris Colangelo Film as an Art Form 32660 Frank Foster Strangers on a Train Word Count 1559 1. Guy Haines is a pro tennis player from Metcalf that feels tennis is not what he wants to do with his life and that politics is what he is meant for. Guy doesn’t drink or smoke much but will do so on occasion, Guy is very friendly and modest about his fame. When Guy meets Bruno on the train for the first time he doesn’t want to be around him for very long as Bruno tends to intrude into Guy’s personal life. It makes Guy upset. Guy’s wife has been cheating on him and wants a divorce and Guy doesn’t want to talk about it with Bruno. Guy has a weird sense of humor as he sarcastically says things like, â€Å"I thought murder was against the law† or â€Å"sure Bruno, sure they’re ok†. Guy has acquired a significant financial gain from his tennis playing and when he goes to Metcalf to meet with his wife to finalize the divorce, she double crosses him and literally tries to ruin his life for her personal gain. Guy gets so angry about his wife’s double crossing he tells her she will pay and while on the phone with his girlfriend, Anne Morton, he says he could strangle her or break her neck. Even though Guy is very upset by his wife’s actions, he was alarmed to find that Bruno had killed his wife and called Bruno a crazy maniac and tells Bruno that he is going to the police, but when Bruno tells him that he will be viewed as an accessory to murder Guy regretfully agrees not to go to the police and acts like he doesn’t know anything. Guy sometimes can’t control his feelings toward Bruno and at one point punches Bruno in the face for making a seen at a party. Guy is dating Anne Mortan who is a senator’s daughter which makes him look as if he were dating her as a way into politics. Guy gets easily offended at the mention of such accusations. Guy cares about keeping Anne Morton and her family out of the mess of the murder. He also cares about keeping a good public image to help him get into politics. Guy is a bad liar. When the phone is brought to him and he finds out it was Bruno he quickly hangs up the phone and when asked who it was he said,† There must have been a mistake, it wasn’t for me†. Clearly showing suspicion by the fact that Guy is a bad liar tells a little about his character, he is just a typical honest man that likes to play tennis. . Bruno Antony is a very wealthy man from Arlington but not by his own work. His family is rich and Bruno simply lives off of his family’s wealth. Bruno is very talkative and cares about his mother who is mentally ill. Bruno likes to smoke, drink, and gamble and that is the behavior that got him kicked out of three colleges. Bruno believes that you should do everything before you die to an un realistic level. Bruno’s father thinks that Bruno is a bum and is determined to get Bruno a job if it’s the last thing he does. Bruno can’t stand that his father has so much money and insists that Bruno get a job like a normal person. Bruno often thinks about different ways to kill his father and the thought is relaxing to him Bruno even says, â€Å"I used to put myself to sleep at night figuring it all out†. Bruno is a psychotic man; he thinks and plots about murder, often creating a plan and running through it in his mind. When Bruno meets Guy on the train for the very first time he already knows everything about Guy; his tennis career, his interest in politics, his divorce, his girlfriend, everything. Bruno reads about everything and everyone. Bruno likes Guy and wants to be Guy’s friend even though Guy doesn’t seem to have any desire to be around Bruno. Bruno gets into Guy’s personal life and brings up sensitive things that he knows about. Bruno merely talks to Guy about the idea of swapping murders and even though Guy is repulsed by the idea, Bruno moves forward as if they had cut a deal. Bruno is very resourceful; he seems to always know where Guy is and how to get ahold of him. He also has no trouble finding Guy’s wife, Miriam. Bruno waits by her house, waiting for her to leave, he follows her and the two men she is with to a theme park. Bruno enjoys the thrill of the hunt. He loves following Miriam as if it were a game to him. Bruno flirts with Miriam using simple eye gestures and smiles, making it all the more easier for Bruno to complete his murder. When Bruno kills Miriam, he doesn’t just attack her from behind, he gets right up in her face and flicks the lighter to illuminate their faces, he looks right into her eyes and asks her if she’s Miriam. When she replies, he wraps his hands around her throat and strangles her to death with no remorse. When Bruno tells Guy about what he had done, Guy says he’s going to the police but Bruno quickly tricks Guy into thinking that if he goes to the police that he will be an accessory to murder as Bruno has nothing to gain by killing Guy’s wife so Guy must have convinced Bruno to kill his wife. Even though Bruno is very smart he is also very impatient. He shows himself to Guy even when he knows that Guy has police following him at all times. Bruno is under the impression that he had completed his end of the deal and Guy owes him the death of Bruno’s father. When Bruno finds that Guy has no intention of killing his father he decides to go back to the scene of the crime and plant Guy’s lighter to give the police evidence that would link Guy to the murder. Even after Bruno is shot and knows he is going to die, he still won’t admit to the murder and continues to frame Guy. 3. Guy and Bruno are very different men but they are similar in some ways. Bruno and Guy both feel that they have been wronged; Bruno by his father’s wanting him to work, and Guy’s wife cheating on him, then double crossing him and ruining his life for monetary gain. Both Bruno and Guy have money and they both want to be more in life than their current position. Guy wants to get into politics and Bruno wants to do something he feels is important. Both men are intelligent and use their intelligence to work toward their goals; Guy moving forward in his career and Bruno manipulating Guy to keep himself out of prison. Both men break the law and make foolish decisions; Bruno by killing Miriam and Guy by slipping out and ditching his police escort. 4. There are objects in the movie that link multiple characters together. The first is Bruno’s tie clip given to him by his mother. The fact that his name is on the tie clip is very important in itself because it becomes an identifier. Anne Morton notices this when Bruno talks to Guy out side when he is with Anne. Guy tells her that he has never met him before and that he was simply just a fan. But later, when at the tennis courts, Bruno introduces himself again as if they had never met. Because Anne saw Bruno’s tie clip she was certain that it was the same man and that something was up. Another object in the movie was Miriam’s glasses. After Bruno killed her he took the glasses and gave them to Guy as proof of the murder. Later in the movie, not the physical glasses themselves, but the mental image of the glasses Bruno had in his head reminded him of the murder. When seeing Anne’s sister Barbara who looked a little like Miriam, the glasses reminded him of the murder and he had a flashback to the crime. This was obvious to Barbara and when Barbara told Anne about it, she said she had noticed it too. This was one of the key pieces in Anne discovering that Bruno killed Miriam. 5. The object use for the resolution of the story was Guy’s lighter that had tennis rackets and A G engraved on it. This is very important because it clearly can be proven to belong to Guy and would put him at the scene of the crime if Bruno had placed it there. Bruno knew this and was very careful when someone asked for a light on the train. Bruno pulled out a box of matches even though he had the lighter in his hand. Bruno didn’t want anyone to see him with the lighter and it would lose its ability to link Guy to the murder. At the end of the movie the lighter was used to prove that Bruno was planning on planting the lighter on the island to frame Guy. That one single Item was what cleared Guy’s name.

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