Characters:

Chris Washington (main character)

Missy Armitage (main character's girlfriend's mother)

 

    In the hypnosis scene in the movie Get Out, a lot transpires in a short amount of time. The scene begins with the main character, Chris, heading back inside after a smoke, and ends with him in the “sunken place.” The way the scene was filmed and the choice of audio completely impacted the tone of the movie. The movie is a horror/thriller and this hypnosis scene adds to the creepiness of the entire situation.

    When the scene starts, it is nighttime. Chris is letting himself in the back door and beginning to walk through the house when he hears his girlfriend’s mom’s (Missy Armitage’s) voice before he even sees her. The camera cuts to her after she finished her first line and then cuts back and forth between the two characters before the second line is delivered. This establishes both Chris’s uneasiness and Missy’s creepiness. There is no music and virtually no sound besides the dialogue between Chris and Missy in the beginning of the scene, until Missy starts clinking her spoon to her teacup every few seconds. First steady zoom of the scene begins when the clinking turns into a constant stirring. This stirring is the only noise behind the dialogue, which is slow due to Chris’s discomfort with Missy.

    Before Missy puts Chris in the “sunken place,” the camera cuts between the two of them and the spoon stirring in the teacup. There is a zoom on Missy’s face but no movements with Chris’s camera. This might represent how Chris doesn’t want to open up about anything to Missy and she is very open with talking to him. When Missy begins digging into Chris’s childhood, the camera cuts to a scene from Chris’s childhood, but then back to the room at present time. After this cut to the childhood, the camera begins a very slow zoom on Chris as he speaks. The camera continues this zoom while Missy replies. This slow zoom and fixation on Chris symbolizes how Missy is beginning to see some of Chris’s past.

    The mood of the scene is eerie and slow-paced until Missy says in a stern voice, “now sink into the floor. Sink.” The stirring noise immediately stops and is replaced with complete silence. It is silent for a second or two and then dramatic music starts playing as Chris is falling through space. The camera angles shift every couple of seconds from his side, to behind him, to a very wide shot of him falling. The camera cuts to the view of Missy we could see a few seconds ago, but this time in what looks like a television that is moving further and further from us. This camerawork represents Chris falling into the sunken place and being taken from reality. Suddenly the camera cuts back to his body in real-time. It’s a close-up of him wide-eyed with tears pouring from his eyes. The viewers can see very well that his mind/spirit is somewhere else. The camera cuts back to him falling into the sunken place. He seems to land on the ground (although everything around him is completely dark still– the viewers can’t see a floor), and Missy says “now you’re in the sunken place.” And the music goes quiet.

    The first half of the scene consists of dialogue and no music and the second half consists of music and little dialogue. The dialogue indicates that Chris is alert and aware and when he stops speaking we know he is completely hypnotized. The scene also consists of abrupt cuts and slow zooms. There are only two characters in the scene, but the teacup is an equally important part. Because of this, the camera is focused on three main shots before Chris is hypnotized: Missy, Chris, and the teacup (which is producing the background noise). Overall, there is a lot going on with the camerawork and dialogue of this scene that makes it as moving as it is.