Hysteria by Sam Taylor- Wood is a silent film of a woman expressing the feeling of laughing and slowly transitioning into crying.
We open the piece with a woman against a black backdrop and Her face close up and in the centre of the shot – There is nothing but her. She begins to laugh and we discover that there is no sound in this piece. As time passes we start to see that the woman is increasingly getting more ‘hysterical’ with her laughter which becomes uncomfortable and surreal to the viewers however with this combined with the fact that the piece is silent, the audience starts to concentrate on the women facial features and body language as there are no distractions- No background design, No sound, There is only the woman laughing.
Later in the piece the woman slowly transitions from laughing into crying, This becomes jarring for the audience as there is no sound we can’t tell whether she is actually crying or is she still laughing. The line between emotion start to blur the longer you watch and you can find yourself wondering what emotion is she portraying.
I feel the context of this piece is that the two strong feelings, Laughing and crying, are closely aligned with each other. the director chose to show us this by using these methods.
Film Link –http://www.ubu.com/film/tw_hysteria.html
Courtney Yarwood ARD 415 and ARD 416 