A really creepy Firefly clip...

[conuly]

It's not creepy in and of itself, just when you think on how River is as we know her.

That said, I have a question.

Oftentimes, in TV and movies, if a character is clearly batshit insane and dangerous, they show this by doing a closeup on their face so you can't not see that their eyes are wildly moving back and forth. And maybe they'll show the Good Guy so we can compare their steady gaze to the scanning gaze of Crazy Ax-Murderer (and you know that's crazy, since axes are nice and sweet, and it's saws you want to kill). They even did that to River Tam at least once that I remember.

Why is this? Is there some sort of correlation between how sane you are and how likely you are to go madly back and forth while looking at people? Is this why the cylons/some cylons have one eye that goes back and forth and back and forth and back and forth, because they're all nuts?

I'm confused.

Comments

[towanda.livejournal.com]

I think Hollywood and film in general sticks to certain standards to get a point across. There are certain things--camera angles, music, etc.--that we, the audience automatically recognize and associate with a particular behavior or action. Because its so ingrained in us and yet so subtle, directors tend to believe that either we won't understand their message without it, or they're just too lazy to try anything new.

[conuly]

Subtle icon appreciation here (that's 1)
As for 2 - you could be right. Damn. Because the eye moving thing really irritates me. If I want to do that, I have to move my head, but does this mean that people don't know I'm nuts otherwise? (Not really nuts, of course - just a bit legumes)