He Got Game

– Cinematography And Film Techniques Essay, Research Paper

He Got Game is a film about the relationship between a father and his son. In this film the father, Jake Shuttlesworth (Denzel Washington), is serving time in prison for murdering his wife. His son, Jesus Shuttlesworth (Ray Allen), is the nation’s top high school basketball recruit. The governor, being an avid basketball fan, has made a deal with Jake that will curtail his sentence if he can convince his son to go to the governor’s alma mater, Big State University. Jake agrees, but much difficulty lies in dealing with a son who still hasn’t forgiven him for taking his mother’s life. It is around this difficulty that the plot is built.

In this film, Spike Lee uses the techniques of cinematography, mise en scene, editing, and sound to enhance the feud between father and son. He gives us insight into their feelings and motivations, he compares their personalities and attitudes, and he illustrates the dissonance between the two men through the use of these techniques.

Cinematography

In Jesus and Jake’s first meeting on the ball court, Lee makes use distance and space to increase the sense of separation between them. Empty space here is exaggerated through the use of a wide-angle lens. Jake is seen here in the foreground with Jesus and Booger in the background. All three men keep a healthy distance apart. When Jake approaches Booger to give him love, Booger backs away, reacting to the violation of the space that the director has created between these characters. This distance between Jake and Jesus is kept throughout the scene as they walk parallel paths across the court to the fence.

As the film progresses and as Jesus begins to accept his father more and more, the distance between the actors decreases. For example, when they are walking along the beach later in the film, they are walking side by side and even making contact at times. A telephoto lens is used here to help flatten the distance. Also, in this scene Jake and Jesus are nearly always in the same shot. In previous scenes, the two men were rarely seen in the same frame. This had affected the viewers’ perception of the distance between them by making them seem farther apart. The use of space and distance in the ocean scene, however, creates a feeling of closeness. The scene ends with a dramatic violation of space: Jake hugs Jesus.

With this hug, Lee demonstrates another use of cinematography. He uses close-up shots to help reveal character emotions. First, there is a close-up of Jesus’ face as he looks down on his father. His expression reveals much of repulsion and not a little of disgust, but for the first time in the film we don’t see his anger toward his father. Next, the camera is tilted down to catch a close-up of Jake. The grimace that follows indicates to us that he is deeply hurt by the situation and that he longs for the opportunity to once again be close to his boy.

Perspective is also used to expressively in this film. During Jesus and Jake’s early argument on the basketball court and in the kitchen, Jesus is often shot from a high angle, while Jake is more frequently shot from a low angle. This emphasizes Jake’s power over his son. When the two men face each other at the end the situation is reversed, and Jesus proves to be the dominant player. After the match is over, the two men are shot from the side, face to face. Jake asks him “Do you feel like a man now.” Here they are shown as equals. Finally, Jake is taken away and the camera zooms out to an extremely high angle shot of Jesus standing alone on the court. As the camera rises, his ego shrinks, and the increasing space around him is a clue to his loneliness.

Mise en Scene

Lee also uses composition to separate Jake and Jesus. The items shown in a shot are often carefully selected for their effect. I found it interesting how Lee used objects of bright color in the film. Color can be a fine method for subtly expressing emotion and Lee is not afraid to use it. Most directors use colors to express emotion by filming a scene with a filter, a special lens, or colored light. In these cases, the effect of the color encompasses the whole scene. Lee, however, seems to prefer the use of color in backgrounds and objects. One way that he did this in He Got Game is through the color of characters’ garments in the film. In Jesus and Jake’s first meeting in the apartment, Jake is seen in a black shirt, while Jesus wears a white one. For a moment, as the two men stand next to each other, the contrast created helps identify them as opposing forces. In the scene by the ocean, both men wear blue and white. Along with the blue sky, these soft and muted colors create quite a different feeling. Throughout the film, characters that are hurt or angered in confrontations are seen wearing red. Jesus is wearing red when his father pushes him over, and when Lala admits to cheating on him. Jake is wearing red when his son rebukes him. In nearly every scene in the film that contains some sort of conflict, one of the characters involved is wearing red clothes. I don’t think that this is a coincidence. If Lee had used lenses or filters this frequently, it would have been distracting. The use of colored garments also allowed him more flexibility in identifying a particular mood with an individual character, rather than the whole scene.

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