There is a lot of symbolism in film that people tend to overlook, the most obvious example being rain. Rain scenes are a pain in the ass to film; it doesn’t show up unless properly colored or backlit, it can be costly depending on the severity, it requires extra resources, can be noisy, and, obviously, makes the actors wet. Yet, several famous and beloved films go through the hassle of creating rain scenes. Spiderman, Forrest Gump, The Shawshank Redemption, Seven Samurai, Minority Report, Blade Runner, The Matrix, Raising Arizona, Millers Crossing, Platoon, Inception, and, most famously, Singing in the Rain, all have well known rain scenes in them. Hell, David Fincher even uses rain as a supporting character in most of his films. So, what’s the point, you might ask, if it is such a problem creating rain sequences? Why should directors bother? Well, different films use weather differently, so here are a few examples and how the effect works in each.
So far in this blog I have been overly prejudiced towards English speaking films. I love foreign films, but they are often harder to compartmentalize the way I do with English speaking films. With rain there is no better director to discuss than Akira Kurasawa. He’s famous for using rain in several of his films, an early example being Rashamon. Kurasawa mixed water with ink so black rain would show up on his black and white film, as it pours down in front of Rashamon gate while a priest and a woodcutter discuss the bizarre trial they just witnessed. The rain prevents them from leaving the gate, it is pouring hard, so they begin to retell the events of the trial. Flashback – it is not raining. The whole film relies on various flashbacks, as four angles of a story are told inconsistently, and the rain separates the past from the present. Not until the end of the film, when the characters give up on trying to understand does the light come; the resolution of the rain is connected to the resolution of the story.
No film uses rain more symbolically than a film I keep coming back to, Taxi Driver. During the film, it rains a number of times, and Travis Bickle twice muses over the downfall. The first time, Travis says “Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk.” It is no secret that Scorsese uses religious symbolism often in his films, and there is little doubt that this rain is a reference to the story of Noah, where God brought down a mighty storm to wipe away the wicked. Travis sees it as his responsibility now to wipe out the wicked in the city. “All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets” is Travis’ second musing about the rainfall. The rain in Taxi Driver is directly related to the main character, as both clean away the dirt unforgivingly.
And finally, the Stanley Kubrick paragraph. I was actually going to write here about Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, but I think I can make a stronger case with A Clockwork Orange. Alex maliciously rapes a woman in front of her elder husband while singing Singing in the Rain, creating an ironic juxtaposition between the lighthearted song and the horrible crime he is committing. Later, Alex is nearly drowned to death by his former Droog, and crawls to his salvation through a heavy rainfall, the rain here coming at his most inconvenient time of need. He goes to the first house he finds, and realizes it’s the home of the man he tied up and raped the wife of. The man does not recognize Alex, until he absent-mindedly starts singing Singing in the Rain to himself in the bathroom. Although this example is not as much about physical rain as the others, it still shows how the concept of rain can be symbolic in films.
Sure, some directors simply use rain for a plot device, and it does not symbolize much more than, well, rain. Roland Emmerich does this in a couple of his disaster movies. But nobody makes a rainy day just to have a rainy day. This is about the most obvious piece of symbolism I can find; films are full of symbols though, so be on the look out next time you go to the theatres; it will inform your understanding of what the director is trying to achieve.
So far in this blog I have been overly prejudiced towards English speaking films. I love foreign films, but they are often harder to compartmentalize the way I do with English speaking films. With rain there is no better director to discuss than Akira Kurasawa. He’s famous for using rain in several of his films, an early example being Rashamon. Kurasawa mixed water with ink so black rain would show up on his black and white film, as it pours down in front of Rashamon gate while a priest and a woodcutter discuss the bizarre trial they just witnessed. The rain prevents them from leaving the gate, it is pouring hard, so they begin to retell the events of the trial. Flashback – it is not raining. The whole film relies on various flashbacks, as four angles of a story are told inconsistently, and the rain separates the past from the present. Not until the end of the film, when the characters give up on trying to understand does the light come; the resolution of the rain is connected to the resolution of the story.
No film uses rain more symbolically than a film I keep coming back to, Taxi Driver. During the film, it rains a number of times, and Travis Bickle twice muses over the downfall. The first time, Travis says “Thank God for the rain to wash the trash off the sidewalk.” It is no secret that Scorsese uses religious symbolism often in his films, and there is little doubt that this rain is a reference to the story of Noah, where God brought down a mighty storm to wipe away the wicked. Travis sees it as his responsibility now to wipe out the wicked in the city. “All the animals come out at night - whores, skunk pussies, buggers, queens, fairies, dopers, junkies, sick, venal. Someday a real rain will come and wash all this scum off the streets” is Travis’ second musing about the rainfall. The rain in Taxi Driver is directly related to the main character, as both clean away the dirt unforgivingly.
And finally, the Stanley Kubrick paragraph. I was actually going to write here about Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors, but I think I can make a stronger case with A Clockwork Orange. Alex maliciously rapes a woman in front of her elder husband while singing Singing in the Rain, creating an ironic juxtaposition between the lighthearted song and the horrible crime he is committing. Later, Alex is nearly drowned to death by his former Droog, and crawls to his salvation through a heavy rainfall, the rain here coming at his most inconvenient time of need. He goes to the first house he finds, and realizes it’s the home of the man he tied up and raped the wife of. The man does not recognize Alex, until he absent-mindedly starts singing Singing in the Rain to himself in the bathroom. Although this example is not as much about physical rain as the others, it still shows how the concept of rain can be symbolic in films.
Sure, some directors simply use rain for a plot device, and it does not symbolize much more than, well, rain. Roland Emmerich does this in a couple of his disaster movies. But nobody makes a rainy day just to have a rainy day. This is about the most obvious piece of symbolism I can find; films are full of symbols though, so be on the look out next time you go to the theatres; it will inform your understanding of what the director is trying to achieve.
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