The Selfish Giant Scene Analysis

The Selfish Giant is a 2013 British drama written and directed by Clio Barnard. The film was inspired by Oscar Wilde’s children’s book ‘The selfish giant’. It is about two thirteen year old friends, Arbor (Conner Chapman) and Swifty (Shaun Thomas) who seek wealth from a local scrap dealer. It runs for 91 minutes and made £602,866 in the box office.

The short scene at the beginning of the film we viewed contained themes of friendship and crime. The scene showed the first feeling of friendship when Arbor is angry and is banging against his bed. Swifty tries to calm him down by holding his hand. The grip Swifty has on his hand looks quite tight and eventually Arbor does the same. This shows the strong bond between them because the hold is quite tight. When Arbor is under his bed shouting, it almost seems like he is trapped, he is banging on the bed in an attempt to escape. This links to fish tank with the theme of entrapment.  The theme of Crime is shown when Swifty and Arbor arrive at a train track on a horse and notice some men cutting some wire for scrap, but when the men hide from others that arrive at the scene Arbor takes his chance to steal the wire. When Arbor and Swifty arrive at a local scrap dealer we also find out that the boys stole the horse which belonged to the scrap dealer.

We later find out that Arbor suffers from ADHD because he gets angry easily and has to take medication to calm himself down. This is shown when Arbor returns home and gets questioned about the money he ‘earned’. He becomes aggressive when his mother asks for the second time. He starts to knock cereal off the side and throw things whilst cursing at the same time. Their wealth can also be seen here. The cereal he knocks off are ‘value’ cereals and his mother is unable to pay for the truancy fine that Arbor has caused from not attending school.

The relationships between family members are also made obvious. His brother Martin (Elliot Tittensor) appears to be addicted to drugs including taking his brothers ADHD tablets. The siblings don’t get on and this is made obvious by their language. They are constantly swearing at one another and Arbor’s brother even makes fun of Arbor for his ADHD by calling him a ‘spaz’. The family is troubled and don’t get along, they always seemed to be in an argument throughout the scene.

The cinematography was really effective especially when they used the shadows to represent the people. When Arbor is first underneath his bed he is shown as a shadow which perhaps shows his unhappiness and that his life is dark. When both Arbor and Swifty where going out during the night, you saw them run across a field (with Swifty on a horse) and they were shadows. But they were soon lit up more because they are together so shows how calm Arbor is when he is with Swifty and how much more relaxed he feels with him rather than his family.