We’ve all had daydreams about being able to fly. We can’t defy the laws of physics,
but we can still dream about it. So what does it mean when a character in a film gets to
fly? Let’s look at a classic example.
In E.T., the adults of the community, showing conformity, hostility to anything new, xenophobia,
suspicion, and a lack of imagination, are bearing down on our young heroes. They’ve
even set up a roadblock. At just the moment when things look worst, the bicycles leave
the earth and, with it, the earthbound grown-ups. We see escape, wonder, magic, and freedom
through flight.
Flying is freedom.
Let’s do some closer readings of flying in film
Jenny in Forrest Gump wants to be free. She wants to fly away from her troubles. She has
a sexually abusive, alcoholic father. She prays to fly away from him
But does she get her wings? Kind of. The police do take her to her grandmothers so she’s technically
free from her father, but this camera shot tells a different story. The camera moves
up into the sky, and birds fly away with us, but Jenny stays put on the ground. In a literal
sense, she does get freed from her father, but figuratively, she’s still stuck. She
can’t fly away from the emotional damage her father caused. Look at this shot of her
as an adult, still falling to the ground at the sight of her old house. The camera shot
is placed firmly at ground level, reflecting that she’s still grounded. She failed to
free herself from the shackles of her past. Throughout the movie, we see her trying to
fly away and fail each time. The close up on her shoes shows Jenny trying to leap out
of them, but she can’t. She’s stuck. Later, she tries using drugs to forget her
abuse and fly away.
The song "Free Bird" playing in the background during this scene is definitely no coincidence.
Now when she wants to fly, she’s higher up in a building, and
wearing high heels, but no matter how much she tries extending herself upwards, she still
slips and faces the reality that she can’t fly. She can’t escape the scars of her childhood.
Only when Jenny goes back home to Forrest does she start to emotionally recover. Nobody
can fly away from their past, but we can confront it, accept it, and move on. She dies, but
she doesn’t die alone or trapped. She dies in the company of people she loves, and that’s
when she truly becomes free, like a bird.
Sometimes in film, the character does feel
like they’re flying. We can see parallels between Jenny’s attempted flight and Rose’s
flight in Titanic. In the beginning, suicide off the back of the Titanic seems to be the
only chance of escape Rose has from her rich, plain lifestyle and unwanted marriage. With
Jack, however, she can now embrace the newfound beauty in her life at the front of the boat.
Look at the difference between these static, dark close-ups on the back of the ship and
the sweeping shots of colors in the later scene. We perceive some innate beauty to the
idea of flying that’s reflected in Titanic.
Birdman has such an interesting portrayal
of flight because in the film, our hero, Riggan Thomson, rejects flight. He chooses to stay
on the ground and perform his play. In Birdman, flight is still a symbol of freedom, but it’s
a freedom Riggan wants to avoid. Riggan wants to stay grounded and face reality. His play
seeks to comment on the issues of being human. With flight, a person escapes the struggles
of being human, so flight means we no longer need the philosophical discussions on being
human, because we’ve escaped the need for them.
Riggan wants to stay on the ground because he wants to make art that actually means something.
If he flies and makes superficial superhero movies, he’ll be unable to make any profound
commentary on the human condition because, through flight, he has escaped the human condition.
He stays on the ground so he can comment on the struggles of being grounded in his play.
So what about the flight at the end of the film? I think this is a different kind of
flight, mainly because it’s not just him that sees it. His daughter does. By this time
in the film, Riggan has overcome the need to please others. He does his play and does
what he wants purely for himself. He transcended our need as humans to fit in and please others,
and we see this transcendence represented through flight. He achieved a higher sense
of being, both literally and symbolically.
So maybe we can't defy the laws of physics and fly.
But if you manage to figure out yourself and your place in the universe, it sure feels like it.
Thanks for watching.