Weekly Film: Good Will Hunting

Good Will Hunting is a film of the drama genre that had been directed by Gus Van Sant and written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The film was released in 1998 and had been produced by Be Gentlemen Limited Partnership, Lawrence Bender Productions and Miramax. The producers of this film was Lawrence Bender and the executive producing team was Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein and Su Armstrong. Themes that had been explored throughout this film include freedom, friendship, overcoming obstacles and loneliness.

The narrative that follows throughout this film is of a clear linear style narrative, as the film presents the protagonist, Will Hunting, his progression from a simple Janitor to discovering his identity through a course of events such as going to therapy and learning from his mistakes in order to become a better person, despite his cruel past. The narrative of the film is essentially the protagonist, Will, is an undiscovered genius who hasn’t explored his true potential in the field of mathematics. While working as a janitor in the top university in North America, Harvard University, he solves near-impossible math equations on a public chalkboard in the halls of the university, up until a Mathematics professor notices who it is, this is when the film out folds from here on out.  

The cinematography that the cinematographer, Jean-Yves Escoffer, captures is significantly clear that himself and the director understand the use of shots to make the film appealing to the audience, such as instead of using the ordinary mid shots and long shots of most stock characters acting in the scenes, sometimes there is a switch up of shots to present a character performing a simple action such as in the first scene where Chuckie Sullivan goes to pick up Will from his house, (birdseye)