Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Atonement
2007 · Joe Wright · Atonement on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 4 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Look at the greens on the lawn in 1935. (light)
Seamus McGarvey shoots the country house in a saturated, light-soaked palette during a heat wave, on 35mm. The air looks heavy.
Payoff: The palette tells you the season and the mood before anyone speaks.
Listen for the typewriter inside the music. (sound)
Dario Marianelli builds the clack of a manual typewriter into the rhythm of the score. It starts under the opening and keeps returning, sometimes as percussion, sometimes as a sound in the room.
Payoff: The clack becomes part of the rhythm, so a sound from a room keeps running under the score. In the reading: the readable image. The reading calls this a lectosign: a sound or image that asks to be read.
Watch the fountain scene, then watch it happen again. (structure)
Wright shows the minute first from Briony's upstairs window, too far off to hear, then from close by.
Payoff: You hold two views of one minute and decide for yourself what you saw. In the reading: the powers of the false. The reading calls this the powers of the false: two versions of one event, both kept on screen.
Look at the green dress and how often it returns. (setting)
Jacqueline Durran gives Cecilia one emerald evening gown and Wright lights it to carry the whole evening. Knightley's costume does the work of character, desire and color motif at once.
Payoff: A single garment organizes the night, so you remember the scene by its color rather than by its dialogue.
Watch Saoirse Ronan's face while she is watching others. (performance)
Ronan plays Briony at thirteen as certain rather than confused. She looks, she decides, and her expression does not waver. The film gives her long stretches of pure observation.
Payoff: Her certainty is the danger. You can see her converting what she sees into something she already believes.
The 4 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the fountain twice and notice you cannot get back to before you knew. Briony cannot either.