MovieChat Forums > Red Road (2006) Discussion > I Need Your Help with a Research Survey!

I Need Your Help with a Research Survey!

posted 11 years ago by jspruiell85
3 replies | jump to latest

I am doing research on surveillance in film and I thought this would be a great place to get some feedback.

I have some questions that I'd like to ask and if anyone could answer any of them I'd greatly appreciate it. If you think these questions are irrelevant or nothing to do with this film then I'd like to hear that feedback as well.

1) What is your idea of surveillance and how does it apply (if at all) to Red Road?

2) Did you learn anything new about surveillance after watching Red Road?

3) After watching Red Road did your idea of what surveillance is change at all?

4) Do you think that surveillance has anything to do with Red Road?

5) Besides Red Road, when you hear the word "surveillance" what films do you think of?

Thank you to anyone who participates.

[–] drnutkin 11 years ago

1) Well my idea of surveillance when I'm not thinking about this movie is mostly around intrusiveness, secrecy, and control. Red Road presents a much more benign portrait of it.

2) I live in the US so I don't know how our urban surveillance matches up with the UK's but on the practical end I was a bit surprised by how mickey-mouse the operation seemed to be, with VHS tapes and mostly bored people supervising.

3) Sort of, in the sense that it's only when I'm thinking about the movie. In the film surveillance is a way for someone who's been pushed out of society (in this case by extreme grief) to interact with other people at one remove. It's more about loneliness and anxiety than about power.

4) Yes, obviously. But less so than other people who have seen it. I think the presentation of surveillance has more to do with the character, in terms of reflecting her interpersonal withdrawal and hypervigilance, than it does with saying large-scale things about our times.

5) The Lives of Others. Rear Window. Sorry I can't think of others, it's not really a concept I consciously think about when I'm watching movies.

[–] jspruiell85 11 years ago

drnutkin, thank you so much for your reply. Funny you mentioned Rear Window; that is another film I am looking at explicitly in my research paper and have posted the same questions on that board. I'm interested to see how film impacts people's way of thinking and I have to center the topic around surveillance so your responses along with others I will accumulate should prove to help me out a lot. Thanks again.

[–] gorbals406 8 years ago

I am doing research on surveillance in film and I thought this would be a great place to get some feedback.

I know this is a long time after your post, but, if you're still interested, you MUST see The Last Enemy with Benedict Cumberbatch. It takes London's very extensive CCTV to the logical final, frightening conclusion.