Captain Fantastic

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 Captain Fantastic


Is the family inside or outside society?


Watering schedule and fitness training - in ‘tune’ with the natural world


Key Elements

  • Mise-en-scene, photos on the bus: Leslie and Ben and Ben and son
  • Older world - the old fashioned sewing machine
  • Boning knife - Zaja (wearing wolves hat)
  • Zaja has pictures of the Pol Pot dictator on her wall
  • By the fire: reading ‘middlemarch - Victorian classics’
  • Night shots: aesthetic, ambience, family being together (earlier wide shot of family in a circle before fitness training)


Sound and Music

  • Diegetic music - family ‘in tune/harmony’ - each contributing by playing an instrument around the fire
  • Rhythm- represent their togetherness
  • Affirmation of their unity
  • Bo’s guitar
  • Zellian (more rebellious and angry) beating the drum
  • Zaja - Harmonica
  • Being individual and being a family
  • Sound is created spontaneously and through improvisation


Some Ideas

  • Conflict - within the family and inner conflict (Ben + Bo and the two sisters)
  • The girls in conflict - Ben, “Stab to kill”, “Learn to defend yourself”
  • Competition - a wider significance 
  • Issues around gender and stereotypes
  • Themes around power - and our alignment as spectators
  • Bo’s Ivy league success - conflict with Ben
  • Parenting and Ben - alignment around these issues
  • Bo’s awareness of the lack of social interaction and skills she has
  • “Last night mummy killed herself” - Honesty


Some key moments

  • Jack’s (Leslies dad) response to Leslie’s death (funeral arrangements)
  • Zajas view that the grandparents are ‘racist capitalists’
  • Rock climbing incident (S.T.O.P)
  • Lolita and how ‘interesting’ is a non word
  • The ‘test’ after being stopped by the police
  • Supermarket stunt


Supermarket sequence - Wider contexts and changes in spectator alignment


As a spectator, our views on Ben as a parents and as a person have not been very stable. Theres reasons to align ourselves with him and like him, but there’s also reasons to not do so. In the supermarket sequence, Ben is shown to have a heart attack which we later find out was a stunt in order to get free food. This is done because he believes that supermarkets are these big conglomerate, capitalist  industries who don't care for anyone but themselves. This is a situation where peoples views could be split depending on economical views. However in general, Ben throughout the movie is shown to be constantly pushing the harsh truth onto his kids and teaching them to do the same, so this act of stealing food (when he clearly had money as we saw him take some out the bank a few scenes before hand) counteracts his values and what he feels is acceptable. Following this stunt, the employees of the supermarket follow Ben out asking him if he needs help and insist on calling and ambulance which further counteracts his thoughts on how these big corporations don’t care about anyone but themselves. On the other hand, if you look at this from an economical point of view, peoples opinions on this act may vary. Some people may agree with Bens views on capitalism and support what he did on the basis that the supermarkets are capitalist conglomerate businesses that continue to get richer without helping anyone else below them in social class and how this criminal act wouldn’t even make a dent in their income. But others may disagree with what Ben did as it is a criminal act, and stealing should be allowed from any company whether it's a small business or a conglomerate industry as it could potentially harm the employees.


Dinner sequence with Harper - Group work

  • Each family is sitting on opposite sides of the table - Table serves as a barrier between values - a barrier between American values and ‘anti-american values’
  • Never in the same cinematic frame together which further separates the two families values
  • Little boy on phone playing violent war games which is shocking to the other kids but then they’re just as shocked when Ben gives the kids world - similar in their destructive parenting methods and values
  • When the boys were playing X-box, they were slouched in their chairs - bad posture 
  • Fast paced editing between the faces of the two families - tension 
  • The families are only linked by the mum who is dead
  • Medium close up of Bens side of the family shows posture and demeanour 
  • You become stuck with who to align yourself with as neither of the family are necessarily better than the other - lack of determination and effort from Harpers kids
  • Harper and her husband sugarcoats topics when explaining them to her kids - juxtaposes Bens methods of honesty - however as spectators we can tell neither families are in the right - one goes too far into extremes and one is too brief to understand


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