SPOILER DISCUSSION

1.Wish the film did a better job transitioning from Bella’s thoughts on death to her recounting how the journey started. The film technically starts in media res but there’s not a great indication this is the case. Better clarity would make the opening more poignant.

The sequence Bella experiences at the 102 minute mark is where the film is technically starting and the film could have been framed as Bella’s life flashing before her eyes up to the point if executed more cohesively. The mini-montage the film does use in this moment is fun and does a decent job of summarizing Bella’s subjective experience up to the point, but it could have been integrated in grander fashion.

2.Speaking of which, cutting to James and his cohorts attacking citizens is a poor formal decision. It undermines the subjectivity of the film; we go from being with Bella and experiencing the story from her perspective to witnessing her soon-to-be hunters from another vantage point entirely. It would have been better to have Bella imagine what happened during the attacks as her knowledge of vampire lore increases instead of cutting to the attacks themselves.

3. The shot at the 4 minute mark of Charlie and Billy (Gil Birmingham) play fighting in the background as Bella and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) catch up is a great bit of fun.

4.At the 24 minute mark, Bella first begins to “dream” of Edward. This sequence further reinforces just how much Edward is encroaching into her headspace. The dissolve from the moon to Edward highlights her increased associations of him with the night, the darkness. When Bella sees him for a moment and then doesn’t see him the next, we believe that she’s hallucinating.

But then Edward reveals that he’s actually been watching Bella during the nighttime for a while. Far from Bella being the only obsessed party, the scene demonstrates that Edward’s longing for her goes as deep. The way the scene is shot doesn’t undermine Edward’s revelation later but also doesn’t give away the nature of that revelation.

5.At the 38 minute mark, there’s a POV shot of Bella that hearkens back to the hunting sequence from the start of the film. The revelation of the vampire attacks earlier make us fear that Bella is being hunted by the antagonist. Then the would-be-rapists emerge from the back alley and we’re led to believe that the real threat is them.

But then Edward appears and confirms that he was the presence stalking Bella earlier. This subversion plays into Edward’s constant identification with the villain. He thinks vampires are evil so when he comes into the scene, he’s presented as someone hunting Bella when he’s in fact obsessively protecting her.