Films adopt new meanings for a viewer after each time they are seen. I have watched Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back countless times, but I have never stopped to watch the movie for anything more than the information spoon-fed to the viewer by the creator, George Lucas. However, re-watching the movie with an eye looking for film technique leads to a very different experience. More specifically, analyzing the cinematography of the most famous scene of the movie, where Darth Vader tells Luke Skywalker, “I am your father,” left me with a very different impression than I typically feel after a casual viewing.
The film delivers additional information to the viewer through both camera angling and lighting during this scene. In the fight leading up to Luke losing his hand, there is a massive imbalance on the screen. Vader completely dominates Luke in screen space due to the camera angle chosen by the director. In previous viewings, I typically took this to just mean that Vader’s body type was stockier than that of Luke’s. However, in my viewing looking for film techniques, the visuals alone show what an imposing presence important Darth Vader is on Luke Skywalker’s life. This provides visual foreshadowing for the classic, typically shocking, twist when it is revealed that Vader is Luke’s father. After this revelation, Luke’s face fluctuates between being partially obscured, either by lighting or the post he is grasping, and entirely exposed. In a typical viewing, I had always seen this as Luke gritting his teeth and tightly grasping something to keep his mind off of the physical trauma of losing his hand, and the mental trauma of discovering his father is his enemy. In addition to this base observation, looking at the way in which the film was directed provides new insights into Luke’s character. The fact that the light on his face changes at specific points during Vader’s request of him would suggest that Luke was dealing with some inner turmoil over the issue, and may have actually been tempted to go with his father to defeat the emperor. Despite this fluctuation, Luke’s face was fully illuminated a majority of the time, which again gives insight into the purity of his character overall.
While the direction and techniques used in this scene don’t change the meaning, they add significantly to the viewer’s understanding of what is actually occurring in one of the most convoluted portions of the entire film. Re-watching Star Wars with an analytical lens changed the way I enjoyed the movie. I am no longer just enamored with the story that was produced, but now realize that a large portion of the development is hidden within the direction of the film. This subtlety and richness added through film techniques to the original trilogy is the defining difference between the classic Star Wars and the most recent failures in the franchise.