PLS WATCH: THE FITS (on Kanopy)
Comment on both the approach to the film’s cinematography and engagement with genre within the context of liminality and outsiderness, be specific with scenes and shots. If you could please review the previous homework i assigned you please follow that style of writing i mentioned previously when answering this question i need you to write two paragraphs the first paragraph answering the questions and the second paragraph replying to my classmate’s response to the question, here is my classmate’s response to the question that i need you to reply to:
“The Fits is a coming of age film following Toni as she wants to become like the other girls on the dance team but clearly doesn’t feel comfortable acting like like an adolescent woman, she doesn’t even feel comfortable putting her hands on her hips at the dance auditions. All the girls are laughing in the changing room and interacting with each other but Toni is walking with her head down, alone. This film is about feeling like an outsider, even when you try to assimilate yourself into the group, and the discomfort that results in. Toni don’t fit in in the boxing gym or on the dance team. The eerie music in scenes where Toni is feeling like an outsider, like when she is dancing alone in the gym and an older girl shows up, highlights this effect.
Something that stood out to me about the cinematography is that often Toni is starting directly into the camera, like the opening scene where she is doing sit ups, and later when she is doing pull ups. This is something that is usually avoided in film to avoid breaking the 4th wall, which is why it grabbed my attention so much. Since she is the only character who does that, it highlights her being the outsider.
The match scene between Toni being measured and her brother being weighed highlights the fact that Toni is on the edge of these two worlds, but not completely in one.
Toni feels like a young kid playing dress up when she and Beezy are chanting and running around in costumes in the community center at night. You can really see her imposter syndrome in this scene.
When all the girls start having fits Toni feels like it’s only going to happen to the girly girls, the more mature ones, in fact now of them wants it to happen to her so she will be like the other older girls. It takes the fits for Toni to realize that she doesn’t want to be like the other girls and to fit into the Lionesses. Toni is now an outsider because she hasn’t had the fits.
Near the end Toni is floating and the camera follows her feet through the hallway and she has a fit. The scene dissolved into the dance team dancing in locations that she exercised with her brother like the bridge and boxing ring, her two worlds are colliding. We see her staring into the camera dancing, finally smiling. She has gone though the transition of the fits and fianally becomes one of the girls. ”
