Good Will Hunting
Recap
The movie Good Will Hunting is a film written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. It was produced in the year 1997. The movie follows Will, who is a janitor at Harvard and also doubles up as a math genius. Professor Lambeau sets a series of math equations that are very difficult to solve, but he is stunned as all his puzzles are solved by a mystery man who he later finds out to be Will (Damon & Williams, 1998). Will later falls in love with Skylar, a med student who is moving to another state. Will at first is reluctant to leave, and he breaks off the relationship with her. Will later get the Professor as his parole officer following an altercation with the law. He is taken to a number of psychiatrists who all quit the job of being assigned to Will. Sean is contacted by the Professor, an old friend of his at the university, and succeeds in getting to Will emotionally and sets Will on the path see Skylar and leave his comfort zone.
There are, however, instances in the movie which were not as per my imagination after reading the original script, as discussed in this essay. The first observation is where Will is pitching baseballs at Chucky, and he says that Casey, the man standing by the door at the bar was bouncing up and that they should attend the following week. This was not the image I had as Casey was not the guy bouncing the bar. They had literally passed him on their way into the bar. There was a name interchange as the right person who was bouncing the bars was Morgan.
The Scene where Will takes the subway home was also of a different nature than imagined. He lived in South Boston, and he should have alighted at John F. Kennedy’s stop, but they depict him going past and arriving at the same intended destination. This is misleading as he was dropped at another street, which was not South Boston, where he resided. In the script where Will and his friends are walking up to the Harvard bar, Morgan is asking Will how he was fired from his janitorial job. He says he was fired because management was restructuring, and Chuckle offers him a job at a construction site (Damon & Williams, 1998). Will does not lose his job in the movie as the men in the Building’s and Ground office are not aware of his firing. I had imagined that the director of the movie would have a scene where the men in the building had prior knowledge of the incident involving Will and Professor Lambeau. In the movie, if he was fired, we never really know the reason, as the film does not attempt to explain.
In the movie, at the Harvard bar when Chuckie is being questioned by a Harvard student, Clark of his credentials, while he is attempting to hold a conversation with Skylar and her friend Lydia. Skylar is heard telling the student to go away. This is not what I had imagined it as the script only shows that Skylar rolls her eyes to Lydia in disgust of Clark, who is showing off that he studies at Harvard when Will notices this and hence gets closer to them. I had imagined that Skylar is a meek girl who would not talk down to Clark in the heat of the moment.
In the scene where Chuckie is going to pick Will for work, it completely overlooks the fact that they had refurbed a car for Will the previous night. In the script, Chuckie is seen climbing the stairs to Wills house. This should have been avoided in the movie as the space behind Will’s house is too small for more than one car to park, showing Will was not there. When Chuckie did not see the car in the driveway the first time, he could have concluded that Will has already left for California. As Will and his friends are leaving the Harvard bar after meeting Skylar, the script shows them waking home, but in the movie, they are walking towards the inn at Harvard, which is in the opposite direction. They usually use the subway or the car; hence it means they were actually walking further away from their homes.
In the scene where Professor Lambeau is coming in class to teach his mathematics class, he makes a joke about the class being full. I had imagined that the Professor would show his side of being funny, but in the movie, he was stone-faced with no facial expressions to show his emotions. The script also suggests that not many students moved their chairs while in the movie, almost everyone in the class fidgeted in his or her chair, waiting for the math genius to reveal himself. In the script, Chuckie is depicted as driving a Cadillac. I had imagined that the car was a bit classy or unique as he seemed to be the guy that would prefer expensive things while in the movie, the car they used as almost worn out and was a different model than it was depicted to be. I had imagined that going by the standards Chuckie had set for the other boys, especially as his parents were better off, he would have had a better version of the car to bring out his energetic play like in the script.
Stanislavski System
The system is designed to allow actors or actresses to create believable characters and put themselves in place of a character in a film. The first fundamental step is given circumstance where an actor seeks to understand the world of the character to create a believable character in the film. The second step describes the magic if where the actor is able to imagine how a character would respond in a given situation because one knows the world of the character well. The final step is finding out the goal of the character in the movie.
There are different aspects of the Stanislavski system depicted in the film by the characters. Chuckie is played by Ben Affleck and has succeeded in playing the role as shown in my imagination when reading the script. He is often loud and energetic, always the leader of the group. He also plays the role of being a hard worker and spendthrift by his taste of clothes. He is also the one who often finances the bills of the other boys.
Professor Lambeau is depicted as someone with class and often feels out of place when he is encountered by people from different walks of life. There is a scene where he is seen as being restless when walking up the men who worked with Will in the university. It is also awkward for him to dress in a suit when going to have drinks with Sean. This shows the Professor has understood his character and how he would behave in such a situation as that of having drinks with Sean in a downtown bar.
Damon plays his character of Will excellently as someone who’s past influences his present situations and also a cheerful guy around his friends. He also shows his side of dark humor. When faced with a problem, Will would rather go out drinking and read books rather than having a real conversation with a psychiatrist. He reacts at almost every situation by shutting people out of his life, like the case of Skylar, Sean, and Professor Lambeau. The character shows his emotional side when he hugs Sean and starts to cry as he had realized the problem of all his issues.
