While skimming around to find a film to watch or one I’ve already seen for this lived experience blog I ran into the movie Saw so I decided I would watch it again to give myself a refresher on it. At first I was confused because I thought for sure Saw wasn’t an independent film due to how well it was put together but sure enough it was first shown at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004. Some of the actors in it are Leigh Whannell, Cary Elwes, Danny Glover, and Dina Meyer to name a few. The original cut that was shown at Sundance was rated NC-17 but for releases in theaters it was edited a little to drop it down to an R rating. There were only a few changes made to drop it down which cut the length of the movie by only about a minute or so. The film was made in only 18 days, which if you’ve seen the movie it doesn’t seem like it was possible. For those who haven’t seen the movie before I’m going to first say if you’re squeamish don’t watch this movie, there is a lot of blood and gore involved in it. There are also many parts that would seem like torture basically to the victims who are trying to save their own lives, ending with some ultimately ending their own lives. The plot starts out with two men wake up at opposite ends of a run down bathroom chained to some pipes with a dead man lying in the middle with a tape recorder and a handgun. Both men have tapes that explain what’s going on. What it boils down to is one of the men must kill the other or his wife and kids will die. Some flashbacks of other “death-puzzles,” I guess you could put it, are thrown into the movie to show what other traps this psycho who is nicknamed Jigsaw, due to his practice of cutting up the victims skin into jigsaw puzzle pieces, has planned out before. Jigsaw doesn’t actually ever kill his victims first hand. He either lets them die from the people not completing the sick and twisted games he plays or the victims end up killing themselves. There are many twists and turns in this horror flick that will keep you watching up until the very end. For people who love horror films, especially the bloody gory kinds I’d recommend this movie and all of the other Saw films to watch.
-Dustin Fletcher
3 comments:
I was also quite surprised to learn that this film was made independently. I mean it does have some of the independent sensibilities that we have been talking about all semester. For example, the use of a lot of unknown actors is a classic sign of its independence. One thing I dont really understand though is how some of these independent films get enough money to hire bigger name actors like in this case Danny Glover. I am pretty sure if I were to make a movie and just ask those people they would say no, so something has to be going on here that I am not seeing.
Another thing that is interesting about this movie is how big a craze it started. It seems like that every horror movie that comes out now a days is some sort of torture film. Hostel is a great example of this and there have been numerous others as well. I guess it just goes to show that America loves violence and the more blood and gore in a film the better...
It’s been awhile since I’ve seen Saw, but when that movie came out, I hadn’t even heard of Independent film. I’m shocked that this movie was made independently because it has such a Hollywood look and feel to it. By that I mean, it looked like it took months and months to make this film, but in truth it only took 18 days to shoot and cut, five days for pre-production, and six days to shoot all the bathroom scenes. What’s also amazing about this film is that the rehearsal takes were actual footage. The actors had no rehearsal time, yet they played their characters so well. They looked like the kind of actors who would get paid big dollars to star in films because their performances were just outstanding. The fear, the anxiety, the surprise, everything, was so believable. James Wan and Leigh Whannell have some crazy good production skills and know how to maximize their limited resources.
I guess another reason why this movie was so successful to market is because it fell into an easy to define, common genre in Hollywood that people would flock to see whether good or bad; horror. I’d have to say this is one of the most different horror films I’ve seen because the killing is so planned and the killer has his victims kill others and as well as themselves. Is it good because it’s made independently and the artist has creative control or is it good because of the way it looks? I think it’s good because independent artist don’t try to please their audience in order to make a lot of money like Hollywood. That probably explains why there are so many Saw sequels aren’t original anymore and the other Hollywood horror flicks are so ridiculous.
Like everyone else who responded to this blog, I am also surprised that this film was shown at Sundance. If you think about it, it sort of makes sense. The film was made by a filmmaking team, James Wan and Leigh Whannell. Whannell co-wrote and played a main character and Wan co-wrote and directed the film. “Saw” actually started out as a low-budget 9 minute short in 2003. It was developed into a feature length picture a year later. I’m not exactly sure how the team got the funding or connections in order to make the full version since, according to imdb.com, this short was not released to the public until 2005 (one year AFTER the “Saw” we all know became famous). In fact, the website also said that “Saw” was intended to be released straight to video. The film had so many positive reviews, “Saw” went straight to Sundance and a sequel was planned just a week after this first film was released.
The film was smart. Unlike typical Hollywood horror films, “Saw” concentrates on the characters. The film goes so deeply into the human psyche, the audience cannot help but identify with the two main characters. The circumstances are so dire and the audience has to wonder how they would act in such a situation. Would you kill a stranger in order to save your family? Is it humane if technically you are not the one doing the killing? “Saw” also throws a curveball at the very end with the major twist ending. Unlike normal Hollywood horror, the “bad guy/killer” is not a psychotic maniac or one of the main characters in disguise. It is just a man; a man with intelligence and logical reasoning. I think that is why we find it so scary; we have never seen this before. Could this really happen to real people?
Visually, the film is very stylistic. The whole film is dark and gritty. Most scenes are filmed in warehouses and dilapidated buildings. During action sequences (such as the killing tests), the editing is fast-paced and keeps the audience on the edge. The film appears technologically savvy with high quality filmstock and tricky camera movement. I checked the budget for “Saw” and it was $1,200,000. In relation to a Hollywood film, I guess this is pretty inexpensive. However, in comparison to films like “Stranger Than Paradise” and “El Mariachi,” the production seems rather privileged.
I really do not remember any advertising for “Saw” when it first came out. I was compelled to go see the film due to everything I had been hearing from family and friends. I still remember my best friend exclaiming, “This film will change your life!” How could I NOT see it after hearing something like that? Although this independent film had the money and the resources, it was the amazing story and structure that turned this film into such a phenomenon.
--Anne Snyder
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