Analysis+-+Burn+After+Reading

//Redo: Barton Fink//

//Burn After Reading// Coen Brothers- Jocelyn.

Lynda wants plastic surgeries, but she needs to accept herself for who she is. The Coen Brother put emphasis on the fact that Lynda wants plastic surgery by introducing her at a clinic. The very first time she appears on screen, she is planning her surgery. Though at the beginning, she seems very rational about the surgery, but as the movie progresses, the audiences are informed that Lynda goes almost insane to get the money for her surgery. Even though she is very dramatic and extreme about the surgery, the Coen Brother portrayed her as a likable and sweet character.


 * 1) The movie starts out with an extreme birds eye view of America, then it zooms in on a building. This is to foreshadow the involvement of a spy agency. The extreme birds eye view gives the audiences the feeling that it is footage from a satellite camera. The non-diegetic text on the screen are the texts in typical spy movies, which the location is displayed on screen.
 * 2) Inciting Incident: Osbourne Cox quits his job
 * 3) First Act: The beginning the characters are introduced. The audiences find out what each character does at a gathering. The affair between Katie and Harry was also revealed. The normal balance was that Osbourne and Katie are married and Lynda is working for money for surgery. This normal world is disturbed when Katie prepares for a divorces and Chad finds the CD including Osbourne bank account information.
 * 4) Act 2: Since Chad thinks that the CD included classified information, Lynda becomes desperate and thinks of blackmailing for money. She, through a mis-encounter, meets Harry at a park and begins to date him.
 * 5) First half of Act 2: Threshold Guardians: The Russian embassy knew that the information on the CD was not classified and was not as important, and thus refused to pay Lynda. All this time Lynda has been waiting for a response, but once the Russian Embassy has rejected them, Lynda sends Chad to Osbourne's house for more data
 * 6) Raised stakes: Chad follows Harry to Osbourne's house and sneaks inside to hack the computer.
 * 7) Reversal of Fortune: Harry shoots Chad and Osbourne gets kicked out of the house.
 * 8) Second half of Act 2: Threshold Guardians: Ted, who warns Lynda to contact police for help instead of dealing it on her own.
 * 9) Challenges: Osbourne lives on a boat because he is locked out, and Lynda becomes increasingly worried about Chad, who was not heard or seen in two days.
 * 10) Rising action of Act 3: Lynda pleads to Ted first, and then to Harry about Chad; Osbourne decides to break into the house.
 * 11) How does the climax of the film define the choice that the character must make between what they **want**and what they **need**? The climax of the film is when Osbourne shoots Ted. Ted represents what Lynda needs, while the surgery is what Lynda wants. Ted has always been the sweet guy who looks after her secretly, but Lynda doesn't realize it and doesn't appreciate it: she hasn't realized that Ted is, in fact, the perfect guy for her. Ted dies trying to help Lynda out of her problem, and his death represents Lynda's "wrong" and mistaken choice of choosing "surgery" over Ted.
 * 12) Falling Action: New Balance: In the end, Ted dies, Osbourne goes into a coma, and Harry flies to Venezuela. Theses were not shown on screen, except Ted's death (him being axed by Osbourne), instead, the audiences learn these information through the conversation between the CIA employees.
 * 13) Denouement: Lynda agrees to keep what happened a secrete as long as the CIA pays for her surgery.