Beetlejuice.


 * Film Title:** Beetlejuice
 * Plot:** After a young couple, Barbara and Adam died, they became ghosts and were trapped in their own house. A new family called the Deetzes soon moved in and the young deceased couple wanted to get the Deetzes out of their home by scaring them away. The Deetzes consists of Charles, his daughter Lydia and his second-wife Delia. After asking guidance from their case worker Juno, they learnt that they have to stay in the house for 125 years, and they must scare the Deetzes away themselves. The couple later became good friends with Lydia, whom unlike any other human, is able to see them. After a few failed attempts in scaring the Deetzes away, the couple called betelgeuse, the infamous bio-exorcist for help. Unfortunately Betelgeuse turned out to be rough and going way too far. However they were too late to stop him, as the Deetzes found out about the couple's existence and wanted to make money out of them. They then almost unintentionally killed the ghost couple using the Handbook for the Recently Deceased. Lydia asks betelgeuse to save them and agrees to marry him if he does. After Barbara and Adams were saved, they stopped the wedding in time by killing betelgeuse again and they lived peacefully with the Deetzes after.


 * Theme:** Although all characters in this movie pursue different things, what they all need is to look past the surface (of the different worlds they belong to, their appearances…) to truly accept each other's differences and understand each other. As they did so in the end, they were finally truly content with their lives through the strong relationships that they formed with each other.


 * Tone:** The tone of this film is both dark and comedic, creating a somehow odd but humorous atmosphere.

1. When betelgeuse turned himself into a gigantic snake to scare away the Deetzes, although the sounds that he make as a snake are diegetic, there was another non-diegetic background music that added a sense of playfulness to the scene.
 * Non-diegetic elements:**

2. When the Deetzes just arrived, Barbara and Adams tried to scare them away. Barbara and Adams were in a way non-diegetic during that time because all the other characters were human and they couldn't see the ghosts.

3. When betelgeuse grew spikes out of himself and was dropped onto the model by Barbara, the popping sound effect when he pulled himself out of the grass was non-diegetic.

4. When the movie already started, the credits (text) that appeared on top of the overview of Adam's model were non-diegetic.

5. The green lighting when Otho and everyone else summoned Adam and Barbara through the //Handbook for the Recently Deceased// was also non-diegetic, since they only lit an ordinary candle to provide the light at the beginning.

6. The image of the film's title saying "BEETLE JUICE" is also non-diegetic.


 * Mise-en-scene **

1. Half of Juno's face in this shot is filled by cool green light, while the other half is lighted by a warmer orange-colored light. The green lighting on the left creates a sickly tone to the character, constantly reminding the audience that Juno is dead. The warm light on the right side of Juno's face suggest that although she is now a ghost, she still maintain human qualities inside.



2. This shot of Lydia is from the dinner scene when the Deetzes just moved in, and she's eating dinner with her dad and stepmom. The black veil over Lydia's face and the heavy makeup that she's wearing make her face very dark and hard to see. This suggests that Lydia is concealing not only her face but also her inner emotions, and again points to the theme of understanding and acceptance. Her stepmom Delia never tried to understand her at this point of the movie, and she didn't really have anyone to open up to. This differs from other scenes in the movie later, where when Lydia is with Barbara and Adam, most of the time she does not have any veil on. The veil here almost acts as a wall that Lydia built to block herself from her parents.

3. In this shot, the huge tall arrow pointing towards the grave, the 2 "BETELGEUSE" written on the billboard, the "here lies BETELGEUSE" sign and arrow on the grave all show how obvious where betelgeuse is. The distinct colorful lighting of the signs that stand out from the dark background makes it even more so. Also, the fact that the tomb is lying on top of a little hill also calls for attention. These exaggerated signs all suggest how desperately betelgeuse wants to be found and get out. They also create a comedic tone, and correspond with his bold and loud character revealed later.

4. This is the shot when Delia's sculpture bursts through the kitchen window into the kitchen, where Charles was just relaxing and getting tea. The floral curtains and herbal teas all support Charles's idea of an ideal life, where he's surrounded by nature. Unlike Charles, Delia wants to be in New York and live a modern life sculpting. Delia's sculpture busting into Charles's kitchen here is like a representation of their relationship, where Delia forces her own ideals onto Charles and their ideals clash. This shot thus also shows what happens when people don't listen or try to understand others, directing the audience back to the theme - the importance and necessity to understand each other.



5. The disoriented architecture, slanted floors and doors in this shot all create a whimsical tone, with the disproportional black and white tiles on the ground, it's almost like Alice in Wonderland. The blue lighting adds a cold and darker tone to the shot, making the tone slightly spooky. This also creates a unique world that is very distinct from the human world.

6. In this shot of the newly transformed house, Delia's sculptures in the back shows that she is a very narcissist person. Delia's huge earrings, styled hair and the hard-edged rigid furnitures around her are all extremely artificial (even the shrimps in her bowl) and give a cold tone to the scene.

7. This is a shot where Barbara and Adam just entered the place where all the deceased make appointments to meet with their after life case workers. In this shot, the green lighting in the back along with the "NO EXIT" sign gives an ominous tone to the place. Barbara and Adam are standing in the middle, surrounded by the other deceased people. Unlike the other deceased who all look gruesome and awful due to how they died, Barbara and Adam look completely ordinary and unfitting. This forms a strong contrast between the two, pointing to the theme of understanding and acceptance. At this stage, Barbara and Adam are basically not accepted, or ignored in the human world because they are ghosts, yet when they are with other ghosts, they don't seem to fit in as well. This shows conflict and suggest that Barbara and Adam are not finding their place in either worlds at this stage in the movie.

8. In this shot, Barbara was about to go scare the Deetzes away with Adam, but she says she can't go through with it because she likes Lydia and feels like its the wrong thing to do. Barbara looks absolutely horrifying in this scene, with her eyes on her long curvy tongue. However, although she looks like a monster, her words prove that she's not. The monster-like look that she has contradicts with who she actually is, which connects to the theme that appearance does not represent who you are on the inside.

9. The magazine that Charles is holding says "The Living and the Dead, Harmonious lifestyles and peaceful co-existence". This shows that the Deetzes and the Maitland couple now fully understand and embrace each other, overcoming the differences that they share and the misconceptions they had about each other. This emphasizes the theme of acceptance, that no matter how fundamentally different people are, there are still ways that allow them to come together if they want to.

10. The book on the shelf is titled "Art in America, Images of the Afterlife" by Delia. Like the magazine in the previous shot, this book shows how the family has changed from using the ghost couple to embracing them. Delia, who was once self-centered and only cares about her own sculptures, is now not only embracing the world that Barbara and Adam lives in but is also successfully fusing it with her own passion. The drawing/picture of the two birds on the left and the black swan on the right also show the fusion of the two worlds and the power of acceptance.