english@kkc

For Rose!

Here are some quotes from the film ‘Heavenly Creatures’:

Juliet Hulme: Only the best people fight against all obstacles in pursuit of happiness.

Juliet Hulme: All the best people have bad chests and bone diseases. It’s all frightfully romantic.

Pauline Parker: She is most unreasonable. Why could not mother die? Dozens of people are dying all the time, thousands, so why not mother? And father too.

Pauline Parker: [voiceover, from her diary] We have decided how sad it is for others that they cannot appreciate our genius.

Pauline Parker: Oh, I wish James Mason would do a religious picture! He’d be perfect as Jesus!
Juliet Hulme: Daddy says the Bible’s a load of bunkum!
Pauline Parker: But we’re all going to heaven?
Juliet Hulme: I’M not! I’M going to The Fourth World… it’s sort of like heaven. Only better, because there aren’t any Christians!

[Of Pauline's ‘problem']
Doctor Bennett: Chances are she’ll grow out of it. If not… well, medical science is progressing in leaps and bounds. There could be a breakthrough at any time!

Pauline Parker: [narrating] We realised why Deborah and I have such extraordinary telepathy and why people treat us and look at us the way they do. It is because we are MAD. We are both stark raving MAD!

Pauline Parker: [narrating] This notion is not a new one but this time it is a definite plan which we intend to carry out. We have worked it out carefully and are both thrilled by the idea. Naturally we feel a trifle nervous, but the pleasure of anticipation is great.

Juliet Hulme: Stick it up your bottom!

Juliet Hulme: Bloody Bill’s sniffing around Mummy something chronic!
Pauline Parker: I thought he was supposed to be terribly ill.
Juliet Hulme: That’s what we were led to believe.

Pauline Parker: [narration] The next time I write in this diary, Mother will be dead. How odd… yet how pleasing.

Pauline Parker: It’s a three act story with a tragic end.

John: I love you so much Paul. Do you love me as much as I love you?
Pauline Parker: Of course I do, Nicolas.
John: My name is John.
Pauline Parker: Oh, but I like Nicolas so much better!

Juliet Hulme: [speaking too brightly of the murder of Honorah Parker Rieper] I think she knows what’s going to happen. She doesn’t appear to bear us any grudge.

Juliet Hulme: [Juliet has just arrived at her new school. For French class she has taken the name Antoinette] Excuse me, Miss Waller, you’ve made a mistake. “Je doutais qu’il vienne” is in fact the spoken subjunctive.
Miss Waller: It is customary to stand when addressing a teacher,
[pause]
Miss Waller: Antoinette.
Juliet Hulme: [stands] You should have written “vînt”.
Miss Waller: I must have copied it incorrectly from my notes.
Juliet Hulme: [stands] You don’t need to apologise, Miss Waller. I found it frightfully difficult myself until I got the hang of it.

Juliet Hulme: Affairs are much more exciting than marriages.
[Then, with disgust]
Juliet Hulme: As Mummy can testify.

[shortly before the murder]
Juliet Hulme: [admiring the view that includes the path down the hill, where the murder occurred] Isn’t it beautiful?
Pauline Parker: Let’s go for a walk down here. Come on, Mummy!
Honorah Parker Rieper: Oh! No, I’d like a cup of tea, first. Come on!
[the girls reluctantly follow her into the tea-house]

[last lines]
[the last lines show scenes of the murder intercut with b&w shots of Juliet being taken away by her parents on the ship. Pauline and Juliet are sobbing and screaming for each other; and the girls scream as they beat Honorah Parker to death]
Juliet Hulme: Gina!
[sobs as she reaches a hand over the ship railing]
Pauline Parker: Juliet, don’t leave! I’m coming! Don’t go! You can’t! Oh, no!
[as the girls cry and reach helplessly toward each other, Juliet's parents come and stand on either side of her, trying to comfort her]
Juliet Hulme: I’m sorry…
[Pauline screams, and the b&w scene fades into the murder scene]
Pauline Parker: No!
[That last bloody shot fades into the credits]

[first lines]
[Director Peter Jackson opens with the scene that should, logically, end the film: that is, the moments immediately following the murder. The girls Juliet and Pauline run screaming up the hill-path to the tea-house, sobbing and covered in blood. The scene is intercut with b&w visions of the two running across a ship deck to meet Dr. and Mrs. Hulme, whom they both refer to as their mother, as the first three exclamations of "Mummy!" demonstrate]
Juliet Hulme: Mummy!
Pauline Parker: Mummy!
Juliet Hulme: Mummmmy!
[the scene changes from the ship to the hilltop tea-house. The girls are screaming hysterically as the tea-house woman runs out to see what the noise is all about]
Pauline Parker: It’s Mummy! She’s terribly hurt!
Juliet Hulme: Please! Help us!

Quotes taken from IMDB. For more go to Heavenly Creatures script.

I have posted a level one ‘Heavenly Creatures’ essay below.

Describe a situation or event in the text that shocked or surprised you. Explain how visual and/or verbal features were used to make you feel shocked or surprised.

A shocking event in the film ‘Heavenly Creatures’ directed by Peter Jackson was the murder of Honora Rieper by her daughter Pauline and friend Juliet Hulme. Jackson used sound, point of view camera shots and a flash-forward to make the viewer feel shocked and horrified by the murder.

The use of sound is perhaps better described as the absence of sound. The murder scene is eerily quiet. Jackson chooses not to use overly dramatic musical accompaniment, or particularly loud sound effects as one would usually expect in the climactic scene of a film. All that the viewer hears is the sound of the brick smashing into Honora’s skull, and the girls yelling and screaming as they beat her. Jackson wants us to hear the scene as Pauline and Juliet would have. When they were murdering Honora, there wasn’t an orchestra in the background. Jackson makes this event so shocking by letting us hear it as it would have been heard. The murder becomes not some dramatic moment in a story, but a real event that occurred in the foothills of Christchurch. It is so shocking because it becomes real.

The murder is shown to us in a series of point of view camera shots, to shock us by showing the murder from all three characters perspectives. We see close up shots of the bloody faces of Pauline and Juliet, of Honora lying on the ground, and of the brick being flung. Not only do we experience the murder through the ears of those present, but Jackson shocks us by showing us the murder through their eyes too. By seeing things from each character’s perspective, Jackson helps us to understand some of what the characters must have been feeling. How awful it must have been for Honora to watch her daughter, covered in blood, flinging a brick at her own mother’s head. It is shocking to us that the girls could continue with the murder when we see, through the point of view shots, how horrendous it must have been. We cannot understand how they could commit such an awful crime.

Jackson uses the convention of flash-forward to further shock us at the brutal murder of Honora. At the beginning of the film, we see Juliet and Pauline running up a hill, covered in blood. Pauline cries ‘It’s Mummy! She’s terribly hurt!’ The viewer realises that something awful has happened to ‘Mummy’, and as the film progresses, we discover the plans of Pauline to ‘moider’ her mother. But it is still hard to believe that she will actually carry out her plan. Jackson uses flash-forward to show us that Pauline does in fact murder her mother. Somehow, knowing all along what the outcome will be makes the murder even more shocking. Jackson wants us to be horrified that Pauline and Juliet have the internal drive to go through with the murder.

Jackson makes the murder of Honora Rieper even more shocking through the use of sound, point of view shots and flash-forward. He shows us the murder through the eyes and ears of the characters, helping us to experience it in a real and shocking way. And we are shocked that the horror that we knew must be coming does actually occur; that Pauline and Juliet have enough hate for Honora to go through with her murder.

This post is for the students studying ‘Heavenly Creatures’. Quentin told me about this interesting video on youtube, it is not embeddable so go to the link here. In the clip Ian Rankin talks to crime writer Anne Perry about guilt, murder, and expiation. The a clip from the UK TV series ‘Ian Rankin’s Evil Thoughts’

I have added some links to sites with information about Peter Jackson’s ‘Heavenly Creatures’ to moodle for those students who are studying the film. Try Miss Waller’s Heavenly Quiz here.

The Year 11 students studying the film ‘Heavenly Creatures’ know that the music used in the soundtrack is an important part of the film.
Pauline Parker actually mentioned in her diary the specific piece of opera used in ‘Heavenly Creatures’. Director PeterJackson knew from the start of the project about the girls’ fixation on and fascination with Mario Lanza, from the published trial proceedings. Lanza was considered quite the heart-throb in his day, look at the clip below to see what you think.

The clip is of Lanza and Kathryn Grayson singing ‘Be my love’.