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More in-depth with “Good Will Hunting” than I ever expected to go

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Did you know:

At the end of Good Will Hunting, when Will is explaining to the NSA agents that he does not want to work for him, it is because the original plot involved Will being tracked by the FBI because of his intelligence so that he’d work for them?  That part of the plot got scrapped (source).  In another scene in Sean’s office where the two are talking and having a visibly enjoyable time (obvious because of their laughing), Robin Williams is actually talking about his wife’s “farting habits,” which has Matt Damon (and apparently the camera man) laughing very hard (source).  Additionally, there are several scenes in which characters say things without their mouths moving or without the words matching what they appear to be saying (source).

The scenes in which you see Will and Sean laughing hysterically (and you don’t hear the conversation about farting) and the scenes in which a character says something that the actors might not have actually been saying demonstrate the lines between audio and visual tools.  By seeing the characters laughing together in the psychiatrist’s office, you can see the bond building between the characters without ever knowing what they’re saying.  On the other hand, in the scenes where you can hear what they’re saying even if it’s not what was actually happening, the audio is more important and you do need to hear what is being said.  Finally, Scrapping the FBI story helped to build the genre of the movie, which is drama.  Adding a subplot in which the FBI is hunting down a character to try to get him to work for them sounds as though it would add more action or mystery to the film, which was not exactly in line with the rest of what the movie seemed to be trying to accomplish.

Good Will Hunting (1997), especially this clip, is categorized as drama not only because of the intense/meaningful conversation (albeit one-sided) between the two characters in which nothing else even remotely humorous or action-packed is occurring, but almost word for word fits into the “coming of age” trope from TVTropes.  In the clip, Will, the younger character, is counseled by the older character, Sean, who is his psychiatrist.  As TVTropes indicates, generally character development takes years to unfold.  In this movie, the development for Will takes place rather rapidly and this scene is pivotal in that Sean calls Will out on his youthful arrogance and tells him he needs to “make a move,” or (even though this is problematic) to “be a man” and “do something.”

 

You can see Will’s development in two other scenes as well, in which Will exposes his past and all of his problems to his girlfriend right before he breaks up with her and in which Will breaks down to Sean when he finally accepts that all the things that happened to him were not his fault.  I had issues with the KeepVid tool and ended up having to use iLivid (which was also super easy), and the tutorial for using the StreamClip editor was SUPER helpful.  Here is what I came up with:

 

 

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