Binary Opposition

Ferris Bueller's Day Off

Binary Opposition

Binary opposition refers to a pair of concepts that have opposite theoretical meanings.

Storyline

A high school wise guy is determined to have a day off from school, despite of what principal thinks of that.

(video: http://teenfilmteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/storylines-and-plot.html)

The binary oppositions set up in the film intro are:

Brother vs Sister

Parents vs Children

Rebel vs The Good Kid

The first binary opposition I have chosen is between the brother and the sister. The miss en scene shows their body language and how they act towards each other. Whilst Ferris is supposedly 'sick' his sister picks up on his act and makes sure to pull faces at him whenever their parents aren't looking. Another binary opposition in terms of mise en scene is between the rebel and the good kid. At the end of the intro we see that Ferris (rebel) calls up his best friends (good kid) to hang out before his parents arrive home. Since, Ferris is 'sick' we see him chilling outside in the warm sun having a good time whilst the other kid, is genuinely sick and is trying to get better.

In terms of editing, we see that Ferris (protagonist) has more screen time than anyone else because, the audience may be interested in what he does when he's been lying to the principal and his parents.

In the beginning of the intro when Ferris' parents leave the house and he goes up to open the curtains the editing music is very upbeat. This shows that he's happy and excited that he got away with a lie.

We are able to identify a binary opposition between the rebel and the good kid by using cross cut editing. This shows both perspectives of the characters and what it would be like to switch roles. 

The sound (dialogue)  helps us to identify the binary opposition between the parents and ferris. The parents tend to talk to Ferris in a baby voice once they found out he's "sick". In the intro we see that Ferris in fact replies back with a similar tone and gesture as his parents in order for them to buy into his performance.

The camera angles help us identify a binary opposition between the parents and the children. A low angle shot was used for Ferris' perspective of his parents baby-ing him.