Touching Death with Images – The Need for Sense: “The Hit” by Stephen Frears

Waldemar Frąc

Abstract

Waldemar Frąc writes that Stephen Frears’ The Hit can only seemingly be considered by application of traits of gangster film and black comedy. According to Frąc, the deepest sense of the movie is revealed through significant absence. Frąc frequently points out the paradoxicality of the statement but consi­stently argues that seeing is evolving into its negation in The Hit, e.g. in the opening scene of the film the hero and the camera are looking in the same direction but the viewer does not see what the hero is looking at. A mystery arises and it is strengthened by the scenes to come; these shots help to set the limits of seeing. The viewer is anxious to give meanings to what he sees. Béla Balazs is quoted as saying that giving meanings to things is the primal function of human consciousness. The need for sense, felt from the very beginning of the film, is connected with the experience of death. The conclusion is that although sense is revealed on a negative basis, it is not possible to negate it in an absolute way.