Flat Space in Ordinary People

Flat Space in Ordinary People

By: Will Singer

Robert Redford’s Ordinary People tells the story of the Jarrett’s, a Chicago suburban family, being torn apart by the death of one of the sons, Bucky, in a boating accident. The audience follows Conrad, the family’s other son, as he attempts to acclimate to life after being released from a mental health hospital due to a suicide attempt after the incident. He visits Dr. Tyrone Berger to help him through these issues, as encouraged by his father, Calvin. Conrad’s mother, Beth, is much more distant than Calvin, but still grieves in her own ways. Despite this, the family and the people around them appear emotionally shallow, and Redford uses flat space to accentuate this throughout the film.

One use of flat space comes about halfway through the flim when Calvin goes to Dr. Berger’s office and realizes he’s there to talk about himself rather than Conrad. Afterwards, Calvin goes back home and has a conversation with Beth in the garage. Calvin talks about their argument over what he was going wear to Bucky’s funeral and how he doesn’t understand why it mattered. During this, flat space is created as the brick background is out of focus, there appears to be nothing more than two colors on a wall. There is no depth to his surroundings, including Beth, who doesn’t want to hear what he has to say. She stands in a doorway, but the way the scene is shot makes the doorway appear two dimensional. There are no edges to the wall, it looks like a painting or a backdrop. These uses of flat space give the scene a very shallow feel that robs Calvin of his moment as he attempts to reach a deeper understanding of an emotional moment in his life. This is further complemented by Beth hugging and comforting Calvin rather than trying to help him get to the bottom of his dilemma. Beth doesn’t want to think about Bucky’s death or even help those still mourning it and this scene shows her emotional detachment from it.

Another use of flat space comes towards the end of the movie when Conrad goes on a bowling date with a girl named Jeannine. Afterwards, they go to McDonald’s where Jeannine asks Conrad what the suicide attempt was like. Conrad goes on to explain that it was like falling into a hole that kept getting bigger and bigger and he couldn’t get out. Then, all of the sudden, he was the hole and he was trapped, but it was all over. He says it wasn’t very scary in the moment, but looking back on the experience it was. Throughout this, the camera pushes in on Conrad and the focus gets shallower. The background becomes shallow and lacks three dimensionality which creates flat space. Just like his father, Conrad’s introspection doesn’t fit with his surroundings. Conrad then tries to explain why the suicide attempt wasn’t scary in the moment, but he’s cut off by a bunch of his classmates coming in and goofing off. Jeannine laughs, but then realizes that she undermined Conrad’s confession by doing this. The flat space shows Jeannine’s inability to handle what Conrad is talking about, which is further complemented by her reaction to interruption. The scene ends after this and goes to Conrad’s car where the two have an awkward conversation about what happened. 

Despite all of their surroundings, Calvin and Conrad are able to break past this and become emotionally aware of themselves and the others around them. Beth, however, is unable to and leaves after Calvin tells her he’s not sure whether he loves her anymore. Calvin and Conrad have a conversation about this and say that they love each other at the end. The last shot of the movie shows the house shot slightly from the side rather than head on. This gives the house a three dimensional look: we can see edges and can perceive the depth of the house, thus creating deep space. While this is far from a happy ending, the two of them have reached a deeper understanding of themselves.