Scene Analysis – The Outsiders (1983) The Fountain Scene

In this scene the ‘socs’ arrive at the park where Pony Boy and Johnny are hanging out, drunk and looking for trouble.

When the socs arrive, there is a sequence of close ups, first on Johnny’s face, then a soc’s flask, then Pony boy’s hand reaching into his back pocket for a knife. This highlights the anxiety that Johnny feels towards the possibility of a fight breaking out in contrast to Pony Boy’s readiness to fight the socs. The close up of the flask shows us that these people have been drinking and so they are likely to be looking for a fight. This scene involves many close ups mainly focusing on character’s faces, showing how these characters feel about the events that are inevitably going to take place within the next few minutes and displaying the tension between the characters which shows viewers that they have previous experiences of fighting or conflict between them, suggesting that these characters could be from rival gangs.

As the boys confront each other, there is no music, only diegetic sound, which shows the seriousness of the situation as it makes us focus on what the characters are saying to each other, provoking each other. When the Socs start to chase Pony Boy around the park, music starts. The music is urgent and punctuated rather than being a smooth piece of music, which follows the action of the scene as when Pony Boy is being held underwater he was frantically trying to get up and breathe, so his breaths would be uneven and in short bursts, much like the short bursts of trumpets in the music. Furthermore, trumpets bring connotations of battle as in history, trumpets were used to announce the arrival of troops before a war starts, suggesting that this is one battle of many between two clashing sides.

As the socs start to chase the other boys, it cuts to a long shot so that we can see just how outnumbered they are, and how there is no way that they could get out of the situation as the victorious party. When they start to hold Pony Boy under the water, we see a close up of Johnny pulling out his knife. From this, we can tell that Johnny is going to do something to help is friend, suggesting further that they are from a gang of some kind as they are supposed to protect each other as best that they can, especially from rival gangs. A Dutch angle is used when Pony Boy is being held underwater. We know that something bad is going to happen, however after seeing Johnny draw the knife, we do not know whether it will be to the soc or to Pony Boy, and the dutch angle shows the uncertainty as well as helping us to understand the twisted nature of the socs, holding a younger boy under the water with the intent of killing him.

We are not shown exactly what happens next, however the following shot is a long shot of three bodies. Therefore, we are shown that at least one of the socs did not get away, as well as keeping a distance between the soc, and Pony Boy and Johnny which further illustrates the divide between the two groups of people.