A Place in the Sun

A Place in the Sun showcased a lot of interesting elements. While the major plot points were pretty well known before the movie was even shown, I did find some of the camera work interesting. The extreme close ups of two characters at once, such as when George and Angela confessed to each other that they loved one another, really worked well in my opinion. However something that bugged me was some of the dialogue in the first act of the movie. Some of the characters, George especially, had odd dialogue. Watching the early scenes it many of the lines by George felt clunky and didn't really sound like what someone would say. It may have been an attempt to show how introverted George by having his dialogue poorly worded.

Now on the case on whether or not George is guilty of murder. Now we never see what happens when the boat tips, just that they both go in and we see George stumble onto the beach later on. Its not really a case of guilty or innocent but rather what he did or didn't do. Right before the boat flips George is shown to be changing his mind on murdering Alice and he even tries to keep Alice from rocking the boat when she gets up. We never see if he tries to help her or not so really his sentence (which is probably 1st degree murder from what the DA accuses: that he had the intent of murder and the sentence of the death penalty) was a little excessive for the crime.

The whole trial scene showed a real lack of effort by the defense, such as when they just sit back as the prosecution accuses George and even when he slams down the oar (it even looks like some of the debris hits people in the audience). The prosecution's actions would have probably forced a mistrial (he really went out of his way to look like some kind of crusading lawyer and that George was evil incarnate) and the real lack of evidence such as witnesses as physical proof (nothing actually to show that George had struck Alice) would be lacking for a 1st degree murder sentence in my mind.

While he did plan the whole act, we really don't know what happened after the boat capsized so I would have to say George was innocent, at least at the level of murder the prosecution called for (he was most likely guilty of man slaughter or a lesser degree of murder). I think the whole idea of not showing what happens in the water, what George did or didn't do, and how Alice was knocked out was a great choice in the movie. It allows the audience to draw their own opinions on whether or not George was guilty.