How has GATTACA captured and sustained the viewer’s interest

In the film Gattaca, the director Andrew Niccol uses various techniques to capture, and then retain the viewer’s interest throughout the film. Niccol has little to work with, but the basic idea of the film. He effectively uses basic structure and filming techniques with ‘few special effects’ to build viewer interest, and retains it with simple, yet captivating effects. These specifically include miser en scene, camera shots, and lighting.

Mise en scene, or the objects placed in the film, provide the viewer with a fresh, new look world, which despite different, has an eerily strange tone to it. The mixture of eras in the film also adds an attempt at the repeat of fashions. Gattaca has been filmed in the Marin Civic Centre, which is designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The buildings have no corners; they combine straight, clean lines, with subtle curves. Niccol is quoted “To imagine this world to be so pristine, there should be no corners. Dirt has no place to hide.” Gattaca shows us a ‘new’ series of classic cars that seem to run electrically. We have all seen these cars before but a long time ago. Nichol’s use of older era objects and ideas seems revo

Spiral staircases are also common in the film. These are significant, as they are used to confer ideas of the double helix, which is the same shape as the DNA molecule, a common thought throughout the film. This symbol is impressively used when paraplegic Eugene struggles up using just his arms in order to save Jerome/Vincent. This symbolises Jerome’s struggle through life, as he strives to reach the ‘top of the gene-pool’, just as Eugene struggles to reach to the top of the double helix. It shows Eugene’s commitment to ensuring that Jerome’s secret shall not be revealed, and also represents Eugene’s realisation that his genes will not govern his fate in life, as “There is no gene for fate”. These delicate touches to the scenes involve and retain the viewer’s interest throughout the film.

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