Stand By Me has been hailed by critics and audiences as one of the best coming-of-age films, one of Rob Reiner's finest films, and an incredible film adaptation to a Stephen King story. After so many years, I have recently rewatched it to discover that I had forgotten what a deep and mature film it was. As comedically carefree as many scenes are, there is still depth to be explored within' the aesthetics relating to the film's narrative. Two scenes that have caught my attention within recent viewing are the opening sequence and the reveal of the dead body of a missing person the kids try to find to gain fame.
The film opens up with a lone vehicle sitting on the side of the road parked by an open field as the sun rises. The long shot of the car makes it appear small, where it's the landscape that dominates the screen. This kind of imagery would foreshadow many of the later shots of the film of the four kids traveling on the train tracks where the shot makes them look small and helpless in the wilderness. The ambient sound of birds chirping is only heard, further establishing the early time of day, until an orchestral instrumental of the song Stand By Me plays (composed by Jack Nitzsche). Unlike its romantic upbeat tune, the score's rendition of the song sounds melancholy. The scene cuts to a wide shot of the vehicle, where the driver sits in the shadows, looking away. The next cut reveals the man sitting inside the jeep named Gordie looking depressed as he sits in the shadows. The juxtaposition of Gordie's sad face and Nitzsche's hauntingly downbeat song arrangement suggests that someone once close to this man is no longer a part of his life. While sighing, he looks down as the scene cuts to a newspaper headline reading "Attorney Christopher Chambers Fatally Stabbed in Restaurant." We can now assume that the person he lost was a close friend by the newspaper headline. The only question remaining is what kind of friend Christopher was to him? The next cut shows a match-on-action of him looking away from the paper and sitting blankly to absorb the terrible news he found. Behind him, appearing outside his window, are two boys bike riding past him. The sound of the bike's wheels grabs his attention, where the next shot shows the kids riding in front of his windshield shot from his point of view. The two kids appear to be well-bonded friends, making Gordie feel even more devasted by the loss of his friend while the camera slowly zooms in on him. Based on the two kids, his reaction reveals that his deceased friend is someone he's known since childhood. Before any narration takes place, Rob Reiner provides all the information about the main character's grieving without uttering a word within less than a minute that feels longer in terms of its pacing.
As the first verse of the instrumental Stand By Me nearly ends, Gordie's voice-over diegetic narration plays as he sits. Tied to the newspaper headline of his dead friend, the narration states he was 12 when he first saw a dead body. During the zoom-in on Gordie, a dissolve transitions to a shelf of vintage 50s magazines. Gordie claims the year he saw the dead body was the summer of 1959, setting the period the rest of the film will take place (until the final scene). In the center of the magazines is an issue of True Police Cases, metaphorically setting up the journey the kids will later embark on, as their mission is to find a missing person. On the far left stands a horror magazine involving a woman at the mercy of a vampire; undoubtedly, a subtle nod to the author of the source the film is based on. A hand picks up the magazine, and no sooner does the film reveal a young Gordie in the same shot. He walks towards the frame as the camera moves behind the cash register, where his face peeks through the glass. He places a coin on top of the cash register, and the sound of the machine rings, revealing the price of the item as it covers up his face. The whole introduction to young Gordie is done in one single shot, using rack focus twice. The first instance is for the magazines when Gordie enters, and the second instance is for when the prices of the cash register appear. In the next shot, adult Gordie's narration reveals the name of the town he used to live in called, Castle Rock. In the shot, Gordie leaves the store and walks through the town. Compared to the present-day portion of the film, the high-key lighting and vibrant colors appear brighter, visually projecting a warm childhood nostalgia. These two techniques also help create the illusion of a warm summer's day. The shot of Gordie walking through Castle Rock is composed through a master scene beginning from the store entrance to the center of the town. The scene starts with a long shot when Gordie leaves, to a medium shot when walking past the camera, and ends with a long shot when he leaves main street. To create a sense of this small town feeling like Gordie's world is achieved by subtly using a low-angle shot, making the town appear as big as a city to him.
From the opening sequence, it is evident that the turning point in Gordie's youth was discovering a dead body with a friend. The question is, what kind of significance had it impacted him differently? After so many misadventures of escaping from a legendary junkyard dog, train dodging, and falling into a river filled with leeches, reaching the destination of their journey is far from any celebrated victory. The camera is positioned behind the trees and pans to the railroad tracks where the four protagonists walk. The camera's position starting from the trees gives the scene a bit of a supernatural vibe as if there's something alarming lurking about. Adding to the supernatural feel is having no music. Taking the place of the score is the sound of the wind blowing on the trees, signaling that the dead body they're looking for is near. The kids walk in front of the camera and stop when finding the area where the person died. Achieved through a match-on-action, Gordie asks Teddy if this is the right spot. Teddy looks at Gordie in the first shot, turns his head, and in the next shot, he and the others are gazing at a trail leading into the woods with a sign reading "Absolutely, No Hunting". Teddy, in the shot, turns his head to Gordie, confirming the spot, cutting to the next shot of him still facing Gordie. The gang walks forward off-camera, searching for the body. Despite that they're no longer on camera, Reiner shows a second and a half of the train tracks blurred out, suggesting the journey is all for losing something they had based on the grim sight they are about to encounter.
A long shot shows the backs of the kids moving forward, scavenging the area. The placement of the kids searching different sides of the tracks is how they are usually shown during their journey. Considering the death of Gordie's friend Chris is what sets Gordie's memories in motion, the two are mainly together, visually embodying their close friendship. As the two search the right side of the tracks, Teddy and Vern search the left side together. Like Gordie and Chris, Teddy and Vern usually walk together during the long journey. Not so much that they're as close friends as the two leads are, more so because they're just friendly, fun acquaintances they don't mind hanging around. They function more as the comic relief since they don't have much of a story arc or depth compared to Gordie and Chris.
That's not to say they are bland, one-dimensional comic-relief characters limited to their stereotype as they can be supportive and have a few moments of emotion. The story is all told through Gordie's memory (even though he's never witnessed the scenes involving Ace's gang), but it is Vern who is the reason he's on a dead body hunt since he's the one who's heard about the deceased kid's whereabouts. Gordie nor Chris are the ones who spot the dead body; it's Vern who does. He points out the location in the same long shot of the kids walking on opposite sides of the tracks, cutting to a medium shot of him pointing, where the others join him. To effectively make the audience feel immersed in the moment that the film has been building up, Reiner uses a high angle shot for when the kids see the body's feet sticking out of the bushes. At first, it appears to be a POV shot since it's shot from the angle the kids are viewing it. Adult Gordie's narration plays as we, along with the kids, discover a glimpse of the corpse, suggesting this is from Gordie's point of view. It even cuts back to the scene of them staring at it before leaving. However, once it cuts back to the same shot, the kids are now running down the hill (similar to the "Blind Chance's" POV trickery).
It's important to note that the score is minimal during the film. The film has three different uses of sound to create some emotional appeal. The use of classic 50's Rock N Roll mainly captures the carefree spirit of youth and innocence. Buddy Holly's Everyday and Ben E. King's Stand By Me are the only few times the use of songs plays out for sentiment or wonder. When it comes to scenes of dialogue regarding Gordie and Chris discussing their emotional struggles in life, there is no score, just the sounds of nature and the voices of the characters speaking. Many Hollywood films tend to use the score to signal when an audience should be emotional, the same way canned laughter is used for television sitcoms. It would be a safe option when you have a cast of young kids as the movie's stars. But Reiner feels the performances and the ambient sounds are strong enough without the music, making it less manipulative and more naturalistic. Nitzsche score is primarily used for moments where dialogue is short or non-existent among the kids. The only person who usually speaks while the score plays is adult Gordie, or he and his brother during a flashback within a flashback. A fitting way to incorporate the score with dialogue as our past comes back to us like an old song that one has not heard in years that gets us sentimental. The music itself never sounds uplifting or romanticized. It creates tension (such as the showdown with Ace), sentimental nostalgia (scenes of Gordie walking with his friends), and depression. The latter use of the score is for the dead body's reveal. A reveal with no sounds of excitement or heightened drama, more so the appeal of horns playing for a funeral out of mournful respect.
As the kids reach closure to the body, the wind blows harder towards the bushes and tree branches. One of the kid's shoes can be found hanging on a branch, illustrating his nasty fate without showing his demise or reveal of what's left of him. A high-angle shot of the kids gathering around the corpse shows the rest of the body, but his face is still covered. Within the same shot, Chris grabs a stick to move the branches, the next shot is a close-up of Chris' face as he places the stick in position off-screen, and the third shot is another close-up, this time for the reveal of the kid's cold and bloody dead face. Adding to the build-up for this horrific image is adult Gordie's narration speaking of his cruel fate while expressing grief that there's no trace of life left inside the kid. The following shots show a close-up of each of the four kids' faces mourning over his death without shedding a tear. Despite that they never knew the kid, seeing someone as young as them dead is a terrible shock. These kids haven't exactly had the perfect lifestyle; they have been through some trauma, abuse, or loss. But as horrible as their moments in life were, they could still find ways to have fun and joke around to cope with it. Now that they have shared the same disturbing memory of witnessing a brutally depressing site from a journey they enthusiastically agreed to go on, their innocence has been wholly lost. No longer do the gang become close friends because of the memory of what they've been through. Their jokey attitudes have also lessened with them, as it was a significant factor in keeping them together as a group.
It's no surprise that the character who takes this moment the hardest is Gordie, as the film establishes this is his life-changing event. The shock of the body and emotions Gordie was dealing with during the story comes out with a great big sigh. The dead body made him wish he was dead instead of the kid, and especially his older brother. Outside of Chris, Gordie's brother was the only person who supported him in his writing and bonded with him. Ever since his death, Gordie feels unloved, with no aid. Chris, who has demonstrated multiple times his support and brotherly love for Gordie in the film, encourages him at the saddest point in his life to achieve his dream and maybe write a story about him and his friends when he's out of material. Like many of the great conversations Chris and Gordie discuss together, music is once again absent to achieve realism during this vital moment in the film. The whole sequence of Gordie and the gang finding the body does not share the same lighting and color the film shows during the daytime scenes. It's a beautiful hot sunny day, as established in earlier scenes, yet there's hardly any sun flaring the camera lens. The kids are still wearing their usual vibrant color wardrobe and are now lacking in color for the rest of the scene. This scene has the same lack of light and color as the very first scene in the movie, and for a good reason. This event was the point of Gordie's story; it would not seem unwise to have it appear as realistic as the opening. If anything, it would appear out of place if it looked as appealing as the rest of the film or looked exaggeratedly dark like a nightmare to make it stand out.
While writing and performance are the more noticeable element of achieving the emotions, as rich as they are the other techniques are just as important. Other uses of mise-en-scène include the film's contrasting color pallet to capture nostalgia and discomfort, and the placement of characters to express friendship visually. Outside of mise-en-scène, the natural sounds or songs from the 50s are mainly used to support scenes of emotion and carefree youth than the instrumental score. The camera movements and its positioning create an atmosphere of curiosity and feeling part of Gordie's childhood. And the film's restrictive narrative from adult Gordie's voice-over narration makes the journey feel like we're experiencing something deep and personal from this writer. As an audience, we know how much of a friend Chris meant to him, but he is the inspiration that made him a writer. And in tribute to his death, he is writing a memoir of the moment in life that changed him and encouraged him to be the writer he is now.
