Section 6: Paradise Betrayed
This is the turning point of the story in which the Cardinal's voice-over wonders if these Indians would not have preferred that the sea and wind had not brought any of us to them. (View the clip.) From the long tracking shots and open frames which characterised the arrival at San Carlos, the film cuts to closed frames and the shots are predominantly in close-up. Music and extraneous noises are also cut to a minimum. In this section, Altamirano appears to make a complete about-face. He stages a travesty of a hearing with the Indians in which it is obvious that truth has been replaced by expediency. His actions are seen by all at the mission as a betrayal.
Tell them they must leave the mission.
1. View the last frame of the previous clip and then discuss the effect of the cut that introduces this sequence.
What would have been the effect of a fade or of a dissolve?
2.
Why does the director change here to closed frames and MCU's?
3. What is the effect of the shallow focus used throughout this sequence?
4. Explain Gabriel's barely concealed look of outrage when the Cardinal says: "They must learn to submit to the will of God."
5. Explain how the Cardinal's argument is in direct opposition to what the work of the missionaries was supposed to have been.
6. Who is in the frame when the word fight is mentioned? For what does this prepare the audience?
7. How does the camera movement at the end of this 'hearing' convey to the audience that all the Jesuits, except Gabriel, will defend the Guarani?
