A Thousand Stars: Episode IV, Part 9

[matril]

I will always maintain that the original Star Wars could have used more female characters. As revolutionary as Princess Leia is, she stands almost alone amidst as sea of men. Who else? Just Aunt Beru, a static maternal figure with only a handful of lines. The film transcends a lot of the features of its time period, but the (lack of) female representation is not one of those features. I do give Lucas credit for recognizing and correcting this in later films.

Anyway. As minuscule a role as Beru plays, I want to highlight her (or the actress, Shelagh Fraser) in the dinner scene. She does a lot with very few words. Throughout Luke's conversation with his uncle, we cut repeatedly to her face. It gives us strong hints that Owen isn't saying the whole truth, that he and Beru know something more about Ben/Obi-Wan Kenobi or Luke's father, that perhaps there's an entire wordless conversation happening between the couple.

After Luke leaves we get an actual spoken exchange, brief but very meaningful. Beru wants to let Luke follow his dreams, knowing he'll never be a farmer. She's warm and loving and insightful about how Luke's parentage is a part of him. Owen's terse reply gains a lot of extra meaning after Episode V, of course, but it's still very potent thanks to the quiet emphasis on face acting in this scene.

Next time, how to make an iconic image...

Comments

[krpalmer]

There are some women glimpsed in Mos Eisley (inside and out of the cantina), but those blink-and-you-miss-them appearances (or female characters in filmed scenes that didn't make the final cut) hardly counter your point (nor does, I suppose, the near certainty those characters received their own biographies in printed spinoffs...)

In a way it's interesting that you presented Beru with "silent frames," as I know there's a version of the soundtrack (that, so far as I know, never got to official home video) where she was dubbed with a different voice. I don't know if one version or the other, or indeed neither, features Shelagh Fraser's actual voice.

[matril]

I was also surprised to find out Beru's voice was different depending on the version of the soundtrack (part of a larger exploration that a single "original theatrical version" doesn't actually exist.)