Raising Arizona

My focus question was what is the tone of the film. Throughout Raising Arizona I saw the familiar motif of struggle and redemption. I believe the overall tone would be one of coming to grips with what your life is or has become, as it dips from highs and lows depending on the portion of the film your watching. H.I. constantly is in and out of jail a seemingly continuous cycle in his life; jail being a second home possibly more comfortable than everyday society. His redemption comes in the form of Ed, the officer who photographs inmates during in-take, an the subsequent marriage as a promise to a more normal  and fruitful life. Briefly they live a golden years more better suited to being counted in weeks or perhaps days shattered by the inability of Ed to bear children. The hardships continue in the procuring of a child so they can keep their faith in their relationship and the righteousness of their new life path alive. Within themselves they wrestle with the thought of whether their actions are wrong or justified, stating that the Arizona’s merely have to many children to handle efficiently. Within the same day to of H.I.’s fellow convicts escape from prison and come to visit leaving H.I. in the precocious position of his loyalty to his new self and family “unit” and that of his former days, when he felt much more himself. The dream of the “biker of apocalypse” foreshadows the pending events of tribulation that befall Nathan Jr. as he makes his way back towards his questionably “rightful” home. After hearing H.I.’s boss call him out for the theft of baby Nathan and the subsequent reward offered, his 2 convict friends decide to steal the child for themselves, falling in love with him in return and forgetting him at every stop. It seems as if in this movie the original home is the most stable and it degrades through each transaction of baby snatching until the very end. Leonard, the biker of the apocalypse, retrieves the baby after essentially blackmailing Nathan Arizona, and a battle ensues between H.I., Ed, and Leonard as a finale of the misfortunate circumstances that befall the main characters; complete with shotguns and grenades. Returning Nathan Jr. to the Arizona’s is bittersweet for the couple as they fight mentally with the idea that they are no better than the convicts in their taking of the boy, forgoing even the reward. The final redemption is in H.I.’s dream in the final dream predicting a possible future in which his life comes full turn into what they had hoped and believed that Nathan Jr would bring into their lives.

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~ by connormills on April 9, 2009.