Crowded Room, A

A CROWDED ROOM by James Cameron FADE IN: We don't know what we're looking at.It's an abstract mass -- swirling lines in constant motion -- but we're too close to see any form. As WE PULL BACK, we can now make out that they are what seem like animated streaks of charcoal -- forming and reforming into a series of drawings: First, a small girl, clutching a rag doll.She stares plaintively into the lens as around the edges of the frame, a male figure with a thick, black moustache, cradles her protectively in his arms. But this image quickly changes to a landscape -- evil and foreboding.A desolate farmhouse against an overcast sky. Leafless trees with spiky tentacles for branches sprout like eruptions from the very bowels of hell.It's every shade of gray -- ominous, depraved. Now we start to close in on this landscape's heart of darkness -- a constricted old corn crib -- but before we get close enough to see inside it, the scene shifts.A pale, sad-eyed teenage girl looking straight at us.Then we move to a line drawing of the rag doll that the little girl had clutched earlier -- only now it hangs from a noose, surrounded by long, shattered lines that recall the farmhouse branches.The last shift leads us to a dark haired little boy, scared into impenetrable silence, as he is approached from behind by the immense, leering presence of an adult male. Finally, this Rotoscope animated picture transform itself into reality - - an actual oil painting, wet and glistening on a canvas.