British film since 1995 - Two film study

British film since 1995 - Two film study

Main Theories

Todorov’s stage of narrative based on ‘cause’ and ‘effect’

There is a distinction between the ‘PLOT’ and the ‘STORY’

Plot - Summing up the ‘action’/events

Story - The plot is fleshed out with characters, emotions, and context AND this same plot can be constructed into a narrative in a number of ways - USING NARRATIVE DEVICES AND TECHNIQUES.

Story unfolds as ‘cause’ and ‘effect’ from the first equilibrium to the last equilibrium - The final equilibrium is not the same as the beginning.

Everything that has happened in the interim.

TODOROV 5 KEY STAGES

1. Equilibrium 
2. Something happens - Sets the narrative in motion
3. A realisation that something has happened
4. Trying to put things right
5. New equilibrium at the end

Vladmir Propp: archetypal characters

Archetypal characters

He argues that a good story always needs a specific set of archetypes

The characters themselves are not important - focus is on their role on function as a type

Hero, Villain, Victim, Helper and messenger, Anti-hero

Folk tales - Emphasis

Levi-Strauss - structuralist approach: conflict and binary opposition

Social anthropologist who studied primitive societies who communicated with signs/paintings/drawings - visually

Not spoken or written!

Primitive drawing/painting on a cave for example - recognise ideas around conflict - opposites/binaries - Strauss develops this to argue that intrinsic to most cultures is an understanding f the world through CONFLICT and OPPOSITES = MEANING

Levi-Strauss - Key points

• Conflict
• Binary opposition
• Discipline - Social Anthropologist
• Studies storytelling in primitive societies, exploring hoe visuals on caves told stories
• He was an Anthropologist 
• He studied primitive societies
• He didn’t develop a theory for written texts/storytelling (integral to all communities)
• He explained that the common element was meaning arising from conflict
• Conflict is constructed through binaries which clash - binary oppositions
• Meaning emerges from the antagonism between sets of values or ideas (which are conveyed in characters)

Binary Opposites - For example

Masculine	Feminine
Good	Evil
Primative	Developed
Barbaric	Civilised
Black	White

Meaning emerges from the conflict of opposites 

• Struggle and oppositions of binaries ultimately creates meaning
• Reading/Understanding one idea/concept in relation to understanding its opposite (villain - victim)

Can we apply this to any film we know?

Sunset boulevard - Joe and Norma

Bonnie and Clyde - Law/Lawlessness and Sexuality = Bonnie and Clyde

Some like it Hot - Gender norms

No country for Old men - Ellis vs Chigurh; Chigurh vs society; Carla Jean vs Chigurh - Moral codes 

Think about visual codes - creating opposition

Secrets & Lies - Mike Leigh, 1996

Marxism - examines the effect of capitalism on labor, productivity, and economic development and argues for a worker revolution to overturn capitalism in favour of communism.

Thin Man Films

Ciby 2000

Channel four films

Leigh writes the screenplay

Main characters

• Cynthia 
• Maurice - Cynthias brother (photographer)
• Monica - Maurice's wife
• Hortense - Cynthias daughter - given up for adoption
• Roxanne - Cynthias daughter
• Paul - Cynthias boyfriend

Overview

• ‘Contemporary’ London
• Maurice - photographer in North London; middle-class now
• Cynthia single mum - Lives in south London with Roxanne - Conflict
• Hortense - looks up biological mum after her parents die
• Social class intrinsic to story - tension between Maurice and Cynthia 
• Family past: secrets
• Stillness - long takes
• Everyday - realism

Issues around class

- Conflict and relationships between the class

- Each class has something the other wants - Cynthia has children, wants money, and Maurice has money but wants children

- The two classes start to merge and mix when everything comes to light as they start to share the same camera frames

- Sibling rivalry/tensions around money, status - class

- Maurice took inheritance from dad’s death - moved to North London (new big house) and built his business

- Cynthia - rents in South London; single mum (juggled two jobs when Roxanne was younger); Roxanne ‘works for the council’

- She takes Maurice’s money when he visits; she marvels at the space and luxury of his new house; tells Monica resentfully that she spent all the inheritance

- She is pleased for Hortense - her job, going to university, driving own car

• Maurice feels bad about showing his house to Cynthia because he knows she can’t achieve it - Maurice feels guilty for Cynthias state and can’t face up to it (can face Cynthia which is why he hasn’t seen her in so long)

Issues of Race

• When Hortense knocks on Monicas door, Monica opens the door and says she has the wrong house - Monica is weary of her
• Dress code and comparison - Hortense is the only one wearing black
• Secrets and lies theme
• Judgements? Inter-racial relationship
• 1960s - historical context
• Positive perspectives: Hortense has done much better for herself and is a lot more educated than Cynthia. She is a home owner, professional and financially independent

Issues on women’s perspective

- Both Hortense and Cynthia (and sort of Roxanne) lack male figures in their lives

- Maurice who’s not particularly masculine is the one male figure for all of them

- Monica can’t have children (important part of womanhood) which is very hard on her

- Monica is also at home alone all day - no work/ no need for work

- ‘Side characters’ are all female

- No male gaze by Mike Leigh as a male director 

Cynthia meets Hortense for the first time sequence

• Long take
• Tracks Hortense 
• Doesn’t cut to any dialogue 
• Loud background sounds - diegetic
• Cynthia seems to act more childlike despite being Hortense’s mother
• No cuts in the cafe either - awkwardness increases?
• Both in the same cinematic shot
• Hortense - Calm and collected whilst Cynthia - Crying constantly
• Long silences

Key elements

• Long shots without any cuts - Increased levels of awkwardness and reflects real life
• Long silences - Creates awkward atmosphere and reflects their relationship (they don't really know each other yet they are mother and daughter)
• They can be seen as split from each-other as they are on different halves of the screen but connected as they are family
• The camera tracks Hortense as she’s pacing in-front of the station at stops pacing once Cynthia is in shot - end of her search
• Cynthia tries to blend in with her surroundings once Hortense confronts her which could show that she’s upset and is trying to almost ‘disappear’

Context and Issues with class, gender and race

• Cynthia was surprised when Hortense was black which could show that there were still issues with race
• You would usually expect adults to be more put together and stable yet Hortense is of a higher class than Cynthia despite being her child
• Cynthia simply ‘works in a factory’ whilst Hortense is an optometrist which could be a lot less simple

Women’s perspective

• Woman’s secrets? Women’s lies?
• Cynthia as a women - hushed up when she was pregnant (we still don't know the full details of her pregnancy with Hortense)
• She lies to Roxanne / never shares the truth
• Cynthia’s life: hardship, loneliness, shame, emotional damage, relationship Roxanne
• Roxanne: her response to mum’s secret - hurt, shocked
• Monica: her secret is revealed - can’t have children
• The narrative is precipitated by events which Cynthia experiences and endures
• Woman and motherhood - femininity
• Binary oppositions - across various themes and relationships 

Roxanne’s Birthday Party - Hortense's reveal

• Toilet is a small crammed space
• They all make fun of the idea at first because of her race
• Hortense is the only one wearing black - everyone else is wearing light coloured which just enhances the idea of race and separation 
• Theres quite low, and sombre music playing in the back which adds to the emotion of it all - we can feel Cynthias emotion a bit more 
• Crammed around a table, Hortense is sitting at the top of the table which symbolises how she’s the topic of one of the major secrets
• Facial expressions - they all take quick stares at Hortense then look down - relation to the issue of race
• Non-diegetic sound - pre-existing conflict emerges - explosion/reveal stronger without sound 
• Slower chewing of food - slow mental processing of this whole situation
• Cynthia’s rocking when upset; unease is physical
• Roxanne’s facial expressions change as she recognises that Cynthia is not joking - before this moment Roxanne smiled more than ever before
• Pauls - ‘micro expressions’: confused and upset
• Monica - covers emotions with a napkin; Monicas reaction to Roxanne’s gift (not her money) - pushing Cynthia to the background
• There is usually long takes, however here there are lots of quick cuts - shows how the family is coming apart
• Jane and Paul - we have cuts to them - they feel uncomfortable as they’re not part of the family 

Context: Race, Class & Politics

Changing Lifestyles

• Class divide vs climbing ranks (Monica and Maurice)
• Increase in middle class households containing: White goods, Mobiles, Internet
• Sexual liberty and the 1990s 
• Brit-pop (Spice girls & Riot grrl - White feminism
• 1996 - Last Irish Magdalene Laundry closed (not UK but come enough!)

Class politics: Thatcher’s Individualism vs New Labour

• Individualism - left over from Thatcher’s era. “No such things as society”
• Welfare state

vvv RISE OF NEW LABOUR TONY BLAIR ELECTED - 1997 vvv

• New Labour - move towards neoliberalism
• Socialism & Champagne Socialism - drive to highlight disparities in class - British Film Making (Train-spotting / Billy Elliot)
• Focusing on improving education

Closing the Class Divide

After 18 years of conservative government, New labour was aimed to appeal to all social classes, but above all it tried to capture new, young, white-collar middle class voters from Thatcher. They wanted to push for people to engage in cooperative self-help, be self-reliant and aim for self-improvement

New labour policies that implemented this philosophy included:

• ‘Welfare to work’ - a programme of subsidies and training for benefits claimants to get back onto the job market - including tax credits to bump up income
• ‘New deal’ - aiming at single mothers and the disabled to get them into work too
• ‘Minimum wage’ -aimed to make work pay higher than benefits

Race, Racism and the 90s

• In 2010, communities Secretary John Denham said that ‘class, not race’ was the main cause of discrimination in Britain
• Class is the main issue seen in most British Social Realist films (Trainspotting/Billie Elliot/The Full Monet/Fish Tank/I Daniel Blake)
• South Africa apartheid officially ended on 27th April 1994 (Mandela elected president on 10th May 1994)
• Windrush Generation - those who arrived in the UK from Caribbean countries between 1948 and 1973
• ‘White working class’
• Stephen Lawrence: 13 september 1974 - 22 April 1993

Conflict through Binary oppositions

• Narrative theory - Claude Levi-Strauss
• Race (Black and white)
• Monica and Cynthia - class and relationship with Maurice
• Homes of Cynthia and Maurice - Well decorated and not, also bought and rented
• Maurice is in the middle of both opposites
• Financial standing - class
• Hortense is always wearing dark colours (black) whereas everyone else is wearing lighter colours
• Everyone else has something the other wants Cynthia has kids - Monica wants kids but has parents (maybe) - Hortense lost her parents but has money along with Maurice - Cynthia wants money. Vicious cycle.
• Lives North and South of London
• The daughter show different up bringing (Roxanne and Hortense)
• Jobs - Specifically between Cynthia/Roxanne and Hortense
• Stuart and Maurice - Both came from the same job and opportunities but did different things with it. Stuart went to Australia and is now saw, and Maurice is quite content
• Maurice vs the absence of another male figure

Levi-Strauss applied to Secrets & Lies

Levi Strauss suggests that conflict and binaries create meaning. In the film ‘Secrets & Lies’ there are many binaries and conflict which eventually build up to the very climactic third act where they all come to light when Maurice eventually snaps. One of said binaries, is represented through Monica and Cynthia. Cynthia had children when she was young and not ready for them, whilst simultaneously having no money, meanwhile Monica can’t have children despite being ready for them, while having money. Both parties have something the other one wants, which eventually ends up in conflict. This creates meaning through the topic of class, which is one of the themes Mike Leigh was trying to convey through this film. Another example of how these binaries create meaning, is through Maurice. Maurice, whilst being a male, doesn’t necessarily inhabit specifically masculine properties, neither feminine. He has quite sensitive and submissive properties, whilst also being quite aggressive and defence when needed be. This ends up with him snapping towards the end of the film, and brings about the meaning of gender.

Character Tropes - Vladmir Propp

Most Important character

1. Cynthia - The key - personal story - most related to each character - protagonist?
2. Maurice - Central to most characters
3. Hortense - Represents themes - Binary opposites - catalyst for the conflict 
4. Monica - Conflict with Cynthia - less present - Bad reputation, but then followed by sympathy
5. Roxanne - Limited further context - Clear contrast

Least Important character

Vladmir Propp

• Humans like things to be recognisable and defined in easy categories (Binary Oppositions)
• In 1928 Propp said that all stories follow a clear narrative structure which repeats across fairy tales, stories and now films
• Propp devised a list of character archetypes which are apparent in (most) narratives

Tropes

• The Villain: Struggles against the hero
• The Dispatcher: The character who sends the hero on their mission
• The Helper: Helps the hero in their quest
• The Princess (or Prize): The hero deserves her throughout the story but the villain prevents her from doing so. The journey often ends with the hero marrying the princess, thereby beating the villain
• The Hero: The protagonist. Seeks something throughout the story, and reacts to the donor. Usually weds the princess/takes the prize
• False Hero: Disrupts the Hero’s progress by taking credit for that hero’s actions or trying to marry the princess

What happens when character tropes are subverted?

The main story line, and who the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys are get confusing and catches audiences off gaunt. This may spark interest, or confuse them.

Theres a more interesting narrative structure, change in structure, non-linear.

What effect might it have on the audiences expectation and response

Seeing as it confuses audiences, it might discourage them from continuing on with whatever they’re watching, or it could increase interests and make them want to see through to the end to see what happens and who the final ‘heroes’ and ‘villains’ are.

Challenge the audience, approach the rest of the movie with more scrutiny and seriousness.

What effect does it have on our understanding of the film and society

Makes us re-evaluate our ideas around morality. Makes you look at life as not so black and white.

Creates a domino effect of re-evaluating the meaning of life.

Subverting character archetypes

• Making a comment on society
• Not all stories are clear cut black and white (questions regarding who is really the hero)
• People can read Heroes/Villains/Donors etc different
• To highlight a larger message (ie. sisterly love in Frozen)
• To experiment with something new

Character tropes in Social Realism

• Social Realist films normally represent true-to-life characters and locations. Propp’s tropes were very much based on fairy tales
• Social realist films were keen to show the effects on society and depict the problems endured by the working class and ‘underclass’
• There is often no ‘winner’ in the games of class and politics
• Storylines interlink and characters are often both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ - like real people!
• Often the ‘Villain’ is a concept - drug misuse, poverty, government restrictions

Heroes in Secrets & Lies

Hortense, Cynthia and Maurice can all be classed as ‘Hero’ character in Secrets & Lies. They are all seeking something

I think that Maurice is eventually the hero. Towards the end during the lead up to his breakdown, he reveals the last secret that he and Monica had been hiding about not being able to have kids. This results in Cynthia and Monica ‘making up’ form their past conflict, as they both didn’t know what the other was going through. Maurice was the middle ground for both, yet never disrespected or had conflict with either side about the other.

Film Theorist

Laura Mulvey - 1970s

• Coincides with second wave feminism - White women / Middle class

Visual narrative pleasure and the ‘Male Gaze’

• Visual filmic pleasure - Expense of making women objects for the viewing of men
• Directors (male) present women in this way (POV)

Todorov’s narrative theory

Distinction between the ‘plot’ and the story

This means there is scope for narrative devices and techniques

Editing techniques (montage), flashback, elliptical editing, linear or non-linear narratives.

Identifies 5 main stages:

1. Equilibrium - harmony, order, balance
2. Disruption- ENIGMA
3. Realisation of disruption 
4. Setting out to put things right
5. Balance of equilibrium - new balance 

(that applied to secrets and lies)

1. Cynthia and Roxanne living normally together, same as with Maurice and Monica - seeing the characters in their own element
2. Hortense calls Cynthia and meeting up with her, and forming a relationship with her
3. Roxannes birthday party when Cynthia breaks the news to everyone
4. Maurice having his moment after snapping and revealing all the secrets and lies
5. Hortense and Roxanne acting as sisters (The scene with them both in Cynthias garden)

Knowledge is disruption

Marxist Critical Approach

• Anti-capitalist and in favour of the working class
• Capitalist - profits go to the top
• Workers in this scheme are under the capitalists
• Karl Marx - Jewish (lived in Germany and France)
• Living and writing in mid 19th century 
• Believes in dynamic of change

Overview

• Struggles and inequalities in society are class struggles
• Exploitation of the masses (workers) by those who own the means to produce - the capitalists 
• Exploit workers because they do not own means to produce
• Hardship and low pay-yields profit of owners of production/capitalists
• Hid model based on late 18th century - industrialisation in Britain
• To understand how society works, where power lies and how poverty exists - we need to examine social class
• In his view, the only way to overcome these iniquities is for the workers to mobilise, to overthrow capitalists - a revolution
• When he states ‘workers of the world unite’ Marx’s thesis identifies that oppression for workers is the same globally, whilst greed and profit are also enjoyed by those who own productions - middle classes
• He doesn’t distinguish between race or gender when he explains social struggles

Applying Marxist approach 

• Maurice given money from dad to build business

What is Critical Theory

• A critical theory has a distinctive aim: to unmask the ideology falsely justifying some form of social or economic oppression - the reveal is as ideology - and in so doing, to contribute to the task of ending that oppression 
• A critical theory aims to provide a kind of enlightenment about social and economic life that is itself emancipatory: persons come to recognise the oppression that are suffering as oppression and are thereby partly freed from it

Marxist critical theory 

• As participants in a capitalist market economy, we fall into thinking of capitalist economic relations as justified, as how things should be
• Marx argues that this way of thinking is nothing but ideology: it obscures, even from those persons who suffer from them, the pervasive and destructive forms of alienation, powerlessness, and exploitation that, in Marx’s view, define capitalists economic relations

Key ideas from the Marxist Critical approach - Applied to Secrets & Lies

• Oppression based on class
• People internalise their oppression
• Class not race or gender
• Leigh shows through the ending that class causes unnecessary hatred
• Roxanne overcomes oppression through the money from middle-class people 
• Much of the film is impartial to class issues, not advocating for social revolution but definitely critiquing capitalist oppression
• Focuses on female stories, feminist critical approach more useful as it still encompasses class issues but more specifically for women
• Film doest promote a utopian version but does highlight the problems caused as a result of sexism, racism and classism, all of which can be argued, by Marx, to be results of capitalism

Marxist critical approach to feminism

Language

• Female - biology
• Feminist - political stance
• Feminism - movement
• Feminist theory - critical approach 

Timeline

• 1840s - 1920s first wave - legal rights, votes
• 1960s - second wave - in USA Betty Friedan’s book (1963) marks the moment
• Tackles the ‘illusion’ that women should be fulfilled by marrying, having children, not working and looking after the home
• 1970s (influence of French female writers) focus on capitalism and patriarchy - fuels radical approaches for social and economic changes
• 1990s - third wave focus on equality across cultures and races

bell hooks (1952-present)

‘Black oppositional gaze’ - ‘Male gaze’