Film Noir is a style of film popular in the 1940s-1950s. Noir films are shot in black and white, and have a focus on shadows in the cinematography. The Noir genre focused on plots around hard boiled private detectives, femme fatales, murders and the mafia/gangs.
Night Of The Hunter (1955, Charles Laughton)
Neo Noir
Neo Noir is a modernised version of the Noir style of the 40s with more graphic depictions of violence. It modernises the pessimism and mean nature of the classic Noir style for contemporary audiences
Casablanca is a romantic drama made during the second world war and set in the Nazi controlled Moroccan town of Casablanca, in which bar owner Rick Blaine is involved in the escape of resistance fighter Victor Lazlo, made more difficult by the involvement of his old girlfriend from Paris, Ilsa Lund. This is a generally highly rated film, and I have to agree that Casablanca is a very well made and well acted film with a very interesting story. Its a fantastic film that deserves all the praise it gets.
Memorable Scene: Ilsa leaves Casablanca with Victor
This scene serves as the end to the film as well as its emotional climax, and it is definitely the most memorable part of the film to me. Rick, deciding to help Ilsa by giving her the letters of transit, holds the police captain at gunpoint and drives her and Victor to the airport. Ilsa is under the assumption that she will be staying with Rick while Victor leaves for America, however Rick has arranged for her to leave with Victor without telling her to make sure she leaves. Rick explains that Ilsa has to leave with Victor because she motivates Victor to keep going and because Victor loves her. The reveal of Rick sending Ilsa away to America is accompanied by a swelling underscore which raises the emotional impact, as well as a dramatic zoom in to Rick and Ilsa’s faces. This scene also shows Rick’s character development, as in the beginning he was a sour, mean man who did have moments of kindness that he conctantly undermined. He insisted he was neutral in all matters, and when it came to Ilsa and Victor he was aggressive and resentful towards the two of them due to his past with Ilsa, which is a pathetic side to him as he endangers Victor’s life by not giving him the letters of transit because Ilsa left him. However by this scene he has changed, and stops being mean towards the couple and lets his petty grudge against Ilsa go, allowing her to be free and letting Victor escape the Nazis. The score, close up shots and amazing acting from Bogard and Bergman really makes this emotional scene extremely impactful . Also I cried.
Filmmakers and producers moved to Hollywood due to the useful filming locations and to escape Thomas Edison trying to monopolize the film industry.
Charlie Chaplin was both a big star and a director. Another famous film star was Harold Lloyd, and Thomas H. Ince was a silent film director. Famous pictures from the silent era includes The Cabinet Of Dr Caligiri and Nosferatu, both german, while Hollywood produced Ben-Hur and 7th Heaven
The early Hollywood studio system had one person do the writing, directing, filming and producer work on the film, until Thomas Ince changed that by splitting these aspects into different jobs. The early system also had the studio practically own the actors, which Charlie Chaplin combated.
The Jazz Singer from 1927 was the first talking picture (or Talkie)
The end of the silent era brought problems to certain directors and actors who had made careers in the silent era as now vocal performances became important and they couldn’t just use physical skills anymore. The new technology was also too complex for them to get used to quickly.
During the time of the silent era of film, America went through World War One, the Wall Street crash and The Great Depression.
Charlie Chaplin, famous silent director and actor(1889-1977)
Ben-Hur: A Tale Of The Christ (1925)
The Golden Age Of Hollywood (1930-1947)
The five big studios were:
– MGM, which did high budget films and literary adaptations
Gone With The Wind (1939)
– Paramount, which was known as the more European studio and got German directors over to make films
Shanghai Express (1932)
– Warner Brothers, which made low budget movies like gangster movies and musicals
The Public Enemy (1931)
– 20th Century Fox, famous for making westerns, musicals and dramas
The Grapes Of Wrath (1940)
-RKO, which made a variety of films from musicals to screwball comedies to creature features and even dramas such as Citizen Kane
Citizen Kane (1941)
2. Vertical integration is the combination of two or more stages of production in a business. Block booking is a system of selling multiple films to a theatre as a unit.
3. The original studio system collapsed in 1948 at the conclusion of the United States v. Paramount court case when the 5 big studios were found of violating trust laws.
4. At this time, America went through the Great Depression. America also went through the second world war in the 1940s.
5. At the time people enjoyed movies of the westerns, musicals, screwball comedies and film noir genres. More people than ever went to visit the cinema during this time to escape the great depression, which took a large toll on the mental health of the American population.
Classical Hollywood Style
The invisible style of storytelling is when the edits are practically invisible to the audience. This style tries to conceal artistic choices in order to present a natural story to the audience.
Continuity editing is the use of editing techniques to combine shots into one smooth, continuous narrative. Classical Hollywood often used continuity editing. This creates an illusion of a sequential, chronological story and is meant to get the audience immersed in the story presented by the film.
Realism is an attempt to make the audience believe in the world the film creates
Verisimilitude – When a film conveys a sense of truthfulness and realism, sometimes requiring suspension of disbelief
Intruder (1989, Scott Spiegel)
The Hitcher (1986, Robert Harmon)
Social Realism – The movie displays a social environment and its impacts on the characters in it.
Perfect Blue (1997, Satoshi Kon) – Kon uses the film to critique the Japanese idol system and how celebrities are treated.
Magic Realism – Surreal and fantastical elements have been incorporated into an otherwise realistic setting
Carrie (1976, Brian De Palma)
Hyperreality – A film in which the reality portrayed is exaggerated, or is “too real to be real”
The Matrix Reloaded (2003,The Wachowzkis)
Visual Style
Iconography – Use of reoccurring visual symbols that convey emotion and provide symbolism
Lady Vengeance (2005, Park Chan-Wook) – the colour white is used in the movie to show purity, revenge and devotion.
Intertextual Referencing – When a film incorporates aspects of another work (another film, book, series, poetry etc)
The Crow (1994, Alex Proyas) – The graphic novel the film was based on was heavily inspired by the band Joy Division and quoted song titles in the artwork frequently, and the film itself quotes classic literature like ‘Paradise Lost’ and Edgar Allen Poe’s ‘The Raven‘
Visual/Sound motifs – Recurring element in a film to help the story like announcing a character, punctuating a plot point or highlighting a theme
Suspiria (1977, Dario Argento) – Suspiria uses a lot of unnatural red and blue lighting, creating a dreamlike feel and being used to announce the appearance of supernatural forces or death
Colour Grading – changing the colour of footage in post production to create a constant colour scheme or to represent a theme
Manhunter (1986, Michael Mann)
Auteur trademark – a visual technique used prominently by a particular director that an audience can use to recognise as their work
Phantom Of The Paradise (1974, Brian De Palma) – De Palma uses split screen often in his works
Tone
A films tone is how it portrays its subject matter and how the audience should feel while watching the film
Pathos – Something in a film that invokes pity and compassion in the spectator
Stand By Me (1986, Rob Reiner)– Gordie dreams that his father tells him he should have died instead of his brother
Bathos – an effect of anticlimax
Se7en (1995, David Fincher) – The main antagonist of the film turns himself in
Suspense – When the director creates anticipation and anxiousness in the audience during tense scenes
Black Christmas (1974, Bob Clark)
Comedy – aspects in a film intended to make a spectator laugh and entertain them
Scary Movie (2000, Keenen Ivory Weyans)
Dramatic Irony – When the audience knows something a character doesn’t
Woman Of The Hour (2023, Anna Kendrick) – The audience knows Rodney is a killer. Cheryl doesn’t.
Distancing Effect (V-Effekt) – When the audience is reminded that they are watching a film and are “alienated” from the world of the film
The Muppet Movie (1979, James Frawley) – Dr. Teeth reads the films script
Postmodern Humour – when a film subverts mainstream audience expectations
Return Of The Living Dead (1985, Dan O’Bannon) – The film subverts the standard horror movie format at the time by making the main cast a group of punks and low wage workers and giving them personalities and depth
Catharsis is strong emotions being released, e.g the audience feeling justified or relieved by a characters fate or actions
Reframing – to change the way a thing or a character is thought of by the spectator
Throughout Joker, cinematography is used effectively to create a sense of chaos within the film’s diegetic world.This is particularly evident in the scene towards the end of the film where Arthur is shown in a low- angle, close-up looking out of the police car window and reacting with glee at the riots taking place around him.Here, the camera is used to position the spectator as not only connecting with Arthur, but now looking up to him. This suggests to the spectator that the tables have turned and Arthur, who was earlier depicted as pathetic and sad, is now depicted as powerful and heroic. This “reframing” of the central character” has a potentially cathartic effect on the spectator who has, up until this point, been encouraged to sympathise with Arthur’s point of view as a victim of circumstance.The deliberate and stylised use of this slow-motion reaction shot, enables the spectator to get a sense of poetic justice being served: Arthur is now on his way to prison. Yellow = Point, Green = Evidence, Blue = Explanation, Purple = link
Young people in This Is England are presented in various ways. The main character Shaun is presented as a lonely child who is picked on by crueller children, who make up a lot of the films other representations of young people (like the fedora wearing one who makes fun of Shaun for his dead dad). The skinhead gang is also presenting young people, as Woody and others are only in their early-mid twenties, which implies Woody had a similar experience to Shaun as evidenced by his friendship with Combo. This representation of younger people are kinder than the school children we are shown first (aside from Pukey) and are also presented as being relatively content with their lives as they are right now.
Older People
In a lot of the movie, older people are presented quite negatively. There aren’t a lot of much older people in most of the movie until the introduction of Combo and Banjo, who are “first generation” skinheads, and the other older people in the movie are introduced because of them. The older people are the nationalists in the film, giving speeches about how Britain should be for the British, etc. and overall serve as an antagonistic force, targeting younger people like Shaun and Pukey to persuade them over to their prejudiced way of thinking.
But not all older people are presented this way. Shaun’s mother is presented as a kind and caring character in the movie, always trying her best to look after Shaun even if Shaun doesn’t appreciate her efforts. Even when Shaun gets his head shaved and gets new clothes, she isn’t incredibly angry. She does become quite upset but she meets with the skinheads and thanks them for making Shaun feel happy, showing she does have his best interests at heart.
Class
The majority of the films characters come from the lower class, suggesting reasoning as to why they decided to become skinheads. The skinheads hang around in run down buildings and find fun in wrecking them, and they don’t normally complain about their life situations. The only one who does is Combo, who blames immigrants for his poverty. The highest class member of the group we are shown is Smell, who’s family is shown to own a relatively nice house with nice furnishing and such. Higher classes are only really shown in the nationalist speaker Combo takes Shaun to go see, who rants on about topics similar to Combo, despite it being implied that the speaker is in a comfortable position in life. The lower classes are usually presented as people looking to make the best out of what they have, while the upper classes are shown complaining about things that don’t even affect them in the slightest.
English People
The English people make up a lot of the main cast of This Is England, but unlike Trainspotting their English identity forms the basis of the plot of this film. Characters like Woody and Lol aren’t really impacted by their English identity, and characters like those are normally presented as the most comfortable. However, the idea of an English identity is used by Combo (and the nationalist speaker) to convince people to join their gang. Combo twists the idea of patriotism to convince Shaun to join his gang, and very nearly persuades Milky to join by telling him his English identity is more important than his Jamaican identity.
Asian/Black people
There isn’t a lot of representation of Asian people, but it is very important regardless. The most apparent presentation is the shopkeeper, who is seen at the beginning and near the end of the film. He is presented as a man who is just trying to make a living, but is given trouble by Shaun in the beginning due to him being am annoying child, and later by Combo, Shaun and the rest of the gang, when his store is hit by them for a racially motivated reason and slurs are hurled at him during the robbery. This scene is quite hard to watch, as it shows this shopkeeper who didn’t do anything wrong being threatened by a machete while his store is robbed. The gang also steals a ball off of a group of Indian children, during which they also make racist remarks. These characters are shown as receiving a lot of trouble for doing basically nothing, and the audience should feel pity for them
Most of the black representation comes from Milky, the only black member of the skinhead gang. Milky is English with Jamaican heritage, and is treated the same as any other English character until Combo is introduced. Combo uses the fact that Milky is black to fuel a lot of his argument in the scene where he attempts to break up the gang, by using the fact that no one stood up for him when Combo made a very racist joke at the party to say that English people don’t stick up for each other anymore. This argument falls apart at the end when Combo is just very racist towards Milky and beats him, showing that he doesn’t care about any of that and really is racist. Milky is initially presented as a normal Englishman before Combo weaponizes his race to back his nationalist beliefs.
Men
The men in This Is England make up a lot of the cast. Their presentations vary, from Shaun’s wannabe masculinity where he idolises men he views as strong (Initially Woody then Combo, though this idealisation of older men in his life probably stems from how highly he views his father), to Woody wanting to enjoy life and protectiveness of his friends, and Combo’s ideas of masculinity tying in with his nationalist ideas. A lot of male characterisation features strength in some way, but they often display extreme emotions as well.
Women
Like Trainspotting, women are usually wives or girlfriends. The most prominent female character, Lol, is Woody’s girlfriend, but is given a lot of her own character and story. Smell as well is only in the story to act as Shaun’s girlfriend and serves no other purpose in the story, so why she is included I have no idea. Shaun’s mother is given strength in her widowed status, having to look after Shaun by herself, giving the audience respect for her. The women in This Is England, while still designated to set roles, are given their own aspects of strength and character.
Place
The films English setting is, in my opinion, the films biggest strength. The film presents a familiar, small town English setting, and shows the audience the mundane nature of the town streets, the brick buildings and flat grassy areas. The film shows how boring and stagnant life for a young person would be in this town, and so gives reasoning as to why Shaun joins the skinhead gang, and why the skinheads find fun in wrecking abandoned houses and have house parties: because the audience can tell from the town that it is set in that there is nothing better to do. The setting of This Is England is presented as common and familiar to an English audience, and as dull and boring to the characters, though through the films cinematography it can form some shots that are very nice to look at.
The scene at the end when Combo snaps and beats Milky into unconsciousness uses a piano score as the backdrop. Another filmmaker may have decided to include high tempo, energetic, dramatic music behind such a brutal scene, but Meadows instead uses a slow, sombre piano score. This could be to show that this is the biggest emotional low point of the film, and the biggest turning point of all the main characters present: It breaks Combo, it leaves the kind and well meaning Milky a battered unconscious body, and most importantly it disillusions Shaun to Combo’s nationalist rhetoric. The sound also uses pretty heavy sounds for Combo’s punches, making it clear to the viewer that he is really trying to do serious damage to this person who never did anything to him.
Editing
The film starts with this montage of archival footage of 80’s British culture set to ’54 To 46 That’s My Number’ by Toots and the Maytals. It sets the tone of the film well, editing various clips from children’s shows and news footage together to give the audience a feeling of the space the film is set in, showing clips of people at school, music performances, dance exercise videos, Princess Diana etc. What really stood out to me was the short beats at some points in the song being overset by footage of disasters, usually explosion. These parts stood out to me because I liked how the footage synced up to the audio and because I found it funny.
Mise En Scene
This screenshot is taken from the final sequence of the film, where the members of Combo’s gang meet at his apartment for a sort of party, to which Milky also comes. This uses Mise En Scene to show the state at which Combo lives in: a totally empty floor, a sofa and bed pressed against the wall, some pictures stuck to the wall, and a large St. George’s cross flag that Shaun stole across the wall. This tells the audience that Combo is really in a bad economic state and is fairly alone in life.
Cinematography
This shot uses a long shot to show off all the characters and the urban setting. Woody is on one side of the tunnel, the rest of his gang on the other, and Shaun is in the middle, illuminated by the sun before entering the tunnel. The shot has some really nice symmetry that makes it pleasing to look at, and also some potential symbolism, like Shaun being illuminated by sunlight while the skinheads are in shade under the tunnel, showing Shaun’s innocence compared to the harder, rougher lives of the skinheads.
This Is England (2006, Dir. Shane Meadows) First Response
Rating: 8/10
This Is England tells a story about a lonely young boy who starts out just wanting friends and to belong and ends up at the centre of a nationalist gang. The film does a really good job at showing a bleak story, and makes great use of its British setting, making me connect to the film as the scenery creates a sense of familiarity in me, especially scenes in the fields or the streets. The story is told well and the characters are interesting, though I found the scenes with Smell and Shaun quite uncomfortable. I would probably watch this again.
Memorable Scene:Combo Splits The Gang
This is the scene where the actual plot of This Is England begins. Combo, one of Woody’s friends, has just been let out of prison, and in the prior scene he made a racist joke in front of Milky, the only black member of the gang. In this scene, he begins by apologising to Milky, and then begins berating Woody for not doing anything. He then begins a monologue after asking Milky if he considered himself English or Jamaican (to which he responded English) in which he claims the idea of an English identity is fading and that British people are being forced out of living comfortably in their country while immigrants get housing and such. Its a rant that clearly shows the type of character Combo is, and immediately the audience should be clued in that he is becoming the film’s antagonist. The scene uses long shots (such as the one above) showing Combo’s back as he gives his speech to the room of skinheads, and close ups of the characters faces in response to his ranting. In the speech he brings up the Falkland Islands war going on (the film is set in the 80’s), which prompts the main character Shaun to tell him that his father died in that war. What follows is what cements Combo as the villain: he uses the death of Shaun’s father to manipulate Shaun into joining his nationalist group. He weaponizes ideas of patriotism and death in war meaning something in order to convince a young boy to join a nationalist regime. In the end, Woody leaves with Lol, Milky and some others, while Gadget, the groups punching bag, Kes, the short tempered one, and Shaun stay behind. Combo has officially separated Shaun from the kinder people in the skinhead gang, and Shaun is now vulnerable to Combo’s preaching.
In Trainspotting, young people are presented in a disadvantaged position. All young people we see in the film are or will be going through something. Renton suffers addiction, Begbie is a violent mess who has to crash in Renton’s London apartment, Tommy goes through a rough breakup that results in his death, etc. Young People in Trainspotting are represented as having little future and little ambition, or so they believe themselves. This changes by the end when Renton runs away with the money and he realises he can make something of his life, which is a positive note to end a movie that often shows only the negatives of youth.
Older People
Older people are not very present in Trainspotting. There are a few scenes involving the character’s parents,. namely Renton’s, Gail’s and Diane’s . From what we are shown, the older people in Trainspotting are represented usually as quite kindly and at least attempt to be friendly. There is the dinner scene with Renton’s parents where his dad snaps at him for his drug abuse, but aside from that, they attempt to help him kick the habit by forcing him to go cold turkey. Gail’s parents are kind to Spud and are understanding of the fact that he made a mess while drunk, and Diane’s parents are very nice and welcoming to Renton. They are represented as a group of people who grew up with more opportunities than the current youth of Trainspotting.
Working Class People
Trainspotting is not a glamourous film, and it’s portrayal of the working class is a good example of this. A lot of the ensemble cast are of the lower classes, explaining their need to go to drugs to feel something in a world where they haven’t been given anything to experience. The only people at the start of the film who don’t do drugs are Tommy and Begbie, who both seem well off. Tommy however loses his comfortable social state when Renton inadvertently causes his girlfriend to kick him out of her house, bringing him down considerably. He’s forced into a grimy looking, very cheap apartment, absolutely nothing inside, not even a proper bed. This display of the poor working class, in dirty housing with little possession, also allows the audience to sympathise more with the character’s reasoning of turning to drugs. The working class are presented as struggling and in need of help, which leads them to drugs as an attempt to get something out of a life they have nothing in.
Scottish People
Due to the story taking place in Scotland, the main characters are obviously Scottish. The movie doesn’t really bring a lot of attention to this, though. The Scottish people are presented as the status quo of the story, and so we are led through normal Scottish lives. There is a scene where they go see some Scottish mountains, which in any other movie would be a big moment of beauty and awe in the characters, but in Trainspotting they really don’t care about it, and don’t see the point in going all the way there to look at them. It would just be normal to them. Scottish people are not represented in a romanticised light, nor in a negative one: what the characters see as normal is presented to the audience as normal.
Addicts
The addicts in Trainspotting, despite making up the main cast, are not presented positively in the film. All scenes of drug taking is not glamorous at all, quite the opposite. They are most often seen cooking up and shooting heroin in a dingy backroom, which looks disgusting and not somewhere people should be. The scenes in which Renton takes drugs are always presented as a low point: he betrays his family and friends by going to get a hit from Mother Superior immediately after being let off a prison sentence under the promise of going to rehab, he OD’s and is treated without any care by Mother Superior who just lugs him around and by the taxi driver who takes him to the hospital, who dumps him on the ground, and when he shoots up in a bus toilet, which is a low point due to him being totally clean up to that point. While not presented positively, the addicts are given a lot of sympathy, like Tommy resorting to heroin to feel better after his life is ruined. Addicts aren’t even really presented in a villainous way either: the worst character in the whole movie, Begbie, is totally clean throughout the entire film. Addicts are presented as human beings deserving of sympathy and care.
Men
Men make up the main cast of characters in Trainspotting, giving us a lot of different representations of men. Trainspotting gives us aggressive men like Begbie or sensitive men like Tommy, etc. There is a lot men have in common in Trainspotting, though. All of them want relationships, which is shown in the scene where the above screenshot is from, where Spud and Sick Boy talk about their gripes with their respective partners, and in the same sequence at the bar Renton gives narration on how he wants company and gets with Diane. Other aspects of male representation is the constant banter between the characters and the stereotypical male pastime of football, but opposed to what these stereotypical representations would suggest, the male characters are allowed to be emotional, like the scene where the aby dies and all the characters are very upset about it.
Women
Women don’t have as much representation as men by a lot. Often the women are restricted to roles of girlfriend, wife or mother. They are given little screentime compared to the male characters as well, but they aren’t totally sidelined. While they usually are in the role of girlfriend to the main characters, they are given moments that characterise them and give them strength, like Spud’s girlfriend Gail saying that she’s been refusing to have sex with him just because she finds it funny that it annoys him. But compared to male characters, there isn’t much representation of women in the film.
