A Look Into ‘Swinging 60′s’ Films

Examples: – Alfie (1966)
                          - A Hard Days Night (1964)
                          - Darling (1965)
Alfie
This late sixties film starring Michael Caine as Alfie, explores several social aspects within British society in the 60′s. The film focuses on several taboos including abortion. The film also highlights and reflects the free-love and is very sexually orientated.
 Propps character analysis can be applied to Alfie with Alfie as the hero as well as the villain and the guide. The trickster and helper can both be seen in different forms including Ruby who helped him to become a better man; however she also played games with him by betraying him therefore becoming the trickster.
 The narrative structure of Alfie is quite simple and also reflects Todorov’s Narrative Analysis theory: with the Equilibrium, Disequilibrium and complications all applying to Alfie’s personal life. The narrative is fairly simple with how it shows Alfie’s journey through a part of his life; however like most film there is a lesson learned where as with Alfie the main result is how everything but him has changed including his sexual appeal to the opposite sex, his health and belief in himself.
 The representation of women is very significant in Alfie as it reflects the society of the time. Women are shown as objects and possessions, this is reinforced by the fact that Alfie never names them he referrs to them as ‘birds’ that are in ‘good condition’. The role of women is very important as it symbolises the change in gender roles towards the end of the 60′s.
 Alfie is a directly narrated film, Michael Caine himself adresses the audience and lets us into his life. We can also be seen as his conscience by shadowing his every move and we become involved and in a way judge him thorugh his actions. Although we know that he can be seen and is represented as an unloving womaniser we still warm to him because we are seeing his world through his eyes which is an effective way of building a relationship between the audience and the on-screen actor.

A Hard Day’s Night
The ideology’s and representations expected for this film are quite simple purely because it starrs The Beatles which personify the 60′s in Britain. Similar to Alfie women are seen as objects and are only referred to in a sexual way. 
 The main themes that are explored within this film are music, sex and free-living. The music plays a huge role within the narrative the opening credits show this.

Filed under: Film Studies

A Look into American War Films

Examples:
 - Saving Private Ryan (1998)
 - Full Metal Jacket (1987)
 - Empire of the Sun (1987)

Saving Private Ryan
This war film starring Tom Hanks as John Miller and directed by Steven Speilberg, has been claimed to be the most realistic account of the D-day landing in WW2. The film focuses on the emotional side of the war and how it affects the family of soldiers and the importance of family. The opening sequence of ‘Saving Private Ryan’ is very graphic and emotional. It used slow motion and point of view shots to connect the audience and highlight the realism of how horrifc the was was. 
 The narrative structure of the film is a flashback of Cpt. John Miller. Due to this, it has a modern take on the traditional war genre as it is set in modern society but looks at the history and memories within one mans life.
 Within ‘Saving Private Ryan’ women are shown as loving and caring especially Prvt. Ryan’s mother who is the femal focus of the film.
 Propp’s theory on character analyis applies to the film to an extent as we have the hero – John Miller, the villain – the nazi’s and the enemy generalised, as well as the helpers which are John Millers rangers within his rescue team.

Full Metal Jacket
Full Metal Jacket has a different take on war, even though this film is set in the vietnam war there are still typical features of the war genre included. This film which starrs Matthew Modine as “Joker” also directed by Stanley Kubrick, shows the dark side and distressing side of war and how it affects the soldiers involved. It highlights the mental issues that war can inflict. This is shown throughout the film: for example the suicide of Prvt “Pyle”, the change in personality and instinctiveness within “Joker” and emotionlessness of “Animal Mother”.
 This films narrative structure is split into two almost independant storys, the training with the Sargent and Privte “Pyles”, and then the second story with the actual war with action and the killing of the young female sniper.
 This film uses a lot of juxtaposition and contrasts including the “M I C K E Y” song at the end of the film which reflects a light hearted fun and youthful institution within America; however it is being sung by soldiers that have just killed a young girl. Juxtaposition is also seen within the characters for example “Joker” wears a peace symbol and also wears a helmet saying ‘Born to Kill’ this in itself is a huge contradiction and can reflect on how ”Joker” himself contradicts his previous self with what he has turned out to be. 

Empire of the Sun
Christian Bale starrs as Jamie Graham, and John Malkovich as Basie. This film directed also by Steven Speilberg explores the war through the eyes of a child. It shows how war can affect people no matter how young and naiive they are.
 The film tells the story of  young boys journey and how he perceives the war, although he is aware of the grief and destruction going on around him, he still continues to want to fly in a fighter jet – this reflects his naiivity and innocence. His dream can symbolise his subconscious need to grow up and have freedom. This is reinforced with the juxtaposition of how he is alone and surviving alone during a tough time - he has lost his childhood and forced to grow up very quickly, gaining responsibilitys that a child should not have due to the war.
 His relationship with Basie highlights other issues within the war including rationing. Basie is almost the personification of why Jamie is forced to grow up. Basie uses the boy to steal and carry out his ‘dirty work’; however when Jamie needs to rely on Basie he can’t.

Filed under: Film Studies

Hancock Case Study

Directed By: Peter Berg (Very Bad Things, The Kingdom)

Starring: Will Smith (as John Hancock)
                      Charlize Theron (as Mary Embrey)

Distributors: Columbia Pictures

Release Date: UK – 7th February 2008
                                US – 2nd July 2008

Genre: Action/Fantasy/Superhero

Gross Revenue: $624.4 million

Release Duration: 10 weeks

Budget: $150 million

US Opening Weekend Box Office Earnings: $62.6 million

UK Box Office Earnings: $49 million

Awards: Won – Blimp Award
                                   Teen Choice Award
                     Nominated – People’s Choice Award
                                                    National Movie Award (2 nominations)
                                                    Golden Trailer Award
                                                    Saturn Award (3 nominations)

Reviews: “a lot of fun” [Roger Ebert]
                      “unexpectedly satisfying” [Manohla Dargis]
                      39% positve reviews, average of 5.4/10 [Rotten Tomatoes, based on 203 reviews]

Although the film was not received well by its audience overall; however the film still managed to earn millions through domestic revenue after its DVD release. I believe this is partly due to the actors as well as the unexpected modernised approach to the traditional superhero plot.

Filed under: Film Studies

How does narrative explore the particular tensions of gender in examples of ‘Swinging Sixties’ British film productions?

The films that we looked at in reference to ‘Swinging Britain’ are Alfie (starring Michael Caine), A Hard Day’s Night (starring The Beatles) and Darling (starring Julie Christie). These films were realy good examples of showing the representation of gender
roles.
 ’Alfie’ has a narrative that explores and reinforces the typical gender role of a male especially concerning relationships in the sixties, his character is in control, promiscuous and quite careless. Throughout the film we are shown his perception of women and life as he narrates the story. Because we are led by him and see the story through his eyes we grow to like his character and do not despise the fact that he treats women like they are cars, “shes good quality,” he sees women as objects and although in any other situation we would find this demeaning and offensive beacause of the clever narrative structure where he tells the story we start to think like a man and feel the way he feels.

Filed under: Film Studies

What are some of the reasons for the popularity of US produced films for the UK audience?

_{Hollywood has become one of the largest film industry’s in the world. America has a very successful film production rate and the products are very successful in Europe especially the UK.}

_{US films become massive hits in the UK for a number of reasons one of the main reasons is because of the status, reputation and recognition of the actors. Hollywood actors and actresses are known and recognised worldwide and the success of their films rely mostly on their fan-base’s. Minor films with new actors are rarely seen worldwide; however films that can be identified through its cast are more than likely to succeed: as an audience in the UK we are comfortable and rely on the quality becuase we know about the performance of the actors. If you look at the Will Ferell references for example, the box office chart shows that even though’Blades of Glory’ was shown in less theaters in the UK, the movie still made very nearly the same amount as ‘Talledega Nights..’; however this filmwas shown in over one hundred more theatres. The promotional tools and advertising techniques of a film rely quite heavily on the representation of the actors. Production companies quite obviously use the actors to promote their films as seen in the poster for ‘Talledega Nights’ and the magazine cover of ‘Premiere.’ in both of these examples the actors appearance is dominating. There are no other actors or insights into the story line apart from the costumes. They have used this to entice fans into watching the film, not only in the UK but all over the world.}

   _{Another reason for the success of US films in the UK is the directors like Quentin Tarantino, Steven  Speilberg and tonnes of others. Just like the actors, the directors have also gained a reputation and fan-base, so similarly the success of the film in the UK derives from the status of their career in the UK.}

 _{In comparison to American films, British films are generally very realistic and relate to their audiences very well; because of this the UK audience enjoy the escapism ideas of US films, producing imaginary and idealistic storylines. American films mainly base their stories on the whole idea of ‘The American Dream’ giving people hope of a happy ending with super-hero films such as Spiderman, Hancock, Fantastic Four and the Iron Man. US films typically follow the hero-villain-damsel in distress model, giving UK audiences that are used to realistic English storylines, a chance to idolise characters and congure up enemies, we as an audience want to be the hero; therefore because of the popular theme within American films, audiences all over the world especially the UK enjoy escaping into the storyline.}

 _{Looking at the UK box office top 10 dated 2nd January 2009,(imdb.com) it shows that 8 out of 10 are American productions; in reference to my point that films are successful due to the actors, I can see that this is reinforced as the top film ‘Yes Man’  has been made very successful earning £6.6 million pounds in it’s first two weeks of screening, purely because it starrs Jim Carrey and partly because of the humourous storyline, again realting to my point of the availability of escapism to the UK audience.}

 _{A large reason as to why films produced by the US are popular in the UK is the economy. America have the ability to promote worlwide using British magazines, television time and cinemas as promotional tools. also the quality of American films are very good attracting a larger audience than amateur films that are produced by other countries. The money within America allows them to reach a larger audience creating a huge media buzz.}

_{Most US films that manage to be screened in the UK are classed as Major films, if they are unsuccessful they become minor-major films. In America recently, Minor films like ‘Superbad’ have become popluar creating a new Major-minor class. A good example of this is ‘Juno’ this film became a teen phenomenon, directed by American Jason Reitman, this low budget film staring Ellen Page and Michael Cera, earned £2 million in its first weekend. I have come to the conclusion that the reasons for these minor comedy films becoming more popular in the UK may be the change in US comedy. These examples major in sarcastic humour, which tends to be classed as a British comedy trait. The Uk audience now has a very much US based film however with the extra addition of typical British humour.}

_{There are many reasons as to why US films are popular in reference to UK audiences including, the American actors used, the directors, the economyand the change in humour.}

Filed under: Film Studies

15th Oct – Favourite Film Task

The Notebook is one of my favourite films mainly because of the plot; the film is a romantic drama directed by Nick Cassavetes it is based on the novel by Nicholas Sparks. The Notebook starrs Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams. 

The story starts with an old couple in a retirement home; the old man is reading the woman a story, whilst the story is being told there are flashback of a young girl called Allie and boy called Noah falling in love. We discover that Allie’s mother and father disaprove of Noah and have to move. After being split up, Allie gets engaged but winds up meeting Noah again and they being to fall in love all over again. 
 

During the film it keeps switching back to the older couple telling the story; we learn that the old woman had Alzheimer’s. Near to the end of the film we discover the old couple are in fact Allie and Noah and Noah is reminding Allie about them because she has forgotten who he is. When they both sit down to dinner she realises and rememebers who he is and they start to dance until suddenly she forgets and gets him removed from her room.

At the very end of the film the older Noah goes to see Allie whilst she is sleeping, he wakes her up and she rememebers him and they lay together. When it turns to the morning a nurse comes in the room to wake Allie up and finds both Noah and Allie laying together after dying in their sleep.

I really enjoy watching this film because it is very emotional and romantic. It is a very sweet story and is genuine. The acting of the young Allie and Noah is very beliveable and their performances are really good.

Filed under: Film Studies, Film Studies, The Notebook