Issue 57 Summer 2015 ISSN 0268-1951
mej media education journal 2 contents editorial
Issue 57, Summer 2015 ast year’s Scottish Referendum, which for culture, such as Underworld USA, Television Lthe first time gave the vote to 16- and and History, Brigadoon, Braveheart and the 17-year-olds, was a remarkable political and Scots and the seminal Scotch Reels, McArthur 2 Editorial therefore media event. It has had significant is well suited to this task. knock-on effects in this year’s General 3 Heterosexual Romance, Election on both the SNP and Scottish In the next article we turn our attention to Whiteness and Place in Notting Labour. The media played an important television, if Netflix can simply be called Hill role in the referendum campaign and there television. Mary Birch analyses the first 10 The Macbeth factor in House of were frequent accusations of media bias. episode of Season 1 of the ‘subscriber video- Cards In this issue of MEJ, we turn our attention on-demand’ (SVOD) provider’s House of to a media form where, in the battle for Cards (2013- ), a reboot of the BBC’s 1990 15 Studying Video Games as ‘Texts’ hearts and minds, the message is entitled mini-series but set in Washington DC in 20 Contributors to this issue to bias – the party political broadcast. Tom the current period. She defends the series Brownlee, an expat Scot and former editor from some US detractors who argue for its 21 Your Country Needs You! Part 1 of this journal, surveys the battlefield in Part inferiority to the original version and shows 1 of his article, ‘Your Country Needs You!’. the influence of Shakespeare’sRichard III 24 Mise en scène in Minnelli’s He will follow up in the next issue with an and, particularly, Macbeth in the way that Madame Bovary analysis of party political broadcasts leading its protagonist, played by Kevin Spacey, is 28 Barriers and Thresholds in to the General Election of May 2015, itself a constructed. Learning Media Studies Part 3 remarkable political and media event. Iain Donald has recently written several 37 Close-Up and Personal: Eyes In this issue we have three articles which articles in the MEJ on games as media texts Without a Face involve close textual analysis of film. In and in this article he puts the teaching ‘Representing Heterosexual Romance, of video games in the context of the new 43 Reviews Whiteness and Place in Notting Hill’, National Qualifications in Media. He argues Rajinder Dudrah scrutinises the popular that not only are video games highly suited 1999 Richard Curtis-scripted and Roger to the analytical aspects of media but also Mitchell-directed romantic comedy. In order the creation of media content using available MEJ to examine the representations constructed free content-creation tools. by the film, Dudrah makes a close reading of The Journal of AMES (Association key sequences to examine, in particular, mise From media content we turn to media for Media Education in Scotland) is en scène and cinematography, demonstrating pedagogy. When media studies was being published twice yearly. how it “depicts a limited version of the developed as a school subject in the 1980s, Editorial address: 24 Burnett Place area of Notting Hill as predominantly white its aims were radical in both content and Aberdeen AB24 4QD English.” In her contribution to the regular pedagogy. Rick Instrell, who was influential email:
media education journal 57 3
Representing Heterosexual Romance, Whiteness and Place in Notting Hill
Rajinder Dudrah
eveloped out of teaching film, media a useful case study due to its ongoing The plot of the film revolves around Dand cultural studies, where students popularity since its initial release where, divorcee William Thacker (Hugh Grant) often have to come to terms with the in the UK at least, it is often aired on who runs a struggling independent difference between appreciating film prime time TV slots on terrestrial and travel bookshop in Notting Hill, and lives language for its mere aesthetic beauty non-terrestrial satellite channels during in the area with his eccentric Welsh and critically appreciating its workings holiday seasons. housemate Spike (Rhys Ifans). Through as ideological discourse, this article a chance encounter, Hollywood A-listed makes a close reading of key sequences Part of the film’s popularity has also to do star Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) shops from the romantic comedy Notting Hill with the social and cultural issues that in the bookstore, where the two lead (dir. Roger Michell, 1999) to illuminate it raises through its genre as a romcom, protagonists meet for the first time. the formal properties of film as an aural which make it equally fascinating Shortly after, they collide in the street and visual medium, alongside some of for film, media and cultural studies which starts off a casual meeting that the ways that moral stories can be told researchers, through film. Using textual analysis teachers and as a key method, the popular and students. commercially successful filmNotting The issues of Hill is used to consider how its audio- hegemonic visual pleasures are articulated alongside heterosexuality its representation of a hegemonic and of race and heterosexual romance and how it depicts place that the a limited version of the area of Notting film can be seen Hill as predominantly white English. The to be representing article follows in the tradition of close are just two of film textual analysis as a pedagogical its topics which tool for bringing to life pertinent socio- can be considered cultural issues in contemporary further as important and higher education classroom settings. socio-cultural [1] The article ends by considering the ones and not just implications of doing this kind of work significant in and in the contemporary further and higher of themselves education context, where film, media and through cinema cultural studies teaching itself is often (i.e. simply to experienced by a range of students from be read off from different disciplinary backgrounds other the film’s plot than film or media. and narrative), but also to be Notting Hill considered further Notting Hill is a romantic comedy as to how they blockbuster that made over $247million are brought to life at the global box office from a production as representation budget of $42million.[2] It received a through cinema’s number of popular international awards ability of telling including the Audience Award at the stories in a BAFTA ceremony in 2000, and won the specific audio- Best Comedy Film at the British Comedy visual way. Awards in 1999. The film also makes for The ‘romantic comedy blockbuster’ media education journal 57 4
romance between our two protagonists is set up from the outset as a meeting of the ordinary (William Thacker, everyday English gent) and extraordinary (Anna Scott, one of Hollywood’s biggest stars), with suggested assistance from the cosmic order as an explanation for this exceptional encounter. The sequence and relevance of the kiss on their first formal date is then analysed, followed by a discussion of the limited social and cultural representations of Britain and of Englishness that the film depicts, even Fig 1 (00:02:12): Anna Scott (Julia Roberts) and the press. when its production intentions claim otherwise. This close textual analysis is put forward as part of an endeavour towards a critical and insightful appreciation of the film’s ability to offer particular kinds of audio-visual pleasures whilst also promoting certain kinds of dominant socio-cultural ideologies relating to sexuality, and race and place.
The Opening Credits and the Couple’s first Meeting The opening credits take us immediately into the diegetic world of the film and Fig 2 (00:02:19): A ‘semi-dissolve’ shows Anna’s face as William walks through the issues that it will deal with. Anna Notting Hill. Scott, famous movie star, is centre frame, quite literally, in more than turns into a date and then later into the right place and ultimately rescues twenty opening shots that make up this a fully fledged intimate relationship. Anna from her social isolation. Negra credits sequence. She is filmed in close- Along the way we meet and get to know demonstrates how the stereotype of the ups, and each shot follows the next William’s close friends and family, all who English gent is thereby produced for and through a series of dissolves, camera live close by in Notting Hill. Moreover, a consumed by international audiences and flashes, or smooth fades that suggest a series of obstacles come in the way of our in turn how this secures the repeated seamless flow of images and publicity two lovers from openly being together. familiarity of stock representations of that surround this leading protagonist. These include issues around Anna’s traditional English identities as standing Her head, neck and upper body are stardom pitted against William’s everyday in for British ones.[4] Higson in his emphasised as she is framed in formal common man in the street persona, to account analyses aspects of the film’s poses either in photo shoots, on the cover Anna’s American boyfriend, Jeff King mise en scène to argue how it constructs of international magazines, at a public (Alec Baldwin) who is also a Hollywood a banal Southern and metropolitan gathering, on a red carpet making her actor, still being present in Anna’s life English community in Notting Hill; one entrance, getting out of a limousine to unbeknownst to William. By the film’s that is a middle-class and middlebrow attend a premiere, on the set of one her climax our couple declare their love for Middle England at the cost of squeezing next projects reading a script, and often each other amidst a press conference out other diverse versions of Englishness. always with the media and photographers frenzy, and the closing scenes see them [5] close by to capture her every move. [Fig getting married, followed by Anna being 1] The audio track that accompanies this pregnant with William’s child as they In what follows, and in developing montage is Charles Aznavour’s song ‘She’ huddle together on a park bench in a on from these former two readings of in a cover version by Elvis Costello, and private communal garden in Notting Hill. Notting Hill, attention will be paid to this features as one of the leitmotifs in select key sequences from the film, with the film as it also appears at the film’s Notting Hill has been critically discussed particular attention to some aspects of climax, as it moves towards its happy and in part textually analysed in cultural the camerawork, lighting, editing and ending. This romantic ballad sung from studies and in film studies by Diane Negra soundtrack not necessarily covered in the viewpoint of a male protagonist both and Andrew Higson respectively.[3] In any detail by Negra and Higson. The celebrates the beauty of his intended Negra’s account she considers the film sequences are used to argue how a affection through the lyrics, as well as as a ‘tourist romance’ in which the film heterosexual romance is hegemonically attempting to describe and capture her develops a transnational love between conveyed on screen as a taken for granted mysteries as a woman. an American woman, who is socially state of affairs, and how the privileging isolated and romantically lost, and a of white representation occurs in a multi- As the opening sequence and song come stereotypically southern-based middle- cultural and diverse area such as Notting to an end a semi-dissolve merges a shot class English gentleman who, at times, Hill. This is elaborated on through the of William Thacker walking through is socially awkward but has his heart in opening credits of the film where the Portobello Road in Notting Hill. A close-
media education journal 57 5 up of Anna’s face remains for a few moments on the right hand side of the screen while we see him in a medium close-up shot on the left of the screen; he is filmed chest upwards and appears smaller in comparison. [Fig 2] She fades away and he carries on walking, the narration voice-over begins from his point of view.
On their first meeting the language of film works to set up their encounter as more than just a mere accident; it Fig 3 (00:06:18): William in the shop as Anna enters. is set up to suggest perhaps a fated intervention by unexplainable cosmic forces that are elaborated further on in the film. As Martin, (James Dreyfus) William’s ineffective bookstore assistant, leaves the shop to go and buy coffees, the door bell rings marking the opening of the shop door but also the entry of Anna Scott into William’s world. The ring from the shop’s doorbell registers a mundane ordinariness of entry into and exit from a bookshop, whilst simultaneously acknowledging that something quite extraordinary has just Fig 4 (00:36:56): Anna watches the guests at the dinner. happened – a famous Hollywood film star has just walked into the store. Anna enters dressed in a stylish black leather jacket, white top, a black beret, wearing dark sunglasses, with a black handbag over her shoulder. As she crosses the threshold, a partially out-of-focus shot is used to bring the two characters together. [Fig 3] The camera is positioned close to William’s face in a medium close-up that places him on the right hand side of the screen. This leaves the left side of the screen out of focus and open for the action of Anna walking into Fig 5 (00:45:21): The first kiss. the bookstore to occur. As he is in focus in the foreground and she is not, the use of the ‘When You Say Nothing At out as the scene moves to the dinner shot is from his point of view, where he All’ pop song by Ronan Keating.[6] This guests beginning to talk with each other first looks over to the door in his role as track is first played non-diegetically and to play a game, but not before the shopkeeper to see who has walked in, over the dinner table sequence at Bella implied point having been made about and then he looks again half-recognising (Gina McKee) and Max’s (Tim McInnerny) companionship and the need for a her. Non-diegetic music works over this house, where they have arranged a significant other in one’s life. scene through light wind instruments birthday meal for William’s sister Honey with gentle piano notes to create an (Emma Chambers). William brings along After the party William takes Anna for ethereal atmosphere for thirty-five Anna as his date and in turn she is a walk through the suburban streets of seconds duration. The setting into motion introduced to his friends and sibling. Notting Hill. It is late in the evening and of the ordinary and the extra-ordinary The camera follows the guests around the streets are empty; as such they walk has begun. the table as they make merry and enjoy together slowly and comfortably without each other’s company, whilst laughing being seen by, or seeing anyone else. The First Date and the Kiss in the and pulling party poppers. The song They pass large well-lit houses with bay Private Garden accentuates the pleasure in the gathering and forecourts that indicate that they The soundtrack of the film also and that love is amongst these friends are walking in safe and affluent streets. contributes to the language of the film as they are genuinely fond of each other. William points out a private communal as a social and cultural discourse that Anna is the outsider as she has just joined garden for the residents of one of the hegemonically promotes the ideology the circle of old friends but we see her squares. At night the gates are locked but of the heterosexual couple as a socially in a medium close-up shot watching they both decide to climb over the fence preferred and unquestionable state of them and admiring their camaraderie and take a stroll. The secretive nature being. This is especially the case in the for each other. [Fig 4] The song is faded of the garden, enclosed by fences and media education journal 57 6
they are filmed in a medium shot and the camera begins to move smoothly upwards and over them via a crane. [Fig 6] William begins to take a couple of steps backwards, walking away from Anna. As he does he turns his back to her and continues to walk slowly. The crane movement of the camera has now become an aerial shot as we see this movement taking place from above, the camera has been positioned high above them. Anna calls out to William: Fig 6 (00:46:31): The bench in the park . . . “Come and sit with me”. He returns and sits beside her. We are able to see all this action from above as the camera continues to rise in its aerial position until it rests looking down at them and the surrounding garden area. This rising crane shot as it becomes an aerial shot has a suggestive ethereal effect, as if angels have been walking with our on-screen couple allowing them to be intimate and safe in this space together, as they then fly up towards the heavens, keeping an eye on them below (Fig 7). The notion of a cosmic order that was Fig 7 (00:46:41): . . . and the craning camera adopts the perspective of ‘angels’. implicitly suggested upon their first meeting in the bookshop, also through the mechanics of cinema, is developed covered in shrubs with trees and fences gently lit cocoon around our on-screen and elaborated here. All this while, the around the perimeter, allows for Anna couple. Ronan Keating song that started with to make the first move and kiss William the kiss in the garden has been playing – their first kiss whilst on the date and The following scene merges into the next non-diegetically over these dramatised a confirmation to William that Anna is via a dissolve. Here, they are walking actions. attracted to him beyond mere friendship. side by side filmed in a medium deep [7] focus shot which sees them together in Aspects of the camerawork, lighting, the mid-ground, the trees and shrubs in editing, and soundtrack, as constituents Just before she moves over towards him the foreground and the large expensive of film language, are of significance and initiates the kiss, the ‘You say it houses in the background, on the in these four aforementioned scenes, best when you say nothing at all’ song outskirts of the garden’s perimeter. The articulated together as part of the is played again, this time from the start camera pans along with them in the night garden sequence. The dissolves with its light musical notes marking the foreground. This time the lighting is between the scenes suggest seamless beginning of it as a romantic ballad. A diffused, coming from the houses as they and unobtrusive continuity in terms close-up focusing on both of their heads are lit up strategically to give a white and of time and space within the diegesis, allows them to fill the frame as they kiss. pink glow in the background as backlight, the passing of time occurs as if it were [Fig 5] When they part lips they look and with the green trees and shrubs in front natural and uninterrupted, and the smile at each other. The scene cuts to developing the ambience from the arrangements within the mise en scène them being positioned in the frame in previous scene. Another dissolve merges are constructed to create an ideal effect medium long-shot as they walk through the next scene with our two protagonists of a private garden place becoming the private garden. They walk close walking towards a garden bench. Anna the space of a romantic garden for our together from the right to the left hand reads the engraving that has been etched screen couple. Together, camerawork, side of the screen, with Anna slightly into it: framing, lighting, editing and sound, ahead of William, chatting and laughing. hegemonically represent an ideologically A white light is seen in the centre of the “For June who loved this garden – dominant version of heterosexuality: our frame radiating from above. The source From Joseph who always sat beside couple have been on a dinner date, they of this light is unclear as it is projected her. walk and talk, courting each other, and from outside of the top centre of the then make their way to a discreet garden frame, suggesting natural moonbeam Some people do spend their whole in the night where the courting leads to with its light suffused through the green lives together.” a reciprocating kiss, followed by a brief landscape. This creates a light blue and dialogue that encapsulates elements of summer night ambience with convivial Anna walks over and sits on the bench life-long commitment and monogamy shadows being projected from the trees with William remaining standing at a in a heterosexual union as part of the on to the lawn, producing the effect of a little distance from it. As Anna is seated natural order of things. All the while,
media education journal 57 7 this is audio-visualised in an inviting and taken-for-granted manner, as the spectator is encouraged to immerse him/herself by being sutured into the romantic narrative.[8] The cosmos as unexplainably working around our leading protagonists and possibly bringing them together is elaborated on through the almost angelic-like cinematography, accompanied by a romantic ballad.
White Notting Hill If Anna and William’s relationship is partly achieved through their coming Fig 8 (00:03:05): ‘Bird’s eye view’ of Portobello market – the ‘village’. together with the suggestion of the assistance of cosmic forces or out of the ordinary events as natural and meant-to-be, then that relationship is also indicative of a social order in which whiteness is privileged over other non- white ethnicities and representations. [9] The romance as it occurs in and around the area of Notting Hill is almost exclusively shot as if it were a borough of London in which white people were the main social actors and primary residents. From the opening montage of William walking through the Portobello Fig 9 (01:27:51): The black security guard. Road with his autobiographical English- accented voice-over situating him and his surroundings “ . . . in this small village in the middle of the city . . . “, this locality of London is depicted as a tight-knit community where everyone appears to know each other. The camera pans across the street and includes a high-angled bird’s eye view, as if in documentary mode, giving the viewer a sense of the place and space of this village, as it intercuts between characters who are passing-by and briefly referred to – characters who are also incidentally Fig 10 (00:53:11): A ‘forlorn’ William leaving Anna’s hotel. white. [Fig 8] This small village, then, is alluded to as a white-English village this is an English village that has global But there is certainly no denying that through its mise en scène. There are other connections and participants, but it is one the vision of ordinariness with which multi-cultural non-white characters in it, in which white-Englishness (as a stand- we are presented is a particularly but you have to look at least twice and in for the rest of Britain), and white- white, privileged and middle-class make an effort to notice them – they are Americans are privileged. This is not a version.[10] literally in the background of the frame global village that reflects in any depth or not made reference to, even as they other inhabitants of the world, let alone The black and other non-white characters pass by and become part of the frame. makes any effort to depict the actual that do appear in the film are in minor There are also no lead non-white talking diversity of the multi-cultural ethnic mix and arguably less memorable roles. These parts in the film, and it can be argued that is the demographic reality of Notting include a black reporter who is part of a then that these characters, at best, Hill. As Andrew Higson puts it: group of journalists who are waiting to belong marginally in the fictional social interview Anna Scott and the rest of the world of the film – a conservative version Notting Hill . . . can be read as a actors from the filmHelix, at the Hotel of a romanticised English village. In fact, relatively self-conscious attempt to Ritz; the black nameless actor starring this version retreats to a traditional and project an image of the nation, to in Helix (Clarke Peters) who is briefly mythic depiction of the English village represent the nation metaphorically, interviewed by William Thacker and who by giving its main and secondary roles by focusing on a small, tightly-knit utters a couple of sentences; the Asian to white inhabitants of and in Notting community of people who in their city-worker (Sanjeev Bhaskar), who is Hill. Those who visit the area from very ordinariness can stand in for with a group of white colleagues in a outside, such as Anna Scott from the the nation. Whether that nation is restaurant having dinner, where they USA, are also white. By extension, then, Britain or England is a moot point. make lewd comments about Anna Scott, media education journal 57 8
unbeknown to them that she is sitting that is present in the real Notting Hill. As developed further by interdisciplinary nearby; and the black security guard the ‘Production Notes’ on the DVD bonus audience studies and inter-media work (Tony Armatrading) who initially refuses feature state, and quoting the films’ that looks at the role and function of William entry to the set of Anna’s period writer Richard Curtis: cinema as an entertainment industry in a drama at an English countryside setting. given society, and how audiences (actual [11] [Fig 9] All these roles function as When choosing the setting for his and embodied, imagined or theorised) subservient parts that only help to propel new romantic comedy, Curtis looked might also interact with and beyond the the narrative forward around our two no further than his own doorstep. As filmic text.[15] leading characters and their friends, all a resident of Notting Hill, he thought whom are white. this vibrant West London suburb This article can also be seen to be an ideal backdrop to his story set situated in the ongoing critical Non-white signifiers also feature in the against London of the ‘90s. “Notting pedagogical work that we seek to soundtrack, which consists of original Hill” Curtis says, “is an extraordinary undertake as film and media studies music composed for the film alongside a mixture of cultures. It seemed like a scholars and teachers, where we medley of popular music tracks that give proper and realistic place where two encounter a new cohort of students further mainstream appeal to the film. people from different worlds could each year with whom we work closely However, as with the black and other actually meet and co-exist – that to consider both the aesthetic pleasures non-white characters who appear in Anna would be shopping there, that and social concerns of films along the minor roles to help drive the story around William would live there and that lines of race, class, gender and sexuality our white Anglo-American couple, the Spike might think it was a groovy and so forth. In doing so, this alerts us aspects of the soundtrack that can be place to dwell. Notting Hill is a to be aware of and to be in ready and considered as non-white are used to serve melting pot and the perfect place to productive dialogue with our college the interests of our couple in conservative set a film.” and university students, who can often racial and ethnic terms. For instance, come from a range of diverse educational this can be seen in the hotel scene when As argued above in the analysis of the backgrounds. Some of these students Anna’s boyfriend arrives and William has preceding scenes, it does appear that will have undertaken some formal or to leave the room with a broken heart. there is a mismatch between the ‘mixture informal film and media studies training The soulful track ‘How Can You Mend a of cultures’ and ‘melting pot’ version of prior to their further education studies, Broken Heart?’, a cover version by the Notting Hill that the writer claims to undergraduate or taught post-graduate African-American artist Al Green, plays know from the real world, and the very degrees; whilst others, and as part of non-diegetically over this sequence as limited number of diverse characters cross School-wide, cross-Faculty or we follow William exiting the hotel. [12] and cultural backgrounds that we get across Liberal Arts and Social Sciences [Fig 10] He is filmed feeling let down to meet and know in any meaningful degree programme structures, are and alone, juxtaposed with the hustling sense during the course of the film. also picking and mixing their degree night-time streets of London outside the [14] Notting Hill, then, is a useful case course options from outside their home hotel. In one sense, the use of this track study to consider some socio-cultural disciplines where film, media and cultural allows us as an audience to sympathise issues arising from the film’s narrative studies courses are often popular choices. with and follow the plight of our hero, and ideological representations around As contemporary scholars and teachers of quite literally as we see him forlornly hegemonic heterosexual romance and film, media and cultural studies, we need leaving the building. In another more its limited depiction of Englishness in to be willing and able to engage with critical sense, however, and given the use central London. Paying close attention the language of film not just simply to of black parts in the film to construct to the audio-visual language of film and appreciate the aesthetic beauty of films a particular, almost white-washed and its attendant construction of social and as texts, but through discussion with our privileged version of Notting Hill (not cultural relationships on-screen allows us students be able to incorporate a critical least where the black actors lack any to amplify and deepen some of our socio- appreciation of aesthetics as part of the meaningful speaking parts that might cultural analysis and concerns. language of film. As has been argued allow us access to their subjectivities and in relation to Notting Hill, we need to consider them as bona fide residents Conclusion to interrogate how the filmic texts of of London), the use of this track fits into This article has argued in the tradition of cinema can be put together as particular the tradition of black and non-white close screen textual analysis for thinking kinds of audio and visual mediums of audio-visual signifiers as being served about the social role of cinema alongside story-telling as they convey ideological up for white characters through the the formal audio-visual aspects of film meanings and often in hegemonic ways. vehicle of mere entertainment. The song language. This allows for a critical and here is divorced from any sense of wider deep understanding of cinema’s power Notes community or engagement with the to tell stories in particular ways - i.e. 1. On the history of this kind of work political aspects of the music as soul for to unravel those stories some more as and for various examples as published black or white protagonists.[13] textually constituted in specific ways in the pages of the journals Screen and as discourse alongside considering Movie see for instance Annette Kuhn This white version of Notting Hill is at sociological issues. While this article has (2009) ‘Screen and Screen Theorising odds with the formal intentions of the argued primarily through the primacy of Today’ Screen, vol.50, no.1, pp.1-12; Terry filmmakers who claim to have wanted to reading the filmic text asone method Bolas (2009) Screen Education: From Film portray, or insist that they have faithfully of analysis, it acknowledges how this Appreciation to Media Studies. Bristol: represented, the socio-cultural diversity work might also be complemented and Intellect; and Victor Perkins (August
media education journal 57 9
2010), ‘Ian Cameron: A Tribute’, Movie – A screen, i.e. to be drawn in and encouraged minority representations, see for instance journal of Film Criticism, vol.1 e-article at: to take up positions as subjects within the Deborah Orr ‘It’s Notting Hill, but not as http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/ film, often through identification with the I know it’, The Independent (Thursday 20 film/movie/contents/ian_cameron_-_a_ characters and their actions. May 1999), online version at: http://www. tribute.pdf, retrieved 3 November 2014. independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/ [9] In this context see the work of Richard its-notting-hill-but-not-as-i-know- 2. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/ Dyer (1997) White. London: Routledge, it-1094619.html, retrieved 3 November movies/?page=intl&id=nottinghill.htm, as an illuminating critique of western 2014; and Roy Williams ‘Will black retrieved 3 November 2014. cinema and visual culture and the people’s lives ever be as interesting as strategies that have been deployed there white people’s?’, the Observer (Sunday 25 3. Diane Negra (2001), ‘Romance and/ to construct and privilege whiteness as an May 2008), online version at: http://www. as Tourism’ in Mathew Tinckom and Amy ideology. theguardian.com/film/filmblog/2008/ Villarejo eds. Keyframes: Popular Cinema may/25/whenigotothe, retrieved 3 and Cultural Studies. London: Routledge, 10. Andrew Higson, 2011 op. cit. p.75. November 2014. Pp. 98-114; Andrew Higson (2011), Film England: Culturally English Filmmaking 11. The film being made on Hampstead 15. Just a few examples of these different since the 1990s. London: IB Tauris. Heath where the Black security guard is kinds of scholarship that draw on working is an English costume melodrama interdisciplinary methodologies and tools 4. In fact Hugh Grant as William Thacker with an exclusive white cast on set. This from across sociology, anthropology, film, establishes his star persona by excelling further compounds a sense of white media, cultural studies, and new media in such performances, most notably after nostalgia about London which is also studies work, include: Jackie Stacey’s the filmFour Weddings and a Funeral (dir. prevalent in the filmNotting Hill. audience studies work as an antidote to Mike Newell, 1994), made also in part by largely text based analyses in film and members of the same production team of 12. The song was originally released by cultural studies, see Jackie Stacey (1993) Notting Hill. the group the Bee Gees in 1971. ‘Textual obsessions: methodology, history and researching female spectatorship’, 5. Andrew Higson, 2011 op. cit. pp.75-81. 13. On the politics of soul music see Screen vol. 34, no. 3, pp. 260-74; and for instance Portia K. Maultsby (1983) Laura Marks (developing a Deleuzeian 6. This song was originally a country ‘Soul Music: Its Sociological and Political account of cinema), on the convergence music track first sung by the artist Keith Significance in American Popular Culture’, of different media texts as experienced Whiteley, followed by Alison Krauss. The Journal of Popular Culture, vol.17, through actual bodies as giving rise to no.2, pp. 51–60; Monique Guillory and new understandings of haptic visuality, 7. In an earlier scene after William invites Richard C. Green eds., (1998) Soul: Black see Laura Marks (2000), The Skin of Anna into his flat to clean and change her Power, Politics and Pleasure. New York: Film. Durham: Duke University Press; clothes due to a drink spillage, she kisses New York University Press; and Craig and on the development of cinema and him just before leaving and asks that he Werner (2006) A Change is Gonna Come: its remediation in the context of the should not tell anyone about what just Music, Race and the Soul of America. Ann growth of new media as producing new happened. William is left wondering if Arbor, USA: University of Michigan Press. relationships between media, images anything more might have been possible. and spectators see Seung-hoon Jeong 14. On trade press critiques of Richard (2013) Cinematic Interfaces: Film Theory 8. In film studies ‘suture’ draws on the Curtis’ whitewashed screenplay of Notting after New Media. London and New York: psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan Hill, and of his 2003 written and directed Routledge, 2013. to refer to the processes by which we are filmLove Actually as lacking black stitched into the fictional story-world on characters or only able to offer token
Notting Hill is a romcom with a conventional happy ending in the park. media education journal 57 10
By the pricking of my thumbs, Francis Underwood this way comes: a study of the Macbeth factor in Netflix House of Cards
Mary Birch
t is February 2015 and on the 27th the or otherwise – the mere fact of being He calls this “jauntiness” and argues Ithird series of NetflixHouse of Cards a British creation, means that a show that the UK version is much bleaker arrives in its entirety. As with the second is perceived as being innately ‘superior’ and any comedy in it is “cruel” rather season there has been much speculation viewing. than amusing. For me, his most telling about what will happen. However, insight, having negatively critiqued the unlike many other TV series, the trailer Perhaps not surprisingly, the reviews Netflix version, is when he concludes that for the new season leaves little to the that appeared after the broadcast of the UK’s protagonist Francis Urquhart imagination in terms of the outcome: the first episode of the NetflixHouse of “reminds us that his is the nation whose Frank Underwood’s ambition to become Cards focused very much on comparison imagination produced Iago, Uriah Heep President will be fulfilled. between the US and UK versions. and Kingsley Amis’ ‘Lucky Jim’.” [3] Generally, the reviewing of the US series When the first series ofHouse of Cards was favourable – and obviously favourable The reference to Shakespeare’s Iago was broadcast in 2013 it was inevitably enough that Netflix commissioned a touches on the Shakespearean theme compared to the original 1990 BBC series second and subsequently a third series. in House of Cards. Dobbs himself on which it was based. It was not a loose As well as Golden Globe nominations and acknowledged the fact that his writing association. Michael Dobbs who wrote the awards, the series had the distinction of of his characters and situation in House novel on which the British drama series becoming the first original on-line web TV of Cards in his original novel of 1989 was based and Andrew Davies, who wrote series to receive Emmy nominations. was influenced by his reading of two the screenplay for the original, were both Shakespeare plays, primarily Macbeth in consultation with the writers of the US However, there was a body of criticism but also Richard III. The powerful man series. which was particularly harsh in its wanting more power can be translated analysis. This criticism came not from into any time, any place, which of course Although the name of the main the British media, as one might have is the enduring appeal of Shakespeare’s protagonist underwent a metamorphosis been forgiven for thinking, but from work. In both versions of House of Cards from Francis Urquhart to Francis (Frank) the US media. Alessandra Stanley from the strong, powerful, successful character Underwood there was no real aim to the New York Times was critical of the who craves even more power is thwarted deceive the public into thinking this writing of the series: “Unfortunately, Mr in his ambition and so takes matters was a new creation. In fact it was to the Spacey’s lines don’t always live up to the into his own hands. This translates advantage of Netflix that the specially subtle power of his performance: the itself into the modern day setting of the commissioned TV programme had the writing isn’t Shakespeare”. [1] One article corridors of power – Whitehall or the credentials of having a British genealogy was particularly damning: this was the White House, London or Washington as this gave it a certain kudos that article which whetted my appetite for DC – where politicians do metaphorical anything British has here in the United writing this review. In the article by Rob battle. In both versions there is the Lady States. It is only necessary to look at the Beschizza asserts that when comparing Macbeth figure – the wife, the ‘power scheduling of Public Broadcast Service his country’s version of House of Cards behind the throne’ who is equal to her in the US to see that on any given week, with the original British offering, he found husband in power, albeit not in the public British television – from Call the Midwife the US version to be lacking “gravity”. He domain but certainly in the domestic to EastEnders to Downton Abbey (certainly asserts that,“no matter how bad things one. In the Netflix version, Frank’s wife, the biggest ‘star’) – dominates the menu get there is always a kind of American Claire, has a high-profile career as the and it seems to be that when it comes optimism.” [2] Director of a NGO and as such, more to television series – costume drama autonomy and profile than her British
media education journal 57 11 counterpart but ultimately she plays a version. My contention is that far from represented by dustbin men and the secondary role. In both versions there being just a transplanted transatlantic “blasted heath’ is the wasteland on which are ‘Banquo’ embodiments in the loyal glossy ‘copy’ of the original 1990 series they tip the detritus of their lorries. These friends and helpers who are used, abused, which can be dismissed as populist eye- interpretations are interesting modern manipulated and then discarded as the candy, the Netflix version is a modern manifestations and solve the difficult protagonist’s obsession with power interpretation of Shakespeare’s work problem of how you create a sense of the becomes all encompassing. Murder and with many of the elements found in the unknown, the supernatural, of paranormal mayhem ensue as the protagonist pushes original Macbeth play and that with occurrences which will be accepted by a to fulfil his ambition. attentive watching and analysis it can 21st century audience. stand on its own feet. However, Beschizza’s assertion that the Both versions of House of Cards appear US version does not reach the standard In this article I intend to analyse the to steer clear of the witch ‘problem’ and of excellence of the UK House of Cards, opening episode of Season 1, with do not attempt any obvious embodiment belies an inferiority complex in the particular reference to the opening scene, of the three witches in their respective American psyche which runs along the and to look at other elements such as the opening scenes. Both are similar in lines of difficulty of presenting the supernatural presenting the main character away from ” . . . yes, we can produce excellent through use of the soundtrack and his ‘field’ of battle, i.e. Parliament/the cutting-edge dramas set in US inner- the concept and interpretation of the Senate. Both create a feeling of disquiet cities like The Wire, but when it comes concept of Equivocation so integral to and ambiguity – surely the intent of to taking on something which has more Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Shakespeare’s play. of a pedigree, we are at a loss. and we certainly can’t ‘do’ Shakespeare!“ (despite Opening scene and the problem of In the opening scene of the UK production Al Pacino’s brilliant Looking for Richard the supernatural there is a shot of Francis Urquhart in (1996) which should have convinced Shakespeare’s Macbeth opens not with what appears to be his parliamentary Beschizza’s fellow citizens that Americans the eponymous hero doing battle with office. It is quiet. Very quiet. A clock is can indeed ‘do’ Shakespeare). the enemy – we have to wait until scene ticking suggesting the passage of time. 2 for a description of that – but with a Urquhart is pensive. He picks up a photo On my first viewing of the NetfixHouse of scene of the supernatural - three witches which is revealed to be that of Prime Cards I might have agreed with Beschizza: plotting and scheming and planning to Minister Margaret Thatcher (Fig 1) and as the glamorous setting and high quality meet with Macbeth. Although he is not he smiles and addresses the camera over production perhaps suggested a ‘glossing’ physically present, the invocation of his shoulder, he says: (Fig 2) “Nothing over the unspeakable acts of revenge and Macbeth’s name by the witches ‘conjures’ lasts for ever . . . even the longest, most betrayal. Kevin Spacey’s portrayal of Frank him up. To a Shakespearean audience glittering reign must come to an end Underwood at times can produce audible this embodiment of the supernatural some day”. [7] laughter from the viewer as opposed to and the association of Macbeth with the wry smile produced by the UK series. these elements would create tension and As, at this point, the viewers would As Beschizza asserts, everything in the produce disquiet and discomfort. The be well aware that Margaret Thatcher true American manner is ‘bigger’ than the presence of the supernatural was not in had been ousted from tenure as Prime original, “three times as many episodes any way ambiguous, as it might be to Minister some months before. I would and ten times as many plot-twists, sub- a modern audience. To a Shakespearian argue that the effect of this scene on characters, shifts of scene.” [4] audience the witches represented pure The original UK version ran to four evil. Therefore, no matter how good an episodes whereas its American account the soldier gives King Duncan counterpart consists of thirteen so there of Macbeth’s valour in battle in the is much more room to develop plot lines subsequent scene the audience cannot and relationships. There are also many erase from its memory the association more sex-scenes which perhaps is just with witches already established in the a difference in acceptability factors first scene - nor the feeling of foreboding. between Britain in the 1990s when the original series was aired and US public It would be difficult for 21st century acceptance of such scenes twenty-three adults to accept the notion of witches years later. As acknowledged by James or evil in quite the same way as their Fig 1: The photo of Margaret Thatcher. Fallow in The Atlantic the US version is Shakespearean counterparts. Many just “bigger in every way” and he goes interpretations of the play represent the to comment that this is symbolized witches in a more modern way. In the by the use of HD colour which makes filmMen of Respect (1990) directed by the drama appear more modern, more William Reilly, Macbeth is a Mafia hit ‘now’. [5] Michael Dibdin described the man and the ‘witches’ become a blind Netflix version as “The West Wing for man who has the gift of second sight. In werewolves”. [6] the BBC version of Macbeth (Shakespeare Retold) broadcast in 2005, Macbeth, However, having watched that first series played by James McAvoy, is reincarnated a second time, I felt that the above into a master chef, the ‘leader’ of men commentary does a disservice to the US in the bloody kitchen, the witches are Fig 2: The address to camera. media education journal 57 12
the audience is not completely life and demonstrates the one of disquiet but more that of bravery to do the right thing knowing, conspiratorial humour. It by putting the dog out of its is unclear, at this point, whether misery? Or, is he someone Urquhart was a loyal follower who appears to be saying one of the former Prime Minister or thing when others are around was actually instrumental in her him to witness his fine words downfall which does present but in actuality his actions the viewer with the problem suggest darker elements of of whether his character is a his character? Not only might trustworthy one. the viewer be confused and Fig 3: Frank Underwood emerges. unsettled by what has taken This is exactly the viewer’s issue place; I think the use of the with Frank Underwood in the camera as a confidant – the Netflix version but I feel the modern equivalent of the stage opening of the US series creates soliloquy – makes it clear more of a feeling of discomfort that Frank’s actions are not and therefore closer to the what they initially seem. The opening of Shakespeare’s play audience is drawn into Frank’s than its UK counterpart. As in confidence and so, in a sense, the UK version the viewer does this creates disquiet as we not see Frank Underwood in the become accomplices to what Senate exercising his mental Fig 4: Frank’s speech. has just occurred and, perhaps, agility and ‘bravery’ but nor do to what is to come. A few we see him initially in a private seconds later we experience setting. Instead the viewer is the full direct camera gaze as presented with a seemingly Frank washes his hands after irrelevant scene of a dog being the incident of putting an knocked down by a speeding end to the dog’s life. (Fig 5) motorist outside Frank’s home. The washing of hands, such a strong motif in Shakespeare’s At the outset there are no visuals play, surely here must be seen – just a blank, black screen and here as a referencing to the the sound of screeching car original Macbeth. Fig 5: Frank’s direct gaze. wheels, a sickening thud, breaking glass and the sound of a whimpering pain that’s only suffering.” Soundtrack dog. The audience is initially free to use Although use of sound and sound effects its imagination to impose a narrative Then, dramatically, he lifts his head and would have been part of Shakespeare’s on the audio – a narrative that centres gazes towards the camera but not quite staging of his plays, a memorable on a mystery as, initially, there is no with direct eye-contact, delivering the soundtrack – an intrinsic part of modern explanation for the car or the collision. quite chilling lines which, presumably, drama series – was something that A figure of a man (Frank Underwood) sum up his philosophy on life . . . (Fig 4) Shakespeare did not have to consider. appears opening the door from his Both versions of the House of Cards house to the outside street. He is clearly “I have no patience for useless things. have very identifiable soundtracks. The responding to the sounds the audience Moments like this require someone original UK version has a quirky, almost has heard. He is bathed in conventional who will act and do the unpleasant ‘pompous’, measured soundtrack complete ‘hero’ light emanating from the hall of his thing, the necessary thing.” with trumpet accompaniment. Its jaunty, house. (Fig 3) He responds to the incident march-like pace creates an almost comic and is seen running to the injured, dying The “unpleasant thing” he is referring effect. dog and showing sympathy for its owners. to putting the dog out of his misery by Then, we hear him speak to the bodyguard breaking its neck. “There . . . no more pain Unlike the UK counterpart, the US attending him – thus signalling the . . .” [8] soundtrack has a sweeping melody with character’s status and importance. He drum accompaniment. The effect is to says, “It’s the Hortons’ dog. He’s not going At this point the audience is unsure suggest a bigger picture – heralding to make it – go see if they’re home” about the character of Frank Underwood. something of epic importance which is Our first moments with his character about to happen. The use of drums and As the guard goes to alert the neighbours, surely create a good impression: here is a bass suggest that what will occur will Frank appears to console the dog by a character who appears to be genuinely involve dark deeds. petting him and assurances of “it’s ok”. upset by the plight of the dog and He then speaks as if to someone present enraged by the callous behaviour of the As stated above neither version of House – the viewer at this point is listening in driver. When he kills the dog our feelings of Cards overtly deals with the subject to his reflections about “pain” and the and impression shift. Is he indeed a of witches or the supernatural. However, two “kinds of pain”, “the sort of pain that caring, empathetic individual who has in the first episode of the Netflix version makes you strong or useless pain – the a pragmatic, unsqueamish attitude to there is a cleverly humorous moment
media education journal 57 13 when the politicians and wives at the setting of Macbeth’s castle where he is modus operandi of politics. Perhaps this is President Ball take to the dance floor. The to stay the night. There is much dramatic why an interpretation of Macbeth can so music playing is that of Saint-Saens and irony and little real ‘beauty’ here for the easily be transferred to a Westminster or the piece is ‘Dance Macabre’ (probably audience already knows that Macbeth, Washington setting. better known to UK audiences as the goaded on by the words of the witches theme music for the murder-mystery and the goading of his wife, intends to However, I would further argue, that the series Jonathan Creek (1997-)). Saint- kill Duncan. Things are not as they appear creators of the US House of Cards have Saens wrote it specifically for Halloween to be. captured this concept of equivocation not when, according the French superstition, only in the character of Frank Underwood Death appears at midnight and call forth The witches are not as they appear to be. but also in other ways – through symbolic the dead from their graves by playing a The words they say and the promises they moments in the drama but also through haunting tune on his violin. make to Macbeth are not what they seem. other characterisation. I return to the Their words they say and the prophecies opening scene of the Netflix version and Later in the episode when Frank and they make can be interpreted in more the injured dog. In Western society, a dog Claire appear at a Gala event, the music than one way. Macbeth comes to this can symbolise more than one thing. It can that is being played is from Vivaldi’s ‘Four understanding too late. The prophecy that be presented as either the ‘dumb mutt’ Seasons’ – the season that the orchestra he will not be vanquished until, blindly following its owner’s commands or is playing is ‘Winter’. I would suggest that the ‘loyal companion’ symbolising eternal it is not a great leap to conjure up Richard Great Birnam Wood to High devotion. III and his ‘Now is the winter of our Dunsinane Hill shall come discontent’ soliloquy. [9] At this point in There is ambiguity attached to Frank’s the drama, Frank is indeed ‘discontented’: and that treatment of the dog. The fact is that his dream of becoming Secretary of State Frank is compassionate towards the dog as had been promised by the President no man of women born will harm but, at the same time, willing to kill it. Elect is dashed by the appointment of Macbeth [11] This could be seen on the surface as an another candidate. act of mercy to an animal dying and are fulfilled in a manner which Macbeth in pain or it could prefigure what is to Equivocation least expects come – the ruthless betrayal of associates Although the creators of both series and friend who have shown loyalty have not attempted an embodiment of The tragedy of Shakespeare’s Macbeth but who are in same way ‘damaged’ by the witches for the reasons of modern is that, at the outset of the play, he is a political processes that Frank has put acceptability and relevance, I would noble brave, loyal warrior who, as the play into motion. When he says he has no argue that the witches themselves, whilst progresses, is corrupted by forces and his use for “useless things” it is not clear at adding obvious dramatic tension to the own ambition. this point whether he is speaking about play, are not physically important to the pain or about the dog? He has made an outcome. What is vital is how Macbeth I am not sure I could assert the same assumption about the injuries of the dog interprets their words and prophecies about his modern counterparts in the and ‘played God’ by breaking its neck. and how that links to the nature of two versions of the House of Cards: equivocation. neither seems innocent or guileless at the So, in this opening scene the concept of beginning of each respective series. As equivocation is clearly played out: things At this point it may be useful to outline there are no witches, per se, the writers are not necessarily what they seem. Frank the notion of ‘equivocation’ and its of the series in a way embody the concept is not necessarily the caring, humane interpretation both in Shakespeare’s play of equivocation – and therefore it might individual he seems to be in his encounter of Macbeth and in both versions of the be argued, the essence of the witches – in with the guard and the dying dog. Of House of Cards. Although, technically, the the very ambiguity of both of the main course, it could be argued that the whole definition centres around the use a logical characters. The immortal words of Francis nature of Frank’s line of work (politics) fallacy and the use of polysemic words to Urquhart in the UK series when he could requires the individual at times to appear create a seemingly logical (but incorrect) not be seen to agree with a question, to be what they are not. The politician chain of reasoning, in Shakespeare’s play is to smile and acquiesce when he/she it is generally seen as ambiguity and the You may think that – I couldn’t has not been granted the promotion that mixed meanings which eventually lead to possibly comment. [12] was expected. Referencing the original Macbeth’s downfall. This ambiguity is first inspiration for House of Cards, this is uttered in Macbeth’s first line in the play became common parlance in political something that Donalbain, son of the just before he meets with the witches: “So circles and quoted in the House of murdered Duncan, expresses when he foul and fair a day I have not seen”. [10] Commons following the series. [13] speaks with his brother about the need Perhaps, the phrase became so popular to be distrustful of everyone, “There’s The day is ‘fair’ because the battle against because it represented the inherent daggers in men’s smiles”. [14] the Norwegians has been a successful nature of modern-day politics; politicians one for the Scots, but at the same time cannot express total transparency or For me the most startling embodiment of the day is ‘foul’ because not only because absolute certainty when making speeches equivocation in the Netflix series is the there has been much bloodshed but the or answering questions as they will be portrayal of the journalist, Zoe Barnes. weather is unpleasant and harsh. This held to account on any statement they From the very moment she appears on is echoed later in Act 1, scene 6. King make later in their political career. In the screen the audience experiences Duncan comments on the beauty of the some ways equivocation seems to be the confusion as to what exactly she media education journal 57 14
represents. Her appearance Frank is manipulating the facts – comes after a cut from a shot and her journalistic coverage of of Mrs Underwood dressed them. Zoe feels she is in control glamorously at the President- of the situation although in Elect’s Ball to an image of what reality she is not. This is tragically might be mistaken for a child evident in the opening episode of walking along the corridors of Series 2 when Underwood pushed the Washington Herald. (Fig 6) her to her death on the subway line. The female on the screen is in stark contrast to Claire In conclusion then, the US version Fig 6: Zoe walks through the offices of the Herald. Underwood. The latter appears of House of Cards, far from being chic and controlled. She a watered-down version of its UK is statuesque and exudes antecedent, has perspectives to confidence. The former is messy offer to the viewer. The writers and aimless. She is short and and directors have taken elements petite (just how petite is not of Shakespeare’s Macbeth and fully understood until we see managed to use them to underpin her later talking to the Editor the drama through use of of the Washington Herald). (Fig characterisation and soundtrack. 7) She is walking in a casual The threads of equivocation are manner. Her hair is tied back sown into the fabric of the first in a ponytail. She wears no series. It deserves more than a make-up and sports a hoodie Fig 7: Zoe talks to the editor. cursory viewing. worn over a zipped-up top. Her demeanour lacks gravitas. She Notes looks like a young girl. 1. ‘Political Animals that Slither’, Alessandra Stanley (2nd February Some dialogue ensues in which 2013), New York Times the viewer discovers that she is 2. ‘Boing Boing’ Rob Beschizza not a child as might have been (13th February 2014) concluded at first glance but a 3. op.cit young female journalist looking 4. op.cit for work. She has produced 5. A Whole New Way to Think a blog which is dismissed About House of Cards: ‘Throwing as ‘trivial’ by one of the Fig 8: Zoe’s “seeming lack of professionalism.” Like a Girl’, James Fallows, 24th established male journalists. February 2014, the Atlantic She is touting for business, 6. Michael Dobbs, ‘It’s the to try and get more coverage West Wing for Werewolves. of her freelance work. Her It’s Macbeth all Over Again’ – seeming lack of professionalism Huffington Post (13th February as she jumps onto the kitchen 2014) counter-top (Fig 8) and her 7. BBC House of Cards Episode 1 overall lack of presence would November 1990 suggest that she will not be 8. NetflixHouse of Cards Episode successful. She appears to be 1 February 2013 like a child, ‘playing’ at being 9. Richard III, William Shakespeare Fig 9: The ‘child-like’ presentation of Zoe. a journalist. Her habit of biting – (Act 1 scene 1), Olger her fingernails adds to the total Shakespeare child-like presentation of Zoe’s Zoe herself demonstrates Macbeth-type 10. Macbeth, William Shakespeare character. (Fig 9) quality in her ‘vaulting ambition’ and – (Act 1 scene 3), The Arden Shakespeare aspirations of success. Her affair with 11. Macbeth, William Shakespeare – (Act However, we find out later in the episode Underwood allows him to manipulate her, 4 scene 1), The Arden Shakespeare that this could not be further from and, supplying her with apparently sound 12. House of Cards UK – as above the truth. She is not as she appears. information lets him skewer the coverage 13. Richardson’s Rule in the House of Cards Underneath the seemingly casual, of Whitehouse events. However, I feel (http:/news.bbc.co.uk) 9th February 2007 nonchalant approach to her work there that in the US version the relationship 14. Macbeth, William Shakespeare – (Act is a determined journalist who will do is more symbiotic. There is reciprocity 2 scene 3), The Arden Shakespeare what she has to in order to achieve her in the relationship which makes the goals – even visiting, uninvited, the home viewer forget that Zoe is the one being of Francis Underwood and later, when manipulated. In the UK version Mattie is invited, visiting his bed. something of an unwitting pawn whereas in the US version Zoe understands that
media education journal 57 15
Studying Video Games as ‘Texts’
Iain Donald
here is nothing new about using While this undoubtedly allows more playing games (27% of the audience) Tgames in the classroom! However it flexibility for both the teacher and than children or teenagers (22%) and that seems more likely with the changes to learner, it is largely left up to the the combined gamer audience reportedly the SQA National Qualifications that their individuals to interpret what is meant by stands at 33.5 million Britons – 69% of use is to increase. Specifically both the media. Previously the National Course the UK population.[7] The recognition that National 5 and Higher Media Courses specification for Intermediate 2 had the gaming audience is huge, but also focus on enabling learners to analyse and defined media studied as: gender and age diverse can help students create media content, and place a strong in understanding the medium. After all the emphasis on learners developing their “those of mass, rather than same survey found that 99% of 8-17 year- knowledge and understanding of media interpersonal, communication. The olds identified as having played games in literacy. While National 5 and Higher media texts may be newspapers the last six months and the age group of differ in the level of content required for or magazines, television or radio 8-15 year-olds played the most, averaging these overall goals they provide teachers programmes, cinema films, 20 hours a week.[8] On the surface this and students an opportunity to consider advertisements, music videos and appears to relate to the fact that for many the impact that video games can have. websites.”[4] students games are their medium, and for teachers this can be a daunting prospect. Looking at the specific level of Whilst the new emphasis on flexibility, One of the most obvious challenges is understanding targeted, the National 5 personalisation and choice is no doubt that games are a medium that students course attends to media literacy in relation welcoming it remains an issue that the often have considerable more experience to understanding the overall purpose, term ‘games’ does not appear in any of the of and expertise in than their teachers. If audience, and context in conjunction SQA specifications. The aim of this paper is the average student is spending 20 hours with the role of the media in society. to introduce some of the approaches that a week playing games then it is inevitable [1] The Higher course takes this further can be used for media analysis of games that it will feel like their medium and that by asking the learners to appreciate the and to give some examples in regard to teachers will inevitably feel that they are opportunities and challenges that occur one of the most popular game genres, the encroaching upon a medium where their within the media industry, whilst also first-person shooter, and most successful own experience can be extremely limited. developing their theoretical knowledge of game franchises, Activision’s Call of Duty However utilising student’s knowledge and the media and the ability to create media series. recognising the significant role games play content.[2] Video games are well suited in their leisure activities can be beneficial, for addressing these goals. The availability Video games and mass media especially in allowing games to play an of free content creation tools and game There can be little doubt that games increased role in school curricula. engines (such as Unity, Unreal, Source 2, are included in mass media. The overall and GameMaker) can provide students the sales revenue, availability across multiple There are significant issues and challenges opportunity to understand the challenges platforms, and increasingly minimal-to- about the game content of commercial in creating media content. The plethora no-cost outlay has ensured that games games and unlike film, television and of games can also provide a rich library of remain a staple of today’s consumable literature a lack of resources for teachers game content for engaging in analysing media content. The latest UK study, to utilise. Charsky and Mims identified media content. The course specifications commissioned by the Internet Advertising that although Commercial Off the Shelf for both National 5 and Higher state that Bureau, revealed that the stereotype (COTS) games are created almost entirely the courses: of the teenage boy playing alone in for entertainment purposes, some are his bedroom is well and truly past.[5] not absent of intellectual challenges “…reflect the Curriculum for Although the overall findings of the survey or content.[9] They gave the examples Excellence values, purposes and were picked up on by the mainstream of SimCity, Age of Empires, Zoo Tycoon principles. They offer flexibility, media, they were largely portrayed in a and Railroad Tycoon. However, there provide more time for learning, more single sound bite as “more women play are many more examples such as the focus on skills and applying learning, games than men”.[6] This was a great Civilisation series and more recently and scope for personalisation and headline but the survey also revealed Minecraft. Despite several studies on the choice.”[3] interesting data on the makeup of how subject few have examined the potential games are consumed. For example there educational benefits of the extremely were more people over 44 years old successful commercial games such as the media education journal 57 16
Total War, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed or meaning within any game. It is the ‘shell’ convey. The use of the mechanic is the Grand Theft Auto franchises. It has to be that is generally more easily understood message has become increasingly popular acknowledged that some of these games as the narrative or game story is a key through indie games such as Thomas Was are inappropriate in terms of content aspect of the shell. However the ‘shell’ Alone, Papers Please and Gone Home. and restricted by the ratings system, yet also covers many aspects of a game in a However many commercial games use it is widely accepted that these games similar fashion to a film. Therefore the mechanics to enhance the shell, rather are being played and watched via media use of cameras, animated non-playable than convey meaning. Certainly in the such as YouTube and Twitch by students. characters, sets, lighting, and dialogue study of games it is important to be aware The question is whether these can be are all used in order to help convey the of both the potential meaning but also the utilised for educational purposes. One story. In the majority of games it is the commercial implications that restrict the point to consider is that while games are ‘shell’ that is used to explain the narrative design. In order to break down mechanics frequently used as a learning tool they and justify the player-characters actions. it is therefore useful to examine other often provide a better gateway to other In contrast it is the ‘core’ that is used to approaches of game classification. means of learning. Games can therefore convey the underlying ‘rules’ of the game help students to consider more complex world, central to which is the design of Serious Game Classification Project material and debate different and difficult the game mechanics. This can cover a Whilst the core and shell model can help issues. To that end it is important to wide variety of rules from the actions students break down games into two consider how games can be analysed as that a player character can perform, to clear components, breaking down all the ‘texts’. the scoring system, win-lose scenarios, mechanics can be a difficult and daunting behaviours of the non-player characters task. This is especially true in large games, Video games as ‘texts’ to the basic physics model. In looking at where multiple mechanics are used, The debate over whether video games are how games can be studied in a classroom throughout the game – 40-60 hours of ‘texts’ has been ongoing for almost as setting teachers can use specific scenes to gameplay. To that end the Serious Game long as there have been video games. In consider the similarities with film of the Classification Project (SGCP) provides a the early part of the twenty-first century camera, lighting and set. When it comes to simplistic means of breaking down game the debate focused around whether examining the core it is possible to draw mechanics. The collaborative classification games should be analysed as a narrative parallels with more traditional games system was developed as part of an medium (narratology) or as systems of and sports. For the classroom, this can be academic research project launched play (ludology). Narratologists argued broken down into: in 2006 by Julian Alvarez and Damien that games were largely a story-telling Djaouti, in association with researchers medium, ludologists that as games were • What is it the player can do? from I.R.I.T. and L.A.R.A. laboratories in the built around systems of play and rules • What limits or restrictions are placed French-based Toulouse Universities II & III. that they had to be considered differently on their interaction with the world? [12] The project itself was wide-ranging in any analysis. Over the years, various • What are all the mechanics that are and ambitious and focused on analysing means of analysing games have been used? games in a different manner to Mäyrä. put forward and contemporary game • How are the mechanics balanced? studies and critical analysis generally • How do the mechanics account for Specifically the project classified that a encompass both the study of narrative and risk versus reward? video game can feature only one of the play together. To that end, there are an two gameplay types. Games were either increasing number of methods by which In many games the aim of the designer ‘Game-based’, in that the game title is games can be analysed but there remains is to allow the player to hover between designed with stated goals to reach, or considerable debate on how to effectively victory and defeat, or success and failure. were ‘Play-based’, by which a game title reconcile storytelling and interaction. As However increasingly we’ve seen designers is designed with no stated goals to reach. can probably be expected although no one create games where the mechanic is Asides from these two general gameplay method of analysis has emerged there are the message. In those cases games are types, the project featured a more detailed several models that can be used for game designed to convey a message through analysis of the rules defining the gameplay analysis. These models can engage directly their mechanic. Specifically Brenda core of each title. In order to do this with students’ familiarity and expertise Romero’s work focuses on the idea that the project determined and classified with the medium and can be used directly the mechanics (the ‘core’) can be designed games through rules. Core rules were to benefit classroom discussion. to communicate meaning. As part of then represented by one of ten gameplay her series The Mechanic Is the Message, bricks. These bricks referred to rules that Core and Shell Model Romero created the table top game Train, either stated goals (avoid, match, destroy) One of the most accessible models for which at first appears to be a relatively or to rules that defined the means and analysis is Frans Mäyrä’s core-and-shell straightforward game.[11] Players are constraints placed on the player in order model.[10] The model conceptualises tasked with loading a railway car full of to reach these goals (create, manage, that games can be divided into two tokens and transporting it to the other move, random, select, shoot, write). These components: the ‘core’ considers the side of the board. However during the are defined by the SGCP in Table 1 below underlying rules of the game whereas game each player discovers that the the ‘shell’ is concerned with how these destinations are concentration camps, It is this concept of gameplay bricks gameplay aspects are wrapped up and and the tokens are Jews. The ‘reveal’ that can assist students in breaking represented within the game world. demonstrates that through the mechanics game mechanics down to their simplest Mäyrä utilises these structural features to the players can become complicit and component, and is particularly helpful in make it easier to distinguish between the experience emotional journeys in regard defining mechanics for non-game players. fundamentally different forms that make to the message the designer aimed to Although the framework has not been
media education journal 57 17 widely adopted, there is certainly scope Gameplay Description for adapting some of the gameplay bricks Brick system to assist students and it provides Avoid asks the player to avoid elements/traps/opponents. a useful step towards more complex Match asks the player to match or to keep one or several elements in a approaches and frameworks. particular state. Destroy asks the player to destroy elements or opponents. MDA Framework The Mechanics, Dynamic, and Aesthetic Create allows the player to express his creativity through the act of assembling, building or creating elements. (MDA) framework is more widely-adopted approach to understanding games. Manage lets the player manage various resources in order to perform Developed by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc actions. and Robert Zubek the framework was Move lets the player drive/pilot/displace an element or a character. developed and taught as part of the Game Random lets luck attribute values to the player. Design and Tuning Workshop at the Game Select lets the player select an in-game element by any input device Developers Conference, 2001-2004.[14] (mouse, keyboard, gamepad…). In the Mechanics-Dynamics-Aesthetics Shoot lets the player throw or shoot elements. framework each of the terms has a very Write lets the player inputs an alphanumerical value. specific meaning: Table 1: Gameplay Bricks.[13] Mechanics are the base components of to consider in that it again places games important insight for games. Mainly the game – they define how the game and game analysis out with the context of because video games by their very nature is prepared and set up, what the formal other media. can be seen as an artistic medium, albeit rules are, each and every action the player one where the narrative (the shell) is can take in the game; it also covers the Unit Operations required to revolve around mathematical algorithms and data structures within the The last approach this paper will discuss abstractions (the core). In providing a game engine. As with Mäyrä’s core and in regard examining games is Ian Bogost’s basis of analysis that covers both logic and the SGCP these are all concerned with Unit Operations which is described as a abstract thinking this could be applied by interaction but make a clear distinction literary-technical framework.[15] Bogost students that favour different approaches between the mechanics and the dynamics. suggests that any medium – from video to the wider analysis of games. It helps fit Dynamics are used to specifically to games to poetry, literature, cinema, or art with an overarching aim of using games describe the run-time behaviour of the – can be read as a configurative system to help deliver diverse subject material, mechanics. This is how the rules act of discrete, interlocking units of meaning. allowing students to take a more active in motion, responding to player input Analysis of these mediums therefore role in their learning as they develop both and working in conjunction with other encompasses both the programmatic the technical and literary skills required to rules and mechanics. Games tend to be underpinnings of the game as well as the succeed throughout their careers. incredibly complex and have multiple cultural and ideological units, all within aspects playing out at the same time. the same critical position or action. Games as ‘texts’ Considering the dynamics as separate While there is a great deal of strength in We’ve established that there are a number from purely the mechanics allows for Bogost’s approach and it borrows heavily of methodologies that can be used to the reflection on how these all interact on employing approaches and logic of analyse games but how does a game together to serve the game. both programming and comparative actually translate to the study of SQA literature, it isn’t as readily accessible. Media? It is not the intention here to Aesthetics in the framework are the The theory in the approach is akin to provide a comprehensive case study but emotional responses evoked in the player. the marriage of literary theory and provide some examples of how games They essentially describe the player’s computation. That, then theoretically can fit with the SQA requirements and experience of the game. In simple terms, it helps the humanities take technology relating these to one of the most popular is what makes the game fun. However for more seriously, and conversely help game franchises, Call of Duty. Although each player how they experience the game technologists better understand video many of the games are age-rated 18, it depends on where and how they find games as cultural artefacts. However the is possible to examine the franchise as a enjoyment, frustration, fantasy, discovery, approach can be hard to follow in that it media source looking only at appropriate fellowship, etc. relies on a reasonable understanding of age rated content. The stated aim for diverse disciplines and critical approaches. ‘Analysing Media Content’ is that learners The MDA framework focuses on examining must acquire the skills, knowledge and the game’s core, and stresses the idea that Bogost himself notes at the start of the understanding to be able to analyse how games are unlike other media and more text, there is a broad and contradictory and why media content is constructed akin to cultural artefacts. The authors educational background required to in particular ways and to analyse the put forward the concept that the core fully grasp all of these elements.[16] The potential use or effect of media content. aspect of a game and meaning relates skills and knowledge required for more Games provide both of these and to to behaviours, and it is the interaction mathematical and logic-based engineering that end the Call of Duty franchise is a between designed systems that lead to tends to conflict with abstract thinking, good example because of its popularity different experiences. Thus each player and more arts-based learning and though there is a good chance students will can experience the mechanics, dynamics based processes tend to require more have played with or at least be familiar and aesthetics of a game differently. For subjective and less objective thinking. with one of main games. The availability students it is again a useful framework Nevertheless the approach provides an of games from the franchise on mobile media education journal 57 18
and tablets, with more age-appropriate processes, such as the rotation of the that have lacked a clearer moral right for content, is another reason to explore development companies, could be war) have tended to frame the reasons the series. However it is the themes examined to understand the challenges for fighting to the player with clearer that the franchise explores and its over- of game production. In understanding and personalised justifications or war, simplification and at times glorification the franchise’s success, students can mostly based around saving the world. of war that could provide juxtaposition study the sales (since 2009 each console For instance, Call of Duty 4: Modern with other media content, both real and version has sold in excess of 6 million Warfare, places the player at the centre fictionalised. copies) and how the day of release of of a potential plot between Russian new versions are heralded as the biggest ultranationalists and an unnamed Arabic Media Context entertainment launches. For example country that might form an alliance There are eleven games in main series. Call of Duty: Black Ops was billed as the and use nuclear weapons against the Three are based around World War biggest entertainment launch in history West. In response to these concerns, the II, another three within the Modern and in its first six weeks earned $1billion United States and the United Kingdom Warfare series, a further three within the through 25 million sales. Other aspects conduct joint operations to prevent Black Ops storyline and a further two of the games and franchise can lead to this. Though Modern Warfare was only focusing on what can be best described further research that draw interesting the first in the story arc, all theModern as future war. The form for each of these discussion topics. From the perceptions Warfare titles have revelled in post-9/11 is Video Game and they have a simple of who the audience is perceived to be paranoia, re-inventing eastern European proclaimed purpose which is primarily and who it actually is – Rubin has stated ultranationalist groups and weapons of to entertain, and a less proclaimed one that 24% of the Call of Duty fan base is mass destruction. On one level the Modern that is to make a profit. War games as female.[19] Or even the controversy the Warfare series gives a riveting depiction entertainment provide an interesting game has attracted and the complications of the start of World War III; on another angle for study. They are frequently of the marketing messages. For example they play into the US and UK post-9/11 described as simulations and/or authentic Rubin has stated that “we are trying to paranoia and provide examples of overly experiences. The relationship between be a cinematic movie experience based patriotic storylines. the marketing and the development can on authentic equipment and authentic lead to different messaging. Call of Duty’s experience”. This raises challenging In looking at the franchise it is possible Executive Producer Mark Rubin, has questions regarding who or what defines to look at representation on a higher previously stated that they see the games the ‘real’ or ‘authentic’ combat experience, level and bring these into context with as obviously outside the realm of reality. and how this relates to controversies such other media. Students can look at how as the infamous ‘No Russian’ level. virtual war is represented and place this “There’s an enormous amount of into context with film and television appreciation for what [military The Shell: Representation media such as Saving Private Ryan veterans] do [but] in no way do we Using the games within the Call of Duty (1998), The Hurt Locker (2008), Band of feel we are a representation of what franchise to examine the shell provides a Brothers (2001) or Generation Kill (2008). their lives are like.”[17] range of potential analysis for study. The Comparisons can be made to other games franchise follows the convention of the such as Medal of Honor (1999) or the rival However, as stated, the messaging can be genre and demonstrates three distinct Battlefield franchise. More mainstream confusing and this provides interesting phases – see Fig 1. media such as documentaries, newspapers, positions for discussion. In the same and other news media can be cross- interview Rubin also states: Those games that have used historical referenced with novels and diaries. All of conflicts have tended to utilise the clearer these can be used to discuss key questions “A lot of the stuff that we show in moral justifications for war, for example on the media and how we interact with it. the game has been done by someone, those in the fight against Nazism or For example: but it’s not representative of what aggression in WW2. they do or it’s not an equivalent in • How do the games utilise or mirror any way of what they do. We’re just Even so, some games have sought to real-world events? trying to make a fun movie.”[18] further frame the moral right for the • Can games really comment on and player. For example, Call of Duty: World model those events? Students can examine the franchise by at War starts its story on Makin Island • What assumptions are made about looking at the gradual use and inclusion on August 17, 1942 with Marine Private what is important to the game world? of Hollywood stars to enhance the C. Miller witnessing the torture and • How do the games reflect or integrate blockbuster appeal of the franchise. execution of a fellow Marine, along with other media? Students could also examine the history with another Marine being beaten by a • Do the games really enhance or limit and rise of the publisher Activision. Japanese soldier. In the games portraying our understanding? The developers and development more recent (and future) conflicts (those
Fig 1: Military Shooter Genre Evolution
media education journal 57 19 de-emphasise the location the ‘shell’ provides in many first-person and setting. Players then shooters and the Call of Duty franchise in used these exploits for particular provide a rich seam of debate competitive advantage. for students and can be related to a wide Two examples are bunny range of other media and concerns. hopping (the use of strafing and jumping controls at Conclusion the same time) or rocket That games are having a larger impact jumping (where players upon students learning is widely could gain increased jump recognised. Recent changes to the SQA height by using explosives National Qualifications encourages without dying). Initially these greater flexibility in what can be studied exploits were incorporated and games provide a great learning by designers who created opportunity in a medium that students additional levels and maps. are generally more engaged with. The Fig 2: Basic FPS Mechanics Games still felt very much ability of games to enable learners to as unreal and designers took analyse and create media content, in a The aim here is to get students to consider those opportunities to emphasise the fun context of a medium that feels as if it the games and the shell within the wider through multiplayer. is their own, could be advantageous for context, before considering the game teachers and students. That said there is mechanics. Over time the simplicity of these early work to be done in providing clear tools mechanics led to designers focusing on and understanding of how games can be The Core: Mechanics adding detail to the mechanics rather than analysed for the curriculum of their use Examining the mechanics within first- attempting to provide additional story or is to increase. The analysis of games can person shooters and the Call of Duty to conveying any message. franchise is also more interesting and Thus over time the first- revealing than might be first anticipated. person shooter mechanics The mechanics of almost all first person features have become shooters are remarkably simple at first increasingly complex and glance. See Fig 2: more realistic. For example, the ‘shooting” mechanic The basic mechanics of first-person has been expanded by shooters comprise moving and shooting; additional features focusing these may be expanded to include on different weapon types, vehicles or team work (via multiplayer). accuracy, recoil, movement, These simple mechanics were effective aim-down-sights, bullet but were initially still unrealistic, in part drop, and cones of fire. See they were relatively limited by the initial Fig 4. Fig 4: Evolving FPS Mechanics technological restrictions of creating large 3D environments and ensuring that the The result in this evolution of be highly rewarding, providing interesting core mechanics were not hindered by lag mechanics was a shift in player emphasis and diverse correlations to other media or input delays. As the genre evolved new from less realistic hip-firing and running but for this to be successful we need more mechanics were introduced as shown in around towards suppressing fire, flanking, teaching resources if we are to engage Fig 3. taking the high ground and utilising students with the medium. cover. The result has seen the gradual For example shooting evolved to include move of the FPS genre move from one Notes strafing, moving left to right, and as the of entertainment towards increased 1. SQA, (2014) National 5 Media, [Online]. technology improved, verticality. The simulation; this has resulted in increasing Available from: early games in the genre inadvertently concern on the content, authenticity http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47908.html created amusing exploits that helped to and influence on player [Accessed 30th March 2014] behaviour. To that extent 2. SQA, (2014) Higher Media, [Online]. the Red Cross expressed Available from: in 2013 there concerns http://www.sqa.org.uk/sqa/47908.html that “not only are games [Accessed 30th March 2014] becoming more realistic, 3. ibid. but they’re also rewarding 4. SQA, (2014) Intermediate 2 Media, players for carrying out [Online]. Available from: http://www.sqa. acts that in reality would org.uk/sqa/40636.html [Accessed 30th be considered war crimes March 2014] and subject to international 5. Stuart, K. (2014) ‘UK gamers: more prosecution.”[20] The women play games than men, report finds’ limited range of the ‘core’ the Guardian, [Online], 17th September mechanics, combined with 2014. Available from: Fig 3: Early FPS Mechanics the narrative context that http://www.theguardian.com/ media education journal 57 20
technology/2014/sep/17/women-video- of Computer Game Technology, www.gameinformer.com/b/features/ games-iab [Accessed 11th March 2014] 2008 (1). [Online]. Available from: archive/2013/09/30/war-stories-how- 6. ibid. http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ the-military-benefits-from-call-of-duty. 7. ibid. ijcgt/2008/470350/ [Accessed 11th aspx [Accessed 28th March 2014] 8. ibid. March 2014] 18. ibid. 9. Charsky, D.& Mims,C. (2008). 13. ibid. 19. Tim, G. (2013) ‘Interview with Call ‘Integrating Commercial Off-the-Shelf 14. Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M. and R. of Duty: Ghosts’ Mark Rubin’, Lazygamer Video Games into School Curriculums’, Zubeck (2004). ‘MDA: A Formal Approach [Online], 5th September 2013. Available Tech Trends. 52(6), 38–44. to Game Design and Game Research’ from: http://www.lazygamer.net/xbox- 10. Mäyrä, F. (2008). An Introduction to [Online]. Available from: http://www. 360/interview-with-call-of-duty- Game Studies: Games and Culture, London: cs.northwestern.edu/~hunicke/MDA.pdf ghosts-mark-rubin/ [Accessed 28th Sage Publications. [Accessed 11th March 2014] March 2014] 11. Romero, B, ‘The Mechanic is the 15. Bogost, I. (2008) Unit Operations: 20. Whitehead, D. (2013) ‘Games should Message’. [Online]. Available from: https:// An Approach to Videogame Criticism, honour the “rules of conflict” says Red mechanicmessage.wordpress.com/. Cambridge MA, The MIT Press. Cross’, Eurogamer.net [Online], 2nd [Accessed 28th March 2014]. 16. ibid. October 2013. Available from: http:// 12. Djaouti, D., Alvarez, J., Jessel, J-P., 17. Hanson, B. (2013) ‘War Stories: www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-10- Methel, G., & Molinier, P. (2008) ‘A How the Military Benefits From Call 02-games-should-honour-the-rules-of- Gameplay Definition through Videogame of Duty’, GameInformer [Online], 30th conflict-says-red-cross/ [Accessed 28th Classification’,International Journal September 2013. Available from: http:// March 2014]
Contributors to this issue Douglas Allen has lectured in General/Social Studies and Media widely in film, media and cultural studies in international Studies and is currently a Lecturer in Psychology and History at journals and is the author of several books, including: Bollywood New College, Lanarkshire. He has been an Associate Lecturer in Travels: Culture, Diaspora and Border Crossings in Popular Hindi Arts, Film & Television History with the Open University since Cinema (Routledge, 2012), and Bhangra: Birmingham and Beyond 1986. (Birmingham City Council and Punch Records, 2007). Contact email: [email protected] Mary Birch taught English and Media Studies in Aberdeen City for a number of years and was a member of the AMES Rick Instrell was Principal Teacher of Computing at Lasswade committee. She is presently on a sabbatical in the US teaching High School Centre, Midlothian. He is a founder member of English to ESL students, involving herself in local government AMES and has co-written Computing and Media Studies courses and avidly studying Netflix! and units for SQA. He now acts as a freelance educational consultant and CPD provider. Website: www.deep-learning. Tom Brownlee is Head of Media and RE at Richard Hale School co.uk. in Hertford where he teaches A Level Media Studies. He has written extensively about the subject for Media Magazine and Colin McArthur is former Head of the Distribution Division the Media Education Journal and is a former editor of the MEJ. of the British Film Institute. He has written extensively about Hollywood cinema, British television and Scottish culture. He Jon Davies was until recently CEO of Wikipedia UK. He tutors has lectured widely in the UK, other European countries and the in French Film Studies at Morley College in London. After Americas and has been Visiting Professor at Glasgow Caledonian graduating in History at UCL he headed off to Paris where he University and Queen Margaret College, Edinburgh. Long retired, was a volunteer at the Cinémathèque française in the 1970s and he resists the lure of daytime television by working as a ‘barrow became a film editor and director in British television.http:// boy’ in a London market and, intermittently, as an independent www.frenchcinema.info scholar.
Dr Iain Donald completed a PhD in History at the University of Robert Preece was Principal Teacher of Geography at Inverness Aberdeen in 1999 after which he enjoyed a career in IT and Game Royal Academy, where he also introduced and taught Media Development before coming back to teaching and academia in Studies into the curriculum. In retirement he has been writing 2010 when he joined the School of Arts, Media and Computer and publishing material on local history of Inverness, including Games at Abertay University. His principal professional expertise the first ever history of Inverness Royal Academy. He continues and research interests lie in production and management within his interest in media studies by acting as Treasurer of AMES, and the creative industries. He is actively engaged in researching in is also very active as a leader and Commissioner in the Scout the field of digital media where he has written and presented Association in Inverness. on the topics of practice-based teaching, user engagement, collaborative working models and the sharing of intellectual Liz Roberts taught Media Studies at Aberdeen College where property for the digital media and games industries. Combining she was Team Leader and Curriculum Manager, teaching his industry experience with his doctoral field he is currently SCOTVEC Media modules, HND and NQ Media Studies. She is researching the concept of ‘Just War’ as represented in Video a setter for the Reading the Media Paper or Advanced Higher Games, as part of the Great War Dundee centenary project and English and a member of AMES Management Committee. is due to publish a study on the games industry later this year. Contact email: [email protected] Tina Stockman is Treasurer and Publicity Officer of the University of Aberdeen Chinese Studies Group. She has taught Dr Rajinder Dudrah is Senior Lecturer in Screen Studies at the Art and Media Studies in Scottish secondary schools for over University of Manchester, UK. He has researched and published twenty years.
media education journal 57 21
Your Country Needs You! Part 1: The Scottish Referendum
Tom Brownlee
n 18 September 2014 Scottish adults So what do we mean by propaganda and personal pronouns (Yes. YOU). It further Ovoted on the question, ‘Should how did the two sides try to win over the works by establishing relationships of Scotland become an independent Scottish public? Wikipedia’s definition is hierarchy and deference; and signifiers country?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘No.’ ‘No, thanks.’ ‘Are you as good as any: “Information, especially of class, position and authority are yes yet?’ ‘Better Together.’ ‘Aye!’ ‘Naw!’ of a biased or misleading nature, used asserted through the military uniform the ‘Mibbe?’ However they presented it to the to promote a political cause or point of flamboyant, hyper masculine moustache, four million registered voters, each side view”. In a sense, propaganda’s appeal is to and the fixed male gaze. Combined, these of the Scottish independence referendum one’s sense of reason (the head) and our signifiers sought to cement Kitchener’s campaign employed both new and old emotions (the heart). authority over his male audience. They are media platforms. In the pro union camp ‘hailed’ or interpellated (Althusser, 1972) – vote ‘No’ – stood the Conservatives, as British men (cannon fodder?) who Labour and the Liberal Democrats. The naturally defer to their social superiors. independence cause – vote ‘Yes’ – was The appeal is essentially through the led by the Scottish National Party, the iconography of masculine pride and Greens and loose network of support patriotic duty. It might seem crude now groups such as Commonweal and the but it established the generic conventions Radical Campaign for Independence. for propaganda for a sizeable portion of Indeed, the network of pro-advocates the 20th Century and endures today: see relied on social media and old fashioned Putin. canvassing to outflank what it perceived as the pro-union bias of the ‘old media’ In terms of new media, Twitter and of television, radio and the press - 95% of Facebook have played an increasingly which urged its readers to vote ‘no’ on 18 important role in shaping public opinion September. That said, the circulation and – see Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential resultant influence of Scottish newspapers campaign or the fake viral video Kony have seen steep declines in recent years. 2012 as examples of bottom up campaign For instance, the once proud national strategies based around social media – newspaper The Scotsman struggles to sell and certainly provided a dynamic forum more than 20,000 copies each day – a during the Scottish referendum campaign. quarter of its circulation at the start of the In some ways the famous and much Ultimately, however, as the historic date millennium. While Yes Scotland energised imitated Lord Kitchener WW1 recruitment got closer most voters seem to have a wide sweep of the nation, its message poster has provided a template for turned to traditional forms, particularly was ultimately rejected by 55% of those propaganda pieces. The message – fight through television, for guidance. The who voted on the day. for your country – is communicated three-minute television campaign through direct address and the use of
media education journal 57 22
the character seeks to create a sense of complicity and identification between herself and the female viewer. Her personal struggle with the decision before opting to vote ‘no’ is supposed to reflect a frank and non-partisan approach to politics. The producers are using the popular advertising technique of personalisation in order to characterise and play to a certain socio-demographic type. Previously market researchers have identified social types such as ‘Worcestershire woman’ or ‘Basildon man’, for instance, as a means to address their values and attitudes. The character in this advert might be called ‘Fearful Fiona’, the average woman anxious The Woman Who Made up Her Mind about her family and, by extension, her nation’s financial future. She is the modern broadcast remained a powerful tool for 1. The Woman Who Made Up Her day expression of kailyard values. each campaign. I will analyse three key Mind or #Patronising BT Lady broadcasts from the final weeks before the http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- What the BT advertisers failed to vote. scotland-28951673 anticipate was the scope for a subversive https://twitter.com/hashtag/ reading of the text. Their representation By using the conceptual framework to PatronisingBTLady of the average housewife seems to deconstruct this sample we will see how Polling suggested that a sizeable have stepped out of a ‘70s TV detergent a mix of advertising ‘know how’ and proportion of women voters were commercial who might be confessing political spin can used to shape opinion. genuinely undecided. These swing voters to substandard laundry. BT was swiftly Heavy opinion polling indicated that were invaluable to both sides and Better accused of stereotyping Scottish women large sections of the electorate remained Together’s (BT) August broadcast sought to as politically ignorant, family-obsessed undecided throughout the period. Reaching speak directly to the concerns of this niche housewives with lower levels of education them was the key to success. While the demographic. Thus ‘The Woman Who Made than men. Yes campaigners pounced on 16 – 17 year olds were enthused to play up Her Mind’ was born. It starts with her the opportunity for some mischievous their important part in the national sitting in her kitchen drinking a cup of tea satire by creating the ‘Patronising BT Lady’ conversation, they still only represented while her husband and children are away. meme which went viral within hours of the 3% of the voters. That small percentage Cast as the embodiment of the ‘supermum’ first broadcast. The widely parodied Better perhaps explains why this group appears archetype she confesses that juggling Together broadcast wasn’t aired again. only peripherally in each of the three the demands of job, home and family broadcasts in question. has prevented her from following the 2. Yes campaign: “Look out world: debate too closely. By breaking the fourth here I come” wall i.e. speaking directly to the camera, (See Yes Campaign on Facebook) “I can dress myself”, whispered by a wee lassie, establishes independence as the theme of the Yes broadcast. Again, the main message is anchored by a woman (that crucial demographic again) who, symbolically, is a florist –the ‘flower of Scotland’. Speaking frankly to the camera she asks, rhetorically: “Independence. It’s what we want in our lives – so why not for our country?” Bathed in an optimistic glow of bright colours, the chorus of persuasive, aspirational characters delivers a message of sunlit hope. Both literally and metaphorically, the emphasis is on dynamic movement, whether it is within the frame or in panning and tracking shots. This version of Scotland is going places. Each section of society – young and old, male and female, rural and urban – are characterised in the campaign video. To balance the female spokesperson, the producers place a muscular Scotsman (a modern day Braveheart?) seen running The ‘Patronising BT Lady’ meme went viral. through a rugged Highland landscape,
media education journal 57 23
The Yes campaign video which has connotations of natural community, stability and solidarity. ‘Yes’ strength, power and virility, both of the scored a majority with people aged land and its people. Overall it echoes under 50 while ‘No’ was the choice of Obama’s ‘Hope’ message of 2008 the over 55s. and contrasts with the fretfulness of the previous BT broadcast. “Look out While each side deployed the world, here I come,” says a long-haired iconography of the Scottish landscape student, as Highland lochs sparkle, and buildings, they both resisted the children play happily in the sunshine, obvious temptation to wrap themselves and active old folks joyfully dance in a in plaid. Romantic ‘tartanry’ is the presumably comfortable and fulfilling province of Visit Scotland, the country’s retirement. tourism marketing agency, and not the reality for the vast majority of people 3. Better Together campaign Voice of God narration: “Solidarity, here and living, working and voting in Scotland abroad. Equality, at work and at home.” broadcast: Solidarity forever today. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk- scotland-29230269 Eventually, the majority of Scots voted The subtext behind the final piece is the to keep the country in the UK. After battle for the traditional Labour vote two years of electrifying debate up which seemed to be drifting towards and down the country, in classrooms the ‘Yes’ camp. The narrative falls and school assemblies, across the into two portions – past and present internet, in TV debates and in acres of – but the message is simple. Choose newspaper space, at public meetings, solidarity, not separation. Montage over a pint and over the dinner table, sequences are used to build momentum Your country needs you: Former Prime Minister Scotland can boast of having some of throughout the piece. The first minute and Scottish MP, Gordon Brown speaking the most politically aware and media is devoted to a nostalgic tribute to directly to the audience. literate citizens in the UK. the sacrifices of previous generations suggested through flickering, black redoubtable Scottish MP for Kircaldy and Part 2 of Tom Brownlee’s examination of and white archive footage of the labour Cowdenbeath, Gordon Brown. Speaking the role of the media in the political process movement, including millworkers, hospital directly to the audience, Kitchener style, will focus on the UK General Election held staff and soldiers. ‘Real’ people are shown this familiar figure offers reassurance in May 2015. With a rainbow of political in large groups as a metaphor for a social to an older and perhaps more cautious parties on offer, how did the media play its solidarity which transcends nationality target demographic in a way that seeks to part in delivering victory for at least two or region. In its nostalgic pitch to both avoid the faux pas of earlier broadcasts. parties and crushing defeat for others? older and younger voters, the producers It is a classic two-step flow approach emphasise traditional values, both in the which seeks to win over wavering Labour References message and in its narrative structure. A supporters in the final days before the Delaney, S (2015) Mad Men and Bad Men: male voiceover (voice of God narration) vote. But where Kitchener points at the What Happened When British Politics Met guides and anchors our interpretation of subject, Brown’s open-handed gesture Advertising, Faber and Faber the visual wallpaper on the screen. suggests openness and friendship. He Hendry, S (2013) Media Factsheet: Politics has influence rather than power over and the Media, Curriculum Press The only other spoken words come from his audience. Where the earlier Yes the soberly attired (dark suit, navy blue advert stresses aspiration, movement tie) former Labour Prime Minister and and progress, BT’s brand values are of media education journal 57 24
The concept of mise en scène and ‘The Ball’ sequence from Vincente Minnelli’s Madame Bovary (1949)
Colin McArthur
A Bit of Personal History with day-release apprentices at Inverness Hoggart saw as displacing and corrupting An undergraduate in English at Glasgow Technical College in the early 1960s). traditional working class culture despite University in the 1950s, I was puzzled More generally, libraries, even academic the fact that American cinema, popular that two books ostensibly on the same ones, would be likely to have no more music, modes of dress and hairstyles were subject (e.g. L C Knights and G Wilson than a handful of serious books about the a source of considerable pleasure to the Knight on Shakespeare) seemed to cinema, characteristically S M Eisenstein’s very class Hoggart was writing about. This have no relationship with each other. The Film Sense, Paul Rotha’s The Film Till “standing on its head” was triumphantly It took me some time to grasp that the Now, Arthur Knight’s The Liveliest Art and achieved in Paddy Whannel and Stuart differences lay in the separate critical Roger Manvell’s Film. What then might Hall’s The Popular Arts which – with its and/or historical questions the books were someone interested in cinema do in careful distinctions between the good and addressing, an early lesson in the maxim Glasgow in the 1950s? The university film the less good in popular literature, cinema that it is as important to think about the society was not active and showed 16mm and music – would become a bible for ways texts are talked and written about films in the less than perfect conditions the first generation of film teachers. The as to study the texts themselves. This of the men’s union. An important other absolutely central influence was insight was deepened by the lectures of resource (apart from the major chains) the British Film Institute’s annual summer three outstanding teachers: John Bryce for cinephiles – as we would later style school in the early 1960s. Held at that on the seventeenth century sonnet, Edwin ourselves – was the Cosmo cinema (now time jointly with the Scottish Film Council Morgan on Milton and John Rillie on the Glasgow Film Theatre) in Rose Street at St Andrews, it offered the luxury of two literary theory in general and American and the screenings put on by the Scottish weeks’ viewing and discussion of films. It New Criticism in particular. Collectively Film Council in their small cinema in was there that I first encounteredSight they gave me a taste for both macro and Park Circus. It was at the former that I & Sound. micro critical questions, an impulse to first saw Eisenstein’sBattleship Potemkin engage with large historical forces (e.g. and at the latter Wajda’s A Generation. Throughout this period, and largely the transition from Neo-Classicism to Sitting my Finals in1961, I was amazed unknown to us in Scotland, film Romanticism) and the aesthetic structure and delighted to find in one of the papers culture was stirring across the channel, of particular texts. It would be much later, a question on the influence of cinema particularly in France and particularly in the 1970s, that I would identify the on modern literature, but it was reading within the journal Cahiers du Cinéma. really important critical question as being and events outside the curriculum which However, that culture did begin to filter the relationship between the macro and would be the key influences ushering me through to us by way of several conduits; the micro or how the deeply sedimented into film teaching. Richard Hoggart’sThe the magazine Oxford Opinion, which forces of history are concretised (or Uses of Literacy had a profound effect would mutate into the journal Movie equally significantly, repressed) within on the first generation of working class when the undergraduates running it left particular texts. students to enter higher education, Oxford, the writings of the American critic not least as a model of how to write Andrew Sarris in the journal Film Culture In the 1950s Film Studies did not exist sympathetically yet analytically about and the New York paper The Village Voice, in British primary, secondary or higher working class culture. However, like Marx and the brief essays by Lee Russell (a pen education, although the relative curricular with Hegel, Hoggart needed to be stood name of Peter Wollen) in New Left Review. freedom of further education permitted on his head, one of the central defects of Much of this would eventually emerge some such work to emerge there. (My his book being its blanket condemnation in book form as in V F Perkins’ Film as own first attempts at film teaching were of American popular culture which Film (Perkins was a co-founder of Movie),
media education journal 57 25
Sarris’ The American Cinema and Wollen’s frames so to speak. An example of the auteurism’s arrival in the UK. Elsaesser Signs and Meaning in the Cinema. cut bearing meaning is to be found at writes: Although Cahiers in the 1950s was not the beginning of Major Dundee (1965). exclusively concerned with Hollywood At the end of the pre-credit sequence in I am concerned with the fundamental cinema (it devoted much space to French which an Apache war party take a U.S. unity of Minnelli’s vision. At the risk and Italian cinema as well [1]) it was its Army fort, the leader of the war party of displeasing the genre critics and revaluation of Hollywood cinema which raises his rifle above his head and cries antagonising those who share the most excited the figures and journals “Who will you send against me now?” This view that thematic analysis generally named above and which gave them their is followed immediately by a cut to the exhausts itself in what has (rather sharp polemical edge in the face of the credits beginning with the film’s title: that summarily) been referred to as bafflement and hostility of British film is, the question is answered by the cut. An ‘schoolboy profundities’, I would like critics (eg Roud, 1960 and Houston, example of the dissolve bearing meaning to look at some of Minnelli’s constant 1960). The Cahiers critics executed occurs in The Big Heat (1953) when a shot themes and furthermore, conduct this revaluation primarily (though of the gun used to kill Bertha Duncan some kind of special pleading for not exclusively) through two critical dissolves into one of Dave Bannion (Glenn Minnelli as a moralist, even though concepts, auteur and mise en scène. To Ford) thereby linking the two characters this will mean flying in the face of simplify drastically, they tended to divide and effectively telling the audience that the ‘stylist’ school – both of the (Hollywood) film directors intoauteurs , Bannion is implicated in Bertha’s murder Sarris variety and Movie, who claim artists with a central recurrent theme (McArthur 1992: 75). for Minnelli as for Cukor that he discernible across the whole range of their never writes his own scripts, and work, and metteurs en scène who (though Minnelli and mise en scène therefore never uses other people’s in many cases talented directors) lacked Although Minnelli had his admirers material for the propagation of his that recurrent core which amounted to among the Cahiers critics (see, for own views, that he confines himself a philosophical stance to the world. The example. Jean Domarchi’s ecstatic review to the interpretation, the mise en nature of an auteur’s vision could be of Brigadoon in Cahiers No. 63, 1956), scène of the ideas of others and demonstrated in the mise en scène of ‘his’ he was consistently denied the status of that, consequently, his work is best films. John Gibbs definesmise en scène as auteur by the journal. None of his films regarded as lacking in consistent follows: figure in its annual ‘Best Films’ listings themes, and rather excels on a throughout the 1950s (Hillier 1985: 284- supreme level of visual competence. Literally translated it means ‘to put 88) and the journal’s overall position is I think this is a fundamental on stage’ . . . [A] useful definition perhaps best conveyed by Jacques Rivette: misunderstanding . . . might be ‘the contents of the frame (Elsaesser 1969: 12). and the way they are organised.’ . . . (W)hen you extend the politique Both halves of this formulation des auteurs to people like Minnelli Among the several formulations are significant – the contents and or ten other American film-makers, demonstrating the unity of Minnelli’s their organisation . . . What are the it becomes an aberration, because vision, Elsaesser describes Minnelli’s contents of the frame? They include it is clear that Minnelli is a talented characters as engaged in an lighting, costume, décor, properties ‘director’ but has never been and and the actors themselves. The never will be an auteur. When you incessant struggle . . . for total organisation of the contents of the talk about Minnelli the first thing fulfillment, for total gratification of frame encompasses the relationship to do is talk about the screenplay, their aesthetic needs, their desire for of the actors to one other (sic) and to because he always subordinates his beauty and harmony, their demand the décor, but also their relationship talent to something else. Whereas, for an identity of their lives with the to the camera, and thus the when you talk about Fritz Lang, the reality of their dreams. audience’s view, so in talking about first thing is to talk about Fritz Lang, (Elsaesser ibid: 15). mise en scène one is also talking then about the screenplay. about framing, camera movement, (Rivette 1961, 2-3). While respecting those later Anglo- the particular lens employed and American critical writings which locate other photographic decisions. Mise This is a view to some extent shared on Minnelli more firmly in the commodity en scène thus encompasses both Minnelli’s entry to Anglo-American film production of Hollywood without denying what the audience can see, and the criticism. Andrew Sarris asserted that his artistry (e.g. Naremore 1993), I very way we are invited to see it. It refers he believed more in beauty than in art much agree with Elsaesser’s view of to many of the major elements of and, although his work was respectfully Minnelli and have indeed chosen to communication in the cinema, and and extensively written about and discuss the ball sequence (its full 8½ the combinations through which they he interviewed in Movie, it did not minutes viewable on YouTube) from operate expressively. receive the characteristic imprimatur of Madame Bovary (1949) precisely to (Gibbs 2002:5). auteurist criticism of being regarded as demonstrate the validity of the idea of a stylistically and thematically coherent Minnelli’s coherent stance being realised Gibbs would probably include under ‘other oeuvre. That would be bestowed by through his mise en scène. photographic decisions’ processes which Thomas Elsaesser in a piece which generate meaning such as cuts, dissolves, appeared originally in one of the lively In Flaubert’s nineteenth century novel, irises, wipes and fades. The last of these undergraduate film magazines,Brighton as in MGM’s film adaptation, Emma almost invariably signifies time passing or Film Review, which arose in the wake of Bovary, of peasant stock, has married a closure and the first two occurbetween country doctor but is still suffocated by media education journal 57 26
the boredom of The intensity and the poignancy of her life. Fed by Emma’s moment are realised through the sentimental Minnelli’s mise en scène, all the elements novels she John Gibbs refers to being mobilised reads, she longs and cut to the rhythm of Rosza’s waltz. for something So orgasmic is it at one point that it is different. In the difficult to tell whether Emma’s putative film, as Emma fainting is from the heat and exertion or (Jennifer Jones) from ecstasy. The cruel fragility of the utters a long moment is rendered particularly in the monologue about recurrent images of glass in the scene; the tedium of Emma’s looking at herself in the mirror, their provincial the tinkling chandelier brushed by her town, a letter is fan, the glasses shattered by the male delivered inviting guests after they drain them (Fig 3), the her and her smashing of the windows, and the tray of husband Charles broken bottles. Fig 1: The arrival at the ball: Emma luminous, Charles (Van Heflin) to apprehensive. a ball at the To illustrate how Minnelli bends the pre- chateau of a local aristocrat. Arriving existing novel to fit his own recurrent at the chateau in an expensive gown preoccupation with the tension between funded by the town’s moneylender, she illusion and reality (most fully realised is immediately led onto the dance floor in The Bad and the Beautiful, On a Clear by her host (Paul Cavanaugh) where she Day You Can See Forever and, of course, becomes the object of admiring glances Brigadoon), let’s take the window- from the male dancers (Fig 2). Charles, smashing incident. It figures very briefly in meanwhile, ill at ease in the aristocratic the novel which stresses Emma’s catching milieu, overindulges in the drinks being sight of local peasants gawping through freely served. Having danced with several the broken window, causing her to reflect dashing young men, Emma catches sight with distaste on her own social origins. of herself in a mirror (Fig 4). Visibly In other words, the incident has a class Fig 2: Emma as centre of attention, her beautiful and surrounded by those whom meaning in the novel as opposed to its white gown contrasting with the shades she would regard as the best in the function in the film as (to use T. S. Eliot’s of grey and black around her. land, Emma experiences an epiphany, term) an ‘objective correlative’ of the reality has come into alignment with her fragility of Emma’s epiphany. This is not dreams. As Miklos Rosza’s delirious waltz, to say that a concern with class is absent specially composed for the film, rises from the sequence, but it is conveyed on the soundtrack, Emma is swept into mainly in Charles’ discomfiture among the the dance by Rodolphe Boulanger (Louis other male guests of a different class. To Jourdan), with whom she will go on to illustrate how even the smallest aspect of have an affair. As the pace quickens and mise en scène may be mobilised to support the room and the chandeliers swirl round the overall meaning of a scene, the ball her, she cries out that she is going to faint sequence begins on the black gown of one whereupon her host orders the windows of the guests. The camera rises to her face to be smashed (Fig 5). As the pace as her look is directed off-screen. Other quickens yet again, the now drunk Charles guests follow the direction of her look and stumbles onto the dance floor demanding a cut reveals what they are looking at, the Fig 3: The wealthy men smash their to dance with his wife and sending a arrival of Charles and Emma (Fig 1), the wine glasses after draining them in a tray of bottles crashing to the floor (Fig latter in her luminous white gown which toast. 6). Rodolphe bows out and Emma, her contrasts with the black gown on which face contorted with humiliation, flees the the sequence opens and will continue in ballroom. (Figs 7 and 8.) contrast with darker shades throughout.
The ball scene (very similar to another Mise en scène-based criticism is not ball scene in Hitchcock’s Under Capricorn quite as unique as it holds itself to be. in the same year) is demonstrably about There are clear analogies with other Minnelli’s abiding theme as outlined by close reading critical practices, for Elsaesser: Emma briefly brings her life into instance the American New Criticism alignment with her dreams only to have referred to above, the careful scrutiny of the moment cruelly shattered. This may be texts in the Leavisite tradition and the what Elsaesser has in mind when he calls valorising of ‘poetry’ in the pre-Movie Fig 4: Emma’s epiphany as she sees Minnelli a moralist [2]. British film periodicalSequence (Gibbs herself in the mirror. 2001). However, as practiced by Cahiers, Movie and those British and American
media education journal 57 27 critics influenced by them, it does have Style and a polemical verve, a claim to be saying Interpretation, completely new things in opposition to London: critical orthodoxies, which sets it apart. Wallflower Press It represents a significant moment in Hall, S and P the history of film studies, a moment Whannel (1964) when cinema asserted its autonomy The Popular from other arts such as literature and Arts, London: theatre. It would have to fight its corner Hutchinson in the 1970s and 1980s with the rise of Educational structuralist, semiotic, psychoanalytic and Hillier J (ed) ideological criticism, but that’s another (1985) Cahiers story. du Cinéma, the 1950s, London: Notes Routledge and 1. Emilie Bickerton’s A Short History of Kegan Paul and the four volumes Hillier, J (ed) Cahiers du Cinéma Fig 5: An objective correlative for the fragility of Emma’s of translations and commentary on (1986) Cahiers epiphany: the smashing of the windows. The smashing is Cahiers, produced under the auspices of du Cinéma, the ordered for ventilation when Emma says she is about to faint. the BFI in the 1980s and edited by Jim 1960s, London: Hillier, Nick Browne and David Wilson, Routledge and give a rounded sense of the trajectory Kegan Paul of the journal from aesthetics-based Hoggart, R (1957) The Uses of Literacy , champion of particular auteurs, through London: Chatto and Windus Freudo-Marxist deconstructor of Houston, P (1960) ‘The Critical Question’, ‘bourgeois cinema’ to cheerleader of the Sight & Sound 29:4, 160-65 spectacle, a trajectory analogous to that Knight, A (1959) The Liveliest Art, New of the French intelligentsia more generally York: Mentor from Sartrean existentialism through Kracauer, S (1944) From Caligari to Hitler, Maoism to liberal democracy and the New York, Princeton University Press valorising of human rights. Manvell, R (1944) Film, London: Penguin 2. For a more explicitly sympathetic view McArthur C (1992) The Big Heat, London: Fig 6: The tray of smashed bottles – an of Emma, see Robin Wood’s ‘Vincente BFI accident caused by a drunken Charles as Minnelli’s Madame Bovary’ (2009), a piece Naremore, J (1993) The Films of Vincente he collides with a waiter. very much influenced by 1980s feminist Minnelli, Cambridge: Cambridge criticism which foregrounded (among University Press other things) the melodrama and, within Perkins, V F (1972) Film as Film: it, the ‘woman’s picture’ and sought to Understanding and Judging Movies, understand how women, particularly in London: Penguin the post-World War 2 period, used these Rivette, J et al (1961) ‘La Critique: Débat’, films. Wood describes Minnelli’sMadame Cahiers du Cinéma 126, December, partly Bovary as a ‘hysterical text’, hysteria being translated and cited in Hillier (1986). 2-3 understood in this context as an entirely Rotha, P (1930) The Film till Now, London: appropriate response to the mutually Jonathan Cape supportive oppressions of capitalism and Roud, R (1960) ‘The French Line’, Sight & patriarchy. Sound 29:4, 166-71 Sarris A (1968) The American cinema: Fig 7: Charles interrupts Emma’s waltz References Directors and Directions, 1929-1968, New with Rodolphe. Bickerton, E (2009) A Short History of Haven: Dutton Cahiers du Cinéma, London: Verso Wilson, D and B Reynaud (eds) (2000) Browne, N (ed) (1990) Cahiers du Cinéma Cahiers du Cinéma 1973-78, London: 1969-72, London: Routledge Routledge Eisenstein, S M (1969) The Film Sense, Wollen, P (1969) Signs and Meaning in the New York: Harvest Cinema, London: Secker and Warburg Elsaesser, T (1969) ‘Vincente Minnelli’, Wood, R (1986) ‘Vincente Minnelli’s Brighton Film Review, 11-13, reproduced Madame Bovary’ in J McElhaney (ed) in C Gledhill (ed) (1987) Home is Where (2009) Vincente Minnelli: the Art of the Heart Is: Studies in Melodrama and the Entertainment, Detroit: Wayne State Woman’s Film, London: BFI, 217-22 University Press, 154-66 Gibbs, J (2001) ‘Sequence and the Archaeology of British Film Criticism’ in Journal of British Popular Cinema 4, 14-29 Fig 8: Emma flees the ballroom. Gibbs, J (2002) Mise-en-Scène: Film
media education journal 57 28
Barriers and Thresholds in Learning Media Studies: Part 3
Rick Instrell
Note that the figures in this article have They are intended to: as well as absences (students usually omit been compiled into a separate booklet any reference to the economic base of the which should be read alongside the • organise ideas in what can seem a very Internet). This might serve as a basis for article. This should have come with your disordered subject a multilevel model of the Internet and its print copy of MEJ. However it can be • provoke thought and critical reflection affordances. downloaded from the resources page of • guide the learner to key points the AMES website (mediaedscotland. • act as guide to the forming of One visualisation that generally goes org.uk soon to change to ames.scot). A explanations of media phenomena down well is when there has been a Microsoft PowerPoint of the figures is • inspire teachers and learners to create complex classroom discussion which seems also available so that those who wish to their own visualisations. to be going everywhere and nowhere edit the visualisations can do so with the and then the teacher magically comes minimum of effort. Before one starts creating a visualisation up with a diagram or metaphor which it is best to have an idea of the range of clarifies everything. Often this generates a “We need ways of viewing a vigorous visual maps in common use and where collective Aha! moment. but fragmented field of study, if not as they are most applicable. I will focus on a unity at least as a whole.” maps which might aid teachers delivering Maps are also invaluable in the planning Richard Johnson, ‘What is Cultural the Scottish Qualifications Authority of well-structured examination answers Studies Anyway?’ Higher Media qualification (SQA, 2014) which integrate the key aspects of media and which might also assist learners to literacy. Introduction cross conceptual thresholds. In the previous article (Instrell, 2014) Concept maps I argued that we can overcome some Visualisations can be used in a number In general the standard of visualisations barriers to learning by identifying and of ways. One can start with a simple in academic text books is poor. The most explicitly teaching threshold concepts communication model (sender-text- common flaw is unlabelled links which (Mayer and Land, 2008). In my own receiver) apply it to everyday verbal may leave the reader to speculate about teaching I have found that presenting communications and then start to develop the precise nature of the link or to dig objects, concepts and relationships in the it to include the social context and deeper into the article to find out what it form of visualisations rather than linear receiver feedback. means. Often it is unlabelled due to the text is a powerful learning tool. Careful writer hedging and not wishing to specify selection of a graphic figure for a topic One can present students with an abstract a complex multifactorial relationship. can lead learners to form a mental picture visualisation based on academic research which mirrors the way that the subject and then encourage student to think of One type of visualisation is a concept map expert ‘sees’ it. media texts/contexts/use which either which represents knowledge in the form of fit/don’t fit the model. A model can be propositions. A proposition is drawn with The visualisations in this article are developed/presented and then students 2 nodes linked by a labelled and arrowed simplified and provisional pictures of a can be asked to write an explanation of line. Figure 1 unpacks the concept of a very messy reality. Some are ‘structural’ the model, exemplify it and suggest its concept map using propositions such as and map the patterns of a phenomenon weaknesses. ‘a node is a part of a concept map’. Note whereas others are ‘functional’ and try to that the arrow indicates how to read the describe systems through the interaction One can start a lesson with an exercise proposition. Common links are APO (‘is and influence of their parts (McQuail and such as ‘draw the Internet’ (!) and from a part of’), AKO (‘is a kind of’), AFO (‘is Windahl, 1993: 2-3). these impressions start to generate a feature of’) and AEO (‘is an example commonalities between representations of’). Note that figure 1 gives examples
media education journal 57 29 of concept map structures as a bulleted Sometimes a two-headed arrow is used ideas and arranging them on a spider list rather than six AEO links. This is to to indicate a two-way relationship. For diagram with outer nodes radiating round avoid a limitation of concept maps – their example in sociology, and hence in media a central node. But by the end of an tendency to spread out and so not fit on studies, many of the debates revolve investigation it should usually be possible an A4 page. Note also how bold text and around the structure-agency couplet to order the nodes in a structured form thickened borders help the intelligibility of (see figure 3). Structure refers to the with labelled links. the map. norms, rules, organisations, influential bodies and social practices that guide and Visualisation structures In a concept map if there is no label on constrain action. Agency is the capacity Figure 1 shows a list of common concept a link then it often indicates a temporal for action by agents, be they individuals map structures (spider, tree, chain, cycle, and/or causal sequence (‘leads to’). So or groups or organisations or institutions. matrix and network) and I will give figure 1 claims that concept maps leads The two cannot be separated: agents are example of these and other structures. to meaningful teaching and learning, involved in structures and structures need metacognition and lifelong study skills. agents. So structures both enable and Table 1 shows a list of relationships Figure 2 uses an unlabelled link to constrain and it is through the interplay which one might find between ideas, illustrate the concept of media agenda- between structure and agency that power objects, events and properties. The list setting. relationships are played out. In media has been ordered vertically to move studies this debate can be seen in various from unstructured relationships to When creating a concept map a good guises: structured relationships where the link rule of thumb is to constrain it by only can be specified and finally to complex using AKO, APO, AFO, AEO and unlabelled • What degree of freedom do journalists relationships where the links may be ‘leads to’ links. Such parsimony tends to have in creating their reports? multiple, variable and the subject of produce concept maps which are easier debate. I will go through this list in to assimilate than those that employ an • Is it possible for readers to escape the sequence and give examples which might ‘anything goes’ approach to link types. ideological influence of media texts? be useful for both teachers and students.
Note that maps are abstractions and only • Is it possible for media creators to 1. Metaphor make sense when they are applied to escape the expression of dominant A visual metaphor uses a familiar image examples. This process also leads to critical ideological discourses? to convey the meaning of an abstract reflection on the map and the reader may idea. For example, we might use the scales then be able to suggest errors, omissions or In class teaching, unlabelled links are metaphor (figure 4) in discussions of alternative representations. acceptable at the beginning of an media power in a democracy and discuss investigation where the class is gathering the notion of ‘checks and balances’ which
Relationship Structure Example 1. Metaphor Pictorial representation Figures 4 , 24 2. Cluster Bulleted list Figure 1 Spider diagram Figure 5 3. Comparison Table Table 2 4. Taxonomy (‘kind of’ relationship) Tree Figures 6, 7, 8 5. Partonomy (‘part of’ relation- Tree ships) Organisation chart Figure 9 6. Temporal sequence Chain Figure 10 Cycle Figures 11, 12 7. Typology Linear scale Figure 13 Matrix Figures 14, 15 8. Levels Concentric circles Figure 16 Strata Figure 17 9. Interactions Cause-effect diagram Figures 18, 19 10. System flows Circuit Figures 20, 21, 22 Helix 11. Multiple interactions Network Figure 23 12. Assemblages Rhizome Figure 25 13. Overlapping conceptions Venn diagram Figure 26
Table 1: Relationships and possible visualisation structures media education journal 57 30
Traditionalist Free market (neoliberal) Public service • Media should uphold • Media have responsibility to • Media have a democratic responsibility traditional values owners and shareholders towards society • Media should uphold law • Media can use free market • Media must fulfil social functions of and order to deliver global wealth, providing information, equal access and • Media should uphold democracy and diversity to a public forum for different viewpoints ‘family values’ consumers • Media collectively should represent • Media should reflect • Public service media should diverse social groups and diverse traditional views of be privatised (e.g. universal viewpoints identity (e.g. gender, BBC license should be • Media should allow access to diverse ethnicity, sexuality, replaced by subscription) social groups culture) • Media should be deregulated • Media should be independent from • Media can have a harmful • There should be no barriers interference from business and effect on society to concentrated media government • Media need to be censored ownership. • Media should apply self-regulation with in respect of sex and regard to content and conduct violence • Media markets should be regulated to • Media are responsible for prevent domination by a single or a few ‘dumbing down’ society. large corporations • Media should set and meet standards with regards to conduct and the truth, accuracy, objectivity and balance • Media should avoid publicizing content that can offend or lead to disorder • Society is entitled to high standards and intervention justifiable if the media fail to meet these. Table 2: Comparison of three conceptions of the media
promote balanced power over unbalanced 3. Comparison Raymond Williams (1981) has provided power. With balanced power there is Sometimes a diagrammatic representation us with a simple but powerful way of relative symmetry between competing is not the most effective way of delivering the analysing the dynamics of cultural powers whereas imbalanced power has a complex information. When two or more change. He distinguishes between the relative asymmetry (Hearn, 2012: 7-9). In concepts/conceptions are being compared residual, the dominant and the emergent democracies, media regulation attempts then the most appropriate concept map is in cultural production. The residual is the to reduce the negative effects of media the traditional table. For example we could product of earlier and different societies power. This can be quickly conveyed by a compare three dominant conceptions of but lives on as still available significant visual metaphor as in figure 4. the role of media as in table 2. practices and values. Dominant cultural production uses the most influential 2. Cluster A good exercise for students would be practices and values of the present day. A cluster is an unordered set of items order the entries in the table 2 so that Emergent cultural production tries to related to a higher level concept. It can common features such as purpose, finance, move beyond the dominant and residual. be shown as a vertical bulleted list as in regulation, conception of audience etc. Looked at historically, a particular cultural several nodes in figure 1. The use of bullets could be compared across the table. They phenomenon will emerge, perhaps become (and hence lack of numerals or letters) would need to add a column headed dominant and then decline to a residual indicates that the order is unimportant. ‘Features’ at the left and then add rows for state or disappear altogether. each feature. In this way the simple table Clusters can also be represented as spider will have been restructured as a matrix. For example, looking at the historical diagrams. For example one might try to development of UK broadcasting, we map consumers’ images of a brand such Table 3 illustrates the threshold concept might identify its first phase as dominated as McDonald’s by mapping interviewees’ that values are an inescapable part of by the paternalistic monopoly of John comments on to a spider diagram as in debates about the media and media Reith’s BBC. This paternalism lives on as figure 5. policy. It illustrates the dilemma faced a residual traditionalist discourse which Radial diagrams are useful devices for by media policymakers trying to satisfy tries to mitigate negative media effects by brainstorming at the beginning of a class all stakeholders’ demands. An historical upholding ‘family values’. As commercial discussion or practical exercise. But by the examination of media systems is likely to broadcasting developed there emerged end of the topic it should be possible for show that systems reflect the dominant a new liberal pluralist discourse which students to produce much more structured values of the period. tried to balance commercial and public visualisations. service aims. Academic study of the media in the 1970s led to the emergence of a
media education journal 57 31 radical critique of both paternalism and a video games production company. Note producing four quadrants. For example in liberal pluralism. In the 1980s a neoliberal that such tree cannot show the flow of discussion of media ‘effects’ one will wish free market discourse emerged to drive project work through the company and to distinguish between long-term and the move to multichannel broadcasting it may be preferable use a visualisation short-term effects and between planned and became dominant over the residual which can show temporal sequences and and unplanned effects. Denis McQuail traditionalism and liberal pluralism. iterations. employs a typology of news and its effects The dominance of News Corp in media suggested by Peter Golding: markets and the criminal behaviour of 6. Temporal sequence redtop editors and journalists has led to The most obvious temporal sequence in “He argued that, in the case of news, an alliance between media academics, media analysis is narrative structure. For intended short-term effects may concerned journalists, victims of hacking example figure 10 shows two narrative be considered as ‘bias’; unintended and leftists/liberals. Thus pressure groups models represented as a chain (of events): short-term effects fall under the such as Hacked Off, the Campaign for Tzetvan Todorov’s model (Todorov, 1975) heading of ‘unwitting bias’; intended Press and Broadcasting Freedom and the and Kristin Thompson’s four act model of long-term effects indicate ‘policy’ Media Reform Coalition can be viewed Hollywood narrative (Thompson, 1999). (of the medium concerned); while as representing a re-emergence and unintended long-term effects of news articulation of earlier liberal pluralist and Note that the Todorov model could be are ‘ideology’.” radical discourses. represented as a cycle. Figure 11 is a (McQuail, 2010: 465) visualisation of Joseph Campbell’s hero’s 4. Taxonomy journey. The hero(ine)’s quest is employed McQuail uses Golding’s typology to set Taxonomies show ‘kind of’ relationships both consciously and unconsciously by up two axes: intention (intentional to and can be represented as tree diagrams many Hollywood scriptwriters (Vogler, unintentional) and time (short-term to with the superordinate category at the top 1996). long-term) as in figure 14 (adapted from and subcategories underneath. Taxonomies McQuail, 2010: 466). Various types of can be mapped as tree diagrams with AKO If we turn to media creation by students explanations of media effects can then links. Adding AEO links helps the reader then we could represent the sequence be assigned to one or more quadrants. connect the abstract concept to actual of pre-production, production, post- Such a map could form the basis for class examples. production as a chain. However I think discussion and examples from the media Figure 6 shows a taxonomy of national it is better to present the process as a (or classic studies thereof) could be plotted daily newspapers available in Scotland cycle to emphasise the iterative nature on a blank ‘graph’. Such a grid – with a one with examples of titles at the foot. Note of digital media production which makes or two examples in each quadrant – should that it might be better to use a table to it technically straightforward to return also prove an excellent device for planning represent this information and one could to previous stages (iterate) in order to an examination answer about different then add typical features of each ‘genre’ of revise ideas and then re-create and re-edit kinds of media effect. newspaper. content. Figure 7 is a taxonomy of film sound which The social impact of media has been lacks examples. An excellent exercise for For Higher Media it is useful to use a variously classified as fragmenting or learners is to add examples of these uses ‘compass diagram’ (figure 12) for planning unifying and there have been both of sound from their own film viewing and annotating media production ideas. optimistic and pessimistic evaluations of or from a compilation provided by the It is so-called because it should give these. This suggests a two-dimensional teacher. Or the teacher could ask students direction to a media production as well as typology with impact and evaluation to shoot and dub their own short clips encompassing eight of the points which as axes. Figure 15 shows this (based on illustrating each technique. The clips could should be considered in an SQA Media McQuail and Windahl, 1993: 129). then be edited together and intertitles practical assessment. used to introduce each. 8. Levels Note that a compass diagram can also be Sociologists trying to develop dynamic Figure 8 explains the challenging concept used to annotate observations from an models of social systems often resort of differential decoding through easily analysis of a professional production and to using spatial metaphors to visualise understandable examples. a teacher-led example of this can help relationships between different strata or students understand the standard required levels. In figure 16, a concentric circles 5. Partonomy for annotating their own work. model is used as a spatial metaphor for Partonomies show ‘part of’ relationships by analysing the infrastructural levels which splitting wholes into component parts. Like 7. Typology provide the contexts for the work of taxonomies they may be represented using Sociologists often borrow mathematical journalists (Shoemaker and Reese, 2014: tree diagrams. In the case of a physical representations such as scales, graphs, 9). object like a video camera it is better matrices and sets. These can allow us to Shoemaker and Reese’s model does not not to use a tree diagram but to use a show patterns in what might seem at first include the audience. It would be a schematic block diagram which shows the sight a chaotic ‘soup’ of different concepts/ productive exercise for students to develop physical layout and linking of parts. conceptions. Figure 13 uses a linear a similar model for individuals receiving However trees are often used in scale to plot different source-reporter rather than mediating media messages. organisation charts to show how an relations on a linear scale from low to high organisation or department is divided up. independence. When introducing such analyses to Conventionally links are unlabelled. On students I tend to start not with the media some, arrows show the line management The natural progression from this is to but with the familiar situation of the structure. Figure 9 shows the structure of use two scaled axes at right angles thus classroom and the various structures and media education journal 57 32
agents that affect teaching and learning. as: How does the capitalist system shape • What is the characteristic object of Once we have teased out the levels we can education? Does the education system cultural studies? ask questions which explore the structure- maintain and legitimate the capitalist • What is cultural studies about? agency couplet. Is creative agency possible system? Can education change the within restrictive structures such as capitalist system? For Johnson the characteristic object is resource-starved and highly routinised cultural forms or subjective forms. The secondary schools? Is creative agency Once these questions have been tackled (if terms are two sides of the same coin – one possible with the structures and strictures not answered!) one can then ask similar social and in the public sphere, the other of SQA assessment? questions of the media. subjective and in the private sphere of lived culture. For Johnson, cultural studies This suggests that we need to consider When considering the question of the is about the “subjective forms we live by”: more holistic models. The most famous of relative autonomy of the superstructure we these is Marx’s base-superstructure model. are experiencing the echo of the structure/ “It focuses on the “who I am” or, Colin McArthur describes it thus, using agency couplet at work in the sociological as important, the “who we are” of an architectural rather than a geological imagination. The question arises of exactly culture, on individual and collective metaphor: how the base-superstructure interaction identities. It connects with the most operates and this leads to considerations important structuralist insight: that “Marxism, analysing successive kinds of media effects and of ideology. subjectivities are produced, not given of society (slave, feudal and capitalist) . . . ” describes the social formation as 9. Interactions (Johnson, 1987: 43) rather like the several floors of a The dependency model of Ball-Rokeach house, the ground floor (thebase and DeFleur (1976) views effects as Subjective/cultural forms include or infrastructure) consisting of the being the result of three interdependent “language, signs, ideologies, discourses, forces of production and the social elements as in figure 18: the social myths” that we find in and around relations of production and the upper system (which can vary in terms of overall physical objects as well as media texts. floors (thesuperstructure ) consisting stability); the media system (which can By subjectivity Johnson includes not only first of all of the coercive factors of vary in response to the needs of the conscious cognitive activity but also the the state and the legal system and, society and audiences); and audiences unconscious elements or impulses that beyond that, of the factors concerned (who vary in terms of their social position, move us without being consciously known. primarily with live experience – the dependency on media and access to Unconscious elements will include not only family, religion, education, the arts media). As a result there will be variable the psychological unconscious (memories, and the mass media. cognitive, affective and behavioural desires and needs) but also socially learned effects on individuals and groups which in attitudes and behaviour which we draw The simile of the successive levels turn feed back into the social and media on without thinking, what Colin McArthur of a house is a particularly pertinent systems. (2003: 6) has termed the ‘discursive one since it poses the notion of a Effects studies tend to look at what the unconscious’. structural relationship among the media does to the audience. We need to various levels with the ‘ground floor’ balance this with considerations of what Johnson suggests that the two key being the most important in that it the audience does to media texts. Figure concerns for cultural studies are: holds the others up. 19 is a cause-effect diagram which tries to show the complex of factors at work as The pleasures and use values of All Marxians accept some form of well as multiple cycles as socially situated cultural forms. this analytic model although there individuals develop their media tastes and is considerable debate about the distastes. What are the outcomes of cultural forms? nature and extent of the dependence Do they reproduce dominant ideologies of the superstructure(s) upon the 10. System flows and existing forms of inequality? Or do base: some argue that the economic The Higher Media course requires they challenge existing forms of oppression base is very directly reflected in the learners to integrate textual key and point to alternatives? superstructure(s), others that the aspects (categories, language, narrative, superstructure(s), though ‘in the last representation) and contextual key aspects Let’s now consider Richard Johnson’s analysis’ dependent on the base, (institution, audience). In order to do this circuit of culture model. The word ‘circuit’ have a great degree of autonomy. it is useful to have a holistic model which is used rather than ‘cycle’ to suggest a flow This autonomy has the consequence displays these interactions. or flows. In this case there is a dual flow of of masking the relationship with meaning and money. the base and of allowing it to be Perhaps the most influential holistic model reciprocal, dialectical, rather than of media is found in Richard Johnson’s The simplest version (figure 20) has four the base simply acting in a one way seminal article What is Cultural Studies nodes: direction on the superstructure(s).” Anyway? (Johnson, 1987) On first reading (McArthur, 1980:2) this article can seem obscure but I have “All cultural products go through the found over the years that returning to it moments shown in [figure 19], though We could picture this as in figure 17. is rewarding because of its intellectual we can start the circuit at different Such a model only comes alive when one breadth and wisdom. points. The model fits face-to-face applies it to familiar situations. Again one exchanges or forms such as television could use education as context familiar Johnson seeks to answer his question by programmes or useful and meaningful to students and discuss questions such asking: objects such as personal hi-fi.
media education journal 57 33
Importantly, everyday life is both a the mode(s) of address and preferred ideologies over those of subordinate starting point (A) and an end point or meaning(s) appropriate to the perceived classes. result (E) of the process. In this model, target audience. These are decoded specialist cultural producers (B) make differentially by the audience due to This is of course not just a circuit of representations in the form of texts individual and social needs and differences. discourse but is driven by a circuit of (C). These are read under definite This process has consequences at the level capital. Money is key to the production, conditions (D) and have consequences of everyday social life. distribution, marketing and use of at the level of everyday life. There media content. Media production arises are, however, innumerable cultural Figure 20 showed a simplified version of from the entertainment, educational circuits, the conditions of which are the circuit of culture. Figure 22 shows and informational needs of users but is constantly in process, so they are, a version which I have adapted from exploited for financial gain, thus having a perhaps, more spirals than circuits.” Johnson’s 1987 article. First it suggests profound effect on the range and content (Johnson et al, 2004: 37-38) that the moment of publication (or public- of texts in circulation. Thus Johnson’s ation) of the text involves a shift from circuit is at the same time a circuit of Perhaps ‘spirals’ is the wrong word and the private sphere to the public sphere. capital and of culture reflecting of course ‘helices’ might be more appropriate For example, the private concepts of a Marx’s base-superstructure conception. because it suggests a third dimension, scriptwriter based on her life experience in this case of time. We might imagine are transformed into a movie and then The cycle also represents a transformation multiple but interlinked cultural helices enter the public realm where these of meaning from the private sphere which take place over regular intervals experiences come to represent a more particulars of our individual and social such as the daily news cycle and others general version of the human condition. lives to the more abstract debates of the with longer irregular periodicities such as Alternatively consider the 2015 claims of public sphere. Media texts are the primary those related to circulations of meanings PM David Cameron that we are undergoing medium of the public sphere and set the around social categories such as gender, an economic revival. These appear in the agenda for discussion of social, political race, class and age. public sphere of internet, television, radio and cultural issues in the media and in our and the press. In evaluating the validity everyday lives. An implication of this is that when we of that claim members of the audience analyse a text such as Coppola’s The will compare such abstract public sphere Johnson’s model was developed before the Godfather in its contexts we need to claims with their own personal lived rise of the internet and social media. So we ‘wind’ the helices back in time to the experience in the private sphere. would need to revise such models to take sociohistorical, institutional, intertextual account of media ‘production’ by sectors of and audience contexts at the time of its The cultural/subjective circuit can be seen the audience which is then distributed via production. as the circulation of ideological discourses. social media as well as by media producers As Catherine Belsey says: (for example, citizen journalist footage). Key aspects version of the circuit Some of this user-generated content may Johnson’s model is obviously relevant to “Ideology is inscribed in discourse in become viral and can within a few hours the SQA Higher Media course so it seems the sense that it is literally written spread globally via innumerable links natural to try to map the key aspects of or spoken in it; it is not a separate between old and new media. Trying to media literacy on to the diagram as in element which exists independently visualise this demands new metaphors. figure 21. in some free-floating realm of ‘ideas’ and is subsequently embodied in 11. Multiple interactions Many teachers and learners find these words, but a way of thinking, speaking Figure 22 suggests that each of the diagrams (and their more complex and experiencing.” (Belsey, 1980: 5). four nodes in the circuit are affected by versions) difficult to understand. So, other factors. Each stage of the circuit of as always in teaching, start where the We would want to extend Belsey’s culture depends on multiple networks of pupils are. Before thinking about media conception to multimodal page-based and interactions and infrastructure. Following communication, pupils should explore time-based texts thus: ideology is inscribed Ognyanova and Monge (2013), when simple circuit models as a way of thinking in multimodal ideological discourses. we think about the media and their about and abstracting the key elements economic, social and individual roles we of everyday face-to-face communications How individuals respond to ideological need a holistic model which helps us to such as joke-telling, arguments and discourses is fed back into lived culture cope with their textual and contextual classroom teaching. This should bring via what Bourdieu (1977) has called interconnections. The media system can out abstract ideas such as sender, text, habitus, the embodiment of cultural be viewed as having four major nodes: receiver, common culture, feedback, genre, representations in the habits and routines institutions, texts, audiences and society style, tone, multimodal communication of everyday life. This process not only and a diverse range of relationships and so on. reproduces common-sense ideologies and between these nodes. Each node can be discourses of dominant social powers but seen as existing in a dynamic network of Let’s now examine figure 21 and at the same time may provoke oppositional relationships. So the institutional node can paraphrase Johnson’s original text to fit in ideologies and discourses which challenge be viewed as emerging from a network with the SQA Media approach. In the key this dominance. Following Gramsci (1971) of internal and external links. Texts can aspects model, specialist media producers we might say that in stable democratic be seen as arising from a complex set of select aspects of society and create societies the process of hegemony is a intertextual links. The different audience (encode) representations in texts. Genre, ‘moving equilibrium’ with fluctuations responses can be seen as arising from a style, tone, media language, narrative in the relative dominance of ruling class mixture of individual and social differences and representational discourses construct as well as varying face-to-face and/or media education journal 57 34
on-line interactions. Society can be seen the course. It looks as if it was designed in watch any time or in any place or on any as a formation of economic, political and the 1980s; media studies locked in amber device. This has resulted in the emergence cultural institutions which have local, like the majority of other subjects. The of a presentational culture where the national and/or global linkages. growth of media education was motivated personal becomes the channel and the by a critique of traditional subjects, their filter of media and communication. This This separation of the media system into pedagogies and assessment methods. This individualization of address has been given four nodes is a gross simplification. The critical cutting edge is in danger of being added impetus by the rise of social media social is reflected in and constituted via forgotten. such as Facebook and Twitter which allow the other nodes. The audience is comprised each user to present an online identity. of not just the target audience but also of So what is wrong with the new course? As Marshall says, “presentational media media professionals who are looking for There seem to me to be at least two implies the public performance of self talent and innovative practice. Economic, elephants in the room that have been through the accoutrements of links and political and cultural institutions have overlooked: technology and globalisation. commentary.” (Marshall, 2011: 12) close links to the media institutions. Technology has been dropped as a key Representational media created a Such a model needs to be multilevel and aspect which seems astonishing given the mythical public sphere addressing the we need to think of three levels at least: way digital communications technology nation. This was attractive to journalists, has transformed media production and use soap scriptwriters, advertisers and • financial: the circulation of capital since the mid-1980s. And most teachers politicians. The individualised address of • network: the technological, cultural teach the course from a very ‘UK/US- presentational media and its linking facility and social links that facilitate the centric’ viewpoint. We need to adapt our has meant that the ‘public’ has now circulation of finance and meaning concept of media to the 21st century and fractured into myriad ‘micropublics’ inside • discursive: the circulation of social the way in which culture is distributed and and across nations. meanings. consumed globally. The rise and rise of presentational media To model this conception probably needs P David Marshall (2011) argues that there has not replaced representational media. us to move into the third dimension with a has been a shift from a ‘representational What we now have is a complex two-way set of Lego pieces! culture’ to one where we now have a flow between the two: both regimes share hybrid of ‘representational culture’ and links and allow content and comment I will resist that and merely suggest ways ‘presentational culture’ which he terms to flow between them. Blogs feed off in which we might visualise the complex (in my view rather unsatisfactorily) newspaper and broadcasting content and networks which shape each node. Rather ‘intercommunication’. in turn journalists and broadcasters exploit than nodes and links of computer network online content. Content from either regime diagrams I prefer to use tiled hexagons In representational culture, media forms can go viral, be shared across the globe (which can be created using Microsoft generally have a collective mode of and generate more content. This implies PowerPoint’s Smart Art graphics). I use address, embracing the population as a that media communication models such dotted lines to indicate that the hexagons whole. In politics, politicians represent as the circuit of culture developed prior are not sealed cells but allow the flow ‘the people’ and the government is an to the Internet need to reflect the flows of money, concepts, ideologies, content, expression of the ‘collective will’. In the and impacts of social media and user- people and so on. No diagram can fit all media, broadcasters such as Channel 4’s generated content. cases and should just be a guide as to Jon Snow act on the people’s behalf and We also need to change our conception what to look for in specific situations. hold politicians to account. The use of of the institutional operations of the ‘we’ and ‘us’ (in opposition to a range of media industries. What is required is an Figure 23 (adapted from Ognyanova and ‘thems’) signals that the audience is being understanding of how media corporations Monge, 2013) shows a network diagram invited to imagine a national community, satisfy our needs for entertainment, which fills out the Johnson model at each thus legitimating the ideological notion of information, education and social node and views the social system as the nation/community. The filter for news and interaction using representational and context for all intranodal and internodal culture are journalists and cultural pundits presentational media whilst they meet interactions. who select content on behalf of ‘us’. 1980s their own commercial and/or public service and 1990s UK television was a highpoint and/or promotional goals. The separation into separate nodes is a of representational media with television fiction created as an analytical aid. The events such as Diana’s funeral and live Let’s now consider globalization. actual situation can only be thought about sporting finals framed as if ‘we’ were all Arjun Appadurai says that its central as a highly complex convolution of linked watching the same event. problem is the tension between networks in a state of continual flux. cultural homogenization and cultural The explosion of multichannel pay heterogenisation and that this cannot 12. Assemblages television with Sky (and now BT) buying be understood in terms of traditional So far the visualisations presented would up major sporting rights has expanded sociological models. Instead the new global seem to be capable of enriching teaching the numbers of viewers globally but cultural economy has to be understood and learning in the SQA Media course. reduced the numbers who watch such as highly complex with both conjunctive Curiously the new course seems far more events nationally. The convergence of and disjunctive effects. Appadurai (1990: like academic media studies than the broadcasting with interactive media and 297-301) proposes a basic framework Media Studies qualification it replaced – at the internet has led to a personalised mode for examining these disjunctures which least Media Studies as it was in the mid- of address – ‘you tv’ rather than ‘we tv’: comprises five dimensions or ‘scapes’: 1980s. And that is the problem for me with you are individually offered content you
media education journal 57 35
Ethnoscape: “… the landscape of persons (whether religious, political or economic) Roger Griffin has also applied the rhizome who constitute the world in which we and even intimate face-to-face groups concept to the analysis of fundamentalist live: tourists, immigrants, refugees, exiles, such as villages, neighbourhoods and and antidemocratic terrorist groups: guestworkers and other moving groups families. Indeed the individual actor is and persons” and which “appear to affect the last locus of this perspectival set of “the concept ‘rhizome’ throws the politics of and between nations to a landscapes.” (Appadurai, 1990: 296) into relief its dynamic nature as a hitherto unprecedented degree.” Disjuncture seems to me to express polycratic movement by stressing the current UK zeitgeist. The old local that it does not operate like a single Technoscape: “the global configuration, and national certainties are gone. Most organism such as a tree with a tap- also ever fluid, of technology, and of UK citizens grew up in a nation-state root, branch and canopy, and with the fact that technology […] now moves ‘imagined community’ with national a well-defined inside and outside, at high speeds across various kinds of media providing a unified (if mythical) beginning and end. Instead it behaves previously impervious boundaries.” public sphere for rational debate. But the like the tangled root-system of some impacts of globalization, immigration and species of grass and tuber, displaying Finanscapes: the complex “global grid of personalized digital communications (not ‘multiple starts and beginnings capital of currency speculation and capital to mention of the possible break-up of the which intertwine and connect which transfer.” Union) has led to a transformation of the each other’, constantly producing conception of the public sphere. new shoots as others die off in an Mediascapes: “image-centred, narrative- unpredictable, asymmetrical pattern based accounts of strips of reality” which Marshall argues that within the nation- of growth and decay. If a political “constitute narratives of the ‘other’ and state, interactive media have allowed the network has a rhizomic political proto-narratives of possible lives, fantasies creation of local, regional and national structure it means that it forms a which could become the prolegomena ‘micropublic spheres’ which conjoin cellular, centreless, and leaderless [introduction] to the desire for acquisition with and clash with the dominant network with ill-defined boundaries and movement.” frames of the national public sphere. and no formal hierarchy or internal Furthermore Appadurai (1996) says that organisational structure to give it a Ideoscapes: like mediascapes, the international flow of people, fuelled by unified intelligence.” (Griffin, 2003: “concatenations of images” which are their search for a better life, has led to the 9-10) “often directly political and frequently emergence of multiple ‘diasporic spheres’. have to do with the ideologies of states Griffin concludes that their combined and the counter-ideologies of movements An overall effect of all these conjunctions effect is “to act as a pervasive ‘dark matter’ explicitly oriented to capturing state power is a shared general sense of disjuncture as latent within the liberal-capitalist cosmos” or a piece of it.” The Euro-American master cherished certainties of the Enlightenment which “could help ensure that the centre of narrative of the Enlightenment, with its (democracy, equality, debate, free speech) gravity of western democracies stays firmly master term democracy and satellite terms come under multiple attack. Appadurai on the right, an invisible counterweight like freedom, rights and sovereignty may comments, “one man’s imagined to visions of a shared humanity and social be understood in very different ways in community is another man’s political justice for all.” (Griffin, 2003: 29) different countries and cultures of the prison.” (Appadurai, 1990: 295) world. Is it possible to map this? One can How can we visualise this? French see elements of both Marx’s base- Appadurai argues that the global philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix superstructure model and Johnson’s circuit de-territorialised flows of people, Guattari (1980) utilise the rhizome of culture, but rather than strata and technologies, money, images and ideas concept from botany. A rhizome describes circuits we would seem to require a highly “occur in and through disjunctures” the multiple, horizontal, open dynamic convoluted constantly shifting formation between the five scapes: growth of underground tuber systems of intersecting scapes producing highly such as bulbs and common weeds which disjunctive perspectives. “[B]ecause of the disjunctive and flower from the root rather than a stem. unstable interplay of commerce, They pose the rhizome as a concept in Figure 25 tries inadequately to represent media, national policies and consumer opposition to the tree (see figure 24). Marshall’s and Appadurai’s arguments. fantasies, ethnicity, once a genie For example the oak tree has a single Given Appadurai’s use of a landscape contained in a bottle of some locality foundation, a tap root, from which, by metaphor it is surprising that he does (however large), has now become a a process of binary division, the whole not include the environment or the global force, forever slipping in and structure emerges. The tree metaphor is ‘enviroscape’. I have added this to make six through the cracks between states used as a metaphor for Western philosophy scapes. and borders.” with its preference for roots and trees (Appadurai, 1990: 306) over flows and rhizomes. The former Despite its flaws I find figure 25 instructive assumes that multiplicity emerges from a because it seems to relate to the world The suffix ‘scapes’ signals that these are single source whereas, with the rhizome we currently live in. One can see in it perspectival constructs “inflected very concept, multiplicity is substantive and not echoes of all the economic, political, much by the historical, linguistic and simply derived from a single source. The technological, environmental, religious political situatedness of different sorts technical infrastructure of the internet and and ethnic struggles that we see reflected of actors: nation-states, multinationals, its emergent social structures are areas in today’s media texts. It registers some diasporic communities, as well as sub- in which rhizomatic analysis has been of the changes that the media have gone national groupings and movements applied. through over the last two decades. It seems to me to provide some footholds media education journal 57 36
and handholds to scaffold discussion with Conclusion Johnson, R. (1987) ‘What is cultural studies students about recent historical events as Media studies is a subject which should anyway?’ Social Text, 16, 38–80. well as the changes in media and society. have a life beyond the examination hall. I Johnson, R., Chambers, D., Raghuram, P. suggest it can do this in two ways: and Tincknell, E. (2004) The Practice of 13. Overlapping Categories Cultural Studies. London, Sage. One problem of using nodes in • by using visualisations which aid Marshall, P. D. (2011) ‘The visualisations is that on the page they reflective thought and learning in any intercommunication challenge: developing separate what are in fact overlapping ideas subject or area of life a new lexicon of concepts for a or categories. However Venn diagrams can • by using texts/contexts which tackle transformed era of communication’. ICA be useful for picturing overlap. the key issues of the present and 2011: Proceedings of the 61st Annual ICA future (climate change, economics, Conference. Boston, MA: International Let’s apply this to the notion of the technology, global flows of people, Communications Association, 1-25. public sphere. The public sphere, as an media, ideologies). Mayer, J. H. F. and Land, R. (eds) informed public arena for the discussion (2008) Overcoming Barriers to Student of collective issues and concerns, is seen It would be a lie to suggest to students Understanding: threshold concepts as a cornerstone of a civil society and the that we will ever fully understand the and troublesome knowledge. London: media are viewed as its main locus. This complexities of the social world. But Routledge. of course raises concerns over access to, the least we can give them is tools for McArthur, C. (1980) Television and History. representation in, and commercialization thinking that allow them to visualise fields London: BFI. of, the public sphere. However as Bart of enquiry in complex, interconnected McArthur, C. (2003) “Brigadoon”, Cammaerts notes: and holistic ways. And such visualisation “Braveheart” and the Scots: distortions of skills should prove invaluable in crossing Scotland in Hollywood cinema. London: I. “media have evolved even more into learning thresholds throughout their lives. B. Tauris. a heavily contested battlefield for McQuail, D. (2010) McQuail’s Mass meanings to make sense of the world, References Communication Theory (6th edn). London: as well as for competing ideas of what Appadurai, A. (1990) ‘Disjuncture and Sage. citizenship — from a national, but difference in the global cultural economy’. McQuail, D. and Windahl, S. (1993) also increasingly also from a regional Theory Culture Society, 7, 295-310. Communication Models for the Study of or global perspective — entails. From Appadurai, A. (1996) Modernity at Large: Mass Communication. (2nd edn). London: this perspective the image of a unified cultural dimensions in globalization. Sage, rational and consensual Habermassian Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Ognyanova, K., & Monge, P. (2013) public sphere is difficult to sustain.” Press. ‘A multitheoretical, multilevel, (Cammaerts, 2007: 4) Ball-Rokeach, S. and DeFleur, M. L. (1976) multidimensional network model of the ‘A dependency model of mass media media system: production, content, and Rather than a single public sphere we need effects’. Communication Research, 3, 3-21. audiences’. Communication Yearbook, 37, the notion of multiple public spheres (such Belsey, C. (1980) Critical Practice. London: 67–94. as the micropublic and diasporic spheres Methuen. Scottish Qualifications Authority (2014) previously discussed) existing alongside a Bourdieu, P. (1977) Outline of Theory and SQA Higher Media course documents. dominant public sphere represented in a Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Accessed 29/04/2015 at http://www.sqa. nation’s broadcasting and press as in figure Press. org.uk/sqa/47908.html. 26 (adapted from Cammaerts, 2007: 4). Cammaerts, B. (2007) ‘Jamming the Shoemaker, P. J. and Reese, S. D. (2014) It uses a Venn diagram to visualize these political: beyond counter-hegemonic Mediating the Message in the 21st Century: multiple public spheres. We could divide practices’. Continuum: Journal of Media & a media sociology perspective. London: the alternative public spheres into those Cultural Studies, 21:1, 71-90. Routledge. that are autonomous from the dominant Campbell, J. (1949, 1988) The Hero with a Thompson, K. (1999) Storytelling in the sphere and those that are oppositional to it Thousand Faces. London: Paladin. New Hollywood: understanding classical and seek to intervene in rational debate. Deleuze, G. and Guattari, F. (1980) A narrative technique. Cambridge, MA: Thousand Plateaus. London: Continuum. Harvard University Press. We need also to distinguish between Golding, P. (1981) ‘The missing dimensions: Todorov, T. (1975) The Fantastic. New York: civil society and uncivil society. There are news media and the management of Cornell University Press. hate spheres outside or on the margins of change’. In E. Katz. And T. Szecsk (eds) Mass Vogler, C. (1996) The Writer’s Journey: civil society which promote hostility and Media and Social Change. London: Sage. mythic structure for storytellers and violence towards others. Some of these Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the screenwriters. London: Boxtree. (for example, the British National Party) Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Williams, R. (1981) Culture. Glasgow: may enter the oppositional sphere or even Wishart. Fontana. the dominant sphere (seeking election as Griffin, R. (2003) ‘From slime mould an MP). However other hate groups may to rhizome: an introduction to the mutate rhizomically into fundamentalist groupuscular right’. Patterns of Prejudice, terrorist groups such as ISIS which operate 37:1, 27-50. across state boundaries. This implies Hearn, J. (2012) Theorizing Power. that we have to consider public spheres Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. as being not just intranational, but also Instrell, R. (2014) ‘Barriers and thresholds international. in learning media studies: part 2’. Media Education Journal, 56, 13-17.
media education journal 57 37
a regular feature in which contributors revisit scenes Close-Up and Personal in films that have a particular resonance for them
Facing Up To Franju: Les Yeux sans visage (Eyes Without a Face)
Tina Stockman
have only seen one horror film. Its powerful imagery and laughing about it makes me less scared. Perhaps a modern Iunforgettable soundtrack remain with me to this day. I don’t audience, ‘inoculated’ against such fear by programmes such as need to see another horror film as this one, which I first saw Botched Up Bodies (Channel 5 2015); Pete Burns’ Plastic Surgery in 1965, has continued to horrify me for nearly fifty years and Nightmares (ITV 2006) and even TOWIE (ITV 2011- eternity) ) returns, rather like chronic indigestion, to haunt me in my would findLes Yeux sans visage very tame fare. Indeed, I noticed blackest moments. Writing this article has forced me to re-watch an article in the Times of 20 February, 2015 about a new medical the film and ensure that I will remain haunted forever. drama series, Critical. The article, headlined ‘Critical does more medicine in an hour than any other medical drama’, was I am speaking of George Franju’s influential masterpieceLes accompanied by a still from the series showing a group of medics Yeux sans visage,(1960). Franju gathered together a team of performing surgery on the face of an unconscious patient. It was extraordinary talents to create this film. It was based on a eerily reminiscent of the infamous face transplant scene in Les novel by Jean Redon, with a screenplay involving both Franju Yeux sans visage, deemed so horrific that seven members of the and Redon as well as Claude Sautet, Pierre Boileau and Thomas audience at the 1960 Edinburgh Festival première fainted – yet Narcejac (aka Boileau-Narcejac). Starring Pierre Brasseur, Edith here was a similar scene presented on the arts pages of a popular Scob and Alida Valli, it was shot in black and white by Eugen newspaper. I must say that my media studies students managed Schüfftan. The soundtrack was by Maurice Jarre and I can to stay conscious throughout the film – their main reaction being assure you, once heard, never forgotten. In Les Yeux sans visage, to direct a cold-eyed stare of horror-starved disappointment Franju’s tightly disciplined direction and Schüfftan’s amazing towards me at the end. cinematographic imagination combined with Maurice Jarre’s unnerving soundtrack creates a masterwork that somehow blends Synopsis directorial restraint, lyricism and poetry with stark horror. Dr. Genéssier, (Pierre Brasseur) a skilled and successful doctor has suffered two personal tragedies. After the death of his wife, The film opened to mixed critical success but has since become he accidentally disfigured the face of his daughter Christiane revered as an influential cult film inspiring directors such as (Edith Scob) in a reckless car crash. Motivated by guilt or possibly John Carpenter (Halloween 1978), John Woo (Face/Off 1997), professional ambition, he embarks on an obsessive mission to Jesús Franco (Gritos en la noche 1962), and more recently Pedro repair his daughter’s face by grafting the faces of beautiful, Almodóvar (La piel que habito 2011) to name but a few. kidnapped and - importantly - living girls (the ‘heterograft’) onto her ruined face. His devoted assistant, Louise (Alida Valli), That the film is so restrained – and so disturbing – in its depiction indebted to him for restoring her face to its original beauty, of horrific events is not quite by chance. As a cautionary measure, is assigned the task of ensnaring attractive young women for fear of upsetting the sensibilities of European censors, the for his fanatical (and unsuccessful) attempts to reconstruct producer, Jules Borkon, advised Franju not to show animals being his daughter’s face. Using the faceless corpse of a victim of abused (British censors), mad scientists (German censors) or too a botched operation, Genéssier fakes Christiane’s suicide. The much blood (French censors). desolate, Givenchy-gowned Christiane, the open wound of her face concealed under an expressionless mask, glides through Consequently, we see – or think we see – the murderous, crazed her father’s home/hospital/laboratory longing for the release of doctor having his face ravaged by justice-driven dogs (ah!), the death. She comforts herself by befriending the caged lab dogs murderous, crazed doctor having a caring, softer side (aah!) and held in the basement and making silent telephone calls to her a single, five minute, climactic scene of incredible, unforgettable erstwhile fiancé, Jacques Vernon (Francois Guérin). Jacques, a gore (aaaaaaah!) hitherto trusting student of Genéssier, becomes suspicious and calls the police. The police, impressed by Genéssier’s professional In the grand tradition of mocking that which you fear, I’ve status and imperious manner, remain convinced of his innocence begun by being flippant about this excellent film simply because and go away leaving the girl they have deployed as a decoy at his media education journal 57 38
mercy. By the very nature of the ‘heterograft’ Christiane is forced, relatively recently that feminist film criticism has been applied to along with the audience, to witness the grisly removal of the Franju’s work. girls’ faces. Eventually she can stand it no more and overwhelmed by a mixture of pity and retribution, she stabs Louise, releases the Ince is not without her critics. Michael Du Plessis (2007) argues latest victim and frees the dogs – which immediately set about that, “Ince’s account of Franju feels less like an argument and mauling her father to death (face first). The film ends with her more like the assertion of questionable personal preferences for wandering through the grounds of the house, doves fluttering realism over the apparently troublesome aesthetic interzone around her. constituted by Franju’s work”. Troublesome not just for Kate Ince, I would suggest. Comment The film lends itself to many forms of interpretation and it A number of specialists in film studies allude to the film’s is gratifying that it has at last been given the recognition it historico-political aspect, with particular reference to the deserves. I can only make cursory reference to the ever growing complicity of France in the horrors of WW2. Donato Totaro, body of theoretical discussion and argument it has provoked in (2009) writes that Les Yeux sans visage was one of the first horror the fields of history, politics, gender and body studies, sociology, films to elicit references to military torture. He senses that there psychology, philosophy, anthropology as well as film and art is a direct, yet subtle, reference to the Vichy regime and French theory and criticism. collaborators in the scene where a female patient (actually a police accomplice) asks if Dr Génessier is going to shave her head I looked first to the comments of Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert – before operating on her. He replies, “I hope not. It would be a probably among the best known and reliable of film critics. Kael shame”. Totaro sees this as a direct reference to the shaving of (1964) saw it as a symbolist attack on science and the ethics the heads of women accused of fraternising with the Germans of medicine, “ . . . a horror film that takes itself very seriously, during the Liberation. The film came out during the Algerian War and even though I thought its intellectual pretensions silly, I (1954-1962) and Totaro also argues that, alternatively, the scenes couldn’t shake off the exquisite, dread images”. Like me, she of horror might also refer to this war. found it repellent – yet beautiful and memorable. Ebert (2003) was more enthusiastic and found himself riveted by the story, Some writers differ over Totaro’s interpretation and argue stating that “ . . . Franju constructs an elegant visual work: here that Franju did not make the film with the explicit intention is a horror movie in which the shrieks are not by the characters of commenting on France’s history. Curtis Bowman (2002) but by the images”. Of course, by the time Ebert was writing, challenges the opinions of three commentators on the film, hospital operations were the fodder of popular entertainment Reynold Humphries (2002), Joan Hawkins (2002) and Adam and the audience was immune to the horror of the ‘actual’ face Lowenstein (2002). He suggests that the film is open to non- transplant and more susceptible to the implied horror of medical political interpretation and that although, “facts about occupied malpractice. Other commentators on the film include the horror and post-war France are relevant to understanding the film . . . novelist Patrick McGrath (2002) – who has more experience we should turn to them only as a last resort”. I found Bowman’s than most of madness and threat as his father worked as a argument simplistic but it did bring my attention to the forensic psychiatrist at Broadmoor – and for a wildly enthusiastic interesting work of the commentators Bowman appears to reject review of the film, view Mark Kermode’s ‘Cult Film Corner’ on and it is well worth going to the Kinoeye on-line film journal and Mark Radcliffe’s mid 90s Radio 1 evening show, which includes reading their contributions. a deliriously OTT description of the scariest scene of all (www. youtube.com/watch?v=XawllNqZf4o). David MacDougall (2005), ethnographic filmmaker and film scholar, has written widely on the connection of film to Out of a number of books, journals and on-line articles and anthropology. He has considered the relationship between the reviews, I found work by specialists in film and gender studies, photographic image of the body and the human body itself from Kate Ince (2005) and Elizabeth Cowie (2009), especially relevant. the stance of the viewer as well as the body behind the camera. Elizabeth Cowie describes the disturbing and lasting effect the When writing of Les Yeux sans visage in his book of essays he film has had on her personally. She alludes to Jacques Lacan’s provides a graphic comment on the ‘heterograft’ operation scene: (1973) concept of jouissance (loosely, the blurring of boundaries “The banality of everyday life surrounds these proceedings. Here between pleasure and pain) in relation to the lure of the horror the viewer is also implicated, drawn closer to the bodies by the film which engages “ . . . us in a compulsive return to look, to doctor’s fumbling attempts and failures. Their agency of this film watch, to know what we dread, snare us in the uncanny, in the is like a contagion.” pleasure/unpleasure of repetition”. Cowie compares Franju’s comment about the film being “ . . . horror in homeopathic doses,’ I found myself taking an oblique look at literature not directly with Lacan’s view of anxiety “ . . . it is necessary to canalise it and concerned with the film but of great value in enhancing my . . . to take it in small doses, so that one is not overcome by it”. understanding of it. As both Elisabeth Cowie and Kate Ince had referred to psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, I did some – minimal – Kate Ince (2005) tackles the enigma of Franju’s “displaced background exploration. Lacan was an associate of Andre Breton, relationship to film history”. She gives great insight into Franju’s Salvador Dali, Georges Bataille and Pablo Picasso. Not surprisingly, work and attitudes by first looking at his early documentary I was struck by the aptness of Lacan’s psychoanalytical writings works and examining them “through the prism of genre”. She (1966) regarding Les Yeux sans visage, particularly his observation then analyses and expands the more frequently researched field that a child forms the first impressions of self and identity of Franju’s cinematic aesthetics. However, it was her final chapter, by looking in a mirror, ‘the Mirror Stage’. As I read this, I was encompassing gender identity, family structure and sexuality, that reminded of Christiane gazing at her ravaged face and mourning drew my particular attention, not only because I considered these not only the loss of her identity as a beautiful adult woman but the pivotal issues of Les Yeux sans visage but also because it is also her future identity as a wife and mother. Psychoanalyst
media education journal 57 39 Susie Orbach (2009) discusses, ‘beauty terror,’ seeing it as the struggle of women, ‘to recorporealise our bodies so they become a place we live from rather than an aspiration always needing to be achieved’. The current urge to have slices carved off the body or injected with toxic substances in the quest for perfection is further discussed by sociologist Debra Gimlin (2002).
It was as I was trying to work my way through each of the one hundred and twenty one IMDb external reviews of Les Yeux sans visage while flipping through a copy of Pierre Bourdieu’s book, Masculine Domination (2002) and wondering where I could relevantly include comments from Stefanos Geroulanos (2013), David Kalat (2013), Tim Lucas (2008), Patrick McGrath (2013) and Mary Pharr (2008) that I realised I had to stop. I had Shot 2 (00:02:04 – 00:02.18) far more references than I could possibly include in this article Image: Fade in from black to exterior MCU of the brightly lit, and could have continued for months discovering information uneasy but flawlessly handsome face of a woman who (we later from the copious analytical literature now associated with this learn) is Dr Genessier’s assistant, Louise, her eyes wide with fascinatingly complex film. anxiety, framed by the windscreen. Shots of Louise tend to be shot at eye-level, creating an almost collaborative feeling for the Analysis of the opening sequence viewer. POV shifted to exterior viewer. The back seat remains in The character in this sequence is Louise, Dr. Genéssier’s faithful shadow. The windscreen wipers are stuck in a halfway position, assistant. As this sequence is at the start of the film, the audience cutting obliquely across her face – disturbing. The lower part of don’t yet know this but I refer to her as ‘Louise’ rather than ‘the the windscreen is misted up and Louise wipes it anxiously with woman’ etc. for convenience. her black-gloved hand. Franju’s desire to create an ‘anxiety’ film is evident from the start. Everything is so unsettling. Here we have an omniscient POV, with the car and its passengers being viewed from outside. Is that windscreen condensation caused by Louise’s breath - or something else? How big Louise’s eyes appear. The jingling music is at odds with her soberly elegant dress and tense expression. Sound: ND: The music restarts quietly and grows gradually louder. Although retaining the undulating rhythm, there is an added air of anxiety suggested by slight change in tempo. Diegetic (D): Sound of a car on road surface.
Shot 1 (00:00:00 – 00:02:04) Image: The film is shot in black and white. The opening credits appear in a clinically white Roman typeface over a tracking shot of a road, lit by a car’s headlights and fringed with bare and ghostly pale trees. This ominous background establishes the tone (sombre), genre (horror) time period (20th century) season (winter) and place (remote countryside). Fade out to black. I’m frightened already. The misty shades of grey (more than 50) and forbidding shadows lend a tragic, desperate air at odds with the tinkling soundtrack. The disparity between the straight tracking Shot 3 (00:02.18 – 00:02:23) shot, the merry-go-round music and the apparently random Image: Cut back to the road, its surface lit by the car headlights. appearance of the credits is disconcerting to say the least. The Travelling shot from Louise’s POV within the car. The shifting POV (Point of View) is that of a driver looking through a car POVs are unnerving. This time it is Louise’s POV looking through windscreen. Twice, the driver appears to negotiate a curve in the the windscreen along the road . . . road. Sound: ND: . . . music – no break from previous shot (music Sound: Non-Diegetic (ND) After 15 seconds of silence, three bridges the transition). The undulating rhythm continues . . . harsh chords are struck. In the following rather tinny music, D: Continuing sound of a car on road surface. reminiscent of a fairground carousel or hurdy-gurdy, one can detect (staccato) violin; accordion, organ, clarinet? saxophone? Shot 4 (00:02:23 – 00:02:30) and a compulsive percussion. In ¾ time like an old fashioned Image Cut to an exterior, profile MCU, with sporadic light waltz or German ländler, it hints at circular motion – in contrast and shade crossing the windscreen. Louise’s expression clearly to the linear nature of the shot down the avenue of trees. The becoming more tense. Shift to omniscient POV, looking into credits do not appear in time with the music or follow its rhythm. the car to the ever more jittery Louise – her anxiety conveyed Music slows and fades to silence as the scene fades to black. not only by her expression and general mien, but also by the madhouse music . . .
media education journal 57 40
desperation now suggested by swirling sounds punctuated with staccato notes, increased tempo, variation in volume, sustained chords . . . D . . . sound of a car on road surface diminished.
Shot 4 Sound: ND: . . . no break in music. Sense of anxiety suggested by increased tempo, variation in volume and inclusion of sustained chords . . . D: Sound of a car on road surface diminished. Shot 7 (00:02:48 – 00:02:58) Image: Interior mirror shot as Louise adjusts the interior rear view mirror with her gloved hand. MCU allowing a glimpse of the upper body of a slumped, figure with a man’s hat pulled over the face, rocking with the motion of the car. Shift to backseat POV as Louise adjusts the mirror, allowing us to realise that we are not alone . . . Sound: ND: No break in music but its volume and clarity are diminished by . . . D: Sound of car movement on the road
Shot 5 (00:02:30 – 00:02:42) Image: MCU, OTS (Over the Shoulder), travelling shot from car interior, affording both a view of the well-lit road ahead, with road signs, walls and fences and the back of Louise’s shiny leather coat and coif-like headscarf. The car swerves through another curve. Backseat POV – whose POV can that be? We will soon find out and wish we hadn’t. Sound: ND: . . . no break in music. Sense of panic and desperation now suggested by swirling sound as well as increased tempo, variation in volume, sustained chords . . . D: Sound of a car on road surface increasing at end of the shot Shot 8 (00:02:58 - 00:03:12) Image: Cut to interior MCU of Louise’s fully-lit apprehensive face as she becomes aware of the headlights of another vehicle coming into view behind her car. She turns to face the oncoming lights, turns back and determinedly drives on as the car approaches. Before we can learn too much about the figure in the backseat (beyond its hat) we are back outside looking in as a lorry starts to come into view behind Louise’s car. I wish she would keep her eyes on the road – she might kill someone . . . Sound: ND: No break in music. As if reflecting Louise’s mounting trepidation it increases in volume and clarity as the camera returns to the interior of the car and focuses once more on Louise D: Considerably increased road noise, indicating the imminent presence of another vehicle.
Shot 6 (00:02:42 - 00:02:48) Shot 9 (00:03:12 – 00:03:17) Image: Cut back to exterior, profile MCU, with sporadic light and Image: Cut to interior MCU of slumped figure, back-lit by the shade crossing the windscreen. Louise’s expression grimmer still headlights of the approaching vehicle. It can now be seen to and the mist on the windscreen more in evidence. Shift to outside be wearing a man’s trench-coat as well as a man’s hat. POV a looking in. Louise looks tenser than ever. The road noise increases passenger? Camera appears to be in the front seat beside the . . . why is the car so misty on the inside? driver, looking back at the body. The dazzle of the overtaking Sound: ND . . . no break in music. Sense of anxiety and vehicle’s headlights in the rear window, the mix of non-diegetic
media education journal 57 41 from car to river bank. POV shifted to front seat again, looking back at what may be a guy - in all senses of the word. The sudden lurch of the body is shockingly scary . . . Sound: ND: . . . music continues . . . D: . . . road noise just detectable.
Shot 9 and diegetic sound create an even greater sense of confusion anxiety - and a growing sense of horror and menace . . . Sound: ND . . . no break in music which continues to increase in volume and dramatic urgency for this interior shot of the slumped body . . . Shot 12 (00:03:44 - 00:03:57) D: . . . increased road noise at end of this shot as second vehicle Image: Wide angle exterior LS of a fast flowing weir. Headlights approaches, continuing over to next shot . . . of a car appear in the road beside the river. It draws forward and stops, revealing the full exterior of Louise’s Citroën 2CV. Sound: After the almost dream-like journey to the accompaniment of Jarre’s score, it’s back to the ‘real’ world’. There is no non-diegetic sound in this and following exterior shots. D: . . . continuous sound of rushing water, sound of car drawing up by the river bank
Shot 10 (00:03:17 – 00.03.25) Image: Cut to interior MCU of Louise in semi- silhouetted profile. The approaching vehicle is seen through her side window as it overtakes and passes Louise’s car. Louise is visibly relieved and drops her head briefly into her left hand. POV omniscient. The harsh gravelly sound of the overtaking vehicle brings a sense of reality after the surreal nature of the score. Louise should really Shot 13a (00:03:57 - 00:04:27) keep her eyes on the road! Image: Cut to side LS of the car. Louise emerges through the Sound: ND . . . music diminishes but continues driver’s door in her shiny raincoat. She pauses briefly, turns and D . . . sound of overtaking vehicle virtually drowning out the opens the back door. She stoops, drags out the figure from the music . . . back seat and hauls it forwards. ND . . . music returns and increases in volume once vehicle passes Louise’s car.
Shot 13b (00:04:27 - 00:04:38) Shot 11 (00.03.25 - 00:03:44) Light, entering from left of screen, proves sufficient to show it Image: Cut to dimly-lit interior CU of slumped figure, which flops to be a female corpse with bare white legs dangling below the to one side with the uneven motion of the car. Cross dissolve trenchcoat. The camera follows Louise as she manoeuvres the
media education journal 57 42 inert body towards the river. They move to the left until only the river bank is in view. POV shifts to exterior, omniscient view and remains there to the end of this sequence. How efficiently Louise deals with the disposal of the corpse. Has she done this before? Sound: D: . . . continuous background sound of rushing water; front door slams as Louise emerges from car; sound of Louise opening the back door to extract the body; door slams shut once body is removed.
Shot 16
References and further reading Bourdieu, Pierre (2002) Masculine Domination, Stanford University Press, Bowman, Curtis (2002) ’A film without politics’, Kinoeye on-line film journal,www.kinoeye.org Cowie, Elisabeth (2002) ‘Anxiety, ethics and horror: George Franju’s Les Yeux sans visage’, Kinoeye on-line film journal,www. Shot 14 (00:04:38 – 00:04:56) kinoeye.org Image: Cut to medium shot of Louise. The camera tracks her Du Plessis, Michael (2007) ‘Fantasies of the Institution: The Films as she continues to lug the body along the river bank. The two of Georges Franju and Ince’s Georges Franju’, Film-Philosophy 11, figures are illuminated as Louise, turning away from the camera, Ebert, Roger (2003) http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/eyes- heaves the body towards the river. Louise manages to stay without-a-face-2003 elegant and unsullied even when dragging a lifeless adult body Geroulanos, Stefanos (2013) ‘Postwar Facial Reconstruction: on a damp river path. She (the character) must be physically and Georges Franju’s Eyes Without a Face’, French Politics, Culture, and mentally strong to perform this terrible action. Society 31 Sound: D: . . . continuous background sound of rushing water; Gimlin Debra (2002) Body Work: Beauty and Self-Image in Louise’s footstep on the river bank; slight sound of the drag of American Culture, University of California Press the body. Hawkins, Joan (2000) Cutting Edge: Art Horror and the Horrific Avant-garde, University of Minnesota Press Humphries, Reynolds (2002) ‘Dr Franju’s “House of Pain” and the political cutting edge of horror’, Kinoeye on-line film journal, www.kinoeye.org Ince, Kate (2005) George Franju, Manchester University Press Kael, Pauline (1964) ‘Are Movies Going to Pieces?’ Atlantic Monthly, December Kalat, David (2013) ‘Eyes Without a Face: The Unreal Reality’, http://www.criterion.com/current/posts/343-eyes-without-a- face-the-unreal-reality Lacan, J. (2001) ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I as Revealed in Psychoanalytic Experience’, in Écrits: a selection, London: Routledge Classics Lacan, J. (1982) ‘God and the Jouissance of the Woman’, from Shot 15 (04:56 – 00:04:59) Encore, Seminar XX, transl. by J. Rose in J. Mitchell and J. Rose Image: Brief cut to medium OTS shot showing Louise actually (eds.), Feminine Sexuality, New York: W.W. Norton & Co. pitching the body into the water. The shot is dark with specks Lowenstein, Adam (2002) Films Without a Face: Shock Horror in of light catching Louise’s coat and the splash of the water. The the Cinema of Georges Franju, Kinoeye on-line film journal,www. general darkness of the scene, the rushing water, the occasional kinoeye.org glint of light, make this scene coldly terrifying. Lucas, Tim (2008) ‘Les Yeux sans visage, The Horror Chamber of Sound: D: . . . continuous background sound of rushing water; the Dr. Faustus/The Manster, Sight & Sound, Vol. 18 splash as Louise pitches the body into the water. MacDougall, David (2005) The Corporeal Image; film, ethnography and the senses, Princeton University Press Shot 16 (00:04:59 – 00:05:11) McGrath, Patrick (2013) ‘Appearances to the Contrary: Eyes Cut to MCU of Louise’s starkly lit face expressing both relief and Without a Face’ http://www.criterion.com/films/950-eyes- guilt. She backs away, staring at the point in the river where she without-a-face flung the body, before turning and walking back to her car. We Pharr, Mary (2008) ‘The lab and the woods: science and myth in now have all the information we need to know there are horrors Les Yeux sans visage’, Science Fiction Film & Television, Vol 1 ahead. We, the audience have eyes – but no face. Fade to black. Totaro Donato (2009) ‘Martyrs: Evoking France’s Cinematic and Sound: D: . . . continuous background sound of rushing water; Historical Past’, filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.com Louise’s retreating footsteps as she walks back to the car.
media education journal 57 43 reviews
– Communication for and by the whole industry matters affecting them, Health and Social Change value chain. It is hoped that and to have their views addressing their rights of these actions would provide taken seriously. access and participation and benefits for: the consequent effect on • Every child must be free their wellbeing; Statistical • The children – by to say what they think indicators on children in the improving their digital and to seek and receive world, presenting indicators and media literacy skills all kinds of information, valid for children and and encouraging creative as long as it is within the adolescents, using UNICEF’s and educational online law. The State of the World’s content; Children 2012 and World • Every child has the Health Organisation statistics • Parents and children – right to reliable and publications 2012-2013. by developing effective information from the As the book makes and accessible tools for media. This should Young People, Media and reference to a number reporting abuse, age be information that Health : Risks and Rights, of significant initiatives appropriate privacy children can understand. Cecilia Von Feilitzen and organisations, it does settings, content Governments must help & Johanna Stenersen require at least some passing classification schemes protect children from (eds), The International background knowledge and and parental controls; materials that could Clearinghouse on awareness of the following: harm them. Children, Youth and Media, • Society at large – by Nordicom, 2014, 250 kr, 1. European Commission’s providing better 4. The 8 Millenium 202pp, ISSN 1651-6028, ‘Strategy for a Better procedures for Development Goals are to: ISBN 978-91-86523-89-3 Internet for Children’ – identifying, notifying In view of my professional http://ec.europa.eu/digital- and taking down online • eradicate extreme involvement in both media agenda/en/european-strategy child sexual abuse poverty and hunger education and pastoral care, material. the Clearinghouse Yearbook 2. The multinational • achieve universal 2014, Young People, Media research network, EU 2. EU Kids on Line is a primary education and Health, Risks and Kids Online, funded by multinational research Rights, a collection of the EC’s Better Internet network that seeks to • promote gender equality inter-disciplinary academic for Kids, www.lse.ac.uk/ improve and disseminate: and empower women articles edited by Professor EUKidsOnlineFinalReport Cecilia von Feilitzen • knowledge of children’s • reduce child mortality (Sodertorn University) and 3. The United Nations online opportunities, Johanna Stenersen (Örebro Convention on the Rights risks and safety. Using • improve maternal health University) is of great of the Child (UNCRC) www. multiple methods, it interest to me personally – unicef.org.uk/ maps; • combat HIV/Aids/malaria and, I would suggest, to all and other diseases those involved in the care 4. The 8 Millenium • children’s and parents’ and education of young Development Goals, www. experience of the • ensure environmental people. un.org/millenniumgoals/ internet, in dialogue with sustainability The book, funded by the national and European European Commission’s 5. Nordicom, www.norden. policy; • create a global ‘Better Internet for Kids’, org/ partnership for focuses on children and • stakeholders. development young people in relation Here is some brief to media and health issues. information regarding the 3. UNCRC – with particular 5. NORDICOM is a co- It falls into three sections, above. reference to articles 12, operative knowledge centre Media Use and Health 13 and 17 which state specialising in media and Risks, dealing with the 1. The “Strategy for a respectively that: communication research. possible risks to the healthy Better Internet for Children” Although having roots in young people regarding proposed a series of actions • Every child has the right the five Nordic countries - their use of the media; to be undertaken by the to have a say in all Denmark, Finland, Iceland, The Right to Participation Commission, Member States Norway and Sweden - media education journal 57 44
NORDICOM’s research has in ‘Mediated Violence marketing techniques can sexuality, HIV, alcohol global significance as it and Related Risk Factors. impact on children’s weight use, HIV, etc. Finally, in encompasses a wide network Examples and Reflections’, and risk of obesity. Bu Wei’s article, ‘Talking of contacts and collaboration presents recent findings on The second section, ‘The about Violence with with researchers, the the risk factors associated Right to Participation – Children: A Case Study of media industry, politicians, with media violence – Communication for Health Children’s Participation in regulators, teachers, one of the most heavily and Social Change’ begins the Communication Plan on librarians, etc. Regarding researched of media issues. with an article by Rafael Stopping Violence against research on young people Set against a background Obregón and Ángela Rojas Children in China’, she and the media worldwide – a of the Egyptian revolution Martínez, ‘Communication writes of a workshop run key aspect of the centre’s 2011, Ibrahim Saleh, in his and Health of Children and for migrant children in a work – Nordicom started the article, ‘Stealing Children’s Adolescents, Toward a Child Chinese village, supporting International Clearinghouse Innocence in Egypt: Media and Adolescent-centered the development of a on Children, Youth and Literacy, Human Rights and Approach’ in which they communication plan for Media in 1997, at the request Roads of Violence’, reflects discuss the importance of preventing violence against of UNESCO. The work of on the interplay between the media in the process children (VAC). the Clearinghouse concerns the role of the media and of change and the right of The third section, young people and their use other influences on familial the young to participate ‘Statistical Indicators on of the media and provides a violence and external actively and positively. Children in the World: basis for decision-making, socialisation processes. They discuss the concept of Demographics, Economic a contribution to public Jeanne Prinsloo, in communication for social Indicators, Education and debate and the promotion of ‘Sexualisation and Children’s change (CFSC) illustrating Media & Health’, presents young people’s media and Relationship with the Media’, its principles using two a selection of indicators information literacy. considers structuralist and case studies from Colombia. based on data gleaned from I do not normally provide post structuralist approaches In the next article, by UNICEF and the WHO. an item-by-item outline of to the much discussed issue Johanna Stenersen, ‘Body The statistical indicators a book containing edited of the media’s role in the Politics and the Mediated fall into four groups, i.e. articles but in this case I sexualisation of young Body: Young Women in demographic, economic, considered it worthwhile as people. This half of the book Nicaragua Talk about Sexual education and media, health. the wide ranging articles also includes two medical and Reproductive Rights’ Although I can only could be of interest to an articles by paediatricians, demonstrates how a local make comments with any equally broad range of one being from The radio show produced by kind of confidence on those researchers, carers and American Academy of young women illustrates the articles which address my educationalists. I found all Pediatrics, with Victor C. significance of community professional concerns, I the articles readable and Strasburger as lead author, based communication reiterate that I found all of informative but some will be which presents a summary in highlighting sensitive the articles readable and of particular significance to of international research issues such as gender relatively jargon-free. I refer specialists within the field. on ‘Children, Adolescents, equality, discrimination and not only to the technical After a detailed foreword Obesity and the Media’. The oppression. language of media studies and introduction by second medical article by Arvind Singhal’s but also to that of the social the editors, section one, Markus Dworak and Alfred article, ‘Youth, Media, and and medical sciences. This ‘Media Use and Health Wiater expands the issue Respectful Conversations makes the book of interest Risks’, begins with ‘The of the ‘Impact of Excessive about Health: Lessons to a lay reader and also Relationship between Media Exposure on Sleep Learned from an Exemplary facilitates inter-disciplinary Offline and Online Risks’ and Memory in Children Project in Nepal’, analyses communication. My by Leslie Haddon and Sonia and Adolescents’. In ‘Too a long running Nepalese professional interests tend to Livingstone. This article uses Many Screens, Too Much radio initiative which allows make me regard the findings findings from the EU Kids Stuff, How Media, Marketing youngsters to openly and presented in the first section Online project to examine and Commercialisation Are honestly discuss important of the book, Media Use and the effect, harmful or Harming Children’s Health’, issues such as sexual health, Health Risks, as the most otherwise, of children’s use Susan Linn discusses the relationships, education, significant. I was particularly of the internet in twenty- effect of the excessive use of careers and citizenship. drawn to the article about five European countries. screen media and associated The third article in this ‘The Relationship between ‘Socially Disadvantaged marketing methods on section, by Susan Goldstein, Offline and Online Risks’ Children, Media and problems such as childhood ‘Children as Agents for by Leslie Haddon and Sonia Health’, the second article, obesity, early sexualisation, Social Change: Soul Buddyz Livingstone and was oddly written by Ingrid Paus- depression and the decrease and Soul Buddyz Club’ re-assured by the figures Hasebrink and Jasmine in creative play. Finally in deals with a long-standing demonstrating that the UK Kulturer, offers findings this section, Moniek Buijzen, edutainment initiative for does not top the league in from an Austrian study Esther Rozendaal and young people in South offline and online bullying on the role of the media Simone de Droog discuss in Africa, which covers and accessing pornography. for socially disadvantaged the article, ‘Food Marketing health-related issues such However, you will have to children. Cecilia Feilitzen, and Child Health’, how food as bullying, gun safety, read the article to discover
media education journal 57 45 which nation does! Other obligation to children by accessed via the LSE Social compelling, innovative and articles in this section raise creating . . . an environment Science Space website (www. even, surprisingly, moving. awareness of the physical, where they can grow and socialsciencespace.com). If His day job as Professor of social and mental health reach their potential, we you wish to share my sharp Italian Studies at Ottawa risks associated not only must all do what we can to pain, I recommend going to confirms both his academic with exposure to violence, help them understand this www.publications.parliament. and personal credentials, pornography and aggressive digital world”. Baroness uk where you can find the his ethnicity reflected in marketing techniques but Benjamin is associated with whole of the House of Lords the acknowledgements in also to the health risks many worthy groups and debate. mentioned above. English and Italian, of his induced by over use. initiatives and is the chief Tina Stockman debt of gratitude to those There will always be executive of a company in both Canada and Italy a tension between the producing childrens’ who helped him finish his risks involved in allowing programmes. Sopranos project, especially young people to access the Another speaker who the team of doctors and internet and the risks of drew my attention was nurses (“truly angels in denying them that access. Baroness Shields, making comfortable shoes”) who European and American her maiden speech. Baroness cared for him in the cancer governments appear to fret Shields has been involved ward of Ottawa General over the negative aspects at executive level in Hospital and taught him to of access whereas in parts companies such as Google, move from under his own of Latin America and Asia, Facebook, Bebo and AOL. “bad sign”. as this book demonstrates, Her message was that the This bilingual opening the problem may be either new technologies should be sets the seal of authenticity insufficiency or denial of welcomed with open arms on what follows – an access. I was particularly (I am tempted at this point analysis (albeit from an moved by Susan Goldstein’s to interject and misquote academic perspective) article, ‘Children as Agents the late Mandy Rice-Davies The Sopranos: Born under of the issues relating to for Social Change: Soul by saying, ‘Well, she would a Bad Sign, Franco Ricci, identity that are at the core Buddyz and Soul Buddyz say that wouldn’t she?’) University of Toronto Press, of the characters in The Club’. It has a great sense of but went on to say that of 2014, £18.99, 336 pp, ISBN Sopranos by someone who optimism and faith in the course every effort should 9781442615717 understands the Italian- abilities and potential of be made to make them safe, I recently saw the Young American experience from young people. ‘by design’. The response Vic’s powerful production the inside. This collection of to this speech by Baroness of A View from the Bridge, No character is more articles does not make for Lane-Fox, “To have more streamed live to us lucky focused on this “volatilised comfortable reading and it women in this Chamber is provincials in our local identity quest” than Tony made me question if sincere essential, but to have one cinema, and realised that a Soprano, whom Chase governmental attention is with such digital smarts is a play I knew well had taken initially conceived as simply being paid to the issues dream come true”, actually on an added resonance “a middle-aged gangster raised here. Concern seems caused me to experience a thanks to Christopher in therapy”. Tony’s story, to be expressed regarding sharp pain! Bigsby’s identification of however, quickly became the risks posed by the I suggest that this book the close parallels between “a crucible that percolated internet through exposure makes an excellent starting Arthur Miller’s Eddie humanism, nihilism, racism, to cyber bullying, access point for teachers, students Carbone and David Chase’s honesty, cruelty, predation, to pornography, child- and researchers in media Tony Soprano. These two identity, redemption, all targeted marketing ploys, studies, social studies, ITC, Italian-Americans share a coloured with the infamy of etc. but those in a position marketing or economics at distorted sense of honour; the Mafia and tinged with to offer protection appear to both secondary and tertiary both are equally able to the heart of darkness”. have divided loyalties. This education levels. I would rationalise wrong actions in Ricci’s own quest to sense of doubt was fuelled also add that the work of defence of the integrity of complete his manuscript, the by a chance viewing of a Professor Sonia Livingstone their names. It is no surprise, culmination of ten years’ discussion in the House of OBE, Professor of Social then, that David Chase freely work, must have required its Lords, November 20th 2014, Psychology LSE, executive acknowledges the influence own discipline. The resulting on the UN Convention on Board member of the UK on him and his writing of volume comprises four the Rights of the Child: Council for Child Internet Death of a Salesman and A chapters of critical analysis, Digital Impact. Baroness Safety and a contributor View from the Bridge and an appendix and a brief Floella Benjamin sounded to this book, is essential that there is a clear line of conclusion. forth dramatically on the reading for anyone choosing descent from Eddie to Tony. He begins with ‘Inner protection of children from this area of media studies Never averse to reading Sanctums’, examining the the evils of the internet. Her for research or teaching about The Sopranos (my way that Chase employs (very long) speech ended purposes. Some of her work appetite for a fresh approach physical settings, “especially with her saying that, “If the on how children are using whetted by this connection), the location of artwork UK is to fulfil its UNCRC the internet can be easily I found Franco Ricci’s study and related objects . . . as media education journal 57 46
extensions of the storyline”. a study of four women: the use of stained glass in But what effect has this The first two of these five two named are centrally churches.” had on Tony Soprano, a “sanctums” are the anteroom placed, gazing deeply into man whose dysfunctional and then the office of Tony’s each other’s eyes, while By contrast with Dr relationship with his mother analyst, Dr Melfi. Here Ricci the other two are witnesses Melfi’s office (“a hallowed has almost certainly led explores the relationships of their meeting. There ground of emotional self him into therapy? This between art objects, in this is, Ricci claims, “a silent knowledge”), Tony’s place of is a man who was and case statues and paintings, anti-linguistic grid at work business “can only be termed is essentially orphaned, and the character of the within the composition”, sacristies of slime”. who displays a fragility at protagonist, as we first meet which mimics “the social In the next chapter, odds with masculinity and him, with an appealing subterfuge” necessary for amusingly entitled ‘When “consolidates an aberrant combination of insight and the very survival of the I Grow Up I Want to Be sense of sexual identity”. humour. Soprano family. There an American’, Ricci turns In this chapter Ricci For example, the first aren’t four angels at the to address questions of opens up, for this reader at scene of the pilot episode corners of Tony’s bed but ethnicity, asserting that it least, a whole new aspect (and subsequently of four women behind him was how Chase handled this of Sopranos scholarship, the whole series) begins as he sleeps. The viewer is issue that enabled him to focusing mainly (but not unconventionally with a trusted to actively interpret face down his critics from exclusively) on Tony himself, shot of James Gandolfini or, more probably, passively Italian-American groups, which he follows up in the (the subject of Ricci’s absorb the meaning of such with their accusation that next chapter, entitled ‘Two third acknowledgement) signs. This caused me to The Sopranos was “yet Tonys’, with an examination sharing screen space with realise, shamingly late, the another caricatured image of key scenes that reveal the a large green statue which double meaning implied in of the Italian-American ambiguities represented by “dominates the frame, Ricci’s subtitle “Born under Gangster”. Certainly, the the paintings and emblems while the camera’s crotch a Bad Sign”. This is more series does not hide its that “swirl around him”. shot captures Tony sitting than merely the “bad luck” “Italianicity”, but Ricci Nowhere is this more firmly ensconced within referred to in the original argues that the manner evident than in the doomed the thighs of this brazen 1960s Blues song (which in which “the individual’s relationship between Tony nude female sculpture”. also features a “big legged sense of self-in-nation and his nephew Christopher, Ricci draws attention to the woman”); it also highlights is configured . . . in whom Ricci describes as way in which the statue’s the semiotic significance multicultural empowerment” “an incompetent loser, a “upward thrust and naked that Ricci rightly attaches makes it part of an tainted putative punk”. That strength threaten semiotic to the visual signs and “impulsively fluid American relationship is symbolised upheaval in a realm that symbols that deepen our mythology of wealth and by the painting of two tigers is intrinsically masculine”, understanding of character prosperity that openly behind them as they come to before pointing out that and situation in The privileges greed”. blows. One of these is larger, the view of this Mob boss Sopranos. Gender is the subject “his arched back poised in “framed within the triangle When he moves from the of ‘God Help the Beast in a threatening stance, claws formed by the statue’s legs divine virgin and adoring Me’, where Ricci addresses and teeth at the ready” as is equally novel and visually saint to the sleazily secular the consequences of he “looms over the smaller appealing,” particularly since strip club, Ricci’s analysis of the “introduction of the tiger”. This picture, according between a woman’s legs the Bada Bing is so perfectly feminine principle into to Ricci, is “a visual is one of Tony’s favourite on target and skilfully the encrypted and closed analogy” to the fight scene: places. The Sopranos is expressed that the following world” of the Mob. In his “Like the frothing behemoth a series that will require extracts cannot hope to do concise résumé of how that has just collared his viewers to interpret symbols; it justice: gender roles are defined younger nephew . . . further in contrast to Tony, whose in western culture, Ricci lethal action is anticipated”. resistance to and fear of the “If Tony’s home is his draws a distinction between The irony is that, unlike messages embodied in the castle, his backroom the masculine “dispassion Tony, we grasp the message imagery manifests his fear of offices are his fiefdom which is indispensable for implied. We anticipate, even revealing his inner self. . . . It’s the characters killing” and the feminine dread, what is signalled here When Ricci comes to that move through its “binding love” which – impending doom, ultimate consider the Soprano home, interior that set the acts as a constraint. This destruction, the inevitable which significantly contains mood in these niches of gives the reader a better killing of the smaller beast no ethnic mementoes moldy manhood.” understanding of why by the larger, dominant one. connecting it to the peasant (historically) the Mafia, Here Ricci displays his deep roots of many Italian- “Interestingly, Tony’s “in its efforts to remain encyclopedic knowledge Americans, he is particularly inner sanctum at the undiluted and masculine, to its greatest advantage, a persuasive in his semiotic Bada Bing has walls violently negated anything near obsession documented analysis of the large mural of hammered stained remotely reminiscent of in elegant prose. behind the matrimonial glass, an anomaly of weak, passive and unsightly Returning to the bed. ‘The Visitation of the sorts, given the Bing’s feminine attitudes.” opening scene, Ricci Virgin and St Elizabeth’ is business and the usual extends the significance of
media education journal 57 47 that initial impression of However we choose to August 1936, when they Tony as an “emasculated, interpret the ending, Tony were both scripting for Ernst flinching, befuddled and Soprano’s “bright day is Lubitsch, who “thinks we classically petrified male: done” and he is “for the might jell.” (p.86) “I am to a prisoner frozen in time” dark”. One wonders if Ricci’s be teamed with Billy Wilder, by comparing the scene to incarceration in the Bone a young Austrian I’ve seen a novel that begins with and Marrow Transplant about for a year or two and a ‘silent stage’ set for the Unit of Ottawa General like very much. I accepted story’s characters. Here too Hospital, a prisoner of illness the job joyfully.” (p.86) we have a static scene – a cut off from the world, his Throughout the rest of strange opening for a Mob magnum opus unfinished, the book we get a vivid series – where the viewer is if such isolation enabled impression of the many “enveloped in a prolonged him to reach this degree sides of Wilder – some of descriptive silence”. Within of understanding of, and them distinctly politically this setting, Ricci points out, even compassion for, Tony incorrect from our advanced Dr Melfi will be “seduced by Soprano. Together “under a perspective – but always Tony’s bacchanal sloth and bad sign”, they stand on the Third Man (1949) to Richard laced through with sharp enticed by his subversive edge of darkness. Linklater with Before Sunrise irony and wit. What is cultural message”. It is only In his tribute to HBO as (1995). Up a narrow street in possibly most fascinating at the very end that she can trail blazer for “shortening the Jewish quarter is a less about the book is its insight “rationally and intellectually the distance between visited Viennese location, into the operation of undo her imagocentric television and cinema with a simple plaque ‘In Hollywood in the golden attraction to the likeable screens,” Ricci displays a diesem Hause lebte Billy years of the studio system, bad-boy mobster”. generosity which was sadly Wilder in den Jahren 1914- with Brackett casually But what does Ricci make not reciprocated when HBO 24’. It reminds us that one dropping name after of the controversial end of refused him permission to of America’s sharpest and distinguished name as he the series? This famously use screengrabs to illustrate most humorous satirists was does the daily rounds – avoids closure, leaving the his book. Shame on them! – like much of Hollywood – Marlene Dietrich, George audience and critics with However, the cover image a central European Jewish Cukor, Hedda Hopper, frustratingly unanswered of what appears to be the immigrant, who in films Dorothy Parker, F. Scott questions, most obviously New Jersey Turnpike, a hot such as The Major and the Fitzgerald, Adolph Zukor about Tony’s fate. Was contender for the title of Minor, The Lost Weekend and dozens more make Holsten’s Diner, that most most depressing place on the and Sunset Boulevard (or guest appearances (often banal of settings, Tony’s planet, may well be Ricci’s Blvd. to be exact), ruthlessly “dropping in for tea.”) Golgotha, his place of riposte to their ingratitude dissected the American Thankfully there is a execution? Would he die – the word “CASH” condition. twelve page index to allow with the rest of his family, prominently displayed over What is often forgotten you to browse and alight on would he take them all with three of the lanes carries is that in these films – and the names that catch your him? Would this modern its own semiotic. But the half a dozen more – he attention, probably the best day Greek tragedy end absence of pictures cannot had a collaborator, Charles way to approach this packed traditionally in blood? detract from this rewarding, Brackett, who is long volume. I can’t see it being What Ricci does is to carefully-crafted study by overdue recognition for employed too much in the credit Chase with the trust an academic who genuinely his share of the incisive classroom, but for giving an and confidence he places loves a series which has scripts. That’s one of the insight to its era and locale, in the viewers, allowing established itself in the aims of his grandson Jim it can’t be beat. for such speculation while Pantheon of high quality, Moore in commissioning Douglas Allen, New College asserting that the “only ground-breaking television the publication of excerpts Lanarkshire (Motherwell certainty, the centrality of drama. from Brackett’s diary and Campus) Tony as malevolent Mafioso Liz Roberts writings during his years may have been vouchsafed; in Hollywood and his Helen Unlimited: A Little but the phantasmagoric “It’s the Pictures That Got central collaboration with Biggar, by Anna Shepherd, construct is engulfed, at Small”: Charles Brackett Billy Wilder (1906-2002) Billie Love Historical series’ end, by the final on Billy Wilder and through the 1940s. With his Collection, 2014, 152pp, image of total ineluctable Hollywood’s Golden Age, privileged academic East ISBN 9780951841075 darkness”. This is Ricci’s ed. by Anthony Slide, New Coast upbringing, Brackett The feature about Norman own crashing finale: Tony York, Columbia University (1892-1969) did not appear McLaren in the last MEJ has been on the brink Press, 2015, 422pp, ISBN to be a natural writing gave welcome coverage to of darkness throughout 9780231167086 partner for the pugnacious, the agit-prop short film he the series, such threshold Vienna has always been a streetwise, extroverted made with Helen Biggar moments taking him, not marvellous location city for incomer, and one turns at Glasgow School of Art, into light, but still deeper film-makers exploiting its eagerly to find the historic Hell Unltd. For those who into wanton corruption. quirky visual splendours, date when they came want to know more, here is from Carol Reed with The together. And there it is, 17 the long-awaited account media education journal 57 48
in Scotland published in chapters look at issues such the last thirty or forty as the emergence of the years, such as the one on Scottish cinema, regulation Scottish cinemas and their and censorship, the debate architecture reviewed in on opening cinemas on MEJ 55, or Colin McArthur’s the Sabbath, and the non- book, Scotch Reels, from commercial cinema in 1982. However much more Scotland. has been published south Using statistics from of the border under the cinema profit and loss guise of ‘British’ cinema, accounts, a decline in but probably often really cinema attendance during ‘English’ cinema. the Depression in the 1930s This book is rather roughly coincides with the different from earlier ones, introduction of the ‘talkies’, as it is an academic study which to some commentators A still from Hell UnLtd by an Edinburgh University of the time were going to of the life and times of that affected her growth, lecturer in economic and be a ‘nine-day-wonder’. Helen Biggar (1909-53), the the result of a childhood social history, and it includes Other statistics show the sculptor/artist/film-maker at accidental fall. It is good to very extensive notes and a increased attendances after the epicentre of Glasgow’s see recognition at last for comprehensive bibliography. the end of the Second World cultural left through the this versatile Scottish artist The author is one of the War. Patterns of attendance 1930s and 1940s. and filmmaker who, up until leaders of the AHRC-funded during a typical week are Written as a labour of now, has been rather ‘hidden research project, run jointly also examined, showing love by Helen’s niece Anna from history’. by Edinburgh and Glasgow a bias towards larger Shepherd, the biography The book costs £12.00 Universities, on ‘Early audiences towards the end combines a wealth of plus £1.65 p&p (cheques Cinemas in Scotland, 1896– of the week. Some of this material from the family payable to Anna Shepherd), 1927’, the work of which relates to more screenings archives with a detailed and is available from: Billie was outlined in an article on Saturdays, and many account of the context of Love Historical Collection, 3 in MEJ 56. This project is operators’ finances were the 1930s Depression, 1940s Winton Street, Ryde, Isle of attempting to engage with helped by higher admission World War and the activities Wight, PO33 2BX, U.K. schools and communities to charges in some cinemas of Glasgow’s left, especially Douglas Allen, New College let them discover about early that day. At some periods the Communist Party. It Lanarkshire (Motherwell cinema in their area. Two the decline in cinema covers Helen’s fruitful Campus) teaching packs for schools attendance in cities during collaboration with Norman are in preparation on the the summer was at least to McLaren, which resulted theme of the Great War, with some extent offset by larger in one of the landmark a pack for younger pupils to audiences in cinemas in interwar political films come. holiday resorts. Hell UnLtd, now hailed as Griffiths uses a vast Another issue covered in possibly the greatest film array of archive documents detail is the ‘British quota’. produced by the left. from individual cinemas, At least one cinema reported The book details Helen’s Board of Trade reports, that showing the quota of filmmaking with the trade magazines and British films, as required by communist film group personal diaries to both law (rather than imported, Glasgow Kino; her part in survey Scottish cinema, mainly American, ones), nourishing the talents of and wherever possible tended to depress takings. the radical refugee artists of compare and contrast the Some British films were seen wartime Glasgow – names Scottish perspective with as too ‘English’, something like Josef Herman and Jankel that for the rest of Britain. Scottish audiences did Adler as well as home-grown However, frustrating both not like. However another rising stars like Joan Eardley The Cinema and to the author and the reader cinema manager declared and Tom MacDonald; and Cinemagoing in Scotland, are the records which have that his best weeks were her design skills, which 1896–1950, Trevor Griffiths, got lost or never existed when British films were led to many collaborations Edinburgh University Press from cinemas in many of being shown. Perhaps with the Glasgow Workers’ 2012, 354 pp hbk £65.00: the towns and (to a lesser the social make-up of the Theatre Group and Unity ISBN 9780748638284; extent) the cities of Scotland. audience was behind this Theatre through the ’30s and pbk £19.99: ISBN In view of the cut- anomaly. Some parts of ’40s, and Ballet Rambert in 9780748685219 ; also off date of 1950, a large Scotland preferred the the ’50s. Helen’s successes available as an e-book and proportion of this book ‘Western’ which was often are doubly impressive for a web-ready pdf file. looks at the silent era, and the B-feature, rather than being achieved in the face There have been a number the transition to the ‘talkies’. topping the bill. of a lifelong disability of books about the cinema Seven of the eight main
media education journal 57 49
The non-commercial got lost in the mists of time. of the greatest French films McCann doesn’t just cinema is also considered, The documentary movement, of all time. McCann makes repeat the mantra that Le both for documentary film rather than feature film a good case for Le Jour se Jour se lève sits squarely and for film societies. Some production, will remain as lève being just as important under the label of Poetic of these were established Scotland’s film legacy, from and in fact a crucial and Realism. He challenges within groups with like- the time around and between sophisticated work not just and tests this with some minded politics, especially the two World Wars. in Carné’s career but also in interesting insights into left-wing groups with This book, then, fills a the history of French cinema how the term evolved and leanings to Russian-style void in the study material particularly in relation to developed and what it Communism; other societies on Scottish cinema. If the Poetic Realism. meant in reality. He picks included, at one stage in social and economic history The book divides into up on André Bazin’s essays the years after the end of of the cinema is a topic that sections on the context that post-war re-focused the Second World War, six interests you, this volume and planning of the film, critical attention on the film scientific film societies, is one worth reading and its technical construction, and helped bring it to the providing educational keeping on your bookshelf. the performances and their forefront of critical acclaim programmes, often on a Perhaps at a later date political ramifications and taking the number 7 slot monthly basis. As this Trevor Griffiths will produce finally its critical reception in Sight and Sound’s 1952 reviewer was a member of a similar book about the at the time and later both in critics’ choices of all time the Edinburgh Scientific cinema in Scotland in the France and overseas. In so best films beating La Règle Film Society in the early second half of the 20th doing he covers everything du jeu, also made in 1939, 1950s, it was interesting to century. relevant and even strays into 10th place, a film that see how this group fitted in Robert Preece from time to time into some now regularly makes the to the regulations on cinema interesting rabbit holes top three. He reminds us, openings on Sundays, where most noticeably the way and it is easy to forget this, some local magistrates and Hollywood re-made the film that films labelled Poetic church-based organisations as The Long Night in 1947. Realism made up only a very could take up quite extreme The book is well small part of French film positions on what they researched and led me to output; Le Jour se lève was saw as an attempt at the some new discoveries for competing for audiences erosion of the ‘traditional’ instance the Hollywood with a very broad range sanctity of the Sabbath appearance of the film’s of comedies, thrillers and for commercial gain. The young female lead opposite musicals. Although most significance of the Highlands Mickey Rooney in one of the of these other films will be and Islands Film Guild Judge Hardy crowd pleasers. largely forgotten and will (surviving until 1970) is also The production background never have a book written highlighted. is comprehensive and I about them McCann reminds The eighth chapter is on a especially liked the table us that this was a popular rather different tack, namely analysing composer Maurice film that filled cinemas and the production (or rather Jaubert’s use of different to do that it had to entertain the lack of production) Le jour se lève: French musical instruments mass audiences not just a of Scottish feature films Film Guide, Ben for different scenes future generation of critics before 1950. It reminds us McCann, I.B.Tauris 2014, demonstrating his versatility by keeping its feet on the of the paucity of production £12.99, 136pp, ISBN and sensitivity to the film’s ground, as Bazin said: north of the border in the 9781787659211 moods and structure. It period under review. A few Ben McCann’s study of the reminded me that Birdman “Le Jour se lève is examples have survived, 1939 film Le Jour se lève is was by no means the first perfect in that its such as Mairi, the Romance part of the series of French film score to put its drums in symbolism never takes of a Highland Maiden Film Guides edited by the foreground. precedence over its (produced in 1912), which Ginette Vincendeau, with the still gets an occasional aim of being ‘authoritative airing, in a re-edited form, and entertaining’. In my in its home town (or city view it does both and serves these days) of Inverness. the casual or more specialist It was produced by local reader. photographer Andrew Le Jour se lève was Paterson, and shot in the Marcel Carné’s last film Black Isle. However Football completed before the Second Daft, made in 1921 and World War and has become partly filmed in Sauchiehall overshadowed by his Street in Glasgow, and magnum opus Les Enfants originally promoted as ‘the du paradis which was shot best all-Scottish comedy yet during the occupation and produced’, seems to have regarded by many as one Jean Gabin and Jacqueline Laurent in Le Jour se lève media education journal 57 50
realism but rather the character really represent French Cinema that discuss clear and imaginative ideas one complements the the French bourgeoisie nationalistic subtexts, and a terrific eye for the other.” in his clash with working sometimes explicit, but more detail of what has made the class Gabin? I also worry often than not, nuanced in films he discusses special Indeed McCann makes that he may be working tone. “A work of politically to the French audiences it clear that this was a film too hard at his analysis informed cultural history” as who saw them primarily as that Carné intended for a of the historical context. he puts it. entertainment. He is clear in popular, and that would Certainly those involved in He does this by taking acknowledging that ‘French mean largely working class, the production knew war a series of themes, for Cinema per se exists in an audience: was coming and this led to example, representations international context and a certain air of pessimism of the Occupation, films addresses its relationship “With its class on set but can we really depicting revolutionary with Hollywood with fraternity and see Neville Chamberlain’s France or anti-semitism, humour and verve. community solidarity, powerlessness in the face of and linking them to films I particularly enjoyed it was imagined on- Hitler in the fate of Gabin’s that are often not classically the chapter on the search screen as a way of character, and does the film associated with such themes. for national unity through targeting spectators really chart “the rise and The book also covers the cinema and his discussion and provided them fall of optimism engendered representation of “modern of films depicting the with recognisable by the 1936 Popular Front chic” as he calls it with a Occupation is the best I images of themselves.” government”? French cinema showing have read for many years, All in all a very France and audiences succinct, accurate and The film was meant satisfactory read which overseas that it is recovering referencing films such as to reflect a French social would give those unfamiliar from the war with a modern La Grande Vadrouille (Don’t reality and Carné and his with the film a good sense and progressive society. Look Now . . . We’re Being team worked hard to ensure of its background, history, Apparently even the French Shot At!) that have been that the settings and décor critical reception and most Catholic Church approved disregarded too much in did this by making sure importantly its narrative of the affair in Un Homme the past. It will, I suspect, they were “anchored to a structure, innovation and et une femme (A Man and be photocopied by many recognizable reality”. feeling of claustrophobia. a Woman); an affair it teachers! His discussion of McCann provides just For those of us more may be but not too hasty L’Armée des ombres (The enough information about familiar, lots to think about. and between two people Army of Shadows) is also the key collaborators and the Jon Davies unencumbered by living really excellent investigating leading actors to put the film spouses! I particularly why it was heavily criticised in the context of Carné and enjoyed his analysis on release and where it sits French Cinema. of the film in terms of in the journey from the In his appreciation of a Gaullist depiction of eulogising La Bataille du the leading technicians, 1960s France. He explains rail (The Battle of the Rails) he is pointing out, quite that de Gaulle ordered a to the hard edged Lacombe accurately, the international special screening and sat Lucien. reach they reflected and with Lelouch muttering I am not quite as the way Carné built a team approval throughout. He is convinced by his argument of trusted colleagues. He convincing in his arguments that Lelouche and Rohmer explains the background to that this film “a seemingly constitute a deliberately the leading players, Gabin, commercial work, a pure conservative cinema Arletty and Berry, and why entertainment, did impact on addressed at youth and their presence would have the conventional realm of countering the influences of resonated with audiences politics”. 1968 but he made me think. and brought certain His section on La Nuit His research has dug expectations. Nationalism and the americaine (Day for Night) in up some wonderful gems, Being critical, I think Cinema in France: Political terms of “the political myth although I wonder if de McCann gets a little close Mythologies and Film of clash of civilisations, Gaulle ever said that to his subject at times, Events, 1945-1995, Hugo between the French and the “Grenoble was only two making suggestions that Frey, Berghahn Books, non-French”, rang largely stages of the Tour de France seem exaggerated. For 2014, £60.00, 250pp (also true and he could have from Moscow”. Reference instance his suggestion available as an e-book) added to his international please as I’d love to that the cycling acrobats in ISBN 9781782383659 argument by mentioning believe he said it but 3,000 the music hall act, circling Hugo Frey has written a that Truffaut actually kilometres seems a long way round on the stage, are used fascinating and illuminating colonised a set at the for two days of cycling! to remind us that Gabin’s set of readings of French Victorine studios originally Using contemporary press character is going nowhere? films through various prisms built for an American film. cuttings offers an immediacy On a small stage with their affected by aspects of French Whilst reflecting the that would be lost by simply unicycles what else could nationalism and political work of people like Ernest quoting other academics. they do? More importantly identity. His stated aim is Gellner and Benedict Best of all he remembers does Jules Berry’s music hall to open up new readings of Anderson he has his own his readers and offers
media education journal 57 51 us clear and non-jargon much else that would be 1930s”, or “the 1970s began and effeminate homosexuals English which will make this more worthwhile. with an assertive trend to rather than the elaboration accessible to a wide audience As a prelude he writes promote women in French of multifaceted performances and, unlike another book I a section defining ‘The society”. Sloppy. . . . Neither character is review here, when he uses a Theories of Comedy’ having And there are made to seem ridiculous or quote in French he puts the admitted that there is “no exaggerations. “During the the butt of any jokes”. translation underneath. clear explanation of what immediate postwar years What irked me most A really enjoyable and comedy is and how it works many filmmakers accused were the long digressions thought provoking read that seems to be enunciated of collaborating . . . were such as into some military that will appeal to general to this day”, thus wasting blacklisted.” In fact, as most comedies of the 30’s or readers, academics and quite a few pages and reader studies show, the numbers Volpone which owes more students form A Level patience. His differentiation were particularly low, to a theatrical tradition than upwards. between categories such as especially in comparison to French cinematic comedy. Jon Davies ‘Parodies’ ‘Satires’ ‘Irony; ‘ other areas of the arts such These took away from the Farce’ etc. are unclear and as theatre and radio. main drive of the book and unhelpful. There is frequent opinion used space that could have What I did find rewarding dressed up as fact. For been used to paint a more was how he brings some example, referring to La complete picture. interesting insights into Cage aux folles, a film that And one final niggle: lesser-known French silent still angers many in the he sometimes translates comedians such as André French LGBT community, his French quotes into Deed and AKA Boireau, and he says “spectators did English, sometimes puts he brings focus on some not laugh at the gay the translation in the films that are normally protagonists or at Albinis’s footnotes at the end of the overlooked, Le Corniaud, temperamental outbursts book and sometimes offers Le Petit monde de Don and his narcissistic no translation at all. For Camillo or Les Trois frères hypochondria, but instead non-francophones this will for instance, while not they were given the make the book extremely forgetting Roman d’un opportunity to laugh with annoying. tricheur or Les Visiteurs. Of him” and then finds it In conclusion a missed course it was always going surprising that “the film and opportunity – the history French Comedy on Screen to be impossible to include the play were both criticised of French screen comedy by Rémi Fournier Lanzoni everything but nothing by gay associations who remains to be written. Palgrave Macmillan, 2014, about Pierre Etaix? essentially saw the staging Jon Davies £60 (hbk) (also available For me the book read of two caricature figures as e-book), 272pp, ISBN like a first draft and needed 9780230338425 serious editing; Fournier This book attracted me; Lanzonis needed someone there has been little written to help him focus on what looking at the genre of was most relevant. And Association for Media Education in Scotland French Comedy and a at a more detailed level one-volume approach to it annoys. Apart from the AMES is the subject association for media studies, media the subject is overdue. He spelling mistakes, Diane education and related disciplines. Its objectives are to has arranged his book into Kurys loses her final ‘s’ at promote media literacy, to support media teachers and to chronological chapters that one point, grammatical raise the status of media education. take the reader from the errors, repetition and factual AMES is a grassroots organisation set up by classroom earliest films of the silent errors, La Grande illusion teachers to promote media education on a national level period, through the thirties, was made in 1937 not 1997, while also providing support and advice to media teachers the post-war period and up the ‘avances sur recettes’ themselves. to what he calls the modern subsidies were introduced AMES is active in lobbying and negotiating with education era and then a final chapter in the 1960s not 1980s for planners at all levels in Scotland. Membership of AMES on ‘French Comedy Today’. instance. The book is prone will enable you to have a say in the future direction of This ends with a sudden full to sweeping statements, such media education in Scotland. To join, contact Des Murphy stop with Bienvenue Chez les as comedy is “the backbone at the address on Page 2. Members of AMES receive free Ch’tis. of the entire French Film copies of the bi-yearly Media Education Journal and the Sadly I was very industry” or, talking about AMES newsletter. the thirties: “Without this disappointed with what he AMES is a non-profit organisation and registered charity has produced. For me it fails generation of comic actors, and is funded through membership subscriptions and to take the broad view of the much of an entire decade subscriptions to the Media Education Journal. It holds genre as it promises to do in of filmmaking would have a yearly conference in May/ June at which the AGM the introduction, and often fallen into oblivion”, or takes place. As a charity, AMES is overseen by OSCR and meanders along some very “Poetic realism dominated examined by an Independent Examiner. strange backwaters ignoring French Cinema in the AMES’ website is at www.mediaedscotland.org.uk
media education journal 57 mej
Print copies of the current issue are available at £12. We also have back copies at £5. The complete set covers almost 30 years of debate, theory and practice. See page 2 for contact details.