Tuesday, 7 December 2010
Wednesday, 24 November 2010
Wednesday, 3 November 2010
Wednesday, 29 September 2010
downloading documents
Monday, 21 June 2010
Sunday, 23 May 2010
G325 exam questions – real and imaginary
Describe how you developed research and planning skills for media production and evaluate how these skills contributed to creative decision making. Refer to a range of examples in your answer to show how these skills developed over time.
“Digital technology turns media consumers into media producers”. In your own experience, how has your creativity developed through using digital technology to complete your coursework productions?
Invented 1a questions
Discuss how using different forms of digital technology to aid you with your research and planning work and consider how your use of digital technology has developed during the course of your studies.
How has knowledge of the conventions of real media texts helped or hindered your ability to be creative with your coursework productions?
In what ways have you drawn upon the conventions of real media texts when working in the post-production stages of your coursework projects?
How useful have different forms of digital technology been in the pots-production of your coursework projects and how has your ability to use these forms of digital technology evolved as you have progressed through the course?
1a – generic essay structure
1)Establish what coursework you have done and what other practical projects you are going to refer to
2)AS work example 1 – detailed use of example from an AS production and directly relating to question focus areas
3)A2 work example 1 – detailed use of example from an AS production and directly relating to question focus areas
4)Evaluation of skilld evelopment in the focus areas from AS to A2
5)AS work example 2 – detailed use of example from an AS production and directly relating to question focus areas
6)AS work example 2 – detailed use of example from an AS production and directly relating to question focus areas
7)Evaluation of skill development in the focus areas from AS to A2. Also discuss non-coursework productions – Judge Dredd , Girls Talk
8)Conclusion – what you have learnt so far and what you have still to learn
1b questions
Real 1b questions
“Media texts rely on cultural experiences in order for audiences to easily make sense of narratives”. Explain how you used conventional and / or experimental narrative approaches in one of your production pieces.
Analyse media representation in one of your coursework productions.
Invented 1b questions
“Genres are systems of expectation that circulate between industry, audience and text”. Discuss how your work confirms or contradicts this statement.
Choosing one of your coursework productions, discuss how you have attempted to please your target audience.
In what ways do various elements of media language contribute to the process of communicating to your audience?
1b generic approach
1)State what coursework production you are going to discuss and what your argument is going to be.
2)Example 1 – focused example dealing with the question
3)Example 2 – focused example dealing with the question
4)Example 3 – focused example dealing with the question
5)Evaluate – what do your 3 examples show?
6)Conclusion – summary of argument
Postmodern Media – real questions
Discuss two or more media texts that you would define as ‘postmodern’ and explain why you would give them this label. Cover at least two media in your answer.
Consider the ways in which postmodern media challenge conventional relations between audience and text. Refer to at least two media forms in your answer.
What is meant by ‘postmodern media’?
Explain why the idea of ‘postmodern media’ might be considered controversial
Postmodern Media – generic essay structure
1)Introduction – what texts are you going to discuss, what broadly are you going to argue
2)Theoretical base – what do you underdstand by the term postmodern? Different approaches, different theorists
3)Medium 1 Example 1 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question
4)Medium 2 Example 1 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question
5)(Medium 3 Example 1 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question)
6)Evaluate – are all postmodern in the same way? Are some texts more serious than others? Relate to the question
7)Medium 1 Example 2 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question
8)Medium 2 Example 2 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question
9)(Medium 3 Example 2 – detailed discussion of how this text is postmodern – also tailor to demands of the question)
10)Evaluate – are all postmodern in the same way? Are some texts more serious than others? Relate to the question
11)Conclusion – summary of your argument
Points 5 and 9 required if you are aiming for high B or above, not if your not.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Postmodernism exam prep
1)Thinking about the different versions of postmodernism, how can this text be identified as post-modern?
2)Is it easy or not to position this text into a single genre or not?
3)Does the text play with genre conventions?
4)Does the text employ a classical approach to narrative structure?
5)Does the text challenge old notions of text-reader relations? If so, how? If not, why not?
6)What kind of cultural capital do you need to best understand this text?
Sunday, 16 May 2010
Narrative theory - Todorov
Theory: 3 act narrative structure
What it means: Narrative are composed of 3 acts – equilibrium / disruption / new equilbrium
Equilibrium – all is well, there is no conflict
Disruption – An event happens to introduce conflict and problems into the narrative
New equilbrium – all of the conflicts have been resolved and new state of order and balance come to exist
Levi-Strauss - binary oppositions
Theory: Binary Oppositions
What it means: A conflict between two opposing forces, e.g. good versus evil, on versus off, land versus sea
Any narrative has binary oppositions – these exist to – produce drama and sustain interest
Conflict is the engine of any successful narrative – no conflict, no story
Narrative theory - Vogler
2)Call to Adventure - The hero is presented with a problem, challenge or adventure to undertake
3)Refusal of the Call - The hero refuses the challenge or journey, usually out of fear
4)Meeting with the Mentor - The hero meets a mentor to gain confidence, advice or training to face the adventure
5)Crossing the First Threshold - The hero crosses the gateway that separates the ordinary world from the special world
6)Tests, Allies, Enemies - The hero faces tests, meets allies, confronts enemies & learn the rules of the Special World.
7)Approach - The hero has hit setbacks during tests & may need to reorganize his helpers or rekindle morale with mentor's rally cry. Stakes heightened.
8)Ordeal - The biggest life or death crisis – the hero faces his greatest fear & only through “death” can the hero be “reborn” experiencing even greater powers to see the journey to the end.
9)Reward - The hero has survived death, overcome his greatest fear and now earns the reward he sought.
10)The Road Back - The hero must recommit to completing the journey & travel the road back to the Ordinary World. The dramatic question is asked again.
11)Resurrection - Hero faces most dangerous meeting with death – this shows the hero can apply all the wisdom he's brought back to the Ordinary World
12)Return with Elixir - The hero returns from the journey with the “elixir”, so everyone in the world can use to heal physical or emotional wounds.
Narrative theory - Propp
Characters
The villain — struggles against the hero.
The donor — prepares the hero or gives the hero some magical object.
The (magical) helper — helps the hero in the quest.
The princess and...
her father — gives the task to the hero, identifies the false hero, marries the hero, often sought for during the narrative.
Propp noted that functionally, the princess and the father can not be clearly distinguished.
The dispatcher — character who makes the lack known and sends the hero off.
The hero or victim/seeker hero — reacts to the donor, weds the princess.
False hero — takes credit for the hero’s actions or tries to marry the prince
Sunday, 9 May 2010
Postmodern Media – the arguments for and against postmodernism
Jean-Francois Lyotard & Jean Baudrillard – the 2 Jean’s
Advocates of postmodernism
Lyotard – societies are now post-industrial, cultures are now post-modernism
Postmodern era – from the end of the 1950s onwards – postwar reconstruction of Europe
End of grand narratives /meta-narratives – science, religion
Rise of micro-narratives
Postmodern – aesthetic not historical – historical is easier but is it more useful to take the aesthetic approach?
Baudrillard – earlier societies – communicate face-to-face or in print
Now we communicate through electronic media
Our lives are now shaped by simulated events and opportunities (media-saturated society) – TV / internet shopping
The simulations have become dominant – more real than real (‘more human than human’)
Blurring of the lines between the real and the unreal – the hyperreal
The critics of postmodernism – Habermas and Jameson
Habermas – links ‘the modern’ to the Enlightenment (‘The Enlightenment was less a set of ideas than it was a set of values. At its core was a critical questioning of traditional institutions, customs, and morals.’)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
The era of modernity / the Enlightenment project is not yet complete – no need to talk about postmodernism
Rejects the Baudrillardian approach about the dominance of simulacra – there is meaning to cultural artefacts
Jameson – the postmodern era is the era of late capitalism (Marxist approach)
In the postmodern era, the people are far removed from the economic system they serve
Postmodern culture – flatness, depthless, superficial
Marked by the rise of pastiche and nostalgia
Thursday, 22 April 2010
US postmodern TV ‘classics’: 24 / Miami Vice / The Sopranos
1)What version of postmodernism are you applying to label this programme as a postmodern text? What textual evidence can you offer to support your approach?
2)In what ways can this programme be seen as a postmodern one and in what ways does it seem like ‘ordinary’ TV?
3)In what ways are traditional text-reader relations being challenged in this programme? What textual evidence can you gather to support your argument?
4)In term of the production, distribution (both legal and illegal) and consumption can it be said that institutions and audiences are operating differently in a postmodern world?
Friday, 19 March 2010
Work to do
In the period of WO’B’s absence, you should complete the work stipulated on this sheet.
You need to remember that the end of the academic year is close and that this is now the time you need to start preparing for the summer exam. The work set here is done with the sole purpose of helping you to start to prepare for the summer exam.
Task 1 – In what ways are the texts postmodern?
Using Youtube, watch clips from the texts we have studied and note down in what ways that text can be considered postmodern – you should separate your notes to address historical period, style, theoretical approach – you do not necessarily have to have as answer for all 3 dimensions. In some cases, you may well need to do some research to help you with this – make google your starting place.
Texts studied:
The Office
Life on Mars Pulp Fiction Scream
Jedward @ National TV Awards
SingStar The Wire World of Warcraft
Second Life X-Factor Britain’s Got Talent
Big Brother
Celebrity Big Brother
The Truman Show Eastenders Live The Brits Live
Rock and Chips
Blade Runner Halo 3 Grand Theft Auto 4
Youtube (the collection clips exercise) Chat Roulette (n ews articles) Date Movie Batman
Task 2 – Essay questions
For each essay question, you should spend one hour writing it. Answers should be hand written. You should do some internet research beforehand on the relevant texts to help you with th essay.
1. “Postmodern culture is all empty pastiche and lacks in substance”. Discuss this view.
In this question, you should structure your answer around Pulp Fiction, Scream, The Truman Show, Balde Runner and Date Movie only. This question invites a debate – you need to discuss the reasons why the statement is and isn’t true for each of the films. You need to use specific examples from each of the films and consider very carefully the concepts of cultural capital and cultural competence.
2. How has television responded to the opportunities and threats of life in a postmodern, media-saturated society?
With this question you need to be mindful of how the TV industry in Britain has changed drastically over the last 20 years – in a mluti-channel TV environment and in a media-saturated society, TV channels have to compete fiercely for our attention – this is now along way removed from the ‘golden age’ of British TV in the 1970s and 1980s. In this answer, you should focus your answer on reality TV and ‘event’ TV and think laterally about the threats to TV from our consumption of other media – think carefully about how much time you spend watching TV versus being on Facebook, or MSN or playing video games.
3. In what ways can video games be seen as a postmodern form of media?
Your answer needs to centre around the change in text-reader relations and draw from examples from SingStar, Halo 3, GTA 4 and the COD games. You should also discuss the high levels of intertextuality prevalent in many video games – many video games ‘borrow’ liberally from the look of films and TV programmes – refer to the case study material on GTA 4, use Youtube to observe the similarities between the start of the film ‘Saving Private Ryan’ and the game ‘Medal of Honor: Frontline’ or the similarities between the battle sequence in the film ‘Stalingrad’ and the game ‘COD: Finest Hour’. This could also lead to a consideration of the reverse direction – games which have been made into films – such as Resident Evil and Hitman.
4. “In a world where we are bombarded by media messages, where there is so much to look at, as a result, media texts are losing their power to influence us”. Discuss this view.
This question is asking you to weigh up hoe much or how little the media does or doesn’t affect us. You should use the ‘GTA in the dock’ extract as a starting point for thinking about the media does or doesn’t influence us and give arnge of specific examples from the texts we have studied and consider nhow they have or haven’t affected you. For example, did watching ‘The Wire’ make you into a drug dealer or did it just leave you feeling confused? You should focus on four texts to bases your response around. By the need of the answer, make sure you have firmly addressed the issue in the question.
ALL 4 ESSAYS SHOULD BE SUBMITTED IN THE FIRST LESSON AFTER EASTER
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
Call of Duty and the prompt questions
Postmodern Media
Postmodern Media
The different versions of postmodernism
Historical period
Style
Theoretical approach
Historical period
From the 1960s until now
From the age of the jet engine to the age of the fibre optic cable
Technological developments have made the world a smaller place
The arrival of Marshall McLuhan’s ‘global village’
The utopia of the global village has become the utopia / dystopia of the media-saturated society – like broadband, it’s ‘always on’
Style
Identifying features in cultural artefacts
Intertextuality – referencing to other texts
Bricolage – combination or fusion of different generic elements
Homage – copying other texts ‘out of respect’ (Henry Hill, GoodFellas)
Parody – copying for laughs e.g. Scream, Date Movie
Pastiche – copying because of a lack of originality e.g. Pulp Fiction
Theoretical approach
Decline of grand narratives
Collapse of communism & the fall of the Berlin Wall
The end of history
The end of Marxism
Collapse of time and space
Partially evidenced by Pulp Fiction, GTA 4, Big Brother, Britain’s Got Talent – not one story but many
Video games
In what ways can it be said that video gaming is a post-modern medium?
In what ways can the COD games be identified as postmodern?
Call of Duty: Finest Hour & Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
Conventional text-reader relations
• Once upon a time in a land far, far away…there was no such things as video games, the internet, MSN, mobile phones, Facebook, Youtube, email – no web 2.0. no web 1.0.
• In this pre-historic land before the dawn of the Age of New Media, we simply had media – TV, film, newspapers, magazines, radio.
• It was / is theoreised that essentially these media were consumed passively – we sat and watched / read or listened – audiences were merely receivers of information – they were not producers or distributors
• With the arrival of the new media listed above, all of this changed forever. Audiences are not just consumers but also producers too – web 2.0
• In a medium such as video games, the aydience / the player is completely central to the progress of the narrative – film, TV, radio , magazines, newspapers are not so obviously dependent on the consumer to determine where and how the story ends.
• This bringing to the centre of the action of the role of the consumer / user / player marks the end of conventional text-reader relations and the beginning of something new.
COD: FH & COD: MW2
Some notable video game academics (Anderson, Grossman) view violent video games as dangerous murder simulators. They see the audience as a helpless body ripe for exploitation – underpinning this approach is the conventional approach to text-reader relations.
Discussion points
• When playing video games are audiences active or passive?
• Do these games offer us realistic representations of war or not?
• After reading the reading materials, decide whether COD games can offer us the truth about war or is this not possible?
• Considering the rise in online gaming with serices like X-Box Live and PlayStation Network, how are industries and audiences behaving differently in this post-modern world?
Essay question
Do the COD games reflect reality and therefore help us to learn about the world or do they construct reality and in doing so shape players’ opinions that the world is a dangerous place and the use of violence is the best means to solve problems?
Consider how games do / don’t affect people
Consider how well or not COD reflect real world events suchas WW2 and the current war in Afgahnistan
Wednesday, 3 March 2010
Tuesday, 2 March 2010
Dictionary definition of postmoddernism
Postmodernism literally means 'after modernism'. While "modern" itself refers to something "related to the present", the movements modernism and postmodernism are understood as cultural projects or as a set of perspectives. It is used in critical theory to refer to a point of departure for works of literature, drama, architecture, cinema, journalism and design, as well as in marketing and business and in the interpretation of history, law, culture and religion in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
In one of the seminal works on the topic, philosopher and literary critic Fredric Jameson describes postmodernism as the "dominant cultural logic of late capitalism", that is, as the cultural practices that are organically bound to postmodernism's historical economic correspondent ("late capitalism", a period sometimes called financial capitalism, postindustrialism, consumer capitalism, globalization). In this understanding, the period of postmodernism's dominance begins early in the Cold War and continues through to the present.[1]
Postmodernism can also be understood as a reaction to modernism. Following the devastation of fascism, World War II, and the Shoah, many intellectuals and artists in Europe became distrustful of the whole modernist political, economic, and aesthetic project.[2] Whereas modernism was often associated with identity, unity, authority, and certainty, postmodernism is often associated with difference, separation, textuality, skepticism.
Monday, 1 March 2010
Postmodernism – what is it?
Academics such as Jean Baudrillard and Francois Lyotard would argue that we are now living in a post-modern era for the following reasons:
Culture and society have collapsed into one another
Marxists such as Gramsci and Althusser saw the media as an integral part of maintaining the existing social structure (Althusser defined the mass media as one of the Ideological State Apparatuses), thus being part of the system that holds people in their social positions, and, for Gramsci, being one of the ‘battlefields’ in which the cultural ‘war’ is fought.
Theorists such as Baudrillard and Lyotard argue that the mass media has come to increasingly dominate how we learn about the outside world – the events of September 11th are a good example – disasters in America are told to us by the mass media virtually as soon as they happen. Also, with the development of television programmes such as Big Brother, we now have a situation where people lives are shaped by TV – both the participants and the viewers. So, for Baudrillard, we now live in a media-saturated society.
Emphasis on style over substance
Breakdown over distinction between art and popular culture
With an increasing emphasis in style over substance in a number of areas, traditional demarcations between art and popular culture, or high and low culture are breaking down. Taking the BBC’s annual coverage of ‘The Proms’ – a series of classical music concerts. A ticket for the biggest events in the series – the Last Night – can change hands for £900 – plus there is a very firm dress code too – you would have to sepnd money on the rightr clothes. Therefore, to attend the concert, you would need a substantial amount of money – which directs to the relatively wealthy middle classes and upper class of Britain. However, the BBC show this concert series on TV – therefore making it accessible to all, and all also hold Proms in the Park concerts ata variety of venues around Britain to enable you to participate too – therefore breaking down barriers between high and popular culture and making culture accessible to all, regardless of social class or income.
Confusion over time and space
With advances in technology, the world is now a smaller place – the ‘global village’ predicted by media theorist Marshall McLuhan in the early 1960s has materialized – through increased access to travel – more people than ever are flying to destinations – many European cities are within an hours reach of Birmingham – Dublin, Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels. Also, technological advances have made things like the internet possible – where ‘virtual communities’ have sprang up, particularly using social networking sites like Facebook where you can joiun groups and communicate with strangers, enabling people across time zones and continents to be communicate with each other through chat rooms and message boards. These ‘virtual communities’ offer a stiff challenge to older notions of communities being centered on geographical factors – such as ‘Brummies’ ‘Geordies’ ,‘ Cockneys’ and ‘Brits’.
This compression of time and space makes things like September 11th that much more immediate to us and has the capacity to affect us more personally than the murder of millions of Jews, communists, gypsies and disabled people by the Nazis during World War 2 – this is what makes this era a postmodern one. However, the sharing of information is not always perfect – how many people died in the war in Congo in the 1990s?
Decline of grand narratives
With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and the end of communism with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the unification of Germany, and the spread of capitalism through eastern Europe and into China, ideologies – or grand narratives such as Marxism are said to have crumbled, because, arguably they have been proved to be unable to give a complete account of the movement of societies as Marxism has tried to do.
Post-modernism and media texts
Here are some qualities to look out for in post-modern texts:
1) Self-reflexivity and subversion: texts that refer to themselves are known as self-reflexive, for example, in a movie, when an actor looks directly at the audience and says, “Hey, don’t worry, it’s only a film!” Post-modern directors like to position their audiences at some distance, as if to compel them to realise that what they are seeing is only a constructed reality. A good example of this is the 2000 film Snatch by Guy Ritchie, where the editing is so obvious and is even referred to throughout the film.
2) Intertextuality: many post-modern films make playful references to other texts, teasing the audiences to spot the references. This is done constantly in the popular TV animations The Simpsons and can also be seen in The Matrix where lots of references to Baudrillard, Lewis Carol, and martial arts films are made, to name but a few. The best example of intertextuality can be found in the blockbuster Shrek, see how many you can spot.
3) Mixing genres and periods: post-modern texts often deliberately mix up different genres and periods to create interest in their audience. A good example of this is in A Knight’s Tale where the high culture of medieval literature (Chaucer) meets the popular culture of the 1970’s bands Queen and Thin Lizzy.
4) Using representation deliberately: audiences have become very sophisticated, post-modern directors like to show how fragmented our world has become, how we make sense of the world through media images, that are themselves copies of other texts. Life has become a hall of mirrors, which image is real?
Jean Baudrillard
Jean Baudrillard, a French media theorist, has been dubbed the prophet of postmodernity. Baudrillard’s best-known work is a series of essays called Simulacra and Simulation, in which he examines the power of representations in the pre-modern, modern and post-modern worlds. If you watch the first ten minutes of The Matrix you will see Neo/Anderson reading Baudrillard’s essays, a telling insertion by the directors, hinting at the narrative to follow. According to Baudrillard in the pre-modern world (before 1500) audiences were rarely confronted with representations of the real because the technology was simply not available, so there could be no confusion between the virtual and the actual. In the modern world (1500-1900) industrialisation and mass production allowed an endless series of representations to enter the collective consciousnesses of the audience, but it was still more than likely that people could distinguish between the simulation and the real. In the post-modern world, audiences are so saturated in representations, that these now precede perceptions of the actual, subtly changing them in the process. An example of this can be seen in how many victims of 9/11 described their trauma as the twin towers collapsed as “..like a film…” This small comment has enormous consequences when one considers it fully – a simulation of the real (a film) was the reference point for something actual, a bizarre reversal of normality. Baudrillard goes on to explore where this phenomenon might take humanity, and concludes that it is a ride that we must simply enjoy for the time being! As media products such as video games become ever more sophisticated, will the possibility arise that some people will choose to spend their lives in the predictable comfort of cyberspace rather than in the actual world of relationships, pain, mishaps and confusion?
Another interesting aspect of Baudrillard’s description of post-modern society is the multiplication of simulacra: texts that are copies of each other, with no hard bed rock reality behind the original creation. A good example of a simulacrum is the tribute band phenomenon: groups of talented musicians spend hours impersonating music, gestures and clothing of an original band, some making a good living out of this simulacrum! When one considers that many of the original bands were cynical marketing exercises in the first place, the mind begins to recoil at the level of simulation happening. Baudrillard discovered more and more simulacra appearing in post-modern societies, from themed pubs, theme parks, computer simulation ‘God games’ (The Sims), virtual online communities – all ‘realities’ that have no actuality behind them. A study of Baudrillard’s ideas can be extremely disconcerting as you realise the degree to which post-modern societies have no anchor to anything substantial. Baudrillard’s prophetic role is assured, and his questioning of where the world of simulacra may end is of critical importance to media students who want to really think about the societal consequences of their studies. The best text that explores many of Baudrillard’s questions is The Matrix: study the French master, then see the film again, and it will become clear how much the film owes to his work
Plot synopsis
The film opens with a street robbery - the victims are two adults accompanied by their son. This attack is an echo of the attack on Bruce Wayne and his parents when Bruce was a child, which resulted in the deaths of Bruce's parents. However, before things get too out of hand, Batman (Michael Keaton) appears from nowhere to stop the robbery and take care of the criminals, demonstrating Batman's super hero credentials immediately.
The film then switches focus to the election of Harvey Dent as District Attorney. Dent gives a tough sounding speech about the crackdown on crime that will mark his time in office. This tells the audience that Gotham has a serious crime problem - as has been demonstrated in the first scene - or else there would be no need for a crackdown and no need for Batman. Another aspect of Gotham's crime problem is then revealed to the audience - corrupt cops who are in league with organised crime - we see Eckhardt taking a back hander from Joker Jack (Jack Nicholson).
The first tangible result of DA Dent's crackdown on crime is felt when the mob get word of a police raid on Axis Chemicals. Jack has been having an affair with the crime Boss's wife, and Jack mistakenly thinks the boss doesn't know about it. However, suspicions are aroused when Carl places Jack in charge of a pre-emptive raid on Axis Chemicals to destroy incriminating evidence before the police get their hands on it.
Jack's raid on Axis is disrupted by the appearance of the police and also Batman, who has left his own house party, where he first meets Vicky Vale (Kim Basinger). In the ensuing melee at the chemical factory, Jack falls into a chemical vat, which dyes his hair and skin, and thus, the Joker is born.
The return of the Joker spells the beginning of an unprecedented crime wave in Gotham, leading the city leaders to postpone the city's 200th birthday celebrations. Instead, the Joker throws an alternative party where he offers free money to the participants. This is a ploy to draw Batman into the open for a final showdown "mano-et-mano", in the Joker's words. As the result of a previous encounter between Batman and Joker, Batman has worked out that Joker is the man who murdered his parents, giving him extra motivation to win the final duel. Needless to say, Batman ultimately wins out by sending Joker crashing down from the top of the tall, gothic cathedral. The film closes with a shot of Batman, alone on a roof top, guarding his city.
Why is this film a neo-noir?
A big-budget super hero film might seem an unlikely place to find a neo-noir, but probe further, and much of the noir aesthetic can be found. Firstly, if we examine the character of Batman, we find a man whose entire life and identity has been shaped by others. He truly is man who is unable to escape his past. He has been moulded by the murder of his parents by Jack outside the Monarch Theatre all those years ago. Bruce Wayne's alter-ego of Batman is, ultimately, Jack's creation.
The film plays out a number of scenes in the area of the Monarch Theatre to plant in the viewer's mind the significance of this location even before we learn that this is the place where Batman's parents were murdered. The use of this location several times shows how the past cannot simply be buried, and that the past shapes the present.
The wealth, power and lifestyles of the two crime bosses - Grisholm (Jack Palance) and Jack shows how crime does pay for those at the top end of the scale. Jack's reign of terror forces the elected leaders of Gotham to postpone the city's birthday party - demonstrating their powerlessness and showing Jack's strength. The covert power of organised crime becomes the overt power, and a power greater than the forces of democracy - a black, black world indeed.
As with other noirs, but perhaps more so here, the city itself is a character here. The city in this film is the fictional Gotham City - a city that has it's skyscrapers but also has older buildings too - like the enormous deserted gothic cathedral which hosts the final scene. The gothic cathedral and the industrial decay of the Axis Chemicals plant show there is more to Gotham than the gleam of the city centre. This fictional Gotham is a metropolis that stands for the industrialised cities where most of us in the western world live. As a fictional city, it could be anywhere, it could be your city. This nocturnal city is not a pleasant place to live, work and play - it is a place where danger lurks around the corner - as the we see at the very start of the film. Gotham City stands as a sign of the malaise that afflicts all industrialised societies.
One of the odd things about this film is the way that the groups of characters dress - the gangsters look like the hoods that were around in Al Capone's day, Knox the journalist, similarly has a 30s look, while his colleague, Vicky Vale and Bruce Wayne dress contemporary. The presentation of the criminals is a conscious echo of the representation of criminals in the early gangster movies and films noir, designed to show how little things have changed since this period. Again, the film shows how the past shapes the present, true to the noir ethos of fatalism and pessimism. This device also helps to identify the film as a conscious neo-noir.
The single most noir-ish element of the film is the sequence where we see the killing of Bruce Wayne's parents. The lighting, the camera angles and the presentation of the characters all ooze noir. Also, film noir partly has it's roots in the pulp fiction that Detective Comics (where Batman first appeared in the late 1920s) was a branch of. Here, with this film the present meets the past, and this contemporary film meets it's antecedents.
While ultimately more uplifting than most noirs, this film still manages to pose many awkward questions about the kind of societies we live in, and a such, stands fit to join the neo-noir pantheon.
Blade Runner
Plot synopsis
From it's beginning, "Blade Runner" signals to the viewer that this film is going to be very different to what has gone before. We are presented with a cityscape which we are then informed is Los Angeles, 2019. This Los Angeles bears no resemblance to the many images of LA throughout the history of film. This LA is not the LA of the Hollywood sign in the hills, this is not the LA of Venice and Malibu beaches. This LA is hell on earth. Scrolling text us informs that a group of replicants have escaped from an 'off-world colony'. Special police units - Blade Runners - are the ones to track down these replicants and 'retire' them. So, this future world has retained the hatreds of the past.
The first dialogue scene is of Leon's (one of the replicants that has escaped to earth) Voight-Kampff test. This is the test administered to discern whether someone is human or a replicant. Holden, the detective, asks Leon about his mother. Leon replies with two shots that kill Holden, and the chase is on.
After the death of Holden, the film then switches focus to Deckard, a former Blade Runner and ex-cop, turned private eye (thus establishing Deckard as a quintessential noir anti-hero).
This being a noir, there isn't really any such thing as an ex-cop, and Deckard is pressed back into service by his former boss, Captain Bryant, showing Deckard that he cannot escape his previous life, as is the case for Fergus in The Crying Game and Keaton in The Usual Suspects.
At the outset of his investigation he goes to the Tyrell Corporation, to interview Eldon Tyrell, as he is the brains behind these replicants, their god / father-figure. Whilst there, Deckard is introduced to Tyrell's 'daughter', Rachael. Seemingly on a whim, Tyrell asks Deckard to carry out a Voight-Kampff Test to ascertain whether or not Rachael is a human or a replicant.
Seemingly a futile exercise, but Deckard complies with Tyrell's request. The test reveals Rachael to be a replicant although she is unaware, as she has been implanted with false memories to give her a history which is a lie. Despite this knowledge, Deckard is unable to suppress his feelings of attraction for Rachael, and she takes the stock noir female role of the femme fatale siren, calling Deckard to his doom. Thus, the film demonstrates how fine the line is between human and replicant, one of the key themes in the novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, on which this film is based.
Roy (Rutger Hauer)
From here, Deckard works his way through the seedy underbelly of LA to 'retire' each of the replicants in turn, beginning with the slaying of Zhora, and culminating in the agonising death of Roy, the replicant group's leader. The main thrust of the narrative is concerned with taking Deckard through his grim task of retiring the replicants.
Running counter to received notions of professionalism and efficiency in our security forces, Deckard is a model of low cunning and inefficiency in the despatch of his mission. Deckard is out-thought and out fought at virtually every step along the way, taking a comprehensive beating at the hands of Zhora. He only manages to exert his supremacy with the use of his phallic gun, shooting Zhora in the back in cowardly fashion.
Along the way, the viewer is treated to some of the finest visual spectacles conceived in cinema. The strength of this film is proven by it's ever growing reputation twenty years after it's original cinematic release in 1982. As future noir go, this is still the benchmark for others to beat, as has been the case with the recent release of Minority Report and all the press links between these two films.
Deckard hanging on in there
Why is this film a neo-noir?
Blade Runner brings together the trappings of old school film noir with the sheen and mise-en-scene of sci-fi to great effect. The film is populated by noir characters - such as the Chandler-esque detective, Deckard, who exudes the sort of world weariness common to noirs, and as seen in an earlier neo-noir, Robert Altman's "The Long Goodbye".
Deckard is a supposedly retired "Blade Runner", yanked back in for 'one last job' by the seedy, corrupt cop Bryant. These characters, along with Rachael, the resident femme fatale, are staples of the noir and tell the viewer much about what kind of people these are, and what kind of story to expect - not a happy one.
As with many other noirs, the location is a significant character in it's own right. The permanent night-time LA - this realisation of hell-on-earth - forever belching fire and fumes into the polluted atmosphere forms an acute critique of the results of industrialisation and free-market economics. If you doubt that this is what the future holds in store for megalopilises such as LA, then think for a minute about how many times the smog in cities such LA, London, and the pollution capital of the US - Houston, Texas makes the news.
The narrative structure of the film reveals the noir imprint also. The film is composed of a series of episodes of Deckard trying to track down and 'retire' the escaped replicants. Each of these episodes is characterised by Deckard's ineptitude, he only wins through the use of extreme force - such as shooting Zhora in the back as she flees.
However, it is not Deckard's intelligence and courage that sees him through, just sheer chance. Additionally, in the original cinematic version, Deckard gives a traditional noir hard-boiled voice-over to link the episodes of the film together.
One of the greatest neo-noirs, one of the finest sci-fi films ever made, one of the very best films of the 1980s. A pioneer in it's field, and still the one to beat. Will Minority Report be held in such reverence in twenty years time? That's the test.
Key Credits
Behind the camera:
Director
Ridley Scott
Producer
Michael Deeley
Screenplay
Hampton Fancher and David Peoples
Director of Photography
Jordan Cronenweth
Editor
Terry Rawlings
Production Design
Lawrence G Paull
Music
Vangelis
Visual Futurist
Syd Mead
In front of the camera:
Deckard
Harrison Ford
Batty
Rutger Hauer
Rachael
Sean Young
Gaff
Edward James Olmos
In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?
We live in media-saturated society – with at least dozens if not hundreds of TV channels available to us and a variety of other media competing for our time and attention
If you want to know what happens / is about to happen on TV programmes – there are many ways of getting that information from websites and magazines
Pre-recorded TV is the easiest and safest for TV channels – so why go live?
'Live’ indicates special, one-off – a TV experience with added value
The Brits – for nearly 20 years was pre-recorded after poor show in 1989 – goes live again to capture ‘the moment’ …and the audience
…and certainly not forgetting the advertisers
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ITV has had a tough few years – advertising revenues in decline as ITV has a smaller share of the advertising cake – so ultimately live TV is good for business – remember the X-Factor
So we have The Brits: Live – well sort of…
Broadcast is slightly delayed to stop swearing being broadcast – lese ITV is likely to be ‘told off’ by the regulator Ofcom – who can fine and revoke broadcast licenses
nIn the end, the financial rewards are worth the risk – and it all comes down to money
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xy9t2EDCNlo
Eastenders Live – why?
Coronation St did it to celebrate 40th birthday in 2000
Leaked plot lines are spoilers – can detract away from wanting to watch
By not telling even the cast who killed Archie Mitchell, you guarantee that the plot doesn’t leak, therefore the events becomes special
BBC funded by licence fee – set by government – constantly vulnerable to accusations that it only serves a minority and there regular calls for the licence fee to be cut or scrapped – Sky, the Conservatives
Eastenders Live and associated programmes drives viewer numbers thus demonstrating that the BBC is good value for money
As with ITV, it all comes down to money
In what ways do media audiences and industries operate differently in a post-modern world?
What characterises a post-modern world?’
Why don’t audiences watch TV programmes in the same numbers as in the 1980s and 1970s? What strategies have institutions employed to recapture the essence of TV’s ‘golden age’?
Is producing live TV easy or difficult for institutions?
Why have these strategies been employed?
Have these strategies been successful?