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BRITISH - CONTEXT + NARRATIVE - Coggle Diagram
BRITISH - CONTEXT + NARRATIVE
TS - UK, circa 1996
Based on the 1992 novel of the same name by Irvine Welsh
Came out at a landmark time, when Thatcher's run and also the Conservatives' 18 year control over Parliament came to an end
"Not much of a story" said John Hodge (screenwriter), more of an episodic narrative: that can also be applied to the film as well
Production context
Financed by 4 Films for £1.5m
Global box office: £72m - one of the most successful British films of all time
Was the first film solely financed by Film4, but it wasn't much of a risk considering the success of the book and the miniscule budget
Made by the same team who made Shallow Grave, also directed by Boyle and starring McGregor
McGregor considered taking drugs to get into the headspace of Renton, but chose not to out of respect for those recovering from addiction
Trainspotting opts for a
hyperreal
approach to the film, which is unconventional for a film about drugs which would opt for social realism to match with the film's tones, to show the audience how it feels to take drugs, and most importantly,
FEEL THE RUSH
Thatcherite Britain
"There is no such thing as society. Only individual men and women, and there are families" - Thatcher
"There was no such thing as society and if even there was I most certainly had nothing to do with it." - Renton
Ran the Conservatives, a heavily right wing government, who made very anti working class choices that prioritised economic growth like closing the mines and the poll tax
The poll tax was a controversial law where the people had to pay for their local government
The UK was considered an overall "dead" place to live, with the overall lack of respect for the lower classes and a large amount of mainstream media coming from America / overseas
"Cool Britannia"
The New Labour that was sweeping the nation brought with it a sense of newfound optimism and appreciation of British media, which led to a renaissance in British mainstream films, music, TV and overall creative industries
Trainspotting is heavily tied to the movement through reflecting Renton's journey from depressing, Thatcherite Scotland and into the hip, optimistic Labour London
Think Blur V Oasis, Spice Girls, Damien Hurst,
SOTD - UK, circa 2004
Post Cool Britannia
9/11 + The war in the Iraq
The disappointment in Tony Blair and New Labour led to the overall optimism created by Cool Britannia to revert to a more depressing and glum state of affairs
AIDs still going strong and taking 5m lives in 2004
Generation X
The "lost" generation, with no wars to fight or anything to prove to their relatives, like previous generations
Like Fight Club
In the film, Shaun gets his chance to have his hero moment through an ultra-violent zombie fantasy, where he goes from beta male ruining his life to finally taking control
Also known as the MTV generation or the "slackers"
Common features of gen X is cynicism, mistrust of authority, a large focus on music, culture and media, and self-reliance from the previous boomer generation
NARRATIVE
There are two approaches to viewing narrative:
structuralist
and
formalist
Structuralist
: binary oppositions
Binary opps in TS are individual vs society, free will vs consumerism, homogeny vs free thinking,
us vs them
Binary opps in SOTD include also us vs them, mundaity vs the enlightened, vs free thinkers vs homogeny, individualism vs capitalism,
us vs them
Most of these opps feature the audience (homogenous mass) vs the "other" (anybody not considered "the norm")
Write about 2 opps at best - it's about explaining those opps carefully and how they are visualised
Also talk about how the opps
evolve
In TS, Renton's manifesto has changed
In SOTD Shaun goes from
zero
to
hero
and destroys "the other" (the zombies) in a consequence free, hypermale fantasy and chooses Liz as a better partner
Formalist
: the distinction between plot (the events of the narrative) and story (how the story is told)
Eg: POV character, the plot's linearity, how information is given to the audience, equilibrium-disequilibrium and how the characters are presented
SOTD's narrative is completely linear, while TS's jumps to and from events in the film to represent Renton's
FRAGMENTED MIND
The term is a flashforward /
ellipsis
(flashing forwards = a
prolepisis
)
Chekov's gun
: everything paid off in the narrative must have some kind of setup
Plenty of lines of dialogue are mostly repeated through SOTD (eg, "Gay!"), and plenty of props and ideas come into fruition (eg the gun at the Winchester and the peanuts flying into the face of Shaun)
If there wasn't any setup for the payoffs, then the film would be a series of random events and things happening without cohesion
Narrative voice
: who the events of the film are processed and presented through
Both of the films are presented with our white male gen X protagonist in their 20s who's slightly more redeemable than the others, but Renton's POV is twisted and broken because of the drugs
The narrative of TS is mostly restricted to Renton, but SOTD's narrative is restricted to Shaun; he's in basically every scene
Character development: yes
Renton chooses life, symbolised through the 2 manifestos he give in the beginning and end, the 2 times he breaks the 4th wall and the brown vs blue shirts - clear character development
Male voice - women are sidelined by the narrative
Diane is interesting, even though she gives only one important monologue / scene compared to the other women (who get 0), she has no other relevance to the plot except the sex scene and forthcoming shock factor
Liz is a princess in a tower where our hero gets his reward of a relationship - she was just fine in her flat
In the end she just is subservient to Shaun, having no other plans than make cups of tea and be a maternal figure to him: I guess she "learnt her place"
Todorov equilibrium
: the idea that conventional plots follow a clear
equilibrium
,
disruption
to that equilibrium, before the equilibrium is
restored
or is entirely
new
TS follows this:
EQU
= Renton living as a druggie.
DIS
= Renton's friends die and his life as a druggie is hopeless.
NEW
= Renton chooses life
Same with SOTD:
EQU
= Shaun lives as a loser and like a zombie.
DIS
= The zombie outbreak.
NEW
= Shaun sorts his life out + "saves" Liz
Usually the equilibrium is the same as before, usually implying the dominant ideology has won - does the character change, or does the world?
Roland Barthes narrative codes
: 5 types of codes that Barthes commonly identified with many texts
Hermeneutic
: anything that's deliberately left mysterious or ambiguous in the text, and asks the audience what it means (eg the monolith in 2001, or Spud gets some of the money and what he does next)
Proairetic
: the way that sequences are organised to build suspense (eg Nolan crosscutting or the hero's journey)
Semantic
: anything that has more meaning outside of the text, or metatextuality (eg fanservice movies, or the cornetto)
Symbolic code
: general symbolism (eg, red + blue pill, Renton laughing at the audience by breaking the 4th wall)
Cultural
: anything that can help the audience understand something better by pre-existing knowledge (eg fanservice movies, Thatcherite context in TS)
Narrative
= THE WAY THAT THE STORY IS TOLD
Narrative and scene analysis are worth half the marks each
Unless there's a good comparison, don't compare the two films too much
TIME
The events of TS takes place over a year or two, while the main events of SOTD takes place over a few days before a prolepsis over 6 months for the epilogue
The
poetics of the edit
- cutting out the parts of the film's timeline that we don't want or need to see, and focusing on the action and plot
It also implies the techniques used to jump through time (eg montages in TS, or rapid cuts in SOTD)
SOTD AND GENRES
SOTD is a rom-com-zom
Genre codes and conventions are constantly changing for contemporary audience
Subverts horror expectations through setting the film in a British city instead of American suburbia, and plenty of moments where Shaun is being an American action hero but looks humorous because it's in Britain instead of America
Most of the expectations of horror are challenged for comedy
But meets the conventions of horror, like the chase, jumpscares, blood and violence, but also a final
couple
instead of a final boy or girl (romance influence)
SOTD QUOTES
"This cheerful horror comedy is as smart as paint. It's pacily directed, nicely acted and boasts a script crammed with real gags" - Peter Bradshaw, Guardian
“People have said that it’s a romantic comedy with 2 guys and I think that’s pretty accurate” - Edgar Wright
“It was kinda distressing to shoot [the scene where Shaun’s mum dies] because it was Penelope Wilton’s [Liz] last scene… [and] it was right towards the end of the shoot and everyone was really tired” - Edgar Wright
“I ventured out once to buy milk at five in the morning, after staying up playing Resident Evil. I was taken with how deserted and eerie the streets were. What would a British person do if zombies appeared now?” - Edgar Wright
TS QUOTES
"The idea was that the audience follows the voice of Renton" - John Hodge, screenwriter
"There's an element of homosexuality in Begbie" - Robert Carlisle (Begbie)
"FEEL THE RUSH"
"Despite all of the glamorous [filmmaking] techniques, you've got to keep things real" - Boyle
"It uses a colourful vocabulary, it contains a lot of energy, it elevates its miserable heroes to the status of icons (in their own eyes, that is)." - Roger Ebert
"The Clockwork Orange of this generation" - Mark Kermode
IDEOLOGY
DEFINITION
: How themes, messages and ideas are explored through a film, and if it challenges or enforces them.
In the exam we have to talk about what messages the film has, and most importantly,
how those messages are conveyed
Most mainstream media contains dominant ideologies for where and when the film is made, while indie or alternative cinema commonly question those ideologies.
In an essay, we can write about either a
political
or
feminist
approach to both films
IDEOLOGY IN TS
TS is
enforcing
the dominant ideals of the New Labour / Cool Britannia movement, with Renton's journey being him rejecting the Thatcherite Conservative government, and the new equilibrium being Renton cutting off his drug-related friends (except Spud) and choosing life in the new left-wing government
This is conveyed through cinematic parallels through the opening and closing of the films: London is presented as optimistic and bright compared to the grey and dismal Edinburgh; Renton breaks the 4th wall in both scenes, the first time laughing at the audience and homogenous mass, the 2nd time longing for our life; and Renton's manifesto presents the consumerist lifestyle much more positively at the end compared to the beginning
TS also deals with themes of post-Thatcher depravity of the non-English UK, and the consequences it brings: the mundane, counter culture, and what the film heavily focuses on, the alienation and isolation of the working class youth, and the paths that lead them into drugs
Removing the Cool Britannia perspective, the film can be read as a praise of consumerism and the homogenous mass, and not encouraging the audience to be free thinkers: obviously shown through the change in perspective in Renton's manifesto
IDEOLOGY IN SOTD
Like TS, SOTD can be seen as enforcing dominant beliefs, as through the fact that even though Shaun has broken out of his false consciousness and sorted his life out, he still reverts back to the same routine of mindlessly living out his life, after Liz told her that she wants to do more things interesting things and she wants him to want the same thing
This is shown once again through parallels from the opening: Shaun's room is far cleaner, with more light coming from outside; yet there's still the same push-in shot from the opening, implying that he's once again living out the same routine
Considering the fact that the film overtly mentions this to the audience, the push-in can be seen as Wright being consciously aware of this, and so is subconsciously send those ideals to the audience that he's wasting his life away
By taking a feminist approach, this is a hypermale narrative, where the main women are sideline, and it can be read that Liz "knows her place" in the film's epilogue because her ambition that she had at the beginning is nowhere to be found with Shaun, and she's the one that makes tea for Shaun when he plays video games