UNDERSTANDING

FILM
THEORY
 UNDERSTANDING
FILM
THEORY

RUTH DOUGHTY AND CHRISTINE ETHERINGTON -

WRIGHT
SECOND EDITION
© Ruth Doughty and Christine Etherington-Wright 2018
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made
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First published 2018 by
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CONTENTS

List of illustrations

Acknowledgements

Introduction

1 Auteur Theory
Case study: Alfred Hitchcock
Case study: Guillermo del Toro

2 Adaptations
Case study: The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)

3 Genre Theory
Case study: The British Gangster Film
Case study: The Musical

4 Formalism
Case study: Lola Rennt/Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

5 Structuralism and Post-Structuralism

Case study: Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)

6 Marxism
Case study: The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014)

7 Realism
Case study: Dogme 95
Case study: The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)

8 Postmodernism
Case study: Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
 9 Psychoanalysis
Case study: Oldboy (Chan-Wook Park, 2003)

10 Feminism
Case study: Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013)

11 Masculinity
Case study: Ryan Gosling

12 Queer Theory
Case study: Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)

13 Race and Ethnicity

Case study: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

14 Postcolonial and Transnational Cinemas

Case study: Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

15 Stars
Case study: Amitabh Bachchan
Case study: Dame Judi Dench

16 Audience Research and Reception

Case study: Tartan Video

Conclusion

Filmography

Index
ILLUSTRATIONS

0.1 Deadpool Theoretical Approaches

1.1 Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)

© Paramount Pictures

1.2 The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton, 1993)

© Walt Disney Pictures

1.3 Making a case for an auteur

1.4 Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

© Universal Pictures

1.5 The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

© Universal Pictures

1.6 Hellboy (Guillermo del Toro, 2004)

© Revolution Studios/Dark Horse Entertainment

1.7 Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

© Estudios Picasso

2.1 Sanders’s Definitions (pp.21–3)

3.1 Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005)

© Universal Pictures

4.1 Diagram of 180-degree rule

4.2 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

First Studio Goskino

4.3 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

First Studio Goskino

4.4 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

First Studio Goskino

5.1 Projective/introjective ... in the filmmaking process

5.2 Projective/introjective ... in the viewing process

5.3 Posters for The Day after Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)
 © Twentieth Century-Fox. Courtesy the Kobal Collection

5.4 Poster for Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008)

© Paramount Pictures. Courtesy the Kobal Collection

5.5 Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Shaffner, 1968)

© Apjac Productions/Twentieth Century-Fox

5.6 Example of Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic choice

6.1 Diagram showing Base and Superstructure

6.2 The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014)
© Warner Brothers

7.1 A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936)

© Panthéon Productions

7.2 Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

© RKO Radio Productions/Mercury Productions

11.1 Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982)

© Dino de Laurentiis Corporation/Universal Pictures

11.2 Three Men and a Baby (Leonard Nimoy, 1987)

© Touchstone Pictures

13.1 Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

© The Weinstein Company

13.2 The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough, 1770

© courtesy of the Huntington Art Collections, San Marino, California. Photography ©
2015 Fredrik Nilsen

14.1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984)
© Lucasfilm Limited

14.2 Gunga Din (George Stevens, 1939)

© RKO Radio Productions

16.1 Exhibition spaces

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the following people for their support and advice on
the second edition of this book: Nicola Cattini, Ron Cowdry, Lincoln
Geraghty, Sue Harper, Demelza Kooij, Lloyd Lang-man, Keith Marley,
Rachel McLean, Sallie McNamara, Lydia Papadimitriou, Deborah Shaw,
Corin Willis and Sara Wolstenholme Crompton.
Once more we would like to thank the students of Portsmouth University
for their lively discussions and insights. We would also like to thank the
students of Liverpool John Moores University who entered the debate and
added Scouse humour.
Sincere thanks for the new case studies which feature in the second
edition of Understanding Film Theory which were skilfully chosen and
written by the following academics: Penny Chalk, Simon Hobbs, Keith
Marley and Andrew Pope.
Finally, thanks as always to our partners and families:
To Barrie Etherington-Wright for putting up with the process once again
and for his continuing support and belief in me. Also to Amanda and Paul
for their enthusiasm and practical support of meals when deadlines loomed.
To Andrew Barnicoat, supplier of food, wine, vigorous debate, love and
support. To Rhona and John Doughty for not tempting me out every
weekend now I have moved back to the North West. Lastly, to Briony
Barnicoat who has been telling all her friends that mummy has been writing
a book about Frozen and The Lego Movie.
The authors and publishers would like to thank the copyright holders for
permission to reproduce the following copyright material:
‘Journey of the Hero’ table in Chapter 4, which has been adapted from
the ‘Star Wars Origins’ website, created by Kristen Brennan
(http://www.jitterbugfantasia.com/origins/myth.html).
The British Board of Classification symbols in Chapter 5, courtesy of the
British Board of Film Classification.
 Figure 13.2 (The Blue Boy by Thomas Gainsborough, 1770), © courtesy
of the Huntington Art Collections, San Marino, California. Photography ©
2015 Fredrik Nilsen.
INTRODUCTION

Theory has a bad reputation. It often sends a shudder of despair down the
spine of students and academics alike. The reasons for this are because it is
challenging, it is difficult, it can take time to grasp and can often leave the
reader feeling inadequate and frustrated. Theory can often seem old-
fashioned and stuffy and therefore it can be hard to see its modern-day
relevance. The aim of this book is to try to disassociate theory from these
negative connotations. It is for this reason that the book has been written. In
short, our intention is to take the ‘fear’ out of theory.

What is theory?

Theory is a system of trying to understand and explain things from a

specific point of view. Theories develop and evolve through debate and the
interchange of ideas. For example, someone comes up with an idea which
they share within academic circles (through journals, books, conference
papers or online forums). This creates the basis for discussion and often
vehement criticism. Over time ideas are questioned and more people
contribute to the field of debate. As a result, theories should be thought of
as chains of ideas and responses.
Interestingly, not all approaches to reading a film text are recognized as
traditional theoretical modes. This can be attributed to hierarchical bias. For
example, theories that developed out of philosophy and literary criticism
have a long-established history and, for that reason, they are often granted
the status of theory (Formalism, Structuralism, Marxism and
Psychoanalysis). Alternatively, in the 1970s a number of new approaches
emerged that were concerned with looking at groups that had previously
been marginalized (Feminism, Queer Theory, Race and Ethnicity). As with
all new ways of thinking, modern approaches are often met with
controversy. However, this can fuel intellectual discussion and in turn can
lead to new ideas. For example, our chapter on Masculinity can be read as a
response to Feminist readings. In addition, a further widening occurred
when film scholars began to use empirical research to inform their findings
(Stars, Audience Research and Reception).
This division between which theories are traditionally classed as such
and which may more appropriately be classed as critical perspectives is
both reductive and redundant. All approaches are methodologies that
enhance our understanding and appreciation of the film text. Which
approaches earn the status of ‘theory’ remains a contested notion and is to a
large extent subjective. Nevertheless, Film Studies is a more recent
academic pursuit, and as films are a modern cultural format, innovative
theoretical ideas offer new and exciting lines of study.

Why study theory?

Theory can be interesting and exciting as it enriches our understanding of

filmic texts. It can provide new ways of looking at some of our favourite
films. More importantly, it can help us gain a new level of appreciation for
texts that we feel we know inside out. Theory encourages debate as it
enables different readings of texts; it provides another degree of
interpretation. It can also offer a way of making sense of a film that may at
first seem inaccessible such as avant-garde, surrealist filmmaking.
Theory can be difficult to comprehend and therefore it is important to
invest a little time. Complex ideas cannot be understood and appreciated in
a few minutes. Some theorists have spent their entire career debating and
writing about one specific area; as a result it can be an arduous task trying
to extract the intention of their theses. The process of finding that hidden
nugget can be overwhelming. However, when the ideas finally fall into
place, the ‘light bulb’ moment is exciting, generating a huge sense of
achievement and satisfaction.

The problems with theoretical writing

One of the main problems with theoretical texts is that they were often
written a long time ago. Accordingly, the style of writing is typically
archaic and dense, rendering it inaccessible to a modern reader. This is
compounded by the fact that many texts were originally written in a
different language and have since been translated into English.
Unfortunately, this has set a precedent and even modern-day theorists tend
to adopt a formal tone when bringing their ideas to life. This impen-etrable
and complex tone often works to alienate the reader. As a result, we are
often left feeling intimidated and giving up seems the only option.
It is also important to note that you can read a film using a variety of
theoretical approaches. You do not need to limit your analysis by choosing
one theoretical perspective, although you may wish to do a detailed reading
from a specific viewpoint. Conversely, you could employ a number of
theories; for example, look at Figure 0.1, indicating appropriate theories for
the film Deadpool (Tim Miller 2016).

Our approach

In this book, we provide a definition of each theory as a starting point, all of

which have been taken from the Oxford English Dictionary online, and set
out to summarize the main concepts proposed by key thinkers. Our
intention has been to summarize, yet not necessarily oversimplify, seminal
texts. Throughout each chapter you will find ‘Reflect and Respond’
sections. These have been designed in order for you to explore and attempt
to apply ideas to see if you have grasped the main points. These questions
also ask you to find contemporary examples so that you are aware of the
theory’s relevance to a modern-day viewer.
It is important to note that this book can also be of use to film
practitioners. Theory and practice should not be thought of as exclusive
areas; instead the two should be seen as mutually beneficial. Theory
informs practical filmmaking and similarly practical filmmaking informs
theory. For example, cinematographers make informed decisions which can
be strengthened through a knowledge of realist aesthetics and editing
choices are best served with an understanding of semiotics. Similarly,
scriptwriters hone their craft through familiarity with generic traits and
formalist approaches to narratology. Many of the critically acclaimed
directors attended university and studied theory before going on to produce
their own films. Therefore, many of the ideas and concepts covered within
this book can be used to heighten an awareness of filmmaking techniques.
 It is important to note that even though we have separated theories into
distinct chapters, there is a lot of overlap in ideas and individual theorists
can be linked to more than one theory. Therefore, theories should not be
thought of in isolation (neatly defined ‘boxes’). It is from this movement
and cross-fertilization between areas that new theories can emerge as theory
is constantly evolving.

What’s new in the second edition of this book?

A new chapter, ‘Adaptations’, has been added to reflect the growing interest
and importance of this area. Similar to the other chapters in the book,
Adaptations has major theorists in the area and extends to wider sources
than the novel to film paradigm.
All the chapters have been updated and extended to include more
theorists and new developments in the area as theory is always evolving.
The film references and examples in many instances have been revised to
include relevant and up to date examples. Furthermore, there are nine new
case studies that maintain a global focus.

Structure of book

Whilst we have aimed to provide a coherent and logical structure for this
book, there is always more than one possible solution. Having said that, the
content lends itself loosely into two sections. The first part of the book
covers theories which have a long-established history, typically developed
from literature, politics and psychology, namely, Genre, Formalism,
Structuralism and Post-Structuralism, Marxism, Realism, Postmodernism
and Psychoanalysis. Also in this section is Auteur Stud-ies; although
specifically linked to the discipline of Film, it addresses questions of
authorship that originated in literary circles. The new Adaptations chapter
was developed from English and Film departments have close links with
Auteur and Genre Theory and is therefore included in this section.
Accordingly, Chapter 1 covers Auteur Theory, in which the history of the
development of this practice is provided and questioned tracing ideas from
Francois Truffaut, Andrew Sarris, Roland Barthes to current academic
enquiries. Chapter 2 is a more recent development in the field and therefore
an addition to the revised version of this book. Adaptations can further
problematize the notion of Auteur and fits closely with both Auteur and
Genre theory. The increase in the high percentage of novels, plays, video
games, autobiography/biography, and comic books adapted to film, and
conversely, films to books (novelization), films to video games, comic
books and animation all attest to the close links between Auteur, Adaptation
and Genre theories. Chapter 3 looks at the development of Genre Theory
from Andrew Tudor to the present day. Formal elements, narrative,
audiences, semantics revisionism and hybridity are discussed here. The
following chapters, 4 and 5 (Formalism, Structuralism and Post-
Structuralism), and Chapters 6 and 7 (Marxism and Realism) show the
theoretical development from the 1920s with Sergei Eisenstein and
cinematography, editing and montage, Vladimir Propp and Joseph
Campbell’s useful work on character; all of these would be considered
Formalists. Formalism developed into Structuralism and Post-Structuralism
and many former Formalists became Structuralists (Roland Barthes, for
example). In the 1970s practitioners such as Herbert Marcuse, Louis
Althusser, Antonio Gramsci built on Karl Marx’ ideas and provided a way
for reading cultural texts such as film through the prism of Marxism
(Chapter 6). Chapter 7 traces the use of realism in film from Eadweard
Muybridge’s first experiments in 1877, through documentary traditions,
realism in various countries to High Definition and 3D technologies.
Chapter 8 concentrates on the areas of Postmodernism which have a
particular resonance for Film Studies. Postmodernism covers every aspect
of the modern world from architecture, the arts, literature, politics,
philosophy, sociology and so on. It is a complex ideology as the chapter
discloses and one that is still morphing in various ways in the twenty-first
century. For understanding character development in films, the work of
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Lacan in Chapter 9 on Psychoanalysis
provide a useful tool.
 Figure 0.1 Deadpool Theoretical Approaches

The second part and next five chapters take various identity politics again
utilized in other disciplines, such as Feminism (Chapter 10), Masculinity
(Chapter 11), Queer Theory (Chapter 12), Race and Ethnicity (Chapter 13)
and Postcolonial and Transnational studies (Chapter 14). The final two
chapters, 15 and 16, examine perspectives on Stars and Audience
Research/Reception which were developed for the study of film and media.
Unlike other theories that we consider, Audience Studies require an
engagement with empirical research and an awareness of film marketing.
Two final important points: this book is not intended to be read from
cover to cover, although you may wish to do that. It has been organized so
that you can easily dip in and out to find specific information. The second
thing is that it would be impossible to cover all ideas and academics
associated with each theoretical perspective. Consequently, this book
should be thought of as a starting point for further research. It is important
to expand on our summaries and seek out original writing for yourself.
Hopefully, this book will act as a ‘springboard’ and encourage you to
confidently explore and enjoy film theory.
 CHAPTER 1

AUTEUR THEORY
Auteur
1. A film director whose personal influence and artistic
control over his or her films are so great that he or she
may be regarded as their author, and whose films may be
regarded collectively as a body of work sharing common
themes or techniques and expressing an individual style or
vision.

Setting the scene

Historically the notion of authorship conjured up the image of an isolated

individual passionately working to create bodies of art. Characters such as
those in Baz Luhrmann’s Moulin Rouge! (2001) help perpetuate this
romantic stereotype of the tortured Bohemian artist. When applying ideas of
authorship to the field of Film Studies it is typically the director that is
acknowledged as the creative force. The term auteur is French for author
and the word derives from the prefix ‘auto’, meaning one.
The idea of a single controlling figure was acknowledged as early as the
1910s in the British fan magazine Bioscope where certain directors were
identified as special. Similarly, in Germany the term Autoren film was used,
which also promoted the idea of the director as author. However,
screenwriters campaigned for their right to be recognized as the creative
force and accordingly, the notion of authorship became increasingly
complex. This debate from the 1910s continues to resonate a century later
and is one of the founding ideas of film theory.
The idea that film is the sole work of a single contributor is problematic.
Film is a collaborative process and therefore to attribute control to the
director above all others is contentious. The number of people involved in
producing a film is extensive: actors, writers, set designers, camera
operators, musicians, financial backers, technical advisors, costume and
make-up artists, editors, marketing and distribution staff, and so on. To
understand this debate fully, it is necessary to trace the emergence and
development of Auteur Theory and explore its complexity. These debates
about the auteur were initiated by an influential text from filmmaker and
novelist Alexandre Astruc.
Astruc coined the term caméra-stylo, which literally translates as ‘camera
pen’. He wanted to bring film into line with other kinds of art, namely
raising its status from a working-class form of entertainment to match that
of opera, ballet, poetry, literature and fine art. His article ‘The Birth of a
New Avant-Garde: La Caméra-Stylo’ (1948) called for a new language in
filmmaking. He posited that the camera should be used in the same way that
a writer would use a pen. He rallied filmmakers to move beyond
institutionalized forms of cinema in favour of more personal ways of
storytelling. The emphasis that Astruc placed on the ‘personal’ has fuelled
debate. The most vigorous participants in this debate came from France.

The Cahiers group

The Cinémathèque Française in Paris was much more than a typical

cinema, as it was home to a group of enthusiasts who collectively sought to
revolutionize cinema. Led by Henri Langlois, the group showed films
throughout the day and night, attracting the attention of likeminded
individuals. Their fascination in cinema instigated a forum for debate and
experimentation. For example, they would watch films without any sound
so that they could focus solely on the importance of the image. This
fanaticism and attempt to comprehend the very essence of cinema resulted
in two major developments in film history: the journal Cahiers du cinéma
and the Nouvelle Vague/French New Wave school of filmmaking.
These ‘filmoholics’ were often referred to as cinéphiles as they were
obsessed with filmmaking. Among the key members of the group were:

• André Bazin (theorist)

• Claude Chabrol (New Wave director and writer)
• Jean-Luc Godard (New Wave director, writer and theorist)
• Henri Langlois (archivist)
• Alain Resnais (New Wave director)
• Jacques Rivette (New Wave director and writer)
• Francois Truffaut (New Wave director, writer and theorist)
• Roger Vadim (New Wave director and writer).

From within this influential group of filmmakers and thinkers, Francois

Truffaut energized the debate with his article ‘Une Certaine Tendance du
Cinéma Français’.

François Truffaut
‘Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français’ (1954)

Truffaut’s seminal text ‘Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français’ signalled a radical
shift in the auteur debate. He and his fellow cinéphiles found traditional French
filmmaking conservative and unexciting. ‘Tradition de la qualité’ was the term used to
describe films that were typically based on adaptations of literary classics. The Cahiers
group mocked this mode of production, calling it ‘Cinéma du Papa’ (Dad’s cinema) as
they felt it was stuffy and outdated. More importantly, this form of filmmaking privileged
the role of the writer rather than acknowledging the director. In contrast to ‘tradition de
la qualité’ they aspired to create films that spoke to their generation. Their intention
was to attack the ideology of bourgeois culture.
During World War II foreign imported films were limited due to the Nazi occupation of
France. Post-war the influx of films, particularly from Hollywood, strongly inspired the
Cahiers group. In spite of studio stipulations, they recognized that certain directors’
films exhibited identifiable stylistic traits. As a result of these observations Truffaut
developed ‘la politique des auteurs’ (auteur policy). It is important to establish that
Truffaut never intended for his work to form the basis of a theory; it represented a
policy, an attitude and a critical approach to reading film. The two overriding principles
he put forward were:

1 Mise-en-scéne is crucial to the reading of cinema and is essential in film analysis

and criticism.
2 The director’s personal expression is key in distinguishing whether they should be
afforded the title of auteur.

Truffaut was concerned with the focus on film style (mise-en-scene and thematics)
rather than film plot (content).

Reflect and respond

1 How did the Cahiers group change the previous sense of the auteur?
2 Why do you think Truffaut favours mise-en-scéne over other aspects of filmmaking?
 3 Can you identify any directors who are instantly recognizable due to the consistency
in mise- en-scéne throughout their films?

Mise-en-scéne

The term mise-en-scéne literally translates as ‘put into the scene’.

Originating from the theatre, it describes everything that appears in the
frame. This can be divided into four specific components:

1 set design (props and décor)

2 lighting (and shadow)
3 acting (movement and gesture, not dialogue)
4 costume and make-up

In order to understand the importance of mise-en-scène in relation to Auteur

Theory, it is necessary to identify consistent stylistic traits across films to
decide whether or not a director can be classed as an auteur.
Tim Burton provides an interesting study, as his films have a distinctive
aesthetic style. Consider the films Sleepy Hollow (1999) and Big Fish
(2003). The narratives in both films are located in the woods, a typical trope
found across Burton’s oeuvre, with the gnarled, eerie trees serving to create
a foreboding atmosphere. The viewer is drawn into an uncomfortable
world, as generically Burton falls between the two camps of Horror and
Fantasy. This is enhanced by the artistic use of light and shadow to
anticipate the arrival of nightfall and unspoken horrors.
Burton owes a great debt to German Expressionism; this can be seen
through the use of curves, the angular objects within the frame and the
surreal nature of his storytelling. The lead protagonist, though central to the
composition, is intimidated by the pervading forest. These elements of the
mise-en-scène combine to induce a sense of menace where man is pitted
against nature, a recurring dynamic in Burton’s work.
Figure 1.1 Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)

In addition to the importance of set design and lighting, the aesthetic

consistency can also be applied to Burton’s use of costume and make-up. A
typical feature of an auteur is a director who uses the same actors time and
time again. Throughout Burton’s career, Johnny Depp has been cast in
numerous leading roles. Despite the disparate characters Depp has played,
Burton recycles and develops roles rather than abandoning characters.
Sweeney Todd can be seen as an extension, and in many respects an
inversion, of Edward Scissorhands. The naive, fearful and introverted
character from the 1990s is transformed into the cynical, murderous and
predatory demon barber of Fleet Street; a ghost of his former self.
To examine this in more detail it is appropriate to focus on costume and
make-up. In both films Depp sports a dishevelled look with unkempt hair.
Similarly, his black and white clothing is reminiscent of a Gothic, Romantic
artist, a familiar motif woven throughout Burton’s repertoire. The costume
is flamboyantly adorned with frills typical of swashbuckling heroes of old.
Yet unlike with the conventional heroes, the garments are crumpled and
suggestive of neglect. The razor-sharp fingers that were imposed on the
earlier character of Scissorhands become a fundamental part of Todd’s
character and once more integral to the narrative. Similarly, in 2012, Dark
Shadows has Depp white-faced, hollow-eyed, disheveled-hair and with long
finger nails portraying a more comedic version in a gothic setting of these
characters.
Figure 1.2 The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton, 1993)

The consistency in design across Burton’s work is exemplified by the

highly stylized look explicit in the mise-en-scène of his films. Figures 1.1
and 1.2 exemplify tropes discussed earlier; extreme use of light and shadow,
curves and angles, influence of both German Expressionism and the Gothic.
Furthermore, the compositions of the images are incredibly similar. In 2010,
Alice in Wonderland exhibited Burton’s distinctive mise-en-scène bringing a
darker twist to the original book. These images reflect Burton’s consistent
preoccupation with the macabre. His use of dark tones, spooky landscapes
and scary objects provide an appropriate backdrop for his Gothic tales.
These have become synonymous with his oeuvre.

Personal filmmaking

Another facet of the auteur argument is the notion of directors pursuing

projects that hold personal significance. These personal aspects can
manifest in many forms, such as political, social and cultural. For example,
Spike Lee is typically drawn to narratives about race and Martin Scorsese is
interested in Catholicism.
To continue with Burton as an illustration, it can be seen that the theme
of childhood isolation is pertinent within his films. As a child Burton was
estranged from his parents, living with his grandmother from the ages of 12
to 16. During this period he sought solace by escaping into his imagination,
which was fuelled by fairytales and classic monster movies. Burton
identified with the monster rather than the hero as he was himself a loner.
He states:

Every kid responds to some image, some fairy-tale image, and I felt most
monsters were basically misperceived, they usually had much more
heartfelt souls than the human characters around them. My fairy-tales
were probably those monster movies, to me they’re fairly similar.
(Salisbury, 2006, p.3)

The film Edward Scissorhands (1990) is probably his most

autobiographical to date and Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children
(2016) shows Burton returning to the theme of the outsider child. Whilst
Depp is no longer the young hero, the similarity with Asa Butterfield (Jake)
as the lead protagonist is hard to miss. The unlikely hero of the narrative
can be seen as Burton’s alter ego. The resemblance to these main characters
is also evident in Burton’s physical appearance. He is often photographed
looking awkward in crumpled suits and with long, tousled hair. The link
between personal experience and filmic storytelling in Edward
Scissorhands and many of his other films exemplifies the recurring
sentiment in Burton’s work.
In addition to thematic consistency, directors can also include personal
signatures within their oeuvre. This can consist of a visual motif that is
repeated across a body of texts. Earlier we discussed Burton’s Gothic mise-
en-scène as an illustration of a personal signature. Another example can be
found in the films of Spike Lee, in which he places an actor on a dolly with
the camera. The effect is that the character appears to float rather than walk
and this technique is instantly recognizable as Lee’s signature.
The importance of mise-en-scène and a director’s personal signature are
fundamental to the auteur debate. The ideas of the Cahiers group and
Truffaut in the 1950s were taken up and complicated by Andrew Sarris, an
American critic writing in the 1960s.

Andrew Sarris
‘Notes on the Auteur Theory’ (1962)
 Sarris is most famous for mistranslating Truffaut’s ‘La Politique des Auteurs’ as Auteur
Theory. Although it is predominantly referred to as a theory, it should be considered as
a device for reading film. Sarris starts his essay by pointing out the flaws in Truffaut’s
thesis. He questions whether a director can be the author of a film and therefore solely
responsible for its distinctive quality. He continues by stating that Auteur Theory
‘makes it difficult to think of a bad director making a good film and almost impossible to
think of a good director making a bad one’ (Sarris, 1962, p.561).
Sarris discussed his interpretation of Auteur Theory in terms of concentric circles
(see diagram): ‘The outer circle as technique; the middle circle, personal style; and the
inner circle, interior meaning’ (p.563). He believed that for a director to reach the status
of auteur, they would have to be accomplished in all areas. Most important, for Sarris,
is the inner circle. Many directors are able to achieve the outer circles but if a
filmmaker’s work consistently attains ‘interior meaning’, this would suggest it is the
work of an auteur. Here Sarris raises the important debate concerning the metteur-en-
scène.

Metteur-en-scène

The term metteur-en-scène was first coined by André Bazin, another

Cahiers writer. A metteur is different from an auteur in that the former is a
competent, and often very good, technician. Whereas an auteur can make a
good movie out of a poor script, a metteur-en-scène would struggle; they
merely adapt material given to them rather than making it their own. In
other words, they may exhibit some of the attributes associated with an
auteur but lack the extra depth involved.

Production
Another area for consideration is the budget that a director is able to secure.
It does not necessarily follow that a large budget is an indication of auteur
status; in fact the reverse can often be true. A director could be successful
working in a specific genre and therefore accrue monetary backing as future
projects are likely to be commercially successful. In contrast, many auteurs
work outside the mainstream studio system and accordingly struggle to
attract financial support. Often in the case of the latter, big-name actors
appear in films at a reduced fee as they are more interested in the critical
acclaim that can be gained from working with such a director. For example,
Tom Cruise worked with Paul Thomas Anderson on the film Magnolia
(1999) and, more recently, Duncan Jones, son of David Bowie, managed to
acquire the vocal talent of Kevin Spacey for his film Moon (2009) as the
voice of the robot companion, GERTY.
Interestingly, this leads to another aspect of the auteur debate. Moon was
Duncan Jones’s debut film. Although it has been critically praised, we
cannot deduce whether Jones qualifies as an auteur because he has yet to
make a large body of films. It begs the question: Does a director have to
produce a certain number of films before they can be ascribed the status of
auteur? Or should artistic ability be measured by quality rather than
quantity? This is one of many obstacles that problematize the issue of
authorship.

Problematizing the auteur

Pauline Kael was one of the most outspoken critics to debunk the ideas of
Auteur Theory. In response to Andrew Sarris’s idea of ‘concentric circles’,
she published a vitriolic attack entitled ‘Circles and Squares’ (1963). Here
she methodically critiqued the notion of the ‘Outer, Middle and Inner
Circles’. Kael’s assault was loaded with saracasm and suspicion, for
example, she states:

It is an insult to an artist to praise his bad work along with his good; it
indicates that you are incapable of judging either. […] It’s like buying
clothes by the label: This is Dior, so it’s good. (This is not so far from the
way the Auteur critics work, either). (p.16)
Putting Kael’s concerns aside, one of the main criticisms of the director as
author is that film is a collaborative process involving an eclectic team of
artisans, whose input is ignored when applying the theory. Peter Wollen
refers to the additional layers of film production as ‘noise’ (Caughie, 1981,
p.143). He stated that viewers have to separate the ‘voice’ of the director
from superfluous ‘noise’. Wollen was referring to other forms of
interference such as input from actors, producers and camera operators.
Once more this emphasizes the personal, distinctive vision of the director
and asks the audience to be active in locating and hearing a continued
narrative. Conversely, what he dismisses as superfluous ‘noise’ can be
privileged as an alternative to the vision of the director. Here we will
consider four possible candidates for the role of auteur in order to further
the debate on authorship:

1 Actor

The actor has a unique presence within a film, not only on screen but also
as a marketing tool to attract an audience. Films are more frequently
advertised using the name of the star rather than that of the director. For
example, the Alien franchise has seen a whole host of directors (Ridley
Scott, James Cameron, David Fincher and Jean-Pierre Jeunet), yet it may be
more pertinent to consider Sigourney Weaver in terms of consistency
regarding authorship. Furthermore, certain stars have the respect to ensure a
film is realized. For example, Alejandro Amenábar’s Abre los Ojos/Open
Your Eyes (1997) was remade as Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001) due to
Tom Cruise’s enthusiasm for the Spanish film. Similarly, Tom Hanks was
highly influential in bringing the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel
Zwick, 2002) to the screen. Additionally, some actors have made the
transition into directing, for example, Clint Eastwood, Mel Gibson and
Kevin Costner.

2 Cinematographer

One of the main preoccupations in discussions of the director as auteur is

the focus on visual style. The responsibility for style often lies behind the
camera. The selection of specific angles and depth of field influences the
spectator’s understanding of an entire scene. Furthermore, they are
responsible for whether the film has a realistic, gritty aesthetic or a more
vibrant and saturated tone. Therefore, the cinematographer is key to the
overall look of the film and could be considered an auteur. For example,
Gordon Willis is often accredited for capturing the brooding atmosphere of
the Godfather films. Interestingly, in America they are known as the
‘director of photography’ (DP). There are certain directors who have also
undertaken this role, for example, David Lean and Lars von Trier; however,
these are exceptions.

3 Writer

This is possibly the most problematic category. If we consider The Lord of

the Rings: J. R. R. Tolkien penned the original books; Peter Jackson
directed the franchise (2001–3); yet it was Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens,
with Peter Jackson, who wrote the screenplay. This clearly calls the idea of
authorship into question. The British director Richard Curtis believes that it
is paramount that a writer is part of the filmmaking process because:

A film is made at least four times. Once in the writing. Then in the
shooting, which is the second film. Then in the editing, which is the third
film. Then there might be a fourth film … losing bits that you love. …
The screenplay is only the beginning. (Owen, 2003, p.96)

However, Curtis’s belief is not necessarily the norm. Some writers have
been barred from any input once the book has been purchased. This will be
examined more closely in the Adaptations chapter.

4 Composer

Many directors work repeatedly with the same composers: Steven Spielberg
with John Williams, Sergio Leone with Ennio Morricone, Tim Burton with
Danny Elfman. Therefore much of the distinctive style associated with
these directors is reliant on this collaborative process. The score and
soundtrack are once again integral to audience interpretation.
These four ways of discussing authorship signal a move away from
Truffaut’s Politique; this idea was further complicated by the work of
Roland Barthes.
 Roland Barthes
‘Death of the Author’ (1968)

Roland Barthes was a theorist, critic and writer on cultural and social meaning. His
seminal text ‘Death of the Author’ was written for literary criticism. However, a look at
his ideas will show how they are easily applied to questions of authorship in film.
According to Barthes, Western culture places too much emphasis on the creative
force; assigning meaning of the text to the author. He challenged this tradition by
giving preference to the reader. He maintained that it was the reader who gave a text
meaning. The reader is the interpreter and there can never be one definitive reading of
a text, be it film or literature. We all interpret information in different ways.
In order to fully appreciate messages contained in a work, it would be necessary to
have knowledge of an author’s intended purpose. But this author-centred approach
closes down the full range of possible meanings. The traditional notion of the author
needs to be reviewed. The onus instead is placed firmly on the reader/viewer, as they
need to engage with the material and become an active reader. Whereas the passive
reader allows information to be absorbed without any conscious effort, the active
reader will question and challenge the text. This allows an endless play of meaning;
the text is no longer closed but instead remains open. However, interpretation may be
endlessly ‘open,’ but at the same time there are certain culturally normative ways of
reading and interpreting texts (see Chapter 5: Structuralism and Post-Structuralism,
Mythologies, p.95). Yet, in terms of the auteur debate, the ‘death of the author’ leads to
the ‘birth’ of the reader.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent do you agree or disagree with the ideas of Barthes?

2 It is now common to speak of a Scorsese or a Tarantino film. What characteristics
would you expect to see in a film by either of these two directors?
3 Can a film’s meanings be attributed to a single creative source?
4 Why do we place so much emphasis on ‘authorship’? Why do audiences and critics
continue to want a cinematic author?
5 Can you name any famous cinematographers, composers, editors or other technical
crew members? If not why is this?
6 Is Auteur Theory now an outdated mode of analysis for Film Studies? If yes, what are
the alternatives?

Michel Foucault was an eminent French philosopher, historian and literary

critic. He wrote extensively on post-structuralist and postmodernist
theories. ‘What is an Author?’ was originally given as a lecture in 1969, and
although not explicitly stated, appears as a response and criticism of Roland
Barthes ‘Death of an Author’. Both agreed that the ‘author’ was a contrived
historical phenomenon which had gained heroic status. But Foucault’s
approach is very different from that of Barthes.

Michel Foucault
What is an Author? (1977)

As would be expected, the notion of an author originally started with literature and
much writing on this has and continues to concentrate on literary texts. However, the
idea of authorship has relevance to Film Studies and in order to make this
summarizing of Michel Foucault’s essay both clear and useful, this section focuses on
the areas that can have meaning for film in order to streamline all the many diversions
and varied texts he offers from scientific treatise, law, medicine, biography. His essay
evolves through asking a series of questions about the writers’ texts in an historical
and discursive framework.
Foucault’s essay developed from a lecture he gave in 1969 which in part appears to
question Roland Barthes’ essay, ‘Death of an Author’ (1967). Foucault looks at issues
that surround the function of an author’s name and what that name signifies. He
questions in this essay the need to trace ideas back to specific authors and why the
need to insist that ideas and concepts, and literary works are attributed to the creation
of a single individual? Rather than the ‘death of the author’, Foucault suggests that it is
or should be a voluntary disappearance into the created work, thereby avoiding
theories of authorship that place the author as the ‘sole creator of meaning’. Similar to
Samuel Beckett he is asking, does it matter who is speaking? (Begam, 1996, p.121).
However, he appears to suggest that by writing about the privileged position of the
author and by challenging this position, Barthes et al. may be preserving the authorial
position.
If theories on the ‘death of the author’ are used, Foucault suggests that there is a
need to question the importance of the space that arises from not having a recognized
author, and to just ’repeat empty slogans’ (p.121) is not enough. One possibility he
considers is that it allows for the ‘birth’ of the reader/audience and their part in finding
significance in the work. In doing this, we should understand a work through analyzing
its form and content. Although, before this, a decision must be made as to what
constitutes a ‘work’, taking the context of the author into consideration. He sites by way
of example, should jottings or shopping lists, found in an author’s papers, be excluded
or taken as part of the author’s work? (pp.118–19). In filmmaking we could liken this to
scenes that do not make the final cut; is this part of the director’s oeuvre? This
becomes more complex when DVDs containing the ‘Director’s cut’ have become a
main item of the DVD.
Where Foucault agrees with Barthes is that the ‘Author’ is a historical creation that
has gained mythological and heroic status, but then they differ. In this point, Foucault
does not think there is a need to ‘kill’ the author, as he believes that it is inevitable that
the notion of author will cease. In connection with this, he explains the historical ideas
of ownership of a work as these have significantly changed over time. In this
connection, Foucault discusses what he calls the ‘author-function’ (p.123) that is not
constant in all discourses. Ancient literary texts such as myths and folk tales for
example, did not and do not need to have an author to be thought of as worthy. Their
age alone is guarantee of authenticity. Into the Middle Ages medical and historical
texts were only considered worthy if they had an author, namely work from ancient
Greek and Roman writers such as Hippocrates and Pliny (p.125). Then, at the
beginning of the eighteenth century, written works became a property that could be
appropriated when strict copyright laws were introduced and required an assigned
author. At a similar time, ideas changed as a guide to the truthfulness of the work and
authorless scientific texts were accepted on merit, whereas a literary text was
accepted only if it had an author’s name, as readers clambered to know the author of a
text (p.126), something that occurs till this day.
In his aims to challenge authorships’ role in literature, Foucault believes that more
than the author’s name on multiple texts is required in order to distinguish that these
may all be the work of the same writer. He draws on Saint Jerome’s four criteria as a
possible test in order to substantiate the authenticity of texts that bear the name of the
same author (p.128).

1 ‘[T]he author is defined as a standard level of quality’ requires that work that
appears to be inferior is eliminated from the selection.
2 ‘[T]he author is defined as a certain field of conceptual or theoretical coherence’
removes ideas and theoretical positions that fails to chime with the author’s oeuvre
as a whole.
3 ‘[T]he author is seen as a stylistic uniformity’ this would eliminate work written in a
different manner using words and phrases not found in other works by the author.
4 ‘[T]he […] referring to events or historical figures subsequent to the death of the
author’ requires an awareness of anachronism where the author refers to objects
or events that were not invented or had not occurred before the death of the author
(p.128).

The first three of these points may usefully be applied to film directors, screenwriters,
art direction and cinematography. For example, Spike Lee’s Oldboy is regarded as
inferior as it does not address African American issues. Stylistically there is no
dialogue between the film and the original and there was no need for a remake.
Because of these negative attributes Lee’s film is ignored.
Whilst Foucault has discussed reducing the privileged position of the author he still
recognized writers might affect an influence greater than any one book they may have
written. He uses the example of Ann Radcliffe, The Mysteries of Udolpho, that is
generally acclaimed as the first Gothic Romance (1794), engendering and creating a
space for all that has followed since in that genre (p.132), the influence of which can
be seen in films such as Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994) and the
Twilight franchise (2008–12). Similarly, Freud and Marx, ‘made possible certain
number of analogies that could be adopted by future texts, but they also made
possible … [and] cleared a space for the introduction of elements other than their own’
(p.132), thereby setting out a whole new area of psychological investigation from
Freud’s writing and with Marx an ideological platform.
By the end of ‘What is an Author’ it is clear Foucault set out to complicate the notion
of what it means to be an author rather than provide answers. He does not offer
solutions, but indicates some of the difficulties that it presents. This produces a list of
problems associated with the use of the author’s proper name.
Today criticism of literary works has widened its focus to include many other forms of
analysis no longer dependent on authorship alone (p.126). Yet he believes that other
concepts such as genre, as a means of studying a work, are less useful and finds that
 authorship theory allows for a more closely defined understanding of the work(s) when
attributed to a single author.
Foucault asserts that in order to understand a text, the relationship between the text
and author (or lack of relationship) needs to be established. But at the same time he
opposes this concept and calls for a culture without the necessity of authorship. With
this in mind he suggests that, ‘We should reexamine the empty space left by the
author’s disappearance [… and] consider the problems that arise in the use of the
author’s name’ (p.121). Later, in a contradictory manner, he does however
acknowledge that if we accept the author as the sole producer of meaning within a
work, we may be able to understand the text more completely (p.136). Foucault longs
for the day when a work’s importance is governed by its content, not by who is
speaking, and although he contemplates the moment that he believes will one day
come, where the author function will disappear, his piece does not negate the need for
one (p.138).
Film as a collaborative art has less clearly delineated authorship lines and for this
reason the ‘New’ questions that Foucault hoped would be discussed rather than those
of authorship have a stronger resonance (p.138). In a resigned manner, he reiterates
‘What matter who’s speaking?’ This is a question audiences and academics need to
address.

More recently, auteur studies has developed in response to directors that

manage to gain ‘star’ status. Here, Timothy Corrigan’s article ‘The
Commerce of Authorship’ helps shed light on the director as celebrity or
‘brand’.

Timothy Corrigan
The Commerce of Auterism: A Voice Without Authority (1990)

Whereas debates regarding authorship have traditionally been tied up with notions of
artistry, Timothy Corrigan was one of the first academics to introduce the question of
economics. When attributing auteur status to a director, we typically consider certain
elements such as recurring formal traits, thematic consistency and ‘interior meaning’
across a body of films. Corrigan suggests that we need to re-think this approach in
light of how the industry has changed; instead we should see the auteur as a
‘commercial strategy’ (p.46).
Corrigan complicates the field of auteur studies in introducing the concept of the
‘auteur as star’ (p.48). Here, he posits that a director can be considered ‘as a kind of
brand-name vision whose contextual meanings are already determined’ (p.45). By this,
he is suggesting that we have precon-ceived ideas of what a ‘Tarantino film’ looks like.
Similarly, we will have an inkling about the kind of movie we are paying for when we go
to watch a ‘David Fincher’ production. This is because these directors have earned a
reputation based on the consistency of their films. More importantly, these directors
have gained celebrity status as a result of their filmmaking oeuvre and this informs the
way in which their new outputs are consumed.
 The director as celebrity is not a new phenomenon. Corrigan attributes this level of
prominence to both Orson Welles and Robert Bresson. He explains that this
recognition of celebrity linked to authorship creates a ‘certain textual distinction’ to any
films produced (p.48). In modern times, this equates more specifically to the marketing
and reception of such films. Accordingly, Corrigan states that ‘the auteur [should be
considered] as a commercial strategy for organizing audience reception, as a critical
concept bound to distribution and marketing aims’ (p.46). This suggests that the way a
film is received both critically and by the general public, is ultimately tied to our
knowledge and branding of the ‘star as auteur’.
Even when a director falls short in terms of quality or overarching vision, the ‘star
auteur’ can typically be forgiven due to his or her celebrity. Corrigan claims ‘the auteur-
star can potentially carry and redeem any sort of textual material through the marvel of
its agency’ (p.49). Whereas in the past the spectator and critic would consider the
camera as a pen (camera stylo) in relation to aesthetic traits, nowadays, the
personality of the auteur can override such fixations on artistry. Therefore, it can be
argued that it is no longer artistic vision that signifies a great film text; instead once a
director has gained celebrity status as an auteur, film production can become a matter
of commerce. For example, Ang Lee best known for his period dramas such as Sense
and Sensibility (1995) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000), went on to make
The Hulk (2003). The film was poorly received but Lee soon returned with the award-
winning Brokeback Mountain.

Respond and reflect

1 Do you agree that genre theory ‘is a relatively weak and secondary position in relation
to the solid and fundamental role of the author and [their] works’ (p.115)?
2 Make a list of directors you would consider to be star auteurs.
3 Can you think of any examples where a metteur-en-scène director has gained
celebrity status? 4 Do you agree that the directorial debate has seen a shift where the
idea of artistry has been replaced with commercial concerns?

Making a case for an auteur

Irrespective of the arguments against the director being considered as the

sole visionary force behind a film, it is still a very important feature of film
theory. Therefore, you need to know how best to construct your claims in
favour of a director gaining this badge of esteem. The diagram on p.14
should help you focus your thoughts when trying to make an argument for a
director as auteur or not.
It is important to note that there are arrows leading to and from the
‘Biographical details’ box. This is to indicate that a director’s life can, and
typically does, influence aesthetic and thematic choices.
 Using this template as a starting point, the following case studies may
help you ascertain whether a director deserves the title of auteur.

Case study: Alfred Hitchcock

Alfred Hitchcock was involved with every aspect of filmmaking both

before and during a shoot and exercised a great deal of control over his
work. On most projects he developed the screenplay; produced detailed
storyboards; was active in casting; and influenced the choice of soundtrack
and visual style. In exercising such control to produce a highly personal
artistic vision he was able to override the constraints of the studio system;
this entailed him having authority over the final cut (a privilege afforded
most auteurs). It was Hitchcock’s complete control over all elements that
led to Truffaut citing the director as an example in early auteur debates (see
Hitchcock interview, 1967, in Truffaut, 1986).
The most commonly examined areas attest to his title as ‘master of
suspense’. He is recognized as revolutionizing the thriller genre, playing
with an audience’s nerves and fears and often tackling subjects of a taboo
nature. For example, Strangers on a Train (1951) touches on issues of
homo-sexuality; Psycho (1960) deals with the Oedipus Complex; and
Marnie (1964) looks at repressed memory.
Devices such as recurring themes, camera technique, editing, particular
use of sound and silences, chiaroscuro lighting, the MacGuffin (an object
that serves as the impetus for the plot) and cameo appearances all combine
to present Hitchcock’s personal vision of the world in his thrillers. Due to
the array of innovative stylistic features that were employed by Hitchcock
only a few examples can be selected here. This study will look first at those
characteristics that are concerned with filmmaking (aesthetics and
production) and second at those characteristics rooted in Hitchcock and his
personal vision (biographical details and themes), which together combine
to suggest his auteur status.
Figure 1.3 Making a case for an auteur

Aesthetics

Hitchcock is considered an expert of cinematic technique. Having trained as

a draftsman, he was known for meticulously creating extensive storyboards
which mapped out intricate details of each shot. His dialogue, sound, plot
and character were always secondary to the image.
However, he used all these components in imaginative ways. In
Blackmail (1929), his first sound film, he utilized silence and dialogue to
dramatic effect. Repetition of the word ‘knife’ is amplified within a
conversation; this device aurally represents the violent stabbing action of
the knife and psychologically gnaws away at the guilty character. Similarly,
Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho was composed with the distinct
intention of emphasizing the violence of the famous shower sequence after
many images had to be cut due to censors. Here the staccato strings
accentuate the physical assault.
It is probably for his innovative camera techniques and editing that
Hitchcock is considered a master. The placement and movement of the
camera was carefully controlled. Dolly zooms, which became known as the
‘Hitchcock Zoom’, are seen in Vertigo (1958). They were combined with
strange camera angles to heighten dramatic meaning in many films,
especially when psychological elements were involved. Returning to the
shower scene, Hitchcock builds suspense by using cuts that get
progressively shorter until the victim lies dead, with her blood trickling
down the plug hole.

Themes

The act of murder in his films points to another of Hitchcock’s motifs, a

fascination with eyes. Hitchcock understood how the eyes reveal what a
character thinks or needs. Extreme close-up shots and point-of-view editing
force spectators to experience the perspective of both the victim and the
killer. In a voyeuristic way the audience enters the violent, frightening
scene. The film Frenzy (1972) engages shot/reverse-shot to mirror the eyes
of both the murderer and his prey.
Hitchcock’s preoccupation with eyes continues throughout his oeuvre. In
Rear Window (1954), Jimmy Stewart’s character repeatedly watches his
neighbours through a pair of binoculars. In Psycho Norman Bates (Anthony
Perkins) spies on Janet Leigh through a peephole cleverly hidden behind a
painting. The director takes his obsession with eyes to an extreme level.
Consider the images below (Figures 1.4 and 1.5). Here horrific blindness is
enforced on elderly victims. The vivid desecration of the skull shocks the
audience and highlights the fragility of the human body.

Production

A typical trait of an auteur is to employ the same actors and technical crew
time and time again. A look across fifty years of Hitchcock films shows that
he tended to choose the same screenwriters, art directors, composers and
actors, usually working with them over a short period of time. Bernard
Herrmann, the composer, was the exception to this, working on eight films
over a period of nine years from 1955. Herrmann was responsible for some
of the most successful scores in Hitchcock’s films, notably Vertigo, Psycho
and North by Northwest (1959). Additionally, Jimmy Stewart and Cary
Grant each appeared in four Hitchcock films while Ingrid Bergman and
Grace Kelly each starred in three films.

Biographical details

Command of the mise-en-scène and familiar cast and crew are only part of
the vision of an auteur. Integral to the auteurist position are aspects of the
director’s own life which are deemed to have influenced his work. Critical
writing on Hitchcock often focuses on his childhood, Catholic upbringing
and fascination with aspects of guilt, punishment, fear and morality. Critics
and journalists soon began to recognize these familiar tropes and discuss
them at length, speculating on their origins. Hitchcock fostered this
speculation by alluding to childhood experiences when interviewed.

Figure 1.4 Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)

Figure 1.5 The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)

In particular he spoke of an incident when he was punished by his father

(Spoto, 1983, p.4). This is often read as the motivation for Hitchcock’s fears
and distrust of authority and also for his recurring theme of the innocent
man wrongly accused. In this anecdotal tale, Hitchcock was sent to a police
station by his father as punishment for a minor offence. There he was
locked, terrified, in a cell for a short time. The experience engendered a
fascination with the plight of the ordinary man when the victim of mistaken
identity, wrongfully accused or imprisoned. His early film The Lodger
(1926) and many later films, among them, The Thirty-nine Steps (1935),
The Wrong Man (1957), Vertigo and North by Northwest, all share and
develop this theme and all include a character trying to prove his innocence.
The recurring themes in his films of loneliness and depressive illness can
be traced back to his childhood. He felt that he was an outsider: ‘I don’t
ever recall having a playmate […] I looked and observed a great deal’
(Spoto, 1983, p.20). Outsiders who feature in his films include an amnesiac
accused of murder in Spellbound (1945), a woman with a fear of sexual
contact in Marnie and a serial killer made psychotic due to his sexual
impotence in Frenzy. However, it is not only villains who are outsiders;
alienated heroes appear in Rear Window and Vertigo.
Alongside this alienation there is evidence of Hitchcock’s misogyny and
episodes of sadism are to be found in biographical accounts. These
similarly became dominant themes in many of his films. Tormented blonde
heroines are foregrounded as vehicles for male voyeurism and as objects of
sadistic male fantasies. It appears that Hitchcock saw female sexual
vulnerability as a powerful dramatic device to be exploited, as can be
witnessed in Psycho, Marnie and Frenzy. Furthermore, these heroines
suffered violent deaths, further demonstrating the director’s fascination with
sadism. Violent death and murder, in particular strangulation, made an
appearance from his earliest films.
Hitchcock was an accomplished self-publicist and carefully
manufactured his public image. Unusually for the time, Hitchcock’s name
featured prominently in the marketing and promotion of his films. His
cameo roles formed part of this promotion, while his narration of prologues
and epilogues in his TV shows increased his visibility to another audience.
His striking way of signing his name was made up of a series of eight
strokes of his pen to create a silhouette likeness of himself. This, alongside
his highly visible, rotund figure, combined to market his image as a
director. Another aspect of this self-promotion was his decision to restrict
his work to the narrow focus of a single genre, thus establishing his brand-
name as the master of suspense.

Conclusion

However, whether Hitchcock can be considered an auteur remains a

contentious issue. While Hitchcock’s worldview and stylistic tone are very
apparent across some fifty years of filmmaking, of his forty-four films from
Blackmail to Family Plot (1976), thirty-seven were literary adaptations.
Unfortunately, in Hollywood the screenwriter is often seen as a technician
rather than as a creative person. That is, to make a novel into a screenplay is
a mechanical process that can be learned by hacks. David O. Selznick, a
‘hands-on’ producer who worked with Hitchcock until Notorious (1946),
was keen that film adaptations should be faithful to the original book. This
did not suit Hitchcock. Therefore to establish and maintain his status as
auteur, Hitchcock needed to move authorship away from the original author.
Rather than be recognized for literary adaptations which he believed would
dissipate his auteur status, Hitchcock chose to make films from relatively
unknown books and authors. This enabled him to buy, for example, Psycho
(novel by Robert Bloch) and Strangers on a Train (novel by Patricia
Highsmith) cheaply. After banning the novelists from any further
intervention, Hitchcock remodelled the plots to allow for his personal
interpretation. In his interview with Truffaut, Hitchcock noted that, ‘What I
do is to read a story once, and if I like the basic idea, I just forget all about
the book and start to create cinema’ (Truffaut, 1986, p.71). Hitchcock’s
strategies worked, as very few of the novelists are connected with their
adapted texts even if they later gained fame. For instance, Patricia
Highsmith is known for the Ripley character but not as the writer of
Strangers on a Train. Despite the involvement of screenwriters, novelists,
playwrights, composers, art directors and cinematographers, Hitchcock’s
personal worldview shines through and coheres fifty years of filmmaking.

Case study: Guillermo del Toro

At what point a director can be accepted as an auteur is a question that has

been asked since debates concerning directorial authority first began. The
contemporary Mexican director Guillermo del Toro is being discussed in
both academic and popular publications as a potential auteur. He is an
interesting candidate as he has directed only nine films to date:

• Cronos (1993)
• Mimic (1997)
• El Espinazo del Diablo/The Devil’s Backbone (2001)
• Blade II (2002)
• Hellboy (2004)
• El Laberinto del Fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (2006)
• Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008)
• Pacific Rim (2013)
• Crimson Peak (2015)

Biographical details

Del Toro is one of three Mexican directors who have received critical
attention over the last ten years. Affectionately referred to as the Three
Amigos, del Toro along with Alejandro González Iñárritu and Alfonso
Cuarón all share the same ideology and strive to promote Mexican
filmmaking on a global scale. A similar political agenda is woven
throughout their films and a case could be made for any one of the group to
be labelled as an auteur, but here we will turn our attention specifically to
del Toro.
Following the success of his debut vampire picture Cronos, del Toro was
invited to direct his first Hollywood film. The experience was less than
ideal, as he felt his authority was constantly being undermined by the
studio. Once Mimic was completed he fled back to his native Mexico where
he made The Devil’s Backbone. He was motivated to return to the US in
1998 when his father was kidnapped. Although del Toro has made films in
Mexico, America and Spain and is able to attract funding for blockbusters
and independent art-house productions, a stylistic and thematic consistency
still runs throughout the body of his work.

Themes

Del Toro can be considered a genre filmmaker. As early as 2002, Kimberley

Chun referred to del Toro as ‘one of the most original and ambitious horror
auteurs since David Cronenberg’ (2002, p.28). His films are primarily a
hybrid of the Horror and Fantasy genres. He is more specifically influenced
by the world of fairytales and fables as his films continue to explore
boundaries between reality and the world of imagination and the
supernatural. Accordingly, del Toro often manages to go against the grain of
generic conventions, for example, the character of Hellboy is not your usual
comic-book adaptation. Rather than a moral, altruistic superhero, Hellboy is
a jealous, jaded and flawed character.
At the heart of the majority of the director’s work is the theme of
childhood. Del Toro is akin to Ingmar Bergman in his innate ability to
capture childhood innocence and depth on screen. His two art-house
successes The Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth both enquire into the
workings of the child’s mind. Del Toro often relates the importance of his
own childhood and convincingly describes encounters with monsters and
ghosts, which he claims fuelled his filmmaking in later life. Yet his films do
not cater for a younger audience as children in his movies often experience
extreme violence, which once more is not typical of traditional filmmaking.
Another key theme inherent in his works is a political agenda.
Occasionally films will take place at a specific moment in history, making
the political subtext apparent (the Spanish Civil War is integral to both The
Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth); even when not explicitly expressed
an anti-authoritarian message underlies most of his films.

Aesthetics
In numerous interviews del Toro cites the Spanish artist Francisco de Goya
as an influence. Stylistic similarities can be seen between the colour palette
adopted by Goya and the tones and atmosphere captured in a del Toro
production. In particular he often discusses the impact that Saturno
devorando a su hijo/Saturn Devouring His Son had on him as a child. This
painting is part of a collection known as the ‘Black Paintings’; also in this
group is The Great He Goat/The Witches’ Sabbath. Here the silhouetted
horned figure, which appears in many of Goya’s paintings, bears a striking
resemblance to the iconic Faun featured in Pan’s Labyrinth. Del Toro’s love
of chiaroscuro lighting can similarly be recognized in the dark shadows that
are eerily cast in Goya’s brush strokes.
The imaginary, surreal worlds typically inhabited by the lead protagonists
in the films of del Toro are frequently located underground. This adventure
into a world of darkness and the unknown is also evident in the literary
writings of Lewis Carroll. Ofelia’s journey into the labyrinthine world of
Pan draws parallels with that of Alice’s into Wonderland. In the press notes
that accompany the film, del Toro talks of the symbolism apparent in the
journey:

I tried to reconnect with the perversity and very sexual content of his
work. In fairy tales, all stories are either about the return to the womb
(heaven, home) or wandering out into the world and facing your own
dragon. We are all children wandering through our own fable. (2006)

The symbolism throughout del Toro’s oeuvre demands closer attention. The
iconography is often reflective of his fascination with insects and
clockwork mechanisms but many images hold greater spiritual and religious
connotations.

Production

Del Toro’s films manage to traverse big-budget commercial Hollywood

filmmaking and low- budget art cinema. The director is fortunate to be in a
position to secure large budgets. Conversely he funds his art-house ventures
from his own production company, ‘Tequila Gang’. Del Toro founded his
company following his experience of being produced by El Deseo (a
production company established by the Spanish director Pedro Almodovar).
Both the Tequila Gang and El Deseo were set up to nurture up-and-coming
filmmakers from Mexico, Spain and Latin America. Whereas many
directors see working for Hollywood studios as a betrayal of artistic
integrity, del Toro does not distinguish between his films in this way.
Del Toro typically works with the same cast and crew. After casting Ron
Perlman in his 1993 film Cronos and Blade II in 2002, he petitioned for
Perlman to take the lead in the comic-book adaptation Hellboy. Perlman
was predominantly known for his television role in Beauty and the Beast
(1987–90) but producers felt they needed a star to sell the film and had Vin
Diesel in mind. Del Toro refused to compromise and as a result Perlman
was hired. Since this Perlman has also appeared in the 2013 Pacific Rim.
Another actor who has featured in a number of his films is Doug Jones.
Jones first appeared in the director’s American debut Mimic as an extra. He
was then cast as one of the lead characters in the Hellboy franchise. His role
as the psychic amphibian ‘Abe Sapien’ (Figure 1.6), and more importantly
his physicality, must have inspired del Toro as the director went on to cast
Jones as the two most memorable characters in Pan’s Labyrinth – that of the
Pale Man (Figure 1.7) and the Faun. Jones has since collaborated with del
Torro playing the ghostly creatures in Crimson Peak (2015).
Del Toro also tends to use the same Mexican cinematographer, Guillermo
Navarro. Navarro has been instrumental in shooting his films with the
exceptions of Mimic, Blade II and Crimson Peak . More recently the
director has returned to the same editor. Bernat Vilaplana first worked with
him on Pan’s Labyrinth. He has since worked on Hellboy II: The Golden
Army and Crimson Peak which suggests that the collaborative relationship
may continue.

Conclusion

Del Toro is a director, producer and writer. There is a distinct magical

darkness to his films. Themat-ically he is concerned with childhood,
memory, death and the politics of oppression. He can be classed as a
generic filmmaker as his films adhere to the Fantasy/Horror blueprint, yet
they are not contrived. Instead they provoke the audience to question wider
political and social questions. Del Toro is becoming a household name and
therefore attracting audiences on the strength of his previous work. The best
illustration of this can be seen in the marketing of the Spanish film El
Orfanato/ The Orphanage (2007). The Orphanage was directed by Juan
Antonio Bayona but was sold as a del Toro production. He produced the
film and Bayona owes his mentor a great debt, and not just financially. The
Orphanage covers the same ground as del Toro’s The Devil’s Backbone,
with both films set in orphanages that are haunted by the ghosts of children
and featuring a historical Spanish political subtext. Here del Toro proves
himself an inspiration to younger directors. However, this influence goes far
beyond style and content because he is also helping to support new talent.
His name is increasingly recognized as an endorsement of quality, but
whether he should be granted the status of auteur is yet to be seen.

Figure 1.6 Hellboy (Guillermo del Toro, 2004)

Figure 1.7 Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)

 Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any reason why Hitchcock should not be considered an auteur?
2 To what extent do you think that Hitchcock’s aesthetic is influenced by the composer
Bernard Herrmann?
3 Make a case for whether you think del Toro is or is not an auteur.
4 What are your thoughts concerning the auteur status of Alejandro Gonzalez Iñárritu
and Alfonso Cuarón?
5 Can you think of any other potential auteurs typically famous for making movies in
one particular genre?
6 Comment on the tensions between art and industry in debates on auteurism.
7 Identify up-and-coming directors whom you believe may be accepted into the canon
of great auteurs.

Conclusion

The question remains, why has Auteur Theory survived as a critical

approach when filmmaking is clearly collaborative? Here are some possible
answers:

• The director as auteur allows cinema to claim artistic and academic

legitimacy; you have film artists just as you have literary or visual
artists. Film should be scrutinized in a similar manner to traditional art
forms.
• Academics and critics tend to champion the director as it is easier when
writing to attribute responsibility to a sole individual. This practice of
using the director as ‘shorthand’ has become accepted as the norm and
in turn promotes Auteur Theory.
• Auteur Theory is key to the cultural capital of fan communities, cinema
buffs, journalists and academics, all of whom publish using a variety of
formats. The internet has given fans a platform to voice their opinions.
Similarly newspapers, magazines, journals, radio and television all
produce items promoting directors to their respective audiences.
• DVD, Blu-ray marketing and streamed content providers include extra
features to promote the role of the director: commentaries, ‘making-of’
documentaries, interviews and ‘special edition’ directors’ cuts.
• Similarly a vast amount of journalism in print and on television features
interviews with directors, not just stars, in order to promote the latest
film offerings. Therefore Roland Barthes’s idea that the author is
 theoretically dead appears, now more than ever, to be out of step with
our contemporary media.

More recently academics have introduced the term ‘post-auteur’. This can
be seen as an extension of earlier criticisms where authorial intent has been
questioned due to the dedicated involvement of actors, producers,
screenwriters, etc.
Despite such recent trends, the director is still very much ‘of the
moment’, as directors continue to garner respect, which can in turn draw
people back into the auditorium. This is the case with a number of
contemporary American indie auteurs such as Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes
Anderson, Alenjandro González Iñárritu and Richard Linklater. Even with
the emergence of online streamed content providers, such as Netflix and
Amazon Prime, there are still substantial waiting periods before films are
officially available to view. Therefore, where a directors has gained a
specific following, there is a greater chance that people will physically
attend the cinema to watch their lastest feature. More recently, a number of
directors have started creating series for streamed content providers, such as
Netflix and Amazon Prime. These services are enabling directors to develop
characters over a series of episodes rather than the traditional hour and a
half limitations of the feature film. David Fincher was involved in directing
and producing House of Cards (2013) and Baz Luhrmann took a similar
role in The Get Down (2016). As the demarcations between film and
television (streamed content) become blurred, the auteur debate looks to
enter a new phase. For these reasons, academic enquiries into the role of the
director will continue to be pertinent.

Bibliography
Astruc, A. (1948) ‘The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra-Stylo’, in P. Graham (ed.) The New
Wave. London: Secker & Warburg, pp.17–23.
Barthes, R. (1977) ‘Death of the Author’, in Stephen Heath ((ed.) and translator), Image, Music, Text.
London: Fontana (first published 1968).
Begam, R. (1996) Samuel Beckett and the End of Modernity. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University
Press.
Caughie, J. (ed.) (1981) Theories of Authorship: A Reader. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Chun, K. (2002) ‘What Is a Ghost?: An Interview with Guillermo del Toro’, Cineaste, vol. 27, no. 2,
pp.28–31.
Corrigan, T. (1990) The Commerce of Auterism: A Voice Without Authority’, New German Critique,
vol. 17, no. 49, pp.43–57.
Del Toro, G. (2006) ‘Press Notes for Pan’s Labyrinth’, Tequila Gang.
Foucault, M. (1977) What is an Author? Language, Counter-Memory, Practice Selected Essays and
Interviews (trans. Donald Bouchard and Sherry Simon, ed. Donald Bouchard). Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, pp.113–38.
Kael, P. (1963) ‘Circles and Squares’, Film Quarterly, vol. 16, no. 3, pp.12–26.
Owen, A. (ed.) (2003) Story and Character: Interviews with British Screenwriters. London:
Bloomsbury.
Rohmer, E. and Chabrol, C. (1979) Hitchcock: The First Forty-four Films. Oxford: Roundhouse.
Salisbury, M. (ed.) (2006) Burton on Burton: Revised Edition. London: Faber and Faber Ltd.
Sarris, A. (1962) ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory’, in L. Braudy and M. Cohen (eds) (2004) Film
Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Spoto, D. (1983) Dark Side of Genius: The Life of Alfred Hitchcock. London: Collins.
Truffaut, F. (1954) ‘Une Certaine Tendance du Cinema Frangais’, in J. Hollows, P. Hutchings and M.
Jancovich (eds) (2000) The Film Studies Reader. London: Arnold.
Truffaut, T. (1986) Hitchcock: The Definitive Study of Alfred Hitchcock. New York, NY: Simon &
Schuster Inc. (first published 1967).
 CHAPTER 2

ADAPTATIONS
Adaptation
1. The action or process of altering, amending, or modifying
something, esp. something that has been created for a
particular purpose, so that it is suitable for a new use.
2. An altered or amended version of a text, musical
composition, etc., (now esp.) one adapted for filming,
broadcasting, or production on the stage from a novel or
similar literary source. In recent use freq. modified to
specify the medium, as radio, screen adaptation: see the
first element.

Setting the scene

‘The book is always better than the movie’ (2006, p.1) is a phrase used by
Linda Cahir at the start of her book Literature into Film: Theory and
Practical Approaches. It is used to typify the commonly held personal
observation that encompasses many stimulating but ultimately unproductive
discussions on adaptations into film. Some cultural historians/film critics
claim that Film Studies as a discipline is essentially a descendant of literary
criticism; they argue that the incursion of literary scholars into film research
was a sort of bid for intellectual power. This oversimplifies the issue, but it
is certainly the case that the territories of literary and film criticism were
fiercely contested. Robert Stam uses vivid terminology noting the
expressions that are often applied when discussing adapted films:
‘infidelity, betrayal, deformation, violation, vulgarization and desecration
all connoting ghastly acts in one form or another’ (2000, p.54). These
derogatory labels create an aura of negativity, highlighting the restrictive
dogma that has prevailed in discourses on film adaptations of literary texts
since the beginning of film. Newspaper reviews, articles and academic
journals traduce a film’s lack of fidelity (faithfulness) to the original text,
communicating that the novel is held in greater respect as the ‘original’ for
coming first, and establishing a hierarchal criterion for evaluation. These
two positions (fidelity and hierarchal) have become a ‘touchstone’ of
intellectual engagement in academic departments and restricted the
widening and growth of the adaptation study area for several decades. In the
1990s, as will be examined later in this chapter, the study of adaptations
increasingly came under scrutiny by film scholars and over the past two
decades have expanded and improved in both English and Film critical
studies to unravel a richer exploration of the relationship between not just
film and literature but between film and all the many media platforms that
exist today, thus producing new insights about artistic languages and their
potential relationships.

Fidelity

The idea of fidelity has dogged adaptation study from the outset. It is the
idea that the text has one single correct meaning to which the director
should adhere and must faithfully reproduce. In all adaptations, there is
faithfulness and innovation in varying degrees; how closely the film follows
the original text in part determines whether it is thought to be a faithful
adaptation, a free adaptation or somewhere in between. However, there is a
problem with these judgments, as the reading process is personal. The
adapter, screenwriter and director may all aim to present a ‘faithful’ film
adaptation, but it is their individual understanding of that literary source
that prevails. Similarly, each audience member will subjectively view the
film and may also have read the book and formed an opinion. Although the
reworking of a text always includes a reference to the original on which it is
based along with an attempt to capture ‘the spirit’ of the novel, it may not
necessarily chime with the audience’s own imaginings. As Christian Metz
notes, the reader ‘will not always find his film, since what he has before
him in the actual film is now somebody else’s phantasy’ (1977, p.12).
Morris Beja in 1979 was one of the first to question ‘fidelity’ and raise the
level of debate by calling into question the very possibility of ‘faithfulness’
and whether or not it was indeed desirable.
George Bluestone, often referred to as the grandfather of adaptation
study, wrote the first book that made a concerted effort to examine the
‘filmed novel’ using a comparative methodology. He led the way for the
anti-fidelity movement by writing about the limits of each medium.

George Bluestone
Novels into Film (1957), ‘Limits of the Novel and the Film’ (pp.1–64)

George Bluestone begins his exploration of adapting novels into films by stating the
following aims:

This study attempts to gauge some of the characteristics in reference to one of the
traditional arts; more specifically, to make this assessment by careful attention to a
particular genre – the filmed novel – where both media overlap […] to demonstrate,
that the two media are marked by essentially different traits. (p.viii)

In making comparisons between an adapted text and an original he found more

differences than similarities and that film versions ‘abandoned’ elements important to
novels. Bluestone states that this is so severe that, ‘in a strict sense, the new creation
has little resemblance to the original’ (p.viii). It appears that from these stated aims,
comparative analysis and hierarchal analysis, in which books are the superior medium,
became a cornerstone in Adaptation Studies.
‘The Limits of the Novel and the Limits of the Film’ aims to give a comprehensive
survey of aesthetic principles in both mediums, but concentrates more on film through
a process he frequently refers to as ‘mutation’ and ‘mutational process’ rather than the
use of adaptation (p.5). Expressions such as ‘they cut out good passages, but it’s still
a good film’ provide quantative analyses that have little to do with qualitative changes.
These are dismissed by Bluestone as a lack of awareness that ‘mutations’ are
inevitable, ‘the moment one abandons the linguistic for the visual medium’ (p.5). The
film is different and he finds it ‘fruitless’ to say that ‘Film A is better or worse than novel
B’ (p.6) as both have unique and specific properties.

Audience and Reception

Bluestone discusses in an even-handed manner the aesthetic limitations of both the

novel and the film. Both director and novelist want to make us ‘see visually through the
eye or imaginatively through the mind’ (p.1). It is between the visual image and the
mental image that the differences in the media exist.
To elaborate, he differentiates between film and literature on the basis of their
respective characteristics, differences in reception, and the way each express time and
space, finding that the differences are more marked than the similarities. This is
followed by ways in which it is possible to discuss the film industry’s apathy to novels
and vice versa: ‘Because language has laws of its own, and literary characters are
inseparable from the language which forms them’ (p.23).

Narrative Changes

His next section addresses changes to the narrative, all of which, for him, are
financially driven. He quotes from a survey that found from a sample of 24 films, 17
 had ‘increased the love emphasis’, 63 percent had a ‘romantic happy ending’ with 40
per cent needing the story to be changed to achieve this (p.42). Not one film retained a
‘negative’ ending. Furthermore, changes were made to ‘political and social attitudes,
though less precise’ and more elusive to quantify (p.42). This is a significant point, still
relevant today. It also reminds us of a further difference in the medium; films are
commercial and designed for profit, whilst novels are less so or ‘not’ according to
Bluestone. In his analysis, he records that filmmakers discuss ‘faithful’ or ‘unfaithful’
adaptations where they actually mean ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ films. When a
film succeeds financially, ‘the question of ‘faithfulness’ is hardly given a thought’
(p.114).

Time and Space

Bluestone notes how time and space play a significant part in adaptations. Firstly, in
modes of consciousness, notably it is easier to write about mental states such as
memory, dream and imagi-nation; whereas film has difficulty in representing states of
mind that are ‘defined precisely by the absence in them of the visual world’ (p.47). Film
has the advantage in the presentation of space. Secondly, time or duration similarly
presents different challenges in delivery and in time taken to consume (pp.48–61).
Writing in 1957, film could only be viewed in a ‘controlled’ environment at cinemas.
Furthermore, films have a finite playing length of often under two hours. Novels are not
consumed in a finite timescale. They are read at the reader’s pace, stopped and re-
read at will (pp.59–60). This freedom that the book has allows for as much detail and
subplot as the writer finds necessary, whilst film must omit scenes to fit the airing time
available.

Conclusion

Bluestone’s method is useful, as it does not advocate one media form over another.
He sees the film as independent from the novel, and accordingly filmmakers are able
to add or cut detail, subplot and even characters as necessary. He asks whether the
filmmaker has been able to use visual effects that interpret rather than repeat the
material of the novel. In essence, have the filmmakers created a new form? Bluestone
views the two art forms as two intersecting lines that meet and then diverge, ‘they not
only resist conversion; they also lose all resemblance of each other … [they] cannot be
converted without destroying an integral part of each’ (p.63). Finally, in this section he
calls for attention to this:

[C]rucial differences between the media. An art whose limits depend on a moving
image, mass audience, and industrial production is bound to differ from an art whose
limits depend on language, a limited audience and individual creation. In short, the
filmed novel […] will inevitably become a different artistic entity from the novel on
which it is based. (pp.63–4)

Here he is pushing home the idea that film is only made for profit and that ‘real’
literature never is. Bluestone believes that fidelity is impossible to achieve. In the
Epilogue it is apparent that Bluestone finds literary film adaptations inferior (in the
main) to the classic novel on which it is based (pp.215–19).

Reflect and respond

 1 Why is Bluestone’s idea that films are primarily visual and novels primarily linguistic
an oversim-plification?
2 Writing in 1957, Bluestone notes that censorship in film and novels is very different.
Why is this?
3 Bluestone argued that in film there is only one point of view. Is this true?

André Bazin, a French film critic and theorist, had an interest in work that
was adapted for film. Although the main thrust of his argument is
concerned with film/novel adaptations, the examples he uses cover all the
arts: literature, painting, radio and theatre. The main point he is focused on
here is questioning how a film is considered as less of an artistic work than
the book it is adapted from, and the reasons for this.

André Bazin
Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest (1948)

(Where digest means: abridgment, summary, ‘potted’ version)

This essay ‘The Cinema as Digest’ was not translated into English until 1998 for Burt
Cardullo’s Bazin at Work. The observations that Bazin makes in this essay show how
much the structuralists and postmodernists owe to his work. He is suggesting that
adaptations should be thought of in terms of commercialism. He identifies eight key
points in his argument:

1 Aesthetic justification.
Bazin notes that writers, critics and filmmakers have challenged ‘the aesthetic
justification for the adaptation of novels to screen’ (p.19). However, few artists
refuse to sell their books, or to adapt other people’s books, or to direct such
adaptations when producers offer ‘the right blandishments [meaning praise or
flattery]’ (p.19). If the artists and filmmakers involved in the process are keen to
adapt how can there be a problem? Although the critics may be against the product
the theoretical argument does not seem justified.
2 Fidelity.
Bazin remarks how fidelity can be the end of creativity. Hard-liners who are strongly
against adaptations need to accept that it is possible to create an adaptation, ‘with
sufficient faithfulness to the spirit of the original […] that permits us to consider the
film the equal of the book’ (p.20). Success should not be measured by dependence
on fidelity. This narrows artistic input and suggests a more ‘mechanical’ process ‘to
create the cinematic equivalent of the style of the original’ (p.20).
3 Director status.
Bazin was deeply concerned with the notion of a sole author of the text, and his
work is a seminal source for the development of the Auteur Theory (see
Chapter 1). Bazin observes that if a director were considered to have the same
artistic standing as the author of the book being adapted, then the film would be
seen as equal or superior to the original book (p.21) and hierarchical issues would
cease to exist.
 4 Benefits for books.
For classic novels, films can provide an, ‘easier access to an otherwise difficult
novel’ and encourage readers to take up a book they may not have previously
engaged. Another benefit for the book is the increase in sales after it has been
adapted’ (p.22).
5 Copyright.
Bazin says he is most interested in the ‘rather modern notion for which critics are in
large part responsible: that of the untouchability of a work of art’ (p.22). Bazin casts
his argument back to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to show that the
nineteenth century was responsible for establishing literature as a respected form
(p.23). This he reminds rests on a ‘recent individu-alistic conception of the “author”
and of the “work” that did not exist until the copyright legally defined this at end of
eighteenth century’ (p.23).
Copyright violation was rarely mentioned as the ‘work of art was not an end in
itself; the only important criteria were its content and the effectiveness of its
message’ (p.24). This idolizing of the author raises him above the work, which
according to Bazin has in part instigated the high status of the novel.
6 Characters.
For Bazin one of the most important aspects of adaptation are the characters. The
cinema borrows from carefully crafted fiction with ‘well-wrought, well-rounded, or
well-developed characters’ (p.24). These he notes have been finely tuned over 20
centuries of literary culture, whereas film has existed for less than half a century.
Cinema adopts characters and:
[B]rings them into play; according to the talents of the screenwriter and the
director, the characters are integrated as much as possible into their new
aesthetic context. If they are not integrated, we naturally get mediocre films that
deserve condemnation. (p.24)
Because filmmakers have had fewer years to develop their skills there is the
possibility of poor character display.
7 Authors’ rights.
Bazin agrees that if the novelist is not happy with the adaptation, it is appropriate
that they would want to defend their work. However, ‘he sold it and thus is guilty of
prostitution that deprives him of many of his privileges’ (p.25). So whilst agreeing to
the authors’ right, he has little sympathy for his complaints.
8 Dumbing down.
Bazin was concerned that in the future adaptations would be ‘dumbed down’ to
reach the largest audience possible, and this will become the first criterion on which
it will be judged: its cultural value (p.26). He believes that if the film from a novel is
successful, years after the making of it critics, ‘would not find a novel out of which a
play and a film had been “made”, but rather a single work reflected through three art
forms, an artistic pyramid with three equal sides, all equal in the eyes of the critic’
(p.26). This would denote the end of the hierarchal criticism as the new adapted
versions would supersede the original text.

In summary, Bazin appears to be in favour of and to value adaptations. He finds fault

with the critics and academics in their elitist approaches but not with the filmmakers.

Reflect and respond

 1 Do directors have equal or an elevated status now compared to the writer of the
adapted text?
2 Should an author always be allowed to veto rights on the adaptation of their book if
s/he dislikes the adaptation, or by selling the ‘product’ must s/he forgo this?
3 Are filmmakers dumbing down for commercial success?

Some academics have sought to finesse the notion of fidelity as a priori

(first or overriding) position, by introducing different terms that recognize
that, a more nuanced approach is required. These can be confusing when
looked at as a whole, as these coinages of new terminologies often overlap
and ‘come in threes’. Writing in 1975, George Wagner was the first to
propose three divisions as a way of discerning levels of fidelity.

Categories of Adaptation
George Wagner, The Novel and the Cinema (1975)

In this book George Wagner wants to create categories of adaptations in film in order
to reduce the power of the notion of fidelity to the original. He suggests these three
categories:

1 Transposition: (direct) ‘in which a novel is given directly onto the screen with a
minimum of apparent interference’ (p.222).
2 Commentary: (alterations) ‘an original is taken and either purposely or inadvertently
altered […] a different intention on the part of the filmmaker, rather than infidelity or
outright violation’ (p.224).
3 Analogy: (fundamental shift) ‘represent a fairly considerable departure for the sake
of making another work of art’ (p.226).

A critic would need to know what type of film adaptation he was writing about in order
for his comments to have validity.

Dudley Andrew, Concepts in Film Theory (1984)

Dudley Andrew takes a similar approach but uses different terminology:

1 Borrowing: (ideas from the original) ‘the artist employs, more or less extensively,
the material, idea, or form of an earlier, generally successful text’ (p.98).
2 Intersecting: (alters original) ‘the uniqueness of the original text is preserved to
such an extent that it is intentionally left unassimilated in adaptation’ (p.99).
3 Fidelity and transformation: (reproduction of the feeling of the original) ‘film trying to
measure up to a literary work, […] in relation to “letter” and to the “spirit” of the text’
(p.100).

Andrew finds that the ‘letter’ of the text is in the reach of cinema, whereas the ‘spirit’ of
the original’s ‘tone, values, imagery, and rhythm’ (p.100) is more difficult or frankly
 impossible.

Reflect and respond

1 Through the use of these categories, does Wagner succeed in his aim to reduce the
power of the notion of fidelity?
2 Are Wagner and Andrew’s categories helpful or confusing?
3 Can these terms be used interchangeably?

Gérard Genette
Transtextualities from Palimpsestes (1982)

In Stam, R. & Raengo, A. (eds.) (2005). Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and
Practice of Film Adaptation. pp.26–31.
Gérard Genette introduced the idea of textualities as a different approach for
considering adaptations. The term ‘transtextualities’ refers to ‘all that which puts one
text in relation, whether manifest to secret, with other texts’ (p.27). Here, he identifies
five different transtextual relations. They are as follows:

1 Intertextuality: The co-presence of two texts. There is an explicit intertextual

relationship between texts (quotation, allusion, plagiarism).
2 Paratextuality: Relation between text and paratext (that which surrounds the main
body of the text). This can include titles, headings, prefaces, epigraphs,
dedications, acknowledgements, footnotes and illustrations for literary texts. For
filmic materials it could include commentaries, backstage footage, interviews,
reviews, posters, merchandise and tie-ins.
3 Metatextuality: Explicit or implicit critical commentary on another text.
4 Architextuality: Text as part of a genre or genres (structural blueprint, thematic and
figurative expectations).
5 Hypertextuality: Genette explains this as ‘any relationship uniting text B (which I
shall call hyper-text) to an earlier text A (I shall, of course, call it hypotext), which is
grafted in a manner that is not commentary’.

This table offers some suggestions on how you could apply Genette’s transtextual
relations to film texts:

Intertextuality Can the adapted text be thought of as a homage to the original

source material?
Is it blatant plagiarism?

Paratextuality How is the adapted text framed?

Is the original source mentioned, if so where? In title, tag line,
credits, marketing, director’s commentary?
Is the original author or director (remake) foregrounded?
 Metatextuality Does the adaptation openly challenge the politics, ideology, social
thinking of the original source material?
Architextuality How important are generic structures?
Has the film changed genre from the original source?

Hypertetxuality If the adapted material is not considered to be a commentary on the

original source material, what are the motivations for the
adaptation?

Genette’s approach is useful as it moves away from arguments regarding fidelity and
offers a practical way to assess the relation between sources.

Thomas Leitch’s intervention in 2003 aimed to ‘shake up’ theoretical

practitioners in the area of Adaptations Studies. He opens his argument with
the assertion that he wants to be ‘audacious’ and argues that despite the
length of study in this area, ‘adaptation theory has remained tangential to
the thrust of film study because it has never been undertaken with
conviction and theoretical rigor’ (p.149). He advocates that by examining
12 fallacies (untruths or misconceptions) that ‘have kept adaptation theory
from fulfilling its analytical promise’ he will give the theory more power
(p.149).

Thomas Leitch
‘Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory’ (2003)

Leitch’s essay has an unusual format in which he poses each of the 12

questions/statements at the beginning of each point (in italics) and then proceeds to
answer his own question.
1 ‘There is such a thing as contemporary adaptation theory’ (p.149). Leitch says
there is no actual process or theory of adaptations, and that the institutional format
of adaptation study in courses focuses heavily on examining case studies using the
set formula of sayings that utilize binary oppositions. He argues that these trite
sayings of ‘literature versus cinema, high culture versus mass culture, original
versus copy’ maintain power in writing on adaptations.
2 ‘Differences between literary and cinematic texts are rooted in essential properties
of their respective media’ (p.150). Here Leitch raises the notion that novels and
films are ‘suited to fundamentally different tasks’ (p.151). He names Bluestone and
Siegfried Kracauer as disseminating this, and Seymour Chatman 10 years later
continuing this essentialist view. Leitch examines this at length, and suggests that
novels and films may appear to have ‘essentially distinctive properties’ (p.153).
This is ‘not of the media themselves’ (p.153). These changes occur due to habits of
 reading (paper books, electronic devices, online texts) and viewing (cinema,
television, smart technology and streamed content) that are ‘grounded in the
history of fashion, taste and analysis’ (p.153).
3 ‘Literary texts are verbal, films visual’ (p.153). This has not been true since the
event of synchro-nized sound in film. He suggests that instead of saying ‘literary
texts are verbal and movies aren’t’ it is more accurate to say that films depend on
screenplays that in turn depend on literary sources. First actors translate a written
script into performance (an adaptation) and then audiences for completion interpret
the performance. A literary text requires only interpretation by its readers (p.154).
4 ‘Novels are better than films’ (p.154). This is an essentialist approach that
advocates the hierarchy of novels over films. He notes how earlier forms have
always greeted new arrivals with hostility, for example the rise of the novel in the
eighteenth century as entertainment for the middle classes and the snobbery of
opera lovers for devotees of musicals. Of course movies remain a mass medium,
‘capital-intensive’, ‘publicity-sensitive’, with ‘overhyped failures’, unlike failed novels
that silently sink (pp.55–6). For Leitch there is no reason why novels are assumed
to be better than films, rather the question should be, ‘Why is it so stoutly, albeit
tacitly, maintained’? (p.155).
5 ‘Novels deal in concepts, films in percepts’ (p.156). The fallacy here begins when
conceptual (novel) is defined in contrast to perceptual (film). The argument that film
requires only non-conceptual sense to understand it overlooks the fact that virtually
all films invoke, visual, auditory, narrative, and fictional codes and rhetoric (p.156).
These require interpreting and integrating into a single signifying system (film) and
thus need as much conceptual decoding as interpreting the verbal narrative of a
novel (p.156). The ‘concept’ versus ‘percept’ shuts down discussion.
6 ‘Novels create more complex characters than movies because they offer more
immediate and complete access to characters’ psychological states’ (p.158).
Novels have more complex characters due to psychological insight. This Leitch
disagrees with, in essence:
a Because films are shorter the characters are less complex. Yet this argument is
not applied to short stories or plays.
b Once ‘thought is externalized it is no longer thought’ (Bluestone, 1957, pp.47–
8). However, in film, audiences are ‘invited to infer what characters are thinking
on the basis of their speech and behavior [sic]’ (p.158) and this can be just as
subtle as those in a novel.
Leitch claims that this is the ‘basis of appeal’ in film (p.158). He suggests that
novels and films ‘typically depend for their effects on different kinds of gaps’
(p.159). For Leitch what determines success of a work is the ‘subtlety, maturity, and
fullness’ that accrues from ‘thoughts and actions specified or inferred’ by
characters (p.159). No one medium has control of this.
7 ‘Cinema’s visual specification usurps its audience’s imagination’ (p.159). Cinema’s
visual interpretation is better than the audiences’ imagination. This is linked to point
6 on ‘gaps’ and how these are addressed in adapting a novel to film. Leitch notes
how Jane Austen’s visual texture is very thin, so screenwriters need to use
historical references to create costume and furnish rooms. Adapters welcome this
as an opportunity to invent details and raise adaptations above ‘servile
transcriptions’ (p.161). This leads to concerns about fidelity.
8 ‘Fidelity is the most appropriate criterion to use in analyzing adaptations’ (pp.161–
2). Leitch is adamantly against this assertion. He stresses, ‘[It] is a hopelessly
fallacious measure of a given adaptation’s value because it is unattainable,
 undesirable, and theoretically possible only in a trivial sense’ (p.161). Remakes in
the same medium, if they try to replicate the original film, show differences and
therefore appear inferior. To illustrate this, he refers to Gus Van Sant’s 1998
remake of Hitchcock’s 1960 Psycho which was seen by critics as a betrayal of the
original.
What this notion fails to recognize is the differences in audiences that are
watching after 40 years of changes in the industry, social values, family habits and
so on (p.162). Although fidelity as a criterion is indefensible, it is still seen as a
driving force in Adaptation Studies and harps back to notions of hierarchy ‘the
primacy of classic over modern texts’ (p.162). Oddly, for 30 years, cinema study in
universities has only used ‘evaluation as a critical project’ in adaptation study
(p.162).
9 ‘Source texts are more original than adaptations’ (p.162). Leitch finds that the
obsession with fidelity is linked to questions about ‘the nature of authorship’ that
are challenging to answer ‘without the bulwark of fidelity’ (p.163). It is easier to
relegate adaptations as ‘blurred mechanical repro-ductions’ rather than wrestle with
notions of what may be deemed originality (p.163). In Mikhail Bakhtin’s terms, ‘all
texts quote or embed fragments of earlier texts […] typically without explicit
acknowledgement often without conscious intention’ (p.164).
10 ‘Adaptations are adapting exactly one text apiece’ (p.164) Adaptations come from
one text. Leitch indicates how this does not pertain to all novels. Books can have
several to many precursor texts, and additional texts by the same author, so the
adapted text is measured against all of these. Leitch puts forward the case of
adaptations of foreign novels that in addition to the precursor texts mentioned
‘invariably foreground their particular nationalities and historical moments in ways
their source novels rarely do’ (p.165). In essence, adaptation study requires
‘sensitive and rigorous attention to the widest possible array of a film’s precursor
texts’ (p.165).
11 ‘Adaptations are intertexts, their precursor texts simply texts’ (p.165). Adaptation
depends on the original. Leitch points out that not only adapted texts are intertexts,
the original (precursor) text is an intertext because it ‘depends for its interpretation
on shared assumptions about language, culture, narrative, and other presentational
conventions’ (p.167). Therefore, intertextuality should be a prime concern in
adaptation study.
12 ‘Adaptation study is a marginal enterprise’ (p.167). Leitch posits that this is the only
one of his 12 fallacies that is actually true. Similar to Dudley Andrew, Leitch calls for
the ‘integration of adaptation study into cinema studies’ (p.167). Additionally, he calls
for a widening and ‘generalizing of adaptation study to cover all varieties of
signification, quotation, and reference […] and an analysis of connotation and a
sociology of adaptation to complement its aesthetic assumptions about fidelity’
(p.167).

Leitch summarizes this lengthy essay by suggesting that the first academics to study
adaptations wanted it to be marginalized. For institutional reasons it has defended
literary works against the mass popularity of cinema and value authorial agency and
originality. Leitch promotes the idea that adaptation theories would be better served if
studies were synthesized into a larger discipline and possibly called ‘Textual Studies—
a discipline incorporating adaptation study, cinema studies in general, and literary
studies […] and much of cultural studies’ (p.167).
 Reflect and respond

1 In his opening statement, Leitch said he wanted to ‘shake up’ adaptation theorists and
be ‘audacious’. Do you think he has or is it just an essay covering well-known areas?
2 Do you agree that intertextuality should be a prime concern of Adaptation Studies?
3 Select two statements that you agree with and two you disagree with. Give reasons
for your choice in each case.
4 Do you agree with Leitch that ‘Textual Studies—a discipline incorporating adaptation
study, cinema studies in general, and literary studies […] and much of cultural studies’
(p.167) would be an advantageous means of examining adaptations in the twenty-first
century? Discuss.

In the 2000s (2006 in particular), several academics sought new approaches

in order to avoid notions of fidelity. Linda Cahir looked at the process of
novel to film as translation and saw this as a possible method for advancing
Adaptation Studies and to address fidelity issues.

Linda Cahir
Literature into Film (2006)

Linda Cahir’s contribution to the fidelity debate is to propose that adaptations are
translations. Cahir defines ‘to adapt’ as altering a structure ‘or function of an entity so
that it is better fitted to survive’ (p.14). For Cahir, in language translation is a ‘process
of language, not a process of survival and generation’ and it is an ‘act of interpretation’
from which a new work is formed, ‘not a ‘mutation of the original’ (p.14). Likewise,
screenwriters have similar challenges, interpretative choices and responsibilities as
any translator of languages may have (p.14).
Cahir then explains that the translation process can be managed in three different
ways: literal, traditional and radical.

1 Literal translation: ‘which reproduces the plot and all its attending details as closely
as possible to the letter of the book’ (p.16), for example, David Lean’s 1946 film
Great Expectations.
2 Traditional translation: ‘which maintains the overall traits of the book (its plot,
setting, and stylistic conventions) but revamps particular details in those particular
ways that the filmmakers see as necessary and fitting’ (pp.16–7). This is the most
usual according to Cahir, and is propelled by the filmmakers’ interpretation, the
budget and audience expectations. For example, in the Harry Potter film The
Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005), Dobby the house elf does not feature even
though he appears in the J. K. Rowling book. It would have cost too much money
to create the CGI character for such a small narrative role. Therefore it is Neville
Longbottom that supplies Harry with the Gillyweed for the Triwizard tournament
rather than the beloved elf.
3 Radical translation: ‘which reshapes the book in extreme and revolutionary ways
both as a means of interpreting the literature and of making the film a more fully
 independent work’ (p.17). The radical translation concentrates on the original
themes as the prime driving force and places this above the details of period and
setting. For example, many of Shakespeare’s plays receive this treatment: The
Taming of the Shrew became 10 Things I Hate about You (Gil Junger, 1999).

In using this as a means of analysis, similarities and differences may be examined

without recourse to the pitfalls of fidelity and hierarchy issues, thereby recognizing the
essence of each individual text.

Reflect and respond

1 How useful do you find Cahir’s terms?

2 Do you think that the terms are an extension of the fidelity debate, or do they add
anything further to Adaptation Studies?
3 Provide examples for literal, traditional and radical translations. Which category do
you prefer and why?
4 Do you think the different approaches bear any similarities to genre filmmaking?

In the same year Julie Sanders approached the postmodern notion of

intertextuality in relation to adaptations. Postmodernism started in the
twentieth century and is concerned with all aspects of the arts and
architecture. It is a movement that self-consciously draws from earlier
styles and conventions. Intertextuality is one of the structures associated
with postmodernism. It is a form of ‘borrowing’, referencing and reusing an
existing text. For an in-depth exploration on Postmodernism, see Chapter 8.

Julie Sanders
Adaptation & Appropriation (2006)

In Adaptation and Appropriation Julie Sanders takes the difficult task of distinguishing
adaptation from other modes of intertextuality (see Chapter 8 Postmodernism) and
writes that adaptation and appropriation are primarily different in the way they explicitly
reference a text. She states at the beginning that they ‘are fundamental to the practice,
and, indeed, to the enjoyment of literature’ (p.1).
The book has three sections: the first concentrates on definition, the second widens
the investigation to discuss the fluidity and recurring interest in adaptation and the final
section shows alternative perspectives offered by adaptations and appropriations
(cross-pollination, filtration, etc.).

1 What Is Adaptation? (pp.17–25).

According to Sanders, adaptation transposes a specific medium into another
generic mode. In the course of doing this, it trims and prunes along with adding,
 expanding and interpolation (introducing a passage to the text). At the same time
the adaptation frequently offers commentary on the source text (p.18). In addition,
adaptation makes a straightforward effort to make texts ‘relevant’ to new audiences
(p.19). Sanders advocates that Adaptation Studies must not be ‘about making
polarized value judgments’, [hierarchical], but [should be] about analyzing process,
ideology, and methodology’ (p.20). Adaptations are about re-reading, cultural
change, updating, a sustained engagement and hybridity. They may include
techniques such as those shown in Figure 2.1.

Figure 2.1 Sanders’s Definitions (pp.21–3).

However, Sanders is a keen advocate of keeping adaptation closely linked to the

source material (p.26).
2 What Is Appropriation? (pp.26–40).
The term appropriation relates to the conscious reworking of a text. Appropriations
are less explicit and may express or reinterpret a text through a political or ethical
lens. It may become a ‘whole new cultural product and domain’ (p.26). Sanders
says that these reinterpretations are ‘not always as clearly signaled or
acknowledged as in the adaptive process’ (p.26). For clarity, she takes two broad
categories of appropriations: embedded texts and sustained appropriations.

Embedded texts and interplay are ‘stand-alone’ texts and modern reworking.
She cites West Side Story (Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins, 1961) that would
not exist without Romeo and Juliet but that can stand as a musical in its own
right. (p.28)

Sanders shows that interplay between sources and appropriations are an essential
aspect to produce ‘new meanings, applications and resonance’ (p.32). However,
recognition of source texts can be less explicit and can elicit concerns of
intellectual property and proper acknowledgement.

Sustained Appropriations

More troubling is the controversy caused by sustained appropriation where

charges of plagiarism may accrue (p.32). Plagiarism charges are notoriously
difficult to prove. In 2012, Luc Besson’s Lockout was accused of ‘ripping off’
John Carpenter’s earlier film Escape from New York (Hopewell,
16 October 2015). The charge was upheld in the French courts. It is worth
noting that copyright laws vary from country to country, and in the US courts it is
unlikely that the same outcome would have resulted. Sanders’ examples range
from the literary, from Graham Swift to James Joyce and Shakespeare. (pp.32–
9)
 In summary, Sanders finds that any adaptation is strongly dependent on its source
material. Her elitist belief that audiences need to know these connections in order to
fully enjoy watching an adaptation is questionable. She generalizes, ‘Current
audiences for film and popular music are highly adept at invoking the processes and
effects of intertextuality’ (p.155). Sanders is useful for helping us to take a comparative
approach without reworking the tired fidelity/faithfulness paradigm.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you agree with Sanders that in order to fully enjoy a film from an adapted source it
is necessary to know this source? Give your reasons.
2 Does Sanders’ approach imply a comparative method (source novel/film) that some
adaptation theorists have argued should be rejected as a method?
3 Do you agree with Leitch that Sanders’ analysis is about ‘degrees of closeness’ to the
original text?
4 Identify film adaptations that can be used as examples of parallelism, amplification,
reduction and proximation.

Thomas Leitch, whilst recognizing the effort of Sanders to distinguish

adaptation from other modes of intertextuality, notes that few writers
attempt this (Leitch in Deborah Cartmell, 2012, p.88). He questions
whether Sanders does in fact make distinctions or whether she distinguishes
them in ‘terms of degrees of closeness they exhibit to the texts’ (p.88).
Intertextuality is an important aspect of Adaptation Studies and can be
employed in many ways as Linda Hutcheon’s book, A Theory of
Adaptations (2006), testifies.
First published in the same year as Cahir and Sanders, Linda Hutcheon’s
A Theory of Adaptations can be taken as a general theoretical work on
adaptations that draws on the ‘politics of intertextuality’ and aims to utilize
a method that avoids any hierarchical study. She sets out to challenge the
explicit and implicit ‘negative cultural evaluation of adaptation, which are
seen as secondary and inferior’ (p.xii).

Linda Hutcheon
A Theory of Adaptation (2006 & 2012)

Linda Hutcheon’s book starts with a combative sentence: ‘If you think adaptation can
be understood by using novels and films alone, you’re wrong’ (p.xi). In the chapters
‘Beginning to Theorize Adaptation’, ‘What? (Forms)’, ‘Who? Why? (Adapters)’, ‘How?
(Audiences)’, and ‘Where? When? (Contexts)’, she aims to look at the narrative
strategies and the mediums in which they occur. Furthermore, she advocates that
adapted texts should not be subject to hierarchical strategies but are a series of texts
that are in dialogue with one another. As a starting point, and to help avoid any
connotations of devaluing adaptations that comes with using ‘source text’ or ‘original
text’, she calls them the ‘adapted text’.
In the Preface to her 2012 edition, Hutcheon observes the availability of many new
forms and platforms of digital media that are now available. ‘Now iPads and iPhones
have become the sites for adaptive play. YouTube is the placement of choice for many
adapters. […] Fan culture has taken imaginative (and economic) possession of the fate
of favorite stories’ (p.xix). The Epilogue, written by Siobhan O’Flynn, focuses on these
changes and others to discover what this means for adaptations.
Hutcheon begins by outlining one of the attractions of adaptations is the recognition
of the pleasure of ‘repetition with variation’ (p.4) in cultural media forms from television
spin-offs, video games, opera, novelizations, stage-plays, e-literature, radio plays,
installations, webisodes and theme parks. These forms are an industry imperative that
keeps the ‘story’ alive and the audience/ fan base interested with on-going
entertainment that has no boundaries in media.
Chapter 1 sets up the various ways of engaging audiences; ‘telling’, ‘showing’ and
‘interacting’. They are all immersive. For example, novels and short stories tell stories,
performance media (theatre, musicals) show them and others allow physical
interaction as in video games, and so on. Hutcheon revisits medium specific debates
in Chapter 2 but locates them from this new perspective in order to ‘locate the
limitations and advantages of each mode’ (p.xiv). These three modes are discussed as
shown in this table:

Mode Medium
Telling to showing Novel to Film
Showing to telling Film to novel
Showing to showing Film to theatre
Showing to showing Theatre to Film

Interacting to showing Games to Film

Showing to Interacting Film to Games
Showing to Interacting Film to theme Park
Interacting to showing Theme Park to Film

Chapter 3, ‘Who? Why?’ asks ‘Who Is the Adapter?’ (pp.80–5), given that film is a
collaborative medium. First, Hutcheon raises questions to establish precisely who is
the adapter if there are several shooting scripts by a series of screenwriters (see Jack
Boozer below). Does the musical director/ composer who directs audience’s emotions
or provokes reactions become a primary adapter (p.81)? Is it the actors who impose
their interpretation on characters, or should the costume designers and so on be
considered as all take part in ‘authoring’? Hutcheon gives more focus to the film editor
in this process, arguing that ‘The editor sees and creates the whole in a way no one
else does (p.82). Secondly, she asks why anyone agrees to adapt a work, especially
given the likelihood that their creative efforts are going to be adversely criticized and
considered inferior to the adapted text. In order to answer this, Hutcheon explores
 economic advantages (as a pre-existing story can lead to box office success), legal
(ownership of text), pedagogical (cultural capital, knowledge gained from reading and
seeing other films), political (social and cultural critique) and personal (of adapter)
reasons.
The focus in Chapter 4 is on ‘How?’ in ‘The Pleasures of Adaptation’ (p.114),
audiences engage with the remediated stories told through the media of radio,
television and film as there is a time, place, society and culture to be considered in all
processes. The concentration is on the interactive mode in this chapter as Hutcheon
finds this the least engaged with in Adaptation Studies. In a section entitled ‘Knowing
and Unknowing Audiences’ (pp.120–8), she distinguishes the experiences between
those who know the adapted text and those who come to this text after experiencing
the adapted version. She states that this is not hierarchical but ‘Oscillation’, the
‘flipping back and forth between the work we know and the work we are experiencing’
(p.138). Unlike Sanders, Hutcheon sees both knowing and unknowing audiences
having a different experience.
In Chapter 5, ‘Where? When?’, the context of the text’s creation is explored. She
asks what happens when stories ‘travel’. For example, Shakespeare’s cultural power is
in his ability to express and celebrate national identity and for the British this is
patriotism. But for Americans, Australians, Indians, South Africans and so on ‘that
power must be adapted into differently historically colonized contexts before being
transformed into something new’ (Transcultural Adaptations) (p.151). ‘Transculturating’
usually means Americanizing a work (p.146). For example, Alfonso Cuarón’s 1998
version of Great Expectations by Charles Dickens changed from England to America
and from the nineteenth century to the twentieth century. However, Akira Kurosawa’s
Throne of Blood (1957) transferred Shakespeare’s Macbeth, written in the early
seventeenth century and set in Scotland, to Japan’s civil war in the fifteenth century.
In this manner, Hutcheon extends the boundaries of examining ‘Where? When?’ to
include sections on ‘Indigenization, Historicizing/Dehistoricizing,
Racializing/Deracilizing, and Embodyings/ Disembodyings’, using the story of Carmen
as a case study. A more contemporary example would be Bride and Prejudice
(Gurinder Chadha, 2004).
In the ‘Epilogue’, newly written for the second edition, the concentration is on the
digital age.
Of particular interest for Adaptation Studies is how technology is altering the way we
tell and re-tell our stories. O’Flynn looks at how smart technology and interactive
storytelling integrate and transform narrative. According to Hutcheon, in the past six
years the new entertainment ‘norm’ is not an exception and can target different
audiences through different media. Flynn discusses videogame adaptations, stories
versus story worlds (heterocosm), and the proliferation of franchise storytelling.
Adaptation is theorized in terms of repetition and notions of ‘world-building’. The
Epilogue explores these realms and fan-generated content that are not under the
control of the studios and examines who is in control: for example, fan fiction streamed
online which typically extends the narrative of a film beyond its formal cinematic life.
Overall, this is an important book in the pantheon of adaptation study as it
encompasses industry change, platform change and fan input in order to broaden the
comprehension of the burgeoning adaptation industry.

Reflect and respond

 1 Is it useful to call texts the ‘adapted text’ in preference to ‘source’ or ‘original’ texts?
2 Using Hutcheon’s model of ‘Showing, Telling and Interacting’, chose two texts that
can fit these categories and discuss how changes from one mode of telling to another
affect genre, context and so on in the adaptations.
3 What differences may occur in the viewing experience if you read the book and then
see the film, or be inspired to read the book after seeing the film (Oscillation)? Name
the positives/ negatives in each scenario with examples.
4 Name some films that could usefully be examined within the extended boundaries of
Indigenization, Historicizing/Dehistoricizing, Racializing/Deracilizing, and Embodyings/
Disembodyings.
5 What is your experience of fan fiction? Do you watch fan-made films? Have you ever
created your own fan fiction? What do you feel is the motivation behind fan-made
films?

The interest in widening Adaptation Studies into considerations outside the

texts and platforms involved has resulted in attention being more
systematically applied to the industry, pre-production processes and in
particular the undervalued role of the screenwriter/adapter. Many audiences
would struggle to name a handful of screenwriters/adapters who in turn
struggle within the industry to be recognized as creative artists/authors.
With the coming of ‘sound’ films in the late 1920s, the interest in novels
for adapting increased, but this required new skills that few production
companies recognized as necessary, and few understood the craft. The
cinema industry was hungry for strong plotlines and with a dearth of writers
in Britain, America soared ahead with organized teams of readers, adapters,
continuity writers and so forth (Rachel Low, 1985, p.231). Between the
1930s and 1950s screenwriters were seen as a necessary evil. In the 1960s,
Francois Truffaut and Andrew Sarris did further damage to the status of the
writer. Yet beginning in the 1980s attitudes started to change. Now top
writers are powerful and may earn as much as top producers and directors
and, importantly, their work is considered an art.

Jack Boozer
Authorship in Film Adaptation (2008)

Jack Boozer’s edited book examines the central process in adaptation, the screenplay
and the screenwriter’s relationship and collaboration with the director. This section
highlights the introduc-tory chapter, ‘The Screenplay and Authorship in Adaptation’, in
which Boozer sets out the main tenets of his analysis. The chapters that follow this use
a variety of methods, taking specific examples that ‘work to recognize and interpret
what is most significant and meaningful in the many proce-dural stages of adaptation
represented’ (p.24).
Boozer’s aim is to correct the observation that books on novel/film adaptations have
overlooked the processes in which a text is transformed into a film (p.1). For him the
crucial intertextuality is the transmedial screenplay. For Boozer it is not an interim step
or sketchy blueprint that exists between the binary focus of literature and film as others
have deemed it (p.2). He suggests that this has occurred in part because no finished
paper version was formerly offered for sale to the public (but is now often available for
those who are interested) and in part due to the multiple revisions at the hands of
possibly more than one writer, many of which are freely available online for the general
public to read.
The adaptations of high-profile bestselling novels can be controversial. At what point
were changes made? Was it the director, the producer or the screenwriter who made
the decision? Answers to this can provide insights into the studio, production company,
marketing and public demands. As Boozer posits, ‘It is the screenplay, not the source
text, that is the most direct foundation and fulcrum of any adapted film’ (p.4). This is
substantiated by a Hollywood truism that you can make a bad film from a good script
but you can’t make a good film from a bad script.
For example, Hitchcock’s films were all loose adaptations but he was known for
working closely with the finished scripts. Boozer is at pains to stress how the central
narrative cog that is the screenplay is present in all stages of film production. ‘The
screenplay, determines the contribution of the hundreds of individuals who typically
work on any given project’ (p.5).
According to Boozer, issues of allegiance to the original text must be germane to
discussions on scriptwriting. His variation on terminology mentioned earlier in this
chapter (Wagner, Cahir, Sanders) is as shown in this table:

1 A literal or close reading The novel Atonement by Ian Mcewan

2 A general correspondence
3 A distant referencing
(2001), film, directed by Joe Wright
(2007), screenplay by Christopher
Hampton.
Anthony Minghella as screenwriter-
director for The English Patient (1996).
Coen brothers borrowing from Homer’s
The Odyssey for O Brother, Where Art
Thou? (2000).

Interestingly, all of these films were successful, irrespective of their closeness or

otherwise to the source text. Boozer notes how adaptations consistently dominate the
industry awards although there is no category for Best Adapted Motion Picture. ‘This
recognizes the distinct nature of the art of adaptive writing versus original scriptwriting’
(p.13). Academy awards show that films that become commercial blockbusters and
those that gain Best Adapted Screenplay awards are rarely the same film. He cites
many examples, such as the blockbuster Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986), which was
inspired by an article and had a huge box office success, yet the Best Adapted
Screenplay went to A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1986) which had a more
modest box office success. This he claims is true for any given year; blockbuster
adaptations do not guarantee the Best Adapted Screenplay award (pp.18–9). Boozer
believes this shows the prominence of adapted material and ‘its powers with viewers,
 whether for mass appeal or for films more likely to be associated with aesthetic quality
and social insight’ (p.19).
He addresses the escalating financial aspects of producing and marketing films. The
vast sums involved can make or break a production company. This, perversely, has
made adaptations attractive but has not enhanced the quality of what is produced
(p.18). He notes that film marketeers may feel safer with adaptations but ‘the
conservative strategy to increase the number of sequels and remakes left adaptive
writers yet narrower options’ (p.18). More recently, conglomerates have looked for
adapted screenplays that have a strong potential for sequels called ‘tent-pole projects’.
Boozer follows this with ‘Theories of Structuralisms and the Disappearing Author’
citing Barthes, Derrida and Foucault on Authorship, and draws on Lacanian
psychological analysis in order to promote greater balance and discussion between
source and adapted texts (pp.20–2). Concluding this chapter, he advocates that there
should be space to consider the adaptive writer’s script that is the text between the
source text and the film, called the intertext (the between text which may be
transformed when transferred to film) and the director’s voice:

A revised contemporary sensitivity to adaptive film authorship would therefore also

include the environments of all three texts—literary, script intertext, and film. All three
can be sites of personal and cultural struggle and perhaps revelation. (p.24)

Reflect and respond

1 Do you agree with Boozer that there should be additional categories for Best Adapted
Motion Picture? Name at least three films that you think should be considered and
say why.
2 Should the screenwriter have equal status with the director in the credits for a film?
3 The marketing of the director or screenwriter as ‘author’ is at variance with ideas from
Barthes and Foucault who want the text itself to be privileged (see Chapter 1, Auteur).
Do you think this is possible and desirable in the film industry?

Case study: The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)

Written by Penny Chalk

Based on a series of popular young adult novels by Suzanne Collins, The

Hunger Games is an adaptation of a science fiction adventure set in a post-
apocalyptic future. Each of the films in this four-part series takes place in a
dystopian version of North America named Panem. The country comprises
of a corrupt and decadent capitol city which supports itself by brutalising
the inhabitants of 12 outlying districts. One of the forms that this
brutalisation takes is that each year two children are taken from each district
and forced to fight to the death as ‘tributes’ in a live televised competition.
By representing a futuristic fascist regime that controls its populace through
aestheticized violence and spectacle, many critics of The Hunger Games
argue that it functions as a political allegory, with the rich inhabitants of the
Capitol reflecting a consumerist society categorised by its depthlessness.
Yet what makes this adaptation a particularly pertinent object of study is the
changes to perspective that occur when the novel is transposed to the
screen. Therefore, this case study will employ the work of two key
theorists, Linda Hutcheon and Julie Sanders, to examine the result of this
change in perspective, investigating what omissions, additions and
alterations occurred in the process.
In Collins’s work, the representation of the novel’s setting is constricted
by the first person narration of the protagonist Katniss Everdeen; however,
in the process of adaptation, this perspective alters dramatically. For the
first instalment, Collins adapted the novel herself in collaboration with the
screenwriter Billy Ray and director Gary Ross. Consequently, the
screenplay remains extremely faithful to the original novel. However, no
longer confined to revealing only what Katniss perceives, the film takes a
more omniscient point of view and makes several changes to how the story
is revealed. For example, following Katniss, the readers of the novel are
unfamiliar with the arena and its function. Accordingly, through the use of
restricted narrative, the readers experience the world from the subjective
viewpoint of Katniss. However, in the film, there are several cuts to the
gamemakers to show them controlling the arena, such as counting down to
the start of the games, displaying the day’s kills, and trying to kill Katniss
with fireballs and ‘muttations’. Including the actions of those outside the
games plays an important dramatic function in the film and serves to
highlight the differences between conveying a story through film and telling
a story through the written form. As Hutcheon notes in A Theory of
Adaptation (2006 & 2012), ‘the telling mode (a novel) immerses us through
imagination in a fictional world; the showing mode (theatrical plays
and films) immerses us through the perception of the aural and visual’
(2006, p.22). Therefore, in the move from telling to showing, it was
necessary for The Hunger Games to dramatize description and narration,
and in employing parallel editing, the audience is shown the machinations
of the Capitol behind the scenes which furthers the political themes of the
narrative.
 Furthermore, liberating the film from Katniss’s viewpoint also allowed
the filmmakers of The Hunger Games to expand their representation of
Panem, using establishing shots and large vistas to create a visual spectacle.
This grounds the film within the generic conventions of science fiction and
provides an opportunity for what Julie Sanders labelled ‘citations’. These
acts of citation are most noticeable in the film’s design of the Capitol, with
references to iconic film texts such as Terry Gilliam’s Brazil (1985), Ridley
Scott’s Blade Runner (1982), and Fritz Lang’s renowned Metropolis (1927).
Establishing shots of the cityscape reveal futuristic art deco skyscrapers,
wide avenues and high bridges. Their architectural style shows a
remarkable similarity to Lang’s expressionistic designs, whilst the brash
colours and costumes used by its inhabitants can easily be compared to
those featured in Brazil and Blade Runner. Each of the films referenced in
The Hunger Games depict a bleak post-apocalyptic future with postmodern
and post-industrial cityscapes that translate their philosophical undertones.
As Sanders proposes, citations are methods of appropriation that pay
respect to former texts as a mode of self-validation, as she states ‘citation
infers authority’ (2006, p.9). Therefore, the use of such references in the
adaptation of The Hunger Games plays an important role since it situates
the film amongst iconic visual interpretations of a dystopian future, and
seeks to replicate their success.
The Hunger Games film franchise broke box office records for each of its
instalments thanks to a pre-established teen fan base. Burgeoned by the
success of previous teen film franchises, Harry Potter (various directors,
2001–11) and Twilight (various directors, 2008–12), the pre-established fan
base could be read as the commercial motivation for making the film.
However, the film also won critical acclaim for capturing the dramatic
violence, raw emotion, and ambitious scope of its source novel. There was a
degree of controversy surrounding the novel’s similarity to the Japanese
film Battle Royale (Kinji Fukaska, 2000), itself adapted from a novel
(Koushan Takami, 1999). Yet Collins was adamant that she had not seen the
film and was unaware of the novel on which it was based. As an example of
adaptation The Hunger Games success is due in part to the film’s use of a
more omniscient point of view than the novel. Such a point of view allowed
for more flexibility in the way the story was revealed and allowed the
filmmakers to build dramatic tension. Opening out the perspective also
resulted in the inclusion of visual references that allude to a number of
iconic science fiction texts. Whilst it has been proposed that such citations
are self-authenticating, it should be noted that they also transposed the film
into a specific generic mode with pre-established codes, conventions and,
most importantly, audiences.

Reflect and respond

1 If you have read the Hunger Games, do you think the book or the film is better? If not,
think of any books, comics or graphic novels that you have read and then seen
brought to screen; which version do you prefer and why?
2 The film does not maintain the restricted narrative found in the book; instead, we
witness the gamemakers working behind the scenes to cause conflict for the tributes.
Why do you think the production team decided to flaunt fidelity in this instance?
3 Considering the idea that adapting a novel for film incorporates a transition from
‘telling to showing’, what does this mean?
4 Suzanne Collins wrote the book and the screenplay. Does this affect how you analyze
the film adaptation with regard to any additions or deletions Collins has authorized?

Conclusion

Continuing the widening of investigations into adapted texts, Simone

Murray proposes a ‘sociology’ of adaptations that includes extra-textual
dimensions in her 2013 book The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural
Economy of Contemporary Literary Adaptation. She focuses on the literary
authors and how they are becoming more professional with the rise of ‘the
celebrity writer’. Here the marketing of the literary authorial name as a
brand is seen on the red carpet at film festivals, and cameo appearances in
film adaptations, attendance at book fairs, film festivals and writer’s weeks
creating the ‘star’ persona. Similar to other recent books on adaptation
studies, Murray draws on Convergence Culture (a focus in media studies)
(see Henry Jenkins 2006). Of interest is Chapter 3 (Murray) which
investigates interfacing at major book fairs, followed by a detailed case
study of the Man-Booker Prize, suggesting rather unsurprisingly how
winning or being shortlisted may have an impact on the likelihood of a
book being adapted. The final chapters explore how some specialist
distributors such as Miramax have marketed literary values to university-
educated, culturally cosmopolitan and often affluent audiences. This
appears to be a surprising return to elitism in a popular medium platform.
 Further interdisciplinary merging can be seen in examining fandom and
identity. I. Q. Hunter’s Cult Film as a Guide to Life: Fandom, Adaptation,
and Identity (2016) examines adaptations through discussion of the
emotional commitment that comes from audiences’ of cult fans. Dan
Hassler-Forest and Pascal Nicklas’s The Politics of Adaptation: Media
Convergence and Ideology (2016) looks at how the traditional hierarchies
between various media are changing with globalization and digitalization.
Since the 2000s there has been a move towards intertextuality as an
overarching framework away from fidelity issues. A raft of approaches has
ensued as the field of study reaches out to be more and more inclusive after
a long period of marginalization. The list of intertexual modes that may be
deployed in this field seems endless and may have a destabilizing effect on
the overall study. In contrast to the texts just mentioned, a retro turn in
Adaptation Studies may be seen in a resurgence of interest in fidelity
criticism. In 2015 in the journal Adaptation several articles were published
in support of this seemingly retro approach. Casie Hermansson notes how
fidelity discourse is an essential tool in ‘Flogging Fidelity: In Defense of
the (Un)Dead Horse’. Erica Sheen focuses on non-Hollywood cinema in her
‘Anti-Anti-Fidelity: Truffaut, Roché, Shakespeare’ (2013), and ‘State of the
Conversation: The Obscene Underside of Fidelity’ by Nico Dicecco claims
that the politics of fidelity deserve continued academic attention.
As these texts attest, adaptation study continues to grow both in the
variety of platforms that can be used to adapt works and in the many
diverse ways these may be examined.

Bibliography
Andrew, J. D. (1984) Concepts in Film Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination; Four Essays (trans. Caryl Emerson and Michael
Holoquist). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, pp.324, 325–6.
Bazin, A. (1948) ‘Adaptation or the Cinema as Digest’ in James Naremore (ed.) (2000) Film
Adaptation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp.19–27.
Beja, M. (1979) Film and Literature. New York, NY and London: Longman.
Bluestone, G. (1957) Novels into Film: The Metamorphosis of Fiction into Cinema. Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press.
Boozer, J. (ed.) (2008) Authorship in Film Adaptation. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Cahir, L. (2006) Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches. Jefferson, NC and London:
McFarland.
Cardullo, B. (1998) Bazin at Work. New York, NY and London: Routledge.
Dicecco, N. (2015) ‘State of Conversation: The Obscene Underside of Fidelity’ Adaptations, vol.8,
no. 2, pp.161–75 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Genette, G. (1982) ‘Palimpsests’ in Stam, R. and Raengo, A. (eds.) (2005) Literature and Film: A
Guide to the Theory and Practice of Film Adaptation. Oxford: Blackwell.
Hermansson, C. (2015) ‘Flogging Fidelity: In Defense of the (Un)Dead Horse’ Adaptations, vol.8,
no. 2, pp.147–60 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Hopewell, J. ‘Besson’s Europacorp fined 80,000 euros’ Variety! Downloaded 13 April 2016 from
http://variety.com/2016/film/global/john-carpenter-plagiarism-case-luc-besson-lockout-
1201826597/.
Hunter, I. Q. (2016) Cult Film as a Guide to Life: Fandom, Adaptation, and Identity. London:
Bloomsbury.
Hutcheon L. (2012) A Theory of Adaptation, 2nd edn. New York, NY and London: Routledge.
Jenkins, H. (2006) Convergence Culture. Where Old and New Media Collide. New York, NY: New
York University Press.
Leitch, T. M. (2003) ‘Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory’ Criticism, vol. 45, no. 2,
Spring 2003, pp.149–71.
Leitch, T. M. (2012) ‘Adaptation and Intertextuality, or, What isn’t an Adaptation, and What Does it
Matter?’ in Deborah Cartmell (ed.) A Companion to Literature, Film, and Adaptation. Chichester:
Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd, pp.87–104.
Low. R. (1985) Film Making in 1930s Britain. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Metz, C. (1977) The Imaginary Signifier. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Murray, S. (2013) The Adaptation Industry: The Cultural Economy of Contemporary Literary
Adaptation. London: Routledge.
Naremore, J. (2000) Film Adaptation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Sanders, J. (2006) Adaptation and Appropriation. London: Routledge.
Sheen, E. (2013) ‘Anti-Anti-fidelity: Truffaut, Roché, Shakespeare’ Adaptations, vol. 6, no. 3,
pp.243–59 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).
Stam, R. (2000) ‘The Dialogics of Adaptation’ in Naremore J. (ed.) Film Adaptation. New
Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
Stam, R. and Raengo, A. (eds.) (2005) Literature and Film: A Guide to the Theory and Practice of
Film Adaptation. Maldon, Oxford, Victoria: Blackwell.
Wagner, G. (1975) The Novel and the Cinema. Rutherford, VA: Fairleigh Dickenson University
Press.
 CHAPTER 3

GENRE THEORY
Genre
1. a. Kind; sort; style
b. A particular style or category of works of art; esp. a
type of liter-ary work characterized by a particular
form, style, or purpose.

Setting the scene

Since the time of Greek and Roman literature, written texts have been
classified as belonging to certain types or groups. The word genre, first
used in literary studies, derives from the French word genus, meaning type.
Over the years it has been used to distinguish between different forms of
literature (prose, poetry, drama). Shakespearean drama, for example, can be
classified as comedy, tragedy or history. Literary texts can be classified into
these genres. Similarly in media texts the different categories of
classification include Westerns, Musicals, Thrillers, Melodrama, Science
Fiction, etc. Robert Stam notes that:

While some genres are based on story content (the war film), others are
borrowed from literature (comedy, melodrama) or from other media (the
musical). Some are performer-based (Astaire– Rogers films) or budget-
based (blockbusters), while others are based on artistic status (the art
film), racial identity (Black cinema), locate [sic] (the Western) or sexual
orientation (Queer cinema). (2000, p.14)

As early as the 50s, André Bazin was beginning to talk about genre. By the
60s and 70s genre criticism was seen as a systematic move away from the
auteur concept. Genre Studies was seen to be a more inclusive discipline,
which would encompass collaborative and commercial filmmaking
practices.
In Film Studies, genre is more than just a means of grouping films into
categories. The dictionary definition above appears to be straightforward,
but many critics will often proffer contradictory definitions, which can be
confusing for students and scholars alike. It is important to note that in this
chapter when we use the term ‘generic’ we are referring to traits that relate
to such filmic groupings, we are not using it in a derogatory manner to
suggest predictability and lack of imagination.

Identifying genre: ‘chicken-and-egg’ dilemma

In order to begin our enquiry into the field of genre, the age-old saying of
‘Which came first, the chicken or the egg?’ is a good starting point. As
Andrew Tudor notes:

To take a genre such as a Western, analyse it, and list its principal
characteristics is to beg the question that we must first isolate the body of
films that are Westerns. But they can only be isolated on the basis of the
‘principal characteristics,’ which can only be discovered from the films
themselves after they have been isolated. (1974, p.5)

Or more simply: ‘If we want to know what a western is, we must look at
certain kinds of films. But how do we know which films to look at until we
know what a western is?’ (Buscombe, 1970, p.35). From these two quotes it
is evident that there is no ideal place to start but for the purpose of this
chapter we will turn to the writing of Andrew Tudor.

Andrew Tudor
Genre (1974)

Andrew Tudor takes the Western as a model for discussion. Tudor finds the term genre
problematic and questions its usefulness due to the ‘chicken-and-egg’ dilemma
outlined earlier.
To apply genre as a theory Tudor suggests that commonly recognized formal
elements and common features of a specific genre need to be identified. He believes
that these can be most clearly seen in filmic parodies. For example, Blazing Saddles
 (Mel Brooks, 1974) mocks ideas of the traditional Western in a similar way to that in
which Scary Movie (Keenen Ivory Wayans, 2000) plays with the conventions of Horror
and, more recently, Meet the Spartans (Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, 2008)
references 300 (Zack Snyder, 2007). Similarly, the development of Mockbusters
continues the tradition of parody. In order for the humour to work, an understanding of
generic traits is needed.
Tudor questions what the relationship between auteur and genre might be. How can
a director use generic rules to his own ends? Both John Ford and Sam Peckinpah are
cited here as rewriting the Western and changing the boundaries of the public
understanding of the genre.
Most spectators are familiar with the established concept of a Western. Its
characteristics cannot be manipulated by critics; they are what audiences collectively
believe them to be. Furthermore, different cultures may not share the same
preconception. Whereas East Asia has the ancient Wuxia genre, European culture has
the tradition of Swashbuckling movies; the key components in both being swordplay
and honour. In summary, we can take from Tudor’s discussion that he finds notions of
genre ineffective and unreliable, with too many ‘free-floating’ variables.

Reflect and respond

1 Make a list of directors who are associated with specific genres. Are any of the
directors you have listed considered to be auteurs?
2 How far are your cinemagoing decisions influenced by preference for a particular
genre?
3 Tudor claims that the notion of ‘genre’ is ineffective. Discuss whether you agree or
disagree with this statement.

Building on Tudor’s ideas, we have below outlined two categories, ‘Formal

Elements’ and ‘Narrative’, to help you start to understand Genre Theory.

Formal elements
Iconography (costume, setting, staging and stars)

This type of analysis is open to anyone from an early age. It can represent
our initial steps into the world of genre, before knowing what genre actually
means. So what is meant by ‘iconography’? It is the symbolic meaning we
attach to images. For example, the Western is evoked by the following
iconography: cowboy hat (costume), nineteenth-century American West
(setting), saloon and rolling plains (staging) and John Wayne (star). This
kind of identification holds true for all genres.

Tone (lighting, music and cinematography)

Tone requires a deeper level of analysis and a greater ability to read
additional layers of film production. The way the frame is lit can be an
indicator of genre, for example, chiaroscuro lighting is synonymous with
German Expressionism and Film Noir. Similarly, musical instruments can
become associated with specific genres, with the banjo, harmonica and
Jew’s harp often used in the Western. The Horror movie often includes
point-of-view shots to keep an audience on the edge of its seat.
Many theoreticians use different terminology to discuss these formal
elements. Altman calls them ‘semantics’ (see boxes on p.49). Formal
elements are integral to the narrative as they dictate and restrict action. For
example, you would not expect to see a UFO in the Wild West or tap
dancing in a Thriller.

Narrative

Another way to identify genres is by considering narrative. Genres typically

adhere to a formulaic way of telling a story. Narrative (and myth) will be
covered in far more detail in other chapters because of the multifarious
ways of reading narrative. However when looking at genre, narratives can
be seen as blueprints that are frequently repeated across a number of films.
For example, a traditional Musical could typically feature the girl falling in
love with the boy next door. Whereas in contemporary Horror movies if you
are sexually active you are more likely to die because only the virginal
heroine will survive.
A number of theorists have written extensively on narrative structure in
genre. Jim Kitses is probably the most renowned. Kitses approaches the
narrative of the Western by focusing on the oppositions of
wilderness/civilization, individual/community, savagery/humanity and
many more. These broad themes identified by Kitses are synonymous with
what Altman terms ‘syntax’ (see boxes on p.49).

Rick Altman
‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’ (1984)
Altman begins his exploration by problematizing the way genre analysis is practised by
critics. He points out that critics lack terminology and often contradict each other
(p.27). He specifically identified three contradictions:
1 Genre analysis is both inclusive and exclusive. It is inclusive in that it is easy to
construct a long list of films that fall into a specific genre (Musical, Western,
Gangster). Yet there are certain texts that are considered to be exclusive (do not
confuse this with exclusion); these films are canonized and are discussed as
exemplary classic texts (p.7).
2 Genre Theory has become too preoccupied with semiotics (signs, iconography and
meaning) rather than considering the historical emergence of genre movies.
Theory ignores the fact that generic definitions were first introduced by the industry.
In ignoring historical context there is no accounting for how genres develop, mutate
and rise and fall in popularity, and the audience is forgotten (pp.7–8).
3 Genre is a lie that masquerades as truth. The audience is unknowingly
manipulated by generic conventions; it feeds on desires for entertainment (ritual)
yet at the same time transmits messages of mass conformity (ideology) (p.9).

Altman poses two approaches to analysing genre: semantic and syntactic. In literature
semantics refers to words and meanings, whereas syntax refers to grammar and how
sentences are constructed. When applied to film, semantics should be thought of as
the building blocks of genre: costume, acting, cinematography, set, iconography, etc.
(materials). Syntax, by contrast, is the overlying structure, deeper meaning
(arrangement) (p.11).
When analysing genre, Altman believes that if you take both aspects into account
you gain greater understanding. He adopts the semantic/syntactic approach in
explaining how to deal with the three aforementioned contradictions:

1 Some films may have the semantic components yet omit the syntactic structure or
vice versa. This allows the viewer to narrow the field rather than dealing with the
broader nature of inclusiveness and exclusiveness (pp.12–13).
2 Historically and theoretically the correlation between the semantic and syntactic
changes over time.
3 The shifting relationship between Hollywood and its audience (ritual) is under
constant renego-tiation. Ideas of mass conformity change depending on political,
economic and social climate (ideology) (pp.13–14). This point can be illustrated
through the development of both Linda Hamilton’s and Arnold Schwarzenegger’s
characters in The Terminator franchise (James Cameron and Jonathan Mostow,
1984–91, 2003).

The genres that have proven the most durable (Western and Musical) have
established the most ‘coherent syntax’ whereas those that quickly disappear are reliant
on ‘recurring semantic elements, never developing a stable syntax (Catastrophes and
Newsroom films to name a few)’ (p.16).
In 1999, Altman adds another component to his semantic/syntactic approach. He
calls this additional level of analysis ‘pragmatics’. Pragmatics refers to the context
between the information on the screen and how it is interpreted. Meaning in film is
never fixed; it is dependent on how the viewer reads the information. Altman identifies
two areas of geography and chronology in order to understand this further. For
example, depending on your nationality, race, age and the era in which you are
viewing the material, the way you interpret information will differ.
Below are examples of how Altman’s ideas of semantics and syntax can be
applied to specific genres. Applying his ideas to Gangster films, it is clear
that certain characteristics persist as the genre evolves and is taken up by
different cultures.

Traditional American Gangster

Semantics Prohibition era, speakeasies, bootlegging, jazz, guns, suits, flappers, police
oppression, violence, class and individualism.
Syntax Alcohol and criminality will lead to the downfall of american society. exploration
of the underclass. Critique of the ‘american dream’.
Examples The Public Enemy (William a. Wellman, 1931), Little Caesar (Mervyn leroy,
1931) and
Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932).
Italian American Gangster
Semantics Immigrant life, little Italy, xenophobia, family, opera, guns, drugs, mafia/mob,
violence, class, police, pasta, corruption and Catholicism.
Syntax Celebration of the anti-hero. Questioning of capitalistic materialism. exploration
of the underclass. Critique of the ‘american dream’.
Examples The Godfather trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972–90), Goodfellas (Martin
scorsese, 1990), Donnie Brasco (Mike newell, 1997), The Iceman (ariel
Vromen, 2013) and Killing them Softly (andrew dominik, 2012)
African American Gangsta
Semantics Inner-city ghettos, gang culture, rap, drugs, guns, ‘bling’, violence, class,
brotherhood, drive-by shootings, racism, nihilism.
Syntax Exposing the failings of american race relations. results of disenfranchisement.
Exploration of the underclass. Critique of the ‘american dream’.
Examples New Jack City (Mario Van Peebles, 1991), Boyz ‘n the Hood (John singleton,
1991) and Menace II Society (albert and allen Hughes, 1993).

Reflect and respond

Using Altman’s model founded on the ideas of semantics and syntax, apply your
understanding of generic conventions to the genres listed here.

Science Fiction
Semantics
Syntax
Examples
 Romantic Comedy
Semantics
Syntax
Examples

Horror
Semantics
Syntax
Examples

1 Are there any similarities across the three genres explored?

2 Was it more difficult to identify key characteristics in any of these genres? Why do you
think this is so?
3 Which, if any, of the films you noted could be considered classic canonical texts?
4 From your findings here, which do you find more important—semantics or syntax?

It is important to note that many academics refer to the same idea using
different terminology. For instance, Edward Buscombe also explores what
Altman calls ‘semantics and syntax’ but he calls them ‘inner and outer
meaning’.

Edward Buscombe
‘The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema’ (1970)

Edward Buscombe provokes debate concerning genre by asking (p.33):

• Do genres in the cinema really exist?

• What functions do they fulfil?
• How do specific genres originate or what gives rise to them?

These questions are pertinent to the heart of genre and its interpretation.
Borrowing from the literary work of Welleck and Warren, Buscombe uses the terms
‘inner’ and ‘outer’ forms for the crux of his argument. They define these as follows:
‘[o]uter form (specific metre or structure) ... inner form (attitude, tone, purpose – more
crudely, subject and audience)’ (p.36). Buscombe believed both aspects to be of equal
note, stating:

[The] idea of both inner and outer forms seems essential, for if we require only the
former, in terms of subject matter, then our concept will be too loose to be of much
value; and if only the latter, then the genre will be ultimately meaningless, since
devoid of any content. (p.36)
 However, as film is a visual medium he places more emphasis on the range of ‘outer
forms’, which he lists as setting, clothes, tools of the trade and miscellaneous physical
objects. He suggests that these work as ‘formal elements’. These four interlinking
elements impact on the narrative framework and dictate to a certain extent how stories
are told. He uses the case of the Western to illustrate the fact that violence is
traditionally a core element. Accordingly, very few films treat the genre as nonviolent.
Buscombe claims that genre enables good directors to excel. Yet at the same time it
imposes limitations on a director.

Audiences

The audience is key when exploring ideas of genre. Rather than thinking of
the audience as a coherent body, the industry often targets niche groups.
These can be based on gender, sexuality, race, nationality or class. Certain
film genres are associated with women (Musicals, Chick Flicks and
Romantic Comedies) and others with men (Science Fiction, Gangster and
War movies). Tudor notes that ‘art-house’ films are often seen as elitist and
therefore linked to educated intellectuals rather than the masses. He
correctly points out that the term ‘art movies’ is used generically. It would
be difficult to classify such films as the term incorporates many different
genres, but overall they are more than often foreign, subtitled texts (1974,
p.9).
Genre is dependent on audience expectation. For example, when we pay
to see a Romantic Comedy we anticipate lighthearted entertainment with a
‘feel-good’ factor. The industry is aware of its audience and aims to deliver
films that fit our expectations. Accordingly, the marketing of films is very
important because it plays on our knowledge of genre. Bearing this in mind,
consider the use of images on movie posters. Often the title alone does not
immediately evoke the intended genre. It is the image that evokes the
iconography associated with the specific genre.
Marketing relies on a level of audience cultural competency. The term
cultural competency refers to knowledge that is acquired subconsciously
over a period of time. Our recognition of iconography is dependent on our
exposure to generic texts. However, it should be noted that genre
restrictions are also dictated by economic factors. Studios are interested in
profits and adhering to generic conventions is a tried and tested way of
securing investment in projects.
 Reflect and respond

1 Thinking about narrative structure, can you name any particular genre where
recurring storylines are frequently used?
2 Bearing in mind the film industry caters for specific groups, can you identify any
films which could be marketed in relation to race, sexuality and nationality?
3 Make a list of film titles that are seemingly neutral. Can you think of how these films
could be generically misread (e.g. Saturday Night Fever [John Badham, 1977] as a
medical drama)?
4 What kind of images do you think the industry would use to promote the following
genres: Science Fiction, Adventure and Sports movies?
5 Discuss how film posters use generic iconography in reference to posters of your
choice.

The canon

The term canon is taken from English Literary Studies. Over the centuries,
various intellectual groups have acted as an authority on literary texts to
decide which were suitable for academic study. This elitist process created a
hierarchy based on their selections. They included those texts they deemed
to be artistically worthy rather than those that were popular with the masses.
Similarly in the field of Film Studies there is also a canon. Once again it
is based on the writings of academics and critics without recognition of the
filmgoing public. When applied to genre, some texts are considered
canonical; all other films belonging to the same genre are compared to such
classic examples. John Ford’s films Stagecoach (1939) and The Searchers
(1956) are seen to be exemplars of the Western. Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley
Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952) and The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
are classic Musicals while Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927) and the original
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956) are Science Fiction
films also considered worthy of canonical status. However, the canon is
constantly changing and expanding to include films that flaunt and
challenge the traditional concepts of genre. But quality continues to be an
overriding factor in the elitist, hierarchical process. Nontheless, it is
important to note that Film Studies does acknowledge popular texts,
probably more so than the literary canon.
Steve Neale writes extensively on genre. Below you will find discussions
on ‘verisimilitude’ and the way genre is viewed differently by the public
and critics/academics.
 Steve Neale
‘Questions of Genre’ (1990)

For Neale two things are central to the understanding of genre; verisimilitude and the
‘question of social and cultural functions that genres perform’ (p.160). Here Neale is
using verisimilitude to mean ‘probable’ or ‘likely’ rather than the traditional
understanding connected to ideas of truth. He illustrates his definition with that of the
Musical in which it is acceptable for characters to spon-taneously burst into song,
whereas in a Film Noir singing would alienate an audience due to their prior knowledge
of generic conventions. Neale highlights how some film genres hold verisimilitude as
highly important (Gangster, War and Police dramas) whereas other types of generic
films flout any adherence to this (Sci-fi, Horror and Comedy). Yet he also points out
that breaking such generic traditions can often yield unexpected pleasure for
audiences (p.162).
Neale identifies that there is a difference in the way genre is perceived by the film
industry, whose prime focus is in attracting an audience, and the way theoreticians and
critics talk about genre. The latter are instrumental in recognizing new genres, for
example, Film Noir was a term first introduced by the Cahiers du cinéma group; ‘[N]o
producer in the 1940s set out to make a film noir’ (Stam, 2000, p.128). Rather than
simply grouping these films into the already existent crime genre, they believed that
the formal elements necessitated a new classification.
In addition, Neale highlights the fact that film genres borrow from other forms of
media and entertainment. Here he cites how Melodrama originated on the stage,
Comedy derived from vaudeville, circus and burlesque, and Musicals were often
developed from Broadway shows (p.176). Neale states that more research into ‘cross-
media generic formations’ is needed.
He concludes by pointing the way forward—the future of genre studies must
consider the following:

1 prehistory (the development from other forms of media)

2 all films regardless of quality (not just canonical texts)
3 factors other than content (advertising, studio policy, stars, etc.)

However, Neale remains at the forefront of genre debates and continues to rework and
challenge his own theories and those of others.

Reflect and respond

1 Why are some generic films considered classics?

2 Discuss whether you prefer genres that are based on verisimilitude or those that
reject it.
3 Make a list of new genres that have occurred within your lifetime. How new are they?
Do they rework old genres?
4 Name some films from the last 15 years that may be considered canonical. Give
reasons for your choices.
Genre revisionism

Revisionism began in the 50s but really came to the fore in the 60s and 70s.
America was experiencing social upheaval both at home and abroad due to
the fight for racial equality and the Vietnam War. The sensitivity
surrounding these subjects caused directors to steer clear of dealing with
them directly, instead addressing them allegorically, for example John
Ford’s The Searchers (1956) reworks the traditional racial hierarchy found
in original Westerns. John Wayne’s character of Ethan is shown to be
savage whereas the Native American characters are portrayed in a more
respectful manner.
Genre revivionsism occurs when the dominant ideology (formal elements
and narrative) in traditional genres is no longer considered applicable to the
time period. So in order to be relevant, genres develop in a manner that is
pertinent to contemporary audiences. As a result of these developments,
when genres reemerge, many of the established features have evolved,
mutated, become subverted or, in some cases, are omitted. Whereas war
films had traditionally comprised of jingoist stories of national victories, the
film M*A*S*H (Robert Altman, 1970) offered a satirical narrative with an
anti-Vietnam subtext.
New generations of directors consciously played with the original
characteristics in order to comment on contemporary concerns. Consider
Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001), a children’s animated
feature with a subtext that mocks the traditional Disney format, or the
Scream franchise (Wes Craven, 1996–2011), which openly flaunts the rules
of the horror genre. The table below illustrates how the Western has been
revised over the last century.

1900s–1930s

• The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) is identified as the first Western film.
Prior to this the Western had existed in literature, pulp fiction, popular song and
travelling Wild West Shows.
• Director John Ford teams with actor John Wayne in their first Western, Stagecoach.

1940s

• The 40s were dominated by John Ford, creating classics such as My Darling
Clementine (1946), Fort Apache (1948) and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949).
• Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946) was unusual for a Western as it focused primarily on
the passionate interracial relationship between the two main protagonists. It was fondly
referred to at the time as ‘Lust in the Dust’.

1950s

• Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950) and Shane (George Stevens, 1953) continued the
classic tradition of the Western.
• The 50s saw the emergence of the Western Musical hybrid. The most famous
examples, all made in this era, include Annie Get Your Gun (George Sidney, 1950),
Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953) and Oklahoma (Fred Zinnemann, 1954).
• Traditional ideas of the Western were first challenged at this point in what have become
known as ‘revisionist Westerns’. Both Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950) and The
Searchers attempted to address how the genre had been racist in its depiction of Native
Americans, whereas High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952) and Johnny Guitar (Nicholas
Ray, 1954) can be read as an allegory for the McCarthy witch hunt of suspected
Communists. These revisionist texts looked to incorporate contemporary political and
social issues.

1960s

• 1960 saw John Sturges borrow from the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai (1954), with The Magnificent Seven still considered a canonical text.
• Sergio Leone, in partnership with Ennio Morricone and Clint Eastwood, injected the
Western with Italian flavour. A Fistful of Dollars (1964), For a Few Dollars More (1965)
and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966) initiated the emergence of ‘Spaghetti
Westerns’, which were modern and redefined generic conventions. Once Upon a Time
in the West (1968) explored the death of the genre; the frontier had become populated
and weary old cowboys had lost their place in the modern world.
• 1969 witnessed a turning point with Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. This film used
extreme violence to critique the social unrest afflicting America, with the war in Vietnam
and the fight for civil rights at home.

1970s

• Many of the Westerns in the 70s continued to address the worries of the American
people, with films such as Soldier Blue (Ralph Nelson, 1970) and Little Big Man (Arthur
Penn, 1970) using the treatment of Native Americans as a metaphor for Vietnam and
race relations.
• Interestingly, both Buck and the Preacher (1972), directed by the famous African
American actor Sidney Poitier, and Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974) introduced
black cowboys as heroes of the narrative.
• Clint Eastwood directed his first Western High Plains Drifter (1973).
• El Topo/The Mole (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970) is released. This Mexican Western
offers a surreal take on the genre. It features a number of bizarre characters, some are
played by dwarves and the film includes a controversial rape sequence.

1980s
• The 80s saw a huge reversal in the popularity of the genre. This is epitomized by the
colossal failure of the film Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980). This disastrous
production nearly bankrupted Universal Studios and resulted in the industry largely
avoiding the genre for a decade.

1990s

• The blockbuster was pivotal in reviving the Western. Back to the Future III (Robert
Zemeckis, 1990) and Wild Wild West (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1999) saw big-name stars like
Michael J. Fox and Will Smith attract a new audience.
• The films that were at the forefront in attracting attention from the public, academics and
critics were the intelligent Westerns, Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990),
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992) and Ride with the Devil (Ang Lee, 1999).
• Jim Jarmusch took the genre in an entirely new direction with his experimental film
Dead Man (1995).

2000s

• In 2000 the Thai film Tears of the Black Tiger (Wisit Sasanatieng) gained critical acclaim
for its unsual take on the Western. Peter Bradshaw writing for The Guardian refered to
the film as ‘stir-fry horse opera [and] uproarious high-camp cowboy drama’ (2001).
• The intelligent, art-house approach to the Western continued into the next millennium,
with the Oscar-winning films Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005), which introduced
the first gay cowboy storyline and the Coen brothers’ No Country for Old Men (2007).
• Joss Whedon developed his television series Firefly into the film Serenity (2005), which
attracted a large cult following in part due to its hybridity, which expanded possibilities
for the future of the Western.
• True Grit (Coen Brothers, 2010) is a remake of the 1969 film. Here, Jeff Bridges takes
on the iconic role of Rooster Cogburn, made famous by John Wayne in the original.
• A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane, 2014) sees the return of the
comedy/western hybrid.

Academics often divide the Western into two separate periods: ‘Fordian’
and ‘post-Fordian’ (Staiger, 1997, p.186). The former is considered to
represent the genre in its purest form, whereas the latter is indicative of
revisionist texts.

Hybridity

The idea of purity in genre is problematic. For example, most films, no

matter what genre, typically include a romantic storyline. This does not,
however, lead to the categorization of such films as love stories. Hybridity
refers to the merging of two or more objects to form a new entity; in this
case film genres and subgenres. The boxes above reveal a number of
examples where this occurs. In the 50s the Western was put to music,
meaning that it could no longer be considered as belonging to one genre
alone. The tradition of Musicals borrowing from other genres continues.
For example, Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim
Burton, 2007) is a Slasher/Musical and Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Musical
Evita (Alan Parker, 1996) marries politics, biography and music.

Figure 3.1 Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005)

Reflect and respond

1 Look at Figure 3.1, the image for the film Serenity. Which genres have been merged?
Justify your answer by reference to specific iconography.
2 Which of the genres appears to be more prominent?
3 Can you identify other films that combine more than one genre?
4 Why do you think the film industry makes such films?
5 Can you identify any genres that have merged to create a new genre in its own right
(or hybrid genre)?

Robert Stam complicates the issue of revisionism and hybridity by

introducing the term ‘submerged’ (2000, p.129). He adopts this to refer to
instances when a genre may appear to fit one category, due to its archetypal
iconography, but has an underlying theme associated with a different genre.
The film Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969) can be read as the archetypal
Road Movie, yet below the surface it shares numerous ideological traits
with the Western – although it is knowingly playing with and subverting
them. A key example is the scene when Wyatt (Peter Fonda) changes a tyre
on his bike; this is juxtaposed with the shoeing of a horse.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any films that consciously break with generic conventions – how did
you react when viewing them?
2 Can you identify any other genres of film that you believe to have evolved from
theoretical and critical writing?
3 What, if any, is the difference between a film movement, genre and school of
filmmaking?

Case study: The British Gangster Film

As we have discussed in this chapter, one of the ways in which to approach

genre studies is to consider iconography and its greater meaning. While the
iconography, tone, and narrative are not always identical in the British
gangster, many aspects are similar. The table below shows the similarities,
developments and the differences exhibited. It also clearly identifies the
semantics and syntax explored by Altman.

Semantics
Setting Usually urban/city, industrial estates, housing estates, often switching
between grimy back streets, seedy night clubs and boarding houses which
are contrasted with exotic locations, opulent yachts, penthouse suites and
fast cars as signs of success and wealth.
Costume Formal attire such as suits, ties etc., earlier films trilby hats, Crombie
coats, jewellery, smart and skimpily dressed women.
Iconography Fast cars, opulent homes, yachts, glamorous women, jewellery, cash,
guns, knives, police, cigarettes/cigars, drugs, money.
Mental state Megalomaniacs, often psychotic. sometimes portrayed as victims of
circumstance and appearing as tragic figures.
Gender Focus on men, their power and their needs. Women are trophies and are
rarely in a position of power, often stereotypes/two-dimensional
characters. Homophobic.

Syntax
Structure The rise of the gangster whose motivation is for excessive material wealth
and powerful lifestyle which he successfully gains. However he is doomed
 to fall and lose this at the hands of the authorities or by being deposed by
other gangsters and/or death.
This anti-hero dislikes his status and dreams of changing by illegal means.
operates within a well-established hierarchy of gangland with characters
often portrayed as psychopaths and having unstable co-dependency.
there is a strong social context and a narrative of a specific culture and its
values.

Themes
the genre plays to the audiences’ primal fantasies of doing whatever you
like by abandoning moral standards. It then clearly warns of the
consequences of this style of rags to riches aim. the gangsters ‘trade off’;
legally unattainable wealth and power with the knowledge they may not
live to old age. some plots examine police procedures to catch the
criminals.
Morality Narrative is often presented from criminals’ perspective with the lead
character as a victim of circumstance. this encourages the audience to
empathize with him, thus inverting the usual pattern of identification with
respectable society and allowing them to vicariously experience a lifestyle
condemned by society. However, the unglamorous aspect of crime is
presented to enforce society’s position that crime doesn’t pay.
Ambition The catalyst to extreme behaviour and possibly the gangster’s death and
death of others, in his quest for more and more.
Rivalry For money, love, loyalty, ‘turf’ against other criminal gangs leading to gang
warfare.
Betrayal A major part, the giving of information to other criminals or the police.
Self-destructio Gangster achieves goals, becomes complacent, deluded by the belief in
n his own invincibility (hubris). He is doomed to failure and inevitably a
violent death.
Amoral/immoral Loose morals, they kill and maim without care or doubt as if it is purely a
business transaction. Yet they always have an ‘achilles heel’, usually
misplaced trust and/or loyalty, or infatuation with a woman.
Brutality Visceral scenes and extreme violence.
Loyalty Gang members are treated as close family.

Audience fascination with crime and gangster films has long roots. D.W.
Griffiths, The Musketeers of Pig Alley (1912) is recognised as one of the
first films to mark the beginning of the crime/gangster genre in America. In
Britain, whilst there was a fascination with crime-subject films, the gangster
film was rare in British cinema until the 1940s. This was in part due to the
restrictive attitude of the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC), who
would not allow realistic depictions of UK criminal activity, and in part to
the notion that gangsters were American. In contrast, the British had solo
criminals (crooks) and a plethora of ‘spiv’ (flashy black marketeers) films
towards the end of the war.

Historical Timeline

1940s

Post World War Two, censorship restrictions were loosened and the
breakthrough British gangster/ spiv genre debuted. In Brighton Rock
(John Boulting, 1947), the plot has a distinct line between
good/police and evil/criminal. Detractors of the film claimed it was
only cheap violence and nasty sensationalism and a rip-off of the
American movie The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946). Other
gangster films at this time included They Made Me a Fugitive
(Alberto Calvalcanti, 1947), Good-Time Girl (David McDonald,
1949) and Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950).
1950s

In post-war Britain the few gangster films in the 50s tended to be

cheaply made ‘B’ films. Instead the focus was on War films, ‘The
Angry Young Man’ films and comedy. Crime films concentrated on
individual law-breakers such as murder in Yield to the Night (J. Lee
Thompson, 1956) and a police force depicted with moral certitude
as seen in The Blue Lamp (Basil Dearden, 1950). However, proof of
the popularity of the gangster and moll films is seen in two iconic
spoof-gangster films that emerged, The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles
Crichton, 1951) and The Ladykillers (Alexander MacKendrick,
1955). In 1959, Hell is a City (Val Guest) heralded the next change
in gangster films with its realist under world and noir-like
appearance, and a police force no longer above reproach.
1960s

It was not until the end of the 60s that major gangland films emerged. This was in part
fuelled by the high-profile, real-life gangsters the Kray Twins – notorious villains who were
given media attention and celebrity status. They corrupted police, operated protection
rackets, tortured and murdered.
Performance (Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell, 1970) is the standout film of this period.
It presents a true-to-life spotlight on the London underworld of the late 1960s focussing on
similar villainy undertaken by gangsters like the Krays. Performance had gritty brutality and
graphically explicit sex scenes previously not screened by a major studio production.
Similar to earlier films, class, crime, and themes of masculinity and identity are explored.

1970s

The 70s continued these themes. In 1971 Get Carter (Mike Hodges), set (unusually)
mainly in the north of England, and Villain (Michael Tuchner) set in London, present a
tawdry and briefly glamorous world with unreformable characters doomed to die. The
muted colours and urban settings fit the dark and shady events and themes of the films
with none of the bright colours and optimism usually associated with the 60s/70s. The
visual style of these films affected subsequent films and had a strong influence on TV
crime series such as The Sweeney (1975–8). The format in this decade demanded realism
where police and criminals battled for supremacy, frequently using equally unacceptable
methods. These were male films, where the masculinity presented from both sides of the
law was violent and unpleasant and usually at the expense of women who continued to be
two-dimensional figures.

1980s

The 1980s brought further changes to the gangster genre. The most influential film of the
1980s and beyond was The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1979) released 1980/81.
It lifted the genre away from the back street grime to focus on an economic and political
message. Here gangland boss, Harry Shand (Bob Hoskins) sees himself as a patriot
promoting pre-Thatcher free enterprise albeit in the criminal world. The film’s political
forewarning becomes very prescient in attacking Thatcher’s economic philosophy, and in
showing the serious threat to Britain is from Irish Republican terrorists. (This is five years
before an IRA attack on the British government in 1984.) The American Mafia retains their
mobster qualities, whilst the introduction of Irish gangsters brings a ruthless political
agenda not hitherto depicted in gangster films. Shand’s failure to understand the different
agenda of the Irish gangsters is his downfall. This mix of patriotism and misjudgement
almost make this gangland boss a sympathetic character. The direction in Get Carter and
The Long Good Friday influenced subsequent 1980s gangster films and beyond, for
example The Hit (Stephen Frears, 1984), Mona Lisa (Neil Jordan, 1986), Empire State
(Ron Peck, 1987) and Stormy Monday (Mike Figgis, 1987).

1990s

From 1997 to 2001, 24 underworld films were released. The deaths of the Kray twins and
the return of the ‘Great Train’ robber, Ronnie Biggs from Brazil, may have stimulated
interest. It is interesting that this cycle of gangster films are skewed in a very nostalgic way
with their focus on, ‘protection rackets, armed robbery and unregulated betting’, whilst in
the real world, ‘drug trafficking, money laundering, counterfeiting, forgery […] vehicle theft
are the preferred forms of activity among criminal gangs’ (Steve Chibnall, in Murphy, 2009,
p.376). Alongside these, themes of gender anxieties, work and social expectations and
post–feminist versions of masculinity reach to the wider issues of the time.
This tranche of 1990s gangster films received a powerful boost by Guy Ritchie and the
iconic Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (1998). Drawing on and expanding the
formulae of witty dialogue, extreme violence, retro music and striking cinematography,
these films had huge success and were the catalyst for films in America and the UK into
the 2000s.
 2000s

Ritchie’s formula evokes the world of ‘New Laddism’ which is a response and a backwards
step away from women and maturity. (Monk, 2000, pp.162–3). As he notes in an interview
for the Independent newspaper, ‘Wussy-wushy scenes bore the hell out of me. I just want
them to get on and start bashing people’ (August, 1997). For gangster films in the 2000s,
Chibnall distinguishes between Gangster Light and Gangster Heavy. Both draw on
nostalgic images and are glamorous gangster-chic. However, the gangster light films are
non-realistic, having glib, fast-paced dialogue, black humour and are frequently situated
between pastiche and parody mainly for readers of male magazines such as FHM and
Loaded (Chibnall, 2009, p.379). For example, Ritchie’s Snatch (2000) and Layer Cake
(Matthew Vaughn, 2004) blend retro hit soundtracks and cinematography that are striking
and self-consciously noticeable, whereas ‘gangster heavy’ maintains a natural dialogue,
close attention to period details, and looks to the classic narrative of the rise and fall of the
criminal. There is no comedy, only drama concentrating on weighty themes of ambition,
rivalry, betrayal, moral, brutality and loyalty (see below). Films such as Gangster No.1
(Paul McGuigan, 2000), Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2001), The Business (Nick Love,
2005), Rise of the Foot Soldier (Julian Gilbey, 2007), Clubbed (Neil Thompson, 2008), The
Rise (Rowan Athale, 2012) and Legend (Brian Helgeland, 2015) fit the drabness and
phoney glamour of the gangsters’ life style. Within these gangster heavy films, social
realism and strong narrative come to the fore; an area that British cinema has long been
the forerunner.
Yet a major change of direction in the 2000s comes with the wave of youth crime films that
deal with gang violence, gang loyalties within black/white and black/black turf wars.
Notably Kidulthood (Menhaj Huda, 2006) and its sequel Adulthood (Noel Clarke, 2008) and
Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb, 2004) look at underclass deprivation, twisted loyalties and knife and
gun violence in younger males.

Conclusion

The British gangster films evolved from post war Spiv films, a response to
Hollywood gangster films and from the loosening of censorship laws in the
1940s–50s. They provide a fertile ground for observing the changing
attitudes to crime, the police, law, criminals (real or imagined) masculinity
and gender concerns. This has safeguarded the durability of the genre as it
keeps pace with changing social and cultural attitudes.

Case study: The Musical

The Musical is one of the film industry’s most renowned and well-
established genres. The first talking movie, The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland,
1927), included a number of song-and-dance routines. Therefore, from the
onset of sound on screen Musicals have been a staple form of
entertainment.

Escapism

Musicals often attract audiences in times of social and political upheaval.

Richard Dyer’s seminal article ‘Entertainment and Utopia’ explores the
escapist nature of the genre:

Entertainment offers the image of ‘something better’ to escape into, or

something we want deeply that our day-to-day lives don’t provide.
Alternatives, hopes, wishes – these are stuff of utopia, the sense that
things could be better, that something other than what is can be imagined
and maybe realized. (1992, p.18)

For example, during the Great Depression, Americans sought refuge in the
on-screen partnership of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. Musicals were at
the height of their popularity during the war years due to their escapist
ideology. Their popularity waned in the 50s and 60s when the US was
struggling with the fight for civil rights and the Vietnam conflict. Cinema’s
escapist offerings failed to overcome the violent images projected into
homes via television. Throughout the rest of the century, Musicals never
regained significant popularity although some breakthrough films are now
revered as classics. These include The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965),
Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978) and Annie (John Huston, 1982). However, it
is interesting to note that La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016) became
hugely successful at the start of Donald Trump’s administration, which saw
a period of political upheaval, once more confirming the idea that people
turn to musicals in times of uncertainty.
More recently, Musicals have come back into favour. This may again be
due to the escape they represent from the political and social struggles of
the new millennium such as the War on Terror and the global recession.
New Musicals that have reinvigorated the genre include Moulin Rouge!,
Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002), the High School Musical franchise (Kenny
Ortega, 2006–8) and the Pitch Perfect franchise.

Setting
When sound was first introduced to cinema the industry struggled to supply
enough films to cater to public demand. Hollywood’s solution was to use
theatrical shows already being performed on Broadway. Stage Musicals
needed little adaptation for the screen as they were an already tried-and-
tested formula. Many early film Musicals were labelled as ‘Revues’, or
backstage musicals, as they lacked a coherent storyline, instead comprising
of various unconnected song-and-dance routines harking back to the
traditional music-hall and vaudeville shows. Revues typically took
advantage of a backstage setting, where the story of putting on a show
could help weave together the disconnected musical numbers, yet these
were not the only locations used to set a story to music.
Rick Altman has written extensively on Musicals as a genre. He
categorizes the films into three specific subgenres based on where the
narratives are set (1987, p.127):

1 Show: Here we encounter a theatrical troupe putting on a production.

The narrative is set backstage and the rehearsal format affords a
naturalistic setting for song and dance. These films typically conclude
with a show within a show. Examples include: 42nd Street (Lloyd
Bacon, 1933), Singin’ in the Rain, The Blues Brothers (John Landis,
1980), Moulin Rouge! and more recently the Pitch Perfect franchise.
2 Fairytale: These stories are set in magical kingdoms where make-
believe kings, queens, princes, princesses and magical creatures reside.
Famous examples include The Wizard of Oz, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
(Ken Hughes, 1968), Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart,
1971), Into the Woods (Rob Marshall, 2014) and Beauty and the Beast
(Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991/Bill Condon, 2017).
3 Folktale: This is a nostalgic look at the past, typically involving
families and communities pulling together. Rituals and cultural heritage
are foregrounded. Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen,
1954), West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961),
Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, 1971) and Bugsy Malone (Alan
Parker, 1976) are classic examples of this kind of musical.

Not all Musicals fit neatly into one specific category. Consider the 1978
Randal Kleiser Musical, Grease. The narrative sits most comfortably in the
folk category as the film fondly looks back at 50s American culture. The
rituals include drive-in movies, drag racing (cars), and hand jiving.
However, there are elements of putting on a production when the television
show, National Bandstand, broadcasts from Rydell High School. Similarly
there is a nod to the fairytale formula in the final shot where Sandy and
Danny’s car takes to the sky and magically flies into the sunset. Therefore
the three categories Altman suggests are not necessarily exclusive but do
provide a useful starting point for any analysis.

Narrative structure

Altman also identifies that in most Musicals the plot is constructed on the
idea of binary oppositions, which he calls the ‘dual-focus narrative’ (1987,
pp.16–27). This is similar to the work that Jim Kitses did on the Western
(Kitses and Rickman, 1998). Altman suggests that, rather than following the
traditional cause-and-effect approach, the Musical is typically based on the
relationship between the hero and heroine, their differences and similarities.
He develops this further by stating that the mise-en-scene and
characterization in Musicals are also dependent on opposing forces. The
table below illustrates how Altman’s ‘dual-focus’ can be applied to Grease.

Male Female
Danny Sandy
Kenickie Rizzo
T-Birds Pink ladies
American Australian
Sexually charged Virginal
Black Pink
Dark Blonde
Rebel Straight-laced
Popular Geeks
Leather and denim Cotton and lace

It is evident that much of the narrative conforms to Altman’s theory.

Interestingly, at the conclusion of the film Danny appears at the school fair
dressed as a jock (athlete), willing to turn his back on his rock ‘n’ roll, bad-
boy roots in order to gain the girl. Similarly Sandy sheds her innocent
persona and makes an unforgettable entrance wearing skintight black
trousers and a revealing top, with a cigarette hanging from her seductive red
lips. This finale exemplifies the idea of binary oppositions as a framework
for the Musical narrative.

Stars

As with all genres, the Musical has been responsible for creating some of
the most famous actors and actresses in film history. In the early days Ruby
Keeler and Dick Powell appeared in backstage Musicals such as 42nd Street
and Gold Diggers of 1933 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933). Ginger Rogers also
featured in these films, but became most famous for her pairing with Fred
Astaire. Other classical stars from the Musicals include Mickey Rooney,
Judy Garland and Frank Sinatra. Musicals fell in popularity in the 60s and
70s as discussed above. Barbra Streisand, Julie Andrews, Bette Midler,
John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John gained fame in spite of this. At the
turn of the twenty-first century, Zac Efron, Vanessa Hudgens, Anna
Kendrick, Rebel Wilson and James Corden are more familiar names to a
contemporary Western audience.
It is interesting to note that Busby Berkeley is probably one of the most
renowned Musical stars; he was not an actor but a choreographer. Berkeley
is most famous for his kaleidoscopic dance routines, where he made
abstract, geometrical formations using the bodies of the chorus line. He also
used to film dancers in swimming pools performing synchonised routines.
His distinct style of choreography is still influential today and can be seen
in the ‘Be Our Guest’ sequence in Disney’s Beauty and the Beast and is
alluded to in the pool sequence, ‘Someone in the Crowd’ which features in
La La Land.

Iconography and hybridity

As with most genres, it is easy to identify recurring iconography in

Musicals. When the narrative deals with putting on a show then you will
typically see the following: stage, red curtains, an orchestra pit, piano,
glamorous costumes, sequins and spotlights. Similarly the fairytale may
include crowns and other royal regalia, and objects with magical properties
(wands, broomsticks, etc.). The folktale is more difficult to predict as these
films are often a hybrid of genres.
The Musical, probably more so than any other of the traditional genres
we have discussed so far, lends itself well to hybridity. This is because you
can set any narrative to music. Below is a list of famous film Musicals that
not only conform to conventions of the Musical genre but can also be
considered as belonging to another category. One way of establishing
whether a Musical fuses with another genre is to think about the
iconography as this will alert you to other possibilities:

1 Westerns
• Annie Get Your Gun
• Calamity Jane
• Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
• Oklahoma
• Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969)
2 Gangster
• Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955)
• Bugsy Malone
• Chicago
3 Horror
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)
• The Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, 1986)
• The Phantom of the Opera (Joel Schumacher, 2004)
• Sweeney Todd
4 School
• Grease
• Hairspray (John Waters, 1988 and Adam Shankman, 2007)
• High School Musical
• Fame (Alan Parker, 1980)
• Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore, 2012)

Cultural competency

The understanding of genre is dependent on the viewer’s cultural

competency. Bollywood is a fascinating case in point. India’s film industry
is located in Mumbai, previously known as Bombay. Because of the
similarities with Hollywood, this centre for Eastern filmmaking became
affectionately known as Bollywood. The term has since become
synonymous with commercial filmmaking in India; a style of cinema that is
fundamentally based on song and dance. Virtually all Bollywood films
include around 5–7 song and dance sequences which clearly align this
national style of filmmaking with the Hollywood Musical.
Recently Indian Musicals have become more and more popular with
Western audiences. This is clearly evidenced by the emergence of Western-
produced Bollywood films such as The Guru (Daisy von Scherler Mayer,
2002) and Bride & Prejudice (Gurinder Chadha, 2004). However, without
the cultural knowledge it is difficult for Euro-American viewers to
understand the cultural references and importance of Indian history and
iconography. From 1757 to 1947 India was subject to the Raj (British rule).
Britain colonized India in order to exploit its people and natural resources.
On leaving, the British split the country in an attempt to separate Hindus
and Sikhs from Muslims. Although the different religions had managed to
coexist long before the British ever arrived, Hindus and Sikhs were made to
relocate in India and Muslims were forced to move to Pakistan. The results
were horrific, with 14.5 million people made refugees and massacres and
riots ensuing.
Bearing this in mind, films such as the classic Mother India (Mehboob
Khan, 1957) allude to the oppression suffered by Indians at the hands of the
British. In the film a tyrannical landowner exploits a young family. The
father is physically crippled while attempting to pay off his debt to the
landowner. In an act of self-pity, he leaves his family, never to return. The
mother struggles on, losing the youngest child in a storm. The great
hardships suffered by the family over decades can be seen as a metaphor for
the oppression Indians experienced under the Raj. Therefore the viewing
experience has greater poignancy if the audience is aware of the historical
allegories at play.
Iconography and Indian rituals are also of importance if you are aware of
their semiotic coding. The number of times the female lead changes her sari
in the love duet is supposed to indicate how long the lovers have been
courting. More importantly, there are strict social rules in Indian society
concerning relationships and this is similarly translated onto the screen; the
lovers in Bollywood films do not kiss. There may be some rare exceptions
to this rule but kissing is generally considered taboo.
 Another feature of Bollywood productions is the use of Playback singers.
Although when watching these populist Indian films we see big name stars
such as Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Kajol and Kareena Kapoor; they
are in fact lip-synching to the musical numbers. The Playback singers who
record the tracks, although often unknown in the West, are as famous as the
movie stars in their homeland. Amongst the most famous of the Playback
singers are Lata Mangeshkar, Asha Bhosle and Bhupen Hazarika. This
practice has been used in Hollywood on occasions, for example Marni
Nixon sang in three classic musicals. She provided the female lead vocals
for Deborah Kerr in The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956), performed as
Maria for Natalie Wood in West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert
Wise, 1961) and also gave voice to Eliza Dolittle for Audrey Hepburn in
My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964).

Conclusion

Despite changing trends and the fact that critics often dismiss them as
superficial, Musicals continue to attract audiences. Musical formats of
storytelling can be found in all cultures, which may also account for the
enduring popularity of the genre. In 2008 the Abba-inspired musical
Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd) became one of the highest-grossing Musical
films. The film/stage play comprised of disconnected songs by the Swedish
pop group and the structure should thus have shared similarities with the
old-fashioned revue-style Musicals. However, the narrative cleverly
interwove the familiar lyrics into a coherent romantic story. The success of
Mamma Mia! has led to a new trend in Musicals of borrowing from the pop
repertoire. Most Musicals begin life either on Broadway or in the West End
and, depending on their popularity, make the transition onto the big screen.
Yet many Musicals sink without trace. The use of popular music does not
guarantee success but it can help as it appeals to a ready-made audience.
Reflect and respond

1 Consider the two generic case studies, Musicals and Gangsters. Do they
appeal to the same audience? Explain your answer fully.
2 Do you agree that Musicals are escapist? Can you think of any that do
not adhere to escapist ideology?
3 Have you seen any non-Western Musicals (world cinema)? In what
ways are they similar and how do they differ?
4 Why do you think that British crime films have a nostalgic
preoccupation with protection rackets, armed bank robbery, gold heists
and so on whereas gang crime in the twenty-first century is more likely
to involve cyber fraud, people and drug trafficking, forgery and car or
farm machinery theft?
5 Can you account for the continued popularity of the Gangster genre?
6 Are generic categories relevant considering the amount of hybridity and
number of subgenres?

Conclusion

In summary, Genre Theory creates passionate debate as it continues to

fascinate and divide academics, critics and audiences alike. Theoretical
models have been developed but should not be regarded as prescriptive.
One of the main criticisms of Genre Theory is that critics and theorists
appear to repeat the main concepts using different terminology to say
similar things. This can be very confusing and frustrating when trying to
evaluate its development. Further confusion may arise from the way in
which genre theorists criticize each other’s approaches without necessarily
furthering the debate. Regardless of the conflicting debates, audiences enjoy
genre films. Genre provides familiarity and repetition. Economically it
rewards both the paying viewer and the film industry. The formulaic
approach continues to dominate film production with genres experiencing
peaks and troughs in popularity. Tzvetan Todorv summarises the
importance of genres claiming that ‘they function as “horizons of
expectation” for readers and as “models of writing” for authors’ (1976,
p.163). Although Todorov was talking about literature, film genres similarly
appeal to both audience and filmmakers.

Bibliography
Altman, A. (1984) ‘A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre’, Cinema Journal, vol. 23, no. 3,
pp.6–18.
Altman, A. (1987) The American Film Musical. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Bradshaw, P. (2001, August 24). ‘Tears of the Black Tiger’, The Guardian. Available at
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2001/aug/24/culture.peterbradshaw
Buscombe, E. (1970) ‘The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema’, Screen, vol. 11, no. 2, pp.33–45.
Chapman, J., Glancy, M. and Harper, S. (2007) The New Film History: Sources, Methods,
Approaches. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Dyer, R. (1992) ‘Entertainment and Utopia’, in Only Entertainment. New York, NY: Routledge,
pp.17–34.
Kitses, J. and Rickman, G. (eds) (1998) The Western Reader. New York, NY: Limelight Editions.
Monk, C. (2000) ‘From Underworld to Underclass: Crime and British Cinema in the 1990s’, in S.
Chibnall and R. Murphy (eds), British Crime Cinema. London: Routledge.
Murphy, R. (ed.) (2009) The British Cinema Book, 3rd edn. Basingstoke: BFI Palgrave Macmillan.
Neale, S. (1990) ‘Questions of Genre’, in B. K. Grant (ed.) (2003) Film Genre Reader III, 3rd edn.
Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, pp.160–84.
Staiger, J. (1997) ‘Hybrid or Inbred: The Purity Hypothesis and Hollywood Genre History’, in B. K.
Grant (ed.) (2003) Film Genre Reader III, 3rd edn. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, pp.185–
99.
Stam, R. (2000) Film Theory: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Todorov, T. (1976) ‘The Origins of Genre’, New Literary History, vol. 8, no. 1, pp.159–70.
Tudor, A. (1974) Theories of Film. London: Secker & Warburg.
 CHAPTER 4

FORMALISM
Formalism
1. a. The theory held by a Russian literary group in existence
between 1916 and 1930 that technique and form are both
the means to and the goal of artistic creation.
b. Subsequently, a term often used pejoratively in Communist
criticism to denote an artist’s concentration on form at
the expense of social reality and content.

Setting the scene

As with many theories, Formalism developed as a means of studying

literary texts. It was an early attempt to theorize and draw attention to the
way narratives are constructed. It was initiated by a group of progressive
Russian critics who wanted to develop a formal way (hence the name) to
produce an objective and scientific method of analysing literature. Vladimir
Propp, Viktor Shklovsky, Yuri Tynanov and Boris Eichenbaum were key
literary Formalists who were not interested in the content of a text,
believing rather that its form was of prime importance. At this time also,
cinema was in the process of establishing itself as a legitimate art and it
provided the Formalists with an exciting arena in which to extend these
‘scientific’ ideas into the field of film.
In order to understand fully what the Formalists were trying to achieve, it
is useful to be aware of the political and social climate they were working
in. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution sought to overthrow the Tsarist
regime in favour of a Communist state. After the uprising many commercial
filmmakers fled Russia, taking with them equipment and film stock.
Additionally, foreign blockades prevented celluloid from being imported.
As a consequence, filmmakers experimented by recycling and editing
footage from existing film stock to create new films. During this process
they recognized the power editing held as a manipulative device and this
led to a radical rethinking about film.
The key filmmakers associated with this practice were all Russian and
accordingly their output became known as Soviet montage. The leading
practitioners were Sergei Eisenstein, Dziga Vertov and Lev Kuleshov.
Eisenstein became the figurehead in formalizing their methodology. In short
the key ideas that underpin Formalism are:

• A concern with form over content at the expense of subject. The topic of
a film was unimportant; instead the focus was on how the film was
physically put together (editing, narrative structure, etc.).
• To find a scientific way of understanding and writing about an artistic
form (using science to explain aesthetics).
• To undertake formal analysis across disparate texts as a way of assessing
quality by recognizing similarities and differences (in aesthetics,
narrative, cinematography, mise-en-scène, etc.).

Much of their work comprised detailed technical research, as they looked

for an insight into art as a system of signs and conventions rather than as
inspiration and aesthetic style. They saw art as a process to be studied,
taking into consideration the forms and devices involved in making a film,
writing a book or creating a painting. Their aim was to ‘lay bare the
device’.
‘Laying bare the device’ can be literally understood as showing the
means of production. For example, the much-cited opening sequence of The
Player (Robert Altman, 1992) includes a long shot showing the characters
on screen discussing the impact of using such shots in the openings of
films. A different example of ‘laying bare the device’ can be found in one
of the final scenes of Jean-Luc Godard’s Breathless/À Bout de Souffle
(1960). Here the characters walk around the fictional set switching on
lamps. However rather than domestic lighting, Godard uses industrial studio
spotlights to once more remind the audience of the artificiality of cinema.
Drawing attention to cinematography and editing can greatly impact on
an audience, especially when the editing process is made overt. The Soviet
school of filmmakers was at the forefront of exposing the very nature of
film construction by experimenting with editing forms and camera
placement.
Cinematography and editing

One of the most important elements specific to the discipline of film, which
came out of Formalist debates, was a systematic approach to reading
cinematography. In order to understand the methodology proposed by
Formalists, it is necessary to be familiar with the traditional practices of
film language. Prior to the Soviet school of filmmakers, which favoured a
specific form of editing, Hollywood opted for a seamless style of
filmmaking that had become uniform across the industry. This practice is
known as continuity editing or the industrial mode of representation.

Continuity editing (industrial mode of representation)

Hollywood adopted a non-intrusive approach to film editing, as the

intention was for the audience to remain entirely unaware of cuts. The
industry introduced a series of cinematographic and editing devices in order
to achieve this:

• Establishing shot/re-establishing shot: An opening shot to establish

the location and distance between characters and objects within a scene;
this helps orientate the audience. Typically shot from a distance (long
shot), it provides spectators with important visual information.
Following the initial establishment of this information, the camera
typically cuts into the action. At certain points in the scene the camera
may need to return to the original opening position, or establish a new
point removed from the action, in order to redetermine spatial relations
(re-establishing shot).
• Eye-level shot: The camera is placed at a height that is equivalent to
that of the actors’ eyes and the action is filmed from this point.
• Reframing: When action takes place in a scene, the camera moves
(reframes) to keep key points of focus central to the frame.
• Eye-line matching: When a character looks off screen, the following
shot reveals the object of their attention.
• Shot/reverse shot: To shoot dialogue between two characters, the
camera alternates between two points. The first shot frames character A
and is typically shot from character B’s point of view, or over B’s
shoulder. This process is reversed with character B shot from character
 A’s perspective. This model continues throughout a scene and is
repeated as many times as is necessary.
• 180-degree rule (axis of action): For purposes of continuity, it is
important when shooting a scene that the cameraman imagines an
invisible line cutting through the action. It is necessary that all shooting
takes place on one side of this line, as to cross over would disorientate
and confuse an audience. The diagram below shows a circle with a line
through the centre. The camera ‘C’ must always be placed on one
specific side of this line. It can shoot the action ‘A’ from any place
within zone ‘C’ but it cannot cross into the opposite zone ‘A’. The
important thing is that the camera must stay in one zone only and not
alternate between the two. To film the action from the other zone a new
establishing/re-establishing shot would be required. A clear example of
this is given in Bordwell and Thompson’s Film Art (2004, p.312). They
discuss the final shootout in a Western involving two cowboys. If the
cameraman adheres to the 180-degree rule, the characters are depicted
as walking towards each other. If the axis of action is broken, the same
character shot from the opposite zone (camera angle) would appear to be
walking away from his opponent.

Figure 4.1 Diagram of 180-degree rule

• 30-degree rule: So as to not to draw attention to the editing process, it is

important that when moving between successive shots the camera must
move at least 30 degrees. If the movement between shots is less than 30
degrees, then it could be interpreted as a ‘Jump Cut’. A Jump Cut is a
shot which makes the audience focus on the editing technique rather
than the content on the scene, which in turn goes against the non-
intrusive approach of Continuity Editing.
When the methods above are enlisted, the audience is kept unaware of the
technicalities involved in creating cinema. When editing does occur, it is
typically to lead the viewer to certain conclusions. This approach has
become standard practice across the industry and as a result the audience is
often unaware of the manipulative power of editing.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent were you aware of editing techniques in commercial filmmaking before
studying film?
2 Can you think of any film examples where the 180-degree rule is broken?
3 Why do you think Hollywood repeatedly adopts the approach of continuity editing?

Montage

The terms montage and editing are often used interchangeably in Film
Studies, but in this case we are referring to a specific style of film editing
associated with Soviet filmmakers in the 20s.

Sergei Eisenstein
‘Film Form’ (1929)

The Soviet school was anti-bourgeoisie and accordingly sought to radicalize film and
disassociate it from any elitist connotations. As a key member of this group Sergei
Eisenstein strongly agreed with these political aims. One of the ways in which this
political ideology became manifest was in his hiring of non-professional actors. Casting
was based entirely on looks rather than ability. This process, known as typage,
involved Eisenstein personally choosing members of the general public to star in his
films. They were selected due to their physical resemblance to certain types even
though they generally had little or no acting experience. The key stereotypes he looked
for included sailors, factory workers, aristocracy, clergy and so on. Below (Figures 4.2
and 4.3) are examples of typage from the film Battleship Potemkin (1925).
Eisenstein looked to move cinema away from the traditional perspective of the static
viewpoint offered in theatre. He saw montage as an exciting alternative to the
conservative approach practised on the stage. He believed editing had a psychological
dimension and advocated that, when an image is placed alongside another image,
new meaning is created. Here he emulated the art of Japanese writing.
The Japanese model of writing recognizes that the combining of two symbols
(words) creates a third concept (meaning); a concept that cannot be physically
represented by a picture. For example the following ‘hieroglyphs’ are combined to
create a third non-representational meaning (p.14). He cites the following examples:

The representation of water and of an eye signifies ‘to weep’

the representation of an ear next to a drawing of a door means ‘to listen’

Figure 4.2 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

Figure 4.3 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

a dog and a mouth mean ‘to bark’

a mouth and a baby mean ‘to scream’
 a mouth and a bird mean ‘to sing’
a knife and a heart mean ‘sorrow’, and so on
[he concludes] But - this is montage!! (p.14)

Applying this linguistic approach to film, Eisenstein followed the same simple rule that
an image juxtaposed with a conflicting image resulted in a third meaning. He saw
‘montage as a collision’ or as ‘conflict’ and he believed that conflict lay at the ‘basis of
every art’ (p.19). This is summarized by David Cook as: ‘Thesis + Antithesis =
Synthesis’ (1981, p.170). Although Cook uses the term ‘antithesis’, montage does not
have to consist of opposing images, just two images that are different.
Eisenstein furthered his writings on film form by identifying sites of conflict which had
previously been ignored in film analysis. He believed that the following areas of visual
counterpoint (clashes on the screen) should be considered (p.28):

graphic conflict
conflict between planes
conflict between volumes
spatial conflict
conflict in lighting
conflict in tempo, etc.
conflict between matter and shot (achieved by spatial distortion using camera angle)
conflict between matter and its spatiality (achieved by optical distortion using the
lens)
conflict between an event and its temporality (achieved by slowing down and
speeding up)
conflict between the entire optical complex and a quite different sphere

For a detailed application of Eisenstein’s visual counterpoint, see the Lola Rennt/Run
Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998) case study on page 82.
Eisenstein famously identified five different types of montage (Cook, 1981, pp.172–
3):

1 metric montage (length/duration of shot; builds suspense)

2 rhythmic montage (based on rhythm of movement within the shot; can enhance or
contradict the image)
3 tonal (emotional content rather than duration of shots)
4 overtonal (synergy of metric, rhythmic and tonal)
5 intellectual montage (conceptual relationship between images/visual metaphor)

Figure 4.4 Battleship Potemkin (Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925)

 Each of these categories offers directors a variety of tools when presenting information
to an audience. For Eisenstein, intellectual montage held the greatest impact. He used
it to great effect in all of his films, especially Battleship Potemkin. Intellectual montage
is reliant on the viewer reading the juxtaposition of images to come to a new
understanding. The stills in Figure 4.4 depict metaphorically the uprising of the working
masses after years of laying dormant. Although the images are of three different
statues, when juxtaposed the seemingly inactive lion is stirred to react.

This idea (Thesis + Antithesis = Synthesis) was exemplified in the unique

experiment by Lev Kuleshov. Taking an image of the actor Ivan
Mozhukhin, Kuleshov juxtaposed the actor with three poignant images,
those of a bowl of soup, a girl in a coffin and a seductive women. On each
occasion the image of the actor remained the same. However, the audience
interpreted his expressionless face as portraying the emotions of hunger,
sorrow and lust respectively. This became known as the ‘Kuleshov Effect’.

The long take

In complete opposition to montage, the long take remains focused on a

scene as it evolves rather than cutting into the action. After viewing the
work of Orson Welles and the cinematographer Gregg Toland in the film
Citizen Kane (1941), André Bazin was one of the first to recognize the
importance of deep-focus photography. This occurs when both the
foreground and background of a shot are in focus. This technique was not
new and had been practised in France by Jean Renoir in films such as La
Grande Illusion/The Grand Illusion (1937) and La Bête Humaine/The
Human Beast (1938). Bazin notes three implications behind the use of
deep-focus composition:

1 Deep focus is similar to how an audience experiences the real world and
could therefore be seen as a more natural way of viewing.
2 With the long take the viewer has to be more active in deciphering
information as the director is not guiding the audience.
3 ‘Montage rules out ambiguity’ as the viewer is shown important images.
‘Depth of focus reintroduces ambiguity’ (p.50).

Continuity editing, montage and the long take offer filmmakers three
radically different ways of telling stories. Deciding which approach to take
is central as editing can manipulate an audience in various ways. It can be
subtly leading, overt or non-existent. Although Soviet montage is most
famously associated with Formalism, all three ways of composing a
narrative involve selecting a form and applying it to a text.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you name any films where the editing is intrusive? Why do you think these
decisions were made?
2 Make a list of five directors you associate with continuity editing and five directors you
associate with self-conscious cutting.
3 Which of the following film movements do you associate with continuity editing and
which with self-conscious cutting: Italian Neo-Realism, French New Wave, German
Expressionism and British Social Realism?
4 As a viewer, which style do you prefer and why?

Narrative traits of Formalism

Certain narrative forms are employed in film that we often fail to recognize
due to their frequent use. These forms are more commonly known as genres
(see Chapter 3, ‘Genre Theory’). Below are narrative devices which gained
common usage through the Formalist study of literature and are key to
understanding narrative traits in film.

Fabula (story) and syuzhet (plot)

The Formalists identified two major elements in the study of narrative,

which they called ‘fabula’ (story) and ‘syuzhet’ or ‘sjuzet’ (plot).

• Fabula: (audience-led). This is the entire story; the full sequence of

events. This includes sequences that are not visibly, or aurally,
represented on the screen (characters eating, sleeping and going to the
toilet). Here the audience is active as it must make assumptions based on
the information given; it must fill in the gaps. On occasion
reconstructing the fabula (making sense of the omissions) can help us
gain a greater understanding. It is the entire sequence of events with
nothing taken out.
• Syuzhet: (writer/director-led). This is the information and organization
of material which is presented on the screen (the sequence of frames
chosen by the director). The information given cannot be changed as all
viewers are privy to the same facts. However, in a suspense the director
may have reconstructed the sequence of events, leaving the audience
unaware that the character may have gained information unrevealed to
us. This specific selection of events is especially useful in crime stories
as the audience can be manipulated and led to incorrect assumptions to
increase the suspense.

It is important to remember that the director can easily manipulate an

audience as the information presented in the syuzhet may be purposely
misleading. Consider the twist at the end of the film The Usual Suspects
(Bryan Singer, 1995). In this example the director has manipulated the
audience through the syuzhet and in turn this leads to the wrong conclusions
about Keyser Soze and the entire story (fabula). Putting the fabula together
constructs the bigger picture, so that all the events are present even when
not physically or aurally represented on the screen.
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994) is a key text to deconstruct when
exploring Formalist ideas. The film is renowned for its non-linear approach,
with actions occurring out of chronological order. Accordingly, there are
many versions of what is thought to be the ‘true’ linear time of the fabula.
Below is our version of both the fabula and syuzhet for Pulp Fiction:

The fabula for Pulp Fiction

Day 1

• Morning: Vincent (John Travolta) and Jules (Samuel L. Jackson) visit

young men in their apartment to collect Marsellus’s (Ving Rhames)
briefcase. Shot at by these young men, Vincent and Jules miraculously
escape injury and kill three of the four youths. Jules believes that their
survival is a sign that he should stop being a villain.
• The fourth man is accidentally shot and killed in the car by Vincent.
Marsellus’s henchman, Winston Wolfe (Harvey Keitel), organizes
Vincent and Jules in the disposal of the body and the car; they then go
for a late breakfast at a diner.
• Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) plan to hold
up the diner. They attempt to take Vincent and Jules’s briefcase but the
latter refuse to hand it over. They overpower the two robbers but allow
them to leave with their loot. As a reformed man, Jules gives them
$1,000 of his own money.
• Late afternoon: ‘washed-up’ boxer Butch (Bruce Willis) is bribed by
Marsellus to throw his fight. Before the fight, Butch dreams about a
gold watch left to him by his father, a war hero.
• Evening: Vincent buys heroin before taking Marsellus’s wife Mia (Uma
Thurman) to the club, Jack Rabbit Slims, where they win a dance
contest. Back home Mia overdoses. Vincent takes her to his drug dealer
where she is saved by an adrenalin injection.
• Late evening: Butch cheats Marsellus and wins his boxing match. He
takes a long taxi journey to a hotel where he meets his girlfriend,
Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros).

Day 2

• Morning: Butch discovers Fabienne has left his gold watch at their
apartment. He returns there to retrieve it where he also finds Vincent,
sent by Marsellus to kill him. Instead, Butch kills Vincent.
• Afternoon: Driving back to collect Fabienne, Butch runs over Marsellus;
they fight but get taken prisoner by two perverts, Zed (Peter Greene) and
Mason-Dixon. Marsellus is raped by Zed but Butch escapes yet
surprisingly returns to save Marsellus, his nemesis. In return for this,
Marsellus agrees not to kill Butch as long as he keeps quiet about the
embarrassing events.
• Butch steals a chopper (motorbike), collects Fabienne and the two of
them drive off to a new life.

The syuzhet for Pulp Fiction

This is very complex. Tarantino has used a framing device for his story (in
this case Pumpkin and Honey Bunny). The prologue shows the start of the
diner robbery and the epilogue shows the robbery and its aftermath. All
other events occur in a non-linear fashion and it is the audience’s task to
unravel these. Below is our version:
• Pumpkin and Honey Bunny hold up diner.
• Vincent and Jules are attacked but retrieve briefcase.
• Butch accepts Marsellus’s bribe.
• Vincent and Mia (Marsellus’s wife) go to Jack Rabbit Slims.
• Butch dreams of father’s gold watch.
• Butch cheats Marsellus, wins fight and meets Fabienne at hotel.
• Butch discovers the watch has been left behind and goes to retrieve it.
• Vincent is sent by Marsellus to kill Butch. On finding Vincent in his
apartment, Butch kills him.
• Butch encounters Marsellus on route to his hotel; they fight.
• Butch and Marsellus are taken prisoner. Butch helps Marsellus escape.
As a result, Butch is granted his freedom.
• Butch steals a chopper, collects Fabienne and they leave.
• Vincent and Jules are shot at but not hit while retrieving the briefcase.
Jules believes this to be divine intervention. They shoot the youths.
• Vincent accidentally shoots fourth youth in the car.
• Vincent and Jules dispose of the body with Wolfe’s help.
• Pumpkin and Honey Bunny hold up diner. They leave with stolen goods
and $1,000 given to them by Jules.

The fabula requires an active audience to construct and interpret the

chronological order of the story, as much of the information is implied
rather than being part of the diegesis. The syuzhet is created by the
director/writer as a form of shorthand, allowing stories to be told in a
condensed manner. Being aware of these two devices enables viewers to
understand the complex narrative forms that occur in numerous films
including Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993), Sliding Doors (Peter
Howitt, 1998), Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000) and Inception
(Christopher Nolan, 2010).

Reflect and respond

1 Take a film of your choice and attempt to identify moments in the fabula that do not
appear in the syuzhet.
2 Discuss the fabula and syuzhet in relation to the following key figures involved in film
production:
a writer
b director
c actor
d editor
 3 Can you name any films where the fabula and syuzhet are identical?
4 When this occurs, are any aesthetic traits frequently used?

In addition to the narrative-based theories of the Formalists, Vladimir Propp

wrote about the recurring characters that appear in storytelling.

Vladimir Propp
Morphology of the Folktale (1928)

Vladimir Propp was a literary scholar who endeavoured to look beyond the traditional
approach to studying folktales, which focused primarily on themes. He examined over
100 Russian folktales in order to discern common structures and elements which could
then be broadened and applied to other genres. From this survey, Propp maintained
that traditional tales are based on the following:

Archetypes/spheres of action

Despite the confusing name ‘spheres of action’ refers to the recurring characters found
in most stories in some form or other. Propp identified seven characters:

1 The Hero A character who seeks something.

2 The Villain Opposes or actively blocks the Hero’s quest.
3 The donor Provides an object with magical properties.
4 The Sends the Hero on their quest.
dispatcher
5 The False Disrupts the Hero’s success by making false claims.
Hero
6 The Assists and rescues the Hero.
Helper
7a The Acts as the reward for the Hero and the object of the Villain’s plots.
Princess
Her
7b Looks to reward the Hero for his efforts.
Father

It is important to recognize that although these characters may seem dated they do
translate to modern texts. Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015) provides an interesting study
for this. Unlike traditional Bond movies, Spectre plays with archetypal expectations.
Some of the seven roles are easily identifiable as shown here:

1 The Hero James Bond/007 (daniel Craig)

 2 The Villain Ernst Blofeld (Christoph Waltz)
3 The donor Q (Ben Whishaw)
4 The M (ralph Fiennes)
dispatcher
5 The False Max denbigh (andrew scott)
Hero
6 The Moneypenny (naomie Harris)
Helper
Q (Ben Whishaw)
7a The Dr Madeline swann (léa seydoux)
Princess
Her
7b Mr White (Jesper Christensen)
Father

Whereas Bond and Blofeld epitomize our idea of a Hero and a Villain, other characters
prove to be more problematic. Interestingly, Q the ‘Donor’ in the Bond franchise has
more input in Spectre. Hitherto, Q’s role was solely to provide Bond with gadgets, here,
Q leaves his ‘backroom’ and assists Bond in the ‘field’ taking on the role of both
‘Donor’ and ‘Helper’. Dr Madeline Swann is Propp’s ‘Princess’ as she is the love
interest for 007, but she could also be considered as the ‘Helper’. This is not unusual
as often a character can fit into more than one archetype. In the case of Spectre the
Princess’s ‘Father’ is only briefly in the film as a narrative device, leading the hero to
the princess. This shows that Propp’s approach is not outdated and applicable only to
fairytales. At first glance it can appear that Propp’s archetypes do not feature, but with
the aid of lateral thinking the seven characters can typically be found.

Functions

Propp noted that, in addition to recurring characters, similarities in plots were also
evident. He described thirty-one key moments that occur in the majority of tales; he
called these components ‘functions’. Each function represents a different stage in the
protagonist’s journey. His approach was limited in that he only looked at the fairytale
genre. Focusing on simple linear stories, he did not have to consider complex
narratives with no neat resolution, like Truffaut’s Les Quatre Cents Coups/400 Blows
(1959).
On first glance Propp’s work may seem somewhat dated. However, contemporary
viewers can apply his functions to modern forms of storytelling. For example, while
Propp envisioned tales ending with the ‘marriage function’, this did not have to be a
literal marriage. Instead, it could be read in terms of a satisfying outcome, which
delivers resolution and allows the ‘Hero’ to return ‘home’, avoiding a traditional clichéd
ending.

Although Propp’s work is important, it does not provide a complete

understanding of narrative but instead shows that there are underlying
structures or patterns in narratives. The following table maps Propp’s 31
functions against the classic film The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Propp’s functions
1 One of the members of a family absents Dorothy Gale (Hero) (Judy Garland) is
himself from home an orphan who lives on a farm in
Kansas, with her auntie em and uncle
Henry (Clara Blandick and Charley
Grapewin).
2 An interdiction is addressed (Hero is told Dorothy is told that her dog, toto, is to
not to do a specific thing). be destroyed for biting the neighbour
Miss Gulch (Margaret Hamilton).
Note: Miss Gulch becomes the Wicked
Witch of the West in oz.
3 The interdiction is violated (Hero breaks the Miss Gulch takes toto away in her bike
command). basket. toto manages to escape and
returns to the farm. dorothy decides to
run away.
4 The Villain makes an attempt at Professor Marvel (Frank Morgan) looks
reconnaissance (searches for information). into his crystal ball.
Note: Professor Marvel becomes the
Wizard when dorothy arrives in oz.
5 The Villain receives information about the The Professor finds out that dorothy
Hero. has run away.
6 The Villain attempts to deceive the Hero in Professor Marvel pretends auntie em is
order to take possession of him or his unwell.
belongings.
7 The Hero succumbs to deception and Dorothy decides to return to the farm
thereby unwittingly helps his enemy. as she is worried about her auntie.
8 The Villain causes harm or injury to a The farm house is picked up by a
member of the Hero’s family/one member cyclone. dorothy bangs her head and
of the family either lacks something or passes out on the bed.
desires to have something.
9 Misfortune or lack is made known: the Hero The cyclone subsides and dorothy
is approached with a request or command; finds herself in an enchanted land
he is allowed to go or is dispatched. called oz. unfortunately, the farm
house, which she travelled in, landed
on top of the Wicked Witch of the east.
Her sister, the Wicked Witch of the
West (Margaret Hamilton), arrives and
tries to take her dead sister’s ruby
slippers.
10 The seeker agrees to or decides upon Glinda (Billie Burke), the good witch,
counteraction. uses magic to place the ruby slippers
on dorothy’s feet.
11 The Hero leaves home. Dorothy sets out on a journey down the
Yellow Brick road. Her aim is to see the
Wizard of oz to ask for help to get back
to home.
12 The Hero is tested, interrogated, attacked, Dorothy arrives at a crossroads and
etc., which prepares the way for his meets a scarecrow (ray Bolger).
receiving either a magical agent or Helper the scarecrow tries to offer advice, but
(gift from donor). does not know the way to the emerald
City as he doesn’t have a brain.
13 The Hero reacts to the actions of a future Dorothy asks the scarecrow to
donor. accompany her to ask the wizard for a
brain.
14 The Hero acquires the use of a magical Dorothy comes across a tin Man (Jack
agent. Haley) who has become rusted in the
rain.
15 The Hero is transferred, delivered or led to Dorothy uses oil to help the tin Man.
the whereabouts of an object that he seeks. He tells the two travelling companions
that he wants a heart. dorothy invites
him to accompany them to see the
Wizard.
the group are attacked by a lion (Bert
lahr), who turns out to be a coward. He
also joins the companions to gain
courage from oz.
16 The Hero and Villain join in direct combat. The Wicked Witch appears and
threatens dorothy and her friends. the
witch attempts to set fire to the
Scarecrow.
17 The Hero is branded. Travelling through a field of Poppies,
the friends fall into a magical deep
sleep (an enchantment performed by
the Wicked Witch of the West).
18 The Villain is defeated. Glinda the Good Witch conjures a
snow storm.

19 Initial misfortune or lack is liquidated Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin Man
(resolved). and the lion awaken to continue their
journey.
20 The Hero returns. The friends arrive at the emerald City.
21 The Hero is pursued. The Wicked Witch rides above the
emerald City on her broomstick
frightening the inhabitants of the city.
22 Rescue of the Hero from pursuit. The friends regroup and encourage
each other. they Are eventually allowed
to visit the Wizard.
23 The Hero, unrecognized, arrives home or In Dorothy, the scarecrow, the tin Man
another country. and the Cowardly lion enter the
Wizard’s chamber.
24 A False Hero presents unfounded claims. Oz intimidates each of the group.
25 A difficult task is proposed to the Hero. The group must prove themselves
worthy by Acquiring The broomstick of
the Wicked Witch of the West.
26 The task is resolved. After a series of obstacles, dorothy
accidentally throws water over the
Wicked Witch who melts. dorothy takes
the broomstick.
27 The Hero is recognized. The Witch’s army celebrate dorothy’s
victory.
28 The False Hero or Villain is exposed. The Wizard is revealed, by toto, to be a
hologram.
He is in fact an ordinary man.
29 The False Hero is given a new appearance. The Great Wizard of oz turns out to be
from Dorothy’s home land of Kansas.
He worked in A carnival and was blown
off course in a hot air Balloon and
landed in oz.
30 The Villain is punished. The hot air balloon leaves the emerald
City but dorothy jumps out of the
basket to chase after toto. the Wizard
flies off on his own.
There is no romantic marriage as
dorothy is a child. However, in
The Hero is married and ascends the
31 recognizing there is ‘no place like
throne.
home’ dorothy uses the ruby slippers to
return to her loving family in Kansas.

Not all thirty-one functions have to be present in each tale but, according to
Propp, those that do occur always appear in the same order. However, if you
are familiar with the original Wizard of Oz story, you will realize that the
functions do appear in an almost regulated order (see table). However, it is
important to note that the Wicked Witch of the West melting occurs at
Step 26 rather than 30. This is because Dorothy still has to reveal the
identity of the Wizard which entails retrieving the broomstick (which is
only made possible once the witch is dead).
Many scholars have attempted to construct theories around narrative
structure, for example, Roland Barthes, Tzvetan Todorov and Christopher
Volger. Contemporary scholars have also been fascinated with identifying
similarities in narratives. For example, Chris Booker in The Seven Basic
Plots: Why We Tell Stories (2004) identified the following universal stories:
overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return,
comedy, tragedy and rebirth. However, alongside Propp, Joseph Campbell
is most renowned for his writings exploring the hero’s journey.

Joseph Campbell
The Hero with a Thousand Faces (1949)

The American scholar Joseph Campbell worked in the field of literature and mythology.
He originally wanted to write ‘the great American novel’ and in order to prepare for this
feat he decided to read as many classic novels and mythological tales as possible.
Like Propp, he began to recognize that stories, independent of national origin, adhered
to the same common pattern. He identified that all religious tales, mythology and great
works of fiction shared similar traits regarding the hero’s journey. In the book The Hero
with a Thousand Faces, Campbell mapped out the narrative of the hero who leaves
behind a world of comfort and safety, guided by a mentor, to fight evil. The hero
encounters many obstacles and battles but eventually overcomes the dark forces to
return home, having grown spiritually. Campbell divided the progression of the hero
into three sections: ‘Departure’, ‘Initiation’ and ‘Return’. Each section was further
subdivided into more specific moments of action. Campbell believed that the universal
tale of the hero exists in all cultures. He further claimed that psychologically, the
adventure coaches people in how to a live a fulfilled and morally sound life.

Joseph Campbell gained notoriety when George Lucas used his blueprint
and applied it to his screenplay for Star Wars (1977). The table below
demonstrates how Campbell’s hero’s journey can be applied to the character
of Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) (see following table).

The journey of the hero Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)

I Departure

1 The call to adventure. Luke skywalker receives a message from

 Princess leia (Carrie Fisher) (r2-d2’s hologram).
2 Refusal of the call. Luke is fearful of leaving his old life.
3 Supernatural aid (mentor). Obi-Wan Kenobi (alec Guinness) saves luke
from the sandpeople.
4 The crossing of the first threshold. Luke leaves tatooine after his home is
destroyed.
5 The belly of the whale (hero nearly dies Luke and his friends enter the death star (trash
and is reborn ready for adventure). compactor – literal belly).

II Initiation
1 The road of trials. Obi-Wan teaches luke how to use the
lightsaber.
2 The meeting with the goddess. Luke rescues Princess leia.
3 Woman as the temptress/temptation Luke is tempted by the ‘dark side’.
away from the true path.
4 atonement with the father. luke and his father (darth Vader) (david
Prowse) are reconciled.
5 Apotheosis (the hero enters a new Luke becomes a Jedi Knight.
state of being).
6 The ultimate boon (the hero’s
The Death Star is destroyed.
objectives are accomplished).
III
1 Refusal of the return. ‘Luke, come on!’ Luke wants to stay to avenge Obi-Wan.
2 Magic flight. The Millennium Falcon.
3 Rescue from without (forces from the
Han Solo (Harrison Ford) returns to save Luke.
ordinary world rescue hero).
4 Millennium Falcon destroys pursuing TIE
The crossing of the return threshold.
fighters.
5 Victory ceremony. Luke is both ordinary yet a
Master of the two worlds.
Jedi Knight.
6 Freedom to live. The Empire is defeated.

Note: Much of the above table has been adapted from the work of Kristen Brennan (1999–
2006), http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html. Reprinted with permission.

Reflect and respond

1 See if you can apply Propp’s seven archetypal characters to three films of your choice
(only one of your three examples should be a fairytale).
 2 Identify a film that you think adheres to Propp’s thirty-one functions.
3 Try to apply Joseph Campbell’s ‘Hero’s Journey’ to one of the following films: The
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001), The Matrix
(Lana and Lilly Wachowski, as the Wachowski Brothers, 1999) or The Hunger Games
(Gary Ross, 2012).
4 How restrictive or inspirational do you find the narrative blueprints proposed by Propp
and Campbell?

Formalists were also concerned with the way the everyday world was
represented in texts. Viktor Shklovsky and Bertolt Brecht attempted to
formalize how creative texts (literature and theatre) worked to make the
mundane exciting and relevant.

Viktor Shklovsky
‘Art as Technique’ (1917)

Although Shklovsky was writing about language, his ideas can be applied to film. He
suggested that there are two distinct ways of communicating information to an
audience. Poetic forms appeal to an audience’s emotions by using abstract
metaphorical devices to reveal something in a new light. Alternatively, information can
be given in a matter-of-fact way that is grounded in straightforward ideas and can be
perceived as factual. To clarify, in Film Studies the terms ‘denote’ and ‘connote’ are
frequently used. ‘Denote’ is the literal representation of a subject/object, whereas
‘connote’ is the symbolic representation. Shklovsky uses the word ‘butterfingers’ as an
example:

[T]o attract the attention of a young child who is eating bread and butter and getting
the butter on her fingers. I call, ‘Hey, butterfingers!’ [...] Now a different example. The
child is playing with my glasses and drops them. I call, ‘Hey, butterfingers!’. (1965,
p.8)

Shklovsky’s first illustration, of a child with butter on their fingers, is a literal

representation and is therefore denotative. The second version is symbolic as the child
has clean hands but is clumsy; in this case the term is connotative.
Shklovsky believed that the connotative/poetic approach had more impact. He
argued that non-poetic forms cause our perceptions of familiar objects to become
dulled out of habit. But poetic forms make us see ordinary things in a different way, to
make the familiar strange (ostra-nenie). The way to do this was to make ideas and
objects appear unusual or new to the viewer/reader. Shklovsky referred to this as
‘defamiliarization’.

Defamiliarization

Film is a fantastical medium and therefore lends itself well to defamiliarization. This is
where the ordinary is made extraordinary, where the viewer is invited to see the world
through new eyes. This notion of ‘seeing things anew’ is a frequent trope found in film
narratives. Defamiliarization can occur in various ways; below are a few examples:

• A foreigner arrives in a new country and experiences a new culture at first hand in
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003), The Last King of Scotland (Kevin
Macdonald, 2006), Avatar (James Cameron, 2009) and 12 Years a Slave (Steve
McQueen, 2014).
• Characters become intoxicated or dizzy (alcohol, drugs, poison). This process is
often emulated by the cinematography: shaky point-of-view shots, blurred images,
etc. and occurs in Vertigo, Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996), Requiem for a Dream
(Darren Aronofsky, 2000) and The World’s End (Edgar Wright, 2013).
• The everyday world is transformed by magical, alien or scientific means, as seen in
The Wizard of Oz, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Harry Potter franchise.
• The narrative takes an unexpected turn of events, leading the audience to reassess
all earlier information. Examples are The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992), Fight
Club (David Fincher, 1999) and The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999).

All of these are character, or narrative-driven examples of defamiliarization. However,

the technique can occur within the cinematography and soundtrack. In the film
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979) the opening sequence juxtaposes a
ceiling fan with the sound of helicopter blades. This device serves to initiate a
flashback, but it also defamiliarizes the hotel room for the audience.

Bertolt Brecht

Verfremdung

These ideas were taken and developed by the theatrical practitioner Bertolt Brecht. He
believed that audiences were prone to passively experience theatre. Rather than
actively questioning the action being presented, the audience would be drawn into the
fictional world of the stage narrative. Brecht felt that theatre needed to be more
challenging. He therefore employed a number of techniques to make audience
members aware of their setting and remind them of the fact that they were watching a
play. Verfremdung translates as ‘to make strange’, it is also often referred to as
‘alienation’ or ‘estrangement’. Here are a number of devices that he enlisted to create
this effect.

• actors playing more than one character

• actors directly addressing the audience
• the lighting rig and other technical equipment on view (reminding the audience that
they are in a theatre)
• scene changes undertaken by cast in full view of the audience
• experimentation with new technology (conveyor belts, escalators, filmed images.
etc.)
• advising the audience of what is about to happen before it occurs (narrator or
intertitles)

These tactics were adopted in an attempt to make the audience critically detached
(active) rather than unthinkingly accepting (passive). Brecht’s motives were political but
ultimately he was concerned with laying bare the device—like most Formalists. A good
example of Verfremdung can be found in Lars von Trier’s Dogville (2003). The entire
 film is shot on a blank sound stage where the houses are represented by chalk
outlines rather than fully formed sets.

Reflect and respond

1 Other than foreign travel, substance abuse and magic/alien encounters or scientific
transformation, can you think of other narrative settings or components which cause
characters to view the world from a new perspective?
2 Identify visual examples of defamiliarization other than that used in Apocalypse Now.
3 Looking at the techniques employed in the theatre by Brecht, think about how they
can be translated to film.
4 Why do you think Brecht employed Verfremdung as a political tool? How successful
do you think it would be?

Case study: Lola Rennt/Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)

Run Lola Run, written and directed by Tom Tykwer, won twenty-six
awards. The film is highly acclaimed for its editing and unusual narrative,
which sees the story repeated three times. However, subtle changes in the
events that take place mean that the outcome is altered. The catalyst for this
plot is Manni (Moritz Bleibtreu), Lola’s (Franka Potente) boyfriend. In the
opening scenes he phones to tell her that he has lost 100,000 Deutschmarks
that belong to his gangster boss. He has twenty minutes to replace them or
he will be killed. In her attempt to save Manni, Lola must run and run
because her moped has been stolen. This is a poignant, romantic thriller
where small changes in timing have an impact on Lola, and these random
acts of fate alter the consequences for both characters.
Run Lola Run can be read as a fairytale. The fairytale genre permits the
natural and supernatural to exist alongside one another. For example, Lola’s
scream can shatter glass and slow down a roulette wheel so that she can win
the money she needs, and her touch heals the security guard who is
suffering a heart attack. These supernatural powers occur at points in the
narrative when all hope for a positive resolution is lost and only magical
intervention can save the situation. To continue with the fairytale theme, the
‘archetypal characters’ and ‘spheres of action’ as identified by Vladimir
Propp can be detected in this psychological crime thriller.
Lola is the Heroine and the Donor in this tale. She is given a dangerous
quest that will take her through a number of seemingly impossible obstacles
and tasks. As the Donor, she has been given ‘magical’ properties such as the
scream and touch which assist in her quest. The Dispatcher is Manni, her
boyfriend, who needs to be rescued from the Villain (the gangster boss).
Hindered by the False Heroes (her alcoholic mother and her two-timing
father), Lola and Manni are aided by their ‘fairy godmother’ (Helper), who
appears in the guise of the blind woman. These familiar archetypal
characters assist the narrative and draw the spectator into the plot as the
audience cares about what happens to the couple. Lola’s continual striving
to save Manni is rewarded and furthermore the audience sees that people
are prepared to help one another.
The ‘fairytale’ moral suggests that human endeavour can change things
for the better and stir others to empathize and help. However, Owen Evans
(2004, p.113) notes that, with the traditional German fairytales, known as
Märchen, stories are often politically motivated. The protagonist is often a
female who has to undertake trials alone. While acknowledging that Run
Lola Run is in the fairytale form, Evans suggests that the political element
is absent from Tykwer’s work. He finds that Tykwer is ‘simply intent on
stimulating a sense of community between us and his characters’ (p.113).
As with all fairytales, there is a happy ending, with Manni retrieving the
money from the tramp and avoiding reprisals from his boss. The money
won by Lola is no longer needed to save Manni and the viewer is left to
draw their own conclusions as to what this huge sum may be used for in
Manni and Lola’s future.
The above approach privileges the form the content takes. Yet for
Formalists such as Eisenstein the formal aspects of editing held importance
and are very relevant to a reading of Run Lola Run. On examination, the
editing techniques in this film are appropriate for the psychological crime
thriller, serving to heighten suspense and maintain the adrenalin-fuelled
pace. Eisenstein believed that editing could add a psychological dimension
to storytelling. In the opening sequences of the film it is made clear that
time is of the essence. The images of Lola running down a spiral staircase
and of a very ugly, angry-faced wooden clock symbolize that time is her
enemy and is ‘spiralling’ out of control. The running image is then
transformed into an animated cartoon figure of Lola, moving at incredible
speed, immediately identifiable by her red hair. This gives way to
splitscreen coverage of Lola running down the street, showing the same
event from different angles. This is an example of what Eisenstein would
call ‘rhythmic montage’ as the editing heightens the percussive motion of
her feet. The key tracking image of Lola sprinting is accompanied by an
insistent techno rhythm to emphasize the relentlessness of Lola’s task.
From the outset, the audience knows that Lola’s task has a time frame of
twenty minutes (Manni’s phone call is at 11.40 and his gangster boss will
arrive at midday). However, each filmed sequence takes less than twenty
minutes. The overall editing of the sequences lengthens some scenes and
shortens others, thereby increasing the tension and focusing attention on
significant events or elements. For example, slow motion is mainly used
when Lola is in a state of emotional conflict. When Manni phones and she
first commits herself to helping him, the red telephone receiver is seen
flying through the air in slow motion, to land on the telephone cradle.
Lola’s dilemma is how to help, what to do? Similarly, when she is ejected
from her father’s bank she stands outside holding her head, uncertain of the
way forward. Again, when she is running towards the supermarket, calling
out for Manni to stop the robbery, rather than magnifying the tension
through fast edits, Tykwer chooses slow motion. This has the effect of
showing Lola’s frustration and desperation to reach Manni on time. This
use of editing evokes how, when people experience an accident or other
emotional trauma, time appears to halt and the action to shift into slow
motion. Conversely, when Lola is running, these sections are often drawn
out to increase the sense of urgency and time running out. Eisenstein called
this ‘metric montage’ when the passage of time is manipulated for dramatic
cause and effect.
Interestingly, aspects of Tykwer’s quirky editing and the fairytale meld
together when Lola encounters various minor characters on her journey.
These interludes are told via flashforwards, which are inserted as freeze
frames (this is accompanied by the sound of a click imitating the mechanics
of a camera). If Lola narrowly misses bumping into the character, the action
sequence stays the same. However, should she collide with the character the
scene is transformed by a brief ‘intellectual montage’ (where the audience
has to piece together the visual metaphors). In each instance the
flashforward changes to depict either a positive future or an alternative
negative one. For example, the woman with the pushchair is first shown as
having abducted a baby and on the second encounter, winning the lottery.
Finally the audience witnesses her taking up religion and doing charitable
work. Similarly, the female employee at the bank is shown having a car
accident, in hospital and dying. In our second encounter with her, she is
going out with a male bank clerk, shown in a dominatrix relationship with
him and then happily married. These aforementioned sequences imply that
it is Lola’s magical contact that changes their destiny.
This is a clear indicator of another major theme in the film, chaos theory.
The opening scenes show a documentary of a domino rally, alluding to the
domino effect, where an action sets in place a chain reaction. The notion is
that one action generates consequences. In the overarching narrative, first
Lola then Manni die. In Lola’s final attempt they both survive. It appears
that Lola ‘rewrites’ her future until she has her happy ending. Just as if
playing a video game, Lola has the opportunity to restart her adventure,
learning from past mistakes, until she is able to overcome all obstacles.
Referring back to Eisenstein’s ideas on visual counterpoint, Run Lola
Run illustrates an extensive use of rhythm, texture and tempo due to its
nonconventional approach to editing and imagery. Below is a list of devices
used by Tykwer that epitomize Eisenstein’s ideas:

• 180-degree rule is ignored (Lola is seen running left to right, right to

left, towards and away from the camera – confusing the physical
geography of Berlin)
• disorientating techniques (jump cuts, whip pans)
• various visual effects (animation, film stock, video, black and white,
colour washes, freeze frames, splitscreen)
• temporal experimentation (action is speeded up and slowed down;
moments of frenetic activity are followed by sudden stillness).

Tykwer’s editing calls attention to itself; it prevents the audience ‘losing’

themselves in the story. Eisenstein believed that editing was key to
revolutionizing cinema. Accordingly, Run Lola Run gained a lot of critical
acclaim due to its nonconventional approach, which also led to many
Postmodernist readings of the film. However, the analysis above shows that
Tykwer’s use of editing, narrative and characterization is equally suited to a
Formalist interpretation.

Reflect and respond

1 Do the fairytale and Propp’s archetypical characters help you to
understand the film?
2 Do Formalist editing techniques add to the excitement of a text or do
they hinder your enjoyment?
3 Do you think Run Lola Run lends itself to a Formalist or Postmodern
approach? Justify your answer.
4 Does Formalism still have validity in contemporary Film Studies?

Conclusion

Russian Formalists have left a vast legacy within film theory; in fact it
could be said that modern theory started with the work of the Russian
Formalists around 1915. Formalist theory was developed by linguists but
became better known under the umbrella term ‘Structuralism’ (see
Chapter 5, ‘Structuralism and Post-structuralism’). We can see that the
Russian Formalists were the first to critically explore the analogy between
form and film. They took little interest in the way films looked, being more
concerned with how they were constructed (narrative and cinematography).
Above all it is important to remember that for the Formalists, form is
privileged over content.

Bibliography
Booker, C. (2004) The Seven Basic Plots: Why We Tell Stories. London and New York, NY:
Continuum.
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2004) Film Art: An Introduction, 7th edn. New York, NY: McGraw-
Hill.
Brennan, K. (1999–2006) Star Wars Origins. Retrieved 18 June 2010. Available at
http://www.moongadget.com/origins/myth.html
Campbell, J. (1968) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press
(first published 1949).
Carney, S. (2005) Brecht and Critical Theory: Dialectics and Contemporary Aesthetics. Oxford and
New York, NY: Routledge.
Cook, D. (1981) A History of Narrative Film, 3rd edn. New York, NY and London: W. W. Norton &
Co.
Eichenbaum, B. (1981) ‘Problems of Cinema Stylistics’, in H. Eagle (ed.) Russian Formalist Film
Theory. Ann Arbor, MI: Slavic Publications, pp.55–80.
Eisenstein, S. (1929) ‘Film Form’, in L. Braudy and M. Cohen (eds) (2004) Film Theory and
Criticism: Introductory Readings, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp.13–40.
Evans, O. (2004) ‘Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run: Postmodern, Post-human or Post-theory?’, Studies
in European Cinema, vol. 1, no. 2, pp.105–15.
Propp, V. (1928) Morphology of the Folktale. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Shklovsky, V. (1965) ‘Art as Technique’, in L. A. Wagner (ed.) Russian Formalist Criticism: Four
Essays. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, pp.3–24.
Simpson, P. (2004) Stylistics: A Resource Books for Students . London: Routledge.
 CHAPTER 5

STRUCTURALISM AND POST-

STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism
1. Theories concerned with analysing the surface structures of
a system in terms of its underlying structure.

Setting the scene

Structuralism developed out of the work of the Formalists. At first glance it

is hard to distinguish where one theory ends and the other starts so it is
useful to think of Structuralism as a continuation of Formalist ideology.
Formalism is concerned with the devices and rules that go into the making
of cultural artefacts, with the author actively employing techniques to
achieve specific ends. Structuralists, on the other hand, are concerned with
the framework of meaning; how an audience reads and understands signs
within a text. Their interest is focused on the workings of human
perception, which moves us away from a particular text to the more general
universal context. However, these signs are not always within the artist’s
control as the way they are read is dependent on each individual’s
interpretation. Structuralism can be seen as an attempt to understand texts in
line with more traditional academic disciplines.
It is interesting that, almost simultaneously but without knowing each
other, Ferdinand de Saussure (a Swiss linguist) and Charles Peirce (an
American philosopher) were engaged in similar work. They used different
terminology, with Saussure favouring the term sign and Peirce preferring
the word symbol. Saussure adopted a scientific approach to discover what
constitutes and governs signs (symbols), which he called the science of
semiology, whereas Peirce undertook philosophical research into symbols
(signs), which he considered to be the foundations of all thought and
scientific ideas; he called this semiotics. It is important to note that the
terms semiotics and semiology are interchangeable. At the outset
‘semiotics’ was favoured by American Structuralists whereas European
academics preferred ‘semiology’.

Ferdinand de Saussure
Semiotics – Course in General Linguistics (1915)

Saussure was a professor of Linguistics at the University of Geneva, where he often

delivered lectures that were never committed to paper. After his death these lectures
were reconstructed from students’ notes and published in 1915 as Course in General
Linguistics. His approach to the study of language was a scientific one, departing from
earlier conventions that had looked at the historical development of language. The
core premise of his research was to explore language as a series of signs. This line of
enquiry is known as semiology. Saussure helped formalize the study of semiotics as a
system of communication. He noted that:

Language is comprised of two elements. He referred to these as langue and parole.

Langue (language) is used to describe an entire vocabulary (and the grammatical
rules that enable us to string words together in order to make sense), whereas
parole (speech) is the actual utterance of vocabulary (the spoken word).

Language is a system of signs and these signs are arbitrary (unconnected/random)

and defined by difference from other words. They can only be understood within a
cultural system. The word ‘dog’ is not common to all languages; for example, the
French for dog is chien and the German word is Hund, although all refer to the same
type of animal. Furthermore, within each culture there has to be a consensus that
certain letters in a particular order serve to represent a four-legged, barking, tail-
wagging companion. However, the word ‘elephant’ could easily have been chosen in
place of the term ‘dog’. Saussure famously used to state that ‘there are only
differences’; that language is only a series of phonetic (sound) differences matched
with a series of conceptual (image) differences. By this he means that each sign only
has a meaning because it is different from others. ‘Dog’ has no inherent meaning; its
meaning comes because of its difference from ‘dug’, ‘dot’, ‘bog’, and so on.
This all becomes clearer if we look at Saussure’s distinctions between what he
called the sign, signifier and signified.

Sign

The sign communicates information. It can be anything; an image, a gesture, a word

(written or spoken), a shape or a colour, and so on. The sign is the first step in the
process of interpretation. However, signs have no intrinsic meaning; meaning is given
to them and established by universal and/or cultural conventions. A sign has to stand
for something else. For example the ‘+’ symbol in mathematics indicates that two or
more numbers must be added together, whereas on the button of a remote control it
 can be used to increase volume or to switch to the next channel. In each instance the
‘+’ sign indicates an increment either in sum, volume or channel. In this case ‘+’ is
synonymous with an increase.
The sign is comprised of two components: the signifier and the signified.

Signifier

The signifier is the form that the sign takes. It can be a word. It can take the form of a
specific sound or marks on a piece of paper (a combination of letters or symbols).

Signified

The signified is the conceptual stage of communication. This is when the sign
stimulates a mental idea/image.
To continue with the ‘dog’ example above, Saussure conceived that the signifier (the
written or verbal word ‘dog’) and the signified (the mental image of this four-legged
animal) were like two sides of a sheet of paper; together they make up the sign, dog.
However this mental image can vary from person to person. It may suggest a golden,
long-haired Retriever to one person or a black, short-haired Labrador to someone else.

In summary, semiotics is the study of the signs and symbols which make up
our means of communication. At the most basic level the three components
of semiology can be thought of in the following simplistic way: the sign
(trigger/catalyst), the signifier (form) and the signified (concept). Semiotic
coding features heavily in the marketing of films and industrial practices;
consider the questions below.

Reflect and respond

1 Look at the use of logos associated with famous cinematic studios. Undertake a
semiotic reading of two of the following: MGM, Disney, Rank, Pathe. What does the
image tell you about how the studio chose to represent itself?
2 Identify two logos of your own choice associated with filmmaking and/or film
distribution. Discuss how they work and why they have become so iconic.
3 Consider the following famous iconic images: Aston Martin car, ruby slippers,
lightsaber and the Empire State Building. Identify the film associated with each icon
and think about what these objects have come to signify culturally.

The syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes

Because of the power that semiotic coding exerts on audience response,

filmmakers have to think carefully about choices made within a film. The
linguistic idea of the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes can help us
evaluate these decisions.
The chart on page 89 is an illustration of the syntagmatic and
paradigmatic axes that emerged out of Saussure’s work on semiotics. This is
a different way of understanding signs.

Table Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Axis

The paradigmatic axis

The paradigmatic axis should be read vertically. Paradigmatic relations are

concerned with substitu-tion. Taking our example, a production team can
make a choice by selecting an element from each column. First an actress
should be chosen, then the action she takes needs to be decided upon and
finally an actor must be agreed on to interact with the sequence of events.
These decisions are paradigmatic and any element could be substituted for
an appropriate vertical alternative (you could not replace a Cate Blanchett
with the horizontal ‘kisses’).
The film industry makes many paradigmatic decisions that relate to other
aspects of film production (not just concerning narrative choices), for
example:
• Who directs?
• Which actors are hired?
• Which character is played by whom?
• Which camera angles are used for each shot?
• Which technical crew is hired?
• Where is the film shot?

This list is not in any way exhaustive as all elements of filmmaking require
a myriad of decisions. However, how the decisions relate to each other and
impact on the overall picture can be understood via the syntagmatic axis.

The syntagmatic axis

The syntagmatic axis should be read horizontally. Syntagmatic relations are

concerned with sequences. Once the paradigmatic choices have been made
and fixed, the way in which all these decisions interact form a syntagmatic
chain. Returning to our chart, Jennifer Lawrence slapping Leonardo
DiCaprio is an example of a syntagmatic sequence. The chain would be
very different if she had kissed him or if he had been kissed by Ellen
DeGeneres. Due to DeGeneres sexuality the scene would feel unbelievable
and out of keeping with her public image. Alternatively, if Rebel Wilson
mocked Denzel Washington the audience would expect the scene to include
a comedic element. This is because each paradigmatic decision affects and
informs the syntagmatic outcome.

Reflect and respond

1 Complete the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes in the diagram below, by adding an
actress to the first column and an actor to the final column.
2 Make paradigmatic choices for a fictional film.
3 How do your paradigmatic choices impact on the syntagmatic axis?
4 Make a minor adjustment to your initial paradigmatic selection. How does this affect
the syntagmatic outcome?

Formal semiotics

As viewers we develop the competency to read and interpret the formal

elements of film (consciously or subconsciously). The aesthetic and
technical choices made by filmmakers adhere to conventions adopted by the
industry and established as standard practice over time. Below is a table
listing technical devices and their popular semiotic meaning.

CAMERA
High-angle shot A high-angle shot can often indicate the power relations in a narrative.
When shot from above, objects or characters can appear small and
inferior.
Low-angle shot A low-angle shot inverts the aforementioned power structure. Here the
camera points up and suggests a dominating force.
Zoom in An incidence of importance has occurred and the audience is made
aware of this.
Zoom out This indicates that information outside the limited field of focus is
necessary to the audience’s understanding.
Close-up Typically used to create empathy with the star vehicle or to provide
detailed information for an audience.
Crane shot This type of shot can indicate a transition from the particular to the
general. It is often used to depict a change in focus to show the bigger
picture.
Aerial shot Often serves as an establishing shot in a big-budget film. Could signal
the first in a number of spectacular shots that will feature throughout.
Deep-focus Both the foreground and the background contain important information
composition/depth as they are both in focus. the audience must be active in reading the
of field entire frame.
Framing Where a character appears in a frame reveals a great amount of
information. If they fill the screen this would suggest that they are
important to the narrative. If they are pushed to the side of the frame
this may reflect their state of mind or relationships with others (weak,
confused, etc.).
Canted angle This is when the frame is skewed in a lopsided manner. this will often
reflect the fact that something is wrong (characters experiencing
emotional turmoil or threat of crisis within a narrative, etc.). alternatively
it is often adopted by directors wanting to achieve a quirky aesthetic.
EDITING
long take Can be a badge of technical merit. demonstrates the talent of either the
director, actor and/or cinematographer. Makes the audience aware of
the filmmaking process.
Fast cutting A contemporary style of filmmaking that dictates pace. accordingly the
audience experiences heightened suspense.
Montage A series of several shots, intercut to establish multiple perspectives. the
 audience is aware of the convention and happily accepts this cinematic
shorthand for the passing of time, different geographical locations, etc.

LIGHTING
High-key lighting Three-point lighting (key, fill and back) is used to achieve naturalistic
light. the audience understands that the narrative is intended to be
realistic.
Low-key lighting Experimentation where one or more of the standard three light set-up is
removed. the effect is known as chiaroscuro. the appearance of severe
shadows typically indicates the darker side of nature (secrecy, horror
and unease).

MUSIC
Major key A combination of notes that adhere to a major key. the musical theme is
interpreted by the audience as uplifting, heroic, joyful, uncomplicated,
etc.
Minor key A combination of notes that adhere to a minor key. Here the theme
works to signify melancholy, heartache, regret, etc.
Modal scale There are a variety of different modes that conjure specific mental
images.
For example, the dorian mode evokes the Celtic countryside whereas
the Phrygian mode suggests flamenco dancing and gypsy culture.
Modes are often subconsciously read as a signifier of geographic
locations.
Instrumentation Certain instruments evoke filmic genres and/or national identities. For
example the banjo, Jew’s harp and honky-tonk piano are instruments
associated with the american West. the accordion is linked to France
whereas the bagpipes are synecdochical with scottish culture.
Genre Here specific genres of music are used to evoke historical and/or
cultural periods. rock ‘n’ roll is frequently played as a backdrop for the
50s, punk is suggestive of 70s class struggle and, more recently, rap is
linked to african american gangsta culture.
Leitmotif This occurs when a musical theme is employed to represent either a
character, an emotion, a location or an object in a film. the leitmotif,
once established, recurs time and time again and is interpreted, either
consciously or subconsciously, by an audience.

MUSIC
Rhythm and The rhythm of a piece of music can provide pacing or further depth. For
tempo example, dotted rhythms can be used for comedic effect or to suggest
folk culture. additionally the tempo can influence editing choices and is
integral to the pacing of a scene.
 Saussure formalized academic research into comprehending the mental
mechanics of reading visual signs. Above we have examined a number of
the ways in which signs are employed by the film industry. Working at the
same time as Saussure, the American mathematician and philosopher
Charles Peirce was addressing similar ideas.

Charles Sanders Peirce

Logic, Regarded as Semeiotic [sic] (1902)

Peirce’s work differed from that of Saussure in that he identified three important
elements for the study of signs. Rather than adopting the established idea of the sign,
signifier and the signified, he introduced the following terms in his writings: iconic,
symbolic and indexical.

Iconic

An icon is when a structure visually resembles what it is supposed stand for. For
example according to Peirce, classical paintings and photographs are iconic as they
share a likeness with the subject or object captured. Icons can also take the form of an
illustration or diagram, for example a picture of a lit cigarette in a red circle with a line
through it warns us that smoking is not permitted. This is iconic because the image
represents a physical cigarette. However, the red circle is a good example of what
Peirce refers to as symbolic.

Symbolic

There is no obvious relationship between symbols and their meaning. Here the link is
arbitrary, learnt and understood by conventions and cultural upbringing. We are taught
from an early age that a red traffic light means stop and a green light means go. The
relationship we have with the coloured lights is symbolic.

Indexical

Here there is a direct connection between what is indicated and our understanding of
that information. The easiest way to remember this indexical relationship is to think of
medical symptoms; a rash indicates a virus. A bandage suggests an injury. Further
examples include smoke as an omen of fire and a national anthem as an indication of
patriotism.

Reflect and respond

1 Look at the cinema certification symbols below and decide whether they are iconic,
symbolic or indexical. Explain how you arrive at your decision.
2 What do the certification symbols signify to you semiotically?
 3 Consider the way that Lara Croft and Harry Potter have been marketed. Relate your
answers to Peirce’s categories.
4 Note and discuss some examples of indexical signs that feature in films you have
seen.

Please note that these symbols are trademark and copyright protected. They remain the
property of the British Board of Film Classification.

Whereas academics researching the field of semiology in the main came

from a literary/linguistic background, Christian Metz was the first theorist
to recognize the potential of this area and apply it to film as a discipline.

Christian Metz
The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (1975)

French theorist Christian Metz is best known as the first theoretician to apply semiotics
to the study of film, his ideas being published in The Imaginary Signifier:
Psychoanalysis and the Cinema (1975). Metz believed that we should think of film as a
kind of language and try to develop an understanding of this. In film, opera and theatre
the signifier is different to that in literature because it appeals to both visual and
auditory senses at the same time. However, in opera and theatre the experience is
heightened by the fact that the performance is live. Conversely, film is unique in that
the signs (actors, props, music, staging, etc.) are not physically present. When we
watch a film what we see is an imprint (shadow, phantom, double, replica): once the
action has been committed to celluloid/digital it is never again physically present. Metz
talking of this absent/present phenomenon describes the physicality of film:

[A] little rolled up perforated strip which ‘contains’ vast landscapes, fixed battles, the
melting of the ice on the River Neva, and whole life-times, and yet can be enclosed
in the familiar round metal tin, of modest dimensions, clear proof that it does not
‘really’ contain all that. (1982, p.44)

Film is like a mirror but with a major difference, the spectator’s body never appears as
a reflection. Instead it can be thought of as a glass window, with the spectator looking
into an imaginary world. Metz develops Jacques Lacan’s work on the ‘Mirror Stage’, a
study based on the identification process of children (see Chapter 9 ‘Psychoanalysis’,
p.166). Because the spectators have already passed through this identification
process they know that the images are not physically present on the screen and that
their role as viewers is to consume information.
Spectators are fully aware that they are in a cinema because they sit at a distance
from the screen. Because the auditorium is dark they feel that they are alone and that
the image shown is only for them. Furthermore, due to the positioning of the projector
behind the audience, the image appears to emanate from their field of vision. This in
turn helps them to identify with the image on the screen more fully. Metz explores this
idea in more depth using the terms ‘projective’ and ‘introjective’ (pp.49–51).
In the filmmaking process the camera records action, which is then transferred onto
celluloid or video. Here the camera is projective and the celluloid or video that receives
the imprint of the image is introjective (see Figure 5.1). When the above process is
transferred into the act of watching film in a cinema (see Figure 5.2), the projector
transmits the image (projective) and the screen relays the information (introjective).
Metz likens these relationships to the mental procedure humans undertake when
recognizing visual information (see Figure 5.2). We look at an object (projective) and
we decipher (often subconsciously) what we see (introjective).
Figures 5.1 and 5.2 illustrate the projective and introjective relationship between the
filmmaking process and the screening/viewing process.

Figure 5.1 Projective/introjective ... in the filmmaking process

Figure 5.2 Projective/introjective ... in the viewing process

Although Metz’s work is typically associated with Psychoanalysis, much of
it was based on ideas of semiology. The Imaginary Signifier overlaps both
Structuralist and Psychoanalytical perspectives. The above example is
concerned with the way creative personnel and/or viewers read visual signs
in a productive or cinematic environment. Similarly, Roland Barthes’s in his
critical writing is associated with more than one theoretical perspective (he
was interested in Marxist ideology, Structuralism and Post-structuralism).

Roland Barthes
Mythologies (1957)

Roland Barthes, an eminent French intellectual and professor at the College de

France, was connected with most of the main theoretical perspectives of French
cultural life after World War II. Barthes’s most important work is often considered to be
a series of articles reflecting on contemporary French culture. These articles were
originally written for the magazine Les Lettres Nouvelles during the period 1954–6 and
were published under the collective name Mythologies. It is important to understand
that Barthes’s use of the term myth differs from the popular interpretation of a ‘myth’ as
a fable, story or tale; something that could not really exist or have happened. However,
in his book Mythologies Barthes states that: ‘[m]yth is a system of communication, that
it is a message. This allows one to perceive that myth cannot possibly be an object, a
concept, or an idea; it is a mode of signification, a form’ (p.109).
All signs can gain connotative meaning. Society may appropriate signs and through
specific use these become laden with meaning. For example the white dove has
become a symbol for peace and the fir tree has become synonymous with Christmas.
All signs can be arbitrarily endowed with meaning.
In his article ‘Myth Today’ in Mythologies, Barthes demonstrates how seemingly
neutral things can acquire multilayered meaning. The most quoted example of this
idea from Mythologies is that of a photograph of a black soldier saluting the French
Tricolour flag, which was featured on the cover of the magazine Paris Match in 1955.
The image is a sign of that particular individual at a particular time and place. There is
no focus on this soldier’s personal history; instead he becomes a metaphor for larger
sociopolitical issues. Myth ignores his past and the image becomes a sign that carries
the concept of French imperialism: the myth of different nations living harmoniously
together under one flag. For Barthes this image signifies that:

France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination,
faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of
an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this Negro in serving his so-called
oppressors. (p.115)

Myths, in a Barthesian sense, function to make the constructed aspect of visual culture
appear natural (the black soldier and the French flag were consciously put together to
evoke an intended message). What distinguishes Barthes’s analysis in Mythologies is
his concentration on the apparently trivial; striptease, wrestling, soap adverts, etc. His
 non-elitist approach highlighted the fact that even the most frivolous of sources could
be laden with possible meaning.
In addition to his work in Mythologies, Barthes identified two categories of text: the
text of pleasure (plaisir) and the text of bliss (jouissance). Although he applied his
ideas to the field of literature, these terms are very useful in analysing film.

Plaisir

This type of text is also referred to as the ‘readerly’ text because the focus is on
pleasing the reader. The text is reassuring and comfortable. It typically confirms social
beliefs and cultural identity. It is produced with audience enjoyment in mind. In film,
generic texts adhere to audience expectations. Romantic comedies leave the viewer
feeling uplifted and content. Commercial films in general can be regarded as texts of
plaisir.

Jouissance

This is also referred to as the ‘writerly’ text because the author’s intentions are
imposed on the reader. The text is disturbing and challenging. It typically
problematizes accepted social ideology. The text is produced to make the reader
openly confront their beliefs. Applying this to film, avant-garde and experimental
filmmaking often disrupts the viewing process. Similarly, much European filmmaking is
not created with audience enjoyment in mind; instead it looks to unsettle and alienate
the viewer. Consequently, its relevance to film is how much the viewer invests of
themselves in the interpretation of the film text.
Whereas Mythologies is typically considered to be a Structuralist text due to the
period in which it was written, on closer examination Barthes’s ideas were concerned
with deconstructing the sign and the text to find alternative meanings. Fundamentally
this process of deconstruction lies at the heart of Post-structuralist debates; therefore
Mythologies should be thought of as a link between Structuralism and Post-
Structuralism.

Reflect and respond

1 What is the key difference between Saussure and Peirce’s approach with that of
Barthes’s way of reading a cultural sign?
2 Look at the following posters (Figure 5.3) advertising the film The Day after Tomorrow
(Roland Emmerich, 2004). Attempt a Barthesian interpretation, in particular pay
attention to any politically subversive connotations.
3 How difficult is it to undertake a Barthesian reading? What kind of information is
required?
4 Identify films that fall into the categories of plaisir and jouissance. Discuss which kind
of filmmaking you prefer and why?

Post-Structuralism
1. An extension and critique of structuralism, esp. as used in
critical textual analysis, which rejects structuralist claims to
objectivity and comprehensiveness, typically emphasizing instead
the instability and plurality of meaning, and freq. using the
techniques of deconstruction to reveal unquestioned assumptions
and inconsistencies in literary and philosophical discourse.

Figure 5.3 Posters for The Day after Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)

It has been suggested that Post-Structuralism started when Structuralists

began to question the adequacy of the key theories. Post-structuralists were
concerned with promoting the notion that texts have multiple meanings;
interpretation is not fixed and can differ from person to person. So,
Structuralism assumes stability, Post-structuralism looks for change and
disturbance. This in itself appears an unusual idea, that a theory should
stress problems with interpretation rather than attempt to make sense of the
text. Post-Structuralism took its lead from the work of Jacques Derrida.

Jacques Derrida
Of Grammatology (1967)

Jacques Derrida was an Algerian Jewish philosopher working in both France and
America. Derrida took Saussure’s ideas of the arbitrariness of the sign to extremes.
Central to Derrida’s work is the idea of what he calls ‘différance’. It is important to note
that in French the word for différence is ‘différence’ not ‘différance’. He changed the
spelling from ‘e’ to ‘a’ in order to accentuate this.

Différance

Derrida claimed that language is an infinite chain of words. In order to explain this
chain he introduced the concept of différance: words are defined by their difference
from other words, and the interpretation is dependent upon the individual reader. There
is no fixed meaning within a text and, due to the many possibilities, meaning is
continually deferred (postponed).
Différance is also of importance to Film Studies. Saussure claimed that:

Signifier + Signified = Sign.

Derrida on the other hand believed that:

Signifier + Signified = Sign
Signifier + Signified = Sign

Signifier + Signified = Sign

On first appearance Derrida’s idea may seem unclear, but the formula above visually
represents his notion of the deferment of meaning. Rather than the sign having a
single meaning our individual interpretations allow for the sign to represent a
continually evolving cycle.
In order to illustrate how this works consider the sequence in A Clockwork Orange
(Stanley Kubrick, 1971) where Alex (Malcolm McDowell) and his Droogs break into a
house and terrorize a couple. Here Kubrick has chosen to accompany the scene with
the familiar Hollywood song ‘Singin’ in the Rain’. This track is universally associated
with Gene Kelly’s dance routine in the film of the same name, where he
enthusiastically jumps in and out of puddles in a carefree manner. In Kubrick’s version
the song is juxtaposed with moments of extreme violence and sexual abuse. Whereas
Kelly’s routine was punctuated with the splashing of water, Alex emphasizes the beat
by kicking and taunt-ing his victims. What was originally an innocent, joyous
celebration of love serves a darker, more horrific purpose here, the contrast between
contexts maximizing the shock value. Therefore the sign is not stable in this case; it is
invested with new meaning.

Deconstruction

Derrida’s idea of ‘différance’ led to the development of Deconstruction. Deconstruction

is not a theory; instead it should be thought of as an interpretative attitude. It seeks to
discover varied readings of a text rather than the accepted explanation. It looks for
contradictions and conflicts that can destabilize traditional interpretations. It is often
criticized for overcomplicating a text as it allows infinite possibilities. Furthermore, it
questions and challenges traditional presumptions to reveal social and cultural
leanings. Robert Hughes elegantly summarized this approach to analysis as ‘cultural
objects cut loose from any power to communicate’ (1971). For example, the final
sequence of Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942) is usually read as an allegory for
people pulling together during the war, patriotism being more important than the
personal happiness of Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) and Rick (Humphrey Bogart). However, a
Deconstructionist reading could interpret the relationship between Rick and Captain
Renault (Claude Rains) as being homoerotic. This is suggested in Rick’s final remark
to Renault: ‘I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.’
Above is an example of a Queer reading of Casablanca. Although linked to Post-
Structuralism, Deconstruction can be applied as an analytical device to a variety of
agendas imposed by other theories, including Feminist, Marxist and Postcolonial
stances. Furthermore, it can serve as an alternative to historical and national
categories that allow for convenient divisions by movements, such as German
Expressionism, Italian Neo-Realism, French New Wave, and so on. An important
aspect to remember is that Deconstruction lends itself to a politicized reading as it
questions established and accepted cultural hierarchies. This approach to reading
texts is often referred to as ‘reading against the grain’ or ‘reading the text against
itself’.
In summary, Derridean Deconstruction requires that any analysis must be conducted
from a sceptical position in order to call attention to alternative/marginal viewpoints.
Deconstruction dest-abilizes textual meaning and challenges earlier semiotic hopes of
identifying neat, ‘scientific’ systems to understand filmic codes.

Trace

From his studies, Derrida introduced the idea of ‘trace’ as a further textual device.
Previously in this chapter it was noted how a film is created from signs that are not
physically present (Metz, 1982). The object/subject is present at the time of filming but
when the image/dialogue is transferred to film all that remains is what Derrida called
the ‘trace’ (in French this means footprint). So the sign is both there and not there. This
idea is not only restricted to performances for the camera but can also be applied more
generally to the history of cinema and/or other cultural forms of knowledge. For
example, earlier films may influence filmmakers and audiences alike. This influence is
once more both present and absent. Similarly our interpretation of a text is influenced
by previous films we have viewed; we compare and contrast texts both consciously
and subconsciously. Therefore trace impacts on every film we watch.

Graft

Often linked to the notion of ‘trace’, is the Postmodernist term ‘graft’. Prior to being
given another meaning in the 1960s by Derrida, ‘graft’ was and still is more
commonly/usually associated with skin grafting in medicine or in horticulture, the
grafting of one plant shoot onto another plant. For Literary and Film Studies, although
Postmodern in origin, ‘graft’ developed out of Post-structuralist work on signs and
meanings. Derrida’s idea of ‘graft’ shows how a sign may change according to the
context in which it is worked. For example, a star’s image in a film carries, for the
spectator, memories of earlier films in which they have featured. Logically these
peripheral layers should not be considered in analysis. However, when the romantic
comedy favourite Cameron Diaz took on the role of Lotte Schwartz in Being John
Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999) audiences were shocked at her drab, unkempt
appearance because they were used to seeing her play glamorous roles. This idea
can be seen as a continuation of Saussure’s ‘syntagmatic axis’.
Of equal importance is the impact of real-life knowledge about specific stars that can
inform our reading of a fictional film. In 1999 it was near impossible to watch the
Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut without being aware of the media furore surrounding the
breakup of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman.
 Reflect and respond

1 Bearing in mind the previous movie posters for the film The Day after Tomorrow, look
at the images on pp.100 and 101 (Figures 5.4 and 5.5) and debate the idea of trace.
2 Try to recall stories in the media about famous stars. Did such tales impact on your
viewing experience? Did your opinions about the real-life person (not the fictional
character) change in any way?
3 To what extent are the terms ‘trace’ and ‘graft’ useful in the exploration of remakes?
Illustrate your answer in reference to two films.

Case study: Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone,

1968)

Sergio Leone’s name has become synonymous with the Western, but not in
the traditional sense. His Westerns have a different quality stemming from
his Italian heritage and the fact that the majority of his films were shot in
Europe. Accordingly his style of Westerns have gained the affectionate term
‘Spaghetti Westerns’. From a Structuralist point of view, Leone’s epic film
Once Upon a Time in the West provides rich pickings due to its playful
approach to semiology.
One of the most famous sequences in the film is the McBain massacre.
The iconic scene at the McBain homestead is a classic exercise in semiotics.
The incident begins with the family preparing for the arrival of Jill (Claudia
Cardinale), McBain’s (Frank Wolff) new wife. The gingham, red-and-
white-checked tablecloth signifies domesticity and functions as a trope
throughout the entire film. At this point, the cloth represents hope and the
future as the children get ready to greet their new stepmother. There is
abundant food on the table and a joyful air of expectancy. However, this
promise of family bliss is short-lived.
The first portent that something is wrong occurs when the cicadas stop
chirping. This sudden silence is an example of what Peirce calls an
‘indexical’ sign. The insects are silenced by some unknown ominous force.
The cause for concern is signalled further via a close-up showing McBain
worriedly looking into wilderness. Although the cicadas begin calling to
each other again, soon the stillness returns. McBain’s anxiety is heightened
as a flock of birds is disturbed and takes flight. His daughter Maureen
(Simonetta Santaniello) watches smiling, unaware that the birds are an
additional omen (indexical sign). Within seconds, a gunshot is heard and
Maureen falls to the ground. McBain, then his eldest son, are killed in quick
succession.
The final surviving member of the McBain family is the youngest child
Timmy (Enzo Santaniello), who exits the house to find his family lying
dead on the ground. It is at this point of heightened emotion that Leone
introduces the foreboding soundtrack of his long-term collaborator Ennio
Morricone; until now the scene had no music, instead the natural sounds
were amplified, adding to the sense of danger. When the music begins it
accompanies the gang that assas-sinated the Irish family. Yet, unlike the
recognizable orchestral scores traditionally associated with Westerns,
Morricone’s theme is played on the electric guitar. This signifies an end to
the romantic, mythic Western frontier of old, as the edgy instrumenta-tion
connotes modernity. Rather than the glorified, nostalgic illustration of the
West promoted by the founding fathers and the Hollywood studios, Leone
offers a gritty and raw version. This is important as Once Upon a Time in
the West was Leone’s attempt to depict the end of the West, epitomized by
the amplified guitar eerily resonating and reverberating across the familiar
landscape. Furthermore, Morricone’s score can be thought of as an example
of defamiliarization (see Chapter 4, ‘Formalism’, p.81).
Figure 5.4 Poster for Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008)

Returning to the plight of Timmy McBain, the musical theme accom-

panies Frank and his villainous men emerging from the undergrowth. The
fact that the gang seem to magi- cally materialize out of the terrain suggests
that they do not adhere to the conventions of human soci- ety; there is
something primitive about the men. This is reinforced by their attire. Once
more Leone plays with the typical conventions of the genre: rather than
depicting the cowboys in their stereotypical clean checked shirts and chaps,
the Western characters here wear long, leather dustcoats. Once more there is
a suggestion that Western expansion is coming to a conclusion as these men
look like they have a lifetime of dirt and grime encrusted on their clothes
and clogging their pores.

Figure 5.5 Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Shaffner, 1968)

The leader of the gang is Frank, controversially played by Henry Fonda.

The casting of Fonda as the villain of the narrative is probably one of the
most memorable and shocking elements of the film. Fonda made his name
playing all-American heroes. During his career he starred as Abraham
Lincoln in Young Mr Lincoln (1939), Tom Joad in The Grapes of Wrath
(1940) and Wyatt Earp in My Darling Clementine, all directed by John
Ford. It is due to Fonda’s past roles that he is cast as Frank. Leone was
looking to destabilize the actor’s on-screen persona, confounding audience
expectations of the actor famous for his bright blue eyes, symbolizing hope
for the everyman. Therefore, when Fonda enters the frame as Frank, with
chewing-to-bacco oozing from his mouth, his blue eyes no longer indicate
hope and American heroism. Fonda’s iconic status is further shattered when
he smiles as he pulls the trigger to shoot young Timmy.
Leone’s decision to cast Fonda against type is indicative of changes
occurring in the film industry at this point in history. Many genres were
being revised in an attempt to attract audiences away from television and
back into the cinema. Films of this era were far more violent, perhaps
reflecting the problems that America was experiencing in Vietnam and
closer to home, with the fight for racial equality. Accordingly, the violent
act of killing a child could be seen as a critique of American society, the
murder having far greater impact because it was committed by Fonda.
Christopher Frayling points out, in the accompanying DVD commentary,
that when the film was shown on American television, the shooting of
Timmy was edited out as it was thought that American audiences would not
be able to cope with such a horrific deed carried out by a star who had come
to represent American ideology. Yet in Britain this was not the case as
censors allowed this scene to remain in full.
Here it is interesting to consider the syntagmatic and paradigmatic
relation between the casting of Fonda and the role he was chosen to play
(see figure on p.89). For example, the scene would not have been so
controversial had the part of Frank been given to Lee Van Cleef, renowned
for playing villainous characters in Westerns. Alternatively, if John Wayne
had been given the role it would have been disconcerting to some extent,
but Wayne had previously undertaken roles of dubious repute. In The
Searchers (John Ford, 1956) Wayne starred as Ethan, an ex-Confederate
soldier with a racist, violent streak. When that film was released, people
were surprised to see Wayne playing a rogue rather than the traditional
heroic lead. Therefore, Wayne would not have had the same impact as the
blue-eyed, clean-cut Fonda. Considering other actors for the role of Frank is
an example of a paradigmatic choice. A further paradigmatic decision
would entail Fonda being cast in a different role. It is interesting to play
with the paradigmatic alternatives in the chart as the syntagmatic outcome
could lead to a very different film.

Figure 5.6 Example of Syntagmatic/Paradigmatic choice

Another type of semiology employed in Once Upon a Time in the West is

the leitmotif. The Morricone score is comprised of four main themes, each
representing one of the four main characters. The musical themes are
instantly recognizable due to their orchestration. The table below describes
how the orchestration conveys information about the characters.

Character Orchestration Semiotic coding

Frank Electric guitar over pizzicato strings. Foreboding doom. Powerful and dark,
Wailing harmonica echoes in the yet haunting harmonica always present.
background. Major key.
Gill Harpsichord opening gives way to European presence (harpsichord).
soaring soprano melody accompanied Beauty, melancholy, pride and hope.
by strings and brass. Minor key.
Harmonica Solo harmonica played with lots of Haunting sound, echoes of the past.
(Charles reverb. Becomes entwined with Modal scale suggests non-
Bronson) Frank’s theme. Modal rather than euroamerican heritage. theme is linked
major or minor. to that of Frank.
Cheyenne Lilting honky-tonk piano and banjo. Comedic tone. Weary traveller. rhythm
(Jason dotted rhythm slowly driving tempo. suggests horseback. the pause in the
robards) Whistled melody. Major key. final rendition suggests Cheyenne’s
death.

As can be seen, the music reveals a great amount of detail about the four
characters. Interestingly, Frank and Harmonica’s leitmotifs are connected.
Whenever Frank is on screen, Harmonica is aurally present even if he is not
seen. At the conclusion of the film the reason for this is revealed via
flashback. At this point the viewer is privy to the importance of the musical
instrument that gave Charles Bronson’s character his name. Therefore, the
Harmonica acts as a leitmotif, a moniker (name) and a narrative device.
Barthes’s ideas of plaisir and jouissance can also be applied to the film.
On one hand the text could be considered an example of plaisir, conforming
as it does to the familiar generic conventions of the Western, fulfilling
audience expectations. On the other hand, the text is laden with references
to earlier classic Westerns, in particular those directed by John Ford. In this
sense the film could be thought of as an illustration of jouissance because it
subverts, challenges and questions the mythology of the West through its
intertextuality. Interestingly, watching it today, we are more familiar with
the traits asscoiated with the ‘Spaghetti Western’ therefore our reading
could be one of plaisir rather than jouissance. Although many of the
instances cited in this case study could lend themselves to Postmodernism,
it is important to recognize that these specific devices are not used in an
attempt to parody the genre but are instead employed as a fond
development of the Western. However, there are often numerous ways to
approach a text and no single reading excludes another.

Reflect and respond

1 Using Once Upon a Time in the West, undertake textual analysis of the opening
scene at the railway station. What do the formal semiotics in this sequence signify?
2 Can you appreciate how shocking it was to audiences in 1968 to see Fonda as a
villain? Try to think of modern-day equivalents where actors are cast against type.
3 Would Henry Fonda’s appearance in the film have had the same impact if he had
played the role of Cheyenne or Harmonica?
4 How helpful is leitmotif as a semiotic device? Can you think of films that use repeating
musical themes to convey information?
5 Two key visual motifs that recur throughout the film are water and the railway. What
do you think they signify and why are they important to the narrative?

Conclusion

Structuralism is about trying to make sense of the world around us by

investigating the way in which images communicate meaning. It looks at
the relationship between language, image and concepts and recognizes that
the way we interpret information is based on our cultural upbringing.
Post-structuralism questions the idea that meaning is fixed. Instead it
looks at how our understanding of information is subjective (down to the
individual). Furthermore Post-structuralists take the notion that meaning
comprises of a continual cycle, with one meaning acting as a springboard to
the next. Over time, Post-structuralist debates have become less reductive
as they allow for the possibility of more than one reading, an approach
favoured by Postmodernists.

Bibliography
Barthes, R. (1993) Mythologies, 2nd edn. London: Vintage (1957).
Derrida, J. (1976) Of Grammatology, Baltimore, MD and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Hughes, R. (1971) ‘The Decor of Tomorrow’s Hell’, Time. 27 December. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
Available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905637,00.html
Metz, C. (1982) The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
University Press.
Peirce, C. S. (1902) ‘Logic, Regarded as Semeiotic (MS L75)’[electronic], Arisbe. Retrieved
28 June 2010. Available at http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/bycsp.htm
Saussure, F. de (1983) Course in General Linguistics. London: Duckworth.
 CHAPTER 6

MARXISM
Marxism
1. a. The ideas, theories, and methods of Karl Marx; esp. the
political and economic theories propounded by Marx
together with Friedrich Engels, later developed by their
followers to form the basis for the theory and practice
of communism.
b. Central to Marxist theory is an explanation of social
change in terms of economic factors, according to which
the means of production provide the economic base which
determines or influences the polit-ical and ideological
superstructure. The history of society can be Engels
predicted the final revolutionary overthrow of capitalism
by viewed as showing progressive stages in the ownership
of the means of production and, hence, the control of
political power. Marx and the proletariat and the
eventual attainment of a classless communist society.

Setting the scene

Marxism was conceived as a revolutionary theory that attempted to explain

and expose the relations of power in capitalist societies. It was jointly
founded by Karl Marx, an editor, and Friedrich Engels, a philosopher. Marx
became interested in Communist ideology, which led him to join the
Communist League (an international organization). It was here that he met
Engels, who became a lifelong friend. After the League’s conference in
London, Marx and Engels were asked if they would write The Communist
Manifesto (1848) which would become the foundation for Marxism.
Broadly, they were concerned with the apparent division between the
ruling and the working class. They used the terms bourgeoisie and
proletariat, the former referring to those with economic and political power,
and the latter meaning those who are ‘wage labourers’ or dependent on the
welfare system. They state that: ‘[s]ociety as a whole is more and more
splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly
facing each other: Bourgeoisie and Proletariat’ (Marx and Engels, 2002,
p.220).
Accordingly, their aims in writing were to bring about a classless society.
Although they did not write a systematic theory of culture, their influence
on cultural theory cannot be underestimated because the Marxist theory of
society and its historical development generated a significant body of work.
Above all a Marxist approach to culture is concerned with the analysis of
texts within their historical conditions of production.
It is important to note that the terms Marxism, Communism and
socialism are often used interchangeably because they have many elements
in common. However, of the three, it is Marxism that is most applicable to
the field of Film Studies because it considers how power relations inform
and impact on cultural artefacts.

Karl Marx
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)

Base and superstructure

In A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), Marx sets out what he
calls the ‘base and superstructure’ model. Although most people think of the ‘base and
superstructure’ as a twofold relationship, Peter Singer correctly points out that it is
more accurately described as threefold (2000, p.48).
The base comprises the two components; the ‘forces of production’ and the
‘relations of production’ (see figure below). The ‘forces of production’ relates to the
materials, tools, labour and skills needed to produce goods. These forces dictate the
‘relations of production’. Historically if a society has not advanced (to a point where
tools and skills are available to the labour force) then the relations between people
appear to be outdated. Marx writes in The Poverty of Philosophy: ‘The handmill gives
you society with the feudal lord; the steam-mill, society with the industrial capitalist’
(1847, p.202).
Figure 6.1 Diagram showing Base and Superstructure

The skills available to the labour force change over time and this has a direct influence
on how society is ordered. Singer clarifies this by stating:

Feudal relations of production came about because they fostered the development
of the productive forces of feudal times – the handmill for example. These productive
forces continue to develop. The steam-mill is invented. Feudal relations of
production restrict the use of the steam-mill. The most efficient use of steam power
is in large factories which require a concentration of free labourers rather than serfs
tied to their land. So the relation of lord and serf breaks down, to be replaced by the
relation of capitalist and employee. (2000, p.49)

As technology and skills progress, society adapts to cater for such advances. This
leads to a complete restructuring of the economic class relations because the ‘forces
of production’ determine the ‘relations of production’.
The combination of these components, known by Marxists as the ‘base’, moulds the
shape of the ‘superstructure’. These terms relate to the way a society thinks and the
way it rules its people (the ideology and institutions that are the foundation of any
society: law, religion, politics, media, education, etc). Although the ‘superstructure’ is
supposed to be determined by the ‘base’, many critics and scholars have debated this
theory and once more we are left with a ‘chicken-and-egg’ dilemma. Does the
economic grounding of a society inform the way people think or vice versa?
 In order to apply the idea of the ‘base and the superstructure’ to the field of film, all
cultural artefacts must be examined in relation to their historical mode of production.
Marx and Engels believed that the dominant thinking of any specific time would display
the ideas of the ruling class. It is those in positions of power who attempt to make the
workers conform to their ideas. Accordingly, mainstream culture is infused with these
dominant ideas and all other ways of thinking are considered to be marginal.
Therefore, narratives that conflict with these prevailing modes of thought can ‘bomb’ at
the box office or even fail to make it into production. For example, the film Walker
(1987), directed by Alex Cox, was heavily influenced by Third Cinema. The narrative
represented a brutal critique of US intervention in Central America. It was hated by the
studio, underfunded and consequently not promoted. Cox’s career was irreparably
damaged and he never worked in Hollywood again. In the same way that the ruling
classes exploit the labour force, dominant ideology serves to hide the fact that it is
manipulating the masses. This is what Engels refers to as ‘false consciousness’, the
notion that working-class people come to adopt the dominant class’s ideologies. A
naive take on false consciousness can be seen in the film They Live! (John Carpenter,
1988). Here, the central character puts on the ‘ideology sunglasses’ and can suddenly
see (through) ideology. For instance, he reads a billboard at the side of the road
advertising ‘Come to the Caribbean’; when wearing the special glasses the sign
actually reads ‘Marry and Reproduce!’

Reflect and respond

As outlined earlier, society has to constantly evolve to cater for technological advances.
Considering the film industry’s new reliance on digital innovations look at the following
questions:

1 Identify how the ‘forces of production’ have altered in traditional filmmaking; how have
the skills and labour force changed?
2 Do you think the ‘capitalist mode’ (bourgeois/proletariat) is still relevant? If not, how
should it be updated?
3 Has the ‘superstructure’ been affected by the introduction of digital technology?

The term ‘overdetermined’ is taken from Freud and his work on dreams
(1991/1899). He used it to show that the meaning of dreams can come from
several different influencing sources. It was later taken up by Althusser
(1969) as a means of showing that several factors combine to produce an
outcome when thinking about Base/Super structure. In Film Studies, when
looking at film production and the film industry as a collaborative
enterprise, many factors have influence. For example, the economic climate
will affect budgets and production values. The prevailing social, cultural
and political situation will have an impact alongside those of the artistic
abilities of the director and film crew. These all combine to produce the
final film. Simply put the film is ‘overdetermined’ by these components.
 Althusser openly rejected Marx and Engels’s idea that the ‘base’
determined the ‘superstructure’. Instead he believed that the relationship
between the two was riddled with contradictions and therefore open to
multiple readings. Film offers an interesting example when attempting to
apply ideas of overdetermination. Althusser argued that films are relatively
autonomous entities, not being solely influenced by financial implications
but also affected by technical considerations and sociopolitical issues. The
Frankfurt School promulgated this consideration of film in relation to
industrial practice.

The Frankfurt School

In 1923 a group of academics based at the University of Frankfurt formed

the Institute for Social Research. Here they combined Marxist thought and
Psychoanalysis in what came to be known as ‘critical theory’. The key
thinkers most associated with this group are Theodor Adorno, Walter
Benjamin, Max Horkheimer, Leo Lowenthal and Herbert Marcuse.
Collectively they were concerned with the changes in culture brought about
by industrialization.

Culture Industry

The ‘Culture Industry’ was a term coined by Adorno and Horkheimer in

their discussions about popular productions (film, music, literature, etc.).
Prior to the Frankfurt School, scholars had warned of the dangers of popular
culture, fearing that it could lead to anti-authoritative behaviour and a
breakdown in morality (see Chapter 16, ‘Audience Research and
Reception’). In contrast, Adorno and Horkheimer in the chapter ‘The
Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception’ (1947), argued that
popular culture was more likely to promote conformity. Rather than
questioning the content of such artefacts, the audience passively absorbs
information; this is often referred to as the ‘hypodermic needle model of
ideological tranmission’. It is important to note that they were writing in the
early days of film criticism and expressed anxieties about the corrupting
potential of this new technology. As exiled Germans, their worries were tied
up with fears relating to the fascist engagement of cinema as propaganda.
 Due to industrialization, films, books and music were by this time easy to
reproduce, which, according to the Frankfurt School, changed culture into
merely another commodity. In order to meet demand, production methods
were adopted that generated goods which were formulaic in content
(standardization); standardization leads to predictability: ‘[c]ulture now
impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make
up a system that is uniform as a whole and in every part’ (Adorno and
Horkheimer, 1995, p.120).
When factory-line products flood the market, their easy availability may
mean that consumers see and buy them unquestioningly. This allows
industries to continue to produce items of their choice, knowing that the
consumer will accept them without thinking. Therefore the purchaser is
manipulated into buying the products that the manufacturers continue to
deliver.
Ironically, the producers claim that these goods are being created to meet
the needs of the public. The consumer is therefore given the illusion of
choice, when in reality they are merely being offered the same product
branded differently (different stars, director, location, etc.). Rather than
artistic interests being the primary factor, large businesses are concerned
with making money and perpetuating the capitalist economy. The working
class has thus become depoliticized by the mass media, meaning that it
accepts mainstream productions without question.
High art, on the other hand, has the potential to critique society. Unlike
popular production, high art does not necessarily have to be commercial (it
can be anti-capitalist) and is free to challenge and alienate its intended
audience. Rather than representing dominant ideology, high art has the
opportunity to present an alternative view.

Reflect and respond

1 A key criticism aimed at the productions of mass media was that they tended towards
the formulaic. How is this uniformity shown in films?
2 The Frankfurt School was dismissive of mass entertainment, believing it depoliticized
the general public. Can you think of any films that confirm and/or negate this?
3 To what extent do you agree with the argument that high art critiques society?

Herbert Marcuse was also interested in offering a different perspective and

developed ideas which he called affirmative culture.
Herbert Marcuse
Affirmative culture

‘Affirmative culture’ (Herbert Marcuse), also known as ‘autonomous’ or ‘authentic’

culture (Max Horkheimer), is a term seeking to describe how art can affect people.
Where in the past religion had offered a sense of refuge and a utopian view of a better
world, affirmative culture propounds a similar premise: that art can equally promise
optimism, albeit false, in times of hardship. Whereas in earlier times, the general
masses would often be restricted in their access to high art, affirmative culture is
concerned with art being openly available to all, independent of class status. Rather
than being contained in elitist art galleries, libraries and concert halls, Marcuse called
for open availability. Previously, art was created for and by the ruling classes;
conversely, affirmative culture is informed by the ideas and values of the masses.
Instead of the alientation that high art tends to inspire, artefacts associated with
affirmative culture offer people a sense of comfort because they are recognizable. For
example, during World War II, Hollywood shelved plans to release its adaptations of
hard-boiled detective narratives (Film Noir) because they were deemed too
pessimistic. Instead it saturated the market with song-and-dance movies, realizing that
the optimism of Musicals helped relieve a period of darkness and hardship. A prime
example of affirmative culture, Musicals adhere to a formulaic narrative where
problems are created and solved easily, leaving the audience fulfilled and uplifted.
In summary, Marcuse is suggesting that culture can provide the feelgood factor
when everything is going wrong, fulfilling a role similar to that of religion in the past.
Affirmative culture works by making difficult times tolerable by offering a way in which
‘the need for happiness [can be satisfied] in order to make such an existence bearable’
(1968, p.119). Nevertheless, affirmative culture works along similar lines to false
consciousness. Dominant ideology works by providing a diverting momentary
escapism that disguises potential dissatisfaction with authority and its institutions. Its
consumerist fantasies pacify and distract people from the real issues.
In addition to the utopian angle of affirmative culture, a further aspect needs
consideration. As a powerful business, the culture industry can buy anything and turn it
into a mass commodity. In doing this, an artefact that once started life as high or
classical art can lose its impact or value through being mass-produced or applied and
adapted to other ends. In 1964 Marcuse wrote One-Dimensional Man; here he stated
that the high art shown in concert halls, opera houses and theatres can serve a variety
of ends:

[T]hey become commercials – they sell, comfort, or excite … the classics have left
the mausoleum and come to life again … they come to life as other than
themselves; they are deprived of an antagonistic force, of the estrangement which
was the very dimension of their truth. The intent and function of these works have
changed. If they once stood in contradiction to the status quo, this contradiction is
now flattened out. (2002, p.67)

For example, many advertisements, television shows and films employ classical
music. ‘O Fortuna’ from Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana (1935–6) is played to introduce the
judges on the hit show The X Factor (2004–) and Prokofiev’s ‘Montagues and
Capulets’ theme from the ballet Romeo and Juliet is used as the theme tune to the UK
version of The Apprentice (2005–). Similarly, in 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley
 Kubrick, 1968) the appropriation of ‘The Blue Danube’ by Johann Strauss and ‘Also
Spracht Zarathustra’ by Richard Strauss made these refrains ‘part and parcel’ of our
popular psyche. This appropriation of high art is not just applicable to the realm of
music. The French novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses (1782) by Pierre Choderlos de
Laclos would have remained an unknown classic if it had not been adapted for the
screen by Stephen Frears in 1988. However, it was further popularized under the new
title Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999). Furthermore, its art-house credentials
have been superseded by the hype surrounding the lesbian kiss between Sarah
Michelle Gellar and Selma Blair. Another famous film example is Ingmar Bergman’s
Grim Reaper character from The Seventh Seal (1957) making a comedic appearance
in Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989). Similarly, there have
been numerous remakes of Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol (1843). The political
tale of capitalism and poverty still features in most reimaginings, but the emphasis
towards song, humour and detailed aesthetics override in The Muppets Christmas
Carol (Brian Henson, 1992) and Robert Zemeckis’ 2009 animated version. In all these
examples the elitist signification is parodied as cultural texts take on new life and
meaning.

Reflect and respond

1 Are there any genres that lend themselves particularly well to the utopian aspect of
affirmative culture? Why is this the case?
2 Does the film industry have a responsibility to entertain the masses and make ‘feel-
good’ films? Do films have to be entertaining?
3 Can you identify characters, music, narrative tropes and so on that have been
appropriated from high art and inserted into popular film?

Working at a similar time to Marcuse, Louis Althusser and Pierre Macherey

engaged with a very different approach to understanding texts. In their
search for explanatory models to identify and interpret the gaps and ellipses
that all texts would have, they attempted to encourage the reader to look
between the lines in order to uncover conflicts and new meanings.

Symptomatic reading

One very useful idea posited by Althusser is that of ‘symptomatic reading’.

Writing in 1965 in Reading Capital (translated into English in 1979), he
argued that, in order to fully understand a cultural text, the reader must look
beyond the information presented to consider what has been omitted; a
conspicuous absence (1979). Rather than focusing on the questions asked,
Althusser suggests that the reader should attempt to discern what is not
being asked. Therefore in order to undertake a symptomatic reading, we
need to identify holes, gaps, ellipses and silences; we need to look at what
is being avoided or left unspoken in order to recognize problems.
In Film Studies this approach can be very helpful. In particular,
mainstream, Hollywood productions will occasionally allude to wider
political problems but refuse to engage on a deeper level for fear of
alienating their paying audience. John Storey points out that the film Taxi
Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976) asks questions that are not addressed in the
narrative, for example ‘how does the Veteran return home to America after
the imperial horrors of Vietnam?’ (2001, p.97). The original Iron Man film
(Jon Favreau, 2008) touches on the issue of American corporate firms
profiting from the sale of weapons to Middle Eastern nations. The film,
however, does not ask pertinent questions about the West’s responsibility in
subsidizing terrorist activity in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
The idea of symptomatic reading was developed further by Pierre
Macherey in his book A Theory of Literary Production (1978). In the
chapter ‘Domain and Object’, Macherey postulates that if a text is only
afforded a single interpretation, believed to be that of the author, the text
would remain incomplete. Alternative meanings, such as the readers’
perspectives, are of equal importance. This focus on the assumption that the
author’s intention is known is often referred to as ‘interpretive fallacy’ or
‘authorial intention’ (p.80). Macherey argues that meaning needs to be
‘decentred’ (p.79), taken away from the author as the sole source of
intention. The ideas put forward by Machery bear similarlities to Roland
Barthes’ thesis Death of the Author (1977) (see Auteur Chapter 1, p.8).
He believed that texts have multiple explanations (polysemous) which
engender discussion as sites of conflict. Put simply, critical analysis should
‘read between the lines’. What is of interest is to explain why there is a
silence and to recognize what is ‘unspoken’ (pp.85–9). To illustrate his
point, Macherey draws on Freud’s work on the unconscious (see Chapter 9,
‘Psychoanalysis’). He suggests that attention needs to be paid to the gaps
and ellipses. These spaces must further be read in the context of when an
artefact was produced. When Disney’s The Princess and the Frog (Ron
Clements & John Musker) was released in 2009, it was applauded for the
characterisation of Tiana: the first African American princess. Yet the
majority of academic and critical writers failed to comment on the fact that
the narrative, set in New Orleans had been devastated by Hurricane Katrina
four years previously. Chowdury acknowledges the critical avoidance of
Katrina’s presence stating that, ‘Curiously, the critics did not voice concerns
over the film after it was released – there is a Katrina-shaped hole in
reactions to the film which perhaps speaks louder than words’ (2010, p.33).
Due to the close proximity of the tragic event and the production of the
film. The Princess and the Frog is undoubtedly a response to Katrina.
However, neither Disney nor the critics openly acknowledge this. More
recently, Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012) depicts an
African American community struggling to survive following the onslaught
of a natural disaster, however once again there is no mention of Hurricane
Katrina. Therefore, as Film scholars, it is important to consider any glaring
omissions from a text, as well as analyzing what we see in the frame.

Reflect and respond

1 Looking at these examples, can you think of other films where the unspoken subtext
over-whelms the narrative to the point where it cannot be ignored?
2 How important is ‘authorial intention’ in filmmaking? Once a film has been released
are the director’s/screenwriter’s intentions relevant?
3 Can you identify any films whose status has changed over time according to the
sociopolitical climate?

As outlined earlier in the chapter, Louis Althusser’s ideas are instrumental

in undertaking a Marxist reading of film. His ideas concerning
interpellation can also inform Film Studies.

Louis Althusser
Interpellation (1970)

Louis Althusser was interested in the way society worked and how, as individuals, we
are all subjects within society. He recognized that from an early age we all learn how to
conform and adopt social patterns of behaviour. He rejected the ideas of Engels as he
considered ‘false consciousness’ a flimsy notion. Instead he saw ideology as an active
thing; something we all take part in on a daily basis. Althusser suggested that
dominant ideology seeks to indoctrinate everyone so that we all share the same
beliefs, value system, desires and prejudices. This is achieved by two mechanisms:

1 Repressive State Apparatus: police, courts and judicial system

2 Ideological State Apparatus: church, education, politics, media and family

The Repressive State Apparatus forces individuals in a society to adhere to rules and
regulations in order to avoid punishment, whereas the Ideological State Apparatus
 manipulates in a far subtler way, pressuring individuals to conform to moral and
ideological norms.
Althusser uses the term ‘Interpellation’ or ‘Hailing’ to describe how these
unconscious processes work. As subjects we are all accountable for our actions, which
can be called into question at any time. Althusser presents the example of a policeman
shouting at a person in the street to stop. Whether innocent or not, our automatic
reaction is to stop as we are programmed to obey the police. In stopping we become
transformed into the subject. Yet Althusser claims that we are all ideological subjects
before we are born. Here he cites the case of Christians who, in choosing to abide by
the rules of God, become God’s subjects (this would apply to all world religions). As
subjects we conform to societal rules.
In Film Studies, interpellation works when the viewer becomes the subject of the
text. We, the audience, become interpellated when we become drawn into the
narrative; when we empathize with the characters on screen. We can be brought into
the narrative through various devices. For example, point-of-view shots and shot-
reverse-shot editing for dialogue physically positions the viewer inside the frame.
Laura Mulvey’s work cites an instance of interpellation, claiming that women are
typically encouraged to identify with the male protagonist rather than relate to the
female star (see Chapter 10, ‘Feminism’, p.181). Althusser’s main aim in identifying
interpellation was to make the audience aware that, although we often believe we are
making decisions freely, the media manipulates us into a false state. We may not be
aware that we are watching a film from a specific position (gender, political, class)
because the ideological message is hidden (repressed). The viewer willingly agrees
with the ideological message, believing they are making a selection. However,
ideology works precisely by creating this illusion, which is never really a free choice.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you feel that our values and beliefs are informed by the repressive and ideological
state apparatuses? Which do you think is more influential?
2 Althusser gives the example of how we are religious subjects. Can you think of any
other examples where we perform a role as subjects in society?
3 The idea of interpellation is based on the premise that we do not have choices but are
instead coerced into certain positions. Can you think of any other examples of how
the film industry practises this?

Antonio Gramsci
Hegemony (1976)

Antonio Gramsci held a different view from earlier Marxists on the cultural and
ideological relationship that existed in capitalist society. Conventional Marxist thinking
held that the ruling classes enforced ideas on the ‘rest’. Rather than the domination of
one class over another, Gramsci saw ideology as a struggle or site of negotiation
between the classes for hegemony (leadership, dominance, authority).
 The ruling class seeks to replace the culture and ideology of the working class with
its own. However, Gramsci argues that the ruling class can become hegemonic only if
it finds space to appreciate and accept other class cultures and values. This concept
appears to present agreement between the classes and implies that hegemony is
desirable in offering the majority of people from all classes a safe and conflict-free
society. Yet, to maintain harmony, hegemonic values are revised and reformed in an
ongoing process. For example, in Wales there has been a collective move towards
reinvigorating Welsh as the national language. This is illustrated by the establishment
of the Welsh Assembly, Welsh-language road signs, BBC Wales and S4C, and the
reintroduction of Welsh-language classes in all schools. This was achieved over time
through pressure groups acting on behalf of the nation.
It is important to remember that, because hegemony results from negotiations within
society, it is rarely imposed from ‘above’ (top down); the process allows for discussion
and disagreement, therefore the outcome constantly changes. So ideas that are
repeated and spoken become part of our day-to-day culture. Through this process, the
government, ruling or dominant class can exercise strong guidance without appearing
dictatorial. As with any system there are limitations to this inclusiveness. For example,
in times of crisis such as war, the hegemonic process is suspended in order that the
police, army, etc. (referred to by Althusser as the ‘Repressive State Apparatus’) can
take the lead.
To summarize, hegemony takes shape from the struggle between the ruling class,
which attempts to control ideology and the working class, which struggles to resist its
hold. Accordingly, hegemony is not imposed; it is an area of negotiation between the
two which allows for alterations. Gramsci has been influential in questioning this notion
that culture emerges from ruling-class ideology in direct conflict with working-class
culture. Hegemony, as a theory, allows for a more adaptable idea of culture.

Reflect and respond

1 Recently in cases in which filmmakers planned adaptations of famous works, the

production crew have actively sought fans to seek their advice regarding the
translation from book/comic to screen. Why do you think the industry has adopted this
tactic?
2 Why does the ruling class care about what the masses think? Why not dismiss their
views and produce elitist texts?
3 Does this ever work in reverse, where the masses attempt to appeal to the elite?
4 Is this battle between the classes still relevant today?

Mikhail Bakhtin
Carnivalesque (1968)

The philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin was an important figure in the development of Marxist
thought. He is most well known for his writings on the Carnivalesque that feature in his
book Rabelais and His World (1968). Carnivals have been recorded since the Roman
and Greek empires and have long been positioned at the heart of folk culture. Carnival
 represents a time of celebration and revelry when normal conventions are overlooked
and excessive behaviour reigns. Bakhtin’s ideas concerning the festivities can be
summarized as follows:

1 Law and order is suspended; rules, regulations and restrictions are lifted.
2 During the carnival, traditional hierarchies no longer apply. Inequality between
classes is tempo-rarily abolished.
3 Carnival brings together all walks of life: rich/poor, old/young, learned/uneducated
and the sacred/profane.
4 Celebration of blasphemy and obscenities is ‘linked with the reproductive power of
the earth and the body, carnivalistic parodies on sacred texts and sayings, etc.’
(Storey, 2001, p.251).
5 Indulgence in colloquial language, euphemisms and double entendre is rife.
6 Laughter and parody are in essence what carnival is about; laughing at life, oneself
and in particular laughing at authority. It is about not taking things too seriously, a
theme often manifesting in spoof, satire and sending-up situations (parody).

The Carnivalesque often focuses on the grotesque and the ridiculous. For example,
the Carry On films of the 1970s epitomize this type of humour with their focus on bodily
functions (burp and fart jokes) and sexual innuendo. Despite its comedic nature,
Bakhtin related the Carnivalesque to Marxist ideology because once again it is
concerned with subverting class distinctions.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any films that take Bakhtin’s notion of the Carnivalesque as the main
trope for the narrative?
2 Why do you think the Carnivalesque lends itself to film as a format?
3 How would you apply Carnivalesque if you were writing a screenplay?
4 In what ways is Carnivalesque useful in terms of escapism?

The primary concern of Marxist theory is politics. So far we have focused

on various Marxist ideas and devices, but now we will turn our attention to
directors who have attempted to overthrow societal order through the
medium of film. The Russian Formalist, Sergei Eisenstein, was one of the
first filmmakers who believed that cinema had the capability to change the
attitudes of the people. Accordingly he experimented with different types of
editing to try to mobilize the masses to rise up against the controlling
bourgeois forces (see Chapter 4, ‘Formalism’).
One of the main criticisms of Marxist film theory is that its
preoccupation with narrative content makes it an arduous task trying to
identify Marxist aesthetics within a text. However, in the 60s and 70s a
group of filmmakers inspired by the post-revolutionary Cuban climate
emerged in Latin America.
Third Cinema

Third Cinema is a term coined by Fernando Solanas and Octavio Getino,

who were part of a radical Argentinian group of filmmakers known as the
Grupo Cine Liberation. Collectively they made a film entitled La Hora de
los Hornos/ The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), which looked at foreign
imperialism and neo-colonialism in South America. The film was made
secretly and then smuggled out of the country as it would have been heavily
censored or even banned by national authorities. The film was designed to
instigate debate:

We realized that the most important thing was not the film and the
information in it so much as the way this information was debated. One
of the aims of such films is to provide the occasion for people to find
themselves and speak about their own problems. (Solanas, cited in
Chanan, 1997, p.373)

Reflecting on the experience of making the film, Solanas and Getino aired
their radical views in the seminal article ‘Towards a Third Cinema: Notes
and Experiences for the Development of a Cinema of Liberation in the
Third World’ (1969). This manifesto outlined three distinct types of
filmmaking, the last being their approach to instil revolutionary change:

1 First Cinema: This is commercial filmmaking typically produced by

Hollywood. The writers claimed that ‘First Cinema’ teaches bourgeois
values. It is concerned with spectacle and enter-tainment; it positions
the viewer as a passive observer.
2 Second Cinema: This is art-house filmmaking (typically European).
Here the emphasis is on the director as auteur (individual expression). It
challenges the conventions of Hollywood filmmaking yet directors are
still forced to work within the same commercial/capitalist system.
3 Third Cinema: This is directly opposed to the hegemonic political and
studio system. Solanas and Getino refer to ‘[M]aking films that the
System cannot assimilate and which are foreign to its needs, or making
films that directly set out to fight the System’ (p.42).

The main goal of Third Cinema was to create a new cinematic language that
would reinforce a new consciousness; a revolutionary consciousness which
would effect change in society. In order to achieve such politicized aims the
group actively looked to reject traditional film aesthetics, stating that:

The end product amounts to a militant poetic tapestry, weaving together

disparate styles and materials ranging from didacticism to operatic
stylization, direct filming to the techniques of advertising and
incorporating photographs, newsreels, testimonial footage and film clips
– from avant garde and mainstream, fiction and documentary. (Solanas,
cited in Chanan, 1997, p.373)

This anti-Hollywood approach was influenced by an earlier movement of

Latin American radical filmmaking known as ‘Cinema Novo’, which had
emerged in the 50s and 60s. Its low-budget attitude to filmmaking was
known as ‘the aesthetics of hunger’ or alternatively ‘the aesthetics of
violence’ (Hayward, 2006, p.74). Its stripped-back working ethos was
encapsulated by the phrase ‘Uma camera na mao e uma ideia na cabega’/‘a
camera in the hand and an idea in the head’. Third Cinema’s legacy was its
influence on developing nations; in particular filmmakers from Africa took
inspiration from its manifesto.

Imperfect Cinema

The term ‘Imperfect Cinema’ was invented by Julio Garda Espinosa. This
Latin American director also sought to divorce film from any capitalist
connotations and instead concentrate on providing political education.
Espinosa stipulates the ideological rules that filmmakers should adhere to.
For example, he believed that directors should not strive to get their films
screened in commercial cinemas: ‘Imperfect Cinema rejects exhibitionism
in both (literal) senses of the word, the narcissistic and the commercial
(getting shown in established theatres and circuits)’ (pp.81–2). Instead film
should be taken to the people, to remote communities, village halls, etc. in
order to politicize the masses against the system.
Espinosa further rejects the overriding assumption that filmmaking
should be aesthetically pleasing. He claimed that films do not have to be
created on traditional 35 mm stock but ‘can be created equally well with a
Mitchell or with an 8 mm camera, in a studio or in a guerrilla camp in the
middle of the jungle’ (p.82). Rather than attempting to create beautiful
works of art, the filmmaker should ensure that the message is of prime
importance:

Imperfect cinema is no longer interested in predetermined taste, and

much less in ‘good taste’. It is not quality which it seeks in an artist’s
work. The only thing it is interested in is how an artist responds to the
following question: What are you doing in order to overcome the barrier
of the ‘cultured’ elite audience which up to now has conditioned the form
of your work? (p.82)

The critical engagement and theorized approach of these Latin American

filmmakers enabled practitioners to take a more militant (Marxist) attitude
to both narrative and aesthetic concerns. Interestingly, these ideas are the
only theories associated with film as a discipline that do not originate from
North America or Europe.
Collectively, this militant group of Latin American filmmakers was
concerned with attacking the culture of neo-colonialism. Neo-colonialism
refers to a major power exerting its influence over underdeveloped nations.
For example, American ideology saturates the world through the media
(Hollywood) so much that we are all familiar with US founding principles
and national doctrine. The unease this generates perpetuates Marxist
concerns. Whereas earlier Marxist writings were preoccupied with national
class distinctions between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, in more
recent times this model has been applied on a global scale. Here the
dominant force is America and Western assertiveness at the expense of the
cultural annihilation of more vulnerable countries.
Stimulated by years of oppression under numerous dictatorships, these
radical South American groups looked to invigorate cinema by infusing it
with a political agenda. Their underlying belief was that film could
stimulate political and social change. These ideals relate clearly to the
Marxist belief that the system can be collectively changed from within.

Reflect and respond

1 How influential do you think the ideas of this radical group of Latin American
filmmakers are?
2 How important is politics to filmmaking?
3 Can film aesthetics be political or can politics only form part of the narrative?
4 To what extent do you agree with this group’s stance against Hollywood?
 5 Would it be possible for Western filmmakers to adopt this revolutionary approach?

Case study: The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller,
2014)

The computer-animated tale of the Lego minifigure, Emmett Brickowski,

may initially be dismissed as a childish comedy; however, in terms of
Marixst discourse, The Lego Movie offers a wealth of areas for debate. At
the heart of Marxist philosophy, there is a belief that the bourgeoisie
exploits the proletariat. In the Lego Movie, this oppressive relationship is
replicated through the everyman worker, Emmett, and the capitalist villain
‘President Business’, also known as ‘Lord Business’. President Business
dictates that everyone in the Lego Universe must construct their lives in
accordance with specific blueprints. Workers must adhere to detailed
instruction manuals, as a consequence destroying any sense of personal
creativity.
As the narrative progresses, it becomes apparent that the plight of
Emmett and Lord Business is an allegory for the young child, Finn, and his
father: ‘the man upstairs’ (Will Farrell). Finn’s father has meticulously
constructed a world of Lego, mirroring the detail of each specific
instruction booklet. Not only does he assemble with great precision
according to the guidelines, he also ensures that his creations will withstand
any damage by permanently gluing the bricks together. For Finn, the Lego
world his father has created is strictly off limits. Only when the father stops
to appreciate his son’s original and innovative designs can new rules,
regarding access and play, be agreed upon; a clear process of what Gramsci
calls Hegemony – negotiation between the classes.
On our initial introduction of Emmett, we see him rise from his bed and
eagerly locate a manual entitled ‘Instructions to fit in, have everybody like
you and always be happy’. Reading aloud he lists directives that he needs to
follow; the rules include:

• Exercise
• Shower
• Shave your face
• Brush your teeth
• Wear clothes
• Eat a complete breakfast with all the special people in your life
• Obey all traffic signs and regulations
• Enjoy popular music
• Always root for the local sports team
• Drink over-priced coffee

This opening sequence exposes the social conditioning we are all subjected
to. The list entails what Althusser calls both the Repressive State Apparatus
and the Ideological State Apparatus. Rules such as obeying traffic
regulations are enforced by the law (Repressive State Apparatus)
epitomised within the film by the character of the policeman ‘Bad
Cop/Good Cop’ (Liam Neeson). Other rules, learnt and impressed upon us
by our parents and schooling, are referred to in Marxist terms as the
Ideological State Apparatus. For example, we know that we must wear
clothes before leaving the house and we are taught that it is unacceptable to
ignore personal hygiene.
Another example of the Ideological State Apparatus is the media
industry. It is through the media that we are sold material goods (popular
music, sports events and over-priced coffee); a clear illustration of
capitalism at work. The media is responsible in forming many of our ideas
regarding gender, sexuality and ideas of body image. The media informs
Emmett that he should be sharing his life with special people. As he fails to
fulfil this criteria, Emmett is often seen talking to his plant which is both
comic yet tragic. In order to maintain his uniform minifig physique, our
hero must partake in daily exercise and eat a complete breakfast. Here the
Lego Universe is depicted as a nanny state, promoting healthy living whilst
at the same time implicitly preaching conformity.
All the inhabitants of the Lego Universe have an identical frame. All
minifigs have interchangeable bodies with the exception of Lego Friends. In
attempting a symptomatic reading of The Lego Movie, it is important to
consider the Lego Friends range. This product is specifically designed for
girls and it features taller, curvaceous, ladyfigs or mini-dolls and pastel-
coloured bricks. These characters live in Heartlake City, not the Lego
Universe, and are preoccupied with tasks related to traditional female roles
of domesticity and beauty: baking, home-making, cafes, shopping and the
beauty salon. Throughout the film, Emmett and his band of unlikely heroes
interact with different Lego branded sets; the Wild West, Batman, Star
Wars, Mediaeval Castles, Space and the newly invented Cloud Cuckoo
Land (which features bricks from the entire Lego range). Although The
Lego Movie managed to incorporate the many different sets available for
purchase, at no point is there any evidence of the brand created for girls.
The company has been criticised for typically targeting boys with their wide
variety of bricks, therefore this omission can be read as symptomatic of a
wider problem regarding gender stereotyping.
In the 1920s, it was believed that film and other popular arts had the
ability to corrupt innocence. Conversely, the critical theorists of the
Frankfurt School argued that popular culture leads to mass conformity as
the general public become depoliticized. This is witnessed on two occasions
in the opening ‘Instructions manual’ montage. Firstly, when President
Business announces in an advert ‘Let’s take extra care to follow the
instructions, or you’ll be put to sleep’. As Emmett is contemplating the
gravity of the statement, his favourite TV programme, Where’s Your Pants,
is aired. All worries concerning the threat of being ‘put to sleep’ are soon
forgotten with Emmett stating ‘What was I just thinking? I don’t care’.
Secondly, the catchy, somewhat annoying, theme song ‘Everything is
Awesome’ provides a further example of popular culture leading to
compliance. Although the proletariat minfigs are seen working tirelessly for
President Business, the lyrics that accompany the earworm (irritating song),
instill a sense of pride:

Everything is awesome
Everything is cool when you’re part of a team
Everything is awesome
When you’re living our dream

Whereas the underlying message of the song might be seen to support

Marxist ideas of socialism, in the sense that collectively people are working
together, the Lego inhabitants have lost all sense of individuality as they are
revealed to be wage slaves to the corrupt President Business. Their content-
ment is false and illustrative of what Marxists call ‘False Consciousness’.
The Lego Movie provides an interesting, somewhat ironic dichotomy. On
the one hand the narrative looks to expose how we, the viewers, are
manipulated by the media. In fact it includes a sequence similar to the film
They Live (John Carpenter, 1988). Whereas the character in the early film
finds a pair of ideology glasses which reveal the inherent ideological
messages sold via the media, Emmett, once he breaks free from the
instruction manual, is able to see the code numbers for each individual brick
(Figure 6.2). On the other hand, the ultimate irony of the film is that even
though viewers are encouraged to get creative, use their imagination and rip
up the instruction manual – arguably they are onlookers to the biggest
advertisement in movie history. All of the Lego sets featured in the film can
be bought in local toyshops. If you type any of the codes featured in Figure
6.2 into an internet search engine, the results will return images and links to
online websites where the purchase of the identical brick is possible. This
epitomizes the conflicting message of the film; avoid conformity through
creativity whilst at the same time ploughing profits back into the pockets of
the Lego Group. The Lego Movie herein provides a Marxist critique of big
business, as it preaches caution against the worker becoming a cog in the
machine. Yet, in spite of the revolutionary discourse, which may be
absorbed at some subconscious level, the target audience fails to see the
paradox as they continue to pester their parents in order to consume the
‘awesome’ bricks produced by the world’s largest toy company.

Figure 6.2 The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014)
 Reflect and Respond

1 Look at the ‘instructions to fit in, have everbody like you and always be happy’. Can
you think of any other social rules that you could add to the list?
2 How influential is the film industry in promoting such rules?
3 Do you believe the film industry is culpable in creating genre films for specific
genders?
4 How far do films promote individuality, or do you think they promote conformity?
5 To what extent are children’s films an advertisement for merchandise?

Conclusion

Marxism is primarily concerned with politics; this can make its usefulness
in analysing film aesthetics appear questionable. However, a key Marxist
approach is to examine the hierarchical order within a system. This is
significant when exploring the relationship between the film industry and
the viewing public. As highlighted above, the relationship between different
sectors of society (masses, elites, institutions, government and judiciary)
needs to be negotiated in order to achieve cultural consensus.
However, Marxist approaches to film can be restrictive as they tend to
oversimplify relationships. In particular, there is an overriding focus on
class (due to the legacy of Marx and Engels). Furthermore, people are
typically (and to some extent blissfully) unaware that they are being
manipulated by both society and the media. It is only when an awareness of
this manipulation develops that wider questions can be debated. One of the
main limitations of Marxism is that critics often favour narrative content
over aesthetic concerns. It can be difficult to apply a Marxist reading to the
aesthetics of a text but it is possible, as we have proven in looking at the
Latin American filmmakers of the 60s and 70s.
There are often questions concerning the relevance of Marxism in today’s
global environment although the film industry is evidently still interested in
exploiting the masses (financially and ideologically). However, there are
some instances where filmmakers are striving to democratize the creative
process. One of the ways in which professional and amateur filmmakers are
attempting to bypass the studios is through the use of crowdfunding.
Internet sites such as ‘Kickstarter’, ‘Gofundme’ and ‘Indiegogo’ allow for
friends, family and fans to donate money to a production which may not be
given the green light through traditional means. Investers are given
incentives such as their name appearing in the credits or an invite to the
premiere. Ideologically, crowdfunding aligns itself with Marxism, however
this practice is still in its infancy so it is difficult to gauge any impact as of
yet.
Over time the historical conditions of production change, as has been
demonstrated in the Marxist model of the base and superstructure. As we
now enter a digital era, the relationship between the creative forces and the
consumers has shifted. Filmmaking is no longer completely reliant on
studio funding, but instead can be achieved by a lone individual in their
bedroom. Sites such as YouTube have democratized exhibition by providing
a forum for marginal filmmakers. This could be seen as a strongly Marxist
position because the control has been placed in the hands of the producers.

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 CHAPTER 7

REALISM
Realism
1. In reference to art, film, and literature: close resemblance
to what is real; fidelity of representation, rendering the
precise details of the real thing or scene: While realism in
art is often used in the same contexts as naturalism,
implying a concern with accurate and objective
representation, it also suggests a deliberate rejection of
conventionally attractive or appropriate subjects in favour
of sincerity and a focus on the unidealized treatment of
contemporary life. Specifically, the term is applied to a
late nineteenth-century movement in French painting and
literature.

Setting the scene

Realism describes a specific historical movement that preoccupied artists

who were reacting against the Romantic movement of the late eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries. Their main concern was to attempt to show
reality through art. Realism came to the fore in 1850s France in painting;
this led to developments in the fields of both literature and theatre.
Historically, the arts had focused on depicting gods and mythic tales
(Classicism) and externalizing human emotions (Romanticism). Realism
was an artistic attempt to re-create images as they appeared in real life or to
describe them accurately in literature. These works tended to have
contemporary subjects and commonplace themes that the viewer might
recognize from looking out of a window onto the world.
In the 1870s in France, naturalism, an idea founded and developed by
Émile Zola, gained attention. Influenced by Charles Darwin, Zola
advocated a ‘scientific’ approach to literature. He wanted characters who
were formed by their social environment, accurately presented in the text
through careful and extensive description. Furthermore, the topics were
often unpleasant, harsh and pessimistic: poverty, racism, disease, sex and
prostitution were dealt with in a frank manner. Naturalism, with its
recording of minute detail and its desire to ‘tell the whole truth’, is often
seen as an extreme form of Realism.
Before discussing Realism in film it is useful to think about the term
‘realism’ itself. Realism is a stylistic choice. It is the decision to use artifice
in order to emulate reality. Realism can never be real. Realist artists use
objects, landscapes and living things in the world and aim to reproduce a
likeness that is accurate rather than idealized or distorted in any manner. In
a similar manner, we can think of filmmakers as presenting the reality that
they want us to accept.
This image raises questions concerning verisimilitude. Verisimilitude is a
term adopted in Film Studies to mean ‘the appearance of being true or real;
likeness or resemblance to truth, reality, or fact’ (OED online). It may help
to think of the words ‘very similar’ as an explanation whenever you come
across the term. For example, period dramas often provoke debates
regarding verisimilitude. The authenticity of costume and props is often
questioned. Furthermore, all films, even fictional narratives, have some
elements of realistic representation (characters, location, etc.).
Verisimilitude is one component in Realist debates, but in tracing the
origins of Realism back to film we must look at the photographic work of
Eadweard Muybridge.

Early experimentation

Eadweard Muybridge was one of the first people to experiment with still
images and it was these experiments that enabled film to develop as a form
of entertainment. In 1877, Muybridge entered into a bet to prove that when
galloping, a horse lifts all four hooves off the ground simultaneously. He set
about proving his point by lining up a series of cameras to capture the
galloping motion on film. Whereas Muybridge was interested in freezing
movement, his photographic experiments inspired pioneers to try and
recreate action from still images. All early films in existence demonstrate a
preoccupation with capturing real-life movement.
The first cinematic exhibition of real events occurred in the 1890s when
the Lumière brothers showed La Sortie des Usines Lumière/ Workers
Leaving the Factory (1895) and L’Arrivèe d’un Train à la Ciotat/Arrival of
a Train at a Station (1897). Although these films were silent, the realistic
nature of the image of a train coming towards the audience allegedly caused
many viewers to panic and flee the screening hall. These very short films
made by the Lumière brothers were known as actualitès as they
documented actual events. However, not all Lumière shorts were unstaged;
L’arroseur Arrosè (1895) was a comedy piece involving a hosepipe.
Although both Muybridge and the Lumière brothers were not specifically
attempting to represent real life, the subject matter of their work ensured
that the form of these early films were rooted in realism. It was not until
Georges Méliès began making films that storytelling and artifice took centre
stage. However, attempts to document real life became a strand of
filmmaking in their own right.

Documentary tradition

When we think of Realism in film, the tradition of documentary filmmaking

often springs to mind. Documentary originates from the French word
documentaire, meaning a travelogue or illustrated lecture. However, the
term ‘documentary’ was first coined by John Grierson in 1926 and is
synonymous with the recording of facts and evidence. It is important that
this filmic form is acknowledged as a construct. In the way that fictional
film narrative is created through conscious choices in editing, lighting and
content, etc., documentary filmmaking is similarly assembled. The
aesthetics and narrative trajectory may create a sense of the real, but are
nevertheless fabricated.

Bill Nichols
Modes of documentary (2001)

Bill Nichols is a renowned academic working at the forefront of documentary studies.

From his work he has identified six generic modes. These categories function as tools
to assess Realism in documentaries, a form of filmmaking that is often considered to
represent indisputable facts. The chart below summarizes his ideas.

Mode Description
Poetic Influenced by lyrical avant-garde filmmaking of the 1920s. disregard for
continuity editing and temporal/spatial relations. Mood and tone
(aesthetics) rather than knowledge and persuasion (information). lack
of psychologically developed characters. strongly subjective (pp.102–
3).
Examples: Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance (Godfrey reggio, 1982),
Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation (Godfrey reggio, 1988) and
Samsara (ron Fricke, 2011).

Expository Based on rhetoric and argument. Viewer is directly addressed.

expository documentaries often adopt a ‘voice-of-god’ perspective
where the information is relayed to the audience (voice-over or titles).
Constructs a forceful argument in need of a solution (pp.105–7).
Examples: Why We Fight series (Frank Capra, 1943–4). Most news
broadcasting takes this form. a more recent example of an expository
documentary is March of the Penguins (luc Jacquet, 2005).

Observational Eerged through changes in technology (lightweight cameras). Camera

follows the action, often resulting in shaky, amateur-style footage.
unobtrusive and non-interventionist as the filmmaker is regarded as a
neutral observer (pp.109–15).
Example: The Last Waltz (Martin scorsese, 1978) and Être et Avoir/To
Be and to Have (nicholas Philibert, 2002).

Participatory Direct engagement between the filmmaker and subjects; this often
takes the form of questions and interviews. the filmmaker becomes
actively involved in the documentary as they instigate the action
(pp.115–23).
Examples: Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002), Living with
Michael Jackson (Julie shaw/Martin Bashir, 2003) and Lift (Marc
Isaacs, 2001).
Reflexive This form of documentary aims to make the audience aware of the
artifice of such filmmaking. It draws attention to editing, narrative
construction, audience manipulation, etc. It challenges questions of
realism and truthfulness which are often associated with documentary
(pp.125–30).
Example: Man with a Movie Camera (dziga Vertov, 1929) and Stories
We Tell (sarah Polley, 2012).
Performative Personal, emotional and subjective concerns are the major traits found
in performative documentary. It is often used as a vehicle for the
marginalized (ethnic minorities, women, gays and lesbians). this
personal approach is often used to explore wider sociohistorical issues
(pp.130–7).
Example: Paris Is Burning (Jennie livingston, 1990), Tongues Untied
(Marlon riggs, 1990) and Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette, 2003).
Whenever studying documentary films it is important to question the
information that is being imparted. You need to approach the genre with a
level of caution and scepticism. We are conditioned to assume that
documentaries are objective and free from bias whereas in reality this is
frequently not the case. These films are produced via a process of selection
and rejection of available material and are compiled to conform to a
director’s agenda.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you name any documentary films? How many of these were made before the
year 2000?
2 Can you account for the rise in popularity of the documentary film in recent times?
3 Of the documentaries that you can name, which of Nichols’s categories do they fall
into?
4 Documentaries are often made to challenge public opinion. Can you think of any that
you have seen that have influenced your ideas?
5 Can ideas of ‘truth’, ‘objectivity’ and ‘neutrality’ be applied to documentary?

Realist filmmaking

As filmmaking became better established, key movements developed, with

the underlying ethos of creating credible portrayals of daily life.
Technological advances enabled filmmakers from different countries to
achieve the appearance of Realism at different times. The national
movements outlined below share many common traits, which include:

• location shooting
• naturalistic lighting
• long takes
• handheld cameras
• unscripted dialogue
• documentary influence
• focus on the working class
• a political agenda.

Below are three examples of national filmmaking movements that

attempted to capture real-life experiences.
Poetic Realism

Poetic Realism describes the type of filmmaking that took place in France
during the 30s. Famous directors emerging from this era include Jean
Renoir, Marcel Carne and Julien Duvivier. Poetic Realists were influenced
by naturalistic literature, in particular the writings of Emile Zola. However,
it was not a visually recognizable movement like Soviet montage or
German Expressionism; instead it consisted of a small group of filmmakers
whose work displayed similar characteristics and themes. Poetic Realist
films, rather than focusing on the bourgeoisie, tended to create stories about
the masses and politicized the hard realities they faced. Jean Gabin was
typically cast as the common man in many films of this period. Gabin
became an iconic figure who epitomized the working-class Frenchman.
There were two distinct periods in French Poetic Realism: the Popular
Front Period (1935–7) and the National Front Period (1937–40). The first
period was informed by left-wing ideology. It was an optimistic era of
filmmaking that depicted a bright future. However, in 1937 the liberals were
overthrown in favour of a right-wing government, with power returning to
the middle classes. The effect on filmmaking was an overbearing sense of
pessimism as the shadow of fascism began to intrude.

Figure 7.1 A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936)

 Jean Renoir was the most noteworthy director associated with French
Poetic Realism. He was the son of the famous Impressionist painter
Auguste Renoir and in fact sold many of his father’s paintings in order to
finance his films. Although a narrative filmmaker and actor, he was
interested in documentary films; accordingly his filmic style was rooted in a
realistic aesthetic.
Renoir is often cited as the pioneering force behind the ‘long take’
(Bordwell and Thomp- son, 2003, p.292), because he believed that the
camera should not manipulate the audience. The audience should be able to
navigate their way around the frame rather than being visually led. This
resulted in a filmic style that was reliant on framing, reframing, panning
and tracking rather than editing. Aesthetically, Renoir wanted the camera to
imitate the flow and motion of the human eye.
A further technique engaged by the French director was ‘deep-focus
photography’. Once more the camera reproduces the action of the human
eye, with both the foreground and the background in focus. Figure 7.1,
taken from the film Partie de Campagne/A Day in the Country (1936),
shows two men inside a cafe watching women playing on some nearby
swings outside. Here the depth of field is apparent as the audience can see
action occurring clearly in both the foreground and background. This style
of filming was revolutionary, as technically it was difficult to ensure that
subjects near and far from the camera remained in focus.
André Bazin identified the aesthetic impact of this style of filming. He
observed that:

1 ‘Depth of field’ is similar to the way we experience the real world.

This device imitates our way of seeing (we decide what to focus on as
we look around). Accordingly its ‘structure is more realistic’.
2 With the long take the viewer has to be more active in deciphering
information. This participation makes the experience more enjoyable
as the audience is free to look anywhere within the frame.
3 ‘Montage rules out ambiguity’. The viewer’s perspective is guided
and there is no choice. Whereas ‘[d]epth of focus reintroduces
ambiguity’ as the audience must decide what to focus on’. (1967,
pp.35–6)
When the Nazis came to power, Renoir fled to Hollywood. Here he worked
on a number of films that failed to achieve the same critical acclaim as his
European films. However, his stylistic approach inspired a number of
directors and practitioners. His influence is seen most clearly in the work of
Gregg Toland and Orson Welles. For example, their collaboration on the
classic film Citizen Kane is renowned for its deep-focus photography. In the
image on the next page (Figure 7.2), the young character of Kane can be
seen through an open window as his mother signs over his guardianship to
Thatcher. The use of deep focus makes the scene far more moving.
In addition to the influence of Poetic Realism in America, Renoir’s work
went on to inspire a new generation of filmmakers in France. The French
New Wave directors were advocates of Renoir’s attempt to create
verisimilitude. However, they experimented with Realist forms in order to
challenge spectators and make them aware of their position as viewers. For
example, in Jean- Luc Godard’s Week End (1967) there is a long take which
lasts for around eight minutes. The scene is of a traffic jam and, poignantly
as the single shot persists, the audience becomes frustrated, an emotion
occuring in real life when trapped in the same situation. The technique of
using long single takes was employed in one of the earliest French New
Wave films, Les Quatre Cents Coups/400 Blows. At the conclusion of the
narrative, the camera tracks the young protagonist as he runs and runs and
runs.
Figure 7.2 Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)

Further viewing

• La Grande Illusion/The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)

• Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
• Le Bête Humaine/The Human Beast (Jean Renoir, 1938)
• La Règle du Jeu/The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
• Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carné, 1945).

Neo-realism

Neo-realism was a label given by critics to a group of Italian filmmakers

after World War II, during the years 1945–52. Vittorio De Sica, Roberto
Rossellini, Luchino Visconti and Cesare Zavattini were the major figures in
promoting this style of filmmaking and were strongly influenced by Poetic
Realism. The main characteristics were that these films centred on social
and historical events and had political leanings. Italian Neo-realists sought a
cinematographic language to deal aesthetically with the problems of war,
partisan struggle, unemployment, poverty and social injustice. Their
stylistic approach included on-location shooting, the use of non-
professional actors, documentary effects (grainy film stock), handheld
cameras and sequences with little or no editing. Although these filmmakers
were renowned for their Realist tendencies, on further examination such
verisimilitude can be questioned as these ‘natural’ sets were carefully
contrived in a manner designed to highlight social issues.
The documentary quality of these films was an important feature. For
example, in Paisa/Paisan (1946), Rossellini introduced each episode with
an authoritative voice-over. He carefully mixed ‘fact’ and ‘fiction’ with
actual newsreel footage, combined with grainy film stock and scripted
narrative, to produce a seamless slice-of-life experience. The visual effects
created by the quality of lighting and camera angles would reinforce the
feeling of authenticity that viewers would expect from a newsreel of the
40s. Although Rossellini used non-professional actors in Paisa, they were
supplemented with a handful of professional actors in crucial roles. For
example, in the first Sicilian sequence the young Italian girl playing
Carmela (Carmela Sazio) was discovered in her village by Rossellini, while
Joe (Robert Van Loon), her American counterpart, was a real GI. Allowing
Germans, Italians and Americans to speak their own language heightened
the authenticity of the dialogue. Furthermore, the apparently unscripted
dialogue had in fact been worked on for months to seem natural and
spontaneous.
The Neo-realists aimed to expose the harsh realities suffered by ordinary
people and in particular women and children. The location shooting showed
the post-war devastation that Italy was experiencing. Bombed-out tenement
buildings documented day-to-day life as seen in the film Roma
CittàAperta/Rome Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945). This documentary
style (location shooting, use of non-actors, grainy film stock, handheld
cameras and lack of editing) made audiences think about and question the
devastation of war. However, in many of these films, running counter to the
Realist tendencies was the reliance on devices of melodrama such as the
identification with central characters. The critic André Bazin famously
noted, ‘realism in art can only be achieved in one way – through artifice’
(1971, p.26). So in spite of the use of some specific devices (professional
actors, scripted dialogue, melodrama) a level of Realism is maintained,
which was unheard of in filmmaking at this time (grainy film stock and a
conscious attempt to emulate newsreel footage, wartorn location shooting
and members of the general public cast in roles).
Further viewing

• Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)

• Germania Anno Zero/Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
• La Terra Trema/The Earth Trembles (Luchino Visconti, 1948)
• Bellissima/Beautiful (Luchino Visconti, 1951)
• Umberto D (Vittorio De Sica, 1952).

British Realist traditions

Realism in British filmmaking has had several reincarnations:

• 1940s Wartime Realism

• 1950s–1960s New Wave
• 1980s Social Realism

Britain has gained international importance for a film culture which focuses
on social issues.
The forerunner and strong influence on British Social Realist films was
the work by the documentary filmmaker John Grierson. Grierson’s work
emerged most strongly in the 30s. He stated that documentary should be the
‘the creative interpretation of actuality’ (Ellis and McLane, 2006, p.70).
However, Paul Rotha noted that early British filmmaking lacked a sense of
nationality. He believed that productions attempted to copy either the
American or German stylistic models (1999, p.195).
As Britain moved towards war with Germany, government intervention
in the film industry became more evident. The Ministry of Information
(MOI) recognized the propaganda potential in films and accordingly
invested and intervened in many productions.

1940s wartime Realism

After the outbreak of World War II, Realism became an instrument of

propaganda. The MOI became heavily involved in approving scripts,
especially those that emphasized British people united in a common cause.
Films such as Millions Like Us (Sidney Launder and Frank Gilliat, 1943)
combined documentary Realism with feature-film conventions. It starts
with a montage sequence and voice-over that replicate newsreels of the
time. These documentary scenes show wartime life with black-outs, air
raids, troop manoeuvres, fortified beaches and the evacuation of children. In
this and many similar films women are centre stage to encourage their
participation in the war effort. They are seen undertaking male work in
factories, which contrasts markedly with the usual preoccupation in Realist
filmmaking with the white, working-class male. However, by the mid-40s
the excessive use of factual footage and the heavily didactic government
information inserted into the dialogue caused these films to lose popularity
with audiences.

Further viewing

• Target for Tonight (Harry Watt, 1941)

• Went the Day Well (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942).

After the war and into the mid-50s the Realist approach dwindled, with
audiences favouring instead technicolour and escapist features such as those
produced by Powell and Pressburger.

British New Wave (1959–63)

The products of British New Wave Cinema were also known as ‘kitchen-
sink’ dramas and ‘Angry Young Men’ films. This movement is often
thought of as a continuation of Free Cinema. The term ‘Free Cinema’
relates to a four-year project set up by Lindsay Anderson, Tony Richardson
and Karel Reisz. Their films were produced using the following ideology:
free from box-office pressures, free to choose their themes and free to
develop filmmaking away from the mainstream commercial cinema.
Critics dubbed these films ‘New Wave’ due to the perceived similarities
in the work of directors such as Anderson, Richardson, Reisz, Jack Clayton
and John Schlesinger. Shot in black and white, with handheld cameras, their
aesthetics arose partly from a lack of money, available technology and a
desire to engage with ‘real’ Britain. Rather than the usual middle-class
characters from London and the south, these directors wanted to present the
northern working class. Emphasis was placed on regional accents as
opposed to the Received Pronunciation (Queen’s English/BBC English)
prevalent in most films of this period. The narratives aimed to simulate the
working-class experience instead of inserting workers for comic effect or as
‘salt-of-the-earth’ supporting caricatures.
Themes such as alcohol, sex, sport, abortion, prostitution, homosexuality,
anger, depression, alienation, money and poverty were realistically
portrayed in order to illustrate working-class communities breaking free
from social conventions. This was new ground depicting England’s angry,
alienated youth in fresh and frank terms. Characters were typically factory
workers, office juniors, dissatisfied wives, pregnant girlfriends and
runaways. Moreover, a strong misogynistic element featured in these films
as a backlash against women who had entered the male realm of work
during the war.

Further viewing

• Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959)

• Room at the Top (Jack Clayton, 1959)
• Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
• A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961)
• A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, 1962)
• The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
• This Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson, 1963).

The 70s saw a very troubled economic climate and a difficult time for
British cinema as American finance for films ceased at the end of the 60s
and their UK studios closed.

1980s onwards

It was not until the 80s and Margaret Thatcher’s government that Social
Realism experienced a revival. Thatcherism reduced state support for the
arts. Channel 4 started in 1982 with the goal of appealing to minority
groups. Accordingly, it commissioned works from independent production
companies, resulting in a series of low-to medium-budget films between
1981 and 1990. Ken Loach and Mike Leigh are two notable directors from
this time.
Loach came to public attention with his television dramas such as Cathy
Come Home (1966). Throughout his career he has developed a certain
naturalistic style and thematic traits, which make his films identifiable. He
cast unknown actors, for example, in Riff-Raff (1991), set in the building
industry, he found actors who had worked on building sites and for Kes
(1969), he chose local children off the street to star in his film. Alongside
the typical aesthetics expected of Realism, Loach’s themes of social
problems are explored in an overtly political style. He features soap-box
speeches examining moral perspectives but offering no solutions (open-
ended narratives).
Mike Leigh trained in the theatre and was influenced by the work of
Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter. Unlike Loach, Leigh has no overt
political agenda. Instead he focuses on the impact that intimate relationships
have on individuals. He is known for his unscripted/workshop-style
rehearsal periods. His themes are presented in a tragi-comic world, a
mingling of bleakness and humour developed in a claustrophobic manner.
His films concentrate on embarrassing dynamics, which are often
excruciating to sit through.
Ken Loach and Mike Leigh have inspired a new generation of directors
who have continued in a similar vein. Shane Meadows is probably the most
well known of these. However, there is one important distinction. Loach
and Leigh, like the directors of the British New Wave, are middle class yet
their films demonstrate a preoccupation with the working class as subjects.
In contrast, Shane Meadows grew up on a council estate and therefore
belongs to the community that features in his work. Geoffrey Macnab
argues that Meadows’s observations are ‘made from the perspective of a
native insider rather than a sympathetic visitor’ (1998, pp.14–6).
Meadows began his career making shorts and, along with a group of like-
minded individuals, established a successful international video festival.
His themes encompass the white working class, underclass, national
identity, racism, xenophobia, patriotism, violence and comrade-ship. He
favours a young and inexperienced cast. Music is important and is selected
to reflect the urban location and youthful characterization of the films.
Meadows is not political in the manner of Loach, but politics can be seen in
the manner it affects what some of the characters are doing in his drama.
Interviewed in The Telegraph by Chris Harvey, he comments, ‘I’m much
more interested in the landscapes with people in them than what put them
there. I’m just not politically driven’ (13th Sept. 2015). However, the result
is undoubtedly political.
 Meadows uses the big and small screen as a means for his work,
switching between fictional films and documentary films. Following the
successs of This is England films/TV series (2006, 2010, 2011) he made the
documentary Stone Roses: Made in Stone (2013) and then returned to
complete the This is England series in 2015. This is to be followed by a
biopic of cyclist, Tommy Simpson (2016). All of these encompass the
realist tradition.
Unlike French Poetic Realism and Italian Neo-realism, the British Social
Realist tradition is ongoing. As Britain becomes more and more
multicultural, the term ‘British’ will come to encompass many different
groups. Possibly rather than discussing British social realism, we may be
thinking of it in terms of Welsh and Scottish realisms, in the manner that we
already tend to think of realism as more connected with the north of
England or London. This may provide a rich future for Realist debates.

Reflect and respond

1 Can Realist films help us understand society?

2 What are the problems with treating these films as ‘historic’ evidence?
3 Has the increasing trend to market these films with reference to specific directors
(filmmaker as author), helped or hindered their promotion in the international market?
4 Do the images presented in these Social Realist films depict a biased portrait?

Method Acting

The term Method Acting describes a specific approach to performing a role.

The idea originated from the teaching of Lee Strasberg, director of the
Actors Studio in New York. Drawing from the work of Constantin
Stanislavski, he developed an acting style informed by an individual’s
psychological connection with a particular role. In order to create
believable/realistic portrayals, actors must unlock appropriate emotions
from their own lives. Strasberg encouraged actors to recall tragic incidents
and moments of ecstasy and grief. They would then remember how they felt
and apply it to their characters on stage or on screen.
Method Acting was considered revolutionary as it signalled a move away
from the traditional histrionic approach to acting. Histrionic acting involved
actors externalizing their feelings through facial contortions and vocal
intonation. This style of acting originated in the theatre, where large
gesticulations were encouraged so that people at the back of the auditorium
could see emotional gestures clearly on stage. It was of equal importance in
the era of silent cinema, but soon fell out of fashion with the emergence of
sound. Method Acting, on the other hand, was concerned with internalizing
emotion. This psychological approach was deemed more realistic than the
over-the-top theatrical performances of old.
Famous students who attended classes at the Actors Studio include James
Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, Dustin Hoffman
and Al Pacino. Sometimes Method Actors are criticized for taking their
roles too seriously. There is a much-cited incident, of which there are two
versions, alleged to have taken place on the set of Marathon Man (John
Schlesinger, 1976). Dustin Hoffman supposedly stayed up for three nights
in order to emulate the character he was playing and/or ran half a mile so as
to be out of breath in a particular scene. Laurence Olivier, his co-star, asked
him to account for his bizarre behaviour. Hoffman explained that he was
attempting to embody the role he was playing. Olivier famously replied
‘Try acting, dear boy.’ Although this incident may be apocryphal, it
illustrates the two schools of thought in preparing for a role.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any modern-day anecdotes regarding Method Acting?

2 Do you believe that Method Acting is more successful in achieving a realistic
performance?
3 Can you foresee any problems arising from Method Acting?
4 Which style of acting is most relevant today?

Temporal Realism

One of the challenges for early cinematic pioneers was to show the passage
of time on screen. This was achieved through the use of various devices that
drew attention to the artificial nature of film. However, technological
advances have enabled directors to overcome this restriction and the 2000s
have witnessed a number of films that have opted for real-time scenarios.
This can be achieved by real-time narratives and/or real-time filmmaking.
• Real-time narratives: This means that the events of the film occur in
the same time it takes the audience to watch them. Following this trend
are Phone Booth (Joel Schumacher, 2002), Timecode (Mike Figgis,
2000) and interestingly two films about online bullying, Unfriended
(Levan/ Leo Gabriadze, 2014) and Cyberbully (Ben Shanan, 2015). All
four of these examples employ a splitscreen technique to tell their
stories. This is similar to the deep-focus photography favoured by the
Poetic Realists as the audience is left to navigate their own way through
the events without guidance.
• Real-time filmmaking: The idea of incorporating real time into filming
was taken to extremes by the Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov in the
film Russian Ark (2002). The film is comprised of a single take. Filmed
at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg with a cast of 2,000, Russian
Ark was shot in real time on a Steadicam. It represents a landmark in the
history of cinema, as a feature film running for ninety-six minutes with
no edits.

Numerous other films have played with temporal continuity. For example,
the film Caché/Hidden (Michael Haneke, 2005) starts with an image that
we presume is an establishing shot. It is a single take of the outside of a
house. As the take continues the viewer loses interest due to the length of
the shot. However, they are soon shocked as the image suddenly freezes and
rewinds. What they thought was a lengthy opening shot turns out to be a
video being watched by the protagonists. Here reality becomes unstable,
with the audience wrong-footed and accordingly ill at ease from the very
onset of the film. In 2014, Richard Linklater released the critically
acclaimed film Boyhood, which broke new ground in terms of real-time
filmmaking. The director, along with the ensemble cast, took over twelve
years to film the ‘coming of age’ story of Mason Evans Jr. (Ellar Coltrane).
This is an amazing feat considering the actors were unable to sign contracts
as it is illegal to sign up for a production lasting more than seven years.
Experimenting with time in film can result in interesting ways of telling
stories that go against the formulaic approach. The experimental methods
taken by the directors mentioned were instigated in order to make the
audience question notions of reality and perception. These ideas were
considered much earlier by the German scholar Walter Benjamin.
 Walter Benjamin
‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936)

Walter Benjamin’s seminal essay discusses how technological developments affect the
arts. Art has always been manually reproduced through the available techniques of the
time. For example, the Greeks replicated coins and the Victorians adopted the practice
of reproducing images through the means of lithography (printing using ink). These
examples required manual involvement. However, with the development of the camera
and photography, the process of creating images became more immediate; ‘a film
operator shooting a scene in the studio captures the images at the speed of an actor’s
speech’ (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.792).
For Benjamin the development of mechanical reproduction had profound
repercussions on how we view and understand art. He argues that original works of art
contain an ‘aura’; this means that the original retains a certain special significance that
cannot be replicated during the copying process. Consider Leonardo da Vinci’s famous
masterpiece the Mona Lisa, a celebrated image that has been prolifically reproduced
on t-shirts, pencil cases, posters, umbrellas, mugs and so on. According to Benjamin
these imitations have been stripped of the aura found in the original: ‘the masses seek
distraction whereas art demands concentration from the spectator’ (p.808). To
experience the essence of da Vinci’s work you would need to visit the Louvre in Paris.
The ‘aura’ that is integral to Benjamin’s argument is connected to the idea of ritual; we
seek out iconic images in museums and places of worship. Once taken out of this
ceremonial context the work of art is deval-ued, but at the same time the work
becomes accessible to the masses.
At the heart of Benjamin’s thesis is a paradox. As a Marxist he endorsed the idea of
wider participation, believing that the masses should have access to works of art. Yet
in enabling this level of interaction the aura of the object is inevitably lost. In relating
his ideas to film, he explores the role of the actor. In the theatre, players have one
chance to deliver their lines. When performing to the camera, film actors are permitted
multiple takes, which problematizes the idea of originality. Actors in a theatre can react
with the audience to produce an ‘original’ performance because they are physically
present. The film actor, by contrast, loses the aura of authenticity, as the performance
seen by the viewer is recorded rather than live. Benjamin’s views are becoming more
important as we embrace the field of digital technology and this in turn impacts on
ideas of Realism.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss Benjamin’s ideas concerning ‘aura’ and ritual in relation to the opening night
of a film.
2 Do you see an image being reproduced for the masses as positive or negative?
3 Can a film actor produce an original performance or does technology hinder its
authenticity?
4 Are Benjamin’s ideas still relevant?
Digital Realism

Digital methods have been adopted by many filmmakers in the last decade
and this has fuelled debates about Realism. Previously, the industry utilized
16 mm or 35 mm film stock as standard, which always entailed a level of
deterioration when the prints were copied. Digital video, on the other hand,
can be reproduced without much depreciation in quality. This means that
the image captured retains its clarity and therefore is more realistic.
It is still impossible to anticipate all the new developments that may arise
with the advent of digital technologies. Neither can we predict the effects
such progress will have on the way we interpret film. Stephen Prince began
tackling this issue back in 1996.

Stephen Prince
‘True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images and Film Theory’ (1996)

Writing in Film Quarterly, Stephen Prince was one of the first academics to broach the
question of how digital filmmaking would impact on film theory. He states that:

The rapid nature of these changes is creating problems for film theory. Because the
digital manipulation of images is so novel and the creative possibilities it offers are
so unprecedented, its effects on cinematic representation and the viewer’s response
are poorly understood. Film theory has not yet come to terms with these issues.
(p.27)

Prince identifies two broad categories of digital filming adopted by the industry.

1 Digital-image processing: this is when computer software is engaged to digitally

remove or enhance items within the frame. For example, many stunts use wires
and other machinery to achieve effects and this apparatus can be digitally removed
from the scene in post-production.
2 CGI: Computer-generated images are produced using software to make drawings,
models and landscapes appear as if in 3D. The latest technologies enable
filmmakers to apply various devices (e.g. motion capture) to bring fantasy
characters to life such as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Similarly, events
can be simulated that cannot be filmed in real life, for example, the landscape that
features in Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008), Inception (Chris Nolan, 2010) and
Avengers Assemble (Joss Whedon, 2012). This kind of backdrop is achieved
through the use of blue and/or green screens, with actors performing in a studio or
on location. Their performances or detailed landscapes, explosions, crowds, etc.
are then superimposed in post-production.
 One problem identified by Prince is that we often discuss these levels of digital trickery
in relation to the term Realism. Here he refers to the work of Charles Peirce and
Roland Barthes. Peirce explained that photographs have an indexical relationship with
the referent: the photographic image should physically represent the subject. Although
cinema’s origins lie in photography, digital imaging challenges the notion of the
indexical relationship between camera and subject. This is because reality can be
manipulated, for example in the way that beings/animals that do not exist in reality can
be brought to life in a seemingly realistic setting. Digital images are not restricted by
the laws of physical photographs because they can be stretched and contorted to such
degrees that they lose all relation to the original subject. However, some forms of
manipulation are so subtle that they can pass unnoticed; for example, the digital
process can illuminate scenes in ways that could never be achieved with standard
lighting.

Bearing in mind the possibilities outlined above, Prince asks the question:

[If] digital-imaging possesses a flexibility that frees it from its referent [d]oes this
mean, then, that digital-imaging capabilities ought not [to] be grouped under the
rubric of a realist film theory? If not, what are the alternatives? What kind of realism,
if any, do these images possess? (p.30)

Here he calls for a new attitude when reading films. Rather than dismissing production
as non-realist, he explains that we should look at how the image corresponds to our
own ‘three-dimensional world’. Does the subject move in a realistic fashion? Does the
hair blow as if being ruffled by the wind and so on? Prince calls this approach
‘perceptual realism’ (p.32) in that it enables filmmakers to apply realistic attributes to
unreal subjects via 3D cues (light, space and movement).
Perceptual Realism is difficult to achieve as ‘[m]ultiple levels of information capture
must be successfully executed to convincingly animate and render living movement
because the viewer’s eye is adept at perceiving inaccurate information’ (p.35). As
technology advances the audience demands an extra level of Realism despite the fact
that movies are a form of fiction. These aspects raised by Prince highlight the need to
readdress the debates surrounding Realism in order for theory to bring itself in line
with industrial practices.

High Definition and 3D technologies

It is somewhat ironic that in this day and age of airbrushed celebrities, the
industry is moving towards ‘High Definition’ (HD), a technology involving
a higher resolution of pixels. Whereas magazines and advertising agencies
‘photoshop’ images to produce flawless film stars, television present-ers
shot in HD are seen to have blemished skin and other imperfections. Here
we see how technology is pushing barriers at both ends of the spectrum,
with heavily manipulated false representation on the one hand and genuine
‘warts-and-all’ depictions on the other.
 More recently, the industry has seen an increase in the production of
three-dimensional films (3D). Through stereoscopic photography and
customized glasses, the audience experiences the narrative from an
enhanced perspective. This perspective gives an illusion of depth, and could
thus be considered more realistic. Yet it is important to note that this is
another layer of artificiality attempting to replicate a sense of the real.
Although the technology for 3D filmmaking has been in existence since
the 1890s it did not become a commercial possibility until the 50s. It gained
further attention in the 80s, but it was not until the year 2009 with the
release of Avatar (James Cameron) that the 3D cinematic experience
became a real option. The most recent debates to have emerged in the
industry are regarding the use of 48, 60 and 120 fps (frames per second)
digital filmmaking. Traditional filmmaking is composed of 24 fps, the move
towards adopting faster frame rates is referred to as ‘excessive realism’ or
‘high-motion’. Displaying footage at the faster frame rate is believed to
reduce any blurring of motion when filming movement at high speed. One
of the first directors to shoot a big budget, feature film using 48 fps was
Peter Jackson in his film The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013). The
film was met with mixed reviews with some critics claiming the increased
frame rate made the film look too real rather than fantastical. How these
technological advances will add to Realist debates is yet to be seen as the
industry’s usage is still in its infancy.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss how computer-generated images have progressed in your lifetime.

2 In what ways has digital filmmaking enhanced or problematized debates concerning
Realism? 3 Do you think Realism is important in fictional stories?
4 Consider the economic issues relating to digital filmmaking. Do these help or hinder
the amateur filmmaker attempting to break into the industry?
5 In your experience, do you think 3D films are more realistic?
6 To what extent does 3D filmmaking lend itself to fantasy narratives as opposed to
real-life stories?
7 How do you think 3D filmmaking will add to or complicate theories on Realism?

Case study: Dogme 95

The Dogme 95 movement emerged as a collaborative project between two
Danish directors, Lars von Trier and Thomas Vinterberg. Together the
filmmakers listed all the things they hated about commercial cinema and
then considered how they could counter the formulaic artifice associated
with Hollywood. As a result, they came up with a set of rules known as
‘The Vow of Chastity’, which if followed would result in a new cinematic
aesthetic. Von Trier and Vinterberg were soon joined by fellow Danish
directors Kristian Levring and Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Collectively, the
group were known as the brotherhood and their aim was to revolutionize
the industry, calling for a new avant-garde. Their ideology was put forward
in a manifesto which ironically borrowed terminology from Truffaut’s
seminal 1954 text ‘Une Certain Tendance du Cinema Français’. However,
their intention was to highlight that the revolutionary stance initiated by the
French New Wave ‘proved to be a ripple that washed ashore and turned to
muck’ (Fowler, 2002, p.50). In summary, the intention of the Scandinavian
group was to erase the cosmetic effects that proliferate commercial
filmmaking. They felt it was their duty to encourage artists to strip film
production back to its basics.

The Vow of Chastity

Below is the set of ten restrictive rules known as the ‘Vow of Chastity’.
Each rule was proposed in order to purge filmmaking of its high production
values and formulaic story telling (Fowler, 2002, pp.83–4).

1 Shooting must be done on location: In specifying that filming must

take place on location, the brotherhood tried to move away from the
artifice of studio sets. Instead action must take place in a genuine
environment. If props were needed then a location where such props
are readily available must be sourced.
2 Sound must not be produced apart from images: Whereas many films
accompany scenes of heightened emotion with a non-diegetic score
and computer-generated sound effects, the rules stipulate that any
sound occurring in a Dogme production must be captured during the
shoot.
3 The camera must be hand-held: Hand-held cameras often result in
images that have a documentary quality. Footage often appears shaky
and somewhat amateur, which adds to the sense of realism.
 4 Film must be in colour – special lighting is not permitted: This rule
was put in place to counter black and white filmmaking which is often
associated with art house cinema (bourgeoisie). To represent the world
accurately colour must be used. Furthermore this inhibits filmmakers
from trying to emulate earlier cinematic styles.
5 Optical work and filters are forbidden: Here the brotherhood was
ensuring that filmmaking techniques remain simple and that footage
captured is not manipulated in post-production.
6 The film must not contain any superficial action: Characters cannot die
in Dogme films unless they actually die in real life; Dogme blood is
real blood and only occurs if actors are injured on set. This avoids
formulaic narrative traits such as murder. Similarly, scenes of a sexual
nature are actually played out in front of the camera. This is an
extreme approach to realism.
7 Temporal and geographical alienation are forbidden: This rule
guarantees that Dogme films are contemporary stories dealing with
current issues as films cannot be set in the past or future. Additionally,
the location that has been chosen for filming must be where the story is
set, therefore you could not write a script about the American West
unless you physically filmed the production in that geographic locale.
8 Genre movies are not acceptable: This directive was designed to
counter the formulaic nature of the film industry. Dogme films cannot
be Westerns, Police Dramas, Musicals, Romantic Comedies, etc.
9 The film format must be Academy 35 mm: Of all the rules this is
probably the most problematic as it negates the ‘democratization of
cinema’ (Dogme Manifesto, 1995). Whereas most of the regulations
enable amateur filmmakers to participate in the Dogme movement, this
rule is restrictive. Shooting on 35 mm or transferring film into this
format is an expensive procedure. However, the reasoning behind the
rule was to pay homage to the early cinematic pioneers such as the
Lumière brothers, Georges Méliès and Thomas Edison.
10 The director must not be credited: Acknowledging that film is a
collaborative process was a key concern of the movement. They felt
that the industry placed too much emphasis on the director of a
production. Ironically, it was the Dogme films The Idiots (1998) and
Festen (1998) that made Von Trier and Vinterberg household names.
The Vow of Chastity, in looking to strip cinema back to its basics, exposes
the artificial nature of cinematic storytelling. The brotherhood demanded
that Dogme filmmaking should not include any superficial action (murder,
traffic accidents, explosions, etc). Whereas the examples cited act as typical
plot devices in commercial filmmaking, Dogme called for a new approach
where narrative events could be recreated live in front of the camera.
Consequently, blood and violence in a Dogme film hold greater weight and
impact. For example, in the conclusion of The Idiots where Karen’s head is
seen to be bleeding and in Festen where the brothers physically fight, this is
not simulated blood and violence; it is real.
Additionally, the brotherhood dictates that manipulation and/or corrective
procedures cannot be undertaken during postproduction. They also
disapprove of lighting set-ups. Therefore the visual appearance of Dogme
films do not conform to commercial expectations; scenes are often under-lit
or over-exposed. Once more this enlightens the viewer to the usual practice
of doctoring footage after it has been captured. Where scenes in mainstream
cinema are slickly produced, the Vow of Chastity ensures that much of the
footage, shot within their stipulated restrictions, retains an amateur feel. Yet
it could be argued that the aesthetic style achieved lends itself to realism as
the footage that is captured during the live shoot, is the same footage we see
on the screen. Ironically, we do not necessarily perceive Dogme stylistics as
verisimilitude as we have become conditioned to the manipulated form that
is practiced by Hollywood.
Initially the movement was ridiculed by the industry as a joke, yet soon
filmmakers began to experiment with the rules. Poignantly, in attempting to
rid cinema of its customary genres, Dogme films began to develop stylistic
signatures. In abiding by the rules, directors consistently told stories about
damaged people which bore aesthetic similarities due to the prescribed
restrictions. Therefore, despite the original intentions of the brotherhood,
Dogme has come close to becoming a genre in its own right.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent does the ‘Vow of Chastity’ enhance or restrict filmmaking?

2 What are the ethical and moral implications of making a Dogme film?
 3 Do you think imposing aesthetic parameters is an intellectual exercise or an
innovative artistic approach?
4 Can you think of other Realist directors that undertake such extreme methods?

Case study: The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)

Written by Keith Marley

The Act of Killing (2012), directed by Joshua Oppenheimer, is a

documentary film full of complexities and contradictions. It encourages the
viewer to question notions of evidence and the veracity of personal
testimony. The film also raises questions about the very nature of
representation, highlighting the instability of truth and objectivity in
relation to documentary practice. The Act of Killing is a film about
criminality and the murderous abuse of power, however at no point do we
see the criminals go on trial and justice be duly served. Instead we see how
criminality can guarantee freedom, favour and luxury. It is a film that will
haunt the imagination for a long time to come and one that places ethics and
morality firmly on the agenda.
The Act of Killing is an account of atrocities that took place in 1965 in
Indonesia after the ruling Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were
overthrown in a military coup. In the period that followed, any person who
was suspected of affiliation or even sympathy with the PKI was tortured
and murdered. The film focuses on the life of Anwar Congo, a prominent
member of an Indonesian murder squad. The depiction of Congo raises
many ethical debates associated with the representation of subjects in
documentary film and brings to the fore the concept of realism in relation to
truth and authenticity within filmic portrayals of historical events.
The director, Oppenheimer, had originally set out to make a film that
would document the plight of the victims subjected to brutality at the hands
of Congo and the murder squads. However it soon became apparent that the
safety of his crew and participants could not be guaranteed due to the fear
of reprisals from a regime that continues to rule so ruthlessly over this
province of Indonesia. He therefore turned his attention to filming the
perpetrators, who to his surprise were more than happy to talk openly on
camera about past events. While Oppenheimer has labelled this
documentary as an investigation, it is far from simply a conventional piece
of investigative journalism. He invites the perpetrators to produce a film
that re-enacts the events that had taken place during the aftermath of the
coup. As such, The Act of Killing becomes a hybrid of both documentary
and fiction film. This hybrid form of documentary representation is most
closely related to what Bill Nichols calls the Performative mode of
documentary filmmaking (Nichols, 2001). He claims that Performative
documentary does not simply explain the historical world by imparting
factual information, rather, ‘Performative films give added emphasis to the
subjective qualities of experience and memory that depart from factual
recounting’ (p.131). Therefore in this mode, truth about Congo is not
necessarily revealed through a set of realist techniques, such as unscripted
interviews or on-location observation of him, rather it is revealed through
the performance of his own character in both the fictional and non-fictional,
if somewhat staged elements of the film. The scenes that the cast and crew
re-enact are not realist depictions of actual events, rather they serve as an
expression of the subjective memories of Congo.
In the Performative mode of documentary filmmaking, the certainties
associated with truth and reality are brought into question, as knowledge
becomes, ‘less about history than memory, less about history from above –
what happened when and why – and more about history from below – what
one person might experience and what it might feel like to undergo that
experience’ (Nichols, 2001, p.134). Stella Bruzzi supports the view that the
Performative mode problematises the certainties of knowledge and those
films in this mode highlight the ‘impossibilities of authentic documentary
representation [and] herald a different notion of documentary truth that
acknowledges the construction and artificiality of even the non-fiction film’
(2006, p.186).
The fictional scenes that Oppenheimer captures can best be described as
bizarre and disturbing. In shooting the re-enactment scenes, Congo and his
accomplices make no attempt to use techniques associated with realism in
film (such as handheld cameras, location filming and naturalistic lighting),
rather their aesthetics are more closely associated with the surreal rather
than the real. For example, the fiction film’s concluding sequence sees
Congo portrayed as a God-like figure stood in front of a beautiful waterfall
with his arms reaching to the sky. He is surrounded by a troupe of garishly
dressed female dancers, and is joined by the grotesque sight of Herman, one
of his fellow premen (gangsters), squeezed into an ill-fitting bright blue
dress, with his face heavily made up. The camera pans to two men who
remove a wire noose from around their necks and they present Anwar with
a medal. One of them speaks to Anwar thanking him for executing them
and allowing them into heaven. It is an undeniably strange sequence.
However, Oppenheimer’s decision to include this scene in The Act of
Killing allows the documentary to serve its ultimate purpose: Congo is now
able to see that he is not a hero after all, rather he is simply an evil
murderer. Previously in the film, he had revelled in casting himself as hero,
even likening himself and his accomplices to the anti-heroes of Hollywood
Gangster films, however in Congo’s subsequent viewing of the footage, he
realises that his own personal reality has been revealed through the lens of
Oppenheimer’s camera.
Throughout the film, the aesthetic approach adopted by the documentary
crew encourages the viewer to question what is real and what is staged.
While the film uses many techniques associated with a ‘run and gun’ style
of documentary filmmaking (such as handheld camera, whip pans, crash
zooms, pull focus and a primarily diegetic soundtrack), it contrasts this
approach with the highly stylized sections of the re-enactment scenes. At
times it becomes difficult to differentiate between the diegesis of the
documentary and the story world of historical re-enactment. For example,
in the scene where Anwar’s film crew re-enact the massacre of Kampung
Kolam, the techniques used create an incredibly visceral portrayal of what
must have occurred in the massacre of 1965. The use of a telephoto lens
flattens the perspective between the flames in front of the camera and the
grimaces on the faces of those being tortured. The viewer sees the fear and
pain through the flames which alongside the use of rapid montage editing
creates a scene panic and mayhem. The sound of screams of the victims
slowly gives way to an eerie soundtrack of heavy breathing and a high-
pitched drone sound. It remains uncertain if the images the viewer sees are
from Oppenheimer’s observational camera or from the viewpoint of
Anwar’s crew recreating the massacre. This scene functions as an example
of how techniques associated with fiction filmmaking have the ability to
capture reality with more accuracy and immediacy than traditional
techniques associated with documentary filmmaking, such as the recounting
of personal testimony via interview to camera.
The narrative arc of the film ends where it first started, with Congo
revisiting the site where he had carried out his numerous murders. Early in
the film we see Congo happily singing and dancing on the site where he had
tortured and murdered his victims. However, in the final scene he is no
longer dancing and singing; now he is retching uncontrollably. The sight
and sound of him being physically sick is extremely uncomfortable
viewing. In refusing to allow the camera to look away, Oppenheimer
encourages the audience to share in Congo’s repulsion of his past.
Even if this documentary never goes on to be used as evidence in a trial
for these war criminals, at least it may already have served an important
purpose: the haunting of the mind of one of its perpetrators. Congo has been
sentenced to life in a place from which he can never escape: his
imagination. In doing so, Oppenheimer and his crew have unwittingly
immortalised the rhetorical power of documentary film in Anwar Congo
himself.

Reflect and respond

1 Why do you believe so many filmmakers use the medium of documentary to engage
with political issues?
2 What are the ethical implications of making a documentary?
3 Can you name any other hybrid documentary/fiction films?
4 Do you find documentary or fiction film more powerful? Explain your decision.

Conclusion

Realism tends to be a preoccupation in European cinema. That is not to say

that American filmmakers do not venture into this area. However, Realist
filmmakers tend to consciously move away from American commercial
filmmaking that is typically reliant on spectacle and high production values.
Furthermore, Realist narratives tend to veer towards more politicized
content, which does not necessarily translate into success at the box office.
Ideas of Realism evolve and develop over time as the sociopolitical
climate changes. However, these narratives still tend to focus on the poor,
disenfranchised and victimized, with Realist films championing the
underdog while pointing the finger at the establishment and the bourgeoisie.
Nevertheless, as technology advances, the way in which these stories are
told similarly progresses. The industry consistently looks to improve our
viewing experience with heightened sound and imaging technology. Yet,
even with these available technologies, Realism is a stylistic choice because
it is created through artificial means. Nevertheless, these innovations impact
upon our understanding of Realism in film and ensure that theoretical
debates continue.

Bibliography
Bazin, A. (1967) What Is Cinema? Vol. 1. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Bazin, A. (1971) What Is Cinema? Vol. 2. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Benjamin, W. (1936) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in L. Braudy and
M. Cohen (eds) (2004) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 6th edn. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, pp.791–811.
Berthelius, M. and Narbonne, R. (1987) ‘A Conversation with Lars von Trier’, in J. Lumholdt (ed.)
Lars von Trier Interviews. (2003) Jackson, MS: University of Mississippi Press, pp.47–58.
Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2003) Film History: An Introduction. Boston, MA: McGraw-Hill.
Braudy, L. and Cohen, M. (2004) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Oxford and
New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
Bruzzi, S. (2006) New Documentary, 2nd edn. Oxford: Routledge.
Ellis, J. and McLane, B. (2006) A New History of Documentary Film. New York, NY: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
Fowler, C. (ed) (2002) The European Cinema Reader. London & New York, NY: Routledge.
Macnab, G. (1998) ‘The Natural’, Sight and Sound, vol. 8, no.3 March, pp.14–16.
Mast, G. and Cohen, M. (eds) (1971) Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Nichols, B. (2001) Introduction to Documentary. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Prince, S. (1996) ‘True Lies: Perceptual Realism, Digital Images and Film Theory’, Film Quarterly,
vol. 49, no. 3, pp.27–37.
Rotha, P. (1999) ‘The British Film (1930): From (The Film till Now)’, in D. Petrie and R. Kruger
(eds) A Paul Rotha Reader. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
Truffaut, F. (1954) ‘Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français’, in J. Hollows, P. Hutchings and M.
Jancovich (eds) (2000) The Film Studies Reader. London: Arnold.
 CHAPTER 8

POSTMODERNISM
Postmodernism
1. The state, condition, or period subsequent to that which is
modern; spec. in architecture, the arts, literature,
politics, etc., any of various styles, concepts, or points
of view involving a conscious departure from modernism, esp.
when characterized by a rejection of ideology and theory in
favour of a plurality of values and techniques.

The above is a dictionary definition of Postmodernism, yet it is important to

remember that Postmodernism is almost impossible to define clearly.
Postmodernism is not a unified movement but a site for debate. However, in
popular or media terms, its use is often vague and it can stand as an
umbrella term encompassing creative production in the arts. It should not be
thought of as a distinct period of time but as an aesthetic movement that
rejects Modernist ideology. In order to understand Postmodernism it is
necessary to have some understanding of the key traits of Modernism.

Modernism

Peter Barry (1985) explains that Modernism was concerned with

challenging and disregarding the ‘fundamental elements’ that customarily
appeared in established artistic forms (pp.81–2). See table below.

Discipline Rejected Embraced

Music Melody Impressionism (debussy)
Harmony Atonality (stravinsky)
Minimalism (satie)
Art Perspective realist representation Cubism (Picasso)
Surrealism (dali)
 Dadaism (duchamp)
Futurism (Marinetti)
Architecture Forms Form
Pitched roofs Plain geometrical shapes
Domes
Columns
Materials Materials
• Wood • Plate glass
• Stone • Concrete
• Brick • Aluminum
Literature Traditional realism Stream of consciousness
Chronological plots Non-linear plots
Continuous narratives Fragmented forms
Omniscient narrators Multiple narrators
Closed endings Open endings

Modernism signalled a shift away from classical traditions. It stripped away

any embellishments and unnecessary details in favour of new ways of
seeing the world. It came about in the late 1800s as a move away from rural
Romanticism as a source of inspiration, towards a grittier, urbanized
mental-ity. Modernism can also be thought of as a reaction to the Russian
Revolution (1905) and World War I (1914–18).

Reflect and respond

1 Why do artists often reject traditional creative practices?

2 Account for the Modernists’ preoccupation with urbanization.
3 Why do you think the Russian Revolution and World War I were important in the
emergence of Modernism?
4 Looking at the table above, how influential was Modernism as a movement?

Postmodernism

It is important to recognize that the beginning of Postmodernism did not

signal the end of Modernism. Rather, Postmodernism should be
acknowledged as a sensibility that emerged out of, and continues to
develop, Modernist values. Although the two do not occupy distinct
periods, the term Postmodernism first came into use in the 1980s (Barry,
1985, p.81). Yet Postmodernism as a term has a complicated history. As has
been established, it has shifting, flexible and change-able meanings and its
origins are unclear. Ihab Hassan believes it first appeared in or around
September 1939 (1985, p.122), whereas for Tim Woods the term has been
in use since the 60s (1999, p.10). The problematic nature of definition
epitomizes the Postmodernist debate and its aesthetic concerns.
Postmodernism as a theory encompasses many different disciplines
including architecture, art, literature, politics, philosophy and sociology, etc.
Due to its interdisciplinary nature, you may come across the terms
‘Modernisms’ and ‘Postmodernisms’ and, although we are specifically
dealing with film, the plurality here illustrates the diverse breadth of such
schools of thought. Furthermore, in order to understand Postmodernism it is
necessary to recognize that the terms Postmodernism, Postmodernity and
Postmodern are often used interchangeably to define a period (post-1980), a
social condition (capitalism) and an ideological movement (aesthetic style).
The quotes below illustrate this point.

Simon Malpas states:

Postmodernity marks the transformation that has taken place in society

during the last few decades with the rise of new forms of capitalism, the
development of communications technology such as the internet, the
collapse of the Soviet Union ... and the emergence of voices from
different cultures to disrupt the traditional white male. (2005, p.3)

Fredric Jameson (see below) notes that the Postmodern:

is not just another word for the description of a particular style. It is also
... a periodising concept whose function is to correlate the emergence of
new formal features in culture with the emergence of a new type of social
life and a new economic order. (quoted in Malpas, 2005, p.31)

Therefore when writing about Postmodernism it is important that you

select the correct term and use it appropriately.
Key traits

There are many rich and diverse facets that are recognized as Postmodern.
Listed below in the table are selected traits associated with the movement.

Ideas

• Distinction between high and low culture challenged

• Rejection of Grand Narratives (Lyotard)
• Meaning of signs no longer stable
• Originality questioned (Baudrillard)
• Reality replaced by simulation (Baudrillard)
• Self-reflectivity (aware of own artificiality)
Structure

• Intertextuality and bricolage (art recycles ideas giving them new

purpose)
• Eclecticism
• Hybridity (generic conventions no longer fixed)
• Non-linear/fragmented narratives rather than traditional formats
Aesthetic style

• Pastiche (old styles reworked)

• Parody (tongue-in-cheek humour)
• Irony (playful challenge to seriousness of Modernism)
• Camp and kitsch (celebration of naffness)
Characterization

• Multiple and fractured identities

• Traditional notions of good and bad blurred

Although this list of traits may appear extensive, many of the points
featured follow a similar line of thought. There is an air of conscious
playfulness interwoven into Postmodern texts; it can be thought of as the art
of the ‘nod and the wink’. For example, if watching a film you continue to
notice references to other films, books, comics, etc., then it is highly likely
you are watching a Postmodern film. The references you identify illustrate
your level of cultural competency. Quentin Tarantino is famous for
borrowing from other films and cultures which is evident in Kill Bill Vol. 1
and Kill Bill Vol. 2 (2003–4). This practice of borrowing, known as
intertextuality, was formalized by the theorist Fredric Jameson.

Fredric Jameson
Fredric Jameson is an American Marxist theorist who writes about the Postmodern.
His seminal articles, ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ (1983) in Jameson
(1998) and ‘Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ (1991), attempt
to analyse the role of cinema within these debates. Both articles cover similar ideas,
but from slightly different perspectives.

‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ (1983)

In ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, Jameson begins with the

acknowledgement that the concept of Postmodernism is not widely understood or
accepted because the works it covers are unfamiliar to many. His argument is that
when Victorian and post-Victorian forms gave way to Modernism, this earlier
generation thought that the works of Le Corbusier, Frank Lloyd Wright, James Joyce,
Marcel Proust, etc. were shocking and scandalous. Yet by the 1960s these were
considered to epitomize Modernism and were accepted as part of the establishment.
This embracing of the ‘new’ (Modernism) then acted as a stimulus for the younger
generation of the 1960s, who wanted to move the boundaries by challenging traditions
once more. This reaction against Modernism can be seen in the Postmodernist works
of Andy Warhol (Pop Art). Similarly, the music of John Cage and composers like Philip
Glass, along with punk and new wave rock (Talking Heads), the literature of Thomas
Pynchon and the films of Jean-Luc Godard are all considered to be Postmodern (p.1).
For Jameson, this disregard for the past provides a plausible explanation for the
emergence of Postmodernism and makes two things clear:

1 ‘Most of the postmodernisms mentioned [...] emerge as specific reactions against

established forms of high modernism’ (p.1).
2 There is a loss between the key boundaries of high culture and mass culture as
many of the newer Postmodernisms are found in advertising, Grade-B Hollywood
film, airport paperback genres (p.2).

A further significant feature of Postmodernist practice is pastiche. Modernism was

predicated on the personal style of, for example, a writer or a film director. However,
Jameson believes that we are now ‘in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer
possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles’ (p.7). He offers an explanation through
examples of what he calls the ‘nostalgia film’ or la mode retro which fall into three
categories:

1 Historical films, set in the past and about the past: American Graffiti (George
Lucas, 1973), Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993) and 12 Years a Slave
(Steve McQueen, 2013).
2 Films that ‘reinvent’ the past: Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981),
Titanic (James Cameron, 1997), Enigma (Michael Apted, 2001) and Suffragette
(Sarah Gavron, 2015).
3 Films that are set in the present but that evoke the past: Sleepless in Seattle (Nora
Ephron, 1993), Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005) and V for Vendetta (James McTeigue,
2005).

These examples indicate that filmmaking looks to the past for inspiration, meaning that
‘stylistic innovation is no longer possible’. Instead old genres are reinvigorated and
hybridity becomes rife.

‘Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’ (1984)

As the title suggests, Jameson connects changes in culture with changes in economic
structures (late capitalism). Jameson is concerned with keeping the Marxist heritage
alive. Accordingly, in his Marxist account of society, the cultural superstructures of
Postmodernism are connected to the economic base of society. Put another way, as
economics change in the West so the culture which surrounds it is altered.
Consumption is no longer about purchasing useful products but is instead
concerned with lifestyle choices and buying identities. This leads to a ‘new
depthlessness’ (Natoli and Hutcheon, 1993, p.317). To illustrate this ‘depthlessness’,
Jameson compares a painting by Vincent Van Gogh, A Pair of Boots (1887), with the
work by Andy Warhol, Diamond Dust Shoes (1980). In Van Gogh’s painting the boots
are those of a peasant and are covered in dust; the image is contex-tualized. However,
in the work by Andy Warhol, Diamond Dust Shoes, the image depicts many women’s
shoes floating in space; they appear to have no social context. For Jameson, Warhol’s
painting ‘does not speak to us at all ... [It has] a kind of superficiality ... the supreme
formal feature of all the Postmodernisms’ (Natoli and Hutcheon, 1993, p.317). Here
Jameson is highlighting the fact that contextlessness is a key trait of Postmodernism.
Similarly the focus on commodities, such as the shoes, endlessly reproduced in the
Warhol image, becomes another indicator of Postmodern consumer culture.
Jameson examines a variety of artists to demonstrate the diversity of
Postmodernism and to further show that it is too chaotic and diverse a category to be a
theory. To make his ideas plain, he sets out his discussions on what constitutes a
Postmodern film with a focus on how he believes Postmodern culture has
‘depthlessness’ and a preference for the superficial, ‘textual play’ and ‘multiple
surfaces (what is often called intertextuality)’ (p.318).
He sees Postmodernist works of art as ‘a virtual grab bag of disjointed subsystems
and random material ... whose reading proceeds by differentiation rather than
unification’ (p.325). This requires a new way of looking and understanding. The
example he cites is from the film The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976).
Here Thomas Jerome Newton (David Bowie) watches ‘fifty-seven television screens
simultaneously’ in order to understand the new and alien world around him (p.326).
Rather than viewing a single cohesive work of art, he chooses to consciously
deconstruct the many images to gain new meaning. At the heart of Jameson’s
argument is the contention that originality is no longer a possibility. In a way similar to
that of Bowie’s character, the Postmodern viewer must make sense of texts that
borrow from many disparate sources. Jameson believes that creativity is inspired,
developed and constructed from past traditions and/or contemporary sources.
Postmodernism epitomizes this as an aesthetic style because its art is comprised from
borrowing and reinventing the past and fusing it with new forms.
 Reflect and respond

1 Can you identify directors and/or films that reference other cultural texts?
2 Do you believe the distinctions between high and low culture have become blurred?
3 Is original filmmaking possible?
4 Are all modern films Postmodern?

Metanarratives and micronarratives

‘Metanarratives’, ‘grand narratives’ and ‘master narratives’ are terms

commonly found in the work of the French theorist Jean-François Lyotard.
These terms are often used interchangeably but some theorists attempt to
separate them, so be aware of this in order to avoid confusion.
Narratives are an intrinsic part of the world. They are written or spoken
accounts of a connected series of episodes, recorded in a particular order
and style appropriate to the practice of the discipline involved. The term
narrative is usually associated with fiction, in particular in the fields of
literature, theatre, film and television. However, narratives are equally
important to the field of science, politics, law, philosophy, religion and so
on (the way events are recorded). We understand the world through
narrative structures.

Metanarratives/grand narratives

Metanarratives are totalizing narratives (big stories) that are deemed to be

completely true, indisputable and unquestionable. Prior to the
Enlightenment the idea that God created the universe was considered
irrevocable until this was challenged by Charles Darwin. Metanarratives
inform the decision-making framework in society and they influence the
‘rules’ by which society functions on a daily basis (law and religion).
Metanarratives often inspired the work of Modernists whereas
Postmodernists are dubious of such concrete ideas. Rather than embracing
one definitive truth, Postmodernists prefer to draw upon a wide range of
eclectic sources.

Micronarratives (little narratives)/petits récits

Micronarratives cover clear but limited areas of life; that is, we have lots of
smaller roles that we perform from day to day. We can be parents,
employees, sportsmen, musicians and students; any one of a number of
roles. These roles each have courses of action within their limited contexts.
We are classified by our effectiveness in these. For example, we may be
good students but poor musicians. This fragmentation of life into many
parts avoids the need for metanarratives. This concentration on details and
experiences means that information is fragmented and partial.
In summary, metanarratives are concerned with big issues (religion, war,
science, etc.) whereas micronarratives concentrate on personal stories.

Jean-François Lyotard
The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge (1979)

Simplifying to the extreme, I define postmodern as incredulity toward metanarratives

(p.xxiv).
This work is considered to be one of the most important accounts of
Postmodernism. It aims to examine the ‘condition of knowledge in the most highly
developed societies’ (p.xxiii). Lyotard discusses what is understood by ‘knowledge’;
how it is generated, how it is communicated and how it is used by individuals,
businesses, governments and society in general. More importantly he focuses on how
knowledge is circulated via totalizing narratives (big stories). Lyotard believed that
modern society had lost faith in metanarratives because they tend to be all
encompassing (see above). Yet Lyotard cautioned that without such overarching,
grand narratives, the basis for ‘rule-making’ would be challenged.
Here Lyotard draws on Wittgenstein’s ‘little narratives’ (micronarratives/petits récits)
(p.60). Sensing a general disillusionment with overarching explanations, he believes
storytellers became preoccupied with smaller or single issues. For example,
micronarratives can include incidents of NIMBY-ist (not in my backyard) protest, when
locals object to road changes or a prison being built. Rather than being concerned with
global issues (metanarratives), such as famine, war and global warming, modern
society often becomes invested in issues that affect smaller communities
(micronarratives). This change is clear as traditionally the film industry favoured epic
storytelling, witnessed in The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915) and The Ten
Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956). But modern filmmaking is often more
concerned with intricate, inconsequential details, for example, the discussion about
McDonald’s burgers in the opening of Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994).
Postmodernism enables a focus on the mundane, which has typically been
disregarded in traditional storytelling as unimportant. It is the celebration of small
moments rather than those of collective concern that separates Postmodernism from
earlier narratives.
 Reflect and respond

1 To what extent are metanarratives dead or still existent?

2 Make a list of films that are based around grand narratives.
3 Do you agree with Lyotard’s claim that modern society is more concerned with
micronarratives? 4 Make a list of films that are entirely based on micronarratives.
5 Using the list you compiled for the previous question, can you identify any grand
narratives within the subtext of these films?

Jean Baudrillard’s work went in a very different direction from other

Postmodernists. Rather than looking to the past to interpret texts,
Baudrillard questioned our understanding of truth and originality in light of
media manipulation and modern technologies.

Jean Baudrillard
‘The Precession of Simulacra’ (1981)

The term ‘simulacrum’ comes from the Latin for similarity. To begin his writing on the
idea of simulacra, the French theorist Jean Baudrillard refers to Borges’s allegorical
fable of cartographers drawing a map of the empire. As they become more
preoccupied with details and scale, the map physically ‘ends up covering the territory
exactly’ (Baudrillard, 1994, p.1). As the empire crumbles into ruins, the map too begins
to fray until all that is left are small fragments that are still recognizable in the desert
(1994, p.1). Baudrillard explains that:

The territory no longer precedes the map, nor does it survive it. It is nevertheless the
map that precedes the territory – precession of simulacra’ […] it is the territory
whose shreds slowly rot across the extent of the map. It is the real, and not the map,
whose vestiges [traces] persist here and there in the deserts that are no longer
those of the Empire, but ours. The desert of the real itself. (1994, p.1)

So the map which is a copy of the territory actually becomes more real than the
physical landscape; as the empire crumbles people become reliant on the map. The
modern world is so filled with images, that the image which was once only a copy of a
corporeal (physical) object is reproduced so many times that the simulation (image)
gains more substance than the actual object it was attempting to copy.
It is important to understand the difference between ‘simulation’ and what Baudrillard
calls ‘simulacra/simulacrum’. To simulate is ‘to pretend’, ‘to make believe’. Simulations
are false images that manipulate viewers into believing they are experiencing reality.
For example, trainee pilots will practise in a flight simulator before being entrusted to
fly a real plane. Similarly, you may find a rollercoaster simulation at the fun-fair.
Although it projects a life-like experience, it is clear that it is not real. Simulations work
because there is an obvious connection between what is being simulated and real life.
Baudrillard claimed that in modern society, some simulations have gained another
level of artificiality; he refers to this as ‘simulacra’. This occurs when the simulation has
lost its association with reality. It is the representation of something which has never
existed. Baudrillard illustrates his point with the example of Disneyland. The theme
park presents a nostalgic re-creation of smalltown America (Main Street, USA).
However, this is NOT a re-creation. It is a simulacrum. This sentimental depiction is
false because it is a fictional construct. It is not a faithful representation of America’s
small towns, but is instead an idealized romanticized myth. Therefore a simulacrum
occurs when the simulation has no reference to reality, but instead gains a life of its
own. It becomes ‘hyperreal’.
You may recognize the phrase ‘desert of the real’ from the earlier quote, as it occurs
in the Science Fiction film The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, now known as Lana
and Lilly Wachowski, 1999). In the film people are kept in a comatose state so that
their bodies can be used as batteries. They are unaware of their condition because
they are fed images of a simulated world that they believe to be real. They do not
question this reality because they have only ever encountered the simulation. Only
when Neo (Keanu Reeves) becomes conscious of his environment is he able to free
himself. However, the world which he awakens to is an apocalyptic landscape where
barely anything grows. Baudrillard warns: ‘it is dangerous to unmask images, since
they dissimulate the fact that there is nothing behind them’ (1994, p.5). So, following
his enlightenment, it is clear that the image of the world that was projected to Neo was
in fact a simulacrum as it bore no reference to the desolate world to which he awakes.
Therefore, the thesis of Baudrillard’s argument is that Postmodern society has
become reliant on symbols, signs and models that simulate reality rather than reality
itself. The mass-media industry can help illustrate Baudrillard’s ideas. Due to print
media, televisions, computers, the internet and other digital technologies, we are
confronted with excessive visual material on a daily basis. Accordingly, reality and truth
become confused as it is near impossible to separate truth from fiction. This is evident
in the film The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998) and the Endemol programme Big
Brother (1997–2010). Both productions were influenced by the George Orwell novel
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949); Big Brother is the name of the surveillance apparatus
which acts as the eyes and ears of the ruling elite. The Truman Show is akin to the
Disneyland example explained earlier, as the film incorporates a fictitious depiction of a
utopian community. Big Brother is also a simulacrum. It was originally intended to be a
simulation of real life with people living together in an environment where every
moment of their lives would be recorded for viewing. However, over time the
housemates became more aware of the cameras and worked to promote their own
popularity. Furthermore, the footage that is aired has undergone severe editing to
afford viewers an imposed narrative. Therefore, returning to Baudrillard’s thesis, reality
has been simulated.

The Gulf War Did Not Take Place (1995)

Jean Baudrillard wrote this influential piece concerning the First Gulf War of 1990–1
in three instal-ments; with the first article, ‘The Gulf War Will Not Take Place’,
appearing in Libération on 4 January 1991. The second instalment, ‘The Gulf War: Is It
Really Taking Place?’, followed on 6 February and the final part entitled ‘The Gulf War
Did Not Take Place’ appeared on 18 February 1991.
The logic behind his writing points to the marked difference between modern-day
warfare and the battles of the past. The premise of his work developed out of his
preoccupation with ideas of simulation and simulacra (see earlier). Unlike in previous
wars where soldiers would engage in one-to-one combat in the trenches, Baudrillard
claimed that the Gulf War was fought from afar: important decisions were made in
 Pentagon boardrooms; information was gleaned from maps and satellite images; and
military strategists gave advice without ever having set foot in the Middle East.
Similarly, targets for air strikes were located from cockpits using computer screens and
infrared imaging. Baudrillard questions how we know that the war in the Gulf ever took
place when there was no physical contact with the enemy? The war was fought by the
coalition in a comparable manner to the way we play interactive video games; it was
simulated. The Iraqis, however, fought the war in a more traditional sense.
For Baudrillard the war was one-sided. His justification for such an argument was
that the coalition forces did not suffer great losses: ‘[a] simple calculation shows that,
of the 500,000 American soldiers involved during the seven months of operations in
the Gulf, three times as many would have died from road accidents alone had they
stayed in civilian life’ (1995, p.69).
Therefore he asks, how could the conflict be called a war? The Iraqi military and
Kuwaiti citizens, by contrast, experienced countless casualties and deaths; their loss
was so great that a number cannot be given. But, without concrete figures, how can
we confirm that there were any casualties? He states that ‘the non-will to know is part
of the non-war’ (1995, p.74).
Paul Patton, who translated the works into English and wrote the foreword to the
published essays, states that: ‘Baudrillard’s argument in The Gulf War Did Not Take
Place is not that nothing took place, but rather that what took place was not a war’
(1995, p.14). Baudrillard here turns his attention to the media and their role in the
invasion. He suggested that the sensationalist style of reporting was akin to the
spectacles witnessed in mainstream blockbusters. He believed that the television
images of the Gulf War were so heavily edited for effect that they bore no correlation to
the actual events, once more leading to the conclusion that the war was a simulation.
Baudrillard justifies this belief by pointing out that after the conflict Saddam Hussein
remained in power with his regime intact.

Reflect and respond

1 How far are Baudrillard’s ideas informed by new digital technologies?

2 Can you think of any examples of simulacra? Maybe consider your experience of
gaming.
3 Do you agree with Baudrillard’s claim that modern culture’s obsession with imitating
reality blurs our understanding of truth?
4 Do you think the way the media report conflicts and war is similar to the approach
taken by the film and gaming industry? Is this problematic?
5 In what ways is modern warfare less real?

As if Postmodernism is not complicated enough, there are certain critics

who believe that it is not a new concept. Jürgen Habermas famously claims
that it is a continuation of Modernism.

Jürgen Habermas
 ‘Modernity versus Postmodemity’ (1981)

The German sociologist and philosopher Jürgen Habermas is most famous for his
critique of Postmodernism. Rather than following the cultural trend of embracing all
things Postmodern, Habermas argued in favour of Modernity. In his widely recognized
essay ‘Modernity versus Postmodernity’, also known as ‘Modernity: An Unfinished
Project’, Habermas asserts that the ‘relation between “modern” and “classical” has lost
a fixed historical reference’ (p.93). The term ‘modern’ was first coined by Christians in
the late fifth century to distinguish their ways from those of the pagan Romans. More
notably, it refers to a defining period associated with the Enlightenment and scientific
progress. It has since been used throughout history to distinguish ‘new’ practices from
traditional forms (p.92).
As has been established in this chapter, Postmodernism is often defined by its
conscious break from the ideas of the Enlightenment , but for Habermas this break is
endemic of Modernism. He contends that the term ‘Postmodernity’ suggests a failure
in ‘Modernity’ and claims that ‘Modernity’ still has credence as a way of understanding
culture. Furthermore, he suggests that we should look at the failings of those who
attempted to overthrow Modernity, meaning avant-garde and surrealist practitioners.
At this point, Habermas’s argument becomes unclear because he does not openly
discuss Postmodernists and their shortcomings but instead uses the term
conservatives (young, old and neo) and refers to their ‘terroristic’ approach (p.101). His
central premise is that Postmodernism purports to be anti-elitist yet those attempting to
break with previous forms of artistic production are often pretentious in their cultural
borrowing. Thus he believes that art has been removed from the everyman and
everyday life. It has to a certain extent become institutionalized and discussed by
critics and academics rather than the general public.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you believe that Modernism as a movement is over?

2 Is Postmodernism an anti-elitist movement?
3 Is Postmodernism only of use to academics and critics? Does it have any value to the
general public?

Case study: Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)

The film Moulin Rouge! is often cited as a classic example of

Postmodernist filmmaking. Baz Luhrmann opens the film with a CGI
reproduction of Paris at the turn of the century in which he simulates an
imaginary camera zooming through the streets of Montmartre. It is
important to remember that this is not the real Bohemian district but a
simulacrum as discussed in the works of Jean Baudrillard. Due to the overt
cinematography and computer enhanced imagery (archive photography, 3D
models, matt painting) captured though a simulated ariel shot and the
transition from black and white footage to colour, it is made transparent that
the film is not attempting to recreate a historically accurate rendition of
Paris.
The film is a sumptuous exercise in artistic appropriation as the Parisian
narrative is littered with references to both high and low cultural forms. The
Australian director casts his cultural net far and wide with references as
diverse as Indian Bollywood filmmaking and Greek mythology. The fact
that the text is consciously camp and kitsch is evident in the homoerotic
rendition of Madonna’s ‘Like a Virgin’, with Harry Zidler (Jim Broadbent)
and the Duke (Richard Roxburgh) paying homage to Hammer Horror while
cross-dressed. Moulin Rouge! is a playful text featuring ‘Carry On’ style
sexual innuendo. This mischievous attitude is also apparent in Luhrmann’s
approach to the musical as a genre. He parodies the generic conventions of
the musical yet pastiches the formulaic narrative of the backstage show.

Operatic bricolage

The term ‘bricolage’ is used to describe a work that is made from

combining existing materials (texts), independent of their original purpose,
to form a new text (repurposing). This relates to the Postmodernist notion
that there are no original ideas (Jameson). Moulin Rouge provides a rich
example of bricolage as the narrative draws from three famous operas:

1 La Bohème (Giacomo Puccini, 1897)

2 La Traviata (Guiseppe Verdi, 1853)
3 Orpheus and Eurydice (various renditions)

The most obvious references come from Puccini’s La Bohème, based on

Henry Murger’s novel, Scènes de la Bohème (1845). The narrative is set in
the Montmartre district of Paris at the turn of the century and follows the
lives of a group of poverty-stricken artists. The table below illustrates how
the characters in the film were inspired by Puccini’s Bohemians.

La Bohème Moulin Rouge!

Rudolpho – Poet Christian – Poet
Audrey – Poet
Marcello – Painter Toulouse-lautrec – Painter
Schaunard – Musician Satie – Composer
Colline – Philosopher The argentine – dancer
Mimi – seamstress with consumption Satine – Courtesan with consumption

Baz Luhrmann, and his writing partner Craig Pearce, skilfully introduce the
real-life characters of Toulouse-Lautrec (John Leguizamo) and Erik Satie
(Matthew Whittet). Both were famous residents of Montmartre associated
with the Moulin Rouge nightclub and Le Chat Noir Café respectively.
Therefore the script plays with notions of fiction and fact, blurring the
boundaries between the two, an example of Jameson’s category of films
that ‘reinvent the past’. The narrative of La Bohème revolves around the
poet Rudolpho, who falls in love with the seamstress Mimi, who
dramatically dies of consumption at the end of the final act. This trajectory
is mirrored in the characters of Christian (Ewan McGregor) and Satine
(Nicole Kidman), the main difference being that the heroine is a courtesan.
In casting Satine as a courtesan, Luhrmann takes inspiration from the
Verdi opera La Traviata (1853).

La Traviata Moulin Rouge!

Violetta – Courtesan Satine – Courtesan
Alfredo – lover Christian – lover
Germont – alfredo’s father Harry Zidler – Father figure

As shown above, Violetta, the lead character of this opera, is also a

courtesan and, like Satine, is hoping to leave her sordid affairs behind and
settle down with her lover. Violetta’s love interest is Alfredo. His father is
embarrassed by their relationship due to her reputation as a woman of the
night. So he convinces Violetta to pretend that she no longer loves Alfredo
in an attempt to protect his family name. A similar scene occurs in Moulin
Rouge! when Harry Zidler, the father figure, persuades Satine to profess
that she never loved Christian, a gesture undertaken in order to save his life.
Both narratives then depict the scorned lover following the courtesan back
to Paris and humili-ating her in public. Alfredo throws money at Violetta’s
feet declaring: ‘Now I can pay the debt I owe. Now I can clear my honour. I
call you here to witness. That I have paid my debt’ (Act 2, Sc. 2). The same
sentiment is uttered by Christian on stage just before the finale when he
states ‘This woman is yours now. I’ve paid my whore. I owe you nothing.’
La Traviata and the film both conclude with the lovers reuniting as the
female dies of consumption. This is a traditional ending for women of ill
repute; their bodies were consumed by men and thus it is poignant that they
should contract the tragic disease of consumption. Grace Kehler highlights
this play on words as ‘a problem designated by the multiple meanings of
“consumption,” which suggests her disease and profession’ (2005).
Ironically Moulin Rouge! is rightly considered Postmodern in its ethos, yet
it conforms to the Victorian moral code of punishing the promiscuous
female.
The third opera providing an overarching framework for the film is that
of Orpheus and Eurydice. This Greek myth has undergone a number of
operatic treatments, the most famous being Gluck’s Orfeo ed Euridice
(1762) and Offenbach’s Orphée aux Enfers (1858). Interestingly,
Offenbach’s version includes the ‘Infernal Galop’ from Act 2, Scene 2,
instantly recognizable and more commonly known as the ‘Can Can’. This
musical interlude is more famously known as the signature theme
associated with the real Moulin Rouge nightclub and its risqué performers.
The Greek myth informs the film, with Christian taking the role of the
Orphean hero.

Orpheus and Eurydice Moulin Rouge!

Orpheus – Hero Christian – Hero
Eurydice – doomed wife Satine – doomed love interest
Hades – God of the underworld Harry Zidler – King of the underworld

Orpheus, according to legend, had the unique ability of being able to

mesmerize those around him with his singing voice:

Orpheus with his lute made trees,

And the mountain tops that freeze,
Bow themselves when he did sing.
(Shakespeare, Henry VIII, Act 3, Sc. 1)

Christian may be a penniless poet but when he sings ‘My gift is my song’,
he is able to charm Satine. In the original tale, Orpheus’s wife Eurydice is
bitten by a snake and dies. Orpheus, beside himself with grief, travels to the
underworld to win her back. Here, he sings to the god of the underworld
Hades and is granted his wish to return home with his wife. However,
Hades makes one condition: Orpheus must not look at his wife until he is
safely above ground. Orpheus takes his wife’s hand and begins to lead her
out of danger. However, the temptation grows too much and he turns to
look at his beloved whereupon she vanishes and is lost to him forever. In
Luhrmann’s film, Christian attempts to rescue Satine from the sordid world
of Harry Zidler and the Duke. Similarly, as he takes Satine’s hand to escort
her from the stage, he turns to look at her face. At that point, with a sharp
intake of breath, Satine collapses and dies in his arms.
It is clear that these three operas inspired the structure for the film and in
borrowing and adapting these stories Luhrmann creates a universal tale of
love. Ironically, although Moulin Rouge! is regarded as a Postmodern text,
Luhrmann relies on love, which could be considered as both a grand
narrative yet also a personal micronarrative. This raises questions as to
whether the film should be classed as Postmodern. However, in spite of its
traditional theme, the film borrows from both high and low popular
cultures. Furthermore, the self-referential nature of the narrative and the
conscious aesthetics employed confirm its Postmodern credentials (CGI
digital landscapes, fusion of high and low art forms, references to earlier
texts).

Appropriating popular culture

Moulin Rouge! is knowingly self-referential because it plays with generic

conventions. The musical has long been regarded as a camp genre and has
accordingly been embraced as part of gay culture. Luhrmann relishes in this
and adorns every aspect of the production in glitz and glamour.
Additionally, he creates Christian’s poetic verse from popular songs
familiar to a contemporary audience. Playing with this association, the
popular songs chosen are typically selected from gay icons and pop artists
who are treasured by the gay community. Most obviously the music of
Freddie Mercury and Elton John feature in the the score, along with that of
other pop artists like Kylie Minogue, David Bowie, Dolly Parton and
Madonna.
It is not just the music that references popular culture; there are numerous
visual quotations in the film. For example, during the ‘Elephant Love Song’
melody, Christian leaps onto the elephant’s head singing ‘Love lifts us up
where we belong’ while recreating the famous ‘king of the world’ stance of
Leonardo DiCaprio in the film Titanic (James Cameron, 1997). In the ‘Your
Song’ sequence, as Christian and Satine dance across the Parisian sky, there
are allusions to Gene Kelly’s ‘Singin’ in the Rain’ while Georges Méliès’s
animated moon from the 1902 Le Voyage dans la Lune/A Trip to the Moon
is seen serenading the lovers.
The aesthetic style of the film is also recognizable to a contemporary
audience. The film replicates the frenetic camerawork associated with MTV
and music videos in general. Luhrmann employs high-speed editing
techniques along with aggressive whip pans. The camerawork and editing
choices imbue the film with a disorientating energy that matches the
drunken locale of the nightclub. The stylized approach reflects the
excessive lifestyle the characters lead. The simulated skyline, the consistent
cultural borrowings and mischievous play with genre, all contribute to the
film’s Postmodern credibility.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you consider Moulin Rouge! to be a traditional love story or a Postmodern text?

Justify your answer.
2 A number of reviewers found Luhrmann’s excessive style alienating. Why do you
think this was so and do you agree?
3 Moulin Rouge! blurs the boundaries between fact and fiction. Is this just a
Postmodern trait?
4 Can you name any other films that comprise of various cultural references?
5 Are Postmodern texts elitist? Can you only enjoy them fully if you are aware of the
original texts from which they borrow?

Conclusion

It is difficult to draw a formal conclusion to Postmodernism as it is an

ongoing practice. Furthermore, no apparent movements are emerging to
replace it. Steve Best and Douglas Kellner summarize our present
condition:

Our contemporary situation thus finds us between the modern and the
postmodern, the old and the new, tradition and the contemporary, the
global and the local, the universal and the particular, and any number of
 other competing matrixes. Such a complex situation produces feelings of
vertigo, anxiety, and panic, and contemporary theory, art, politics and
everyday life exhibit signs of all of these symptoms. To deal with these
tensions, we need to develop new syntheses of modern and postmodern
theory and politics to negotiate the novelties and intricacies of our current
era. (1998, p.298)

Bibliography
Barry, P. (1985) Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
Baudrillard, J. (1994) ‘The Precession of Simulacra’, in Simulacra and Simulation. Ann Arbor, MI:
University of Michigan Press, pp.1–42.
Baudrillard, J. (1995) The Gulf War Did Not Take Place. Sydney: Power Publications.
Best, S. and Kellner, D. (1998) ‘Postmodern Politics and the Battle for the Future’, New Political
Science, vol. 20, no. 3, pp.283–99.
Habermas, J. (1981) ‘Modernity versus Postmodernity’, in J. Natoli and L. Hutcheon (eds) (1993) A
Postmodern Reader. New York, NY: State University New York Press.
Hassan, I. (1985) ‘The Culture of Postmodernism’, Theory, Culture and Society, vol. 2, pp.119–32.
Jameson, F. (1991) ‘Postmodernism, or the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism’, in J. Natoli and L.
Hutcheon (eds) (1993) A Postmodern Reader. New York, NY: State University New York Press.
Jameson, F. (1998) ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’ in (1983) The Cultural Turn: Selected
Writings on the Postmodern, 1983–1998. London: Verso.
Kehler, G. (2005) ‘Still for Sale: Love Songs and Prostitutes from La Traviata to Moulin Rouge!’,
Mosaic , vol. 38, no. 2. Retrieved 18 June 2010. Available at
http://www.umanitoba.ca/publications/mosaic/issues/getissue.php?vol=38&no=2
Lyotard, J.-F. (1979) The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. Manchester: Manchester
University Press.
Malpas, S. (ed.) (2001) Postmodern Debates. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Malpas, S. (2005) The Postmodern. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Natoli, J. and Hutcheon, L. (1993) A Postmodern Reader. New York, NY: State University New York
Press.
Shakespeare, W. (1957) Henry VIII. London: Methuen.
Woods, T. (1999) Beginning Postmodernism. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
 CHAPTER 9

PSYCHOANALYSIS
Psychoanalysis
1. A therapeutic method, originated by Sigmund Freud, for
treating mental disorders by investigating the interaction
of conscious and uncon- scious elements in the patient’s
mind and bringing repressed fears and conflicts into the
conscious mind, using techniques such as dream inter-
pretation and free association. Also: a system of
psychological theory associated with this method.

Setting the scene

It is an interesting coincidence that in 1895 when the first films were being
shown to the public, Sigmund Freud and Josef Breuer published Studies in
Hysteria. This was the first Psychoanalytic text of Freud’s on the study of
the unconscious mind. As has been noted in other chapters, many theories
that are used in film analysis had their beginning in literary studies or in
political movements. Psychoanalytic Theory, on the other hand, emerged
from the efforts that science and medicine were making to understand why
people appeared to be ‘mad’.
Historically people with mental problems (hysteria) had been burnt,
exorcized, locked up or ridiculed. It was thought that they were, variously,
liars, deviants or lazy people who were not worthy of serious attention. In
the later part of the nineteenth century, research aiming to gain a better
understanding of mental illness began, with Professor Jean-Martin Charcot,
who was to become Freud’s tutor. Interest in studying the unconscious mind
had gained momentum and credibility from the 1900s, more so with the
general public than with the medical fraternity. Initial research into this field
was known as neuropathology, which soon evolved into the now recognized
Psychoanalysis.
 The main purpose of Psychoanalytical research is to gain an
understanding of the unconscious. Freud proposed that a person’s
awareness existed in layers within the psyche and that some thoughts lay
just below the surface. In the manner that an iceberg has only one-tenth of
its surface above sea level and nine-tenths submerged, only a small part of
the mind represents the conscious while the rest (the preconscious and
unconscious) is ‘submerged’.
Psychoanalytic Theory has been a major influence on various academic
disciplines other than psychology for example, literature, film, Marxism,
Feminism and philosophy. Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan
are the most widely recognized practitioners of Psychoanalysis; their
theories cover vast areas of the psyche (the mind) and for Film Studies they
remain among the most relevant.

Sigmund Freud
Born in Moravia in 1856, Freud is commonly referred to as the ‘Father of
Psychoanalysis’. After studying under Charcot in Paris, he set up a private practice in
Vienna. After the Nazis seized power in Austria he was forced to leave Vienna
because he was Jewish. In 1937 he moved to London, where he died in 1939.
Freud’s work covers vast areas which are impossible to explore in detail here.
Therefore, this chapter will concentrate on areas that are appropriate to the
understanding of film texts. His work has become so influential that a number of his
ideas have entered common parlance. For example, the following terms will probably
be familiar:

‘Anally retentive’ describes people who rigidly abide by rules and are excessively
organized and fussy, those who find it hard to metaphorically ‘let go’. It is
commonly used in a derogatory manner: ‘Oh you’re so anal!’
A ‘Freudian slip’ occurs when we inadvertently say the ‘wrong’ thing. This
unintentional error is then regarded as revealing a subconscious feeling.
‘Libido’ is the psychic drive or energy, especially that associated with sexual desire.
A ‘phallic symbol’ is an object that visually resembles an erect penis, for example,
skyscrapers and monuments. It is often applied in an ironic sense to objects that
symbolize power or male prowess (red sports car). This had become a joke even
in Freud’s own lifetime. As a constant cigar smoker, Freud once said, ‘Sometimes
a cigar is just a cigar’, suggesting the danger of seeing connections where there
are none.

Other terms of Freud’s in common use are: ‘repression’, ‘unconscious’, ‘ego’,

‘superego’ and ‘id’. These will be covered in greater detail in this chapter.
In his first, most widely recognized work The Interpretation of Dreams (1899), Freud
describes a means of gaining access to the unconsciousness through dreams. Freud
 believed that dreams and dreaming represented a form of hallucinatory wish fulfilment;
‘a dream is the (disguised) fulfilment of a (repressed) wish’ (Wollheim, 1995, p.61).
They were not nonsense as had been previously supposed and for Freud they were
full of meaning. He noted that the logic in dreams was different from that of conscious
thought and therefore needed interpreting. He states:

[T]here is a causal connection between the obscurity of the dream-content and the
state of repression (inadmissibility to consciousness) of certain dream thoughts, and
that the dream had to be obscure so as not to betray the proscribed dream-thoughts.
(Gay, 1995, p.164)

Freud claimed dreams were significant because they could reveal symptoms of mental
illness and also act as a vehicle for creativity. On one hand, he believed that there was
a link between dreaming and madness. On the other, dreams could also be seen as
part of the cure.
Psychoanalysis relies on getting the patient to talk freely about concerns that they
have repressed (hidden) over the years. Many of Freud’s patients supposedly suffered
from neurosis. He began treating what he called ‘hysteria’ with hypnosis. Later, he
forswore hypnosis in favour of ‘free association’, a means of investigating a person’s
unconscious by inviting them to give spontaneous replies to questions. This method
was famously dubbed ‘the talking cure’ by one patient (1895). The release of these
buried problems, from the unconscious mind into the conscious, enabled the patient to
respond to treatment.

This therapy is illustrated in the plot of Marnie (Hitchcock, 1964). Her

husband (Sean Connery) attempts to help Marnie (Tippi Hedren) unlock the
secrets of her past by encouraging her to talk them through. She vehemently
rejects his ‘psychobabble’, insisting that she is not traumatized, that there is
no problem. The narrative unfolds to reveal her as a liar, a thief and
sexually inhibited, unable to bear a man touching her. The plot resolves
when she finally ‘lets go’ and is prepared to talk about her problems. Her
psychological problems can be traced to incidents in her childhood that she
has repressed.
Although today the therapeutic value of the ‘talking cure’ is disputed, the
impact of Freud’s work on how we think of ourselves is incalculable. The
best example of this is the way we now link the unconscious and hysteria to
childhood events. Freud in particular focused on early relationships with
parents, the drives of desire and the interest children show for different
parts of the body (oral, anal and phallic). Indeed most of Freud’s work is
associated with sexual drives.

Reflect and respond

1 Nowadays we rarely hear the term hysteria. Why do you think this is?
 2 Discuss your experiences of Freudian slips.
3 In pairs, free associate from the following words, and discuss differences in your
responses.
hot chocolate
dentist
cinema
red
university
4 Come up with some of your own terms and repeat the exercise.

In order to make sense of the information that surfaced through talking and
free association, Freud looked to the workings of the mind. Taking a
scientific approach, he proposed that a person’s psyche can be understood
as three interconnected layers (id, superego and ego).
The id, superego and ego (unconscious, preconscious and conscious)

Id

The id (also known as the unconscious) is the largest part of the mind that
is beyond consciousness and has a strong influence upon our actions. It is
associated with inherited, instinctive impulses linked with, for example,
lust, sex and aggression. These range from straightforward desires for food,
drink, warmth and sex, to those motivations of a more complex nature
involving our memories. It is the irrational primitive part of the psyche; it
stores our fears, wishes and needs (animal instincts). It is sometimes
referred to as the ‘pleasure-principle’ as its objective is to seek pleasure and
avoid pain. ‘[I]t may be said of the id that it is totally non-moral’ (Gay,
1995, p.655).
In film the id is often associated with villains, who follow their desires
irrespective of the hurt they may cause. Dracula and The Joker are
examples of characters who are lawless, amoral and suffer no guilt or regret
but allow the id to rule.

Superego

The superego (also known as the preconscious) dominates the ego in the
form of a moral conscience able to impose guilt. It operates as an internal
censor applying control to what it deems are unacceptable desires. It
responds to rules set by society and those set by the father figure or
authority. ‘[I]t may be said […] of the super-ego that it can be super-moral’
(Gay, 1995, p.655).
 In film the superego is usually represented by a mentor, father figure or
role model. For example, Jiminy Cricket (voiced by Cliff Edwards) in
Pinocchio (n.a., 1940), Obi-Wan Kenobe and Yoda (voiced by Frank Oz) in
the Star Wars franchise.

Ego

The ego (also known as the conscious or ‘I’) is the thinking part of our
psyche, ‘a coherent organization of the mental processes’ (Gay, 1995,
p.630). It is connected with reason because it learns from experiences in
order to develop and become stronger. ‘It goes to sleep at night even though
it exercises censorship on our dreams’ (Gay, 1995, p.630). It looks for ways
capable of ‘transforming the id’s will into action’ (Gay, 1995, p.636). The
ego is responsible for understanding the real world and has mechanisms for
suppressing and forgetting. It acts as a mediator or referee in finding a
compromise between the id and the superego. ‘[I]t may be said […] of the
ego that it strives to be moral’ (Gay, 1995, p.655).
In film the ego is typically represented by the hero. Most heroes work to
overcome challenges in order to defeat a nemesis. They have to adapt to
and learn from the situations that they find themselves in. The ego must
suppress and control the id. Similarly, the hero battles and defeats the
villain.

Reflect and respond

1 Applying Freud’s notions of the id, ego and superego, explore these following
famous characters: Frodo Baggins, Frankenstein, Alice (in Wonderland),
Wolverine, Buddy (from Elf ) and Deadpool.
2 How do Freud’s theories of the mind apply to characters in complete mental
breakdown: for example, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, also Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt) and
Ed Norton’s character of the Narrator in Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999).
3 Can Freud’s ideas of the mind help in understanding character development? How
else might they be applied to film?

The id, superego and ego are interlinked. According to Freud, the mind can
be seen to be in a perma-nent state of struggle due to the conflicting nature
of the three layers of the psyche. This struggle, according to Freud, can be
linked to his ideas of repression.
Repression

This is the forgetting or ignoring of past events that were traumatic in some
way. These unpleasant memories are pushed out of the conscious into the
unconscious. This process of repressing is a non-conscious act; you cannot
actively choose to do this. Memories cannot be banished from the mind but
they can be displaced. He states that repression: ‘[C]annot arise until a
sharp cleavage has occurred between conscious and unconscious mental
activity – that the essence of repression lies simply in turning something
away, and keeping it at a distance, from the conscious’ (Gay, 1995, pp.569–
70).
As past traumas can be so damaging, the mind sometimes avoids
processing incidents. This is the mind’s way of coping and can thus be seen
as a defence mechanism. These defence mechanisms convert, redirect,
sublimate or allow selective memory to act as a form of protection. Freud
believed that when this happens, that which we repress can come back to
haunt us. So for Freud the unconscious is both the cause and effect of
repression.
The film The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999) epitomizes
Freud’s notion of repression. In the twist at the conclusion of the narrative,
it is revealed that the psychologist (Bruce Willis) who has been counselling
the child (Haley Joel Osment) is in fact a ghost. He has ironically repressed
the fact that he was shot by one of his own patients. Only once he has
recalled this information is he able to come to terms with his situation; a
fitting act of repression for a psychologist.
Another famous component of Freud’s Psychoanalytical work is the
Oedipus complex.

Oedipus and Electra complexes

The Oedipus complex is one of the most overused Freudian concepts. The
name is taken from the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex by Sophocles, in which
Oedipus unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. Freud used
this model to explain the child’s need for its parents and the change in the
child’s desires as it passes from infancy to adulthood where, along the way,
it develops sexuality. Freud was mainly concerned with the male child here.
He observed that as the child becomes older (three–six years) it recognizes
that it is not the sole focus of the mother’s attention, which is also bestowed
on the father. Because the father is rightfully allowed sexual contact with
the mother, the child supposedly hates the father for this. As part of this
(Oedipal) rivalry between boys and their fathers, the boys fantasize (worry)
that they will be castrated as punishment. Through this anxiety the boy
comes to identify with the father as an ideal and love the mother as an
object (no longer sexual).
For the female child, Freud suggests that the girl is similarly attracted to
the mother. The girl, on the other hand, does not suffer from castration
anxiety. At the point when she discovers that she lacks a penis, the girl
becomes increasingly antagonistic and resentful towards the mother. She
hypothetically believes that her mother has castrated her, resulting in what
Freud calls ‘penis envy’ (this notion is now controversial in Psychoanalytic
and Feminist Theories). The girl transfers her desires for the mother to the
father. These give way in later life to the desire for a man like her father.
It was Carl Jung, Freud’s student, who concentrated on female behaviour
and developed what he termed the ‘Electra complex’, originating from the
Greek myth in which Electra urges her brother Orestes to avenge the death
of their father Agamemnon, who was killed by her mother Clytem-nestra.
Unlike Freud, Jung did not see the attachment children have for their
parents as sexual, instead believing it to be spiritual. Freud not only
disagreed with Jung, but he disliked the term ‘Electra complex’, preferring
the phrase ‘female Oedipus’. Furthermore, Freud deemed that to be fully
socially developed all children must successfully go through this stage
(Oedipal/Electra phase).
There are a number of films in which the concept of the Oedipus
complex is incorporated into the narrative. In Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock,
1960), Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) kills his mother’s intended
husband because he sees him as a rival for his mother’s attention. He then
kills the mother who has mentally dominated him. Another example can be
seen in The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967), where Ben (Dustin Hoffman)
is seduced by a woman old enough to be his mother. She gives him the
attention he desires before he turns his attentions to the daughter Elaine
(Katharine Ross). In both these films the characters are shown not to have
fully progressed in a balanced manner through the Oedipal phase. More
recently, Only God Forgives (Nicolas Winding Refn, 2013) has been noted
for having Oedipal undertones.

Reflect and respond

1 Consider Freud’s ideas of repression. What kinds of narrative would lend themselves
to stories of repression?
2 How might repression result in mental-health problems?
3 Other than the examples cited, try to identify films that have Oedipal and Electra
connotations.
4 Discuss whether Freud’s ideas of repression and Oedipal/Electra relations are still
relevant today.

The Uncanny

Many readers and spectators enjoy being indirectly frightened by books,

paintings or films. Freud’s interest lay in the causes of this apparently
masochist tendency, which often manifested itself in the unconscious
through dreams. In his 1919 essay, ‘The Uncanny’ (Das Unheimliche/the
unho-mely/unfamiliar), Freud defined the Uncanny as, ‘that class of the
terrifying which leads back to something long known to us, once very
familiar’ (Sandner, 2004, p.76). The Uncanny occurs when everyday,
seemingly normal objects are made unfamiliar. He noted that the Uncanny,
in a way similar to dreams, provokes the mental anxiety in the spectator,
arousing a feeling or sensation that is frightening, strange and yet secretly
familiar.
Freud identifies three major elements that add to this odd feeling of
unease. They are as follows:

1 Déjà vu: This is a strange feeling of repetition. It is the illusion of

having experienced something that in reality they could not have
because it is happening for the very first time. This sensation of having
been there before, yet knowing this is not possible, represents a clash
between the familiar and the unfamiliar. This concept forms the
foundation of the film Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1994).
2 The Double: Twins provide an illustration of doubling. They may
appear identical because they look alike and this can create a sense of
 unease as we question whether we are seeing double. The device of
spooky twins is a Hollywood staple as seen in The Shining (Stanley
Kubrick, 1980). Doubling also occurs in the ghostly figure of the
Doppelgänger. This idea originated from German folklore and seeing
your Doppelgänger is supposed to be an omen of imminent death. The
notion is also explored in the classic narrative Dorian Gray (Oliver
Parker, 2009), based on Oscar Wilde’s novel (1891).
3 The Automaton: The viewer is left uncertain as to whether this
character is real/human. This is the premise for the film Blade Runner
(Ridley Scott, 1982), where replicants are created in the guise of human
beings. It is also seen in the film The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes,
1975 and Frank Oz, 2004), with women replaced by robots looking
exactly like them. A more recent film that continues to explore these
questions is Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014).

Any of these elements can intensify the Uncanny in a film. It is these

incidents of confusion, which force us to question ourselves and our mental
capacity, that cause us to feel ill at ease. Furthermore, the Uncanny is a
powerful device for filmmakers as it can disrupt viewers’ sense of reality
yet at the same time intrigue our sense of curiosity.

Surrealism and the Uncanny

In the 1920s and 30s the Surrealists were one of the first artistic movements
to understand the possibilities that blurring the boundaries between dream
and reality could hold for cinema. They were hugely influenced by Freud’s
ideas on the unconscious and the Uncanny. For André Breton, founder of
the Surrealist movement, the techniques of cinematography, in particular
dissolves, slow motion and the superimposition of images, were ideal ways
to express Freud’s ideas. Salvador Dalí and Luis Buñuel collaborated on
one of the earliest and best-known Surrealist films, Un Chien Andalou/An
Andalusian Dog (Luis Buñuel, 1928). Bunuel stated their aim: ‘No idea or
image that might lend itself to rational explanation of any kind would be
accepted. We had to open all doors to the irrational and keep only those
images that surprised us, without trying to explain why’ (Buñuel, 1983,
p.103).
 Unlike Freud, who attempted to understand the workings of the
unconscious, Buñuel and Dalí embraced its elusiveness. Cinematic
conventions encourage spectators to take spatial and temporal continuity for
granted. When unable to do this, the viewer becomes disoriented and, as
may happen in dreams, signs and signifiers become confused. This creates
uncertainty. When the spectators’ expectations are confounded, their ability
to logically predict or interpret the narrative is affected. They then need to
unravel the scenes for themselves.
Hitchcock explored the possibilities of the Surreal and the Uncanny in
films such as Vertigo (1958) and The Birds (1963). More recently directors
such as Peter Greenaway, David Lynch, David Cronenberg, Terry Gilliam
and the Coen brothers have found expression in experimentation with these
elements. For example, Lynch’s Blue Velvet (1986) renders the familiar
mid-American town exceedingly unfamiliar. The doubling in Mulholland
Drive (2001) is also illustrative of Freud’s Uncanny. Similarly, the disrupted
narratives and exploration of strange and irrational mental states
‘wrongfoot’ the audience. Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) and Crash (1996)
have a horrific dreamlike quality of irrational logic and concentrate on body
transformations, which invest familiar incidents and objects with new and
disturbing significance. Although all these directors utilize aspects of
cinematic Surrealism it can be seen that they have no uniform style except
that they all conform to the same agenda: to shock, confuse and disturb the
audience.

Reflect and respond

1 The Uncanny is typically associated with the Horror/Suspense genre. Identify films
that utilize these ideas from other genres.
2 What kind of aesthetics do dreams and the Uncanny necessitate?
3 Other than the directors and film examples cited above, list films that explore Freud’s
notion of the Uncanny.
4 To what extent is Surrealism a European preoccupation?

Despite Freud’s overwhelming influence, enthusiasm for his ideas has

declined in recent years. This is partly as a result of his mainly negative
views on women and in particular what is seen as Freud’s wilful misreading
of a case known as ‘Dora’. Here he insinuated that his client was hysterical
and would be cured if she accepted a certain suitor’s advances. He later
admitted that he had omitted any consideration of her bisexuality (Gay,
1995, pp.172–239).
Freud was both revolutionary and controversial in his lifetime. Although
derided by medical practitioners, his novel ideas prompted Psychoanalytic
momentum throughout Europe and America. At his most popular Freud was
the central figure among Psychoanalytic researchers. Another major
influence was Carl Jung.

Carl Jung
The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious (1959)

Carl Jung was a colleague of Freud and worked with him in investigating the
unconscious. Their collaboration ended when Jung pursued his own path, feeling that
there should be less emphasis on the libido and childhood sexuality. Jung believed
that many of the symptoms of neurosis (hysteria) emerged when emotions became
confused and irrational. Jung believed in a deeper level of unconsciousness. Like
Freud, he divided the psyche into three parts:

1 ego: the conscious mind

2 personal conscious: holds our memories, including any we have suppressed
3 collective unconscious: is comprised of our inherited knowledge.

The third part, the collective unconscious, was the most groundbreaking component.
According to Jung, it contains all the psychologically inherited knowledge that we
share as human beings.
This refers to natural instincts that have unknowingly been passed down through the
generations, knowledge that we are born with but are not directly conscious of. He
believed that these inherent patterns structure our imagination and shape our minds
(psyche). For example, most societies tell stories that have a hero; many countries
recognize the image of a circle to represent wholeness; the sky generally symbolizes
transcendence and so on. Our emotional experiences are influenced by this collective
unconscious. For instance, all people experience a sense of wonder-ment when
looking at the beauty of nature (sunset, solar eclipse, vast expanses of water, etc.).
Jung identified this reaction as an inherently instinctual and spiritual element within the
human psyche.
In order to investigate the collective unconscious, Jung carried out enquiries that,
similar to Freud’s, centred on dreams, myths and the soul. In this study, of his own and
patients’ dreams, he became aware that certain themes and symbols would reoccur.
He formed the opinion that, in the way that all humans have a common physical
appearance, there is a realm of unconscious collectively shared by all human beings:

While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at

one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through
having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have
never been in consciousness and therefore have never been individually acquired,
 but owe their existence exclusively to heredity […] the content of the collective
unconscious is made up essentially of archetypes. (1969, p.42)

To explain and develop his new idea of the collective unconscious, Jung called the
themes and symbols that occur in dreams and our imagination archetypes. Jung’s
psychological models are strongly influenced by the Eastern ideas of opposites. Thus,
for balance, the shadow archetype is opposite to the persona archetype.
Archetypes are universal associations to which everyone can relate (and not to be
confused with Vladimir Propp’s archetypal characters explained in Chapter 4,
‘Formalism’, p.74). In film, archetypes can be both characters and themes. For
example, we all have a mother and a father (character) and in life we encounter birth,
marriage and death (themes). Simply put, all human beings share common
associations related to human issues.
Jung explores the idea of archetypes from the point of six main figures: the persona,
shadow, wise old man, earth goddess, anima and animus.

The persona (literally means ‘mask’)

This is the image that we show to the world, which masks or hides our shadow
archetype (see below). It is the way we want to present ourselves to create a good
impression. In dreams we typically play the role of our persona. Similar to the ego, the
persona gathers knowledge from experiences. However, this can be a false image or a
façade, because we can use our persona to manipulate or mask our true nature and
pretend to be who we are not. The persona we present may not be real. We can often
deceive in an attempt to fit in. The persona can be adopted for the benefit of others or
self-advancement, to create a good or bad impression.

The shadow

The shadow is everything in us that is unconscious: repressed ideas, weaknesses and

desires (sex and primal instincts). If we lose our temper we may say ‘I don’t know what
came over me.’ This would be the ‘shadow’ side of our personality, reflecting our
uncontrollable impulses which we try to control and hide from others. In order to be
accepted in society we conform to social and cultural expectations, hiding our shadow
archetype behind the mask of our persona.
In the tale of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, these characters are two sides of the same
person, the outward representation (Dr Jekyll) and the repressed part (Mr Hyde). Mr
Hyde wants to do everything that Dr Jekyll should not. In films such as Black Swan
(Darren Aronofsky, 2010) these two characters are usually played by a single actor to
convey the fact that they represent the outer and inner parts of the same person.
Jung believed that the shadow archetype is the most dangerous as it does not
recognize boundaries. However, there is a positive side. The shadow exhibits tenacity,
the ability to finish arduous work. Jungian writers believe that the shadow archetype
can be responsible for creativity, energy and staying power. If the shadow element is
rejected, the overall personality loses its drive.

The wise old man

Similarly to Freud, Jung believed that the male child would use a father figure as a role
model. This model is symbolized by the ‘wise old man’, the archetype that possesses
profound knowledge. He is typically an older male figure, a teacher or guru who
 represents wisdom and insight. Encountering ‘wise old man’ archetypes often enables
people to overcome problems and lead a better life. In narratives these are frequently
mentors: wizards like Merlin, Gandalf and Dumbledore; alternatively martial arts
masters like Mr Miyagi (Pat Morita) and Mr Han (Jackie Chan) in The Karate Kid (John
G. Avildsen, 1984 and Harald Zwart, 2010, respectively).

The earth goddess/great mother

By contrast, the female child would view the mother figure as a role model, symbolized
by the earth goddess. Both nurturing and destructive, this archetype can give birth but
can equally well destroy her young. Cate Blanchett’s character of Galadriel in The Lord
of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001) embodies an excellent
example.

Anima and animus

For most people their role is determined by their physical gender. However, Jung felt
that we are all really bisexual in nature. When we begin our social lives as infants, we
are neither male nor female in the social sense. Yet under the influence of society we
are moulded into men and women. Women are expected to be more nurturing and less
aggressive; men are expected to be strong and to ignore their emotional sides. He felt
these expectations meant that we would develop only half of our potential. To achieve
a balanced psyche, both the anima and animus are needed:

anima is the unconscious feminine part in the male psyche

animus is the unconscious masculine part of a woman.

A person who strongly identifies with their gender role (a man who is aggressive and
never cries/a woman who is happy to remain in the domestic sphere and tend to her
family) has not actively engaged with their anima or animus. This is illustrated in the
traditional male and female roles found in classic American Westerns. However,
contemporary practitioners believe that everyone has both anima and animus present
within their psyche. The characters of Superman and Lois Lane provide good
examples here. Clark Kent is the more gentle, effeminate side of Supeman, whereas
Lois is quite masculine in her assertiveness and professional attitude. Interestingly, she
is attracted to Superman rather than Clark Kent because he mirrors her own masculine
attributes.

Jung did not believe that the number of existing archetypes was fixed. In his
many volumes he recognized many other characteristics and these have
been explored by countless critics. Joseph Campbell (see Chapter 4,
‘Formalism’, p.79) used Jung’s work and, more recently, William Indick
has applied Jung’s archetypes when teaching screenwriting. He recognized
that Jung’s model provides a useful approach to developing conflict within
a narrative. Consequently, Jung’s work is still relevant to the film industry.
 Reflect and respond

1 How can the collective unconscious be depicted on screen?

2 Give examples of Jungian archetypes in film (persona, shadow, wise old man, earth
goddess, anima/animus).
3 Looking at the examples you identified for question 2, are any of them foreign films?
Discuss the universality of Jung’s archetypes and whether they can be applied to
other cultures.

Carl Jung’s work in many ways has a similar trajectory to that of Freud.
Yet, as has been shown, there are large areas of divergence. Likewise,
Jacques Lacan was a student of Freud but, unlike Jung, most of his best-
known work emanated from a Freudian perspective.

Jacques Lacan
‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I’ (1949)

Jacques Lacan, the French psychologist, developed his ideas from Freud’s work but
moved away from earlier preoccupations with sexual motivations. However, in a well-
publicized turnabout, he returned to Freud’s theories from an entirely new perspective
and in 1964 formed his own school named L’Ecole Freudienne de Paris. His new
standpoint enlisted structural linguistics (utterance and grammatical rules) to examine
the sense of identity (subjectivity) in isolation from his patients’ sexual drives. His work
redefined subjectivity by placing the emphasis on the role of language in culture.
His interest in the unconscious led him to speculate about how we learn to
consciously perceive ourselves. According to Jean-Louis Baudry and Christian Metz,
Lacan’s essay, ‘The Mirror Stage’, is one of the most influential works on contemporary
film theory. It gave Film Studies an account of the origins of subjectivity and was used
by Metz in his exploration of the cinema as a ‘technique of the imaginary’ (see below).
Whereas Freud’s model of the psyche (mind) employs the terms id, ego and superego,
Lacan’s model of the psyche adopts the terms Real, Imaginary and Symbolic. The
Real, Imaginary and Symbolic are not separable but are interdependent systems; if
one is disconnected they all become disconnected. While both Freud and Lacan
examined the unconscious, it is important to note that their terms are not
interchangeable.

The imaginary

According to Lacan, before a child has a sense of who they are (a sense of self-
identity), they exist in what Lacan calls the imaginary. This stage begins before the
child learns to speak. During this preverbal stage the child begins to develop a sense
of separateness from the mother as well as from other people and objects. However,
the child’s understanding of this is incomplete.
 In the first stage of the imaginary the child has no distinction between itself and
‘Others’. Then between the ages of six to eighteen months (before it can walk or even
stand unassisted) it may see its image in a mirror. At this point the young child enters
into what Lacan calls the ‘mirror stage’. The child playfully tries to understand the
image in the mirror by testing the relationship of its movements against the reflected
image. The child typically leans forwards and backwards, grabs the mirror, pulls faces
and tries to lick or kiss the reflected image, showing its delight in the figure. The child
is learning that it is a representation of his/herself. The youngster gazes as if trying to
take a photograph of itself, ‘an instantaneous aspect of the image’ (Lacan, 1977, p.2).
This is the second stage according to Lacan.
Lacan explains this action as the formation of the ego, the first recognition of the
child’s own image. The child begins to see itself as a unified human being, as separate
from the rest of the world. However, this first illusion of wholeness and the sense of
‘that’s me’ is misrecognition. The child is in a state of helplessness, dependent on its
mother, wobbly and in need of support, despite believing that what it sees is a
complete, independent image. For Lacan this is an image of what might be; it is a
myth, it is anticipation. The image seen by the child is a fiction (a Gestalt, a mirage)
because it isolates the infant, concealing its lack of coordination and the fact that it
needs physical support to stand upright.
This self-idealization is misrecognition because the ‘imagined’ real is always
unattainable, a situation leading to frustration and aggression between the self and its
image. Accordingly, the image can become:

• a double: a rival and the object of attack

• an ideal: something which needs to be defended or attacked as unattainable
• an opponent: once again to be attacked (Lacan, 1977, p.3).

The symbolic

At the age of six to eighteen months the child begins to learn to speak and to socialize.
Socialization requires prohibitions (you mustn’t do that) and restraints (often physical).
Because language pre-exists the child, the child has to learn to abide by the rules. The
male child now enters the Oedipal phase (Freud), which for Lacan is located in the
language of the patriarchal figure (father) as the authoritative voice in the family. This
Lacan refers to as the ‘name of the father’ (1977, pp.50, 150–3). In obeying this law
the child represses desire and this repression brings about the unconscious. The child
is now part of the symbolic order and realizes that it has misrecognized its mother as
an object of desire and looks to find a female ‘other’ to fulfil the Oedipal path.

The real

This is the most intricate part of Lacan’s system and for that reason we are dealing
with it last. Lacan and his critics argue over whether the real order represents the
period before the imaginary or after the symbolic. Similarly, descriptions of the real
differ greatly depending on what you read. In an attempt to summarize the majority of
interpretations, the real is a state of existence that occurs during the first few months of
life (neo-natal). At this stage there is no conception of language or the outside world.
However, the infant does experience overriding sensations of need (food, comfort and
sleep). More poignantly, the real can be thought of as ‘nothing but need’. It is
impossible to put into words, as once words are encountered we move beyond the real
into the symbolic. Due to its elusiveness and indescribability, we experience a sense of
 anxiety and trauma because our levels of understanding fail to work. We cannot
comprehend the real without returning to a state that existed before language.
Consequently, this Lacanian stage is often found in academic writing on the Horror
genre and is also linked to Freud’s ideas of the Uncanny because it alludes to a
sensation of fear.

Reflect and respond

1 Films often use mirrors to explore psychological issues. Can you recall scenes that
illustrate this?
2 From the films you have identified, attempt to apply Lacan’s ideas of the mirror stage
(imaginary, symbolic and real).
3 Bearing in mind that the real order is impossible to describe, why has it influenced the
Horror genre?

Lacan’s psychological study of the mirror is useful to film scholars, with the
screen substituted for the physical mirror. This raises questions about how
the audience identifies (and misrecognizes) characters and situations on the
screen. This idea was explored in greater depth by Christian Metz.

Christian Metz
‘The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema’ (1975)

Christian Metz is recognized as the first theorist to work on the relationship between
film and spectator. In his seminal essay The Imaginary Signifier, Metz employed a
scientific method to define the function and meaning of cinema. He asked ‘what
contribution can […] psychoanalysis make to the knowledge of the cinematic signifier?’
(1982, p.42).
Drawing from Lacan’s work on the mirror stage, Metz formulates a connection
between the ideas outlined in the mirror stage and the way we view film. In the cinema
there is always an image on the screen but, unlike with the mirror, the reflection of the
spectator is not there. Metz states: ‘the activity of perception which it involves is real
[…] but the perceived is not really the object, it is […] its double, its replica in a new
kind of mirror’ (1982, p.45).
What the viewer sees and hears is not a fantasy (imagined), instead it is pre-
recorded. Therefore, the spectator cannot identify with himself, but can only identify
with the objects on the screen. The screen therefore ceases to be a mirror. Metz
states:

I know I am perceiving something imaginary (and that is why its absurdities […] do
not seriously disturb me) and I know that it is I who am perceiving it. […] I know that
[…] my sense organs are physically affected, that I am not phantasising, that the
fourth wall of the auditorium (the screen) is really different from the other three, that
there is a projector facing it [the screen]. […] I also know that it is I who am
 perceiving all this, that this perceived-imaginary material is deposited in me as if on
a second screen. (1982, pp.48–9)

For Metz, watching a film necessitates identification, because without identification

meaning cannot be understood. As Lacan suggested, identification takes place in the
imaginary order, which is governed by the symbolic. This is true also for cinema (a
system of signs that signifies an absent signified – see Chapter 5, ‘Structuralism and
Post-Structuralism’).
The most obvious idea is that the spectator identifies with a character, but not all
films have characters (documentaries, abstract art films, etc.). Therefore, Metz
concludes that the spectator also identifies with the cinematic apparatus itself (see
Figures 5.1 and 5.2, p.94), which illustrates the relationship between the actor,
camera, projector, screen and viewer and its re-creation of the act of looking. It is at
this point that Metz’s analysis utilizes aspects from semiology, explained in more depth
in Chapter 5, ‘Structuralism and Post-Structuralism’. However, it is interesting to note
that Metz drew from Lacan’s idea of the child’s misrecognition of self, and used it to
explore the notion of identification in cinema and the false belief in its reality.

Reflect and respond

1 How can thinking of the cinematic screen as a mirror inform our reading of film?
2 Do we always identify with characters on screen? Cite examples to justify your
answer.
3 Has the metaphor of the screen as a mirror been complicated by the emergence of
digital technology?

Case study: Oldboy (Chan-Wook Park, 2003)

Chan-Wook Park , often referred to as Park Chan-Wook, was born in Seoul

in 1963 and went to a Catholic university to study philosophy. As part of his
degree he watched countless films, which led him to write critical reviews
and essays. After university he worked as a translator of film scripts and
became an assistant director. He made his directorial debut with The Moon
Is the Sun’s Dream (1992), a box-office failure. His big break came in 2002
with Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, which established him as one of the main
directors in Korea. This was followed by Oldboy and Sympathy for Lady
Vengeance (2005), which completed what has become known as ‘The
Vengeance Trilogy’.
Oldboy tells the story of an ordinary man, called ‘Oh Dae-su’ (Min-sik
Choi), who disappears on his daughter’s birthday and is imprisoned for
fifteen years. While incarcerated he finds out that his wife has been
murdered and that he is the main suspect. Then, without explanation he is
released, given new clothes, money and a phone. A day after his release,
Lee Woo-jin (Ji-tae Yu) (a former schoolfriend), phones to reveal himself as
Dae-su’s kidnapper. He offers Dae-su a chance to play a game; to discover
Woo-jin’s motive for imprisoning him. He has five days; if he fails, the girl
that he has just met called Mi-do (Hye-jeong Kang) will be killed, if
successful, Woo-jin will kill himself. The film is a powerful tale about a
quest for vengeance and the aftermath once this aim has been achieved. The
narrative lacks a conclusive ending, leaving the viewer to choose between
multiple interpretations.
It is important to note that examining a non-Western film from the
standpoint of European Psychoanalytic Theory could be deemed
problematic. Different cultural backgrounds and societal structures could
lead to misinterpretation, with the analytical tools not necessarily applicable
to non-Western culture. However, Chan-Wook Park’s knowledge of
European philosophy and his strong interest in American and European
films have enabled him to engage techniques and narrative tropes that span
Western and Eastern cultures. Oldboy presents a wealth of elements that
lend themselves to Psychoanalytic interpretation. Accordingly, the ideas of
Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung and Jacques Lacan can furnish insights into the
narrative and motivation of the characters.
From the outset of the film the audience is misled and manipulated. The
main protagonist Dae-su says, ‘I want to tell you my story.’ This indication
of an autobiographical tale is confirmed when the audience sees Dae-su
imprisoned, recording what appear to be his memories which therefore
implies truthfulness. He hopes that this will lead him to discover who it is
that wishes to do him harm. However, sequences follow that suggest a
dreamlike state: gas is pumped into the room, injections are given and the
audience witnesses, from Dae-su’s point of view, a hazy image of a female
hypnotist. Hypnosis plays a major role within the narrative and is
instrumental in misleading the viewer.
Freud, Jung and Lacan encouraged patients to take part in what became
known as the ‘talking cure’, so that repressed fears may surface. Coupled
with hypnotism, this was thought to help people connect with their
unconscious. Hypnosis is recognized as a means to ‘free’ and ‘uncover’
buried pasts and is typically engaged as a force for good. However, due to
Dae-su’s state of confinement, we need to question the intentions of the
hypnotist. A major thread in this film hinges on which incidents are ‘real’
and which are drug-induced hallucinations. Furthermore, we question
whether these memories are induced by hypnosis, or whether hypnosis,
whose essential medical intent is curative, is being abused.
As spectators we witness what may be hallucinations or symbolic
representations from Dae-su’s unconscious as a result of hypnosis. Freud’s
Uncanny can be deployed as an explanatory method here. To depict these
mind-bending effects, Park turns to Surrealism. For example, Dae-su is
informed that he is to be released into a field. A shot of his cell is then
juxtaposed with a close-up of grass. As the camera pulls back we see a field
with a red suitcase in the centre. The suitcase begins to rock from side to
side and surprisingly Dae-su tumbles out. This action unnerves the viewer
in a manner reminiscent of the Surrealist tradition of filmmaking. It is then
revealed that the protagonist is actually on a rooftop covered in grass. A
man appears, clutching a dog, and prepares to jump off the building. Dae-su
prevents this suicide by holding onto the man’s tie as he is suspended over
the side. Without rational explanation, the next shot shows Dae-su in an
elevator.
While all the images described above are familiar, the fact that there is no
spatial or temporal continuity means that the audience cannot logically
interpret these Surreal scenes. Shortly after this encounter, Dae-su meets a
young woman called Mi-do who works in a sushi bar. Here there are
grotesque images of Dae-su gorging on a live octopus with flailing
tentacles; he tears into the crea-ture and ravenously chews it as Mi-do looks
on, unconcerned. The action is shocking and unsettling to a Western
audience, although this is accepted as a delicacy in South Korea.
Apparently the Korean audience were more offended by the overt nudity in
the film, a feature that is far more acceptable in the West. More importantly
the octopus sequence could be illustrative of Freud’s notion of the ‘id’, with
primordial instincts being unleashed.
A further instance of the Uncanny is evident when a single ant is
observed running up Dae-su’s arm. This soon becomes three, then a dozen,
until the camera shows his entire face teeming with ants, causing the
audience to recoil. This can be read as a direct reference to Buñuel and
Dalí’s Un Chien Andalou (1929). The only rational assumption is that this is
the hallucination of a troubled mind. However, later in the film and without
any context, Mi-do is shown travelling by train, late at night. A dark ‘line’
appears in close-up. As the camera draws back, it becomes clear that it is an
insect’s leg. Then, at the far end of the empty carriage, a human-size ant is
seen calmly ‘sitting’ upon a seat. The use of ants is disorientating and hard
to rationalize. Likewise, the examples of grass, suitcase and octopus avoid
logical interpretation. In a manner similar to dreams, these Surreal incidents
‘wrongfoot’ the observer so that a sense of disquiet (the Uncanny) prevails.
These fragmentary and irrational glimpses of the main protagonist make
it difficult to assess his character. Here Jung’s archetypes, in particular the
persona and the shadow, are pertinent to our understanding. Dae-su is
frequently shown as unresponsive to others; he gets drunk on his daughter’s
birthday and fails to give her a present; he steals a woman’s sunglasses and
laughs. Furthermore, Mi-do often pleads with him to follow a course of
action; this he ignores, when, for example, he forces himself upon her
sexually. It can be concluded that it is his shadow side that urges him to
follow these impulses.
More importantly, the narrative goes back to Dae-su’s time at high school
when he is friends with Woo-jin and his sister Soo-ah (Jin-seo Yun). Here,
Dae-su witnesses an incestuous act between Woo-jin and his sister. Dae-su
spreads stories about this, which magnify to the extent that Soo-ah
psychosomatically believes she is pregnant and, in a state of distress,
commits suicide. Dae-su is apathetic to this outcome, yet at the conclusion
of the film he recognizes what he has done and offers atonement. This could
be illustrative of his persona attempting to learn from these events in order
to assuage a sense of guilt.
The significance of the high-school trauma echoes throughout the film
and explanations may be found in Freud’s theory of the Oedipal phase.
Although in this film the Oedipal stages are perversely engineered by a
third party, they are nevertheless devastating. Both Dae-su and Mi-do have
been conditioned to respond to hypnotic suggestion (what follows is a plot
spoiler). It is this mind-changing dynamic that confuses and injures, causing
untold suffering as they unknowingly perform incestuous acts. Their
behaviour fulfils Woo-jin’s catastrophic act of vengeance. Undeniably, the
Oedipus complex sheds light on this outrageous aspect of the film.
Through post-hypnotic suggestion, Dae-su and Mi-do have been
programmed to form a close sexual relationship. Woo-jin’s vengeance is
accomplished when he persuades Dae-su to open a box that contains a
photo album of his daughter growing up. He is unimaginably shocked to
discover that Mi-do is his daughter, and that he has been having an
incestuous relationship with her. In Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, Oedipus
blinds himself when he realizes what he has done. Similarly, Dae-su, in a
state of total repulsion, cuts out his own tongue, symbolizing his pledge of
silence and plea to Lee Woo-jin not to reveal the dreadful truth to Mi-do. In
‘silencing’ himself, Dae-su shows recognition of the terrible wrong that he
did to Soo-ah and Woo-jin. Furthermore, the removal of the tongue
precludes any future use of the talking cure, denying Dae-su the possibility
of ever mention-ing what has happened.
In a final effort to control his ‘shadow’ personality, he asks the hypnotist
to help him forget his secret. She tells him to imagine himself back at Lee
Woo-jin’s apartment where he cut off his tongue. Dae-su sees a reflection of
himself in the window. The hypnotist urges him to acknowledge his
reflection as the monster within (shadow archetype) and to let it walk away.
He is encouraged to believe that with each step the monster takes, it will
age a year, to die when it reaches seventy years’ old. Initially the monster
refuses to move as Dae-su battles with this part of his memory. Gradually
he lets go and the shadow moves away. An awareness of Jungian archetypes
facilitates a fuller appreciation of what may have contributed to this scene.
The audience is led to believe that, in recognizing the ‘shadow side’ of his
personality, Dae-su enables his persona (his public face) to take control.
Therefore, hypnosis is presented as a positive way to help cure the
protagonist’s troubled mind. By confronting the two sides of his personality,
his demons can be exorcized.
As we may expect in a film of such complexity, the ending is ambiguous.
Once more there is little context for what follows. The epilogue is set in a
wintry, snow-covered landscape. The audience sees a grey-haired Dae-su
talking to the hypnotist in the snow. We do not have any sense of time
passing. His grey hair could be a result of traumatic experiences or old age.
Why the hypnotist is treating him in the snow is unclear and whether this
meeting actually took place is uncertain.
The whiteness of the snow could be suggestive of a new page, a fresh
start. Mi-do appears and says ‘Oh Dae-su, I love you.’ We know that she
has no knowledge of his true identity (father). His tears and smile (forced or
genuine?) may signify his hope for a sexual reunion or recognition of a
bond between them. Whether he remembers ‘the incestuous secret’ and
knows who Mi-do is is unclear. Whether the ending is positive or negative
remains open to the viewer’s interpretation. The end of the film is
confusing, as it is not obvious whether Dae-su’s character has been purged
of the monster within or whether the beast has overcome the protagonist’s
persona. The conclusion is deliberately ambiguous and has thus generated
much discussion.
The entire film is a game of vengeance. If you gain retribution, and that
has been your life’s motivation, what will happen to your life afterwards?
What is the price for fulfilling your desires? The film ends with ‘Thank you
for listening to my story.’ Knowledge of the analytic theories introduced by
Freud and Jung makes it easier to appreciate the twists and turns of this
thriller.

Reflect and respond

1 The ending of Oldboy can be interpreted in either a positive or negative light. Which
do you favour and why?
2 Do the Surrealist images help or hinder a Psychoanalytical reading of the film?
3 Are the incidents of the Uncanny discussed only disconcerting for a Western
audience?
4 How can we use Lacan’s ideas of the mirror to understand Dae-su?
5 How helpful are Jungian archetypes of the shadow and the persona in understanding
character motivation? Can you identify any of his other archetypes within the film?

Conclusion

Psychoanalytic interpretation is an ongoing science because our experiences

continue to influence the way we read cultural texts. In undertaking a
Psychoanalytical reading nothing is neutral; no feature or detail can be
ignored as irrelevant as it can give rise to a multitude of meanings.
However, we do need to guard against over-reading a film text (remember
Freud’s cigar).
It is important to note that a number of key aspects associated with
Psychoanalysis are not covered in this chapter. This is because they are
fundamental to the field of Feminism and so addressed in the next chapter
(Chapter 10, ‘Feminism’). For example, Freud’s work on scopophilia,
voyeurism and fetishism has been instrumental in underpinning Laura
Mulvey’s work.
 Psychoanalysis has undergone many shifts in focus and certain ideas
have been challenged. The work of Slavoj Žižek illustrates this point. Žižek
a Slovenian theorist, has questioned Lacan’s concept of the imaginary in
film theory (Žižek 1989), as has Joan Copjec (2000). The combining of
scientific thought with the arts continues to flourish and produce interesting
ideas. As William Indick notes in his introduction to Psychology for
Screenwriters: ‘A thorough understanding of the unconscious mind – the
birthplace of fantasy, dreams, and the imagination – is a fundamental point
of departure for creating psychologically resonant scripts and films’ (2004,
p.xi).

Bibliography
Braudy, J. (2004) ‘The Apparatus: Metaphysical Approaches to the Impression of Reality in
Cinema’, in L. Braudy and M. Cohen (eds) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 6th
edn. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Braudy, J. (2004) ‘Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus’, in L. Braudy and M.
Cohen (eds) Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 6th edn. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Buñuel, L. (1983) My Last Breath. London: Jonathan Cape.
Campbell, J. (1968) The Hero with a Thousand Faces. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Copjec, J. (2000) ‘The Orthopsychic Subject: Film Theory and the Reception of Lacan’, in R. Stam
and T. Miller (eds) Film and Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Freud, S. (1919) ‘Das Unheimliche (The Uncanny)’, in D. Sandner (ed.) (2004) Fantastic Literature:
A Critical Reader. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Freud, S. (1977) Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality. Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Freud, S. (1999a) The Interpretation of Dreams. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Freud, S. (1999b) Totem and Taboo. London: Routledge.
Freud, S. (2003) Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London: Penguin.
Gay, P. (ed.) (1995) The Freud Reader. London: Vintage.
Indick, W. (2004) Psychology for Screenwriters: Building Conflict in Your Script . Studio City, CA:
Michael Wiese Productions.
Jung, C. (1969) The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
(first published 1959).
Lacan, J. (1949) ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the Function of the I’, in J. Lacan (ed.) (1977)
Écrits: A Selection. London: Routledge.
Lacan, J. (1977) Écrits: A Selection. London: Routledge.
Metz, C. (1982) The Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema. Bloomington and
Indianapolis, IN: Indiana University Press (1975).
Sandner, D. (ed.) (2004) Fantastic Literature: A Critical Reader. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Stam, R. and Miller, T. (2000) Film and Theory: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell.
Wollheim, R. (1995) Sigmund Freud. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
Žižek S. (1989) The Sublime Object of Ideology. London: Verso.
 CHAPTER 10

FEMINISM
Feminism
1. Advocacy of the rights of women (based on the theory of
equality of the sexes).

Setting the scene

As far back as 1792, Mary Wollstonecraft (mother of Mary Shelley)

published A Vindication of the Rights of Women, which is generally
considered the first text on Feminism. During the nineteenth century,
women started to campaign for equal rights and react against the
suffocating Victorian image of the ‘proper role’ for women. Women were
expected to care for the family above all and to be satisfied with
domesticity and the patriarchal law. It was against this strongly patriarchal
(male-led) society that the first Feminist movements emerged, although the
term ‘Feminism’ was not coined until the 1890s. The development of the
Feminist movement is recognized as having four stages, often referred to as
‘waves’.

First Wave

The First Wave gained momentum around the 1900s. Writers such as Olive
Schreiner, Women and Labour (1911), and Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s
Own (1929), gave vivid portrayals of the unequal treatment of women.
They felt that women seeking education and alternatives to marriage and
motherhood were frowned upon. Therefore, Feminists campaigned for
equal property rights, rights to higher education, to careers and later,
women’s right to vote (Suffragettes). During World War I (1914–18),
women put their demands to one side to help with the war effort. In 1918,
women were finally given the vote, providing they were thirty years of age,
owned a property or held a degree. It was not until 1928 that women
secured the vote on the same terms as men, at the age of twenty-one years.
The freedom afforded women during World War II, in undertaking what
had been seen as male roles (factory work, farming the land, etc.), fuelled
women’s aspirations to remain in the public sphere. In 1949 Simone de
Beauvoir wrote The Second Sex, a political and theoretical work that laid
the foundations for subsequent Feminist research and incited women to
question their position in society. De Beauvoir’s book quickly became a
classic and helped to inspire the next wave of Feminists.

Second Wave

This Second Wave of Feminism was known as the Women’s Liberation

Movement and lasted from the 60s–80s, with the term ‘Women’s Lib’
passing into common usage, often with negative connotations. For example,
it was implied that Feminists burnt their bras and disliked men. Importantly,
these Feminists were informed by the political, social and cultural climate
of the time. They wanted to raise awareness of how the existing patriarchal
ideology excluded, silenced and oppressed women. Rather than ‘his-story’,
Feminists wanted ‘her-story’ to be recognized.
Feminists questioned the established order and encouraged radical
reform. Germaine Greer’s The Female Eunuch (1970) became an
international success. Greer’s main thesis was that ‘traditional’ society
repressed women. She urged for change, which she believed would come,
not from evolution but from revolution. Overall it was a period when
Feminists fought for equal opportunities in the workplace and an end to
sexual discrimination. It was at this point academics began researching
women’s literature and film.

Third Wave

The Third Wave Feminists, from the early 1990s to the 2000s, sought to
address what they saw as the failures of the Second Wave. These later
Feminists believed that the focus had been too concentrated on the upper-
middle-class white woman. They saw that film theory could be employed as
a radical act. As a result, there was a move to a more encompassing agenda
which drew on Queer Theory, Race and Ethnicity Studies, Postcolonial
Studies and so forth. These Feminists advocated a new definition of
subjectivity. They highlighted issues that continued to oppress and limit
women, such as the right to be able to access contraception and abortion.
However, the Third Wave is often criticized for lacking a single objective.

Fourth Wave

Post 9/11, a movement has emerged that is recognized as ‘New Feminism’,

Post-feminism or Fourth Wave Feminism. Starting in America the main
motivating issue for these Feminists was peace-making. It appeared to be ‘a
fusion of spirituality and social justice that is reminiscent of the American
civil rights movement and Ghandi’s call for nonviolent change’ (Peay,
2005) and was seen at popular conferences organized by women, spiritual
and religious leaders. Peay notes:

These gatherings share a commitment to a universal spirituality that

affirms women’s bonds across ethnic and religious boundaries. They’re
also exploring a new feminine paradigm of power that’s based on
tolerance, mutuality, and reverence for nature that have long been
identified with women – values they now see as crucial to curing the
global pathologies of poverty and war. (2005)

Meetings attracted thousands of participants and celebrity speakers. For

example, Jane Fonda spoke at the ‘Women and Power Conference’ in New
York, September 2009.

Post-feminsim

From these early roots, what is most usually called Post-feminism, or Neo-
feminism by some, has developed and there is no agreement as to what this
next stage in the development of feminism should be called. So throughout
this section, the term Post-feminism will be used. Similar to the earlier
forms of feminism, Post-feminism is a contested notion in the pantheon of
Feminist cultural and media studies due to the many different positions and
interpretations by academics in the field (Tasker and Negra, 2005). Neo-
feminism, also emerging in response to earlier feminisms, has gained less
traction in debates and is often referred to as ‘Lipstick feminism’ due to its
acceptance of women in traditional and stereotypical roles and eroding the
hard fought for freedoms of the 2nd wave feminists. Post-feminism’s focus
is on ‘difference’, diversity and anti-essentialism, where multiple identities
are promoted and binary categories are dismissed (Butler, 1990, p.9). It has
emerged as a response to what has been acknowledged as the Third Wave’s
complacency and the belief that not all the aims of Second Wave feminists
had been addressed.
Post-feminism places itself back in the public sphere and re-enters issues
that were of paramount interest to the earliest phases of the women’s
movement. Issues such as unequal pay, violence, sexual abuse and the
demands on body image are embraced by neoconservative and tradition
values, all of which receive media and political attention. In the
representation and development of this new feminism the role of the media
has been powerful. For example, reality shows that concentrated on
makeover aspects, What Not to Wear: Trinny and Suzannah (2001–5) and
10 Years Younger (UK and worldwide 2004– ), and demanded that women
exert self-discipline in order to conform are no longer aired. Interest in this
sub-genre has waned as public opinion and discussion show that these ideas
have less currency (McRobbie, 2009, p.135).
In contrast, television programmes that feature characters such as the
women in Absolutely Fabulous (1992–5, 2001–3), Sex and the City (1998–
2004), Ally McBeale (1997–2002) and Desperate Housewives (2004–12);
and in film, Bridget Jones Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001), Kill Bill: Volume
1 and Kill Bill: Volume 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003, 2004), Hairspray
(Adam Shankman, 2007) and Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011) portray a wide
range of women in today’s society. Bridget Jones, Carrie Bradshaw and
Ally McBeal depict earlier incarnations of feminism, but they are keen and
happy to abandon these and embrace the trappings of traditional girlhood
that will allow freedom and agency (McRobbie, 2009, p.21). McRobbie
calls this the ‘new sexual contract’ as it embodies positions of visibility
through participation in education, employment and consumerism (p.57).
Rather than telling women what they should not do, it encourages success,
enjoyment, entitlement and social mobility.
One of the main and important changes with Post-feminism is the
rejection that femininity and feminism are polarized. It concedes that
women may be both feminine and feminist and may embrace the
conventional customs of articulating femininity in the form of wearing high
heels, make-up and being sexy and glamorous (Genz, 2007, p.334). This
celebration and endorsement of consumerism and body image moves it
from a perception of powerful manipulation, to one of positive and
powerful engagement that is no longer anti-feminist.
The avoidance of the constraints of binary thinking allows for more focus
on race, androgyny and queerness. Post-feminism is more inclusive and not
just for white, middle-class females, as it advocates that every woman finds
and understands her own mix of identities (Featherstone, 1996). It
welcomes the need to recognize marginalized and colonized groups (hooks,
1996; Spivak, 1999). Post-feminists believe that the suppression of women
needs to be understood in a context of marginalization of other genders and
groups. It can be seen to intersect with other academic discourses; those of
Post-structuralism, Postmodernism and Postcolonialism, Race and Queer
Theories. All these cross-fertilizations allow for the questioning of ideas of
identity and expansion of widely used concepts of gender.
However for some people involved in this latest incarnation, the word
‘feminism’ is problematic, because it can connote that it is for radical
feminists, concerned with issues examined within the context of gender
binaries and for female membership only. Some followers worry that the
feminism label raises antipathy in the wider society. However, the current
generation wants a more assertive and upfront approach to address the
existing inequalities and sees the use of ‘feminism’ as germane to this end.
Post-feminism covers ideas within popular media to do with what Tasker
and Negra call ‘the “past-ness” of feminism’ (2007, p.1). For them Post-
feminism is about the complex relationship between culture and politics
(2007, p.3). Tasker and Negra believe Post-feminist culture aims to cover
all areas of culture from professional opportunities, freedom of choice in
work, domesticity, and parenting to physical and sexual empowerment and
that it firmly places Post-feminism as white and middleclass.
Rosalind Gill shares similar concerns to those of Tasker and Negra. In
order to forward and possibly help to resolve these points Gill proposes a
new understanding through ‘a sensibility that char-acterizes increasing
numbers of films, television shows, adverts and other media products’
(Tasker and Negra, p.4). She sets her argument within the areas as shown
below.

Rosalind Gill
‘Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility’ (2006)

Rosalind Gill rightly notes that there has been nearly two decades of argument about
Post-feminism and yet still no agreement. The discussions about the term are
‘contradictory, signaling a theoretical position, a type of feminism after the second
wave, or a regressive political stance’ (pp.147–8). This could indicate vibrant interest,
but Gill finds additional concerns:

First, the difficulty of specifying with any rigour the features of postfeminism, and
secondly the problems with applying current notions to any particular cultural or
media analysis. What makes a text postfeminist? What features need to be present
in order for any media scholar to label something postfeminist? (p.148)

In answer to these questions, Gill identifies nine areas for consideration regarding the
Post-feminist sensibility.

Femininity as a bodily property

In Post-feminist media culture there is an obsessional preoccupation with the body. In

a move from earlier representational practices, femininity appears to be defined as, ‘a
bodily property […] Instead of caring or nurturing or motherhood being regarded as
central to femininity (highly problematic and exclusionary) […] in today’s media it is
possession of a “sexy body”’(p.149). This has become key as women’s source of
identity. This scrutiny exists in films such as Bridget Jones Diary (Sharon Maguire,
2001), where excess in terms of cigarette smoking or calories is portrayed as
emotional breakdown.

The Sexualisation of Culture

This section follows closely on from the above. Gill looks at the ‘striptease culture’ with
its erotic presentation of female bodies. She includes in this newspapers’ coverage of
rape stories and ‘Porno chic’ in lad mags. These contrast with those representations of
the male which‘ are hailed by the lad mags as hedonists just wanting “a shag”’ (p.151).
In women’s magazines men are rendered as ‘complex, vulnerable human beings’
(p.151). Yet, in magazines aimed at men, women are required to discuss their
underwear, sexual fantasies, ‘filthiest moments’ or body parts (Turner, 2005 in Gill,
p.151). For Gill, these uneven discourses are key to insights on sexualisations.

From sex object to desiring sexual subject

No longer are women presented in the media as ‘passive, mute objects of an assumed
male gaze’ and ‘straightforwardly objectified’ (p.9 – See Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure
Box, p.181). They are offered as ‘active, desiring sexual subjects who choose to
present themselves in a seemingly objectified manner because it suits their liberated
interests to do so’ (Goldman, 1992 in Gill, p.151). This is particularly obvious in
advertising.

Individualism, choice and empowerment

Notions of choice, of ‘being oneself’, and ‘pleasing oneself’ are central to the Post-
feminist sensibility that pervades contemporary Western media culture (p.153). It
resonates powerfully in talk shows, advertising and makeover shows where individuals
are enticed to take control of all aspects of their life. Little thought is given to the
additional pressures this may bring to that individual who is coerced into believing they
need breast augmentation at the age of 14. This idea that all our choices are ‘freely
chosen is central to postfeminist discourses which represent women as autonomous
agents no longer constrained by any inequalities or power imbalances whatsoever’
(p.153). Yet if women are ‘pleasing themselves’ why, asks Gill, is the ‘resulting valued
“look” so similar […] hairless body, slim waist, firm buttocks etc’ (p.154).

Self surveillance and discipline

The idea of self-surveillance is closely linked with the point above. Careful ‘grooming,
attire, posture, elocution and manners’ (p.155) are portrayed as essential to femininity
and requires constant effort to maintain. In particular, Gill argues, such imagery is
focused on emulation of the ‘upper-class white ideal’ (p.155). Gill notes that presently
there are three distinct elements, ‘first, the dramatically increased intensity of self
surveillance, indicating the intensity of the regulation of women […] secondly, the
extensiveness of surveillance over entirely new spheres of life […] and thirdly, the
focus upon the psychological requirement to transform oneself’ (p.155).

The makeover paradigm

Here, mainly women are encouraged to believe that their life is flawed and that it may
be improved by relationship advice or lifestyle gurus. Televised participants endure
‘toxic shame’ (Peck, 1995 in Gill, p.156) and by being humiliated, contestants will learn
to improve their perceived ‘flaws’ (p.156). The final stage of this manipulative journey
is to show the participant trying to continue the advice on their own; often with mixed
results. According to Gill, these shows strengthen racial and class oppositions and
encourage people to laugh at unfortunate people.

The reassertion of sexual difference

In the 1970s and 80s there were ideas that males and females had basic similarity
which allowed for equality. This was soon dispelled by the 1990s. Key to Post-feminist
sensibility is the resurgence of ideas of natural sexual difference. This is seen across
all media. The ‘new man’ figure has been roundly attacked as inauthentic and
considered a performance and having little to do with what men were like. In contrast
the rise of the ‘new lad’ in the 90s was seen as a rebellion against the rise in feminism
and the constraints of political correctness. What was needed was a frank
acknowledgement of difference rather than its denial (pp.158–9).
 Irony and knowingness

Post-feminist media culture has adopted irony as a means of ‘having it both ways’. It
allows unacceptable comments to be directed at homophobic and sexist issues, whilst
claiming that no offence was intended (p.159). Gill suggests that if we accept this as
‘just a laugh’ we, ‘are left with a fast-growing area of media content […] that is chillingly
misogynist, inviting men to evaluate women only as sexual objects’ (p.160). Such
arguments regarding ironic misogyny ensued following the treatment of the female
character, Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Light), in the Tarantino film The Hateful
Eight (2015).

Feminism and anti-feminism

In her final point Gill draws in ideas about the media of the 1960s, 70s and early 80s
and how in the 2000s feminism is currently part of the ‘cultural field’ (p.23). In the
2000s, all forms of media discuss ‘date rape, have sexualized images and cover war
experiences of women, domestic violence or anorexia’ (p.161). Gill cautions that it
would be wrong to believe that the media has become unproblematically feminist. She
notes Judith Stacey (1987), who wrote that feminist ideas are simultaneously
‘incorporated, revised and depoliticized’ and Gill suggests ‘attacked’ (p.161). According
to Gill, contemporary media culture is ‘distinctively postfeminist, rather than pre-
feminist or anti-feminist, is precisely this entanglement of feminist and anti-feminist
ideas’ (p.161).

Conclusion

Here Gill wants to make clear the point that contemporary gender relations are
profoundly contradictory and that there is an ‘intimate relation to feminism and to
neoliberalism’ (p.163). It is this that makes ‘postfeminist sensibility quite different from
both prefeminist constructions of gender or feminist ones …[in] that it is clearly a
response to feminism’ (p.163). She continues that contemporary gender relations are
immensely contradictory but not random, they are ‘patterned and amenable to
elaboration’, it is these contradictions that ‘constitute sensibility’ (p.163). Individualism,
auton-omy, choice, self-improvement and self-regulation are all similar to central
notions of neoliberalism (p.163). Finally, noting that the relationship of neoliberalism
and gender relations has yet to be examined, there are parallels that suggest that
‘postfeminism is not simply a response to feminism but also a sensibility.

In summary, Post-feminism offers a means of reflecting on second and third

wave feminism and looks to provide alternatives by considering a broad-
based platform that encourages pluralistic discussions. There is a positive
endorsement of consumerism and it reclaims signifiers such as high
heels/lipstick/designer clothes from powerless to powerful signification.
Where traditional feminism perpetuates the idea of women as victims, Post-
feminism concentrates on ideas of empowerment and liberation with an
emphasis on freedom to choose from a range of options. Women now claim
agency over their body and how they chose to dress and act. A particularly
controversial example of this is Miley Cyrus and the ‘Wrecking ball’ video
where she is seen nude and in underwear simulating sexual acts. In Gender
Trouble (1990) Butler argued that feminism had made a mistake to assert
that women were a group with common characteristics and interests. That
approach had performed ‘an unwitting regulation and reification of gender
relations’ (p.5), thus reinforcing a binary view of gender relations. This no
longer holds true as Post-feminism/Fourth Wave Feminism celebrates
diversity of identity available to women of all cultures. It is this pluralism
that gives voice to all.

Reflect and respond

1 Who do you consider a Post-feminist icon and why?

2 Is this new approach to feminism more empowering for women, or does it weaken
their position? Give reasons and examples for your answer.
3 Is the term ‘Fourth Wave Feminism’ or the term ‘Post-feminism’ more appropriate and
useful in furthering the place of feminism?
4 How useful do you think Gill’s Post-feminist sensibility is in navigating the modern
world of feminism?

It is from these Second, Third and Fourth Wave Feminist aspirations that
Feminist critical film theory developed. Early Feminist studies began to
theorize on stereotypical images of female representations in film and the
overt focus on the woman’s body. The American Molly Haskell was one of
the first academics to address these concerns. In her book, From Reverence
to Rape (1974), she discusses how Hollywood’s portrayal of women in
conventional roles such as mothers and girls-next-door did not accord with
women’s real experiences. She noted a decade-by-decade shift from the
respect afforded female characters in the silent era to a less deferential
attitude in films of the 60s and 70s. Haskell argued that the American film
industry ‘manoeuvred to keep women in their place’ by showing them to be
socially inferior (Haskell, 1974, pp.2–3). She further maintained that
women were stereotypically reduced to stock characters of glamorous sex
goddesses, femme fatales or self-sacrificing mothers, all of which could be
considered as traditional male fantasies (1974, pp.3–4). Haskell believed
that the ‘woman’s film’ emerged to compensate for the fact that women
were excluded from most genres (Western, Gangster, etc). Overall her book
implies that historically, films ignored the achievements women attained in
real life, portraying them as submissive caricatures.
Psychoanalytic approaches to Feminism

Psychoanalysis has been readily adopted by Feminists as a means of

understanding the way women are represented on screen. Claire Johnston
and Laura Mulvey both produced seminal articles in the 70s, which were to
have a huge impact on the study of film and media. Johnston’s ‘Women’s
Cinema as Counter-Cinema’ targeted the processes of film production
rather than concentrating on images alone. Johnston draws on Jacques
Lacan, Roland Barthes, Michel Foucault and Louis Althusser in her
investigation of film as a semiotic sign system. She focused on gendered
and signifying contradictions to show how films maintained patriarchal
order. She argued that films worked to preserve and perpetuate sexual
inequality, and that ‘the dominant ideology presented her [the woman] as
eternal and unchanging, except for modifications in terms of fashion’
(1973, p.32). Johnston stressed the importance of developing filmmaking in
ways that would question and challenge mainstream dominant cinema and
its patriarchal agenda.
At a similar time to Johnston’s discussion of woman as a sign in
patriarchal discourse, Laura Mulvey employed a Psychoanalytic approach
to explain how cinema works at the level of the unconscious. In the male-
dominated film industry, men had two widely differing roles: behind the
camera, concerned with production and technology, and as actors. In
contrast, women would work in the costume and make-up departments
(traditionally associated with the domestic sphere).
Before looking at Mulvey’s groundbreaking essay, an understanding of
the terminology that she appropriates from Freud is instructive:

• Scopophilia: This Freudian term denotes pleasure taken in looking. The

scopophilic instinct occurs when people or images are viewed as erotic
objects. For Freud scopophilia can become a perversion if it is
connected with deviant behaviour as in the case of voyeurs (Gay, 1995,
p.251).
• Voyeurism: Pleasure is voyeuristic when it is dependent on the object of
the gaze being unaware. Someone spying on another is popularly known
as a ‘Peeping Tom’. To some extent both photography and film invite
voyeuristic looking. It is the act of viewing the activities of others
unbeknown to them. Therefore the act of looking can be seen as illicit or
 as having forbidden connotations. In the cinema we are voyeurs,
watching people on screen who are ‘ignorant’ that we are watching
them. We derive pleasure from this. The camera is also a voyeur.
• Fetishism: An object becomes a fetish when it is the focus of sexual
desire. The fetishist idealizes an object associated with a woman to
displace sexual anxiety. ‘[T]he normal sexual object is replaced by
another which bears some relation to it. […] what is substituted for the
sexual object is some part of the body’ (Gay, 1995, p.249). For example,
images of shoes or hair can take on sexual connotations. In film, the
audience may notice an excessive objectification of the female body,
numerous shots of breasts and legs. The intense concentration on parts
of the female body in the cinema is a prime example of fetishism.
Nowadays this is no longer recognized as solely about women. Men can
similarly be fetished in film and all forms of media.
• Narcissism: This is erotic pleasure derived from looking at one’s own
body. For both Freud and Lacan it was a natural stage in childhood. In
film it is the audience’s identification with the image on the screen and
is often explained through the use of Lacan’s ‘mirror stage’ (see Chapter
9, ‘Psychoanalysis’, p.166).

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any films that adopt scopophilia, voyeurism, fetishism and narcissism
as plot devices?
2 From your examples, can you see any generic trends?
3 Can you speculate why Feminist film theorists were so preoccupied with scopophilia,
voyeurism, fetishism and narcissism?
4 Name some male actors/films where the masculine body is fetishized.

Laura Mulvey
‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ (1975)

Laura Mulvey is a Feminist film theorist. Her work signals a move from purely textual
analysis towards an interest in the visual pleasure and identification found in the
cinema. She employs Psychoanalytic Theory to discuss how popular cinema produces
what she calls the ‘male gaze’; here she appropriates theories from Freud and Lacan
(see Chapter 9, ‘Psychoanalysis’). In more traditional film theory, the spectator is
assumed to be male; in light of this, Mulvey places the issue of sexual difference as
central to her discussion. In order to do this:
 It [the essay] takes as its starting-point the way film reflects, reveals and even plays
on the straight, socially established interpretation of sexual difference which controls
images, erotic ways of looking and spectacle. [...] Psychoanalytic theory is thus
appropriated here as a political weapon, demonstrating the way the unconscious
patriarchal society has structured film form. (1975, p.34)

For Mulvey ‘the gaze’ is the main mechanism of control in film (1975, p.60). The image
of the woman is first the object of male desire and second the signifier of the threat of
castration.
Mulvey notes two ‘pleasures’, the first being scopophilia and voyeurism that are
crucial to the sexual objectification of women. The second part of this pleasure is the
narcissistic aspect that develops from scopophilia. This is discussed by Mulvey with
the aid of Lacan’s mirror stage as an explanatory model (see Chapter 9,
‘Psychoanalysis’, p.166). According to Mulvey, elements of narcissistic identification
with the person on screen occur because the projector is behind the spectator’s head.
This allows the spectator the illusion of controlling the image.
In her section, ‘Woman as Image, Man as Bearer of the Look’ (1975, p.62), Mulvey
takes issue with the sexual imbalance of looking. It is Mulvey’s contention that this
gaze is always male because the ‘look’ in cinema (by the camera) is controlled by men
and aimed at the female as an object. Indeed, at this time, studios were run by men.
Directors, producers, cinematographers and some screenwriters were also typically
male. Furthermore, the male actors and the spectators (presumed male) voyeur-
istically identify with the camera and gaze at the woman in a fetishistic way. Mulvey
selects films by Hitchcock as examples: Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho
(1960) and Marnie (1964).
One of the key ideas that Mulvey promotes is that within traditional storytelling the
female subject is always passive, whereas the male is active. For example, in
fairytales the princess waits to be rescued by the dashing hero (knight, prince, etc.).
Mulvey recognizes that these long-established tropes have carried through into
filmmaking. She states:

In a world ordered by sexual imbalance, pleasure in looking has been split between
active/male and passive/female. The determining male gaze projects its fantasy onto
the female figure, which is styled accordingly. In their traditional exhibitionist role
women are simultaneously looked at and displayed, with their appearance coded for
strong visual and erotic impact so that they can be said to connote to-be-looked-at-
ness. (1975, pp.62–3)

Mulvey has suggested that women have two roles in film, ‘as erotic object for the
characters within the screen story, and as erotic object for the spectator within the
auditorium’ (1975, p.63). Mulvey believed that filmmakers had been trapped into
following certain codes and conventions in traditional Hollywood narrative. However,
recent historical work suggests that the situation is much more complex than this.
Women do undertake starring roles and increasingly make up part of the production
team or are directors.
While Mulvey’s article was groundbreaking and became the focus of debate and
quotation, it was criticized for its limited and essentialist focus in addressing only the
male spectator and that her ‘male gaze’ is pertinent to Classical Hollywood films but
less so to films after the 1960s. Variously, academics noted how she overlooked the
important areas of women’s voices, race and sexual preferences when looking at the
male hero. Academics such as E. A. Kaplan (1976) contra-dicted Mulvey’s findings,
 claiming that the male was not always a controlling force and that the female was not
always a passive object. Furthermore, she believed that the female viewer could
identify with both the passive and active positions. Nearly ten years later Mulvey
responded to her critics.

‘Afterthoughts on “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”’ (1981)

‘Afterthoughts’ was inspired by King Vidor’s Duel in the Sun. Here, Mulvey responded
to critics who found her work essentialist and reductive (in her assumption that the
gaze was solely male). After defending her position in the original article, this essay
concentrates on Melodrama and on the woman spectator in particular. She develops
two lines of analysis:

First (the ‘woman in the audience’ issue), whether the female spectator is carried
along, as it were by the scruff of the text, or whether her pleasure is more deep-
rooted and complex. Second (the ‘melodrama’ issue), how the text and its attendant
identifications are affected by a female character occupying the centre of the
narrative arena. (Mulvey, 1981, p.122)

Mulvey says that she is ‘concentrating on films in which a woman central protagonist is
shown to be unable to achieve a stable sexual identity, torn between […] passive
femininity and […] regressive masculinity’ (1981, p.123). She sees these as the
dilemmas of the female spectator. Here, her work indicates a move away from how
women are represented, towards studying female responses. She considers how
women watch films and discusses the role of Melodrama (a genre traditionally
considered female in orientation) in contrast with genres typically regarded as male
(action movie).
Mulvey notes that the conventions cited by Freud on masculinity are deeply
embedded in the structure of most popular narratives (Freud in Gay, 1995, pp.440–3).
The male hero saves the female victim and any sexual desire is contained in marriage.
Further, it is the hero’s sense that ‘nothing can happen to me’ that drives him on. In
contrast, the heroine is passive, waits to be saved and the narrative closes when this
happens.
Mulvey then turns to Vladimir Propp’s work on folktales (see Chapter 4, ‘Formalism’,
p.74) to confirm how firmly these structures of active male/passive female are
ingrained in storytelling. She notes that when a woman is introduced as central to the
story, the structure and meaning of the narrative changes (as exhibited in Duel in the
Sun). In this Western, the woman is faced with the conflicting desires of passive
femininity or regressive masculinity. When the lead protagonist is female, the plot can
be ‘overtly, about sexuality: it becomes a melodrama’ (1981, p.127). Mulvey analyses
the female position in this film in great detail and summarizes her findings. She
suggests that female spectators need to be awoken to be ‘“pleasured” in stories’
(1981, p.129).

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent do you think the tradition of the passive female and the active male is
still prevalent in cinema today?
2 Discuss whether you agree or disagree that the camera adopts a male gaze.
 3 Can we invert Mulvey’s ideas and consider whether men adopt a female gaze when
watching women’s genres (Musicals, Romantic Comedies and Melodramas)?
4 Consider whether women are still objectified in contemporary filmmaking. Can the
same be said of men?

Mulvey’s ‘Afterthoughts’ in the early 80s recognized the change in mood

among some Feminists. They wanted to focus the debate exclusively on
political issues and indeed this remains a powerful line in Feminist thinking
today. Accordingly, a number called for a counter-cinema to deconstruct the
images associated with the patriarchal agenda of the film industry. There
was a turn towards exploring the ideas of femininity and reconstructing lost
or suppressed records of female experience.
One of the more recent interventions into the gaze comes from Todd
McGowan who examines this in Lacanian film theory (2007). In The Real
Gaze rather than adopting the historical perspective of the gaze coming
from the spectator, McGowan relocates it within the filmic image. Here he
shows that the gaze has the potential to unsettle the spectator’s sense of
identity. Key to this is taking Lacanian film theory away from the
‘Imaginary’ and utilizing Lacanian ideas on ‘The Real’. McGowan believes
that the focus on the relationship between spectator and screen (Metz and
Baudry) has ignored the relationship between the spectator and the ‘real’.
McGowan notes, ‘The direct experience of the gaze collapses the distance
between subject and object, and it thereby forces spectators to experience
themselves as directly implicated in what they see’ (p.163). To explain this
McGowan uses Stanley Kubrick’s distortion of the gaze in Eyes Wide Shut
(1999). Kubrick breaks the fourth wall with a close-up shot with the
character starring directly at the audience thereby returning their gaze. This
has an unnerving effect on the viewer. For example, McGowan refers to
characters in other Kubrick films: Alex DeLarge in A Clockwork Orange
(1971), Private Pyle in FullMetal Jacket (1987) and Jacj Torrance in the
Shining (1980). According to McGowan these gazes are unnerving because
they challenge the viewer’s power. Both Mulvey and McGowan examine
difference as it relates to the gaze. However, McGowan aims to want to
reposition the spectator’s connection to the real.

Mary Ann Doane

 ‘Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator’ (1981)

The American theorist Mary Ann Doane explored the female gaze in relation to
masquerade and drew insights from the work of psychologist Joan Riviere (1929).
Riviere had observed that an ‘intellectual’ woman, when in a position of authority,
donned a mask of ‘Womanliness […] to hide the possession of masculinity and to avert
the reprisals expected if she was found to possess it’ (Riviere, 1929, p.38). Doane
introduces the term ‘masquerade’ to describe the way women often adopt a
metaphorical mask; a way of behaving that is inscribed by gender expectations. She
found that a common strategy was for women to act in an excessively flirtatious
manner. This performance can then be manipulated for pleasure and this entails
developing a new interpretative strategy (1981, p.137). Doane asks:

After all, even if it is admitted that the woman is frequently the object of voyeuristic
or fetishistic gaze in the cinema, what is to prevent her from reversing the relation
and appropriating the gaze for her own pleasure? (1981, p.134)

Doane combines Riviere’s findings with Freud’s lecture on ‘Femininity’, in which he

maintained that issues in childhood paved the way for fetishism, and that this was an
invariably male tendency.
Accordingly, Doane sees the male spectator as destined to be a fetishist, whereas
the female finds it difficult, if not impossible, to take that position. Rather than
absorbing the image, she is absorbed by it. She argues that the female spectator lacks
the distance that voyeurism dictates. This has profound effects on women’s leisure
patterns and means that they will see adornment and consumption as inherently
pleasurable activities. Women can indulge and inhabit their feminine identity. Doane
refers to this as ‘over-identification’. ‘Womanliness is a mask which can be worn or
removed’ (1981, p.138).
Doane questions Christian Metz’s work on apparatus and image in the cinema; she
finds much of this theorizing untenable for a female spectator as it ‘lacks the attribute
of distance’ (1981, p.143). Cinema has relied heavily on voyeurism, fetishism and
identification with the ego, all in masculine terms. Thus it has encouraged theorists to
see the female gaze as repressed. For Doane this shows that it is crucial to
understand the woman’s position in this in order for spectatorship theory to develop in
a positive way.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss whether femininity and masculinity are ‘performed’.

2 Can you identify films where women deliberately adopt ‘masquerade’ as a plot
device?
3 How far is the notion of ‘over-identification’ appropriate or useful?
4 If we think of gender as a sliding scale rather than clear binary demarcations, can you
identify times where you emphasise masculine or feminine attributes of your own
identity?

Before moving on to consider Horror and the feminine, it is important to

understand two crucial critical categories.
1 Masochism: Freud defines masochism as, ‘any passive attitude towards
sexual life and the sexual object […] in which satisfaction is conditional
upon suffering physical or mental pain at the hands of the sexual object’
(Gay, 1995, p.252). For example, people who like to be whipped for
sexual gratification can be termed masochists, like the character of
Christian Grey in 50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015).
2 Abject or abjection: For the French Feminist Julia Kristeva, the abject
is ‘the place where meaning collapses’ (1982, p.2). It is where we
cannot explain what we see. It is being forced to face a traumatic event
or object such as Kristeva’s example of ‘the museum that is now what
remains of Auschwitz, I see a heap of children’s shoes, or something
like that, something I have seen elsewhere’ (1982, p.4). Further,
according to Kristeva this is ‘[e]ssentially different from “uncan-
niness”, more violent, too’ (1982, p.5). She explains: ‘It is the infecting
life. […] It is thus not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection
but what disturbs identity, system, order. What does not respect borders,
positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the composite’ (1982,
p.5).

In summary, abjection comprises those ideas, images and objects that

ignore borders and rules; they are disturbing because they question stable
identity, systems and social order.

Barbara Creed
‘Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection’ (1989)

Barbara Creed’s contribution to Feminist critical analysis relates to the Horror film and
the notion of the monstrous-feminine. Drawing on writers as diverse as Freud
(fetishism, 1927), Joseph Campbell (primitive mythology, 1959) and Julia Kristeva
(abjection), Creed examines ‘horror as a perverse pleasure’ (1989, p.253). She finds
that the Horror film illustrates the way abjection works in the sociocultural arena.
Creed illustrates in great detail things that create the abject. First, there are
countless images of corpses, ‘whole and mutilated […] bodily wastes such as blood,
vomit’ (1989, p.253). She records how spectators feel sick or experience fear within
the viewing process. Yet watching Horror satisfies perverse desires and allows
abjection to be encountered in the safety of the cinema. Second, the construction of
the monstrous threatens to cross borders and threatens stability. Creed notes that the
monstrous changes from film to film:
 [B]etween the human and inhuman, man and beast (Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde) [...] the
border is between the normal and the supernatural, good and evil (Carrie, The
Exorcist, The Omen) [...] or the monstrous is produced at the border which
separates those who take up proper gender roles from those who do not (Psycho,
Dressed to Kill, Reflection of Fear); or the border is between normal and abnormal
sexual desire (Cruising, The Hunger, Cat People). (1989, p.253)

Third, Horror films frequently cast the maternal figure as abject. Creed draws on
Kristeva again, who suggests that all babies face abjection when they try to break free
from the mother who tries to resist this separation. This refusal to let go prevents the
child from achieving its proper place in society. This is seen in Hitchcock’s Psycho, The
Birds and Brian De Palma’s Carrie (1976), where the mother is presented as the
monstrous-feminine (1989, p.254).
Furthermore, Creed draws on Kristeva’s discussions on the rituals of defilement, the
polluting substances of excrement and menstrual blood, ‘Images of blood, vomit, pus,
shit etc., are central to our culturally/socially constructed notions of the horrific’ (1989,
pp.255–6). Creed cites The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973) and Carrie as particularly
representative examples of the ‘gaping wound’ and castration anxiety that are central
concerns (particularly in Slasher films). Creed claims that historically, religion
functioned as a means to purify the abject. However, this is no longer true because,
‘the work of purification now rests solely with “that catharsis par excellence called art”’
(Kristeva, 1982, p.17; Creed, 1989, p.257).
Many of Creed’s points are developed in her extensive analysis of Alien (Ridley
Scott, 1979) in which she addresses the idea of the ‘treacherous mother, the oral
sadistic mother, the mother of the primordial abyss [...] the toothed vagina’ (1989,
p.258). This image of the ‘toothed vagina’ is present in many cultures and is frequently
referred to as ‘vagina dentata’. It can be read as a symbol of male castration anxiety.
Creed argues that the function of the Horror film within a patriarchal culture is to evoke
the monstrous-feminine. She also suggests that the blurring of gender boundaries in
horror reveals a great deal about male fears and desires.

Reflect and respond

1 Why does the film industry rely on bodily fluids to instil feelings of abjection?
2 Why do you think the idea of ‘vagina dentata’ occurs in all cultures?
3 Can Horror be understood as the manifestation of male fears?
4 How does film deal with taboo objects such as bodily fluids and/or taboo practices
such as necrophilia and incest?

Mulvey, Doane and Creed’s work on the gaze, spectatorship and the
monstrous-feminine utilizes Psychoanalytic theories to examine how the
female spectator is constructed by the text. Yet there are other approaches
that require attention, such as questions of audience response.

Feminist approaches to subjectivity

Annette Kuhn was concerned with the ‘woman in the audience’. She felt
that film theory had not examined the ways in which audiences have
understood films within a framework of social contexts. To address this, she
explores Soap Operas and Melodramas in her essay, ‘Women’s Genres:
Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory’ (1984). Kuhn outlines three problems
that she intends to address; first, the problem of gendered spectatorship;
second, the historical specificity of gendered spectator-ship; and third, the
relationship between film and television texts (1984, p.21).
According to Kuhn, these problems have arisen because psychoanalytic
theories have offered ‘little scope for theorising subjectivity in its cultural
or historical specificity’ (1984, p.22). Kuhn advocated the notion that there
was no fixed feminine text, although a text could become feminine when it
was read. She looks at the relationship between text and context by
concentrating on the differences between the spectator and the idea of the
wider audience.
Kuhn notes that, ‘Looking at spectators and at audiences demands
different methodologies and theoretical frameworks, distinct discourses
which construct distinct subjectivities and social relations’ (1984, p.23). For
her, it is important to question how large audiences of women identify with
popular media texts. This will enable an assessment of ‘the political
usefulness of popular genres aimed at, and consumed by, mass audiences of
women’ (1984, p.27).
Teresa de Lauretis raised issues concerning subjectivity. In her essay,
Alice Doesn’t. Feminism. Semiotics. Cinema (1984), she examined the
structural representations of ‘woman’ in cinema and discussed how
narratives produce images of subjectivity. She points out that narrative
structures are formed by desire. This desire is inherently Oedipal (men’s
control of women). To explain this, she cites many examples from
Hitchcock, in particular the female characters in Rebecca (1940) and
Vertigo. Here the females are made to conform to the ideal image that the
male protagonist imposes upon them. In Vertigo, Scottie’s (James Stewart)
desire for the enigmatic Judy/Madeleine (Kim Novak) drives the narrative
of the film. The female subject is made to perform a specific feminine role.
Yet for de Lauretis the performance of the female character is impossible,
and the narrative tension is often resolved by the destruction of the female
(Judy/Madeleine in Vertigo and the new Mrs de Winter (Joan Fontaine) in
Rebecca). Furthermore, she finds that desire in narrative is intimately bound
up with violence against women, and the techniques of cinematic narration
both reflect and sustain the social forms of oppression of women.
De Lauretis writes about two different processes of identification in
cinema. The first moves between a masculine and active identification with
the gaze (Scottie) and a passive feminine identification with the image
(Judy/Madeleine). This enables the female spectator to take up both the
active and passive positions of desire. The second is simultaneous
identification, which can be seen with both the new Mrs de Winter and with
the imagined image of the first Mrs de Winter in Rebecca. For de Lauretis,
feminist theory is built on the contradiction of the unrepresentability of
woman as subject of desire.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss films in which female subjectivity is made central.

2 Account for the destruction of the female character when she is portrayed as an
object of desire.
3 Identify other film texts where men manipulate women to conform to their
expectations.

For Feminists, female spectators are seen as marginalized. In order to

develop ideas from Mulvey and others into different directions, critical
analysis began to focus on other ‘marginalized’ spectators (gay, black, etc.).

Feminist approaches to marginalized groups

Jackie Stacey’s 1987 essay ‘Desperately Seeking Difference’ takes up the

homosexual perspective to address critiques of homosexual spectatorship.
Adopting the work of Doane and Kuhn, she notes that the pleasure of the
female spectator has hardly been addressed, ‘specifically homosexual
pleasures of female spectatorship have been ignored completely’ (1987,
p.244). Although it needs to be noted that various writers, including de
Lauretis (1984), have written on this, Stacey sets out to suggest some
reasons for the general neglect.
She considers that the film text can be read and enjoyed from different
gendered positions or, despite the masculine apparatus, spectators can
respond differently to the visual pleasures of the text. Stacey examines All
about Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950) and Desperately Seeking Susan
(Susan Seidelman, 1985) to pursue ideas on the pleasures of desire and
identification. From her work Stacey concludes that a focus on the
‘distinction between either desire or identification, so characteristic of film
theory, fails to address the construction of desires which involve a specific
interplay of both processes’ (1987, p.257). Of course, it is important to
distinguish between the different spectator positions adopted by lesbians
and male homosexuals.
Whereas Stacey acknowledged that Feminists had historically ignored
the gay female audience, bell hooks raised concerns regarding black female
spectatorship.

bell hooks
‘The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators’ (1992)

It is important to note that bell hooks, the African American feminist scholar, insists that
her name appear in lowercase rather than with initial capitals. She believes it is the
substance of her writing that is important, rather than who she is. hooks queried
Mulvey’s position on the ‘male gaze’. She points out that black people have historically
been punished for looking. Here she cites the incident when Emmett Till, a fourteen-
year-old black boy, who was murdered for looking and whistling at a white woman
(p.118). She believes that Feminist theory ignores the issue of race in the same way
that the film industry has historically struggled to represent black womanhood on
screen. Even when African American male filmmakers attempt to depict black women,
they typically objectify them, which, for hooks, perpetuates the subtext of white
supremacy (p.118).
hooks states that as a black woman she has a choice either to identify with the white
woman or resist identification. The latter is the logical position, as black women do not
recognize themselves on screen, since the film industry has tended to misrepresent or
ignore them entirely. Accordingly, black women adopt an ‘oppositional gaze’ or what
Manthia Diawara calls ‘resisting spectatorship’ (p.128). In embracing this attitude of
rejection, black women can no longer be hurt by derogatory images of African
American female identity. Rather than agreeing with Mulvey’s concept of the female as
passive and the male as active, hooks laments that, even when black women assume
the role of director, black femininity is still victim to ‘the white supremacist capitalist
imperialist dominating “gaze”’ (p.129).

Reflect and respond

1 Identify the difference in spectatorial positions between heterosexual and homosexual

viewers.
2 Discuss whether hooks’s notion of the ‘oppositional gaze’ can be usefully applied.
3 Have gay women and black females been under and/or misrepresented on screen?
As has been noted here, much of the work from Feminist critics in the 80s
has taken its lead from Mulvey. However, there are other approaches. Kaja
Silverman is a Feminist critic who has focused her attention on the
woman’s voice. In ‘Dis-Embodying the Female Voice’ (1984), her analysis
looks at the sound/image relationship in terms of gender, and concentrates
on the noticeable absence of a female voice-over in classical cinema. She
believes that this absence expressed the fact that the female subject was
‘associated with unreliable, thwarted, or acquiescent speech’ (1984, p.131).
Silverman called for a re-analysis of Hollywood films with more attention
focused on the construction of the soundtrack. She discussed the use of the
‘disembodied’ female voiceover in a number of films directed by women,
especially Yvonne Rainer’s Journey from Berlin (1971). She developed her
ideas further in the book The Acoustic Mirror: The Female Voice in
Psychoanalysis and Cinema (1988).
In the 90s there was a notable interest in Feminist theories on
pornography, which took a wide-ranging approach to the issue of female
objectification. Maggie Humm noted that Feminists were divided in their
opinion. Some were anti-pornography, arguing that it was misogynist and
dehumanized women, with Andrea Dworkin claiming that it encouraged
violence against women (Dworkin in Humm, 1997, p.43). On the other
hand, other Feminists such as Linda Williams took an anti-censorship
stance, arguing that: ‘[P]ornography involves issues of fantasy and
fetishism too complex to be reduced to any possible effects; and that
pornographic representations could be an important, even creative, part of
women’s – not just men’s – sexual pleasure’ (Humm, 1997, p.43).
In her essay, ‘Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess’ (1991), Williams
succinctly summed up what she thought of pornography and Horror films,

Alone or in combination, heavy doses of sex, violence, and emotion are

dismissed by one faction or another as having no logic or reason for
existence beyond their power to excite. Gratuitous sex, gratuitous
violence and terror, gratuitous emotion are frequent epithets hurled at this
phenomenon of the ‘sensational’ in pornography, horror, and melodrama.
(Williams, 1991, p.142)

Feminism and the Film Industry

More recently, there have been challenges to the inherent patriarchal make-up of the
film industry. Jennifer Lawrence was scathing when she discovered that her male co-
stars that appeared alongside her in American Hustle (David O Russell, 2013) were
paid considerably more money. This resulted in the Oscar winning, A lister writing an
impassioned essay, in it she laments:

It’s hard for me to speak about my experience as a working woman because I can
safely say my problems aren’t always relatable. When the Sony hack happened and
I found out how much less I was being paid than the lucky people with dicks, I didn’t
get mad at Sony. I got mad at myself. I failed as a negotiator because I gave up
early. I didn’t want to keep fighting over millions of dollars that, frankly, due to two
franchises, I don’t need. (I told you I wasn’t relatable, don’t hate me.)
But if I’m honest with myself, I would be lying if I didn’t say there was an element
of wanting to be liked that influenced my decision to close the deal without a real
fight. I didn’t want to seem “difficult” or “spoiled.” At the time, that seemed like a fine
idea, until I saw the payroll on the Internet and realized every man I was working
with definitely didn’t worry about being “difficult” or “spoiled.” (2015)

Lawrence’s disaapointment and open decision to address inequality in the industry has
been matched by the female director Maria Giese. Giese, a female activist and
member of the Directors Guild of America (DGA), met with both the American Civil
Liverties Union and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to discuss the
problem of gender discrimination in Hollywood. This has resulted in an action plan that
will hopefully educate the industry regarding gender biased.
Geena Davis is similarly making ‘waves’ with her ‘Geena Davis Institute on Gender
in the Media’; ‘the Institute is the only research-based organization working within the
media and entertainment industry to engage, educate, and influence the need to
dramatically improve gender balance, reduce stereotyping and create diverse female
characters in entertainment targeting children 11 and under’ (2016).

Alison Bechdel
The Bechdel Test (1985)

The marginalization of women in film has long been a contentious issue, as discussed
in this chapter. Traditionally women have been objectified and accordingly function as
a trophy for the male protagonist. With the emergence of the feminist movement,
women have become far more critical regarding how they are represented on screen
and it is clear that there has been a shift in the industry as we are seeing an increase
in iconic female characters being brought to the screen. For example, Katniss
Everdeen, Hermione Grainger and Lizbeth Salander are female leads that no longer
conform to the active/passive binary traditionally associated with male/female
characterisation.
Alison Bechdel is a cartoonist and author that lives in America. She is known for her
long-runing lesbian comic entitled Dykes to Watch Out For. The comic strip, which ran
from 1983 to 2008, documented the lives of a diverse group of lesbians. In a 1985
issue of the popular gay publication, two women – supposedly Mo and Ginger – are
discussing going to the movies. One of the character declares that she has set rules
 regarding films and they entail three basic requirements. These requirements have
since been formalised into Feminist discourse and are now known as the Bechdel
Test; a test by which a film can be assessed in terms of female presence.
In order to pass the Bechdel test, sometimes referred to as the Bechdel-Wallace
Test in acknowledgement of Liz Wallace who helped formulate the idea, a film must be
able to fulfil the following three stipulations:

1 The film has to have at least two women in it.

2 The women have to talk to each other.
3 They have to talk to each other about something besides a man.

This simple rule of thumb has become popularised on the internet to the extent where
there is a website dedicated to assessing films by the above rules. So far thousands of
films have been subjected to the benchmark criteria and this number increases daily.
Simple in its inception, and initially considered as a tongue-in-cheek joke, the
Bechdel Test has gained great importance in revealing how the industry systemically
marginalizes women in films. In the seven films that were nominated for the Best
Picture Award at the Oscars in 2016, three fail in reaching the criteria outlined by
Alison Bechdel. The failures are The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015), Bridge of Spies
(Steven Spielberg, 2015) and The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2015). The
four that pass are Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015), Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller,
2015), The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015) and Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015). This
reveals how useful the Bechdel Test can be as a benchmark for female representation.
To highlight the longevity of the problem, Bechdel insists that she was inspired after
reading Virgina Woolf’s extended essay A Room of One’s Own (1929). In her writing,
Woolf suggests that women are marginalised and belittled as writers, artists and
musicians. The test itself has inspired other ways of testing a film for female validity. In
response to the Bechdel Test, Kelly Sue DeConnick came up with the ‘Sexy Lamp
Test’; if your female character can be replaced with a sexy lamp without interfering with
the narrative trajectory, then this suggests that your film is lacking in substantial female
presence.
In 2013, Vito Russo introduced the Russo Test which draws on Bechdel’s premise,
but this criteria is used to assess the incorporation of well-rounded LGBT characters.
Russo’s criteria for assessment in this case is as follows:

1 The film contains a character that is identifiably lesbian, gay, bisexual, and/or
transgender.
2 The character must not be solely or predominantly defined by their sexual
orientation or gender identity.
3 The character must be tied into the plot in such a way that their removal would
have a significant effect.

Although initially thought of as a joke, the Bechdel Test is gaining recognition in

popular culture. This suggests that in the future we should be seeing more films which
include two named women that discuss something other than men.

Reflect and respond

1 Were you aware of the Bechdel Test? If so where have you heard about it?
 2 Do you think the Bechdel Test should be considered a sound academic device by
which to read female representation?
3 Try applying the Bechdel Test to the most recently released films? Are you surprised
by the results?
4 Can you think of any other criteria that you could use to check for female presence in
films?

In this chapter we have shown some of the ways in which Feminism has
stimulated new debate for Feminist theory. Moreover, it can be seen that
there is a lot of ‘cross-fertilization’ between Feminism as a political
movement (female suffrage, a right to education and equality in the
workplace, etc.) and Feminist film criticism. As Feminists they were
working to the same agenda in the fight for female recognition.

Case study: Frozen (Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013)

The film Frozen was the Disney Studios 53rd animated feature. It went on
to become the highest-grossing animated film of all time (Stedman, 2014)
earning over $4 billion domestic gross. Frozen saw a departure from the
history of Disney princess films, in that it follows the trials and tribulations
of two princesses, Anna and Elsa. One of the reasons for the film being so
popular may be attributed to the fact that the narrative is concerned with
sisterly love, rather than the age-old tradition of finding a prince. As
Maegan M. Davis points out, ‘The men only play small roles, really having
nothing to do with the fate of Elsa and Anna’ (2014, p.51). This could in
part be due to the fact that Jennifer Lee wrote the screenplay and co-
directed the film, along with Chris Buck. Lee is the first female director to
be assigned to a Disney Animated feature and the first female director to
achieve over $1 billion at the box office.
In creating a narrative that features two sisters, the film clearly passes the
Bechdel test. Anna and Elsa are named characters that discuss their love of
chocolate, the coronation, overcoming adversity and who could forget their
iconic exchange ‘Do You Want to Build a Snowman’? This provides
evidence that the women are not fixated on finding an appropriate male to
fulfil the traditional ‘happy ever after’ ending which features in so many
Disney princess films.
In the Hans Christian Anderson story The Snow Queen, on which the film
is loosely based, the main characters are not sisters but are instead
neighbours; one a boy and the other a girl. When Kai is taken by the
villainous Snow Queen, Gerda takes it upon herself to rescue him. Even
though the story was first published in 1844, Gerda’s courage defies Laura
Mulvey’s premise that it is the male who is active and the female that is
passive in traditional storytelling. Gerda’s adventurous spirit is inherited in
Frozen by Anna who singlehandedly climbs the North Mountain to go to
her sister’s aid.
Although independent in spirit, initially Anna is depicted as a traditional
Disney princess. After being cooped up in the palace since infancy, Anna
falls head over heels with the first man she meets, Hans, who quite
coincidently happens to be a prince. In true Disney fashion, Anna and Hans
declare their love and intensions to marry through the medium of song:

Hans: I mean it’s crazy

Anna: What?
Hans: We finish each other’s …
Anna: Sandwiches
Hans: That’s what I was going to say!

This saccharine display of newfound love does not sit well with a
contemporary audience. To think that young impressionable children are
being subjected to the idea that you can find a meaningful partner and get
engaged on the same day is ludicrous. However, the lyrics are later revealed
to be ironic; a concept not necessarily understood by the younger audience,
but the didactic message is clear. Anna and Hans’ shallow affirmations of
‘mental synchronisation’ parody the mythic iconography of love in Disney
films. Hans’ vacuous promises are shattered when it becomes apparent that
his real intentions are to permanently dispose of the sisters in order to take
the throne for himself. Accordingly, Anna’s relationship with Hans actively
deconstructs the traditional narrative trajectory of love at first sight.
Furthermore, in the finale of the film, it is not the customary ‘True Love’s
Kiss’ that saves the day; instead it is sisterly love that breaks the spell and
restores the kingdom of Arendelle.
Although Anna is clearly the main protagonist of the film, it is the
conflicted character of Elsa that has proven to be the more successful with
the young female audience. Elsa is a multi-layered character, gifted or
cursed with the ability to manipulate the elements to create ice and snow.
Unable to control her icy powers, Elsa locks herself away in fear. Elsa’s
iconic song, ‘Let it Go’, signalled a change in the scriptwriting process.
Initially Elsa was cast as the traditional villain of the film; the Snow Queen.
Elsa is unusual in that she is a princess with magical powers, attributes
which are typically reserved for the evil elder women such as Maleficient,
Ursula and the fairies (Flora, Fauna and Merryweather). However, as
Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez wrote the song, it became
apparent that Elsa was a character for which the audience could find
sympathy as she struggles to come to terms with her magical abilities. The
song ‘Let it Go’, therefore, acts as a moment of release, it is a declaration of
non-conformity; a testament of exhilaration as she finds independence. ‘I’m
never going back, the past is in the past’. Elsa’s vindication can be read as
feminist. She refuses to ‘be the good girl’ and is prepared to ostracize
herself in order gain liberation.
Interestingly, it has been suggested that ‘Let it Go’ can be interpreted as a
‘Coming Out’ anthem. Elsa’s power ballad apparently resonates greatly
with lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and the transgender communities who recognise
Elsa’s battle to accept herself as familiar. The following lyrics attest to this
reading:

Elsa: Don’t let them in,

Don’t let them see
Be the good girl you always have to be.
Conceal, don’t feel, don’t let it go
Well now they know […]
Elsa: It’s funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can’t get to me at all.

The mantra of ‘letting go’ is a message of empowerment which can be

adopted by anyone irrespective of gender, sexuality, age or race. Whether or
not the film was consciously written to deconstruct the formulaic princess
narrative, it has become clear that Anna and Elsa provide positive role
models for young girls.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent is Frozen a female film? What does it have to say about masculinity?
2 Discuss whether the format of the narrative (Musical) enhances the film as a female
text.
3 Consider the two main female characters of Anna and Elsa. Are they stereotyped in
any way?
4 Do you agree that the film signals a shift in the traditional Disney Princess narrative?
5 How far are you in agreement that Elsa’s plight can be read as a lesbian subtext?

Conclusion

Feminism can be seen as site of social and intellectual debate. There is a

focus on women’s experience of sexuality, work and the family. The
Feminist movement recognized the patriarchal structure of society; that the
world is organized on terms dictated by men to their own advantage. In
order to challenge this, Feminists have worked to achieve rights for women,
to promote women’s artistic undertakings in order to challenge the
stereotypical representation of women.
Feminism has no single vision; Feminist theory crosses borders of
history, philosophy, anthropology, arts, etc. Furthermore, it utilizes other
theories such as Structuralism and semiotics, Post- structuralism, Race and
Ethnicity, Queer Theory and most importantly of all, Psychoanalysis.
Much has changed in Feminist film theory. The gaze is definitely no
longer considered to be male; it can be homoerotic, oppositional and so on.
Film can be engaged as an ideological tool, which can counteract
stereotypical images of women presented in a male-dominated media. It can
also raise women’s awareness of their inferior position in patriarchal
society, where they are generally relegated to a subservient role. These
broader perspectives enable critics to see that film is a part of the cultural
apparatus and that it relates in a complex way to the structure of patriarchy.
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 CHAPTER 11

MASCULINITY
Masculinity
1. The state or fact of being masculine; the assemblage of
qualities regarded as characteristic of men; maleness,
manliness.

Setting the scene

Unlike some of the theories and critical perspectives addressed in earlier

chapters, Masculinity Studies has a short history, despite the fact that most
world cultures are founded on patriarchy. The male has historically been the
authoritative force making the important decisions whether in the public or
the private sphere. The dominance of patriarchal society was largely
unquestioned as it was accepted as the natural order of things. This was
reflected in academia and accordingly, theories concerning masculinity
were largely ignored and therefore slow to gain momentum. In this chapter
we intend to identify some of the main areas for discussion in order to
provide the tools to assess theories of masculinity.
Film Studies as a discipline has typically addressed how certain groups
have been depicted on screen. Academics have focused in particular on the
way film represents women, homosexuals, different races and ethnicities.
Interestingly, the one area of study that has traditionally been overlooked is
how masculinity is embodied. Because men feature so predominantly in
films, their presence is habitually accepted as a given. Men have
traditionally been the heroes of the narrative with women most frequently
relegated to the love interest (in need of rescuing). Laura Mulvey famously
discussed male and female in terms of binary oppositions, with the woman
as passive and the male as active (see Chapter 10, ‘Feminism’, p.181). She
noted that women in film were objectified by men because the camera
(typically controlled by men) adopted a voyeuristic stance. Her seminal text
opened the field for Gender Studies as it both highlighted and
problematized the workings of gender relations on screen.
The reason why many scholars felt that women were subjected to the
‘male gaze’ was because the industry was run predominantly by men.
Women would often gain employment working in the costume and make-up
departments (traditionally associated with the domestic sphere), but the
mechanics of the film industry were controlled by men. Men had two very
differing roles, one as the filmmaker behind the camera and the other as the
performer taking centre stage and this was the way the industry functioned.
As a result of their influence, the role of the male on screen was simply
ignored. His image saturated all aspects of filmmaking and so he became
invisible. This idea of invisibility (the male accepted as the ‘norm’) was not
addressed specifically until the early 80s, with Steve Neale’s article
‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ instigating the debate.

Steve Neale
‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ (1983)

Steve Neale was one of the first academics to recognize that the field of gender,
representation and sexuality in Film Studies had overwhelmingly focused on female
identity. In his article ‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ Neale looked to redress the balance
and initiate debate concerning men on screen. Taking John Ellis’s book Visible Fictions
(1982) as a starting point, he discusses how audience identification with images is
never stable. As viewers we shift identification from one character to the next. One
minute we may identify with the male protagonist and in the following scene we are
rooting for the female. Ellis tried to understand our ‘different forms of identification’
through the terms ‘narcissism’ and ‘phantasies and dreams’ (Neale, 1983, p.278).
Narcissistic identification occurs when we read some element of ourselves into a
character; whereas phantasies and dreams involve ‘multiple and contradictory
tendencies’. Although neither Ellis nor Neale explain the latter term fully, it can be
interpreted as daydreaming and fantasizing about stars and imagining ourselves in the
diegetic film world in place of the original characters.
Neale states that narcissistic identification is concerned with ‘power, omnipotence,
mastery and control’ (p.279). In identifying with the male hero the viewer experiences a
sense of power. However, he warns:

While the ideal ego [powerful male] may be a ‘model’ with which the subject
identifies and to which it aspires, it may also be the source of further images and
feelings of castration, inasmuch as that ideal is something to which the subject is
never adequate. (p.279)
 Here, Neale is drawing directly from Lacan’s idea of the Mirror Stage (see Chapter 9,
‘Psychoanalysis’, p.166).
In summary, identifying with Hollywood’s representation of manliness often leaves
the male viewer feeling inadequate as the eroticized image (well-toned six-pack,
chiselled jaw, full head of hair) is rarely achievable.
Building on the work of Mulvey, Neale explores how the on-screen male is in control
of the ‘look’; we view the world through his eyes. However, he cannot function as an
erotic image. Mulvey claims that ‘in a heterosexual and patriarchal society the male
body cannot be marked explicitly as the erotic object of another male look’; instead,
this look must be repressed. This repression is manifest in the way Hollywood tends to
juxtapose stimulating images of masculinity and images of violence (p.281).
Willemen (1981) observes that the voyeuristic pleasure for the viewer in seeing the
man on screen is frequently punished because the star is shown undergoing brutal
masochistic trials. The sadistic treatment of the male star is a reaction to the erotic
energy of the image. In order to divert any homophobic or homoerotic feelings, the
male body is defaced in some manner as a way of relieving the sexual tension. This
can also apply to male friendships on screen. When a male character is seen to be
very close to a comrade of the same sex, the friendship is often terminated by death or
disfigurement. This way any homoeroticism is avoided and traditional patriarchal order
restored.
Thought needs to be given to the conclusion of narratives, as it is here that the male
protagonist can also become a threat to social hierarchy. Vladimir Propp identified the
fact that most narratives finish with the marriage of male hero and female love interest.
In his article, Neale examines the archetypal heroes found in Westerns. Many
Westerns will conclude with the cowboy hero turning his back on the happy ending
(marriage), instead opting for the narcissistic trope of wandering into the sunset. Neale
observes that, in cases where the male avoids the threat of castration by turning his
back on marriage and domesticity, death will surely follow, as inferred in Shane
(George Stevens, 1953) and clearly depicted in the character of Billy the Kid in Young
Guns II (Geoff Murphy, 1990).
The article concludes with Neale exploring how men can be photographed in a
fetishistic manner. Women are represented by body parts and iconography in a
fragmented way (hair, lips, nails and high heels) to displace fears of castration. Men
are similarly depicted in a fragmentary, objective manner to represent fear, hatred and
aggression (eyes, guns, chaps). Nevertheless, the male is really only captured in this
way during combat, when the male body is acceptable as a spectacle. Even then the
images are cut to emphasize energy, action and pace, rather than a lingering sensual
focus on the body. However, when the male body is displayed as a sight for voyeuristic
pleasure, violence is absent. In these instances the body is typically feminized, as
often seen in Musicals [John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)
and Zac Efron in the High School Musical (2006–8) franchise]. This is very telling, as it
shows the industry to be uncomfortable with the objectification of the male.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you agree with Neale that the male image has to be repressed and beaten up in
order to deny the spectator the erotic gaze?
2 Do you agree that when the male body is celebrated it becomes homoerotic?
(Consider the following stars famous for their bodies: Arnold Schwarzenegger,
 Sylvester Stallone, Brad Pitt, Gerard Butler, Channing Tatum and Chris Hemsworth.)
3 Why do you think there has been more academic research into the representation of
women than of men?

The body

The image of the male in film has changed considerably over time. In the
days of silent cinema, Rudolph Valentino was considered the archetypal
romantic male. Women would swoon over his Italian good looks. However,
with the advent of talking cinema, Valentino soon found himself
unemployed because his effeminate voice contrasted with his seductive
image. Learning from this, Hollywood sought new talent from Broadway as
talking movies demanded a more rounded performance.
Consider some of the greatest Hollywood leading men; it is interesting to
note how the idea of manliness was not initially associated with a muscular
physique. Throughout the Great Depression, Humphrey Bogart with his
craggy face and world-weary demeanour symbolized the Everyman to the
American audience. Jimmy Stewart was similarly lacking in musculature,
yet his comfortable manner put people at ease. And Clark Gable may not
have been blessed with a muscular frame, yet women found his ‘Frankly,
my dear, I don’t give a damn’ attitude magnetic.
It wasn’t until the appearance of Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named
Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951) that the male body took on new significance. In
the film Brando’s ripped t-shirt reveals his well-defined upper body. This
image of raw physicality, coupled with his bad-boy, rebellious attitude,
paved the way for a new generation of male stars.
 Figure 11.1 Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982)

The male body as spectacle was taken to extremes in the late 70s and
early 80s with the arrival of stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-
Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone. The Austrian-born
Schwarzenegger broke into movies following his career as a body builder
(see Figure 11.1). He had been the youngest person to achieve the title of
Mr Olympia (the highest accolade available in the sport). Similarly, Jean-
Claude Van Damme, known as the ‘Muscles from Brussels’, made his name
on the martial-arts circuit, winning numerous titles. As a result of their
sporting prowess and their impressive bodies, both Schwarzenegger and
Van Damme made the crossover into films. Sylvester Stallone, on the other
hand, honed his muscular physique in order to secure the role of ‘Rocky
Balboa’, the title character of Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976), for which he
wrote the script. Such stars represented an exaggerated image of
masculinity (hyper-masculinity). Typically shot with bare torso on display,
they marked a significant departure from the classic male actors of the
studio era. Instead of the traditional willowy, genteel, male frame the
‘beefcakes’ of the 80s were objectified for the ‘female gaze’, inverting the
normative voyeuristic depiction of women for male viewing.
However, alongside the macho musclemen, a softer image of masculinity
was beginning to appear in the mid-80s. In the UK this was signalled by the
iconic Spencer Rowell poster ‘Man and Baby’ (1987). Here the well-toned
male is pacified as he carefully cradles a small baby. In juxtaposing the
heightened masculinity of the adult male with the vulnerability of the child,
the meaning of the body is transformed from competitive machismo to one
of refuge and protection. The idea of the sensitive male similarly featured in
popular films of the 80s. Leonard Nimoy’s Three Men and a Baby (1987)
documented the impact of a baby being left on the door-step of three
confirmed bachelors in New York (Figure 11.2). The film was a remake of
the French 3 Hommes et un Couffin/Three Men and a Cradle (Coline
Serreau, 1985), which fared equally well at the box office, suggesting that
the phenomenon of the gentle male was a welcome change for the Western
world. Other films continuing in this vein, well into the 90s, include Curly
Sue (John Hughes, 1991) and Léon (Luc Besson, 1994). Even ‘hard-man’
‘Arnie’ showed a lighter side to his manly persona when he starred
alongside a cast of pre-school children in Kindergarten Cop (Ivan Reitman,
1990).
Moving into the 90s and the twenty-first century, representations of
masculinity became more diverse. The classic hero found in traditional
literature and art gave way to a variety of male characters, ranging from the
‘uber’ macho male to more effeminate personas. This shift reflects the
social spectrum of manhood in society, as there is no single interpretation of
what it means to be a man. Indeed, aspiring to emulate the cinematic, heroic
figure could be responsible for male feelings of insecurity and unmanliness
because the romantic, chivalrous stereotype is to a certain extent
unachievable; the classic archetype having set up false expectations. Robert
Bly in his book Iron John correctly points out:
 Figure 11.2 Three Men and a Baby (Leonard Nimoy, 1987)

The male of the past twenty years has become more thoughtful, more
gentle. But by this process he has not become more free. Many of these
men are not happy. You quickly notice the lack of energy in them. They
are life preserving but not exactly life-giving. (1991, pp.1–2)

Despite the developing representation of masculinity, below the surface

there exist unresolved issues relating to social expectations.

Yvonne Tasker
Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema (1995)

Yvonne Tasker has written extensively about masculinity since the 1990s, with
particular focus on the male body. One of her aims, in the book Spectacular Bodies,
was to rethink the role of the body in Action films. Whereas many scholars had ignored
mainstream commercial filmmaking, Tasker looked to the populist Action movie genre
of the 80s in order to examine what she felt was a new focus on the male body.
One interesting point that Tasker makes concerns the ageing male. Taking the
familiar examples of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone, she considers
how the once young and body-beautiful make a successful transition into mature,
middle-aged actors. Once cast purely for their physique, securing roles becomes more
problematic as actors age. Additionally, more mature actors often desire to be taken
more seriously and seek to redefine their talents as substantial rather than superficial.
Here, Tasker identifies a recourse to comedy and self-parody (p.83). Stripped of their
macho facade, both Schwarzenegger and Stallone have often relied on comedy as a
way of ‘sending up’ their former image in films such as Twins (Ivan Reitman, 1988) and
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (Roger Spottiswoode, 1992). Tasker goes on to highlight
the fact that the ‘built body, both male and female, has often been the object of disgust
and humour rather than admiration’ (p.80); possibly an additional justification for trying
to shed their former image.
Tasker also discusses other Action-movie heroes such as Bruce Willis, Harrison
Ford and Clint Eastwood. Unlike ‘Arnie’ and Stallone, Willis, Ford and Eastwood’s
personas were not as reliant on body image as they were also known for their ‘wise-
cracking’ one-liners. Tasker claims that Ford imbues the character of Indiana Jones
with a different set of qualities to the typical action hero. His spectacle-wearing
archaeologist (p.75), a mature professional, goes completely against type. Similarly, all
three actors have moved behind the camera to become producers, with Eastwood
directing a number of critically acclaimed films. This can also be seen as an attempt to
be taken more seriously. Tasker’s focus on the ageing male arose from her realization
that most writing on masculinity neglected the phenomenon, marking her work as
groundbreaking.
Although much of her research is tied in with notions of class, race, gender and
sexuality, more recently she has become preoccupied with the digital image of
 masculinity. She claims that CGI and special effects have resulted in extraordinary
sequences of male performance. Using both The Matrix and Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000) as examples, Tasker is looking into heightened displays of
physicality and how these inform our contemporary understanding of masculinity
(2002).
Interstingly, Harrison Ford recently resurrected his iconic role of Han Solo in Star
Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015). Furthermore, he has now signed up to
make a new Indiana Jones movie due for release in 2019. Similarly, Sylvester Stallone
reprised his role playing Rocky Balboa in the boxing film Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015).
This proves that when a role becomes so much a part of the cultural landscape,
characters can continue to be developed irrespective of age.

Reflect and respond

1 Consider the image of the male body. Do you think it has changed over time?
2 Do you think the film industry tends to promote an idealized physique only achievable
through hard work and perseverance in the gym? Do you think this exacts similar
pressures that female actors face?
3 To what extent have CGI and special effects manipulated our ideas of masculinity?
4 Identify any male actors who have reinvented themselves as they have grown older.
Why do you think they felt such adjustments were necessary?
5 What problems, if any, are faced when older stars reprise roles from the past?

Another scholar researching the topic of male bodies is Richard Dyer.

Writing in 1997, Dyer’s ‘The White Man’s Muscles’ looks at the early
Tarzan films, among others, as sites of colonial tension and white
supremacy. He sees the story of the white male surviving in foreign lands as
a metaphor for colonial rule. Typically pitted against hostile natives, the
physically superior imperial character can be read as a signifier of wealth
and prestige. Dyer points out that the actors cast to play such roles as
Tarzan and Hercules were often famous sportsmen who had achieved
notoriety in their chosen fields, such as Johnny Weissmuller the Olympic
swimmer. Their physical appearance was indicative of their class status as
they had the time and money to perfect their hyper-masculinized bodies.
Dyer points to the Greeks and Romans as a historical reference point to
this male fixation on the toned body as ideal. In antiquity, the carefully
chiselled marble statues were revered as epitomizing male heroism. This
myth was perpetuated in the early colonial films in order to further the
message of Western dominance over indigenous peoples overseas.
According to Dyer, the white male body therefore represents a political
message as well as performing a narrative function that can inform our
reading of film.
Male anxiety

At certain times in world history the male image on screen has suffered a
lapse in confidence. In most cases, anxiety in the film narrative reflects
wider social concerns. For example, men returning home following World
War II found that women had taken over many traditional male occupations.
Enjoying their new-found employment, many women were reluctant to
return to the domestic sphere. As a result, gender roles were less clearly
defined and these issues were brought to the fore through a new movement,
later to become known as Film Noir.
Film Noir was based on the 30s hard-boiled novels of Raymond
Chandler, Mickey Spillane, Dash-iell Hammett and James M. Cain. The
films were not made in the 30s, as this movement was considered too
pessimistic for an America in the throes of the Great Depression. After the
war, however, America experienced a period of affluence and the film
industry no longer needed to be cautious about screening films that did not
necessarily promote escapism. Film Noir is difficult to define and explain
and accordingly it is often debated in academic circles as being a movement
rather than a genre. This cycle of films attracted ‘different directors and
cinematographers of great and small reputation, working at seven different
studios, [whom] completed ostensibly unrelated motion pictures with one
cohesive visual style’ (Silver and Ward, 1981, p.3). Film Noir has a sense of
menace, pessimism and desperation, with a distinct style that uses
expressionistic lighting, deep-focus photography and canted camera angles,
maximizing the use of shadows. The films were typically located in run-
down urban landscapes. In particular scenes concentrated on alleyways with
flashing neon lights and interiors that appear claustrophobic and gloomy
with venetian blinded windows.
A typical Film Noir narrative would involve a male protagonist being led
astray by an overpowering femme fatale. The females in these films were
stereotypically seductive and manipulative, whilst the males easily
succumbed to their feminine charms, willingly breaking the law to win their
affection. The moral message of these films was that women posed a threat
unless they were pacified by a strong manly figure; males were at risk of
being metaphorically emasculated. This served as a warning to women that
they should return to the domestic sphere after entering the work force
during the war, in order for patriarchy to be restored.
 These are tales of sex and violence that are outside the bounds of
domestic normativity, and present a strong escapist narrative. They depict a
thrilling but ‘forbidden’ narrative journey regardless of the fate of the films’
male protagonists. Decades later, the film Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
traces similar themes. The film is regarded as a critique of consumer
culture, with the main protagonist Jack losing his sense of male
individuality amid capitalist propaganda. The film’s director argues that
man has become displaced from his primal role as the hunter in modern-day
society: ‘[w]e’re designed to be hunters and we’re in a society of shopping.
There’s nothing to kill anymore, there’s nothing to fight, nothing to
overcome, nothing to explore’ (Smith, 1999, pp.58–66). In order to re-
engage with his libidinal (sexual) masculine persona, Jack subconsciously
calls forth his alter ego Tyler Durden. Whereas Jack is a non-
confrontational insomniac, disillusioned with his job and relationships
(emasculated), Tyler is a militant force, sexually overactive, who inspires a
following of loyal devotees who make up the eponymous ‘Fight Club’. It is
interesting to note that in his quest to regain his lost masculinity, Jack
resorts to his primeval instincts, violence.

Violence

Since prehistoric times, man has been associated with violence. The film
industry is culpable in promoting this myth. Although many narratives
feature the strong, protective hero, most films will also involve a violent
nemesis to act as a counter-force. However, violence is not wholly reserved
for the anti-hero, it has long been established as a generic trait capable of
attracting a film audience.
Westerns, Gangster movies and War films all display elements of
aggression, rivalry and combat. Although these genres are specifically
linked to male audiences, Paul Willemen argues that everyone enjoys
watching the male on screen:

The viewer’s experience is predicated on the pleasure of seeing the male

‘exist’ (that is, walk, move, ride, fight) in or through cityscapes,
landscapes or, more abstractly history. And on the unquiet pleasure of
 seeing the male mutilated (often quite graphically …) and restored
through violent brutality. (1981, p.16)

Willemen’s thesis points to the sadistic enjoyment in watching the male

body become disfigured. Paul Smith summarizes this idea simply in four
key stages (1995, p.81):

1 eroticization
2 destruction
3 re-emergence
4 regeneration

These stages can be applied to the character of Tyler Durden. Introduced to

the narrative as a charismatic, well-toned Adonis, this physical appearance
is quickly disfigured by scars and bruises. However, his damaged frame is
as quickly restored by the conclusion of the film and his dominance
reasserted at the expense of the narrator’s demise.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you identify any other periods in American history that have instigated changes in
the way masculinity is perceived?
2 Can you think of any particular events in world history that have made us question the
role of masculinity?
3 Why do so many genres traditionally associated with men include scenes of violence?
4 Do you agree that the male star has to be beaten and tortured as a sign of archetypal
male strength?

Homoeroticism

Homoeroticism is typically dispersed through violence in most traditional

mainstream films unless the narrative itself is concerned with
homosexuality. As already outlined by Neale, homoerotic tension has to be
banished in order to appeal to the wider heterosexual male audience. To
some extent heterosexual men can experience a historical residual
awkwardness because traditionally, homosexual encounters were frowned
upon and indeed illegal in many countries. Thus, violence can serve to
deflect any homoerotic connotations.
 Staying with Fight Club, the complete obliteration of the character Angel
Face (Jared Leto) is symptomatic of the need to suppress homoeroticism in
any form. Angel Face, as the name suggests, is beautiful but in an
androgynous way. Accordingly, Jack feels compelled to smash his features
to a pulp, stating ‘I felt like destroying something beautiful.’ This is a
strong example of displaced homoerotic tension. Jack is jealous of the
youngster’s boyish good looks yet at the same time repelled by his
subconscious attraction to him. Interestingly, Leto went on to appear as
Colin Farrell’s supposed lover in the film Alexander (Oliver Stone, 2004), a
casting decision once more attributed to his androgynous look. Leto can be
considered part of an emerging breed of actor to reflect the metrosexual
style that came to the fore in the 90s.

The metrosexual male

The term ‘metrosexual’ was first coined by British journalist Mark Simpson
in his article ‘Here Come the Mirror Men’ in the Independent (1994). He
described how young men between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five had
developed narcissistic tendencies. Whereas the cosmetic counter in most
shopping outlets targeted women as prime consumers, many brands have
now developed facial products and lotions specifically aimed at men.
Simpson highlighted the fact that this shift signified a departure from the
archetypal idea of masculinity:

The metrosexual man contradicts the basic premise of traditional

heterosexuality – that only women are looked at and only men do the
looking. Metrosexual man might prefer women, he might prefer men, but
when all’s said and done nothing comes between him and his reflection.

Whereas the traditional male saw shopping as a necessary evil, the modern
man, according to Simpson, has become a ‘commodity fetishist’. David
Beckham epitomizes the metrosexual male, launching his own fragrance
and unafraid to be seen in public wearing a sarong and an Alice band
(headband).
The film industry has also promoted the metrosexual image. This is
evident when comparing the new generation of male stars with those of the
studio era. For example the iconic Humphrey Bogart typically looked old,
tired and unkempt. Modern-day icons such as Brad Pitt, Leonardo
DiCaprio, Jude Law, Ryan Renolds, Gordon Levitt Jnr. and Shah Rukh
Kahn offer a more clean-cut image of masculinity. However, another aspect
of masculinity has become prevalent in filmmaking in the twenty-first
century that of the Geek and Nerd.

Geeks and Nerds

Since the beginning of the 2000s there has been an increase in the number of leading
‘hero’ characters that are categorized as Geeks and/or Nerds. These terms are
typically associated with people who have particular technological and computer
related expertise that is a trait more usually associated with males than females.
Definitions to distinguish any differences between geeks and nerds overlap, are often
confusing and, as with all categorizing of a given group of people in society,
stereotyping is found.
This phenomenon of geek and nerd culture is not new. The term geek appeared first
in 1915–20 in Holland and referred to an overly intellectual, boring and unattractive
socially awkward misfit. The etymology for nerd suggests it is an Americanism from
1951 developed from 1940s slang. It describes, ‘a stupid, irritating, ineffectual or
unattractive person, an intelligent obsessed with a nonsocial hobby or pursuit’ (Harper,
2010).
More current and colloquial references further reduce the differences in the terms for
geek and nerd to recognize that whilst successful both are socially awkward. The geek
struggles to fit in and is often bullied, whereas the nerd has a high IQ and career
prospects. It seems that these current definitions more clearly reflect the characters
portrayed in film and television in the last decades.
In the last 30 years the outsider geek/nerd phenomenon has become accepted into
the main-stream. The Revenge of the Nerds (Jeff Kanew, 1984) may be seen as the
beginning of the geeks and nerds rise to ‘hero’ status. It told the story of geeky college
kids getting their own back on a jock fraternity and becoming the most popular gang on
campus. The TV spin-off that followed in 1991 had poor reviews as the films are
quintessentially of their time (a time before the internet) when being good with
computers was the purview of geeks: the so-called losers. Forty years later, it may
seem less of a joke as the reclaiming of the word seen at the end of the ‘Revenge’ film
when Gilbert (Anthony Edwards) states, ‘I’m a nerd’, is followed by others rising to their
feet and proclaiming the same has prophetically become true. The action of reclaiming
a term of abuse empowers the abused and is in line with society becoming more
tolerant. In 2003, American Splendor (Shari Springer Bergman, Robert Pulcini)
continues the discussion of nerd culture with explicit references to Revenge of the
Nerds. A year later, Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004) garnered a massive
following with a hero that even other nerds would steer clear of. Fans find glimpses of
their own childhood in this ironic and self-mocking, underdog narrative.
However it is the casting of Christopher Mintz-Plasse 23 years later that appears to
have rebooted the fandom of film nerdism. His portrayal of Fogell, aka McLovin, in
Superbad (Greg Mottola, 2007) using fake hip-hop diction and unwarranted sexual
bravado became a cultural moment and went viral. Fans sported T-shirts emblazoned
with McLovin and nerdism moved mainstream. The Big Bang Theory (2007– ) can be
seen as the small screen descendant. Similar to ‘The Revenge’ films, the four male
friends are geeky and socially awkward. They work as physicists, an astrophysicist
and as an aerospace engineer, whereas the female lead provides for comic affect and
is contrasted as a waitress and aspiring actor. Both mediums ‘celebrate’ nerdism by
reducing them to outrageous stereotypes.
The appeal for geek/nerds now reaches beyond teenagers to twentysomethings.
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010) focuses on the unusual topic of a start-up
company that had only existed for six years at the time of filming. Yet dramatizing the
creation of Facebook demonstrated that it could be cool to become the next
Zuckerberg.
Similarly, when James Bond was re-imaged in Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) with a
blond 007 (Daniel Craig) and a female M (Judy Dench), Q, played by Ben Whishaw,
was transformed from an ageing nutty professor to a young geeky computer expert.
Given that the nerd and geek are never given a leading man’s physique, Whishaw as
Q is bespectacled, weedy and lithe, with a pallid complexion from too much time
indoors facing a computer screen. There is little focus on the inventing of gadgetry as
the villains now faced are linked in the modern world to cyber crime.
These new signifiers for the Bond/Q relationship are succinctly presented in the
Skyfall scene where Bond and Q first meet. They sit in an art gallery, facing Turner’s
The Fighting Temeraire (1839), an old war-weary boat being tugged away by a smaller
modern boat. Once identities are established, Bond vents his disdain for Q’s youth,
saying ‘you still have spots’. In the dialogue that follows Q quietly asserts his prowess:

Q: age is no guarantee of efficiency.

Bond: and youth is no guarantee of innovation.
Well, I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop, sitting in my pyjamas
Q:
before my first cup of earl Grey than you can do in a year in the field.
Bond: Oh, so why do you need me?
Q: Every now and then a trigger needs to be pulled.
Bond: Or not pulled. It’s hard to know which in your pyjamas.

The rise in popularity of the geek is further exemplified in subsequent Bond films.
Three films later, the genial Q has been given an expanded and upgraded role in
which he leaves his laptop to join Bond in action in the ‘field’ (Spectre, Sam Mendes,
2015), thus further establishing the cool rise of the geek in the twenty-first century.
However, what all the definitions omit is the gender-bias and the usual connection
with geek-iness and nerdy behaviour to be predominantly male. The association with
the mad scientist, digital technology and obsessive collecting places it all firmly within
the male territory. Yet recently female geeks and nerds are gaining recognition. They
are typically shown as not conventionally attractive, gawky with frizzy hair, spectacles,
bookish and with an uptight attitude. Their geek and nerd traits are manifested through
intellectual ability, intolerance of fools, with a devotion to something in a way that
places them outside of the mainstream, yet often they are scathingly witty. Rather than
cause these females to be weak, the above attributes present a steely female
resistance. For example, Velma Dinkley in the Scooby-Doo TV series (1969–1971)
 and subsequent spin-offs is the ‘brain’ of the group who frequently solves the
mysteries; Liz Lemon in the NBC sitcom 30 Rock (2006–13), who is described as a
’New York third-wave feminist, college educated, single and pretending to be happy
about it’ (The Guardian, Michael Hogan, 18 July 2014), yet both are portrayed as
successful nerds, whereas Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons (1989– ) is often insulted
or ignored.
One of the most well-known female geeks, Hermione Granger (Emma Watson),
appeared in all eight of the Harry Potter films from 2001 to 11. Hermione is portrayed
as a very clever student, astute and bookish, with a photographic mind and able to do
magic. She has wit, courage and single-mindedness. Her atypical physical
attractiveness proclaims that female nerds are not social outsiders and that it is fine to
show a high IQ.
In the twenty-first century it is cool to be a male or female geek/nerd. Their style of
dress is copied as ‘Geekchic’ and celebrities sport large dark-rimmed glasses. Helped
by the media, past prejudices have given way to make geeks and nerds mainstream
characters and socially acceptable.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any films that have a homoerotic subtext?

2 Do you think Hollywood actively avoids moments of homoeroticism? How and why
does it do this?
3 Do you think the emerging trend of the metrosexual male is problematic?
4 Why do you think Hollywood endorses the image of the metrosexual?
5 Why do you think there has been an increase in films that focus on the Geek and the
Nerd in the last ten to fifteen years?
6 Do you feel that Geeks and Nerds are new stereotypes or have they always been
prevalent?
7 Does the arrival of the Geek and Nerd mean that the industry is less concerned with
the male body?

Case study: Ryan Gosling

Written by Andy Pope

Born in 1980, the Canadian actor Ryan Gosling began his career as a child
actor on the Disney Channel. His move into cinema in the early 2000s has
seen him rise to Hollywood’s A list in mainstream films like The Notebook
(Nick Cassavetes, 2004), whilst allowing him to cultivate a more edgy
persona in low-budget films like Only God Forgives (Nicholas Winding
Refn, 2013). This eclectic taste in films is reflected in his first, the tense,
but largely unappreciated, The Believer (Henry Bean, 2001). Playing a
teenager conflicted between his Jewish identity and anti-Semitic ideology,
Gosling imbued the brutal, Neo-Nazi Danny Balint with an unexpected
sense of vulnerability. Although he has been an intriguing presence in
cinema ever since, Gosling’s choice of parts has been as diverse as his first
film suggests. The actor combines an emotional, metrosexual masculinity
with a more traditional, often brutal, working-class codification of his
gender. Although the violence that peppers his films is of a specifically
modern sensibility, Gosling’s taciturn, charismatic screen persona has its
roots in Classic Hollywood.
Often playing loners or misfits, Gosling teases out a sensitivity from
within complex characters like the wife-murderer Willy Beachum in
Fracture (Gregory Hoblit, 2007) and the title character in Lars and the Real
Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007), who forms an emotional attachment to a sex
toy. His films may encompass very modern themes but the version of
masculinity presented by a softly spoken and conventionally handsome
Gosling recalls classic performances of the past from actors like James
Dean and Montgomery Clift. The diffidence and sensitivity in Gosling’s
performance as the idealistic Noah in The Notebook is perhaps the most
obvious example. Quiet yet charismatic, Noah woos his soulmate Allie by
precariously hanging from her Ferris Wheel car, echoing the fearlessness of
Jim Stark (James Dean) facing teenage bullies in a knife fight during Rebel
Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955); a scene later referenced by
Gosling’s character, Sebastian, in La La Land (Damien Chazelle, 2016).
Like Dean, Gosling’s characters often display the signifiers of the
traditional working-class American male. In Rebel Without a Cause, Stark
is preoccupied with racing cars, a traditional working-class male leisure
activity. Cars and motorcycles are central to a number of Gosling’s films. In
Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2011) and The Place Beyond the Pines
(Derek Cianfrance, 2012) both protagonists are defined by them. They work
as stunt drivers whilst surrounding themselves socially with vehicles, either
mending or using them for their criminal activities. The vehicles in these
films, as well as in Rebel Without a Cause, go beyond a means of earning a
living; they underpin their gender identity.
The Place Beyond the Pines emphasises the working-class provenance of
the masculinity on display as Luke (Gosling) and Robin (Ben Mendlesohn)
celebrate the proceeds of a robbery whilst Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing in
the Dark pulsates on the soundtrack. This insertion of a song from the
cultural hero of blue-collar America is complemented by the physical image
on display. Whilst it is Mendlesohn that is shirtless, Gosling’s attire shifts
from overalls to oversized t-shirt and jeans. Dean, Gosling’s character in
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, 2010), dresses similarly, but in this case
the actor’s looks and physique are masked behind a beard, ripped t-shirt and
stained jeans. Body image in Gosling’s screen persona is, therefore,
immensely important as a demonstration of his masculinity. Smartly clad in
a suit throughout Crazy, Stupid Love (Glen Ficarra and John Requa, 2011)
Gosling, as love guru Jacob, exudes confidence. His charm and ease with
women allows him to become a mentor to the hapless Cal (Steve Carell). At
that point in his career Gosling was used to displaying his torso, as
demonstrated in a number of his films. Ironically acknowledging this he
strips in Crazy, Stupid Love as Hannah (Emma Stone) looks on
incredulously, commenting that the body presented to her appears
‘Photoshopped’. A rare example of a woman fetishizing a male body in a
mainstream Hollywood film, yet presented in an ironic fashion, the
recognition of Gosling’s body as ‘perfect’ contrasts with the bulky, muscled
physique of 1980s stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester
Stallone. Gosling’s body here reflects a contemporary idealist version of
masculinity, much slimmer and less pumped than its 1980s predecessor,
whilst seemingly more attainable. The 80s muscle-bound style projects a far
more masculine image, corresponding with much of the era’s focus on
militarisation and power. Gosling’s appeal to both genders makes him,
McGill argues, one of the, ‘most celebrated and fetishised of current leading
men’ (2013). This dubious title, however, is not entirely predicated on
Gosling’s appearance.
Gosling’s nameless protagonist in Drive appears diffident, even shy, not
speaking on screen for the first thirteen minutes of the film, despite
dominating every scene. Reflecting classic metrosexual characters of the
1990s, such as those played by Jude Law, there is a hint that his reticence
and economy with words reflects a self-absorption or introversion. This
demonstration of an emotional depth makes him more attractive to the
troubled Irene (Carey Mulligan), although these scenes are often juxtaposed
with outbreaks of extreme violence. In the famous elevator scene in Drive,
the sight of the protagonist brutally stamping on his enemy’s head is
preceded by a slow motion scene of him kissing Irene tenderly before
delicately pushing her to one side to commence the assault. Irene looks on
impassively, calmly leaving the elevator when it stops, the act not repulsive
to her and, as the remainder of the narrative attests, only making the
aggressor more attractive. These bouts of violence dominate Gosling’s
form, highlighting the both the erotic and homoerotic nature of his
performances.
In Only God Forgives Julian (Gosling) faces his nemesis, keen to revenge
his brother’s murder, if only to pacify his mother. Julian removes the jacket
of his well-tailored suit. His coolness, demonstrated by his quiet utterance
of ‘Wanna Fight?’ to his opponent, epitomises his appeal to a male audience
and the homoerotic nature of the scene becomes palpable. Paul Willemen’s
1981 theory of homoeroticism in cinema is usefully applied here.
Eroticization turns to destruction as Julian is pulped, his well-defined face
unrecognisable by the fight’s end. This is followed by re-emergence and
regeneration with Gosling’s ‘perfect’ physical image restored by the film’s
climax. As in Drive, the female response to this overt display of masculinity
is important. But whilst Irene is attracted to the violence meted out by
Driver, Julian’s mother Crystal (Kristin Scott-Thomas) and girlfriend Mai
(Yayaying Rhatha Phongam) desert him when he is beaten. A damaged and
emasculated male is rejected, therefore, at the destruction phase.
There are signs that Gosling’s expanding acting range extends to other
kinds of physicality. In La La Land, for example, he recalls classic
Hollywood performances of the past as he sings and dances his way
through a homage to the golden age musical. Sebastian inhabits a far more
feminised world than many of Gosling’s earlier characters. In this film
Gosling’s feet are used to tap rather than stamp, perhaps signalling the start
of a more mature chapter of his career, less reliant on physical appearance
and violence.
Ryan Gosling combines the traditional with the contemporary in
projecting a particularly modern version of masculinity. We can see the
echoes of Classic Hollywood in his recalling of the acting style of James
Dean and Marlon Brando, projecting a defiant but vulnerable persona
rooted in working-class culture. This is fused with a very contemporary
version of masculinity, metrosexual in nature, whilst creating a muscled
body image. This combination of emotional vulnerability, diffidence and
explosive violence, together with a body image that somehow looks both
‘perfect’ and achievable, ensures an enduring male and female fanbase.
 Reflect and respond

1 How easy is it for child actors to make the transition to film stardom?
2 Do you think the media’s penchant for manipulating images, through software
packages such as photoshop, has led to a greater focus on the male body?
3 To what extent do you think photoshop and social media have led to a rise in male
anxiety?
4 Do you think the objectification of male characters signals a shift in terms of female
equality? 5 Do you think Ryan Gosling can be thought of as a modern star, or is his
filmic representation silimar to earlier male stars?

Conclusion

Throughout this chapter we have explored the many shifts and trends that
the film industry has accommodated in its portrayal of masculinity.
Depending on the historical context, men have been depicted as dominant,
confident and brutal or conversely, sensitive, subservient and anxious.
Many ideas relating to masculinity can be traced back to the primal
incarnation of the hunter tribesman fending for his family and defending his
land. Therefore a preoccupation with the body has typically saturated most
cultures. This idea of looking to the ancient past in order to forge modern
male identity can be seen in the film 300 (Zack Snyder, 2006) where CGI-
enhanced figures exhibited a form of hyper-masculinity. Whereas actors
once had to spend time and money working on their physique, new
technologies have enabled stars to achieve a similar look through special
effects. This can further alienate the male viewing public as the image on
screen is even more unattainable.
Male identity in film and culture has traditionally also been accompanied
with instances of violence and aggression. Recently this trend has been
challenged to give a more inclusive perspective of masculinity representing
the wider spectrum of male identity. At present it is difficult to consider
ideas of masculinity progressing beyond the boundaries of the combative
action hero, the more passive family man and the geek. However, the
gradation of male identity is brought into question in the field of Queer
Theory, which will help further this debate.
Bibliography
Adams, R. and Savran, D. (eds) (2002) The Masculinity Studies Reader. Malden, MA and Oxford:
Blackwell.
Berger, M., Wallis, B. and Watson, S. (1995) (eds) Constructing Masculinity. London and New York,
NY: Routledge.
Bly, R. (1991) Iron John: A Book about Men. Shaftesbury: Element.
Cohan, S. and Hark, I. R. (1993) Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema.
London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Connell, R. W. (1995) Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Dowd, A. A. (2013) Was the Revenge of the Nerds Series a Prophetic Vision of Our Present?
Retrieved 12 December 2013. Available at www.avclub.com/…/was-the-revenge-of-the-nerds
Dyer, R. (1997) ‘The White Man’s Muscles’, in R. Adams and D. Savran (eds) (2002) The
Masculinity Studies Reader. Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, pp.263–73.
Ellis, J. (1982) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video . London: Routledge.
McGill, H. (August, 2013). The Life of Ryan. Sight and Sound. London: BFI.
Neale, S. (1983) ‘Masculinity as Spectacle’, in S. Cohan and I. R. Hark (eds) (1993) Screening the
Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. London and New York, NY: Routledge,
pp.277–87.
Powrie, P., Davies, A. and Babington, B. (2004) (eds) The Trouble with Men: Masculinities in
European and Hollywood Cinema. London: Wallflower.
Propp, V. (1928) Morphology of the Folktale. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.
Silverman, K. (1992) Male Subjectivity at the Margins. New York, NY and London: Routledge.
Schrader, P, ‘Notes on film Noir’, Film Comment vol. 8 no. i, Spring 1972 in A. Silver, and E. Ward
(eds) (1981) Film Noir. London: Secker and Warburg.
Simpson, M. (1994) ‘Here Come the Mirror Men’, Independent, 15 November. Retrieved 9 February
2009. Available at http://www.marksimpson.com/here-come-the-mirror-menBibliography
Smith, G. (1999) ‘Inside Out’, Film Comment, vol. 35, no. 5, pp.58–66.
Smith, P. (1995) ‘Eastwood Bound’, in M. Berger, B. Wallis and S. Watson (eds) Constructing
Masculinity. London and New York, NY: Routledge, pp.77–97.
Tasker, Y. (1995) Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema, 2nd edn. London:
Routledge.
Tasker, Y. (2002) ‘Interview with Yvonne Tasker’, Velvet Light Trap, Issue. 49, p. 43, 22 March.
Willemen, P. (1981) ‘Anthony Mann: Looking at the Male’, Framework, vols. 15–17, p.16.
 CHAPTER 11

QUEER THEORY
Queer Theory
1. An approach to social and cultural study which seeks to
challenge or deconstruct traditional ideas of sexuality and
gender, esp. the accept-ance of heterosexuality as normative
and the perception of a rigid dichotomy of male and female
traits.

Setting the scene

Queer Theory first emerged in the 70s but did not gain recognition until the
early 90s. It grew out of a number of new areas of critical discourse that
were concerned with ideas of marginality (gender, race and ethnicity).
Whereas Feminism looked to readdress the balance of patriarchal traditions
and African American Studies contested the history of white supremacy,
Queer Theory challenged the premise of heterosexuality as normative.

Terminology

On initial reading the term ‘queer’ may cause offense and therefore seem an
inappropriate name for a field of study. Similarly, dictionary definitions of
the word ‘queer’ are also problematic:
1. Strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable
character; suspicious, dubious.
2. Out of sorts; unwell; faint, giddy. Formerly also (slang):
drunk.

As can be seen, the term ‘queer’ is historically associated with unsavoury

behaviour, leading to its adoption by homophobic individuals wishing to
insult homosexuals and label them as different. The term was later
reappropriated by the community as a celebration of gay sexuality. Rather
than being ashamed, they vehemently invoked the term as a badge of pride.
In adopting it for themselves they hoped to defuse all negative
connotations.
The introduction to Benshoff and Griffin’s Queer Cinema: The Film
Reader explains that the term is not intended to label sexuality but instead
to express an attitude of inclusivity:

The term was meant to gather together multiple marginalized groups into
a shared political struggle, as well as fling back at mainstream
heterosexist culture an epithet that had been used to oppress people for
decades. (2005, p.5)

Approaching this area of study can be like entering a ‘minefield’ because

labels go in and out of fashion. Care must be taken not to cause offence.
The definitions below are an attempt to give an idea of how certain terms
are interpreted. However, as has been proven, these definitions are not ‘set
in stone’ and therefore should be used with caution.

• Queer: This overarching term encompasses a whole range of

sexualities. However, it has specific political connotations associated
with defiance. ‘Queer’ was initially linked to the activist groups ACT
UP (AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power) and OutRage!, which emerged
in the late 80s in the US and UK respectively. These groups were
formed following the public outcry concerning the United States’
response to the AIDS virus. Their aim was to instil gay pride and redress
(or ‘challenge’) the effete stereotyping associated with homosexuality.
Their political legacy can be seen in the many ways that the gay
community continues to challenge discrimination. The term also serves
to describe alternative approaches to sexuality; even straight people can
adopt a queer lifestyle, and challenge heteronormative behaviour (e.g.
reject monogamy; cross-dress; have sexual relationships with men and
women). More recently the term ‘queer’ has begun to be used
synonymously with the word ‘gay’, thus sanitizing the political ideology
associated with it.
• Gay: Traditionally this term was used to describe male homosexuality.
However, it has become a generic expression to categorize people who
are attracted to the same sex. Unlike ‘queer’, ‘gay’ is a more neutral
 label and so has become a catch-all for homosexuals in general. In a
more recent incarnation, it has, unfortunately, been colloquially adopted
as a pejorative term.
• Camp: Camp is an attitude. It is a performance that a person may
choose to adopt. Interestingly, campness is not exclusive to homosexuals
as it can also be embodied by heterosexuals. For example, both Dolly
Parton and Russell Brand can be considered camp due to their ‘over-the-
top’ personas and their fondness for self-parody. Furthermore, it can be
engaged as a strategy for reading gay films (see section on the camp
aesthetic, p.217).
• Lesbian: Traditionally this term has referred to female homosexuality.
However, it can be deemed as problematic due to cultural prejudice
(male fantasies). Therefore many female homosexuals prefer the term
‘gay’.

The choice of label comes down to the individual. It is about self-definition.

Care and sensitivity must be taken regarding word choice when reading
film from this theoretical perspective. Issues surrounding terminology
initiated ‘Queer Theory’ as a new site for discourse. It was the French
theorist Michel Foucault who made strides to formalize the debate.

Michel Foucault
The History of Sexuality: Volume 1 (1976)

Michel Foucault was one of the key thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings
consisted of both historical and theoretical critiques, addressing a variety of social and
cultural issues frequently concerned with power. Many writers and activists have been
inspired by Foucault’s pioneering bravado in opening up this area of Queer Studies. It
is his major work of three volumes known as The History of Sexuality (1976–84) (and
Volume 1 in particular) that is of interest here. The trilogy presents ideas that
effectively challenged conventional notions of sex and sexuality. He did not document
a history of sexual conduct or explore the topic from a religious, philosophical or
scientific perspective, but looked at the development of sexuality and focused on how
sexuality constructs the individual.
He notes that from the Ancient Greeks to the nineteenth century homosexual
behaviour was evident, but the label of homosexuality as an identity only emerged
later. As part of his focus Foucault charted the work of Victorian medical and scientific
writers who wrote on sexual normal-ity and abnormality. In 1870, Carl Westphal was
one of the first professionals to recognize and acknowledge homosexuality. Westphal’s
medical article adhered to Victorian sensibilities and thus condemned homosexual
 acts, dividing them into ‘psychological’ and ‘psychiatric’ categories (Foucault, 1990,
p.43). Foucault drew from Westphal’s work and oversimplified it to declare 1870 to be
the precise birth date of modern homosexuality (p.43).
Although the common conception was that sex was not openly discussed by the
general public, Foucault observed that, as early as the seventeenth century,
institutions had attempted to repress homosexuality. Same-sex relationships
threatened the social and economic structure, which was based on marriage,
patriarchy and monogamous households. He found that concerns for the public’s
health and morality led to the proliferation of ‘a whole grid of observations regarding
sex’ (p.26). This produced discourses on sexuality in psychiatry, medicine, the legal
system and social work.
In summary, the establishment condemned gays as either criminals or madmen.
Foucault suggested that the aims of earlier writers in these areas were to define,
diagnose and find a ‘cure’ for improper desires of same-sex love and other
perversions. All these differing points caused Foucault to challenge the notion that
discourses on sexuality had been previously repressed.
Foucault presented a case that the very institutions intending to suppress same-sex
relationships did in fact unknowingly encourage them. In attempting to stigmatize
homosexuality, the establishment actively labelled what they believed to be perverse
forms of sexuality. In giving homosexuality and bisexuality a name, gay communities
were able to adopt a formal identity. Therefore the medical and legal professions were
in fact responsible for categorizing and making visible all forms of sexuality.

Reflect and respond

1 Why do you think medical and legal institutions chose to affiliate homosexuality with
criminality and/or madness?
2 To what extent has the institutional need to categorize sexual preference led to
stigmatizing behaviour?
3 Do you agree with Foucault that ‘power’ encourages what it attempts to repress? Why
is this?

Nowadays the term ‘queer’, when employed in academic circles, covers a

myriad of identities. Benshoff and Griffin state:

Queer was not only meant to acknowledge that there are many different
ways to be gay or lesbian, but also to encompass and define other
sexually defined minorities for whom the labels homosexual and/or
heterosexual were less than adequate: bisexuals, cross-dressers,
transgendered people, interracial couples whether homosexual,
heterosexual, disabled sexualities, sadomasochistic sexualities whether
homosexual or heterosexual, etc. The term was meant to gather together
multiple marginalized groups into a shared political struggle, as well as
 fling back at the mainstream heterosexist culture as epiphet that had been
used to oppress for decades. (2005, p.5)

Judith Butler, the American philosopher who writes prolifically on issues of

gender and sexuality, concurs with this account of the inclusive nature of
the term:

My understanding of queer is a term that desires that you don’t have to

present an identity card before entering a meeting [sic]. Heterosexuals
can join the queer movement. Bisexuals can join the queer movement.
Queer is not being lesbian. Queer is not being gay. It is an argument
against lesbian specificity: that if I am a lesbian I have to desire in a
certain way. Or if I am a gay I have to desire in a certain way. Queer is an
argument against certain normativity, what a proper lesbian or gay
identity is. (Michalik, 2001)

Therefore the term is more complicated than it may first appear. It is not
just used as a binary opposition to differentiate gay and straight. Sexual
identities are not fixed; for example, a straight person may fantasize about
having a homosexual encounter and vice versa. Therefore, the term ‘queer’
provokes much debate and these issues feature strongly when looking at
Queer Studies.

Reflect and respond

1 What are your thoughts about the term ‘queer’; is it offensive or celebratory?
2 Can you think of other words originally used as an insult that have later been
reappropriated by those they were originally intended to offend?
3 Do you think it is an appropriate term for an academic theory?
4 Do you think as a term it will date?

History of gay filmmaking

Queer cinema, according to Benshoff and Griffin, incorporates three broad

categories (2005, pp.1–2):

1 production: films made by gays or lesbians

2 content: films about homosexuality, with the narrative addressing queer
issues
3 reception: films that are watched by gays and lesbians

Queer Theory developed in response to the way homosexuality was

portrayed in films. Vito Russo was one of the first writers to point out that
gay characters were typically demonized and then killed off at the close of a
film. He clarified this by including a ‘necrology’ in his 1981 book The
Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the Movies.
One of the first films to explore homosexuality was the experimental
avant-garde short Fireworks (1945) directed by Kenneth Anger. The Surreal
film comprises a homoerotic dream sequence of a young man who is
physically beaten and molested by sailors. It concludes with the image of a
sailor unzipping his fly to produce a Roman Candle. This landmark film is
often cited as the starting point of queer cinema.
Prior to an avant-garde approach challenging boundaries of social
acceptance, homosexuality more commonly appeared in film as a comedic
element. Gay males were represented as effeminate and cowardly (sissy)
and accordingly ridiculed throughout the narrative. The sissy stereotype
became a staple character in early cinema. To some extent this appeased
members of the gay community as they would rather be represented in
some form on screen than be totally ignored.
With the introduction of the Hays Code in 1934, gay representation in
cinema became heavily censored. Images of homosexuality and bisexuality
were banned; the code referred to any such activity as ‘sexual perversion’,
which problematically suggested deviancy. One of the films that managed
to bypass the censors was Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). Based on the
true story of gay psychopathic killers Leopold and Loeb, the film made no
mention of homosexuality. This was typical procedure within the film
industry. Homosexuality was either restricted to avant-garde filmmaking or
it was heavily coded within the mainstream. Gay audiences had to actively
work to find themselves represented on screen. However, Stonewall
signalled a welcome change.

Stonewall Riots
In 1969, America was experiencing a period of civil unrest. Following the
fight against fascism in Europe, African Americans demonstrated to the
world that America was not the racial ‘melting pot’ it professed to be. At
the same time, protests were rife among students and pacifists seeking an
end to the conflict in Vietnam. These attempts to challenge attitudes
motivated the gay community to fight for its freedom and Stonewall
provided that opportunity.
Stonewall signalled a dramatic change within gay culture. The incident
occurred in New York’s Greenwich Village, home to a large homosexual
population. In the early hours of 28 June 1969, the Stonewall Inn was
raided by the police for serving gay clientele. Prior to Stonewall, gay
dancing and drinking establishments had been outlawed and forced
underground due to societal discrimination.
On the night in question, the police turned up at the mafia-owned bar and
began arresting patrons. Raids were a regular occurrence in the district, but
when the police became heavy-handed on this particular occasion, the
patrons decided to take a stand. Typical procedures would involve officers
lining customers up to check their identification to verify gender. Any men
found dressing as women would be taken into custody. However, this time
the patrons refused to comply with police demands and soon a crowd of
local gays began to congregate outside the bar, significantly outnumbering
the police.
As the skirmish ensued, police were taken hostage inside the bar as their
cars and wagons were overturned in the street. The riot spread and bottles,
bricks and garbage cans were thrown through windows. When police
attempted to turn fire hoses on the demonstrators, the lack of water pressure
only encouraged the mob. David Carter’s book Stonewall: The Riots That
Sparked the Gay Revolution (2004) quotes Bob Kohler, who witnessed the
Tactical Police Force arrive to aid its colleagues:

The cops were totally humiliated. This never, ever happened. They were
angrier than I guess they had ever been, because everybody else had
rioted ... but the fairies were not supposed to riot ... no group had ever
forced cops to retreat before, so the anger was just enormous. I mean,
they wanted to kill. (p.175)
With their numbers strengthened the police attempted to push the crowds
back. This led to the iconic response of the crowd cheering and starting an
impromptu kickline, singing:

We are the Stonewall Girls.

We wear our hair in curls.
We don’t wear underwear.
We show our pubic hair.

This openly defiant yet camp display of resistance inspired the gay
community. The riots continued for a number of nights before finally
calming down.
Stonewall was a landmark episode that instigated the gay revolution and
the fight for gay civil rights. Rather than shamefully hiding their sexuality,
gay pride became the new slogan and the gay liberation movement was
born.

Reflect and respond

1 Which, if any, aspects of the history of discrimination faced by homosexuals were you
aware of?
2 Why was the political climate of 1969 important?
3 Consider the camp response of the protesters. Why did they react in such a manner?
4 Why was the Stonewall incident such a turning point?

Post-Stonewall

Stonewall acted as a catalyst. It incited many gay practitioners to openly

embrace their sexuality and use it to inform their cultural work. Derek
Jarman, the British director, was among the forerunners in promoting gay
pride. Coming from an experimental background, akin to Anger and other
gay filmmakers, Jarman produced the first positive, openly gay film
Sebastiane (1976). This was closely followed by his famous work Jubilee
(1978). In the 80s, Jarman became a figurehead for gay civil rights, openly
contesting Clause 28. This was part of the British 1988 Local Government
Act, which stated that local authorities ‘shall not intentionally promote
homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting
homosexuality’. The film Caravaggio (1986) can be seen as an open assault
on Clause 28. His final work Blue (1993) was created as he was dying from
AIDS and can be seen as a testimony to his convictions.
Other gay filmmakers who emerged in the post-Stonewall period include
Pedro Almodovar, John Waters and Isaac Julien. It is important to note that
Julien’s work looks at issues of race as well as gay sexuality.

B. Ruby Rich
‘New Queer Cinema’ (1992)

The phrase ‘New Queer Cinema’ was first coined by B. Ruby Rich in an article written
for the Village Voice in 1992, reprinted in Sight and Sound later that year. In this
seminal text she highlights the significant increase in gay films being shown at film
festivals:

There, suddenly, was a flock of films that were doing something new, renegotiating
subjectivities, annexing whole genres, revising histories in their image. All through
the winter, spring, summer, and now autumn, the message has been loud and clear:
queer is hot. (p.15)

Rich was quick to point out that this new trend in filmmaking incorporated a diverse
range of concerns. However she purports that films of ‘New Queer Cinema’ are
recognizable due to a shared ethos:

Call it ‘Homo Pomo’ [Postmodernism]: there are traces in all of them of appropriation
and pastiche, irony, as well as a reworking of history with social constructivism very
much in mind. Definitively breaking with older humanist approaches and the films
and tapes that accompanied identity politics, these works are irreverent, energetic,
alternately minimalist and excessive. Above all, they’re full of pleasure. They’re here,
they’re queer, get hip to them. (p.16)

Her defiant turn of expression is illustrative of the excitement experienced in gay

communities as these films depicted homosexuality as celebratory. The films she
discusses as integral to the emergence of New Queer Cinema include: Gus Van Sant’s
My Own Private Idaho (1991) and Derek Jarman’s Edward II (1991). However, in spite
of mainstream interest in gay filmmaking, Rich points out that it was the male
filmmakers who were being acknowledged. Lesbian filmmaking was still marginalized
although it featured strongly on the festival circuit.
Rich anecdotally summarizes the debates that ensued at a range of festivals she
attended. She recalls Richard Dyer’s comments that ‘there are two ways to dismiss a
gay film: one is to say “Oh, it’s just a gay film”: the other, to proclaim, “Oh, it’s a great
film, it just happens to be gay”’ (p.21). Rich enthuses that this was not the case with
the majority of the films screened in Utah:

[T]hey were great precisely because of the ways in which they were gay. Their
queerness was no more arbitrary then their aesthetics, no more than their individual
 preoccupations with inter-rogating history. The queer present negotiates with the
past, knowing full well the future is at stake. (p.22)

While B. Ruby Rich’s article identified a new trend in gay filmmaking it

was Monica B. Pearl who accounted for its emergence. Pearl boldly
claimed that: ‘New Queer Cinema is AIDS cinema’ (2004, p.23). Her
approach was to consider how AIDS drastically changed gay communities
and attitudes towards homosexuality and how filmmaking became a way of
understanding the disease:

New Queer Cinema provides another way of making sense out of the
virus, that does not placate and does not provide easy answers – that
reflects rather than corrects the experience of fragmentation, disruption,
unboundaried identity, incoherent narrative, and inconclusive endings. It
is a way of providing meaning that does not change or sanitise the
experience. (2004, p.33)

For Pearl, these notions of ‘fragmentation’ and ‘incoherent narratives’

mirror the way the illness takes hold of the body. She points out that AIDS
is a retrovirus that attacks a person’s immune system by becoming part of
the body. ‘When the immune system attempts to fight the foreign infection,
it ends up battling the body that harbours it. The body’s attempt to save
itself is what kills it’ (2004, p.24). Therefore traditional linear tales of
illness and recuperation and/or death must be rewritten. Many films
associated with new queer cinema explore AIDS and its devastating effects,
yet Pearl uses the disease as a metaphor for reading the genre where AIDS
is not the subject matter.

Reflect and respond

1 Why do you think New Queer Cinema veers towards excess?

2 Account for the rise in popularity of gay filmmaking in the early 90s.
3 To what extent does Postmodernism lend itself as a theory for understanding gay
filmmaking? 4 Discuss your ideas on why lesbian filmmakers were overlooked during
this period.
5 Do you agree with Pearl’s idea that new queer cinema was born out of an attempt to
understand AIDS?
Camp aesthetic

Another area that has become a key way of reading queer films and gay
filmmaking is the use of camp as an aesthetic device.

Susan Sontag
‘Notes on Camp’ (1964)

In 1964 Susan Sontag initiated a debate concerning the term ‘camp’. In the article
‘Notes on Camp’, she explains that camp is a sensibility and so is difficult to define:

A sensibility (as distinct from an idea) is one of the hardest things to talk about; but
there are special reasons why Camp, in particular, has never been discussed. It is
not a natural mode of sensibility, if there be any such. Indeed the essence of Camp
is its love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration. (1964, p.176)

In order to attempt an understanding of campness she then outlines fifty-eight ‘jottings’

which include:

• Camp is an artificial aesthetic.

• It is depoliticized/apolitical.
• It is subjective.
• Camp is typically exaggerated.
• Camp is intentional.
• Camp is either completely naïve or else wholly conscious.
• Camp is the spirit of extravagance.
• It attempts to be serious, but cannot be taken seriously.
• Bad movies are frequently camp.
• Ideas of camp change over time.
• Camp is the glorification of ‘character’.
• The antithesis to camp is tragedy.
• The whole point of camp is to dethrone the serious. Camp is playful, anti-serious.
• Camp offers a comedic view of the world.
• Camp taste is, above all, a mode of enjoyment, of appreciation rather than
judgment.
• The ultimate camp statement: it’s good because it’s awful ...

Jack Babuscio drew from Sontag’s findings and attempted to formalize ideas of
campness.

Jack Babuscio
‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’ (1977)
In his article ‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’ (1977), Babuscio observes that people
often refer to films as being camp, but for gay filmmakers adopting a camp aesthetic
can be a statement of sexuality. He starts his findings by defining what he means by a
gay sensibility:

A creative energy reflecting a consciousness that is different from the mainstream: a

heightened awareness of certain human complications of feeling that spring from the
fact of social oppression, in short a perception of the world which is colored, shaped,
directed, and delivered by the fact of one’s gayness. (p.121)

Babuscio explains that society is typically polarized as heterosexual (normal) and

homosexual (abnormal) (p.121). One response to such essentialist delineations is the
employment of camp. He points out that not all directors who incorporate a camp
aesthetic are gay (naming Busby Berkeley as an instance in point). It is only when the
aesthetic is achieved out of a gay sensibility that it becomes a trait of queer cinema.
Identified below are four specific applications of camp, ‘irony, aestheticism,
theatricality and humor’, which he discusses at length (p.122).

Irony

Here he puts forward ‘incongruous contrasts’ as a key trait of campness. In particular

he looks at the binary distinctions of male and female. When these oppositions are
blurred, ironic campness is achieved. As examples he identifies Greta Garbo in Queen
Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933), who pretends to be a man, and Mick Jagger’s
androgynous qualities in Performance (Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970).
Irony also occurs when distinctions of old and young are blurred in an inappropriate
way. Consider Gloria Swanson’s character refusing to age in Sunset Boulevard (Billy
Wilder, 1950).

Aestheticism

Babuscio argues that camp aestheticism is dismissive of mainstream artistic practices

in favour of the ‘dissolution of hard and inflexible moral rules’ (p.123). Rather than
being preoccupied with contemporary issues, camp filmmaking embraces exotic and
fantastical subjects: ‘an emphasis on sensuous surfaces, textures, imagery and the
evocation of mood as stylistic devices’ (p.124). These elements can be
inconsequential to the plot but add a distinctly camp flavour.
Babuscio uses the genre of Horror to explore how narratives may include camp
aesthetics as a metaphor. Many monsters in Horror have to contend with oppression
from society and experience ‘pressure to conform and adapt’ (p.124). It is important to
recognize that Babuscio’s argument is confused because these are narrative rather
than aesthetic concerns and thus this section is somewhat flawed.

Theatricality

To appreciate camp in things or persons is to perceive the notion of life-as-theatre,

being [self] versus role-playing, reality and appearance (p.125).
Babuscio explains that in real life, gays do not conform to traditional sexual
expectations. Accordingly, many homosexuals choose to conceal their sexual leanings
by pretending to be ‘straight’, a practice known as ‘passing’. This can manifest in overt,
albeit false, displays of heterosexuality. He states that passing can ‘lead to a
 heightened awareness and appreciation for disguise, impersonation, the projection of
personality, and the distinction to be made between instinctive and theatrical
behaviour’ (p.126). An example he cites is when Jayne Mansfield holds two milk
bottles to her ample bosom in The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1957), an overt
example of female sexuality.
He also points out how camp theatricality can accrue over time. Although an acting
style may be accepted as naturalistic when a film is produced, as it ages the
performance may begin to look dated and overly stylized. Examples include Rudolph
Valentino’s iconic status as a romantic hero in early cinema and Marlon Brando’s
Method Acting in A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951). Additionally, stars may
acquire a camp aesthetic due to the characters they play. Here, Babuscio discusses
Judy Garland, who intensely played herself no matter what the role. He suggests that
Judy’s intensity and integrity are attributes the gay community can relate to.

Humour

Here Babuscio points to the coping strategy of laughing when things get difficult.
Although he labels this a gay trait, it is in fact also commonly associated with being
British and is therefore quite a weak argument. Nevertheless, as homosexuals have
been historically oppressed, Babuscio talks of ‘laughter rather than tears’ in order to
create a positive identity. Humour can be a smokescreen for the pain and alienation
experienced by gay communities.
He concludes his article by highlighting the fact that the term ‘camp’ has often been
misused ‘to signify the trivial, superficial, and “queer”’ (p.134). As can be seen,
definitions of ‘camp’ are integral to Queer Theory and Sontag and Babuscio can serve
as good starting points.

Reflect and respond

1 How useful is the category of irony in assessing campness?

2 Is there such a thing as a gay aesthetic?
3 To what extent is gay culture stereotyped through ideas of theatricality?
4 Why is humour important in gay culture? What purpose does it serve?

A more recent scholar working in the field of Queer studies is Lee

Endelman. Rather than being preoccupied with Gay culture and its
representation onscreen, Endelman moves away from the numerical survey
and historical anecdotes in an attempt to develop a more rigorous Queer
Film Theory.

Lee Endelman
No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004)
This study saw a departure from Queer Studies as a discipline, in that rather than
focus on gay representation, Endelman chose to focus on the child as symbolic
metaphor for innocence and the future. Accordingly, the child becomes an important
political tool in social rhetoric. Endelman states:

[The] Child remains the perpetual horizon of every acknowledged politics, the
fantasmatic benei-ficiary of every political intervention. Even proponents of abortion
rights, while promoting the freedom of women to control their own bodies through
reproductive choice, recurrently frame their political struggle, mirroring their anti-
abortion foes, as a “fight for our children – for our daughters and our sons,” and thus
as a fight for the future’. What, in that case, would it signify not to be “fighting for the
children”? (p.3)

For Endelman, the ‘Child’ has become a battleground for all political causes. In a
radical turn, he sees queerness in opposition to this agenda.

I examine in this book the pervasive invocation of the Child as the emblem of
futurity’s unquestioned value and propose against it the impossible project of a
queer oppostionality. […] Far from partaking of this narrative movement toward a
viable political future, far from perpetuating the fantasy of meaning’s eventual
realization, the queer comes to figure the bar to every realization of futurity, the
resistance, internal to the social, to every social structure or form. (p.4)

Endelman’s thesis is the concept of queer antifuturism. Developing Lacan’s idea of the
sinthome, pertaining to symptoms, he uses the term ‘Sinthomosexual’ (pp.32–5) to
define people who are not personally invested in the future due to their sexual
orientation (being non-reproductive). He argues that queerness should be seen as
narcissistic and anti-social rather than conforming to social order. In order to explore
his ideas, he undertakes a literary reading of Scrooge and his relationship with Tiny
Tim in the book A Christmas Carol (Charles Dickens, 1843). More relevant to the
discipline of Film Studies is his work on the films of Alfred Hitchcock. In North by
Northwest (1959), Endelman focuses his attention on Leonard (Martin Landau), the
evil henchman intent on killing Cary Grant’s character, Roger Thornhill who is mistaken
for ‘Geroge Kaplan’. The scene where Leonard stands on Thornhill’s hand as he
precariously hangs from Mount Rushmore is analysed in detail in order to explore the
severe lack of compassion. Endelman considers Leonard as an example of a
‘Sinthomosexual’, whereas in The Birds (1963) the visual connection between children
and birds within the narrative are given a queer reading which positions the birds as an
attack on heterosexuality.
Borrowing ideas from ‘Lacan’ (the death drive) and Barthes (joissance), Endelman
controversially offers an alternative approach to Queer theory:

It is we who must bury the subject in the tomb-like hollow of the signifier,
pronouncing at last the words for which we’re condemned should we speak them or
not: that we are the advocates of aborting; that the Child as futurity’s emblem must
die; that the future is mere repetition and just as lethal as the past […] And so what
is queerest about us, queerest within us, and queerest despite us is this willingness
to insist intransitively – to inist that the future stop here. (p.31)

Lee Edelman’s work offers a new perspective in Queer Theory. His approach may be
somewhat radical and controversial, but it is opening up areas of discussion which
 move beyond representation.

Transvestites, transsexuals and transgender

Queer Theory challenges the depiction of heterosexuality as normative.

However another facet of Queer Studies is a focus on people who do not
conform to easy labels of male and female. Debates in this particular area
cover the differences between sex and gender, often described by the trans
community as ‘Sex is between your legs; gender is between your ears.’ In
order to explore trans issues the following terms will be of use:

1 Transvestites: Transvestites are people who deliberately dress in

clothes associated with the opposite sex. Men who dress as women are
sometimes labelled as drag queens and women dressed as men adopt the
term drag kings, although this term is less common. Both can also be
referred to as cross-dressers or gender-benders.
2 Transsexuals: Transsexuals are people who choose to undergo medical
procedures to change gender. This process is often referred to as gender
reassignment. Most transsexuals believe that they are members of the
opposite sex physically trapped in the wrong body. Two other terms also
need to be considered: pre-operative and post-operative. These labels
indicate whether a transsexual is awaiting or has undertaken gender
reassignment.
3 Transgender: The term ‘transgender’ serves to define people who do
not conform to the gender they were born with (Cisgender is the term
used to define people whose gender identity matches the sex that were
assigned at birth). It is problematic because trans people do not fit into
the traditional neat categories of male or female and the term
‘transgender’ is a similar label: a third category which is rejected by
many as oversimplifying the complex nature of the condition. Marjorie
Garber discusses the idea of thirdness, recognizing that the idea of a
third sex or third term is problematic:

The third is that which questions binary thinking [...] the ‘third term’ is
not a term. Much less is it a sex, certainly not an instantiated ‘blurred’
sex as signified by a term like ‘androgyne’ or ‘hermaphrodite,’ although
these words have culturally specific significance at certain
 historical moments. The ‘third’ is a mode of articulation, a way of
describing a space of possibility. (1993, p.11)

Gender fluidity is a term that is becoming more prevalent in modern day

society. This negates the idea of gender being based on the binary
demarcations of male and female. Sometimes referred to as genderqueer,
the label denotes the ability to identify with neither gender or to alternate
between the two. Famous examples of stars that fall into this category are
the late David Bowie, Tilda Swinton and Ruby Rose. Jaden Smith, son of
Will and Jada Smith, has recently taken to wearing women’s clothing in an
attempt to challenge traditional gender norms.
The three terms above should not be considered as mutually exclusive.
For example a pre-operative transsexual may choose to cross-dress (be a
transvestite). In addition, a transgendered person may also cross-dress or
opt to have surgery (transsexual).
Although issues facing the trans community can be challenging, it is
often treated in a jovial manner by the film industry. Transvestites often
feature in films for comedy value such as Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon’s
characters in Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959) and Mrs Doubtfire
(Chris Columbus, 1993). Alternatively they feature in overtly gay narratives
such as La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978) and The Adventures
of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliot, 1994). Serious depictions
of trans people can be found in The Crying Game, Boys Don’t Cry
(Kimberly Peirce, 1999) and more recently the award-winning The Danish
Girl (Tom Hooper, 2015). Furthermore, the Spanish director Pedro
Almodovar manages to find the correct balance between seriousness and
humour in the film All about My Mother/Todo Sobre Mi Madre (1999). The
balance between real-life political issues served with a good dose of
laughter can also be found in the unlikely pairing of gay activists and
striking Welsh Miners in Pride (Matthew Warchus, 2014).
In terms of visible transpeople working in the film industry, the
Wachowskis are probably the most famous. In 1999, the Wachowski
brothers (Larry and Andy) were catapulted into the limelight when they
directed The Matrix. Throughout the 2000s rumours were rife that Larry
was transitioning by way of undergoing gender reassignment. In 2012, the
director made a public announcement as Lana Wachowki complete with
shocking pink dreadlocks. From this point, the Wachowski brothers became
known as the Wachowski siblings. However, in March 2016, Lilly
(formerly known as Andy) publically came out as as a transgender woman.
Whether the directors will be refered to as the Wachowski sisters or simply
the Wachowskis is still yet to be seen.

Reflect and respond

1 How important are labels in defining gender and sexuality?

2 To what extent does society preach the doctrine of binary oppositions (male/female
and heterosexual/homosexual)?
3 Do you believe the idea of ‘thirdness’ is a useful approach in understanding trans
people?
4 Why do you think the film industry chooses to represent trans issues in a lighthearted
manner?

Political oppression

Although homosexuality has historically been marginalized in mainstream

Anglo-American filmmaking, its treatment overseas has often been far
worse. Below are a few examples of directors who have attempted to
confront homophobic attitudes in their own countries.

Spain

The Spanish director Pedro Almodovar started his career as a member of

the La Movida Madrilena group. The Madrid-based group was set up
during the transitional period following the death of the Spanish dictator
Francisco Franco in 1975. During Franco’s reign homosexuals were often
imprisoned and tortured because homosexuality was a criminal offence. The
country adhered to a strict Catholic orthodoxy, which severely restricted
many aspects of life.
La Movida Madrileña was an underground countercultural group that
celebrated the newfound freedom following Franco’s death. They prided
themselves in exploring sexuality, recreational drugs and all things taboo.
Almodovar’s early work was consciously camp and flamboyant. The camp
aesthetic (see above) has continued throughout his oeuvre, along with
transsexual and cross-dressing characters. He is mainly revered for his
melodramatic narratives, which interrogate and celebrate ideas of
femininity (whether it is biological or achieved through surgical
augmentation). Although such stylistic signatures could be attributed to the
director’s sexuality, he does not welcome the label ‘gay filmmaker’ as he
thinks of himself as a filmmaker who happens to be gay.

China

Homosexuality in China has often been forced underground due to a history

of intolerance. However, the internet has been instrumental in connecting
gay communities because it creates a space where people can voice their
opinions. A good example of this was the novel Beijing Story/ Beijing
Gushi, which appeared on the internet in 1996. It was written anonymously:
‘The author adopted the pseudonym “Beijing Tongzhi” – literally “Beijing
Comrade”, but the word Tongzhi, the traditional form of greeting between
Communists, has latterly picked up the slang meaning of “gay”’ (Lan yu,
2001). It is a tale of the gay relationship between a young student and a
businessman, set against the backdrop of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.
Both these subjects are prohibited in mainland China.
The novel was adapted for the screen by the openly gay director Stanley
Kwan. The film Lan Yu (2001) caused controversy due to its subject matter
and the inclusion of full frontal male nudity. Although the film gained
critical acclaim abroad, it has been banned in China along with Western
films that depict homosexuality. It is also important to note that the internet
has become heavily censored in China more recently.

India

Homosexuality has long been a criminal offence in India. It was not until
July 2009 that it was finally decriminalized. Although the ancient Kama
Sutra overtly depicts sexual acts, including homosexuality, prostitution and
sadomasochism, Indian culture typically treats sexual subjects as taboo.
Traditionally Bollywood films have featured effeminate characters as
lighthearted relief. However, when Deepa Mehta made the lesbian film Fire
(1996), she suffered a backlash from conservatives attempting to ban the
film:

Members of the state-governing Right-wing party, the Shiv Sena,

organised violent riots in Bombay (Mumbai), which spread across
northern India. Theatres were forced to cease screening the film and it
 was sent back to the Censorship Board for review causing outrage
amongst civil rights activists. Shouting matches broke out in parliament.
Major Indian newspapers carried the unfolding developments of the Fire
story as front page news every day for a fortnight, and the controversy
was reported in the foreign press too. (Marsh, 2002, p.237)

The reason the film caused such outrage was because Indian society is
founded on traditional patriarchal ideas and lesbianism challenges the
fundamental premise of patriarchy. When the lesbian affair is discovered in
the film, the husband is so ashamed of his wife’s infidelity that he allows
her to burn when her sari catches fire. However, she survives the flames and
is reunited with her lover.
Interestingly, Mehta was born in India but now resides and works in
Canada. The move overseas has allowed her to freely question her heritage
as an Indian. Fire is part of Mehta’s ‘Elements Trilogy’ and the other films
caused similar controversies. In Earth (1998) she explored the rift between
Muslims and Hindus during the partition of India; in Water (2005) she
explored the taboo subject of child widows.
These examples from Spain, China and India demonstrate how
homosexuality is treated around the world. Depending on a country’s
religious, political and moralistic stance, gay filmmakers can, and often do,
come up against resistance. Therefore, it is important when looking at
Queer Theory that you consider national attitudes towards homosexuality as
this may influence production, funding and marketing.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you think homosexuality is treated differently around the world?

2 Do you think that political and religious institutions should have the right to censor
filmmakers? 3 In China, the internet has enabled gay communities to form a network.
Can you think of any instances where the internet has been used to both foster and
fight hatred and intolerance?
4 Has Deepa Mehta the right to critique Indian society when she no longer resides in
the country?

In the closet
Whereas some directors have endangered themselves in order to speak out
against the atrocities inflicted upon homosexuals, such openness is rarely
practised by Hollywood actors. Rupert Everett, one of the few openly gay
actors, has recently discussed this problem:

The fact is that you could not be, and still cannot be, a 25-year-old
homosexual trying to make it in the British film business or the American
film business or even the Italian film business. It just doesn’t work and
you’re going to hit a brick wall at some point. You’re going to manage to
make it roll for a certain amount of time, but at the first sign of failure
they’ll cut you right off […] And, honestly, I would not advise any actor
necessarily, if he was really thinking of his career, to come out.
(Cadwalladr, 2009)

Despite Everett’s comments, there does seem to be a more tolerant attitude

to homosexuality within the British film industry. A number of successful
British actors refused to remain in the closet (Sir Ian McKellen, Stephen
Fry, Alan Cumming and Simon Callow). Although there are a few
Hollywood stars who are openly gay (George Takei, Neil Patrick Harris,
Wentworth Miller and David Hyde Pierce), all of these stars made their
name in television rather than in film.
The reason that many American actors keep quiet about their sexuality
may be out of fear that they would no longer gain serious roles. Everett
believes that being openly gay has hindered his career because the parts he
was once offered began to wane after he ‘came out’. His interviewer
Cadwalladr affirms his argument by stating:

In the past few years there have been films which featured gay characters
– Brokeback Mountain and Transamerica – but they’ve been played by
heterosexual men, and while a straight man can play gay, a gay man can’t
play straight. (2009)

Interestingly, history shows us that a number of classic stars who forged

careers out of playing iconic heterosexual males were in fact gay. It is only
after their deaths that we learned the sexuality of actors such as Rock
Hudson and Dirk Bogarde.
The film industry seems to be more accepting of female homosexuality.
Ellen DeGeneres was one of the first lesbians to publicly ‘out herself’ in
1997. She chose The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986–2011) to make her
announcement; this real-life announcement was mirrored in her hit
television show Ellen (1994–8) when her character also publicly proclaimed
her homosexuality. The incident was significant as it was the first time a
gay character had appeared in a primetime show. The show, however, was
cancelled soon after. DeGeneres was famously in a relationship with the
lesser-known film actress Anne Heche and a media frenzy surrounding the
two of them and their personal life ensued. Other famous Hollywood
lesbians include Rosie O’Donnell, Sharon Gless and Lindsay Lohan
(possibly bisexual). The acceptance of female homosexuality was evident
much earlier as both Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich were both believed
to have had relationships with women although this has never been
confirmed. In recent times there have been some big names publically
‘come out’ as being lesbian, for example Jodie Foster and Ellen Page.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you name any A-list celebrities who are rumoured to be gay? Why do you think
they remain ‘in the closet’?
2 It appears that being lesbian is more acceptable than being male and gay. Do you
think this is true?
3 Why do you think the television industry is more accepting of homosexuality than the
film industry?
4 Account for the difference in attitude between the British and American industry
regarding homosexuality.
5 When actors are ‘outed’ posthumously, does their work gain new layers of meaning?

Case study: Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif

Kechiche, 2013)

Abdellatif Kechiche’s film Blue is the Warmest Colour has become a

landmark text in the history of lesbian cinema. Released in France under the
title La vie d’Adéle – Chapitres 1 et 2/The Life of Adéle – Chapters 1 & 2,
the film is based on a graphic novel by Julie Maroh Le bleu est une couleur
chaude (also known as Blue Angel). The film won the prestigious Palme
d’Or at Cannes Film Festival, where in an unprecedented move, the prize
was awarded to both the directors and the two actresses. In spite of the
acclaim bestowed upon the film, Blue has been plagued with controversy
due to its explicit sex scenes coupled with rumours of on-set abuse.
The coming of age narrative centres on the relationship between Adéle
(Adéle Exarchopoulos), a 15-year-old French high school student, and
Emma (Léa Seydoux), an aspiring artist with bright blue hair. At the
beginning of the film, Adéle is depicted as a typical young teenager,
interested in boys and hanging out with her friends. In her French Literature
class, she reads extracts from The Life of Marianne/Le Vie de Marianne
(Pierre de Marivaux, 1731–41); it is here that the idea of love at first sight is
introduced. With the narrative device established, Adéle catches sight of the
mysterious Emma with her vivid blue hair walking arm in arm with a
woman. As the two pass in the street, they exchange glances – the energy
between them palpable. This inciting incident awakens Adele’s burgeoning
sexual appetite for women, more specifically for Emma. Yet, interestingly
in the scenes that follow, we witness Adéle having sex with a boy from her
class. This is not the only male that the protagonist is attracted to. Towards
the end of the film, Adéle has an affair with a male colleague from work.
Irrespective of Adéle’s sexual relationship with two men, there is very little
discussion of the film being a bisexual narrative. The film is typically
marketed as a lesbian love story, yet the film in its portrayal of Adéle offers
a more complex overview regarding the spectrum of sexual attraction which
is habitually overlooked. A similar case can be seen in Ang Lee’s
Brokeback Mountain (2009). The film shows the developing and enduring
love between Ennis del Mar (Heath Ledger) and Jack Twist (Jake
Gyllenhaal). Whilst it is often referred to as the ‘Gay Western’ or ‘Gay
Cowboy’ movie, Amy Andre claims that the film is not about
homosexuality but instead features two men that are bisexual:

Brokeback Mountain is a not a movie about gay people, and there are no
gay people in it [...] Despite what you may have read in the many reviews
that have come out about this new cowboy feature film, Brokeback
Mountain is a bisexual picture. Why can’t film reviewers say the word
‘bisexual’ when they see lead characters with sexual and romantic
relationships with both men and women? I am unaware of a single
review of Brokeback calling the leads what they are—a sad statement on
the invisibility of bisexual experience and the level of biphobia in both
the mainstream and gay media. (2005)
Both Blue is the Warmest Colour and Brokeback Mountain fail to recognise
the bisexual tendencies of their main characters, which could suggest that
the industry is far more comfortable with clearer definitions of straight and
gay identities.
An interesting, recurring motif throughout the film is the use food and the
idea of apetite. The characters are frequently seen eating, indulging their
taste buds with an array of different food stuffs. B. Ruby Rich comments:

If the sex scenes in Blue are graphic, with the full-on abandon of a
youthful libido, then so are the meals, shot through with gusto and the
close-up, openmouthed enjoyment of flavors and textures; both food and
relationships tend to take center stage in his work. (2014)

Whereas Adéle and her family are shown eating pasta, Emma and her
mother and stepfather enjoy oysters and fine wine. Rich continues to
explain that these food choices are indicative of social class distinctions, the
former being associated with the working class and the latter aligned with
middle-class sensibilities. These demarcations are also informative in terms
of how the young women deal with their non-heterosexual romance. Emma
is openly out and proud regarding her sexuality as a result of being brought
up in a liberal household. In contrast Adéle hides her relationship from her
parents in fear of disapproval from her conservative parents.
In the original graphic novel, Adéle, named Clementine in the graphic
novel, dies after becoming addicted to pills following the break-up of her
relationship with Emma. Kechiche decided upon writing the screenplay to
give his character, Adéle, a more positive narrative arc. Irrespective of the
director’s intention to move beyond the downward spiral which featured in
the original narrative, Kechiche faced vehement condemntation from some
outspoken critics from the LGBT community, who questioned the director’s
ability to make a lesbian film, Kechiche being a Turkish born, French, male
in his 50s.
The central debates regarding the film were concerned with the overtly
explicit lesbian sex scenes. These sequences are unusually long in terms of
screen time, with some scenes running at around ten minutes. Writing for
the New York Times, the chief film critic Manhola Dargis claimed ‘The
movie feels far more about Mr. Kechiche’s desires than anything else’
(Dargis, 2013). Herein lies the problem. Historically, lesbian lovemaking on
screen has been constructed for male titillation. Rather than attempting to
depict lesbian sexuality in a loving and authentically realistic manner,
filmmakers often assume a pornographic, at times sadistic aesthetic,
problematically aligning gay female sexuality within the realms of male
fantasy. On viewing the explicit sexual scenes, Julie Maroh the writer and
illustrator of the original graphic novel avowed:

The heteronormative laughed because they don’t understand it and find

the scene ridiculous. The gay and queer people laughed because it’s not
convincing, and [they] found it ridiculous. And among the only people
we didn’t hear giggling were the potential guys [sic] too busy feasting
their eyes on an incarnation of their fantasies on screen. (Maroh, 2013)

Kechiche defends his depiction of the women making love and justifies his
voyeuristic stance relating his practice to that of artistry:

What I was trying to do when we were shooting these scenes was to film
what I found beautiful […]. So we shot them like paintings, like
sculptures. We spent a lot of time lighting them to ensure they would
look beautiful; after, the innate choreography of the loving bodies took
care of the rest, very naturally. (Sciolino, 2013)

Whether the director’s intentions were about a commitment to film as art or

not, the issue has since been exacerbated with claims from the actresses
regarding a supposed culture of on-set abuse. Léa Seydoux has openly
critiqued the process of capturing the sex scenes over ten days. She claimed
that Kechiche psychologically and physically abused the actresses
(O’Donoghue, 2014, p.42). The director has repeatedly responded to the
accusation by asking why Seydoux accepted the award at Cannes if she felt
she had been mistreated. Whatever the politics behind the camera, the film
was released at a pertinent moment in French history as in the same week
that the film won the Palme d’Or at Cannes, same-sex marriage became
legal in France. As the scandal regarding the treatment of the actors dies
down, it will be interesting to see how Blue is the Warmest Colour will be
remembered within the canon of queer cinema.
 Reflect and respond

1 Do you think lesbian stories are sidelined for narratives about gay male relationships?
What is your justification for your answer?
2 Should gay films be made by gay directors?
3 To what extent do you think the film industry equates lesbianism with pornography?
4 Do you see the sex sequences in Blue is the Warmest Colour as a liberating
approach to gay female representation or exploitative?

Conclusion

Queer Theory is mostly about identity politics and recognizing gay

attributes within the mise-en-scène and narrative. It was born out of a
history of oppression where gay people were made to feel marginalized.
Filmmakers have been at the fore in challenging ideas of sexual
acceptability and have been instigators in bringing gay issues into the
mainstream.
On its initiation, Queer Studies was deemed controversial. As society has
become more understanding of gay concerns the objectives of the academic
field have expanded. Gay characters are typically no longer sidelined or
purely introduced for laughs. Films like Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee,
2005) and A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009) treat gay relationships as
normal, challenging bigoted perceptions.
However, the film industry seems to be more accepting of male
homosexuality. Even with breakthrough lesbian films such as Carol (Todd
Haynes, 2015), based on the Patricia Highsmith novel The Price of Salt
(1958), female homosexuality is still a source for contention. In March of
2016, concern emerged from the LGBT community regarding why so many
lesbian characters in successful television shows were killed off in their
prime. Dr Denise Cloyd, one of two lesbian characters from The Walking
Dead (2010– ), died after being shot in the eye. However, in the original
comic it is the male character Abraham that suffers this gruesome death.
Also The 100 (2014– ) character, Lexa, died shortly after consummating her
relationship with the female star Clarke. Historically, this is
not a new phenomeneon; Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–
2003), Dana from The L Word (2004–2009) and Pretty Little Liars’ (2010– )
Maya have all been subjected to the same fate. In light of recent events,
LGBT fans took to Twitter and Tumblr using the terms ‘Bury Your Gays’
and ‘Dead Lesbian Syndrome’ (Robinson, 2016). Fans seemed genuinely
hurt by the loss of such characters as they provided positive role models for
youngsters struggling with their own sexuality. The proactive response by
homosexual fans signals a revolutionary shift in terms of speaking out and
accordingly the media industry has started to engage with fans in order to
not repeat the mistakes of the past.
The focus in more recent debates concerns the representation of trans
communities, be they transsexual, transgender and/or transvestite. Once
more, as society becomes more embracing of alternative identities, Queer
Studies may undergo another shift in direction.

Bibliography
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Retrieved 3 March 2010. Available at http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/article/opinion_bisexual_cowboys_love
Babuscio, J. (1977) ‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’, in H. M. Benshoff and S. Griffin (eds) (2005)
Queer Cinema: The Film Reader. New York, NY: Routledge, pp.121–36.
Benshoff, H. M. and Griffin, S. (eds) (2005) Queer Cinema: The Film Reader. New York, NY:
Routledge.
Cadwalladr, C. (2009) ‘I Wouldn’t Advise Any Actor Thinking of His Career to Come Out’,
Observer. Retrieved 29 January 2010. Available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/nov/29/rupert-everett-madonna-carole-cadwalladr
Carter, D. (2004) Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution. New York, NY: St Martin’s
Press.
Dargis, M. (2013, May 23). ‘Jostling for Position in Last Lap at Cannes’, The New York Times.
Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/24/movies/many-films-still-in-running-at-cannes-
for-palme-dor.html?pagewanted=all
Endelman, L. (2004) No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, NC: Duke University
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Foucault, M. (1990) The History of Sexuality: Volume 1. (1976) Harmondsworth: Penguin.
Garber, M. (1993) Vested Interests: Cross-Dressing and Cultural Anxiety. London: Penguin.
Lan yu (2001) Retrieved 29 March 2010. Available at http://lanyu.gstage.com/english/author.html
Maroh, J. (2013, May 30). ‘Blue is the Warmest Colour Sex Scenes are Porn, Says Author of Graphic
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 CHAPTER 13

RACE AND ETHNICITY

Race
1. a. A group of people belonging to the same family and
descended from a common ancestor; a house, family,
kindred.
b. A tribe, nation, or people, regarded as of common stock.
In early use freq. with modifying adjective, as British
race, Roman race, etc.
c. A group of several tribes or peoples, regarded as forming
a distinct ethnic set.

Ethnic (Ethnicity)
1. Pertaining to nations not Christian or Jewish; Gentile,
heathen, pagan.
2. a. Pertaining to race; peculiar to a race or nation;
ethnological. Also, pertaining to or having common racial,
cultural, religious, or linguistic characteristics, esp.
designating a racial or other group within a larger
system; hence (U.S. colloq.), foreign, exotic.
b. ethnic minority (group), a group of people differentiated
from the rest of the community by racial origins or
cultural background, and usu. claiming or enjoying
official recognition of their group identity.

Setting the scene

As can be seen in the dictionary citations above, attempting to define the

terms ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ is problematic. Often used interchangeably, their
meanings have also changed over time. Writing in the Dictionary of Race and
Ethnic Relations (1984), E. Ellis Cashmore traces the usage of the terms and
makes the following observations.

Race
In his first perspective Cashmore observes that the term has been used
‘primarily to refer to common features present because of shared descent’
(pp.214–16). By this he means physical attributes, outward appearances,
which set one body of people apart from another. Cashmore links this to
Charles Darwin and scientific thought regarding breeding and the isolation of
specific racial groups from others. He considers the social function of race,
using the example of census information to illustrate the point. In America if
you have any African ancestry in your family lineage, you are officially
considered black (even if you physically appear white). Conversely, in Latin
America people are regarded as white despite any black ancestry. Therefore
race can be thought of as a social construct.
His second perspective explores the historical approach of classifying race
into biological subspe-cies (pp.216–18). This refers to the anthropological
division of man into three distinct groups: Negroid, Mongoloid and
Caucasoid (Caucasian). However, these terms are now deemed outdated
because groups have migrated and, as a consequence, interbreeding means
that these racial distinctions can no longer be upheld. Returning to the social
implications of race, he discusses the term as a way of socially classifying
groups of people due to ‘physical markers such as skin pigmentation, hair
texture, facial features, stature, and the like’ (1984, p.217). The term ‘black’
is used to describe certain people in Africa and Australia and, although they
may share similar social status, they do not necessarily share genetic make-
up. He concludes:

Societies that recognize social races are invariably racist societies, in the
sense that people, especially members of the dominant racial group,
believe that physical phenotype is linked with intellectual, moral and
behavioural characteristics. Race and racism thus go hand in hand. (1984,
p.218)

Ethnicity

Deriving from the Greek word ethnikos, ethnicity ‘refers to a people or

nation’ (1984, p.85). In its modern sense, it functions to describe a group of
people who are connected by shared cultural heritage. For example, groups
that have migrated from one nation to another, may due to political or
religious persecution, find solidarity in their collective experience. Similarly,
groups that have had their homelands taken by dominant forces pull together
to find strength and form an identity based on their hardships. Cashmore
points out that future generations may feel alienated from the experience of
their ancestors so that ethnic groupings can become less valid over time.
Ethnicity can be regarded as divisive in that it can promote a sense of ‘us’
and ‘them’ that can anger dominant groups. Cashmore claims that ethnicity is
typically rooted in class divisions and inherently connected to working-class
identity. More importantly, he states:

Ethnicity is basically reactive: it is elicited and shaped by the constraints

and limits on opportunities imposed on the people who seek to be ethnic.
Those people perceive that they are up-against something and organize
themselves (survive) or advance themselves (achieve). (1984, p.89)

In summary, race is typically associated with physical, biological differences

(skin colour and facial features). Race can often dictate social status and is
thus inherently tied up with power relations. Ethnicity, on the other hand,
relates to shared experiences and beliefs. Ethnic groupings can be dependent
upon religion, language, nationality, tribal affiliations, customs and traditions.
Racial difference is often visual whereas ethnic difference is not always
apparent.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss whether it is important to classify people according to racial and ethnic groups.
2 Consider your own heritage; how do you classify yourself?
3 Have ideas of race and ethnicity changed in your lifetime?

Stuart Hall
Race, the Floating Signifier (1997a)

Stuart Hall, the British-Caribbean theorist, has written prolifically on the subject of race.
In the documentary Race, the Floating Signifier he calls for people to adopt a discursive
approach in order to deconstruct ‘the metaphors, the anecdotes, the stories, the jokes
that are told by culture about what physical racial differences mean’. He claims that
racial identity is never stable but consistently changes over time and for that reason he
refers to it as a ‘floating signifier’.
Hall begins his lecture by outlining the problematic historical practice of classifying
people in accordance with their biological heritage. He explains that it is part of human
nature to attempt to classify and group together objects and people. However, this act of
classification inscribes that certain people are treated one way, while another group is
treated differently. It is a way of main-taining social order, identifying which groups are
deemed superior and which are classed as inferior. Hall claims that it is when these
boundaries of classification are challenged that society grows ill at ease.
Here, he borrows from the work of the social anthropologist Mary Douglas and her
idea of ‘matter out of place’. Hall explains her theory using the analogy of a piece of dirt.
Dirt is fine when it is in the garden where it belongs, but once dirt is found in the
bedroom, where it does not symbolically belong, then we react differently: ‘You cleanse
it, you sweep it out, you restore the order. You police the boundaries. You restore the
hard and fixed boundaries between what belongs and what doesn’t (inside/outside,
cultured/uncivilized, barbarous and uncultivated and so on).’ Douglas recognized that all
cultures adopt a social order that promotes stability, based on the clear demarcation
between leaders and lower ranks. Once these distinctions are questioned, social order
becomes disturbed.
Hall maintains that these ranks of classification signify information that has been
culturally embedded. Here he turns to the age-old question of whether intelligence is
connected to race.
In answer, he exposes the power structure of classification:

You don’t need to have a whole argument about ‘are blacks intelligent’? The moment
you say they’re blacks, already the equivalences begin to trip off people’s minds:
blacks – sound bodies, good at sport, good at dancing, very expressive. No
intelligence; never had a thought in their heads. Tendency to barbarous behaviour.

He propounds this stereotypical view to highlight the truth, that race as a signifier is not
fixed. People cannot be put into neat categories and therefore racial classification is
futile.
Hall’s work is innovative because he rejects the age-old argument that race is
dependent on biology. Instead, he purports that race is a signifier; it is a language that is
learnt. He insists that, ‘racialized behaviour and difference needs to be understood as a
discursive, not necessarily as a genetic or biological fact’. Drawing from Saussure’s work
on semiotics (see Chapter 5, ‘Structuralism and Post-Structuralism’, p.87), Hall lectures
that race can only be understood in relation to differences and similarities with other
races. Meaning is relational and not essential (not based on the essence of a group).
Therefore, meaning cannot be fixed as it is ‘redefined and appropriated’ in accordance
with other cultures and subject to change over time; it is constantly being re-signified.
Hall acknowledges that people may be concerned with his conclusion that race is an
empty signifier, due to the historical reality of racism. In response, he puts forward three
approaches:

1 The realist position: Real genetic differences are the basis for racial classification.
2 The linguistic position: There are no real differences between ‘races’. The differences
are created by humans in language and culture.
3 The discursive position: Differences exist in the world. But what matters are the
systems of thought and language we use to make sense of those differences.

In summary, the ‘realist position’ is concerned with biological difference; the ‘linguistic
position’ is based on cultural assumptions; and the ‘discursive position’, favoured by Hall,
seeks to interrogate race on the premise of difference.
Historically, religion, anthropology and science have attempted to fix racial
classification and this has resulted in an uneven distribution of power. Nevertheless, race
continues to be an issue because it is visibly on display. Hall cites W. E. B. Du Bois’
phrase ‘color, hair and bone’ to illustrate the signifiers of race (Bell et al., 1996, p.23).
These three signs are beyond dispute, they are biological fact. They indicate that people
 are genetically coded in a specific way, but ironically we cannot physically see the code,
so we attempt to classify human groups based on visual appearance. This can be
misleading as some people may have features that are clearly identifiable as black, but
other features that indicate Caucasian heritage. However, the process of reading the
body is an example of semiotics; we read the body as a text; ‘we are readers of race’.

Reflect and respond

1 Discuss whether you consider race to be a biological or cultural phenomenon.

2 Make a list of physical signs that signify race. Are any of your findings problematic?
3 Are Hall’s ideas outdated? How can we use his ideas to understand race in
contemporary filmmaking?
4 Can Hall’s theories on race be applied to understanding ethnicity? Identify physical
signs that signify ethnicity in order to justify your answer.

Historically, racial and ethnic groups have been subjected to oppression,

servitude and genocide. Groups of people have been dispossessed of their
land and left disenfranchised. Ironically, religion and science have served to
justify racist behaviour and horrifying acts. In light of such attitudes, racism
has often been inherently accepted as the natural order of things. For
centuries man has attempted to control genetic qualities, a practice known as
eugenics. This advocates selective breeding in order to rid the human race of
attributes considered undesirable. Racial and ethnic groups have often been
victim to atrocities. The Holocaust, for example, resulted from the Nazis’
determination to strengthen the Aryan (blond, blue-eyed) race by
incarcerating and exterminating those who did not fit this desired profile.
Similarly, but less universally known, ‘The Stolen Generations’ was a name
given to halfcaste Aboriginal Australian children forcibly taken from their
ancestral homes in an attempt to eradicate the emergence of a third race.
Consequently, as a result of historical evidence, it is necessary to scrutinize
how racial and ethnic minorities are depicted in order to expose, and make
sense of, underlying power structures.

Stereotyping

Representing racial and ethnic groups in film has historically been a

political minefield. The film industry relies upon stereotyping as shorthand
because there are only so many minutes within a film to establish characters
clearly. Accordingly, race and ethnicity are often depicted through
iconography and fetishization.
Iconography

Iconography involves symbolic meaning being bestowed upon items or

images (semiotics). It is a popular recourse for filmmakers because it offers
an instant association for the viewer. The lists below provide examples of
iconography engaged to depict three different ethnic groups.

1 Jewish iconography
• Star of David
• Menorah (seven-branched candelabrum)
• Tallit (prayer shawl with tassels called tzizit)
• Kippah/Yarmulke (skullcap)
2 Native American iconography
• Wigwam/tepee
• Totem pole
• Feather headdress
• Tomahawk (axe)
3 Rastafarian iconography
• Dreadlocks and rasta hat
• Marijuana leaf (cannabis)
• Bongos
• Red, green and gold (African symbolism, lion).

These objects, whether connected with religion, fashion, custom or tradition,

all afford a quick signifier of either Jewish, Native American or Rastafarian
ethnicity. The use of iconography to represent a people can be misleading, for
example, Hollywood has consistently depicted Native Americans wearing
feathered headdresses yet only a handful of tribes traditionally wore them.
While the examples cited above are not harmful, the film industry has been
guilty in depicting Jews as penny-pinchers and Native Americans as
predatory animals. It is this damaging essentialization that is problematic. A
further derogatory form of representation can be seen in the use of
fetishization.

Fetishization

This is where parts of the body or objects are selected to represent the whole.
For example, in Feminist readings of films, Laura Mulvey discusses the way
that women are objectified through the imagery of painted fingernails, long
hair, high heels and lipstick; all signifiers of female sexuality. Fetishization is
often employed to stereotype racial and ethnic groups. Jewish people are
frequently stereotyped as having large, hooked noses. African Americans
have been deeply offended by the way they have been represented on screen;
early images exaggerated large lips. Western society has historically been
fascinated with physical difference. For example, when the Western colonists
arrived in Africa, they interpreted the nakedness of the black Africans as a
signifier of insatiable sexuality. This is a key example of the objectification of
the exotic Other.
The case of the Hottentot Venus is a much-cited example of Western
fetishization of the exotic Other. Saartje (Sarah) Baartman was an African
woman who was kidnapped and brought to Europe to be exhibited like a wild
animal in 1810. She was stripped naked and put on display to be viewed by
scientists and the general public, who were amazed by her large breasts,
pronounced buttocks and genitalia. She was nicknamed ‘the heavy-arsed
heathen’ (Hall, 1997b, p.265). This is a prime example of fetishization, where
Baartman is discussed in relation to her body parts, rather than as an
individual (whole). Even though she died in 1815, it was not until 2002 that
Baartman was finally returned to Africa for a traditional burial. Prior to this,
her body parts had been kept on display in Europe for anthropological
studies.
As can be seen, stereotyping can be damaging because, rather than dealing
with people as individuals, it reduces them to essential components, in an
attempt to express the essence (through iconography and fetishization). The
result is a two-dimensional caricature that teaches prejudice and
discrimination rather than representing cultural authenticity and
understanding.
Consider the following dialogue taken from the film Do the Right Thing
(Spike Lee, 1989) and spoken by actors Spike Lee, John Turturro, Luis
Ramos, Rick Aiello and Steve Park, respectively:

Mookie: You dago-wop, guinea, garlic breath, pizza slinging, spaghetti bending, Vic Damone, Perry
Como, Luciano Pavarotti, Sole Mio, non-singing motherfucker.
Pino: You gold teeth, gold chain wearing, fried chicken and biscuit eating, monkey, ape, baboon,
big thigh, fast running, high jumping, spear chucking, three-hundred-and-sixty-degree
basketball dunking, titsun, spade, Moulan Yan. Take your fucking pizza-pizza and go the
fuck back to Africa.
Stevie: You little slanty eyed, me-no-speaky-American, own-every-fruit-and-vegetable-stand-in-
New-York, bullshit, Reverend Sun Myung Moon, Summer Olympics ‘88, Korean kickboxin
 son-of-a-bitch.
Officer You Goya bean eating, fifteen-in-a-car, thirty-in-an-apartment, pointed shoes, red wearing,
Long: Menudo, meda-meda Puerto Rican cocksucker. Yeah, you!
Sonny: It’s cheap, I got a good price for you, Mayor Koch, how-I’m-doing, chocolate egg cream
drinking, bagel and lox, B’nai B’rith Jew asshole.

This dialogue of racial and ethnic slurs highlights the hurtful nature of
stereotyping. In this instance, the characters spout insults based on unfounded
cultural assumptions. The racist insults are chosen to demean and humiliate
each group in an attempt to exert a sense of superiority in each spokesperson.
One of the most well-documented examples of stereotyping can be
attributed to the cinematic depiction of African Americans. Donald Bogle
identified six key stereotypes that reoccur throughout cinematic history in the
book Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History
of Blacks in American Films (1973):

The Tom

Originating from the Harriet Beecher Stowe novel, the Uncle Tom character
was the kindly slave who was happy working for white folk. Bogle states
that: ‘Even when chased, harassed, hounded, flogged, enslaved and insulted,
they keep the faith, n’er turn against the white massa, and remain hearty,
submissive, stoic, generous, selfless and oh-so-very kind’ (1973, p.6). Uncle
Remus (James Baskett) in the film Song of the South (Harve Foster and
Wilfred Jackson, 1946) epitomizes this role.
Interestingly, the term ‘Uncle Tom’ has become a modern-day insult
directed at African Americans thought to have sold out.

The Mammy

The Mammy refers to the strong, matriarchal figure responsible for serving
the white household and caring for the white children. Typically depicted
wearing an apron and headscarf, she has an ample figure and is a feisty force
to be reckoned with. Hattie McDaniel’s character in Gone With the Wind
(Victor Fleming and George Cukor, 1939) is probably the most famous
Mammy in cinematic history.

The Mulatto
A Mulatto, now a dated term, is someone of mixed racial heritage with skin
pale enough to pass as white. Although some films feature male Mulattos,
they are typically female. Mulattos are tragic figures in that they belong to
neither black or white society, when they try to pass as white the results are
dire (see ‘The Narrative of Passing’, p.237).

The Coon

The Coon is the lazy, good-for-nothing, stupid male who would rather sit in
the sun, or entertain the white folk with funny skits. Lincoln Perry epitomized
the archetype in his iconic roles under stage name Stepin Fetchit.

The Buck

This was the most damaging of all the stereotypes perpetuated by the film
industry. This is where the black man is depicted as a potential rapist;
primitive, savage and lustful for white women. Unlike the other stereotypes
that were loyal and comical, the Buck posed a threat to white society. The
character of Gus (Walter Long) in The Birth of a Nation epitomizes the
problematic nature of the Buck. Gus, played by a white actor in blackface,
chases after Flora (Mae Marsh), a young white girl. He wants to marry Flora
but, rather than be touched by the black man, she leaps to her death off a cliff.
Bogle explained the subtext of power relations present in African
American stereotyping as follows: ‘[a]ll were character types used for the
same effect: to entertain by stressing Negro inferiority. Fun was poked at the
American Negro by presenting him as either a nitwit or a childlike lackey’
(1973, p.4). This inferred inferiority (stupidity, lustfulness and violence, etc.)
has also been assigned to other minority groups depicted in a stereotypical
manner. Bogle’s work on black representation set a precedent for other
academics to consider the depiction of other racial and ethnic groups. For
example, numerous academic studies look at the way Jewish, Native
American, Arabs, Mexicans, etc. have been stereotyped by the film industry.
It is important to note that such sweeping generalizations do not always
have to have negative connotations. For example, think of the assumption
that Italian men are good lovers (the Italian stallion). This is a positive
attribute but completely unfounded. Similarly, the film industry needs to be
careful that it does not, in an attempt to be politically correct, avoid casting
marginalized racial or ethnic groups as villains. However, when the same
group is consistently vilified, this becomes a problem (see Chapter 14,
‘Postcolonial and Transnational Cinemas’).

Reflect and respond

1 List iconography associated with the following ethnic groups: the Irish, Londoners,
Chinese and those from the Middle East.
2 Look at the list of icons you have identified. Are any of them considered offensive?
3 Think of your status as students. How could you be stereotyped? Does this general
categorization upset you?
4 Identify other examples of fetishization.
5 Discuss the political implications of stereotyping.
6 Can you think of any positive examples of stereotyping?

One of the first people to formalize writing about the problematic subject of
race relations was the African American W. E. B. Du Bois.

W. E. B. Du Bois
The Souls of Black Folk (1903)

W. E. B. Du Bois was an author, a civil rights activist and a sociologist. Writing in 1903,
he was one of the first people to realize that racial relations were going to have a
profound effect upon modern politics and society. He declared that ‘the problem of the
twentieth century is the problem of the color-line’ (1995, p.54). At a time when
discussions on race were very rarely aired, Du Bois’ writing was groundbreaking. The
book The Souls of Black Folk is a collection of essays exploring race.
Being a black man in America, Du Bois understood that his people were in a position
of duality. He referred to this notion of twoness as ‘double consciousness’. He explains:

The Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in
this American world, – a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only
lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is this peculiar
sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self
through the eyes of others. […] One ever feels his twoness, – an American, a Negro;
two souls, two thoughts, two reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body,
whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. (1995, p.45)

For Du Bois, African Americans were conflicted as they did not see themselves as
American, nor did they feel wholly African. This position of struggle was a result of
slavery, which existed from 1680 to 1865. Africans were kidnapped from their homeland
and forced to work in the United States. Unlike other immigrants who voluntarily left their
homeland in search of the New World, the relationship African Americans have with
America is a battle between affection and rejection. On arrival, they were treated with
disdain and had their freedom taken from them. Therefore, black Americans are caught
 between their African heritage, of which they have little or no knowledge, and the New
World that mistreated them. Du Bois acknowledges this predicament by stating:

He [the black man] would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach
the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white
Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply
wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without
being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity
closed roughly in his face. (1995, pp.45–6)

Du Bois proposed that this element of ‘twoness’, or ‘double consciousness’, infiltrates all
aspects of life for the black American. This idea of double consciousness is a useful tool
for reading texts where race and ethnicity are key.
Racial and ethnic groupings are comprised of minorities that are pitted against the
majority. Identity is typically fractured as they are, on the one hand, alienated from the
dominant group due to their biological or shared heritage yet, on the other hand, rooted
within a wider community. Hence most groups tend to hyphenate or conflate their
identity, for example British-Jew (religion), French-Canadian (language), American
Cherokee (tribe), Latin American (continent/region). As a result race and ethnicity can be
understood through Du Bois’ ideas of double consciousness.
One of the ways in which to apply this idea of duality to a film text is to look for hidden
meanings, subtext or underlying tensions. If a black actor is seen playing a two-
dimensional role, then we need to ask whether the stereotype is being reworked in any
way. Bert Williams the early blackface minstrel actor provides a good example here.
Williams was the most famous of all the minstrel actors. On stage, he pretended to be
thick and lazy, adopting a Southern drawl. Off stage, people were surprised that he
sported a Caribbean accent and was highly intelligent. The irony is that, while Williams
was performing, white folk would laugh at his stupidity. Upstairs, because coloured folk
were not allowed to sit in the stalls, the black audience would laugh at the white
audience for believing that Williams was stupid. Therefore, it is a matter of agency;
Williams was consciously adopting the false persona in order to make money and this is
an example of double consciousness.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any examples of double consciousness in films?

2 Should double consciousness be regarded as a survival technique, tongue-in-cheek
humour or a rebellious act?
3 Double consciousness can be adopted by minority racial and ethnic groups. Discuss
whether it can be applied to everyone (white British, white European, Anglo-Indian,
Turkish-German, etc.).
4 To what extent can the idea of double consciousness reveal political and social power
structures?

This notion of duality can be employed as a narrative device. Being caught

between two cultures, yet belonging to neither, forms the premise of the
genre known as the ‘narrative of passing’.
The narrative of passing

As a result of the historical oppression of racial and ethnic groups, ‘passing’

has long been an inevitable option. The term ‘passing’ serves to describe a
person who attempts to disguise their cultural or biological heritage and
‘pass’ themselves off as being part of the dominant group (white, Christian).
The narrative of passing has had a long history in both literature and film.
Traditionally, such stories focus on the character of the tragic ‘Mulatto’. The
protagonist, who is usually female, is of mixed parentage (one black parent,
one white); her light skin enables her to pass as white as she typically rejects
her black ancestry. However, it is the presence of the distinctively dark-
skinned mother (Mammy) that reinforces the mixed race character’s true
identity.
These tales tend to make moral judgments, with the protagonist frequently
punished at the conclusion of the story. Their true identity is often discovered
and they are physically beaten; many cannot cope with having to turn their
backs on their family and friends, which leads to a life of misery and
sometimes suicide. Such harsh treatment could also be read as a warning
against miscegenation (interracial marriage or relationships). Famous
examples of the narrative of passing include Showboat (James Whale, 1930
and George Sidney, 1946), Pinky (Elia Kazan, 1956), Imitation of Life (John
M. Stahl, 1934 and Douglas Sirk, 1959) and Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959).
More recently, passing has been explored from a male perspective in the film
The Human Stain (Robert Benton, 2003).
It is important to note that ‘passing’ is not just a Hollywood plot device; it
was a reality for many pale-skinned African Americans and other racial
groups. Once slavery had been abolished, America became segregated. This
meant that there were separate facilities for blacks and whites. There were
separate churches, schools, swimming pools, restaurants, etc. Furthermore,
African Americans were unable to gain well-paid jobs; therefore ‘passing’
became a way to overcome racism. Writing in 1963, James E. Conyers and T.
H. Kennedy undertook a survey examining the motivations for passing as
white; the responses included the following reasons (p.217):

1 lack of identification with other Negroes

2 fallen in love or married into the white race
3 to secure economic advantages
4 to hide one’s past life
5 to secure equal social, cultural and recreational advantages
6 to have something to feel important about among other Negroes
7 to obtain some psychic thrill in fooling the white man

The list can also be applied to other minority groups that ‘pass’. One
justification that does not appear is when people ‘pass’ in order to avoid
danger. During World War II, many Jews with Aryan features (blond hair and
blue eyes) denied their Jewish heritage to avoid being sent to concentration
camps. The most famous case is the real-life story of Edith Hahn Beer, an
Austrian Jewish woman who married a Nazi officer.
Interestingly, Jewish stories of passing are not frequently brought to
screen. Hollywood was established and controlled by a handful of Jewish
studio bosses. Accordingly, at a time when black actors were placed in
subservient roles such as waitress, maid or butler, it was the Jewish stars,
under newly Americanized names, who took the leading roles. Many famous
actors consciously chose to erase their Jewish-sounding names in order to
gain acceptance with a wider audience. For example, Tony Curtis was
originally named Bernard Schwartz, Gene Wilder changed his name from the
Jewish-sounding Jerome Silberman and Natalie Hershlag is better known as
Natalie Portman. It is also surprising to learn that Woody Allen and Mel
Brooks, who are renowned for incorporating their Jewish heritage into their
films, once went by the names Allen Konigsberg and Melvin Kaminsky
respectively.
The narrative of passing in relation to Native American identity takes an
unusual twist. Whereas a number of African American and Jewish people
have looked to erase their ancestry due to racism and anti-Semitism,
conversely, there have been incidents where individuals have falsely
professed to be Native Americans. Archibald Bleaney was born in England
and emigrated to Canada, where he worked as a trapper and forest ranger. As
a child he had been fascinated with cowboys-and-indians stories and, while
living in the forest, he adopted the fictitious identity of Grey Owl. He
accounted for his European features by claiming that his father was Scottish
and his mother was an Apache. Under this assumed identity, Grey Owl
successfully published several books about conservation and the
environment. Even after his true identity came to light, his books remained
popular. The story was brought to the screen by Richard Attenborough in the
1998 biopic Grey Owl. Similarly, the actor Iron Eyes Cody appeared in over
200 films playing Native American characters. However, near the end of his
life it was revealed that his real name was Espera Oscar de Corti. Due to
hostility towards Italians when he was growing up in Louisiana, he felt an
affiliation with the Native American people and as a result chose to adopt that
identity. Therefore, unlike other groups that have worked to hide their roots,
Native American culture holds an exotic, mystical appeal. More recently,
there was controversy surrounding the civil rights activist Rachel Dolezal
who falsely claimed to be of African American descent.

Reflect and respond

1 Is the film industry making a political statement in punishing characters who pass?
2 Other than African Americans, Native Americans and Jews, can you think of any other
examples of minority groups attempting to pass?
3 What kinds of genre would suit these films?
4 Can you recall ever being shocked when an actor’s race or ethnic background has been
revealed? Are they right in hiding this information and why do you think they
consciously chose to hide their heritage?
5 The narrative of passing has dwindled in popularity in recent times. Can you account for
this and can you think of any contemporary versions?

Looking at race from a different angle, Richard Dyer’s seminal text White
highlights the anonymity afforded white Caucasians.

Richard Dyer
White (1997)

Richard Dyer’s book White signalled a groundbreaking approach to academic writing

on race. He was one of the first scholars to point out that ‘whiteness’ is typically ignored
in Western history.
He believes that whiteness has effectively come to mean ‘non-raced’:

The sense of whites as non-raced is most evident in the absence of reference to

whiteness in the habitual speech and writing of white people in the West. We (whites)
will speak of, say, the blackness or Chineseness of friends, neighbours, colleagues,
customers or clients, and it may be in the most genuinely friendly and accepting
manner, but we don’t mention the whiteness of the white people we know. (p.2)

Dyer claims that when the term ‘white’ is employed, it is predominantly to signify
ethnicity, based on ‘cultural origins such as British, Italian or Polish, or Catholic or
Jewish, or Polish-American, Irish-American, Catholic-American and so on’ (p.4). Rather
than employing the term ‘white’ as an indicator of race, universal terminology is applied
such as ‘people’ and ‘human race’.
The premise of Dyer’s thesis is that Western history is told from a white, heterosexual,
male perspective. Consequently, marginalized groups have had to actively fight to be
heard (women, homosexuals, non-whites, etc.). White is accepted as ‘the norm’; it is
unquestioned as the dominant voice. Accordingly, whiteness has become invisible. He
asserts:

Whites must be seen to be white, yet whiteness as race resides in invisible properties
and whiteness as power is maintained by being unseen. To be seen as white is to
have one’s corporeality registered, yet true whiteness resides in the non-corporeal.
The paradox and dynamic of this are expressed in the very choice of white to
categorise us. White is both a colour and, at once, not a colour and the sign of that
which is colourless because it cannot be seen: the soul, the mind, and also emptiness,
non-existence and death, all of which form part of what makes white people socially
white. Whiteness is the sign that makes white people visible as white, while
simultaneously signifying the true character of white people, which is invisible. (p.45)

In order to examine race relations fully, Dyer maintains that white people need to be
made aware of their whiteness; ‘whiteness needs to be made strange’ (p.10). Only once
the invisible power structures of whiteness are made evident can a true understanding
be gained.
However, he does warn against the emergence of ‘white studies’, as white people
have never struggled to be represented. He also cautions that too much focus on
whiteness could be a step in the wrong direction, prompting a misled resurgence in white
supremacy. Another problem he identifies is that issues of whiteness are inherently tied
to guilt. Historically, the white man has oppressed non-white people and so it is
necessary to recognize that whiteness is tied to issues of culpability regarding the legacy
of racism. Dyer purports that this sensation of guilt can detract from efforts to interrogate
whiteness as an ideology.
One of the ways in which Dyer explores the historical connotations of whiteness is
through a detailed investigation of how the word has been used. Drawing from a range of
extensive resources, he lists symbolic meanings associated with whiteness. These
include (pp.72–3):

• innocence/chastity/purity
• advanced civilisation
• spiritual cleanliness/holiness/divine power
• honour/truth
• triumph
• light
• simplicity
• joy/happiness
• regeneration
• gaiety
• peace/transcendence
• modesty
• femininity/beauty
• delicacy

All the words that feature in the list above have positive connotations. Conversely, Dyer
demonstrates that negativity is associated with darkness (non-white). He discusses how
it is associated with dirt, uncleanliness, sin, sex, sweat, semen, secretion and excrement
(p.76). ln the clearest sense, Dyer points out the problematic history of terminology:
 We have a moral vocabulary such that white = good and black = bad we thus
necessarily equate white people with goodness and black with evil. […] However
profoundly mixed up and various the actual representations of black and white people
are, the underlying regime of dualism is still in play. (pp.63–4)

As an example of this binary relation of light and dark, he references Clyde Taylor’s
analysis of the original Star Wars trilogy. Here Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), ‘a WASP
of ancient biblical lineage’, is pitted against Darth Vader (David Prowse), the ‘dark
invader […] who is clad from head to toe in shiny black armour’ (p.65). Dyer’s study
continues with an analysis of how the film industry has lit its subjects, both white and
non-white and how traditional practices have favoured the Caucasian. He carefully
deconstructs iconic images of male and female in literature, and in the media. He
explores these, discussing the subtext of race in relation to lighting.
Dyer argues here that ‘photography and cinema, as a media of light, at the very least
lend themselves to priviledge white people’ (p.83). He discusses how camera and
lighting manuals are written with a white subject in mind; ‘The assumption that the
normal face is a white face runs through most published advice given on photo- and
cinemotograpy (p.94)’. Dyer explores how the industry has a poor track record of filming
darker skin tones especially when darker actors are placed alongside Caucasian
counterparts. Although Dyer’s notes are illuminating, no pun intended, the emergence of
digital technologies has addressed many of the concerns he rasies. For example, James
Laxton was nominated for an Oscar for his work on the film Moonlight (Barry Jenkins,
2016) which featured an all-black cast. Laxton’s work was lauded for its rich colour
tones; he reveals that this was aided by digital immediate processing in post-production
(manipulating colour and tone). He explains that the tripartite structure of the film saw
him use three distinct looks captured through digital manipulation:

Fujifilm tells part 1 – using the stocks’ blue and green to express the brilliance of the
water in Miami and the city’s lush vegetation. After all, this is what stands out to a child
– the vibrancy and intensity of the surrounding world. Agfa film tells part 2: Chiron’s
teenage perspective on the world is echoed in the duller, more washed-out color
spectrum. Finally, Kodak was used for part 3; the film’s warmer hues emphasized and
communicated the welcoming atmosphere of the diner scene and the romantic finale.
(Strecker, 2016)

Irrespective of technological advances in filming black subjects, Dyer’s text

acknowledges that whiteness is laden with historical and political agency. Nevertheless,
it is typically ignored as ordinary, commonplace and all-encompassing. Yet it does not
include everyone and should be acknowledged as a signifier of dominance over others.
Thus whiteness should never be excluded from debates on race as it is central to ideas
of identity.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent are your ideas of dark and light rooted in childhood?
2 Do you think that the historical bias of good being associated with light and darkness
equating to evil is in part responsible for racism?
3 Make a list of films where white is linked to positivity and black denotes negativity.
4 List films where these ideas are subverted.
5 Is whiteness a useful tool for reading race on screen?
Case study: Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

Until 2012, films depicting American Slavery were very rarely brought to
screen. There were a number of breakthrough texts such as Mandingo
(Richard Fleischer, 1975), Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997) and the TV
mini-series Roots (Chomsky, Erman, Greene and Moses, 1977), but typically
filmmakers avoided the topic. Whereas it took around a decade before the
film industry started to produce films about the Vietnam War, it took a
staggering 147 years until Hollywood finally felt ready to broach the
sensitive issue of Slavery. 2012 saw the release of both Django Unchained
(Quentin Tarantino) and Lincoln (Steven Spielberg), with Belle (Amma
Asante) and 12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen) following in 2013. Of all
these modern films which use American Slavery as their source material,
Django Unchained was the one that courted a great deal of controversy. The
main criticism aimed at Quentin Tarantino and the film was to do with the
representation of African American characters and the appropriation, or
misappropriation, of black culture.
Hollywood has long been held accountable for depicting African
Americans as one-dimensional caricatures. Rather than creating characters
which are psychologically developed, the industry typically relies on racial
stereotyping. Django Unchained does not shy away from acknowledging this
problematic history in terms of characterisation. Before entering the
antebellum plantation, Candie-land, the following conversation takes place
between Schultz, the bounty hunter, and his sidekick/ valet Django:
SCHULTZ

When we gain access to these plantations, we’ll be putting on an act.

You’ll be playing a character. Now, during the act you can never break
character […] and your character is that of the Valet […]. That’s a fancy
word for a servant […]. And now, Django, you may choose your
character’s costume.
DJANGO

You’se gonna let me pick out my own clothes?

SCHULTZ
 But of course.

Figure 13.1 Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)

The film is a generic mishmash of Blaxploitation, traditional Westerns and

the Italian Spaghetti Westerns, with the lead character being attributed to the
1966 film Django directed by Sergio Corbucci. Nevertheless, it is the
Blaxploitation traits that are evident when Django is next seen. Here, Jamie
Foxx is observed riding a horse, wearing a royal blue ruffled, Knickerbocker
suit (Figure 13.1). Although supposedly based on The Boy Blue (Figure
13.2), painted by Thomas Gainsborough (1770) and in keeping with valet
costumes of the period, Sharen Davis’ costume design harkens back to the
over-the-top attire worn by the anti-heroes of the Blaxploitation films. For
example Ron O’Neal’s over-long trench coat in Superfly (Gordon Parks Jr,
1972) which resembles a patterned carpet and Max Julien’s iconic white fur
coat in The Mack (Michael Campus, 1973).
Furthermore, the narrative includes additional generic markers associated
with the Blaxploitation era; in particular, the overly stylised violence which
occurs in the final shoot out sequence. Whereas Westerns and Spaghetti
Westerns also incorporate excessive violence, Blaxploi- tation films tend to
temper violence with a sense of humour. In Django Unchained, the aesthetic
choice of an almost dayglow red to signify blood renders the violence in the
climax of the film as borderline comedic. As Django undertakes his Nat
Turner-esque revengeful massacre, the audience are witness to gratuitous
scenes of barbarism with amplified bodily sound effects. This is violence as
pure entertainment as the sequence bears more similarities with comic books
and animation than traditional feature films. Accordingly, Tarantino
desensitises the severity of the violence through the comedic use of colour
and sound.
However, this is not to say that the director approaches the topic of
American Slavery in a gung-ho fashion. In the earlier sequences that depict
white on black violence, typically slaves being subjected to extreme sadism
at the hands of white slavers and over-seers, the scenes are captured in a very
different way. The mise-en-scène is far more rooted in verisimilitude; there is
a level of respect and sombreness to the imagery. Whereas the climactic
ending is encoded with farce and exploitative aesthetics, the earlier scenes are
weighted with a sense of national burden and trauma.
Figure 13.2 The Blue Boy, Thomas Gainsborough, 1770. © courtesy of the Huntington Art
Collections, San Marino, California. Photography
© 2015 Fredrik Nilsen.

In terms of characterisation, it was Samuel L. Jackson’s portrayal of the

elderly slave Stephen that caused concern. Stephen epitomises the Uncle Tom
stereotype of old; willing to sacrifice his life, and that of others, in order to
please his white master. In the film, Stephen is shown to be both
manipulative and self-serving, yet ultimately loyal to his master, Calvin
Candie (Leonardo Di Caprio). The Uncle Tom is an offensive stereotype that
the film industry has long tried to forget. Even as early as 1942, there was a
meeting between the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People) and Hollywood officials in order to try and eradicate such
problematic stereotyping. Therefore Tarantino foregrounding Stephen as the
Tom figure opens up old wounds pertaining to damaging caricatures.
The offense and controversy did not stop at the representation of black
characters; the main cause for contention related to Tarantino’s brazen
overuse of the ‘n-word’. In his defence, the director claims that the film is a
period feature and that using the racial slur amounts to historical accuracy.
David J. Leonard points out, ‘The “historical accuracy” piece is hard to
swallow, given the film’s erasure of the Black Codes, given its Spaghetti
Western aesthetics, and the inclusion of “B-word” and “MF”, both which
were not widely used until after the 1920s’ (2014, p.279). Spike Lee was also
vocal in his condemnation of Tarantino’s appropriation of the ‘n-word’;
‘American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western. It Was a
Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen from Africa. I Will Honor Them
[sic]’ (Lee, 2012). Interestingly, this was not the first time Lee and Tarantino
had come to blows over the use of the ‘n-word’. Lee similarly chastised the
director for using it in the earlier Blaxploitation inspired film Jackie Brown
(1997).
Whether the viewer feels that the overuse of the word seeks to reduce its
power or whether it should be interpreted as highly disrespectful is
subjective. The mixed reception of Django Unchained tends to be linked to
the question of agency; is it appropriate for a white director, namely Quentin
Tarantino, to make a film about the black experience? On the one hand, the
director shows an affinity for black culture and there is a sense of reverence
when dealing with the systemic violence subjected upon the black slaves.
Yet, on the other hand, there is an air of schoolboy mischief in the relentless
use of the ‘n-word’. John Singleton surmises the debate as follows:
 What Hollywood execs need to realize is that black-themed stories appeal
to the mainstream because they are uniquely American. Our story reminds
audiences of struggles and triumphs, dreams and aspirations we all share.
And it is only by conveying the particulars of African-American life that
our narrative become universal. But making black movies without real
participation by black filmmakers is tantamount to cooking a pot of gumbo
without the “roux.” And if you don’t know offhand what “roux” is, you
shouldn’t be making a black film.

Although the film industry has come a long way in finally creating narratives
which feature this traumatic period of American history, until the industry
enables more African Americans the opportunity to represent themselves, the
appropriateness of white directors will always be questioned.

Reflect and respond

1 Consider Quentin Tarantino role as director. Why would it be problematic?

2 To what extent should Django Unchained be seen as an African American tale of
rebellion and survival or a story of white American guilt?
3 Do you feel that Tarantino’s use of the ‘n-word’ was appropriate or not?
4 Discuss Tarantino’s use of violence in the film; do you agree that there are moments of
sensitivity? 5 Race and ethnicity are often emotive subjects. Discuss whether
filmmakers have a responsibility in how they represent such issues.
6 Can you think of any other films that have affected public opinion and/or brought about
political change?

Conclusion

Race and ethnicity continue to be of importance when reading film, as the

industry still relies on stereotyping. This practice is in part due to time
restrictions within the narrative and stereotyping establishes character traits
quickly. Yet it is important to deconstruct the hierarchies of power that give
rise to offensive caricatures and sweeping generalizations. These problems
can only be addressed if the industry adopts a more inclusive approach and
afford racial and ethnic minorities a chance to represent themselves. This
became apparent in the response to the nominations for the Academy Awards
in 2016. A number of high profile African Americans chose to boycott the
ceremony due to the lack of diversity in the nominations; for the second year
running there were no non-white nominations for the main acting categories.
The boycott led to a great deal of media coverage and a promise from the
Academy to include eligible voters from a more diverse pool in future. The
following year, the Oscars saw an unprecedented number of nominations for
black productions.

Bibliography
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Indiana University Press.
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Philosophy, Politics and Poetics. New York, NY: Routledge.
Bial, H. (2005) Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen. Ann Arbor,
MI: University of Michigan Press.
Bird, S. E. (ed.) (1996) Dressing in Feathers: The Construction of the Indian in American Popular
Culture . Boulder, CO: Westview Press.
Bogle, D. (1973) Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies and Bucks: An Interpretive History of Blacks in
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3, pp.215–23.
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Dyer, R. (1997) White. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
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Hall, S. (1997a) Race, the Floating Signifier. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.
Hall, S. (ed.) (1997b) Representation: Cultural Representation and Signifying Practices . Milton
Keynes: Open University Press.
hooks, b. (1992) Black Looks: Race and Representation. London: Turnaround.
Lee, S [Spike Lee]. (2012, December 22). American Slavery Was Not A Sergio Leone Spaghetti
Western. It Was a Holocaust. My Ancestors Are Slaves. Stolen from Africa. I Will Honor Them
[Tweet]. Available at https://twitter.com/spikelee/status/282611091777941504.
Leonard, D. J. (2014) ‘Django Blues: Whiteness and Hollywood’s Continued Failures’, in O. C. Speck
(ed.) Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained: The Continuation of Metacinema. New York, NY and
London: Bloomsbury Press, pp.269–86.
Singleton, J. (2013) ‘Can a White Director Make a Great Black Movie?’, Hollywood Reporter.
Available at http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/john-singleton-can-a-white-630127.
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Culture. Available at https://www.lensculture.com/articles/moonlight-cinematography-the-
photographic-inspirations-behind-moonlight-2016-s-best-picture.
 CHAPTER 14

POSTCOLONIAL AND
TRANSNATIONAL CINEMAS
Postcolonialism
1. The fact or state of having formerly been a colony; the
cultural condition of (a) post-colonial society.

Setting the scene

Postcolonialism is a collection of theories from many disciplines including

literature, science, geography, politics, philosophy and film. It emerged in
response to the legacy of colonial rule. Colonialism refers to the period
when the Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French and British were expanding
their territories overseas. These Western nations travelled to distant lands to
set up colonies for a number of reasons, including the development of trade
routes, to increase political power and to spread the word of God.
Furthermore, exploitation of natural resources and local people was a
common occurrence. In order to create colonies, native people were colo-
nized; they were subjected to Western oppressive rule and disinherited from
their land. In the expansion of European empires (imperialism), indigenous
people suffered both materially and mentally.
Although the ‘post’ prefix suggests that this debate concerns only the
aftermath of colonial rule, after colonized countries regained their
independence (decolonization), Postcolonial Studies actually encompasses
the relationship between imperial forces and oppressed nations from the
onset of colonization to the present day. As such, Postcolonial Theory is
concerned with the immediate and long-term effect of enforced occupation
on the psyche and culture of native people.
 Most historical accounts are written from a Western perspective, with the
native voice remaining unheard. Postcolonial Studies aims to reinsert the
indigenous voice yet, at the same time, deconstruct cultural artefacts for
traces of colonial domination. Poignantly, Salman Rushdie, the Anglo-
Indian novelist, famously coined the phrase ‘the Empire Writes Back to the
Centre’. Although a direct parody of The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin
Kershner, 1980), Rushdie was describing the process of authors from
former colonies rewriting their history from the viewpoint of the oppressed.
The word ‘centre’ refers to the colonial powers while natives are often
identified through opposing terms such as ‘marginal’ or
‘peripheral/periphery’.
Western artefacts from the colonization period are of equal importance
because they often reveal racist attitudes. Here the terms ‘Otherness’ or
‘Othering’ are appropriate. Western language and imagery, concerning the
representation of native inhabitants, exaggerate ideas of primitive savagery
or exotic fetishization (see Chapter 14, ‘Race and Ethnicity’). At the heart
of Postcolonial Theory there is a struggle for power (the historical struggle
for land and possessions and the legacy of cultural annihilation and
reappropriation). In order to liberate their culture, marginalized people had
to assert their opinions and consequently denounce the paternalistic agenda
of the tyrannical Westerners. One of the earliest writers to air views
regarding the detrimental effects of colonization on the non-Western psyche
was Frantz Fanon.

Frantz Fanon
Black Skin, White Masks (1952)

Frantz Fanon was born in Martinique in 1925. The Caribbean island was then a French
colony and it was Fanon’s experiences growing up under a colonial power that
informed his writing. His work examined the psychological impact of colonization. In
particular, he sought to expose the detrimental nature of colonial power structures on
the psyche of the oppressed. He recalled that from an early age he was taught that
whites were superior to blacks. ‘There is a fact: White men consider themselves
superior to black men. There is another fact: Black men want to prove to white men, at
all costs, the richness of their thought, the equal value of their intellect’ (1986, p.12).
Fanon’s father was descended from African slaves and his mother was mixed race.
His upbringing as a black man in colonial Martinique had an overwhelming impact on
how he viewed himself and how he was viewed by others. These views were
compounded by the time he spent in France. He described this experience as a kind of
 amputation; when he began to think of himself as an object rather than a subject. This
sudden shift in perception followed an incident when white strangers pointed at him,
saying ‘look, a negro’ and ‘dirty nigger’:

On that day, completely dislocated, unable to be abroad with the other, the white
man, who mercilessly imprisoned me, I took myself far off from my own presence,
far indeed, and made myself an object. What else could it be for me but an
amputation, an excision, a haemorrhage that spattered my whole body with black
blood? But I do not want this revision, this thema-tisation. All I wanted was to be a
man among other men. I wanted to come lithe and young into a world that was ours
and to help to build it together. (1986, pp.112–13)

Fanon was instrumental in asking questions concerning the psychology of colonialism.

He developed this line of argument further in his next book.

The Wretched of the Earth (1961)

The Wretched of the Earth is probably Fanon’s most famous text. It was written as a
response to the French occupation of Algeria and the struggle for independence faced
by the oppressed. He once more considers the negative effects of imperialism on the
psyche of the indigenous people and put forward his opinions on how these ideological
shackles should be severed.
Fanon urged for a break with the cultural heritage of the colonial past. He warned
that if the emerging middle classes took over government once the colonial powers
had been removed, then the country would be at risk of perpetuating the power
relations previously set in place. He further cautioned that establishing commercial ties
with Western businesses rather than breaking ties with imperial powers, would
ultimately lead to a new version of colonization. This continued dependency on former
colonial powers became known as ‘Neocolonialism’. It is important to note that the
term ‘Neocolonialism’ is typically associated with America, which had no overseas
colonies, but still managed to exert its power over other nations.
Regarding culture, Fanon made similar claims. He believed that it was important for
native texts to depart from European traditions. He recognized that an indigenous
voice was important in establishing a cultural identity separate from that of the West.
He counselled that these forms of culture should not be a nostalgic look to the past but
should strive forwards in a new direction.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent is the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized a
psychological one? In what other ways can we understand this pairing?
2 Do ideas of superiority and inferiority continue today? Are they still relevant in black
culture? Can you think of examples where they occur?
3 Consider the legacy of colonial history. How far is colonial thinking ingrained once the
controlling forces have left?

Fanon’s work was rooted in psychology and Marxist thinking. His writing
was instrumental ideologically in liberating the colonized from colonial
power structures (economical, political and psychological). His work went
on to inspire a number of Postcolonial scholars. In particular the damaging
effects on the psyche of the oppressed was a site of discourse continued by
Edward Said.

Edward Said
Orientalism (1978)

Edward Said was one of the first academics to expose the biased way the West
depicted the East in literature and other forms of culture. The literary theorist gained
academic acclaim when he controversially claimed that Oriental Studies is inherently
linked to imperialist ways of thinking.
He chose the ancient term ‘Orient’ to distinguish the Middle and Far East from the
‘Occident’ meaning Europe and America. His work explores the West’s long-held
fascination with Eastern culture. He maintains that the ‘Orient’ and ‘Orientalism’ do not
exist but are instead a construct of Western imagination: ‘[t]he Orient was almost a
European invention, and has been since antiquity a place of romance, exotic beings,
haunting memories and landscapes, remarkable experiences’ (p.71). Said was
motivated to write his study because he felt that the depictions of the East, circulated
in the West, gave a very different impression to his own experience as an Arab. The
Orient, for Said, is a mythic land conjured by Westerners. The romanticized image
depicted in stories such as Kubla Khan (Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1816), One
Thousand and One Nights (Richard Francis Burton, 1885–8) and the Verdi opera Aida
(1871) are key examples of what he terms ‘Orientalism’. These examples are founded
on stereotypes, where texts foreground exotic beauty and savage violence, rather than
being based on fact and authentic cultural representation.
Said identifies three forms of Orientalism in his work:

1 Academic
Anyone who teaches, writes about, or researches the Orient – and this applies
whether the person is an anthropologist, sociologist, historian, or philologist –
either in its specific or general aspects, is an Orientalist, and what he or she does
is Orientalism (p.72).
2 Style
Orientalism is a style of thought based upon an ontological and epistemological
distinction made between ‘the Orient’ and (most of the time) ‘the Occident.’ Thus a
very large mass of writers, among whom are poets, novelists, philosophers,
political theorists, economists, and imperial administrators, have accepted the
basic distinction between East and West as the starting point for elaborate
theories, epics, novels, social descriptions, and political accounts concerning the
Orient, its people, customs, ‘mind,’ destiny, and so on (p.72).
3 Ideology
Orientalism can be discussed and analyzed as the corporate institution for dealing
with the Orient – dealing with it by making statements about it, authorizing views of
it, describing it, by teaching it, settling it, ruling over it: in short, Orientalism as a
Western style for dominating, restructuring, and having authority over the Orient.
 [...] In brief, because of Orientalism the Orient was not (and is not) a free subject of
thought or action (p.73).

To summarize Said’s findings, the first form of Orientalism is concerned with academic
study. Due to scholarly interest in the mythic/fictionalized lands, the Orient continues to
exist. Second, it can be thought of as a source for stylistic inspiration, typically
manifesting in works based on binary distinctions (the East seen through Western
eyes). The final form of Orientalism is the most trou-blesome as it exposes the history
of Western supremacy and domination over the East. This ideological attitude of
Western superiority served as a justification for the colonization of distant lands.
Furthermore, this overbearing approach often seeps into filmic representation.
Identifying racist and biased traits, informed by the legacy of colonial imagination, is
key to undertaking a Postcolonial reading of a film.

Orientalism in film

For many Westerners, their only knowledge of the East, and in particular
the Middle East, comes from images in the media. Sut Jhally, in a
documentary entitled Edward Said: On Orientalism states that:

Many people believe the way that Americans understand the Muslim
world is very problematic. Indeed, Anti-Arab racism seems to be almost
officially sanctioned. You can make generalized and racist statements
about Arab peoples that would not be tolerated for any other group. At
the heart of how this new American Orientalism operates is the
threatening and demonized figure of the Islamic terrorist that is
emphasized by journalists and Hollywood. (1998) The fictional image of
the Orient, which Said discusses in his writing, has consistently provided
inspiration for the film industry due to its rich iconography. Vast deserts,
camels, sheiks, scimitars, veils, dancing girls, whirling dervishes, etc., are
just a few examples of why the Orientalist cinematic tradition continues.
Film is a visual culture and caricatured representations of the East result
in tales of mystery, exotic locales and people. More problematically,
there does tend to be a leaning towards negativity and violence.

Take, for example, the Disney film Aladdin (Ron Clements and John
Musker, 1992), which is often cited as an Orientalist text. When the film
was originally released, the opening song ‘Arabian Nights’ contained the
following lyrics:
 Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place
Where the caravan camels roam.
Where they cut off your ear
If they don’t like your face.
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

After receiving complaints from the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination

Committee (ADC) for violent and racist content, the lyrics were adapted in
time for the video release in 1993. The new edition replaces the brutal
image of butchery with a less offensive version:

Oh I come from a land, from a faraway place

Where the caravan camels roam
Where it’s flat and immense
And the heat is intense.
It’s barbaric, but hey, it’s home.

Another example can be found in the Spielberg family favourite Indiana

Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). Set in India, the story sees Indiana
Jones (Harrison Ford) become embroiled in the happenings of a remote
village. A precious jewel has been stolen by a local group of religious
Thuggees. The name Thuggee was historically used to describe groups of
robbers and assassins in India; it is now more commonly shortened to the
colloquial term thug. In addition to stealing the gem, the occultists also
kidnap the village’s children. Kaizaad Navroze Kotwal warns of the
imperialist messages contained in the film. In particular he identifies the
colonial subtext relating to the miss-ing children:
 Figure 14.1 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984)

By presenting the leader of the Kali cult as a child-enslaver, the filmmakers

argue that Indians are incapable of treating their children with dignity and
compassion. It presents the need of a more benevolent father in the guise of
colonialists, ignoring the fact that many of the precepts of colonialism gave
rise to virtual slavery. (Kotwal, n.d.) The villagers are depicted as primitive
and super-stitious, while the Thuggees are shown to be evil cannibals
(Figure 14.1). This racist stereotyping is indicative of Western colonial
legacy.
Kotwal points out that the film follows in the tradition of Gunga Din
(George Stevens, 1939), which was produced when the British Empire was
thriving. Based on a poem by Rudyard Kipling, the narrative features an
Indian water-carrier who aspires to fight for the British army. Gunga Din is
an ‘untoucha-ble’ (lowest rank of the traditional Indian caste system)
regarded as a social outcast. However, at the conclusion of the film Gunga
Din sacri-fices himself in order to save the white colonial forces.
Poignantly, the character of Gunga Din was played by Sam Jaffe, a white
man wearing dark make-up to appear Indian (Figure 14.2).
 Figure 14.2 Gunga Din (George Stevens, 1939)

Although nearly half a millennium passed between the making of Gunga

Din and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the pictures here (Figures
14.1 and 14.2) expose the continued stereotypical approach to Eastern
representation. The character of Gunga Din inhabits the subservient role of
loyal follower while the Thuggees, more problematically, epitomize the
aggressive stereotype associated with Eastern culture. The films adopt a
stance of Western superiority and accordingly force the Indians to perform
the role of the exotic ‘Other’.
Despite Disney’s attempt to appease controversy and Spielberg’s silence
regarding the film, the semiotic coding in these films of the 80s and 90s
suggests that people from the East are violent and barbaric. Such films
reveal the distorted lens with which the industry frequently views the Arab
world. Jack G. Shaheen explored this hateful depiction in the book Reel
Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People (2001). The book looked at
fifty films, only twelve of which contained positive portrayals.
Following the attack on the World Trade Center in New York on
September 11th 2001, vili-fication of Arab peoples has escalated. Shaheen
developed his work in the light of the post-9/11 climate. His new book
Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11 (2008) continues in the
same vein as his earlier works but also poses difficult questions regarding
anti-Islamic dogma and media responsibility:

Hate rhetoric, the war on terror, the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the
Middle East have generated damaging new media stereotypes and new
government law enforcement policies. Congress approved the PATRIOT
Act; the Department of Homeland Security launched ‘Security Level
Alerts,’ profoundly affecting citizens worldwide. Whether they lived in
the US or in the 25-nation European Union, after 9/11, bearded, dark-
looking men and women wearing head- scarves were perceived as
menacing threats to world security. (p.7)

Writing in 2008, Shaheen states ‘The total number of films that defile Arabs
now exceeds 1,150’ (p.xiv). Over 100 of these were produced post-9/11. He
describes derogatory filmic examples such as: ‘gratuitous slurs and scenes
that demean Arabs [and] villains [that] do dastardly things [...] (mostly
gunning down or blowing up innocent people)’ (p.xiv). He then lists the key
negative archetypes as (pp.xiv–xv):

• ugly sheiks
• dense, evil, over-sexed caricatures
• unsavoury Egyptian characters
• not-so-respectable images of maidens
• stereotypical portraits of Palestinians.

Within the 100 films discussed, Shaheen does note that a handful of films
champion Arabs and show them to be ‘decent folk’ (p.xv). So there is a
glimmer of hope that, even in periods of extreme political unrest,
Hollywood is beginning to abstain from its practice of Orientalism.

Reflect and respond

1 Drawing from films you have seen, discuss the way Western filmmaking has
stereotyped East Asia, India and the Middle East.
2 How influential is film in informing our ideas about other nations?
3 Have these representations changed within your lifetime? If so, when did this
happen and why did it occur?
4 Should the film industry be more sensitive in its depiction of the East? Is it just
harmless fiction or are the political connotations important?
5 How could the film industry depict the East in a more authentic way?
Fanon and Said’s work was instrumental in laying the foundations for
Postcolonial thought. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak furthered debates by
investigating the stories and opinions of the subaltern.

Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak

‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ (1988)

The Indian literary critic Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay ‘Can the Subaltern
Speak?’ is a seminal text in the field of Postcolonialism. Whereas Said looked at
Western accounts of the Middle and Far East, Spivak aimed to reinsert the indigenous
voice. More poignantly, she questions whether native people have ever been in a
position to tell their version of history and if their voices are ever heard?
The term ‘subaltern’ literally refers to a person in a subordinate position and is used
by the military to denote rank. However, in Spivak’s writing she attributes it to everyone
with limited or no access to Western colonial culture. Therefore the term cannot be
used interchangeably with ‘oppressed’ or ‘minorities’ because these can refer to
people who live within the Western world. Instead, it specifically encompasses those
who are socially, politically and geographically alienated by hegemonic power
structures (legal, education and judiciary systems).
Spivak adopts the term ‘episteme’ to denote these hegemonic power structures. She
then introduces the phrase ‘epistemic violence’ to describe how the subaltern is
subjected to imposed Western/European structures of learning (law, religion,
economics and politics, etc.). Building on this idea, Spivak explains that history is told
from the point of view of the West. Due to the imperialist historical narrative, the
subaltern’s account is suppressed.
Let us now move to consider the margins (one can just as well say the silent,
silenced center) of the circuit marked out by this epistemic violence, men and women
among the illiterate peasantry, the tribals, the lowest strata of the urban proletariat
(p.25).
Spivak makes the point that even when indigenous people are afforded a voice, it is
important to acknowledge the social hierarchy present in such accounts. The version
of history contained in seemingly authentic native records would in fact be produced by
the middle classes; the reason being that the middle classes and rich peasants would
be in a better position to air their views.
In order for the real subalterns to have their say, they would have to adopt the
language and procedures of the domineering or ‘dominant’ Western forces. Therefore,
in order for the subalterns to criticize the imperial regime and initiate an insurgency,
they would have to assume the ideology and politics of the West. In simple terms, in
order to be heard, subalterns must step outside their own community or tribe and
conform to Western structures. Spivak problematizes the plight of the subaltern further
by stating that female subalterns are historically made invisible:

Within the effaced itinerary of the subaltern subject, the track of sexual difference is
doubly effected. ... It is ... both as object of colonialist historiography and as a
subject of insurgent, the ideological construction of gender [that] keeps the male
 dominant. If, in the context of colonial production, the subaltern has no history and
cannot speak, the subaltern as female is even more deeply in shadow. (p.28)

One of the main criticisms of Spivak’s argument is not concerned with

content. As can be seen, Spivak adopts a high-brow academic tone,
meaning that her work is often deemed inaccessible. Although many
theorists are critiqued for their elitist writing style, in Spivak’s case there is
a much greater irony. In making a case for the voiceless who are forced to
assume Western forms of language, her own writing alienates the very
people she seeks to defend.

Applying Spivak

In order to apply Spivak’s argument to the field of filmmaking it is

beneficial to think of the ‘episteme’ (hegemonic power structure) as
Hollywood. Non-Western filmmakers can face great hardships trying to get
their films into circulation in part due to the Western modes of film
production, distribution and marketing. One way to attract both funding and
an audience is to conform to mainstream, commercial, formal traits. For
example, employing continuity editing, a linear narrative, clear cause and
effect, could all help promote their films in the West. Like the subalterns in
Spivak’s essay, non-Western filmmakers have to implement dominant
models in order to tell their stories. In doing so, they risk diluting their own
economic, political, social and cultural message.
Another area that can be considered when assessing Spivak’s notion of
the ‘Subaltern Speaking’, is the use of subtitles. For example, Rabbit-Proof
Fence (Philip Noyce, 2002) recalls the real life story of three young half-
caste Aboriginal girls; Molly, Gracie and Daisy. The film depicts the
children being taken against their will to a Christian missionary camp called
Moore River. Here they are taught how to serve white folk in order to
become house servants. Unable to settle and suffering from home sickness,
the girls escape and set off on the 1,500 mile long journey back to their
family. A journey made possible due to a fence that was erected across the
interior of Australia in an attempt to contain the disease Myxomatosis
which effected the rabbit population. Although Gracie is recaptured, Molly
and Daisy successfully make it back to Jigalong to be reunited with their
Aboriginal parents.
The film was produced to raise awareness of the Stolen Generations.
Between 1869 and 1970, half caste Aboriginal children, who were a result
of miscegenation, were taken from their homes and placed in Christian
settlements. This was done out of a fear that interracial relationships would
lead to a third racial group that would not be black or white, but instead
mixed. It is estimated that 10–30 per cent of all interracial children were
forcibly removed. Those who were taken are now referred to as ‘The Stolen
Generations’.
The film is based on the biographical novel Follow the Rabbit-Proof
Fence (1996) written by Doris Pilkington Garimara (daughter of Molly).
However, it was directed by the white Australian, Philip Noyce, although
the film was praised for breaking with the traditional stereotypes associated
with indigenous Australians. The most vehement condemnation of Noyce’s
treatment relates to the ending of the narrative. The cinematic adaptation of
Molly’s journey visually concludes with the reunion of the family.
However, Molly’s own real-life voice-over tells a more tragic tale. On her
return to Jigalong, she was captured and taken back to Moore River on two
occasions and therefore she had to repeat the journey along the Rabbit-
Proof Fence twice more. More poignantly, her own child was then taken
and placed into the system, never to be seen again. The film mentions this
in Molly’s epilogue delivered in her own voice accompanied by subtitles.
This is an example of the subaltern speaking. The subtitles provide Molly
with the opportunity to tell her story in her own words; to set the record
straight.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you agree with Spivak’s observation that any native representations of

‘Otherness’ are told from a middle-class perspective?
2 Why do you think the female subaltern is historically silenced more than her male
counterparts? 3 In your experience of non-Euro-American filmmaking, do films
conform to dominant modes of production?
4 How important is it for non-Western filmmakers to retain their own cultural forms
(language, narratives, aesthetics)? Is it possible if they want their films to gain a
worldwide audience?

Postcolonial Studies offers a way of understanding global power relations

and the history of oppression, exploitation, negotiation and reappropriation.
One criticism aimed at Postcolonial approaches is that they often view
native culture from an idealistic position. Postcolonial readings tend to
ignore problematic cultural practices in favour of the binary argument of
colonizer and colonized. Interestingly, Marxist and Feminist thinkers point
out that social structures within indigenous populations may not necessarily
have been harmonious before the arrival of the imperial forces. For
example, India has a strict class system based on caste (social position),
with specific members of society ostra-cized by their social status.
Furthermore, women are considered inferior to men in many cultures. In
light of this, knowledge of native cultural traditions and patterns of
behaviour must be taken into consideration before exploring the impact of
colonial conflict.

Transnational Cinemas
Transnational
1. Extending or having interests extending beyond national
bounds or fron-tiers; multinational.

Setting the scene

A new area of Film Studies, which has developed out of Postcolonial

discourse, is that of Transnational Cinema. The term ‘transnational’
emerged in academic film writing around the mid-late 90s. Deborah Shaw
notes that:

The notion of the transnational in Film Studies has developed in response

to an increasing awareness of the limitations of conceptualizing film in
terms of national cinemas, and an acknowledg-ment of the changing
nature of film production and distribution as a part of wider patterns of
globalization. (2013, p.47)

When Film Studies was in its infancy, it was concerned with ideas of
nationality, in part due to academics working in language departments. This
focus has now shifted as a result of a number of key factors: the relaxation
of national borders, the increase in political and social collaborations (the
end of the Cold War and the formation of the European Union), global co-
productions and wider circulation of films via new technologies.
Consequently, scholars have adopted ‘transnational’ as a solution to the
inadequacy of ‘national’. Transnational often acts as an umbrella term,
evident from the broad description below: ‘The transnational comprises
both globalization – in cinematic terms, Hollywood’s domination of world
film markets – and the counterhegemonic responses of filmmakers from
former colonial and Third World countries’ (Ezra and Rowden, 2006, p.1).
To date much of the academic writing within this field is concerned with the
problematic nature of the term ‘transnational’ and whether it is appropriate.
Shaw asks:

Which films can be categorized as transnational and which cannot? Does

the term refer to production, distribution and exhibition, themes explored,
aesthetics, nationalities of cast and crew, audience reception, or a range
of these? Are mainstream Hollywood films transnational as they are
distributed throughout the developed world? What about films with
smaller budgets made in other national contexts that challenge
Hollywood domination and explore the damaging effects of
globalization? (2013, pp.47–8)

In answer to these central questions, there have been attempts to

deconstruct the term further. Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim are among a
number of academics recently endeavouring to dissect this all-
encompassing label.

Will Higbee and Song Hwee Lim

‘Concepts of Transnational Cinema: Towards a Critical Transnationalism in Film’
(2010)

In their article Higbee and Lim identify three ways in which the term ‘transnational’ has
been used historically:
1 Binary approach
Transnational readings of film often adopt a binary perspective
(national/transnational). More recently there has been a shift towards a much
broader remit in order to understand the global workings of the industry. Higbee
and Lim problematize this approach, arguing that it is concerned with production,
distribution and exhibition (how films and filmmakers cross borders and nations
 and how films are received by audiences outside ‘indigenous sites of production’)
(p.9). They state that the drawback to this approach is that it obscures ‘the
question of imbalances in power (political, economic and ideological) as it ignores
the issue of migration and diaspora’ (p.9).
2 Regional phenomenon
Here they look at academic work that examines films grouped together due to
geopolitical and cultural similarities. They cite the following examples: ‘Lu’s work on
transnational Chinese cinema (1997), Nestingen and Elkington’s collection on
transnational Nordic cinema (2005) as well as Tim Bergfelder, Sue Harris and
Sarah Street’s study of set design in European cinema of the 1930s’ (p.9).
However, they dispute the use of the term transnational here and suggest ‘regional’
or ‘pan-European’ as being more appropriate.
3 Diasporic, exilic and postcolonial cinemas
They describe this approach as aiming

through its analysis of the cinematic representation of cultural identity, to challenge

the western (neo-colonial) construct of nation and national culture, and, by
extension, national cinema as stable and Eurocentric in its ideological norms as well
as narrative and aesthetic formations. (p.9)

They recognize that undertaking such a reading is difficult, as these films tend to exist
outside Western film culture. Therefore it is difficult to assess the impact of such films
on commercial filmmaking.
The main problems they find with these three historical approaches are that (p.10):

• ‘Transnational becomes shorthand for international or supranational modes of film

production whose impact and reach lies beyond the bounds of the national.’
• National loses currency when it is still important to transnational filmmaking.
• The term is used to ‘indicate international co-production or collaboration between
technical and artistic personnel from across the world’ with no ‘consideration of
what the aesthetic, political or economical implications of such transnational
collaboration might mean’.
• The term is used so often as a catch-all that it has potentially become an ‘empty,
floating signifier’.

In light of the problematic usage of the term, they urge for a new understanding and
consequently adopt the phrase ‘critical transnationalism’ (p.10). They then identify how
the field should be broached by academics as a site for thorough debate in order to
counter the sweeping generalizations outlined above. They recommend the following
areas of focus:

• film narratives
• production processes
• industrial workings
• academic practices
• cultural and financial policies
• questions regarding Postcolonialism, politics and power
• interrogation of national/local/global

They conclude their assessment with the question, ‘Can transnational film studies be
truly transnational if it only speaks in English and engages with English-language
 scholarship?’ (p.18). This signals a return to the warnings issued by both Said and
Spivak. The label ‘transnational’ demands a global perspective but, in order to emulate
the ethos proposed, it is important that we learn to view and discuss films in a similar
manner to the way in which transnational films are produced.

In summary, the new field of Transnational Cinema enables a multilayered

approach that interro-gates industrial and ideological power relations within
a global culture of exchange. It offers the opportunity for extensive research
in a wide range of areas. The fifteen categories identified by Deborah Shaw
illustrate the eclectic and diverse nature of the field (2013, p.52):

1 transnational modes of production, distribution and exhibition

2 transnational modes of narration
3 cinema of globalization
4 films with multiple locations
5 exilic and diasporic filmmaking
6 film and cultural exchange
7 transnational influences
8 transnational critical approaches
9 transnational viewing practices
10 transregional or transcommunity films
11 transnational stars
12 transnational directors
13 the ethics of transnationalism
14 transnational collaborative networks
15 national films.

The scope that transnational research presents is vast yet it is illustrative of

the way cultural and industrial practices now operate. Therefore
transnational readings are innovative and indicative of a new trend in
academic study.

Transnational filmmaking

The 2008 film Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle) provides an illustration

of a transnational production. At first glance, the film could be mistaken for
a Bollywood production. Yet consider the following facts regarding the
national status of this film:

Indian

• Based on a novel by an Indian author: Q & A (Vikas Swarup, 2005).

• The narrative is set in the Juhu slums of Mumbai (formerly known as
Bombay).
• Uses Hindi dialogue for one-third of the film.
• The characters are all Indian.
• The majority of the actors are Indian.
• It conforms to Bollywood aesthetics in places (song-and-dance routine
over closing credits).
• Most of the crew are Indian (composer: A. R. Rahman, co-director:
Loveleen Tandan).

British

• The director Danny Boyle is British.

• A large part of the dialogue is in English.
• The lead character, Jamal, is played by a British Asian actor (Dev Patel).
• It was produced and part-funded by two British production companies:
Celador Films and Film4.
• It was adapted for the screen by the Yorkshire-born Simon Beaufoy.

American

• The remainder of the funding came from the American company Warner
Independent Pictures.
• The film was distributed by Fox Searchlight Productions, another US-
based firm.

France

• The overseas distribution rights were owned by Pathe Pictures

International, a French company.

Based on the evidence outlined here, despite initial assumptions that

Slumdog Millionaire is a Bollywood production, on closer inspection it is a
good example of Transnational filmmaking. It combines both Western and
Indian cultures due to its Transnational production history.
The film does not necessarily conform to the political agenda of many
productions associated with the field. However, a number of Indian critics
did raise concerns. Some of the most outspoken objections came from the
famous Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan. In his personal blog he stated:
If SM [Slumdog Millionaire] projects India as [a] Third World dirty
under belly developing nation and causes pain and disgust among
nationalists and patriots, let it be known that a murky under belly exists and
thrives even in the most developed nations. Its [sic] just that the SM idea
authored by an Indian and conceived and cinematically put together by a
Westerner, gets creative Globe recognition. The other would perhaps not.
(2009)
His concerns echo those of Said and Spivak: first, that Indian culture is
depicted as stereotypical and second, that if it were not for the Western
backing, the novel may never have reached a global audience. He later
backtracked and came out in support of the film on his blog.
Further controversy was aimed at the title ‘Slumdog’. Members of the
Slum-Dwellers’ Welfare Group filed legal objections as they felt the word
‘dog’ was demeaning. Additionally, it has since been suggested that the
child stars who feature in the film still live in the slums of Mumbai, despite
their fame. Boyle defended his treatment of the children, explaining that he
had set up child trust funds and provided transport to enable them to attend
school. In 2009 the slums were ripped apart and Boyle bought a house for
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail and his family (‘Slumdog Actor Given New
Home’, 2009). Boyle’s act, although undoubtedly well-meaning, can be
read as a continuation of the paternalistic attitude adopted by his colonial
forefathers.

Reflect and respond

1 Make a list of films that initially appear to be national productions but in fact are
Transnational productions.
2 In your opinion is the film Slumdog Millionaire predominantly a British, Indian or
American production?
3 Was Danny Boyle acting appropriately when he bought a house for the young Indian
star?
4 How useful is the term ‘Transnational’ in assessing both contemporary and older
movies?
5 What are the limitations of a Transnational reading?
 6 What information do you need to assess whether a film should be considered
Transnational?
7 Discuss the relationship between Postcolonial and Transnational Theory. List their
similarities and differences.

Case study: Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)

The 2009 film Avatar made cinematic history due to its use of 3D
technology and its overwhelming success at the box office. Although the
film is renowned for its innovative approach, Avatar tells an ancient tale
that has long been a staple in Hollywood filmmaking. It is the story of
Western colo-nization; the attempt to exploit the natural resources of
foreign lands and subjugate their peoples.
Like so many narratives before, Avatar explores the customs, rituals and
beliefs of a foreign race through the eyes of the white, Western male. The
film follows the same familiar narrative trajectory seen in Dances with
Wolves, Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (Bill Kroyer, 1992) and Pocahontas
(Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, 1995). In Avatar, the white American
character, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), enters the exotic world of
Pandora. Being a stranger to the land is an obstacle soon overcome as he
discovers an affinity with the terrain and the indigenous people. This is
usually signalled in these stories by a sudden ability to communicate with
the locals. As respect and friendship ensue, he soon becomes sympathetic to
the natives’ needs and is accordingly pitted against his own people and
Western heritage. Furthermore, he undergoes the Na’vi rite of passage in
order to become a warrior and gain acceptance. Predictably, Jake manages
to ‘out-native’ the natives, gaining almost messiah-like qualities,
demonstrated by his taming the legendary Toruk. As we can see from this
summary, the story of Jake Sully is not new, but the narrative has been
transported to a different planet.
Although Pandora is depicted as an alien planet, the inhabitants are
represented through the semiotic coding of developing nations. For
example, the soundtrack accompanying the scene where Jake learns to fly
includes vocal intonation that bears a striking resemblance to the sounds of
African or Indian chanting. This is further enhanced by the rhythmic
beating of the tribal drums. So despite the otherworldly setting, it becomes
apparent that Avatar’s plot is a metaphor for Western colonization of
Eastern territory.
Interestingly, the film can be understood as either an anti-colonialist text
or alternatively as a colonial fantasy. The first approach is probably the
most obvious. The film typically depicts the majority of Americans as
gung-ho mercenaries with no thought for the indigenous people of Pandora,
epitomized in the character of Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang). His
attitude towards the natives is one of abhorrence and repugnance. He does
not attempt to understand the Pandorans or their culture; instead he sees
them as a threat that needs to be extinguished. The derogatory tone he
adopts when talking about the natives reveals his deeply held racist views:
‘Out there beyond that fence, every living thing that crawls, flies or squats
in the mud wants to kill you and eat your eyes for ju-ju beads.’
Many reviewers and bloggers suggest that the character of Quaritch
alludes to the former US President George W. Bush. They claim that the
fictitious character’s treatment of the Pandorans is similar to the stance
adopted by the Bush administration when the US invaded Iraq. However,
the film also inadvertently reminds the audience of historic practices of
genocide, which typically occurred when Western forces attempted to take
control of non-Western land. Quaritch flippantly discusses Na’vi fatalities,
which could be read as a subtle allusion to the Holocaust: ‘I’ll do it with
minimal casualties to the indigenous, I’ll drop them out with gas first. It
will be humane more or less.’ Such instances clearly mark the film as anti-
colonial (and more incisively anti-American). The film preaches caution
against Western contempt for indigenous cultures. It highlights how
destructive corporate imperial attitudes are. Yet in the same breath, the film
can be read as a colonial fantasy.
The character of Jake is problematic because he offers a romanticized
view of colonial relations. Initially opposed to the Pandorans as he looks to
fulfil his military obligations, he soon becomes sympathetic to their plight.
Jake and his scientist comrades are depicted as caring and wanting to learn
from the Na’vi. Dr Grace Augustine (Sigourney Weaver) continues the age-
old role of educator, setting up a school for her colonial subjects. Grace and
her researchers are fascinated with the Na’vi culture and in particular their
understanding of nature, Jack states:
 I am trying to understand this deep connection people have to the forest.
She [Neytiri] talks about a network of energy that flows through all living
things. She says all energy is only borrowed and one day you have to
give it back.

The pro-environmental message is prevalent in colonial fantasies and

typically seen in films about Native Americans. Jack offers an idealistic, yet
archetypal, view of colonial interaction because he is willing to learn from
the indigenous tribe. However, it is pertinent to ask whether his role is
necessary in telling the story of the Na’vi.
Hollywood has historically explored foreign culture through the eyes of
the white Western male. Avatar could easily have been narrated by Neytiri
(Zoe Saldana). A female narrator would have been an interesting departure,
warranting consideration in relation to Spivak’s argument (although not
strictly a subaltern, being the tribal leader’s daughter, she could be classed
as subaltern from the US perspective). James Cameron missed an
opportunity here to break with the generic convention of depicting foreign
races from the white Western viewpoint. Having a white protagonist
highlights the voyeuristic exotic mystery of tribal life; they are seen as the
alien ‘Other’ by the Western tourist.
Jared Gardner exposes the controversial subtext of Avatar. He likens the
film to The Jazz Singer, stating that Al Jolson’s adoption of blackface is no
different from Jake Sully’s ‘blueface’:

As blackface did in 1927, blueface in 2009 allows Hollywood

simultaneously to ‘mourn’ the loss of what is ‘vanished’ while also
celebrate its rebirth and continuation through the indispensa-ble
mediation of the white male body [...] While the film on its surface
appears to celebrate the culture being put on by the white man [...] in the
end it is, as all Hollywood films inevitable [sic] are, about the white man
and his culture – and the white man and his storytelling machinery. The
tear shed or cheer raised for the Na’vi is no more authentic than the tear
shed for the plantation black culture in Jazz Singer or the last of the
Mohicans in James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans. It is all
about white boys showing off how well they tell stories about the tragic
loss of indigenous cultures, and how powerful that storytelling ability
makes them. (2010)
Gardner’s blackface metaphor highlights the Postcolonial legacy that is
betrayed within this film. It is impossible to separate the fictitious tale from
the history of Western domination over the East. Therefore Avatar can be
read as either an anti-colonial tale of non-communication and aggression or
a paternalistic colonial fantasy that is laden with the guilt of the white man.
The film Avatar does not necessarily demand a Transnational reading as
the film is clearly an American blockbuster. However, closer inspection
reveals a number of Transnational features. The term ‘Avatar’ relates to a
digital image that is used to represent a computer user in a virtual space
(video game or online forum). However, the term originates from Hinduism
where it is used to describe the concept of descent, where a god appears on
earth in a living form; the bodily incarnation of a deity. It is interesting to
note how the term ‘Avatar’ has a transnational etymology, it originated in
Sanskirt (Hinduism) and was related to religion then it moved across
national borders into computing to signify an online alter-ego.
In terms of the cast and crew, there are clear examples that the film is a
Transnational production. The lead character Jake Sully is performed by
English-born Australian actor Sam Worthington. The cinematographer,
Mauro Fiore, is Italian. Furthermore, the film was shot on two different
locations: Los Angeles and Wellington, New Zealand and the cast were sent
to Hawaii in order to experience rainforest terrain. The company that was
charged with creating the visual effects was Weta Digital which was also
based in Wellington, New Zealand. Avatar 2 is currently scheduled to be
released in 2018 and the shooting is once more due to take place in both
America and New Zealand.
The language of the Na’vi was created by the linguist Professor Paul
Frommer over a period of four years. He developed the language by mixing
the grammatical and syntactic rules of existing languages such as Japanese,
Spanish, Polynesian and languages of Eastern Europe. The language has
gained a cult following, with numerous ‘Learn Na’vi’ websites encouraging
fans to partake in this alien form of communication. This phenomenon,
whereby aficionados learn a fictional language, occurred with J. R. R.
Tolkien’s Elvish language of Middle Earth (composed from Finnish and
Welsh-language patterns). Another example can be seen in the Star Trek
fans who converse in Klingon. These fictional languages can be learnt
across the world regardless of nationality. They are a unifying tool,
potentially providing a universal form of communication in a similar way to
Espe-ranto, which was artificially created as an international language.
All of these attributes add to Avatar’s Transnational credibility.
Nevertheless, the cited examples are not necessarily indicative of a
Transnational production but are instead representative of a big-budget
commercial enterprise (the film was funded by four American companies
and one UK- based firm). The film industry is a global network and
accordingly crew and cast often move from country to country in order to
gain employment. Therefore, most films will involve some Transnational
characteristics (cast, crew, location, funding, etc.). For that reason, it is
important to consider the multifaceted nature of Transnationalism to fully
identify texts that conform in ethos, aesthetics, economics and politics. In
the case of Avatar maybe we should consider introducing the term trans-
planetary (Earth vs Pandora) rather than Transnational?

Reflect and respond

1 Avatar continues the generic tradition of viewing foreign cultures through the white
man’s lens. List other films that follow the same narrative blueprint.
2 Do you think Avatar is best understood as an anti-colonial text or as a romanticized
colonial fantasy?
3 How would the narrative have differed if Neytiri had been the narrator and Jake Sully
did not exist?
4 Drawing on your knowledge of Postcolonialism, discuss your reactions to the
character of Colonel Miles Quaritch and Dr Grace Augustine.
5 Attempt a reading of Avatar as a modern political allegory.

Conclusion

Postcolonial Studies, in part, explores the aftermath of colonial rule and

how indigenous people attempt to reinsert their voice into a culture that has
to some extent been annihilated. It is suggested that initially, once the
imperial powers have been removed, nations enter a state of ‘Postcolonial
amnesia’. This means that the historic trauma of oppression and
exploitation is so great that native people are unable to even mention it.
Consequently, many cultural artefacts fail to openly critique or discuss in
any detail the Postcolonial condition. However, it is only once this silence is
broken that wounds can begin to heal and it is poignant that a number of
film texts look to address the historical shame, for example Cache/Hidden
and Manderlay (Lars von Trier, 2005).
Transnationalism offers a way forward for Postcolonial debate. Rather
than looking backwards to the tyrannical rule of Western forces, it attempts
to interrogate and negotiate the relationship between the West and non-
Western nations. It moves beyond the negative connotations of the
colonized/colonizer and victim/perpetrator towards a more positive outlook.
This is not to say that these old grievances are no longer relevant because
they remain core to our understanding of national identity and foreign
relations. However, in today’s digital age, new technology and the internet
have provided those who were once silenced a platform from which to be
heard. Furthermore, sites such as YouTube enable filmmakers from remote
corners of the globe to air their texts without having to conform to
traditional aesthetic expectations of commercial (Hollywood) cinema.
Transnationalism signals a way forward. It is a way of moving beyond
the isolationist stance of nationalism and it shatters the binary opposition of
East against West. It is pertinent that Transnationalism has emerged at this
point in history as filmmaking has gained a global interface. Digital
networks have enabled production teams to work in collaboration from
different corners of the globe. As a result, the world has metaphorically
reduced in size, whereas the opportunities for cross-cultural production
have become infinite.
Deborah Shaw, in her recent entry to the Routledge Companion to World
Cinema, reflected on Transnational Cinema and it’s development in
academia as a site for research and teaching states:

This edited snapshot over two years demonstrates that by 2016 there
were few areas within film studies on which transnational cinema had not
left its imprint, and it is not simply confined to the expected work on
migration, diasporic and (post)colonial cinemas […]. Transnational
frameworks are now applied to pedagogy, early cinema, star studies,
remakes/adaptations, feminist film theory, fan studies, exploitation
cinema, genre studies including horror film, film and the environment,
experimental film, the growing area of video essays, sound studies,
readings of race, regional/national studies, the business/economics of
 film, and audience studies, among others. Developments in the field
reveal Higbee and Lim’s fears that transnational cinema could constitute
‘a ghetto whose particular interests would continue to struggle to be
perceived’ (2010, p.17) to be entirely unfounded. (forthcoming)

This attests to both the importance of Transnational Studies as an ever

growing area for Film research and its wealth as an analaytical tool.

Bibliography
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Available at http://bigb.bigadda.com/?p=1445
Ezra, E. and Rowden, T. (eds) (2006) Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader. London: Routledge.
Fanon, F. (1967) The Wretched of the Earth. Harmondsworth: Penguin (first published 1961).
Fanon, F. (1986) Black Skin, White Masks. London: Pluto Press (first published 1952).
Gardner, J. (2010) ‘Avatar: Blueface, White Noise’, Huffington Post. Retrieved 19 July 2010.
Available at www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-gardner/emavatarem-blueface-white_b_409522.html
Higbee, W. and Lim, S. H. (2010) ‘Concepts of Transnational Cinema: Towards a Critical
Transnationalism in
Film’, Transnational Cinemas, vol. 1, no. 1, pp.7–21.
Jhally, S. (1998) Edward Said: On Orientalism. Northampton, MA: Media Education Foundation.
Kotwal, K. N. (n.d.) ‘Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom as Virtual Reality:
The Orientalist and Colonial Legacies of Gunga Din’, Film Journal no. 12. Retrieved 10 June
2010. Available at http://www.thefilmjournal.com/issue12/templeofdoom.html.
Said, E. (1978) ‘Introduction to Orientalism’, in G. Desai and S. Nair (eds) (2005) Postcolonialisms:
An Anthology of Cultural Theory and Criticism. Oxford: Routledge, pp.71–93.
Shaheen, J. G. (2001) Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People. New York, NY: Olive
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Shaheen, J. G. (2008) Guilty: Hollywood’s Verdict on Arabs after 9/11. Northampton, MA: Olive
Branch Press.
Shaw, Deborah (2013) ‘Deconstructing and Reconstructing “Transnational Cinema”’, in S. Dennison,
(ed.), Contemporary Hispanic Cinema: Interrogating Transnationalism in Spanish and Latin
American Film. Woodbridge: Tamesis, pp.47–65.
Shaw, D. (forthcoming). ‘Transnational Cinema: Mapping a Field of Study’, in P. Cooke, S.
Dennison and R. Stone (eds), Routledge Companion to World Cinema. London and New York,
NY: Routledge.
‘Slumdog Actor Given New Home’ (2009) Guardian. Retrieved 14 July 2010. Available at
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Spivak, G. C. (1988) ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’, in B. Ashcroft, G. Griffith and H. Tiffin (eds)
(1995) The Postcolonial Studies Reader. London and New York, NY: Routledge, pp.24–8.
 CHAPTER 15

STARS
Star
1. A person of brilliant reputation or talents. An actor,
singer, etc. of exceptional celebrity, or one whose name is
prominently advertised as a special attraction to the
public.

Setting the scene

Star Studies, in a similar way to many other theoretical approaches,

emerged out of literary criticism. Academic interest focused on narrative
structures and the function of characters within a specific narrative. In the
field of Star Studies, the emphasis is on the actor and their ability to inhabit
a role (also known as Acting Studies). Historically, actors were first
recognized by traditional theatre tour-ing companies. They acknowledged
actors’ ‘star power’ and often promoted their productions on the basis of the
popularity of one performer. To attract an audience, publicity materials
would highlight the most successful actors. However, this practice did not
carry through to the early film industry, which often failed to appreciate the
importance of actors.
Whereas theatrical actors were revered for their talent, early film actors
were often dismissed due to their clichéd performance style. Film actors
were often stereotyped; the male as hero and the female as pure and
beautiful or alternatively as sex goddess or vamp. The advent of sound led
to some character development, with male roles, in particular, becoming
more varied. Female roles, however, remained stereotypical. In spite of the
archetypal roles, the general public showed huge interest in film
performances.
In the early years of cinema, this fascination with actors broadened to
include their off-screen lives. This was fuelled by fan magazines and gossip
columns. Film companies, fearful of bad publicity, attempted to control
negative press, as they came to understand the huge part that stars played in
the overall industry. By the mid-20s, the Hollywood studios established a
system of managing stars in order to protect all concerned from disrepute.
Restrictive contracts were put in place tying stars to specific studios for
many years and enabling production companies to control every aspect of
the actors’ lives. These measures helped to uphold the reputation of the
studios in the field of entertainment.
The recognition of the part played by successful actors in the system of
production was ignored as research privileged Auteur and Genre Theory
(see Chapter 1, ‘Auteur Theory’ and Chapter 3, ‘Genre Theory’). What
needed to be acknowledged was that a more complete understanding of film
could be achieved if research into stars were part of the overall
investigations, and if perspectives from cultural studies, economics,
psychology and semiotic frameworks were appropriated, and applied to
popular actors.

The Star System

Stars sell films. Within the industry actors function as high-value

commodities to encourage producers and financiers to back film projects.
Equally, stars are instrumental in attracting an audience; casting Hollywood
‘A-list’ stars such as Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert Downey Jr and Jennifer
Lawrence can ensure that people will buy tickets. The importance of the
star vehicle was initially dismissed when the industry was being
established. However, the late 1900s marked a cultural shift as the very first
star was cleverly cultivated and marketed by Carl Laemmle, the founder of
new studio IMP (Independent Moving Pictures of America).
Florence Lawrence, also known as ‘The Biograph Girl’ was the first
person to be considered a movie star. Lawrence worked for the Vitagraph
Company as an anonymous actress in numerous films before moving to the
Biograph studios. Although Lawrence was popular with the viewing public,
actors at this time received no accreditation for their roles. Carl Laemmle
sought to tempt Lawrence away from Biograph, having recognized her
appeal with audiences.
 In order to garner public adulation, Laemmle concocted a publicity stunt.
He spread the word that ‘The Biograph Girl’ had been killed in a streetcar
accident. He then went on to place advertisements in newspapers
announcing that she was in fact alive and about to star in a new film
produced by IMP. He also revealed her real name, which was important in
establishing Florence Lawrence as the world’s first movie star.

Richard de Cordova
‘The Emergence of the Star System’ (1991)

De Cordova writes about the emergence of the ‘star system’ and why people became
interested in individual performers. He claims that the film studios were responsible for
the creation of stars and achieved this by disseminating information about actors.
Here, De Cordova identifies three ‘systems’ or criteria that were imperative in
establishing an individual as a recognizable name. They are ‘discourse on acting’,
‘picture personality’ and ‘the star’ (p.17).

Discourse on acting

Prior to 1907, the general public were not familiar with the names of film actors.
Stardom was reserved for the more legitimate art form of theatre. The film industry was
more interested in the latest technical innovations that could enhance the cinematic
experience. When journalists focused on individuals involved in filmmaking, attention
was given to the producer, cinematographer and the screenwriter, rather than the
actor. De Cordova points out that appearing on screen was thought of in the same way
as posing for a photograph (p.19). However, as technology advanced, filmmakers
moved away from filming short documentaries to comedies and dramas, in which
actors were required to undertake roles. Yet performers in early films were cast due to
their talent for telling stories through clear theatrical gestures (histrionic acting style) or
because they looked like a specific social type (typage). Once more this differentiated
what they did from the more sophisticated style of acting (voice control and
psychological development), which was important in the theatre. Pathé was one of the
first film companies to engage performers renowned for their reputation on stage.
This trend soon caught on and serious actors began to star in films. As a result
cinema became accepted as a more respectable art form and began to attract middle-
and upper-class audiences.

Picture personality

De Cordova explains that there is a difference between the ‘picture personality’ and
‘the star’. He claims that the former emerged in the year 1909 whereas the latter was
not established until 1914. In order to create a ‘picture personality’, three forms of
knowledge were required. First, the ‘circulation of the name’ was of utmost importance
(p.24). This would involve the studio concealing and then revealing the name of an
actor. Early fan magazines would further the relationship between its readers and
 players by devising quizzes for people to identify an actor who appeared in more than
one film, etc. Acquiring intertextual knowledge (being able to note an actor’s
performance across a number of films) was the second stage in establishing the
‘picture personality’. The third and final stage, according to De Cordova, was the
‘professional experience of the actor’ (p.26). This would involve awareness of a
performer’s work in both film and theatre.

The star

The star is different from the ‘picture personality’ in that there is public interest in the
performer’s private life. Stars were expected to be morally sound and there was
pressure for them to be heroes both on and off screen. Whereas many theatrical
actors were tarnished by scandal, film stars were manufactured to lead ‘squeaky-
clean’ lives in order to act as strong role models. Accordingly, ‘the star system worked
to support the same ideological project as the films of the day’ (p.28).

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent do you think stars are manufactured? Consider how stars change their
names, their appearance and so on.
2 Can you think of any publicity stunts that have boosted or damaged an actor’s image?
3 How reliant is the industry on stars when marketing films?
4 Do you think that there is still a hierarchy within the star system? Are some stars
deemed to be better performers than others?
5 Who do you think has more power in today’s film industry: the stars or the studios?

In order to fully understand the Star System, knowledge of the studios and
how they operated in the golden era of Hollywood is also of importance.

The Studio System

The Studio System is usually credited with having started in the 20s,
although similar systems were in operation in France around 1910 and
Thomas Ince, producer/director, actually established the practice in
America in 1912. Ince encouraged the new studios that were forming in
Hollywood to adopt methods utilized in industrial factory production to
enhance efficiency.
Frederick Winslow Taylor developed a system known as Taylorism,
which was concerned with work allocation, in particular subdividing tasks
into smaller areas of responsibility. These ideas were famously developed
by Henry Ford for the production of the Model T Ford car. His application
involved the introduction of the conveyor belt to increase the output of the
assembly line, ‘Fordism’. This influenced the film industry as key
individuals became responsible for specific areas of filmmaking, that is, the
producer oversaw the financial and logistic components, and set designers
would no longer work solely on one film but instead create sets for all
productions.
The emerging studios in Hollywood wanted to control all aspects of the
film industry. The most powerful of these corporations looked to
monopolize the market in order to dominate other studios. Known as the
Big Five (Major Five), MGM, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Twentieth
Century-Fox and RKO held controlling interests in all three phases of
cinema. These were production, distribution and exhibition, collectively
known as vertical integration. This allowed studios to regulate supply and
demand of films through their own distribution and exhibition networks.
The important factor in vertical integration was control over exhibition.
Block-booking became a practice that allowed studios to sell main feature
films along with lesser-rated B-movies. In some cases theatre owners were
unaware of the content of these B-movies, which was referred to as blind-
booking. These practices were manipulative and commercial ploys to
extract money from theatre owners and control what the general public saw.
The Little Three (Minor Three), Universal, Columbia and United Artists,
on the other hand, were not completely vertically integrated studios. They
were heavily engaged in the business of production and distribution, but the
five majors had complete domination of exhibition. In essence, this meant
that the Big Five were able to establish an oligopoly (overall control of the
market by a few companies). This oligarchy, along with the Little Three,
became known as the ‘Studio System’, which lasted about twenty-five years
before being gradually phased out in the 50s. This period of filmmaking
was known as the studio era.
However, in 1938 the US Department of Justice sued the Big Five for
this unfair monopolizing of the industry. The studios agreed to amend their
practices but did not keep to this. In 1942 the Society of Independent
Motion Picture Producers (IMPP) sued the Paramount Detroit theatres and
won its case to change the oligarchy of the Big Five and the Little Three.
Furthermore, in 1948 the Supreme Court forced these companies to sell
their movie-theatre chains (United States v. Paramount also known as the
Paramount Decree).
 Hollywood stars and the marketing of them was an important part of this
controlled system. Actors were seen as a capital commodity on which
finances could be secured. Star contracts stipulated very restrictive terms,
binding actors to a specific studio for up to seven years. Any release to
make a film with another studio would entail tough negotiations. As part of
their terms, actors were not only limited in the films that they made but also
in how they were presented to the media. This included press releases and
articles in fan magazines; all images were ‘tailor-made’ to suit what the
studio wanted. In an effort to resist this exploitation, actors attempted to
form unions but these often proved ineffective due to the individual
requirements of the members. The way forward was for each actor to
negotiate better terms on an individual basis but this was only really an
option for the most successful stars.
In summary the studio system was all about control by the major studios:

• control over the business

• control over the production, distribution and exhibition process
• control over key individuals.

Reflect and respond

1 How aware are you of different studios and how they operate?
2 What role do studios play?
3 Do you think studios today have as much control as they did in the past?
4 How has globalization and the onset of digital technology changed the workings of
studios?

The breakthrough in Star Studies came in 1979 with the publication of

Richard Dyer’s work, Stars. Dyer used a semiotic framework to obtain a
close analysis of star performance on screen and to investigate promotional
publicity material.

Richard Dyer
Stars (1979)

Dyer’s Stars is a canonical text, a critical approach to the study of stars and stardom.
Martin Barker notes that, although critical investigation in this area did not start with
this book, it remains a highly influential text (Austin and Barker, 2003, p.5). Dyer states
that his aim was to ‘survey and develop’ work on film stars. He raised new questions
about stardom, particularly exploring the relationships between celebrity and star
images. He achieved this by conducting in-depth case studies of famous actors.
However, we should remember that the main focus of his work is on the classical
Hollywood period.
Dyer’s book is divided into three parts:

1 ‘Stars as a Social Phenomenon’

Here he questions the social impact of stars, inquiring why they exist, what their
value is and assessing their position within other social structures. He also
considers ‘why they signify’ (why do we endow stars with meaning)?
2 ‘Stars as Images’
Here Dyer shifts attention away from thinking about the star as a person to the
analysis of the textual materials. Additionally, he raises issues of how stars differ
from the general public. He talks about the importance of particular stars as types
(typecasting, and how they represent society on screen); that is ‘what do stars
signify’?
3 ‘Stars as Signs’
Inquires into ideas of ‘character’ and performance, ‘how do stars signify’?

These are all concerned with ideology, which for Dyer means, ‘a set of ideas and
representations in which people collectively make sense of the world and the society in
which they live’ (p.2).

Heavenly Bodies, 1986 (2004)

In Heavenly Bodies (1986), Dyer looks to expand his work on stardom as an

ideological system. A central position of Dyer’s is how stars articulate ideas about
appearance. He discusses stars as a phenomenon of production and consumption,
with a particular focus on the way they are consumed. What we know about celebrities
stems from what we see, hear and read. He considers how over time stars can
reinvent themselves, yet the new persona will always exist in context with their old
image.
He develops this contextualizing by assessing who controls the star image. He
identifies the following four influences (p.4):

1 Control ‘produced by the media industries’ (promotional releases).

2 Control attributed to ‘who got to interview a star’ (how the interview is edited).
3 Control in ‘what clips were released’ (what media critics say).
4 Control over audience choice: ‘Audiences cannot make media images mean
anything they want to, but they can select’ (we choose what we view and we make
our own conclusions about material).

Furthermore, he suggests that stars’ off-screen personalities are as important as their

on-screen ones in forming spectators’ opinions. However, these real-life personalities
are as constructed as the characters they play. Ultimately, Dyer points out that, ‘stars
are made for profit’ and that stars have an input into turning themselves into
commodities (p.5). They are dependent on how both the controlling forces and their
own behaviour combine to impact on audiences’ perceptions.
Dyer had a strong impact because he had fostered an approach for
producing contextual readings of star images, which appears to have
influenced many readings since. Paul McDonald summarized Dyer’s
approach as an investigation of ‘how cinema circulates the images of
individual film performers and how those images may influence the ways in
which we think of the identity of ourselves and others’ (in Dyer, 1998,
p.176). McDonald points out that Dyer showed little interest in political
economy, screen acting/performance and empirical audience research which
is where interest now lies.

Paul McDonald
‘Reconceptualising Stardom’ in Stars (1998)

More recent editions of Stars contain a supplementary chapter by Paul McDonald. It is

an interesting survey, setting out and challenging some of the main ideas and texts of
earlier critics. The chapter is divided into headings of: ‘Stars and History’, ‘Star Bodies
and Performance’, ‘Stars and Audiences’ and ‘Stardom as Labour’. McDonald starts by
acknowledging that the text Stars was written in an effort to ‘address questions around
the social significance of film representations’ (p.177). He notes that, in a move away
from an ahistorical approach, academics chose to reexamine the early star system in
America within a social historical context.
In a section on locating stars, McDonald finds Marian Keane’s criticism of Dyer’s
approach in reading a star’s image without the context of society, problematic. Keane
suggests the solution is to use philosophical works. However, as McDonald rightly
points out, philosophy is about universal notions of identity, which ignores the fact that
such ideas change over time. For example, in the studio era actors would not openly
discuss their sexuality, despite media speculation. However, nowadays it is generally
accepted, if a star ‘comes out’ as being gay. Similarly, identity can be read via more
than one perspective, that is, race, gender, sexuality, class and so on. McDonald also
explains that the field of philosophy can be elitist and likely to alienate the typical
moviegoer.
Taking issue with Yvonne Tasker in his section on ‘Star Bodies and Performance’,
McDonald finds her work Spectacular Bodies (1993) limiting. The identification of
muscles as a sign, without discussing how these muscles move in a certain action,
obscures a full reading. Stars need to be studied as ‘moving bodies’ combined with an
‘analysis of acting and performance’ (p.182). Using the examples of Meryl Streep and
Arnold Schwarzenegger, McDonald discusses their different approaches to
performance. Streep through her ‘impersonatory skills’ is able to convince an audience
of her acting ability. Arnie frequently plays the same stereotypical character (himself)
from film to film. Accordingly, his acting talents are often considered inferior to those of
Streep. His ‘brawn’ associates him with the manual worker whereas in the field of
culture, star performances equated with intellectual input carry more esteem.
In his section on ‘Stars and Audiences’ McDonald includes the idea of ‘identification’.
Here he explains that meaning is not just reliant on the content of films but is also
 influenced by the way viewers regard particular performers. McDonald looks to the
work of Jackie Stacey (1994) who coins the term ‘cinematic identificatory fantasies’
(McDonald, 1998, p.191). Her research has investigated how stars inform childhood
games and how some people chose to emulate their favourite icons in the way they
dress and act.
In his final section entitled ‘Stardom as Labour’, McDonald discusses how ‘only a
few players actually become stars’ (p.196). It is out of an actor’s control as stardom is
attained by gaining the affection and respect of the general public. All performers have
the potential to achieve star status but only those who are successful are able to join
the ‘democratic elite’ (p.197). Levy adds to this by identifying that it is often those stars
who epitomize the American Dream, that is, ‘rags to riches’ who are favoured by an
audience.
Concluding, McDonald proffers four areas for subsequent study that arise from his
reconceptu-alizing:

1 The tendency to study each star in isolation fails to consider the role of other
factors, in particular those of other stars, their differences and distinctions.
2 It is important to recognize that more work is required on how the star image may
change over time, both historically and culturally. It is also important to consider
whether other celebrities such as sportsmen and popstars have become more
significant as role models. The inclusion of other national cinemas needs to be
addressed as well.
3 ‘Instead of asking, “what does stardom mean?”, a new question would be “what
does stardom do?”’ (p.200). The focus has been on the star as a text (like the novel
or a film). Consideration is given to writing and debating the text rather than
concentrating on the star as a performer and their talent.
4 Finally, McDonald advocates that, as these changes take place with a move from
the text to the performance, then a ‘rethinking of identity’ is required (p.200).
However, we do not all read and interpret a performance in the same manner. We
each bring our own individual experience to our understanding. Ultimately, both the
star and the audience are responsible for creating meaning.

Reflect and respond

1 Identify stars who have been typecast throughout their careers. Why do certain actors
lend themselves to playing similar roles?
2 To what extent do actors have to reinvent themselves? Why is this so?
3 In what ways are our ideas about a star affected by what we read and see in the
media?
4 Does a star have a say in the way that they are represented?
5 How important were stars in forming your ideas as a child?

Star/celebrity debate
Not all actors gain star status and there is a big difference between being a
star and being a celebrity. However, it must be noted that the media industry
uses the two terms interchangeably. Furthermore, the term star is always
attached to the film industry, whereas celebrities typically originate from
other fields, such as music, sport and the world of fashion. Richard Maltby,
writing about ‘the star’, states: ‘[s]tar performances place the most explicit
emphasis on the person of the actor. The commercial imperatives of the star
system require that stars are always visible through their characters’ (2003,
p.384).
Nick Lacey (2002, p.72) points out that for the star, the film is the
primary text, whereas the celebrity relies upon secondary texts (songs and
videos, sporting events and advertisements, etc.). It is also important to note
that there is a great deal of interest in a star’s off-screen life, which
distinguishes them from the countless actors working in the industry. In
addition to stars and celebrities there are also personalities (not to be
confused with De Cordova’s use of the term). This category of fame relates
to people who are recognized for no real reason other than being famous.
For example, Paris Hilton became well known due to her father’s wealth
and success in the hotel business. Similarly, siblings and partners of
prominent media personas can attract media coverage.

Reflect and respond

1 Look at this table and decide whether the figures in the first column are stars,
celebrities or personalities. Tick the appropriate box and explain your answers.

2 Can you think of people who do not easily fall into one category?

Fandom
One area of Star Studies that has attracted attention recently is the
importance of fandom. As we have already established, fans are integral in
making or breaking an actor’s reputation and star status. Nevertheless, the
audience was often overlooked in early debates concerning stars as
academics tended to focus on the actors. It wasn’t really until Jackie Stacey
published her book Star Gazing in 1994 that the field began to consider the
role of the spectator.

Jackie Stacey
Star Gazing: Hollywood Film and Female Spectatorship (1994)

Jackie Stacey’s work was unusual in the field of Star Studies in that she was one of the
first academics to carry out empirical work. Coming from a background in Cultural
Studies, her approach combines Feminism with sociological and ethnographic
audience research. In her book Star Gazing, Stacey looks at how British women of the
1940s and 1950s regarded Hollywood stars such as Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Rita
Hayworth and Doris Day. In order to undertake such a project Stacey corre-sponded
with over 300 women after placing an advert in two British-based magazines, Woman’s
Realm and Women’s Weekly (p.16). Here she asked women for their recollections of
cinema during wartime Britain. She also asked them to reflect on advertisements from
that period so she could gain an understanding of how women were influenced by
images of celebrity and glamour.
The main premise of Stacey’s work was to challenge the psychoanalytical
foundations of Feminist theory. In order to do this, she placed the onus on the people
that mattered, the audience. Rather than reading the film text from a theoretical point
of view, she gained insight into how Hollywood stars influenced and informed the day-
to-day lives of women. To make sense of her findings Stacey divided her book into
three subcategories:

1 Escapism: Here she questioned the use of the term ‘escapism’ as it had long been
associated with women and their tendency to fantasize about a life different from
their own. Stacey put the term into historical context by explaining that her targeted
audience was viewing films during World War II. At that time the concept of
escapism had different connotations.
2 Identification: Stacey interrogated the traditional stance adopted by academics, in
particular Laura Mulvey’s notion that identification is fixed. Instead, Stacey explored
the complex relationship between British women identifying with American
actresses.
3 Consumption: In this final category, Stacey explored the complex nature of how
stars are consumed by both the audience and the industry. More importantly, she
asked the everyday consumers taking part in her study (empirical research) about
the ways they consumed cinematic stars on and off screen.

The above categories relate to female desire and pleasure. Her work is now regarded
as pivotal in the field of Star Studies because she moved the focus away from the star
 to the spectators and therefore it remains a substantial work on the star/audience
relationship.

Reflect and respond

1 Why do you think that stars are used to promote products? How successful is this?
2 Have you ever been tempted to buy an item due to star endorsement?
3 Discuss instances where you have tried to emulate a star’s image (hair, clothes,
make-up, etc.). 4 If Stacey were to undertake the same project today, which
contemporary female stars do you think she would choose as case studies?
5 Consider Stacey’s work. Would it have had the same impact if she had looked at male
stars?

Since Stacey’s work, the role of the spectator has been examined from
many different perspectives. This overlaps greatly with Audience Research
and Reception (Chapter 16). Chris Rojek’s work on stars set about
exploring the role of fans and the reciprocal, yet problematic, relationship
with actors.

Chris Rojek
‘Celebrity and Religion’ (2006)

Chris Rojek approaches Star Studies from an unusual perspective. He equates the act
of fandom as being akin to the practice adopted by devout followers of religion; the
difference is that the temple is replaced by the multiplex. Rojek coins the term ‘para-
social interaction’ to describe how the media simulates intimacy between the viewer
and the star (p.390). We may not meet our favourite on-screen personalities face to
face, but we feel that we know them due to the wealth of information available via DVD
extras, television interviews, magazine articles, websites and social media, especially
Twitter. He likens this ‘para-social interaction’ to the way in which deities are
worshipped from afar, but he also points out that modern-day celebrities are often
ascribed ‘God-like qualities by some fans’ (p.390).
Rojek accounts for the mass transition from communal spiritual worship to star
adulation as a response to a shift in social attitudes. He states that:

In secular society, the sacred loses its connotation with organized religious beliefs
and becomes attached to mass-media celebrities who become objects of cult
worship. Magic is often associated with celebrities, and powers of healing and
second sight are frequently attributed to them. Rock concerts can generate ecstasy
and swooning in the audience, which is comparable to some rites of magic. (p.390)

Here Rojek writes of how the sacred has somehow become lost as interest has been
transferred from the deity to the celebrity. It is the audience that empowers the star;
 this idolization of the actor lifts the performer to a higher plane.
Rojek borrows from the work of Durkheim, who predicted the decline of popular
religion, claiming ‘the growth of moral individualism is bound to reduce the significance
of organized religion’ (p.392). Similarly, Neal Gabler also strengthens Rojek’s ideas.
He writes: ‘Celebrity culture is now ubiquitous, and establishes the main scripts,
presentational props, conversational codes and other source materials through which
cultural relations are constructed’ (p.393).
Whereas devout spiritualists would once travel the world to catch a glimpse of holy
relics, people are now more interested in the discarded artefacts of the famous. Rojek
points out that cemeteries where famous people have been buried are now considered
tourist attractions. For example, people undertake pilgrimages to Graceland to see the
final resting place of Elvis Presley.
Rojek also discusses the ‘St Thomas Effect’, which refers to the biblical character of
‘doubting Thomas’. Thomas was the only one of the disciples who was sceptical about
Christ’s resurrection. It was only when he touched Jesus’s wounds that he was able to
truly believe. Rojek controversially aligns this story with the excessive behaviour of
stalkers. These obsessive fans feel the need to be in close proximity to their idols,
knowing the star’s every movement and diligently following them in order to prove their
devotion.
The main premise of Rojek’s discussion is that society is more secular nowadays
and so the public need to fill the void once satisfied by religion. However, he admits
that for the majority of fans, star worship is lighthearted escapism:
Fans are attracted to celebrities for a variety of reasons, with sexual attraction,
admiration of unique personal values and mass-media acclaim being prominent.
Hardly any believe that celebrities can ‘save’ them in an orthodox religious or quasi-
religious sense. But most find comfort, glamour or excitement in attaching themselves
to a celebrity. (p.403)

Interesting as Rojek’s ideas are, it is important to note that his work offers
no empirical proof to support his assertions. However, the lack of empirical
support does not discredit his theoretical approach. It is also of interest to
note that Rojek was writing before the emergence of Social Media.
Therefore, his ideas could be developed to include discussions of fans
actively following stars on Twitter. Our connection with our favourite stars
is now far more immediate as stars can communicate directly with their fan
base using 140 characters or less. This can lead to a backlash as stars can
embarrass themselves or make controversial statement. As a result many
celebrity Tweets are often vetted by management before being posted,
which harkens back to the old Studio System where actors’ public profile
was manufactured by the industry.

Reflect and respond

1 To what extent do you agree or disagree with Rojek’s findings?

 2 Have you ever travelled to see your favourite stars/celebrities? Would you consider
doing so?
3 Where do you draw the line between fans, obsessive fans and stalkers?
4 Are stars different from the general public and if so should they receive special
treatment?
5 How important a role does Social Media play in modern day fandom?
6 Discuss whether stardom has become more important than religion?

Endorsement: commodities, politics and social causes

Many stars lend their image to endorse products. Commercial companies

are aware of the selling power a star endorsement can unleash. Their
promotion implies that if you purchase their commodity, you will in some
way replicate the star’s lifestyle and/or their image. For example, the
cosmetic company L’Oréal relies on celebrity endorsement to promote its
brand. Over the last few years contemporary stars have included Cate
Blanchett, Kirsten Stewart, Aishwarya Rai, Chris Pine and Brad Pitt.
Similarly, films often incorporate product placement. Here, the characters
within the narrative are seen to use specific brands and, by association, the
audience is encouraged to acquire these items to emulate their star status.
The Bond franchise is particularly guilty in this respect; the use of a Sony
smart phone and digital camera in Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015) and Ray-
Bans in the 80s classic Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986) epitomize such deals.
Stars do not capitalize on their value just for commercial gain; some stars
also engage in charitable and political activities. Many actors become
involved in supporting charities. Both Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman
are ambassadors for UNICEF while Emma Watson launched the ‘HeforShe’
campaign in her role as UN Women Goodwill Ambassador in 2014.
Furthermore, some stars become openly embroiled in political matters. For
example, George Clooney addressed the United Nations Council hoping for
more intervention after the genocide in Darfur. During the aftermath of
Hurricane Katrina, Sean Penn travelled to Louisiana and personally helped
to rescue around forty people. Many sceptical media reporters dismissed his
behaviour as a publicity stunt. Spike Lee, the African American
director/actor, incited fury at the Bush administration’s failure to deal with
the hurricane’s devastation in his documentary When the Levees Broke: A
Requiem in Four Acts (2006). All of these are positive examples of stars
getting involved. Their status calls attention to the wider political cause,
which otherwise may not have attained such a high profile. Alternatively,
political involvement can backfire on a celebrity’s image; consider the
media circus that surrounded Madonna’s controversial approach to adopting
children from Malawi.

Reflect and respond

1 How persuasive do you find celebrity endorsement of commodities? Can you think
of any examples where you have been influenced to buy a product due to the
marketing by a star?
2 Is product placement in films ethical?
3 Why do you think stars lend their support to charitable causes?
4 There are advantages and disadvantages to star involvement in causes. Make a
list of the ‘pros and cons’.

Case study: Amitabh Bachchan

Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan is probably the most famous Indian

actor of all time. Yet, despite his celebrity status in Asia, he remains
unknown to many people across Europe and America. In his homeland,
Bachchan is often referred to as a ‘demigod’. This was confirmed in the
BBC1 documentary Imagine: Bollywood’s Big B: Amitabh Bachchan
(2007), where famous Indians reflect on the actor and what he means to the
people: ‘[h]e is almost God to millions of people. People worship him [...]
We believe in him; there’s a kind of faith in him [...] He’s blessed; he is the
chosen one’ (Lockhart, 2007). Amitabh Bachchan clearly epitomizes Chris
Rojek’s idea that film stars are revered in the same way that people worship
religious figures. This adulation of the Delhi-born actor has developed over
the years as his career encountered severe highs and lows.
Born in 1942 to the famous Hindi poet Dr Harivansh Rai Bachchan,
Amitabh came to prominence in the early 70s. Casting Bachchan was a risk
because the industry was convinced that he would not succeed. He was tall
compared to traditional Indian actors and had a deep voice, which similarly
went against convention. More importantly, he was very dark-skinned at a
time when Bollywood tended to favour light-skinned actors. Even with the
odds stacked against him, Bachchan came to symbolize a new type of
Indian male: the angry young man.
 In the 70s, India was experiencing political unrest. The country was at
war with Pakistan, the government had been exposed as corrupt and there
was a severe drought. In such turbulent times, Bachchan embodied the
national resentment towards a corrupt system and disillusionment with the
establishment as a whole. It was the film Zanjeer (Prakash Mehra, 1973)
that first saw Bachchan cast in the role of the angry young man,
courageously standing against moral injustice. He reprised this role in
numerous films throughout the 70s and 80s.
Bachchan’s most famous performance was in the classic 1975 Bollywood
film Sholay (Ramesh Sippy), an Indian version of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven
Samurai (1954). This became the highest-grossing Indian film to date
(adjusted for inflation). Bachchan wasn’t just known for his angry
everyman roles, he also showed versatility by taking on comedic characters
such as the role of Anthony Gonzales in the film Amar Akbar Anthony
(Manmohan Desai, 1977). This film follows the plight of three brothers
separated at birth and brought up by a Hindu policeman, a Muslim tailor
and a Catholic priest respectively.
In 1982, Bachchan’s career suffered an unfortunate setback when he was
injured on the set of the film Coolie (Manmohan Desai and Prayag Raj,
1983). The accident occurred during the filming of a fight sequence, during
which a blow to the stomach ruptured his spleen. Bachchan spent months in
hospi-tal; at one point he technically died but was revived by medics. The
reaction from fans was unprecedented. Many offered their limbs and body
parts in order to try to save the actor’s life, while others rushed to temples to
pray and shrines were erected in honour of the star. There were even
rumours of some fans taking their own lives. News of the actor’s near-death
was reported around the globe, in spite of Bollywood films mainly being of
interest to the diasporic, nonresident Indian audience.
Following his near-death experience many of Bachchan’s films flopped
so he took a break from the film industry in order to pursue a career in
politics. This was due to his friendship with the Gandhi family. After the
assassination of Mrs Indira Gandhi, he felt that he should support her son
Rajiv who was also involved in politics. However, he failed miserably
because he lacked the knowledge to be a politician. In fact his foray into
politics left him tainted as his rumoured involvement in an arms scandal
obliged him to spend a good number of years attempting to clear his name.
 Bachchan is not the first actor to venture into politics. Famous examples
include Clint Eastwood, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Glenda Jackson.
Francesco Alberoni’s ‘The Powerless Elite: Theory and Sociological
Research on the Phenomenon of Stars’ critiques this course of action,
stating:

The racing cyclist who is a demi-god in the eyes of the enthusiastic

admirer does not necessarily show competence in other fields. The
specificity of charisma should be understood as a specificity relating to
one class of actions, all requiring the same kind of skill. This is why the
great racing cyclist can also be a great athlete. Specialization lies at the
heart of any particular field. (2006, p.111)

In attempting to move beyond a specific ‘specialization’, in this case acting,

Alberoni claims that the star becomes powerless. This was definitely the
case for Bachchan although the other examples cited have carved successful
careers in politics.
In the 90s, Bachchan turned his hand to the world of business. This too
led to more misery as his corporation nearly went bankrupt. It was in the
year 2000 that Bachchan finally resurfaced in public, as the host of the
Indian television series Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Here, he would
finish each episode by delivering a personal message to his viewers. These
messages were typically didactic, preaching the importance of education
and staying out of trouble. This personal approach soon won him the
affection of the audience and consequently led to his re-emergence on the
Bollywood scene. When Bachchan returned to the film industry he was
more successful than anyone could have ever imagined. His new status
enabled him to secure leading roles and challenge filmic traditions. For
example, he was the first actor to kiss on screen, which caused huge
controversy because Bollywood films are known for their conservative
narratives. He has also made the cross over into Western filmmaking where
he starred alongside Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire in Baz
Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013).
Amitabh Bachchan and his wife Jaya have been happily married since
1973 after starring opposite each other in the film Zanjeer. More recently,
they appeared as an on-screen couple in the hit film Kabhi Khushi Kabhi
Gham (Karan Johar, 2001). The general public celebrates this relationship
because its longevity symbolically upholds traditional Indian values. Their
son Abhishek is also a famous Bollywood star and pinup in his own right,
who has appeared opposite his father in the films Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna
(Karan Johar, 2006) and Paa (R. Balki, 2009). Abhishek married
Aishwarya Rai in 2007. She is probably the most famous female Bollywood
star, known for her beauty and global film hits, which include endorsing
Gurinder Chadha’s Bride & Prejudice (2004). She is also recognizable for
L’Oréal mascara. It thus appears that the Bachchan dynasty is attempting to
challenge the first family of Bollywood, the Kapoors, who almost single-
handedly founded the Bollywood industry.
Amitabh Bachchan’s career has seen many peaks and troughs but in his
final reinvention he has increased his popularity beyond that of any other
Bollywood star. Every Sunday people gather outside his house in Mumbai
waiting to see the man in person in hope of a blessing. This is why he is
often discussed in the media in terms of a religious icon. In response to this
accolade Bachchan replies:

It’s someone else’s invention; they love these words. The media loves to
classify any event, give it a title, home and epithet. It makes writing for
them a lot easier. They construct these wonderful words and then subject
us to the idiocy of it. (Lockhart, 2007)

Amitabh Bachchan is a fascinating case study because throughout his career

he has had to reinvent himself and fight to regain his popularity. The
devotion he attracts from his fans is unprecedented but the actor himself
refutes the claims, that he is revered as a god, as merely media hype.

Case study: Dame Judi Dench

Born in 1934, the British actress Dame Judi Dench had her first
professional engagement at the Old Vic Theatre in 1957. Since then she has
appeared and starred in film, television and theatre, gaining numerous
awards. In total her career spans six decades; this longevity is an admirable
achievement in such a fickle business. However, Dench resists stereotypical
notions of star and celebrity status because she was in her sixties when she
attained a heightened level of fame. Before this she was often referred to as
a British ‘national treasure’. Even with her newfound global acclaim,
Dench is still regarded as being quintessentially British and is accordingly
revered and loved by the general public.
Her early career, working with the Old Vic Company from 1957 to 61
and subsequently with the Royal Shakespeare Company, gave her the
opportunity to undertake many classic roles, including Ophelia, Hermia and
Juliet. Her television debut came in 1959 in ITV’s popular series Play of the
Week. Alongside her theatre and television work in the 60s, Dench was one
of many classically trained actresses such as Glenda Jackson, Maggie Smith
and Vanessa Redgrave who entered into film. She worked with director
Charles Crichton, appearing in The Third Secret (1964) and He Who Rides
the Tiger (1965). However, it was the role of Wife, a married woman whose
baby is repressing her life, in Four in the Morning (Anthony Simmons,
1965) that won her her first BAFTA award as most promising newcomer.
This was the first of many challenging characters that Dench undertook;
rather than accepting safe, stereotypical female roles she sought out difficult
and not necessarily likeable characters. In these first ten years, she
established herself as a serious actor. Her roles were intellectually
demanding and to some extent considered ‘edgy’. Dench sought recognition
as a serious actor rather than as a ‘pretty face’.
In 1968, Peter Hall’s stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
was filmed, affording Dench the opportunity to combine her love of
Shakespeare with a screen appearance as Titania. The cast included Diana
Rigg and Helen Mirren (both now Dames). However, it was Dench’s
unforgettable performance, in which she appeared semi-naked and green,
that caused a stir. This link between stage and film was to set a trend, as
many of her screen appearances in the 70s sprang from theatrical successes.
For example, her Adriane in The Comedy of Errors was televised in 1978
and her portrayal of Lady Macbeth in 1976 was later shown on television.
In 1971, she married fellow Royal Shakespearian actor Michael
Williams. It was with Williams in the early 80s that Dench reached new
audiences in the sitcom A Fine Romance (Bob Larbey, 1981–4). It was
highly popular, telling the story of two people thrust together by the
woman’s well-meaning sister and friend. The sitcom follows the on/off
romance of these two lonely and ill-matched people in an affectionate
comic portrayal that is often stirring and poignant. This gave her the
opportunity to show the fun and cheeky aspects of her character (and
herself). It widened her fanbase from the audiences that followed
Shakespearian productions to those entertained by light comedy. This
television success paved the way for As Time Goes By (1992–2002) another
British romantic sitcom, that follows the relationship of older people who
meet unexpectedly after 38 years and re-kindle their love. Again it is an
affectionate observational comedy, that shows Judi Dench’s warmth and
cheek-iness. These opportunities placed her and kept her more firmly in the
public eye and, in keeping with De Cordova’s ideas, stimulated public
interest in her private life, with fans keen to know where fact and fiction
intermingled.
Throughout the 80s, 90s and 2000s, Dench played character-driven roles
adapted from novels. These included a flamboyant novelist in A Room with
a View (James Ivory, 1985) and a social-climbing, outspoken mother in A
Handful of Dust (Charles Sturridge, 1988). More recent appearances
include a feisty Newfoundland widow in The Shipping News (Lasse
Hallstrom, 2001), and a sixty-plus virgin who falls for a young foreign
sailor in Ladies in Lavender (Charles Dance, 2004). In 2006, Dench
portrayed the unlikeable Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal (Richard
Eyre, 2006). This performance as the vengeful, lesbian schoolteacher
confirms her determination to take on challenging roles even if the
characters have no redeemable features. While Dyer’s work notes the
increasing demands from the public for personal information, Dench
manages to avoid public scrutiny of her private life. Interestingly, Dyer
suggests that, the ‘bigger’ the star, the more removed they become from the
general public. He claims that this distance between their life and ours is
what cements their popularity. Ironically, Dench retains the ‘woman-next-
door’ persona in spite of her success.
Moving away from characters in literary adaptations, Dench accepted
numerous biographical parts. In John Madden’s Mrs Brown (1997), she
portrayed Queen Victoria as a lonely person in need of friendship and
support as a woman, not as a queen. Dench won a BAFTA for this and an
Oscar nomination. The following year’s witty and shrewd portrayal of
Queen Elizabeth in Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 2008) won her an
Oscar. Further challenging roles include the role of Iris Murdoch, the
novelist and philosopher who died of Alzheimer’s disease in Iris (Richard
Eyre, 2001) and the title role in Mrs Henderson Presents (Stephen Frears,
2005). Here Dench plays the resourceful owner of the Windmill Theatre in
London, whose proud boast during the war was ‘We never close.’
 Her work has been honoured by the establishment and by her profession.
She received an OBE in 1970, became a Dame in 1988 and was awarded
the Companion of Honour in 2005. The industry has recognized her
extraordinary talents, bestowing her with numerous prestigious awards. It is
important to note that many of these awards were voted for by the public.
Here we return to the notion of identification. Dench’s star status is not only
based on her acting ability, but her intrinsic ‘niceness’, fun and
comfortableness; the audience want her as a friend.
One of her more unusual awards has been for her lead role in Skyfall
(Sam Mendes, 2012). This was given to Dench by the Alliance of Women
Journalists, the EDA (Excellent, Dynamic Activism) in 2013 for ‘Actress
Defying Age and Ageism’. Dench went on to co-star with several of her
peer group in The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012) and The Second Best
Exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), both directed by John Madden.

Despite her more recent filmic success, 1995 signalled a turning point in
Dench’s career. In accepting the role of ‘M’ in GoldenEye (Martin
Campbell), she became the first woman to play this iconic character. This
immediately launched her as an international star and extended her fanbase
to include young teenage boys, typically drawn to the James Bond
franchise. However, this comes after forty years in acting. Dench played
‘M’ in seven films with a cameo appearance in Spectre (Sam Mendes,
2015). In her last Bond film, Skyfall (2012), ‘M’s part is much larger and
she is actively involved outside of the MI5 headquarters and at times
presenting a more maternal figure towards Bond. While Dench is seen at
Bond premieres taking part as a star on this world stage, she still maintains
her status and epithet of ‘national treasure’. This unofficial accolade is
awarded to few figures in Britain. Currently, Mary Berry, David Bowie,
Joanna Lumley, Julie Walters, Victoria Wood and Stephen Fry may be
considered in this select group. However, stardom is not courted by Dench;
indeed she appears embarrassed by it.
In this chapter we have considered the difference between star and
celebrity status, but these two case studies have further complicated debates
regarding terminology. On the one hand, Amitabh Bachchan is revered as a
deity by some in India, while on the other, Dame Judi Dench is cherished as
a British ‘national treasure’. Such labelling is always subjective and the
media use terms interchangeably as a shorthand to manipulate our
emotions. Classifying Dench as a ‘national treasure’ is highly emotive as it
evokes a sense of national pride. As a symbol of national identity, Dench
epitomizes an image that we would wish to promote to the world. She has a
certain warmth and eccentricity (something the British are renowned for).
She has a comfortable familiarity and is not ‘precious’ about who she is or
how she appears. Furthermore, there is the sense that she enjoys life to the
full (she has a reputation for practical jokes and uncontrollable laughter).
More importantly, she is able to appeal to the everyman. This is ironic as
Dench courageously inhabits unpleasant and loathsome roles. However, the
audience can see beyond the repellant screen characters because Dench’s
real-life persona remains untarnished. Her ability as an exemplary actress
enables her to totally immerse herself in a character, yet in interviews her
larger-than-life charm will redeem any flaws in her fictional characters. The
more risks she takes, the greater she is esteemed.
In an interview with Tim Teeman regarding her status as ‘national
treasure’, Dench states:

I hate that. Too dusty, too in a cupboard, too behind glass, too staid. I
don’t want to be thought of as recognizable – I always want to do the
most different thing I can think of next. I don’t want to be known for one
thing, or having done huge amounts of Shakespeare and the classics. I
hate speaking as myself. I could never do a one-woman show. But I love
being part of a company. On stage I am not trying to be myself, I’m
trying to be someone else, the more unlike me the better. I remember
someone who saw me in Juno and the Paycock said I was completely
unrecognizable. How marvellous. I’ve done two sitcoms, lots of films.
Look at my character (an obsessive, damaged stalker) in Notes on a
Scandal. You wouldn’t want to ask her around. (Teeman, 2009)

The attitude expressed in the above quotation stands testament to why she is
applauded as an iconic figure; she does not take herself too seriously.
Nevertheless, her body of films demonstrates her multifaceted talents as she
can lend herself to serious drama or comedy. She can sing and dance and
she excels, whether in classic or contemporary genres.
 Tanya Gold, writing for the Guardian, questions what makes a ‘national
treasure’. Here she alludes to the idea that in the public’s eye ‘they can do
no wrong’. Once more she identifies that the term is highly subjective, with
certain people achieving this status while other similar performers do not.
Gold tries to find a ‘formula’ for the apparent randomness suggesting that
maybe size, weight or height, comes into it with shorter, cuddly images
finding favour. She continues:

National treasure rank is not always born in physical or mental

abnormality. Personal tragedy will swing it too. Stephen Fry became a
national treasure when it was revealed he has manic depres-sion; Judi
Dench when her husband, Michael Williams, died. (Gold, 2009)

The implication here is that ‘national treasures’ arise out of public

sympathy. This notion is far too simplistic and dismisses the talents of the
aforementioned stars/celebrities. Gold ignores the fact that people who gain
the status of ‘national treasure’ have forged careers over many, many years.
In the case of Judi Dench, it is her longevity paired with her versatility and
charisma that have earned her this status.
Recognising national treasures is not solely a British idea. America
honours actors such as Whoopi Goldberg, Tom Hanks, Bill Murray, and
Meryl Streep among many others. Similarly, both Australia and Japan have
what they term Living National Treasures. In Australia, for example,
Russell Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Kylie Minogue, and Olivia Newton-John
rank among international stars that have this accolade.
National Treasure status has changed in more recent years. Of concern is
the giving of this title to criminals. Writing in The Telegraph Jake Wallis
Simons article, ‘Why do we treat crimnals like national treasures?’ (27 Nov
2014) he notes that, ‘Frankie Fraser aka “the Dentist” wrote a series of
memoires in the 1990s and launched a “career” as a celebrity criminal and
appeared on many BBC programmes.’ Simons mentions how this is fueled
by the media and the making of biopics, for example, The Rise of the Krays
(Zachary Adler, 2015) and The Fall of the Krays (Zachary Adler, 2016),
two low-budget films, and the successful Legend (Brian Helgeland, 2015), a
biopic of the Kray brothers. Simons points out that, ‘As a result men like
Fraser, the Krays and the train robber Ronnie Biggs are seen as loveable
rogues rather than the monsters they were.’ Simons attention turns to the
public, he continues, ‘As a result, a man [Fraser] like that can become a
beloved public figure points to a dark human instinct to glamorize violence
and sympathise with the bad boy of the story’.
In contrast, in Comic Relief 2016 and in The Tracey Ullman Show (2016)
sketches that affectionately make fun of this national treasure status are to
be found. Tracy Ullman’s impersonation of Dame Judi Dench as a
shoplifter who uses her national treasure status to ‘get away’ with things is
both affectionate and wicked. Similarly, Dame Maggie Smith is given the
‘Ullman’ treatment. In the charity event, celebrities face a panel of judges
in a reality-style programme to compete for this prestigious accolade.
However, in the twenty-first century there appears to an overuse of the
epithet of ‘national treasure’ and this is devaluing its meaning. It is now
being applied to people who have only been in the public domain for a few
years and have done little to warrant such affection from the public at large.

Reflect and respond

1 Can you think of any Western stars who have been worshipped in a similar manner
to Amitabh Bachchan?
2 List stars who have fallen from grace. Which ones manage to reinvent themselves
successfully and which sink without trace? Can you offer reasons for this?
3 How useful is the term ‘national treasure’?
4 Is Judi Dench’s late fame unusual? Can you think of any other stars who gained
international acclaim later in life?
5 Do you think the term ‘national treasure’ is overused?

Conclusion

There are many problems with Star Studies as a critical perspective. First
and foremost, academics tend to focus their attention on Hollywood stars
and so the field is determined by a ‘Hollywood-centric’ attitude. Very little
research has been undertaken on stars outside the dominant American
industry, although some scholars concentrate on European stars, with actors
in world cinema recently gaining recognition.
One main concern with trying to analyse stars is that most lines of
enquiry necessitate the use of other more established theoretical
approaches. For example, when Dyer looks at Marilyn Monroe as a case
study, his research inevitably asks questions concerning gender, sexuality,
Psychoanalysis, Audience Reception, etc. Therefore, Star Studies is reliant
on other theoretical concepts because as a stand-alone approach, it lacks a
clearly defined methodology. Star Studies borrows from many other
theories and critical perspectives.

Bibliography
Alberoni, F. (2006) ‘The Powerless Elite: Theory and Sociological Research on the Phenomenon of
Stars’, in P. Marshall (ed.) The Celebrity Culture Reader. New York, NY: Routledge.
Austin, T. and Barker, M. (2003) Contemporary Hollywood Stardom. London and New York, NY:
Arnold.
De Cordova, R. (1991) ‘The Emergence of the Star System’, in C. Gledhill (ed.) Stardom: Industry of
Desire. London and New York, NY: Routledge.
Dyer, R. (1998) Stars, new edn. London: BFI.
Dyer, R. (2004) Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society, 2nd edn. London and New York, NY:
Routledge. Gold, T. (2009, 15 December) ‘Sorry, Dame Judi, But There’s No Escape from Being a
National Treasure’ [electronic version], Guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 3 June 2010. Available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/dec/15/judi-dench-tanya-gold.
Lacey, N. (2002) Media Institutions and Audiences: Key Concepts in Media Studies . Basingstoke:
Palgrave.
Lockhart, C. (director) (2007, 30 October) Imagine: Bollywood’s BigB: Amitabh Bachchan
[television broadcast]. London: BBC1.
Maltby, R. (2003) Hollywood Cinema, 2nd edn. Oxford: Blackwell.
McDonald, P. (1998) ‘Reconceptualising Stardom’, in R. Dyer, Stars, new edn. London: BFI,
pp.175–211.
McDonald, P. (2000) The Star System: Hollywood’s Production of Popular Identities . London:
Wallflower.
Rojek, C. (2006) ‘Celebrity and Religion’, in P. Marshall (ed.) The Celebrity Culture Reader. New
York, NY: Routledge.
Simons, J. W. (2014) ‘Why Do We Treat Old Criminals Like National Treasures?’, The Telegraph.
Retrieved 27 November 2014. Available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-
man/11257771/Why-do-we-treat-old-criminals-like-national-treasures.html.
Stacey, J. (1994) Star Gazing: Hollywood Film and Female Spectatorship . London: Routledge.
Tasker, Y. (1993) Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre, and the Action Cinema . London and New
York, NY: Routledge.
Teeman, T. (2009, 11 December). ‘Dame Judi Dench: “I am very un-divaish”’ [electronic version],
Times Online. Retrieved 3 June 2010. Available at
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/film/article6952074.ece.
 CHAPTER 16

AUDIENCE RESEARCH AND

RECEPTION
Empirical
1. Methods of practice on the results of observation and
experiment, not on scientific theory.

Qualitative
1. Of or relating to quality or qualities; measuring, or
measured by, the quality of something

Quantitative
1. That is, or may be, measured or assessed with respect to or
on the basis of quantity; that may be expressed in terms of
quantity; quantifiable.

Setting the scene

The field of Audience Studies has long been a contentious one in academic
approaches to film. The main reason for this is that Film Studies has a
tendency to privilege the text rather than focusing on the viewers and the
worlds they inhabit. However, looking at people, the places they lived,
fashions they wore, leisure pursuits they chose and the social and political
climates they experienced can afford insights into the meaning of a text.
More importantly, these facets bring history to life and enable us to
appreciate the past.
The study of audiences has gone in and out of fashion over the years. As
a result, Audience Research may also be referred to as Reception Theory,
Response Studies and Spectatorship Theory, yet arguably these approaches
do not actually study the audience. Unlike the previous chapters in this
book, very few key academics have established theories concerned with
Audience Research and Response. This is because studies on these topics
are frequently empirically based rather than theoretically driven. However,
a number of academics have worked extensively and developed ideas in this
field, some of whom include: Robert C. Allen, Annette Kuhn, Richard
Maltby, Janet Staiger, Katherine H. Fuller-Seeley, Martin Barker and
Melvyn Stokes.
This chapter departs from the established format within this book
because Audience Studies is based on empirical research. Empirical
research starts from specific examples/observations which are verified
through experiments to create a model and subsequently, a theory.
Empirical research is inductive, that is, it is a way of gaining knowledge by
means of direct/ indirect observation or experience. This is different from
theoretical research which draws on existing theories and hypotheses. The
researcher does not use concrete data such as interviews or questionnaires
to build the theory, but uses hypothetical examples. Theoretical research is
often deductive, that is, it draws upon a variety of existing theoretical
positions to explain a specific question. Accordingly, this chapter offers a
more methodological approach, yet still retains a historical overview of
scholarly innovations.

Gathering information and codes of behaviour

Because Audience Research and Response is such a large and complex

field, it is important that you approach your inquiry with specific questions
in mind. There are so many potential avenues that it can be a daunting
prospect choosing the most appropriate route. Remember that you will not
be able to cover all aspects of research in this field. In order to help you
limit your inquiry we have formu-lated four preliminary areas: Who,
Where, How and Why. These are in no way exclusive and should not be
undertaken in any specific order. All four criteria can be approached from
either qualitative (relating to specific qualities: race, gender, class, etc.) or
quantitative (relating to quantity: how many people saw a specific film,
etc.) perspectives.

Who

It is very important to establish the demographics of your audience as this

can reveal vital information. The past can become more vivid when we
move beyond statistics on a page to consider the real-life experiences of
spectators. It is useful to consider the following demographic information in
determining evidence in a meaningful way:

• age
• gender
• race/ethnicity
• religion
• sexuality
• class
• employment
• location
• cultural subgroups

Examples of Audience Studies that have taken this approach include:

• Richard Maltby’s (1990) work on the 1927 film The King of Kings
(Cecil B. DeMille). He discusses religious reactions to the scandalous
image of Mary Magdalene and other moral issues.
• Jacqueline Bobo’s work (1988–9) on The Color Purple explores African
American female responses to Steven Spielberg’s 1985 adaptation of
Alice Walker’s novel.
• Sue Harper’s ‘A Lower Middle-class Taste-Community in the 1930s:
Admission Figures at the Regent Cinema, Portsmouth UK’ (2004)
undertakes close analysis of class at one specific cinema on the south
coast.

Why

One of the main questions that preoccupies academics is why people choose
to go to the cinema and what determines the films they see. There can be
many factors influencing these decisions. Below you will find a number of
examples that may affect audience attendance:

• escapism
• word of mouth
• cinematic experience (social)
• educational
• franchise, sequel
• first date
• industry accolades (Oscars)
• marketing, promotional campaigns
• controversy
• star
• director
• genre
• content (political, historical setting, etc.)
• diasporic audience (connection to culture)
• financial implications (cinema vs other forms of entertainment)
• event cinema (live events screened for cinemas, interactive
performances such as Secret Cinema)

Many academics have written about why certain films attract specific
audiences; below are examples.

• Robert Warshow (2001) in ‘The Gangster as Tragic Hero’ (1948)

considered audience response to the iconic figure of the gangster.
• Nandini Bhattacharya (2004) takes a broader view. She looks at how
Bollywood films are consumed by non-resident Indians. She explores
how Bollywood teaches younger generations in diasporic communities
about their culture and heritage.
• Shohini Chaudhuri’s Cinema of the Dark Side: Atrocity and the Ethics of
Film Spectatorship (2014) considers the ethical implications of
politically controversial film content, Post 9/11.

Where

Lots of academics have considered the spaces where film is consumed and
this forms a great amount of the writing on audiences. Where a film is
exhibited, the architecture of the building and the medium of projection and
exhibition all affect the viewing experience. Different exhibition spaces are
listed in the figure below.
 Figure 16.1 Exhibition spaces

It is interesting to note how cinema has evolved from a communal

experience into a more insular format. Whereas early studies in this field
looked at film screenings as a collective activity, with the emergence of the
television and home-video technology the watching process has become
more intimate. For example, television screens cater for a domestic
audience of family and friends. New media has led to film being consumed
on an individual basis. Smart devices are designed to enable a solitary
figure to ‘plug-in’ and watch irrespective of their surroundings.
Accordingly, the traditional ‘silver screen’ has undergone a drastic
reduction in size, being adapted to fit into the home and more recently into
new digital formats. It appears that as time and technology progress, the
collective viewing experience grows less and less common. In order to
counteract the movement from the commercial sphere to the domestic, the
film industry has invested in larger screen formats (IMAX) and three-
dimensional technology (3D), a technology that has now been brought into
the domestic sphere.
Academics who have written about the viewing experience include:

• Douglas Gomery has written extensively in the area of cinema

consumption, in particular the exhibition business. One such article is
devoted to the rise in national theatre chains in the US (1992).
• Jacqueline Stewart (2005) has researched viewing practices in custom-
built cinemas, designed to cater for black American audiences.
• Henry Jenkins, in Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media
Collide (2006), considers how the industry has changed exponentially in
terms of film exhibition and audiencne interaction. ‘Whereas Old
Hollywood focussed on cinema, the new media conglomerates have
controlling interests across the entire entertainment industry. Warner
Bros. produced film, television, popular music, computer games, Web
sites, toys, amusement parks, books, newspapers, magazines and
comics’ (p.16).

How

Depending upon our environment, the way we consume film differs

drastically. Society often dictates codes of behaviour; these codes are learnt
from an early age from parents and social conditioning. Here are a number
of examples:

Cinema

• Silence (Western society)

In Western society there is an unwritten code that cinematic screenings
be watched in silence. The cinema is treated almost like a temple. People
are chastised for talking and eating loudly.
• Interaction (world cultures)
Bollywood: Audiences throw coins if they appreciate a particular
sequence. Long songs are worked into the narrative to typically allow
for the male viewers to go and get refreshments for the family.
• Singing
Certain films have gained a cult following and accordingly this has led
to interactive screening experiences where the audience is encouraged
to dress up and sing along. Such films include The Sound of Music
(Robert Wise, 1965), The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman,
1975), Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd) and Frozen (Chris Buck and
Jennifer Lee, 2013).
• Cosplay (short for costume play)
Here members of the audience dress up as their favourite stars. Rather
than attending the cinema in fancy dress, fans attend conventions, the
 most famous being San Diego Comic-Con International, which was
established in 1970. This tradition of fans meeting and interacting with
stars, filmmakers, comic book illustrators and script writers has
developed into a global phenomenon. It is particularly popular with
Japanese audiences with an emphasis on characters from both Anime
and Manga. American and Canadian conventions tend to feature
experiences for Star Trek and Star Wars fans. More recently, the Comic
Con idea has become a localized event with more and more cities
offering the opportunity to dress up and interact, for example, in the
United Kingdom you can now attend Comic Con in London,
Manchester, Birmingham, Liverpool and Scotland (amongst others).
• Mother and baby screenings
These may occur in some venues. Here mothers can watch a film and
not worry about young babies and children screaming and disturbing
others.
• Autism friendly screenings
In order to ensure that autistic viewers can enjoy the cinematic
experience, autistic screenings are offered. Here venues try to ensure
that viewers are not overwhelmed by the sensory environment and offer
a supportive and welcoming setting.

Home

• Emotions: Viewing at home allows for the freedom to express reactions

without feeling intimidated.
• Interaction with environment: If you watch a film in the domestic
environment you can interact with your surroundings because you can
move freely. A good example of this is when people use a cushion to
hide behind when they become scared.
• Fragmented viewing (ffwd, rwd and pause): With the emergence of
home-video technology it is now possible to pause, fast forward and
rewind a film. This enables viewers to chat among themselves in
response to the narrative or pause the action if the pizza-delivery man
arrives. Furthermore, with the development of streaming platforms,
viewers can pause a film they are watching on the television in the
lounge and resume watching, at the correct point, on a phone or tablet in
the bedroom.
Academic studies include:

• Jeffrey Richards and Dorothy Sheridan’s Mass Observation at the

Movies (1987).
• Ann Gray looked at how home entertainment was consumed in Video
Playtime: The Gendering of a Leisure Technology (1992).
• Wheeler Winston Dixon’s book Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant
Access (2013) considers how smart technology has impacted on
spectatorship.

Reflect and respond

1 Do you ever look at the other audience members when you go to the cinema? Do
they tend to be of a similar age, class and gender to yourself? Can you think of any
experiences where this has not been the case?
2 Does your viewing experience depend on who you attend the cinema with?
3 What influences you to go and see a film?
4 How important is the venue to your viewing pleasure?
5 Are there any other unwritten rules regarding cinemagoing or talking about films?

In order to undertake an audience-based research project, it is important to

establish the questions of who, why, where and how. This will provide a
firm starting point for your thesis. From here appropriate sources must be
identified to provide evidence and original material to enrich and further
your study.

Relevant sources

Historical audience research relies on primary sources (whereas

contemporary research can be more dependent on empirical methods).
Rather than focusing wholly on the film as text, it is important that
researchers consider undertaking archival work to familiarize themselves
with original historical material. This material is vast. Below we have
included a number of potential primary resources, but be aware that this list
is in no way exhaustive.
Nowadays the majority of resources are available in a number of
different formats; you may be able to access physical hard copies of
material, or digitized online versions. On rare occasions, you may need to
take information from microfilm or microfiche. Most of the artefacts listed
here can be accessed via specialist websites, library databases or special
collections. Such collections are typically maintained by museums, studios
or dedicated companies set up to house film-related material.

1 Newspapers

These are one of the first ports of call for information. Most newspapers
have an archive which is digitally available via subscriptions (libraries or
universities may subscribe). Bear in mind that there are different styles of
newspapers for different demographics. Broadsheets are written for a
professional clientele and tabloids are more populist. Additionally, there are
a number of trade newspapers dedicated to the industry, Variety being most
famous. Newspapers boast a wealth of information, from film reviews and
interviews with actors to feature-length stories, details of production
histories and other promotional material.

2 Magazines

These adopt a more informal tone of journalism than traditional

newspapers. From the early days of the industry, fan magazines became a
staple for cinematic audiences. Magazines often feature interviews with
celebrities and gossip columns, and they typically offer a more personal
insight into the world of filmmaking. Specialist film magazines may include
production histories and features. Early magazines included Motion Picture
Story Magazine, Photoplay and Bioscope. More recent examples are
Empire and Total Film. However, it is far easier to track down magazines
aimed at specific audiences such as Horror, Science Fiction and Cult fans.

3 Posters and postcards

There is a growing market for film memorabilia, with posters and postcards
ranking among the highly prized commodities for fans and academics.
Images can say a lot about a film and the way it is promoted.

4 Box Office Figures

Box-office figures are an indicator of how well or poorly a film is received.

This information can tell a researcher a lot about national and regional
trends. It is important to note that a lot of this information can now be
accessed online via sites such as Mojo Box Office or IMDB (Internet Movie
Database).

5 Industry records

Gaining access to data held by studios or distribution and exhibition

companies can reveal a great amount of information. For example, you may
uncover knowledge relating to censorship practices. You may also find
financial records and other interesting facts concerning production history
(script drafts, contracts, etc.).

6 Scrapbooks, diaries and personal papers

As the emphasis in this chapter is on the audience, it is paramount that

personal artefacts and accounts are accorded similar importance to
published material. This material needs to be handled sensitively; for
example, should you unearth personal information about a public figure,
you need to question whether it would benefit your research or whether to
include it would merely be gratuitous and hurtful.

7 Interviews

Here you can attain specific insights into an individual’s role and their
opinions on what took place during and after the filmmaking process. This
can offer an interesting perspective not readily available elsewhere. The key
thing to remember is that both interviews and personal artefacts (see above)
are highly subjective and therefore information should be taken with a
‘pinch of salt’ (or cross-referenced). You can access many interviews on
video streaming sites such as YouTube and Vimeo.

8 Government and local records

These records can be accessed in museums (local and national).

Additionally, public record offices hold census records alongside
geographical information. The Mass Observation project is a UK- based
organization that holds a collection of data relating to all aspects of society.
Film scholars have mined this archive to gain insight into regional patterns
of behaviour. Similarly, there are numerous film-orientated collections held
in the US. Once more a great deal of this material is being digitized and
accessable via internet.
9 Architectural surveys

If you are interested in the architecture of your local cinema, then you could
seek out information from council archives or public record offices. This
could reveal information regarding the kind of audience that would frequent
the cinema, as a building that was renowned for its magnificent decor may
attract a different class of spectator than a rundown ‘fleapit’.

10 Fire insurance maps

This information can be revealing in relation to health and safety issues and
more importantly as a way of gaining insight into periods of social reform.
When cinemas were first established, little care was taken to ensure the
safety of customers. However, journalists and temperance movements
(especially in the US) exposed the dangerous environments through written
articles and petitioning. Accordingly, delving into these records and noting
changes reflects public concerns and legislation. Furthermore, they have
helped scholars to identify where cinemas have been historically located.

11 Flea markets and antique stores

These may not come to mind when thinking about embarking on primary
research, because not every stall or shop holds memorabilia relating to film.
Nevertheless, a canny researcher could come across a cinematic treasure by
chance. However, if you are in a position where you are able to spend lots
of money, you need to ensure that any items bought are accompanied by
official provenance documentation (written history).

12 Internet auctions

These are fast becoming a new option for researchers. The wealth of
memorabilia and promotional material available online is vast.
Furthermore, you could monitor buying patterns in order to identify trends
in popularity.

13 Websites and Social Media

This is the fastest growing field of research. The internet provides a number
of resources for academics to access opinions and criticism. Forums, chat
rooms, blogs, websites (official and unofficial), Twitter, Facebook and other
social-networking sites are a way for fans to interact and form communities.
The internet offers a wealth of resources for a researcher to gain an
understanding of how film exists beyond the cinematic screen. The nature
of the internet means that the wealth of resources available is constantly
growing, therefore careful and lateral searching can unearth fascinating
information for the researcher. Similarly, information can be unfounded and
false, therefore you need to ensure that you cross reference all information
with reputable sites (or books).

Reflect and respond

1 Consider the ways you undertake research. Which of the above sources have you
accessed?
2 Are you surprised by any of the resources suggested? If so, why?
3 As a student, which of the above would you struggle to access?
4 Which resources do you think are academically more credible?
5 Using the table below, which resources you could use to locate the information
listed. The numbers on top of the table refer to the sources recorded above.

Media effects

The very first Audience Research was concerned with what film does to
people. In particular, it sought to expose the negative effects of film
viewing on the general public. It is interesting that this initial research
highlighted the negative rather than privileging any positive aspects of
cinemagoing. Young children and women were considered vulnerable and
easily susceptible to on-screen images. There was a fear that young minds
were being corrupted by overtly violent and sexual images. Rather than
concentrating on the educational and positive aspects of cinema, this field
of research was initiated by the clergy, temperance movements and other
groups hoping to cleanse society of its ills. Their motivation was to call for
stricter regulation and censorship in the industry.

Payne Fund studies (1929–32)

The Payne Fund was established as a private foundation to examine the

effect and influence of films on youngsters. The study focused on three
main aspects in particular: the content of films, audience composition and
the effects of cinema on children. In 1929, films were still considered a new
form of entertainment that had grown in popularity in the early part of the
twentieth century. Although moviegoing was all the rage, no censorship
existed in the United States. It was up to individual cinematic
establishments to decide what to show the viewing public.
The Payne Fund employed a number of specialists from the fields of
sociology, psychology and education. This team of experts used a number
of methodologies. Such methods included:

• questionnaires
• surveys
• personal interviews
• content analysis (1,500 films considered)
• personal diaries and autobiographies

In addition to these investigations, they also undertook laboratory

experiments. Here sample audiences would be subjected to filmic material
and their responses recorded.
The foundation was also concerned with how films shape children’s
attitudes because cinema was integral in informing their ideas. Researchers
also looked at children’s sleep patterns after watching films to deduce
whether there was any behavioural change. However, the main concern of
the studies was to assess if film viewing was contributing to a growth in
juvenile delinquency. The church, schools and local pressure groups were
convinced that children’s psyches were being damaged by the images
shown in cinemas and as a result youngsters were becoming more violent
and disruptive. Furthermore, it is important to remember that the Fund was
established to confirm these worries and therefore its approach should be
recognized as biased.
The Payne Fund published its results in over twelve volumes between the
years 1933 and 1937. Among these is Herbert Blumer’s Movies and
Conduct (1933) and Movies, Delinquency and Crime (1933). The legacy of
the experiment can still be felt today, with the issue remaining a concern
that preoccupies academics, politicians and other social figures.

Categories of effect

Following on from the studies conducted by the Payne Fund, researchers

have gone on to identify three ways in which the media influences viewers.
They are as follows:

• Cognitive: Here, researchers are concerned with the way films influence
what people think and believe. Film has often been associated with
propaganda and questions should be asked as to whether film can
impose ideology (a system of beliefs).
• Psychological: This category looks at individuals’ emotional and mental
responses after watching various film genres.
• Behavioural: Of equal importance is the possible copycat effect on the
behaviour of spectators. This is the ‘age-old’ debate asking whether
people can be influenced to replicate in life what they see on the
cinematic screen. Both the Payne Fund and the categories above assume
that film viewers are passive. This idea led to what has become known
as the ‘hypodermic needle model’.

The hypodermic needle model

This idea developed out of debates at the Frankfurt School (a group of

academics working in Germany in the 1920s). Theodor Adorno and Max
Horkheimer claimed that Hollywood filmmaking was dangerous because
the films were not complex enough to stimulate thought. Because
information is relayed in a simplistic manner, the audience does not
question what it sees and instead subconsciously enters into the ideology of
a narrative. The hypodermic syringe metaphor is powerful in illustrating
how the audience passively receives information in the same manner that a
patient would receive a medical injection. This metaphor also implicitly
suggests that media can be a ‘drug’. This model is frequently called upon in
media-effects research but the most important thing to remember is that the
approach presumes that the audience is passive (nonthinking or unable to
resist information received).

Stuart Hall
‘Encoding/Decoding’ (1980)

Stuart Hall was one of the first people to challenge this idea of the passive audience.
His work was more concerned with how meaning is created rather than how a text
affected the audience. His seminal work suggested that people respond to a text in
one of three ways:
1 Dominant: This is akin to the hypodermic needle model, where the audience
passively accepts the dominant ideology of a text. This means that the viewer ‘buys
into’ the intention of the director/screenwriter.
2 Oppositional: Here the audience actively works against the narrative and its
messages. Taking an oppositional stance, it creates a new/different meaning.
3 Negotiated: This falls between the two readings (dominant and oppositional) and
is the most common form of reception. Here the reader neither rejects nor accepts
the ideology of a text. They may agree with some parts but may strongly disagree
with others.
Hall acknowledges that an audience can be active as well as passive. British cultural
studies of the 1970s developed these ideas. They were interested in how societies
produced and consumed culture and their research was based around film and
television. This approach promoted a more objective and less biased perspective and
it can still function as a device for reading modern films.

Reflect and respond

1 How influential do you think films are on the general public’s behaviour?
2 Why do you think films have attracted criticism from religious and educational
establishments? 3 Do you agree with the hypodermic needle model theory?
4 To what extent do you feel that some groups in society are more vulnerable than
others when exposed to certain kinds of films?
5 Can you identify three films where you have experienced a dominant, oppositional
and negotiated response?
Violence and Cinema

Since its earliest conception, cinema has long been held responsible for
society’s ills. An ongoing debate concerns whether ‘life reflects art’ or ‘art
reflects life’. Put simply, are we influenced by what we see on the screen or
are filmmakers inspired by real-life incidents? A number of high-profile
cases have witnessed specific films being blamed for inciting horrific
events. In the 70s, the Stanley Kubrick film A Clockwork Orange (1971)
caused controversy. Based on the novel by Anthony Burgess, the film was
targeted as problematic due to its representation of mindless violence and
rape. The film was named in the media as being responsible for inciting a
number of supposed copycat incidents. Despite the fact that it passed the
censors, Kubrick himself decided to withdraw the film in the UK after
receiving threats.
Controversies continued into the 80s with the introduction of home video
and the availability to youngsters of so called ‘video nasties’. Two films
that caused moral panic, but were not on the video nasties list, were Straw
Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971) and The Exorcist. Although made in the 70s,
when the films were due for release into the home-entertainment market in
the following decade, the BBFC refused to certify them. The BBFC (British
Board of Film Classification) is responsible for classifying films in relation
to age restrictions (U, PG, 12, 15 and 18). The concern was that violent and
sexually inappropriate films could easily be watched by underage viewers
in the home. The Video Recordings Act of 1984 sought to regulate videos
offered for sale or hire without an official classification. It is important to
note that, when videos were first introduced into the UK, they were not
subjected to any form of censorship. Accordingly, the Video Recordings
Act was a panic measure to try and defend against the perceived threats of
the medium. Additionally, in 1985 the BBFC introduced new verbal
descriptions on video boxes to indicate the content of films.
The 90s were marked by two events that shocked the world: the murder
of Jamie Bulger and the Columbine High School Massacre. In 1993, toddler
Jamie Bulger was abducted from a shopping precinct in Liverpool. His
kidnappers, Robert Thompson and Jon Venables, were ten years old. They
tortured and then brutally murdered the two-year-old. The film Child’s Play
3 (Jack Bender, 1991), featuring a demonic doll, was named by the tabloid
press as a possible influence on these horrific acts of violence. Equally
shocking in 1999, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold rampaged through the
corridors of Columbine High School in Colorado with an arsenal of
firearms and home-made explo-sives. Considered outsiders, they hung
around with a group of like-minded individuals who adopted the name
‘Trenchcoat Mafia’. The two wore long trenchcoats during the massacre, a
detail that the media fixated on. They identified the film The Basketball
Diaries (Scott Kalvert, 1995) as a catalyst for their actions. In the film there
is a short dream sequence where Leonardo DiCaprio is seen entering a
classroom wearing a long black leather trenchcoat. He kills his teacher and
a number of other pupils; similarities can be drawn between this scene and
the incident at Columbine. Similarly, a number of violent video games were
named as having influenced the killers. Both these cases have been
discussed in relation to copycat behaviour yet no links have ever been
proven. It has been suggested that viewers, bombarded with a constant
display of violence on screen, become desensitized to it. Youngsters are
particularly vulnerable and can struggle to detach filmic violence from
everyday encounters. Therefore the industry needs to self-regulate.
Whether film can be held responsible for acts of violence is a debate that
will continue. So long as the film industry persists in simulating brutality
and aggressive behaviour occurs in real life, then people will look for
answers in order to attribute blame. Cinema often serves as a scapegoat, as
it is easier to blame fictional characters than question how society
influences individuals.

Reflect and respond

1 Think of recent films that have caused controversy due to their content. Why was
this?
2 To what extent do you believe youngsters are influenced by what they see on screen?
3 Looking at your own experience, identify any instances where you have been
influenced by films.
4 What problems are specific to the home-entertainment market?
5 Consider online content. Who should be responsible for censoring offensive material?

Martin Barker and Ernest Mathjis

‘Researching world audiences: The experience of complex methodology’ (2012)

The research of Martin Barker and Ernest Mathjis worked on feedback from audiences
who saw The Lord of the Rings. The data formed the report ‘2003–4 Lord of the Rings
international audience research project’ designed to take place and coincide with the
release of the third and final part of the trilogy. The ambitious project was stimulated by
the international success of the first part of the series and Peter Jackson’s intention to
release the films over a period of three years. This allowed time for an international
network of researchers to be established in 18 countries.

Central Goals

Three questions were decided upon:

1 How and why does film fantasy matter to different audiences?
2 How would audiences in different countries relate to a story that (a) is essentially
‘English’, (b) celebrates New Zealand ‘primevalness’, and (c) is made with money
raised by Hollywood studio New Line Cinema?
3 How was the ground prepared for the film in different countries (by marketing and
media)? How did different kinds of audiences respond to this prefiguration? (p.665).

In order to gather this data, UK researchers spent three months prior to the release of
the final film intensively seeking prefigurative materials such as press, television,
internet, radio, magazines and merchandising etc. (p.666). On the day of release, an
online questionnaire was made available (paper copy could be obtained as well).
When this opportunity closed after five months, preliminary analyses were undertaken.
There followed interviews with individual respondents who exemplified the patterns
that were emerging from the replies.

Designing the Core Questionnaire

The questionnaire was at the heart of the methodology which had nearly 25000
responses. There was no target for the number of completed questionnaires, ‘[O]ur
aim was to generate the largest and richest body of data and materials that we could
achieve in a limited time’ (p.668). Translation posed a number of challenges as a total
of 14 languages were encountered. Some words were surprisingly difficult, for
example, Middle-earth in Scandinavian languages is ‘Midgard’ which is the name in
Norse for the home of the Gods (p.669).
The research method utilised combined both Qualitative and Quantitative research
to uncover what the film meant and how it mattered to audiences. From this they
discuss the possible benefits of triangulation.

Quantitative questions

Establishing individual backgrounds was challenging. Asking the age and sex was not
a problem, but ethnicity was. The lead researchers acknowledged that they were
defeated in the attempt to find a way to list ethnicities, and decided against including
this. Another challenge was to establish ‘cultural capital’ as a dimension of the
responses. Class or income would not work in a world situation so ‘12 kinds of
occupation’ were constructed (p.669).
An important area was to establish ‘Enjoyment and Importance’. Participants were
asked to grade their response to these and then, state what they meant by the grade
they had given the film. The next category provided the manner in which ‘Languages
of appreciation and evaluation’ could be compiled. This was followed by ‘How
important the film was to them’. The final area in this section was ‘Vernacular
categories’. A list of twelve ways in which the ‘kind of story’ it was could be described,
for example, allegory, spiritual journey, epic. In order to avoid translation issues, a brief
one-sentence definition was given for each ‘kind’ (p.670).

Qualitative questions

The ‘overarching goal here was to encourage people to talk at length, and in their own
words, about their responses to Tolkein’s story-world’ (p.671). By encouraging the use
of ‘own words’ it lifts the questionnaire from the level of interrogation to allow
audiences the ‘right to be heard’. In essence, if people highly rated or criticised the
film, what vocabulary did they use to express this? A final question here was to ask
who was their favourite character and why? (p.673).

Quantitative/Qualitative and Triangulation Issues

One aspect that was of interest arose from social scientists’ awareness of the effects
of the act of research itself, and how it could alter the thing studied. Barker and Mathijs
believe their study gets round this by ‘not being noticed researching’ through the
distancing of on-line form filling (p.673).
Barker and Mathijs continue their explanation of their methodology and findings
through several quite detailed sections: ‘Mapping Imagined Worlds’ is where the
discussion considers ‘multimethod, quali/quantitative and triangulative research [that]
should not be seen to have a fixed purpose’ (p.675). Here they position their work
within a cultural studies frame. In that, films should be acknowledged as ‘complex
bodies of meaning which draw on and react back’ to culture (p.676). This meant that
they looked towards Stuart Hall’s dominant encoding/decoding model. Additionally,
they were influenced by Bourdieu and wanted to have enough replies to form patterns
of responses by country, age, class, sex, to enable an understanding of the film in
relation to its place within cultural taste hierarchies (p.676).
In the section ‘Ancillary Materials’, Barker and Mathijs address how news, reviews,
gossips, leaks, publicity, posters, merchandising, etc can influence, in different and
complicated ways, various groups of people (p.678). They hoped to capture in a
moment in time what Tolkien was currently worth (p.678). Also ‘What value attached to
fantasy at this time? What could filmed fantasy enable audiences to feel, and to think?’
(p.678).
For ‘Framing our Research’ they situate their work within a cultural studies tradition.
‘We believe that human responses to the world are culturally constructed and
orientated, historically framed, and are the sources for people’s desires and actions’
(p.681). Their enquiry aimed to understand ‘how and why, at the start of twenty-first
century, this story was exciting many people, generating debates, and providing a
space for thinking about the word and its future’ (p.681). They wanted to ‘locate and
explore distinctive interpretative positions’ (p.682). In the final brief paragraphs on
‘Problems and limitations’ Barker and Mathijs create a platform for further research
and provide valuable help to future exploration in audience research by suggesting
how future research may overcome the problems they had (p.683).
The work of Martin Barker and Ernest Mathijs can be read as an empirical ‘how to’
do audience response research. The article, ‘Researching world audiences: The
experience of complex methodology’, provides some succinct analytical access to the
detailed research Barker and Mathijs undertook on The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Importantly for this chapter they detail their methodology, challenges, intersections with
other theoretical positions, and some of the outcomes and limitations of this project. It
is a concrete example of an empirically based research.
Case study: Tartan Video
Written by Simon Hobbs

Audience Research and Reception remains a contentious area of study, and

is often overlooked in favour of more theoretical approaches. Nonetheless,
it persists as a useful way to gain insight into consumption practices,
allowing us to explore where films are being exhibited, through which
platforms they are delivered, and the composition of the audience. In this
sense, it opens up different avenues for consideration which can contribute
to a more comprehensive understanding of film culture.
Tartan Video, an independent British distribution label established in
1984, offers one such example of what these research strategies can reveal
about audiences, exhibition sites and delivery formats. At the turn of the
millennium, Tartan Video reached new levels of success and exposure due
to the distribution of its Asia Extreme sub-division, which provided British
audiences with a series of excessively violent and extreme narratives from
East Asia. While later expanding to America, this exploration of Tartan
Video, and more particularly its use of DVD within the distribution of
extreme Asian texts, takes both a nationally specific (an analysis of the
British market) and a historical (the turn of the millennium and early 2000s)
perspective. In so doing, the case study illustrates how an examination of a
commercial format such as DVD can illuminate the consumption processes
of a certain demographic within a particular space and during a specific
time period. Crucially, by focusing upon DVDs, this case study also utilises
a Paratextual approach, wherein merchandise and supplementary additions,
such as special features, trailers, and posters, can be used to further
comprehend a film’s relationship to the audience sector.
A division of the British distributor’s larger catalogue, which included
various European art films, horror narratives and cult texts, Tartan Asia
Extreme grew in popularity alongside the DVD format during the early
2000s. Herein the DVD platform became a central component to the
success of these foreign films, and consequently acts as a facilitator through
which a greater awareness of the texts can be gained. Composed of highly
transgressive films, including seminal narratives such as Audition (Miike
Takashi, 1999) and Battle Royale (Fukasaku Kinji, 2000), the films pushed
the boundaries of acceptability, showcasing extreme acts in a manner both
unfamiliar and exciting to British audiences of the period. The extremity of
the narratives connected with ‘cult’ film fans, while the technological
superiority of DVD over VHS made the Tartan Asia Extreme catalogue a
‘must have’ product to a certain section of the marketplace. Indeed a unique
production model was established, whereby a large number of extreme
Asian narratives were produced in order to satisfy an overseas market.
The Asian Extreme films, due to both their categorisation as foreign
language and sporadic appearance on the festival circuit, also enticed an ‘art
house’ demographic. Whilst, as Oliver Dew compellingly states, ‘this
“arthouse” readership has to be assured that the violence within certain
films is legitimate, and not merely titillating’ (Dew, 2007, p.57), the
hybridized audience is central to understanding their reception culture, and
allows us to further examine the permeable nature of ‘high/low’ taste
distinctions by exploring ‘who’ is watching. Often, ‘high’ and ‘low’ art is
placed at opposing ends of the cultural spectrum, yet Tartan Asia Extreme’s
dual demographic exposes the complicated nature of these divisions.
Importantly, the erosion of taste barriers has continued, with European
extreme films such as Irreversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002) and Antichrist (Lars
von Trier, 2009) drawing attention from both ‘cult’ horror fans and festival
organisers. Indeed Antichrist’s DVD release via Chelsea Films and later
Artificial Eye was clearly marked as a dualistic artefact, assigning the
release the catalogue number ‘666’ while utilising the nudity, violence and
gore common within horror film marketing to package the film as both an
art product and a cult object.
Usefully, the study of Tartan’s extreme narratives allows us to examine
the media effects debate. Due to the gore contained in these texts, concerns
surrounding the morality of cinema became prominent, with Ichi the Killer
(Miike Takashi, 2001), a canonical feature within the Asian extreme
catalogue, becoming the most censored film to enter the British market in
over a decade (BBC News, 2002). Concerns around the influence films
have upon the viewer often steer audience research studies, and while the
Tartan Asia Extreme narratives were never embroiled within moral panics
surrounding copycats or imitators, many films have been blamed for
directly influencing individuals to commit acts of violence. The 1980s
‘video nasty’ scandal in Britain was built around unproven claims that
violent films would turn a generation of young people into delinquents, as
the audience would not be able to detach real life events from what they
consume on screen. Outside of Britain, The Basketball Diaries (Scott
Kalvert, 1995) was used by the American media as a scapegoat to help
explain the Columbine High School shooting, in which teenagers Eric
Harris and Dylan Klebold killed nine students and one teacher. Importantly,
within these cases, the relationship between the films and the incidents is
never proven, and rather offers an easier resolution to
incomprehensible events.
In conclusion, it becomes clear that through looking at the DVD
distribution patterns of a series of Asian films, we have been able to assess
audiences, technological formats and media effects debates, without
exploring the texts themselves in detail. Importantly, within current society,
we are oversaturated by mediated images, making these issues more
prevalent than ever, as the popu-larisation and quick adoption of streaming
websites such as Netflix and Amazon Prime (in Britain and globally) has
impacted the manner in which audiences access and consume media. In
regards to notions of extremity, and the breaching of taste distinctions, these
new digital platforms provide further opportunities for slippage. The
interfaces commonly used on these websites, which feature a grid of
thumbnail icons similar to small posters, conflate cinematic hierarchies, and
allow high, low and mainstream texts to share the same space. This equality
affords different systems of delivery and contact, and, like the study of
Tartan Video conducted here, permits us to explore and assess audience
reception patterns.

Reflect and respond

1 How influential is film marketing in informing your decision to watch a film?

2 What is the appeal of watching extreme cinema?
3 How important is the film classification process (PG, 12, 15 and 18 ratings)? Have
you ever watched films deemed to be inappropriate for your age?
4 Can you think of any films that have been marketed to appeal to both the cult and art
house hybridized audience?
5 How far are you influenced by genre classification on streaming platforms?

Conclusion
Many criticisms have been levelled at Audience Studies. One of the most
fundamental is that research projects are often designed with the aim of
exposing the negative effects of films rather than exploring the positive and
educational influence of cinema. In presuming that the audience passively
consumes a film text, no attention is paid to the complexity of film
narratives and their ideology.
Another problem with Audience Research and Response is that most of
the work conducted has focused on large, urban centres. In particular a great
deal of academic work has looked at New York, Chicago and other large
American cities. Timothy Gilfoyle has referred to this phenomenon as
‘Gotham-centric’ (1998). In concentrating on the metropolis, academics fail
to acknowledge rural communities whose residents also go to the movies.
Richard Maltby, in the terminology of the early 30s, states that:
‘“metropolites”, “deluxers”, and “big keys” were at the center of an
imagined universe of moviegoing, and “hicks”, “dime houses”, and the
“Silo Belt” were located on the periphery’ (1999, p.37). This has been
rectified over the past few decades with more and more academics
researching film screenings in rural areas. However, it is important to note
that the majority of research in this field is concerned with America and
Europe. Intensive studies of film-viewing practices around the world are
still few and far between.

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Conclusion

In a book of this kind, there can be no conclusion. That is because we have

offered a series of methods: ways of reading or interpreting films. None of
these methods are definitive. Theory is not written in stone; it should not be
thought of as a regimented, authoritarian way to approach texts. Rather,
theory is a tool that can be used selectively. We want to argue that a three-
way relationship can be set up between theory, text and reader (viewer).
What we have done is to set up a number of interpretative frameworks:
Structuralism, Marxism, masculinity and so on. None of these on their own
can account for the complexity of film culture; yet the insights they afford
can stimulate us to think afresh about what films mean. In addition, we have
surveyed a range of critical perspectives, such as audience reception,
stardom, race and ethnicity. When used carefully, these can enrich our
understanding and help us to see the mythologies (power relations,
organization, etc.) that lie hidden beneath the film’s surface. Films are not
always predictable products of a capitalist system of production. Rather,
they relate in a complex way to the world of dreams, ideas, subjective
desires and sociopolitical power relations and theoretical work will enable
us to excavate underlying subtexts.
Up until now, film theory has developed primarily out of the discipline of
philosophy and literary critical theory. It is possible to argue that other
disciplines can profitably be explored—social history, cultural geography,
art history, anthropology and so on. This would certainly be a way of
broaden-ing out the field, and providing new insights. But whatever
explanatory model chosen, we have to make sure that we are flexible and
inventive in our application, so that the readings produced are both
thorough and appropriate.
This is not to say that specific theories are directly responsible for
producing particular films, even though they may represent a sophisticated
meditation on particular issues. In other words, do not fall into the trap of
presuming a director/screenwriter made a conscious decision to create a
narrative based upon a theory (Psychoanalysis, Star Studies,
Postmodernism, etc.).
Furthermore, remember that you have recourse to more than one theory
when exploring a film. In all our case studies, we have read texts through
specific lenses: The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012) through the
application of Adaptation, Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif
Kechiche, 2013) via the prism of Queer Theory. However, there are other
ways of reading these films which can be equally revealing. A Marxist
reading of The Hunger Games would enable us to consider the anti-
capitalist message of the narrative apparent through the superficial culture
of commerce evident in the Capitol. Likewise, a Feminist reading of Blue is
the Warmest Colour would throw up some fascinating conclusions, and
invite us to think about the empowerment of the young women as they rebel
against patriarchal order. Therefore, it is important to consider different
theoretical approaches because these could produce alternative readings that
go against the grain.
It is essential that you do not let theory restrict your imagination. Be
aware of your own initial reading of a film. Do not ignore your intuition;
often your textual analysis can bring a fresh perspective to established
ideas. Occasionally you can become overwhelmed and blinkered by a
theoretical position, which could result in the dismissal of vital information.
Furthermore, your understanding of a text can be enhanced through a
detailed examination of production history. This line of investigation may
be more pertinent to your reading of a film than undertaking a traditional
theoretical interpretation.
What we are suggesting, then, is that you use this book as a basis for
further study, and that you should feel encouraged to use theory flexibly and
without fear. It can be your friend rather than your enemy and will help you
to gain more understanding of the complexities of films and the way they
relate to the societies that produced them and the audiences that respond to
them.
Filmography

10 Things I Hate About You (Gil Junger, 1999)

12 Years a Slave (Steve McQueen, 2014)
42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933)
50 Shades of Grey (Sam Taylor-Johnson, 2015)
300 (Zack Snyder, 2006)
400 Blows/Les Quatre Cents Coup (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968)
A Bout de Souffle/Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes (Alejandro Amenabar, 1997)
The Act of Killing (Joshua Oppenheimer, 2012)
Adulthood (Noel Clarke, 2008)
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (Stephan Elliot, 1994)
The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz, 1938)
Aladdin (Ron Clements and John Musker, 1992)
Alexander (Oliver Stone, 2004)
Alice in Wonderland (Tim Burton, 2012)
Alien (Ridley Scott, 1979)
All about Eve (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1950)
Amar Akbar Anthony (Manmohan Desai, 1977)
American Graffiti (George Lucas, 1973)
American Hustle (David O. Russell, 2013)
American Psycho (Mary Harron, 2000)
American Splendor (Shari Springer Bergman & Robert Pulcini, 2003)
Amistad (Steven Spielberg, 1997)
Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (Marvin J. Chomsky, 1986)
Annie (John Huston, 1982)
Annie Get your Gun (George Sidney, 1950)
Antichrist (Lars von Trier, 2009)
Apocalypse Now (Francis Ford Coppola, 1979)
L’arrivee d’un Train a la Ciotat/Arrival of a Train at a Station (Auguste and Louis Lumiere, 1897)
Atonement (Joe Wright, 2007)
Avatar (James Cameron, 2009)
Avatar 2 (James Cameron, 2018)
Avengers Assemble (Joss Whedon, 2012)
L’Arroseur Arrosè (Lumière Brothers, 1895)
Audition (Takashi Miike, 1999)
Back to the Future III (Robert Zemeckis, 1990)
The Basketball Diaries (Scott Kalvert, 1995)
Batman Begins (Christopher Nolan, 2005)
Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Battle Royale (Kinji Fukasaku, 2000)
Beauty and the Beast (Gary Trousdale and Kirk Wise, 1991)
Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, 2012)
Beauty and the Beast (Bill Condon, 2017)
Being John Malkovich (Spike Jonze, 1999)
Belle (Amma Asante, 2012)
The Believer (Henry Bean, 2001)
Bellissima/Beautiful (Luchino Visconti, 1951)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden, 2012)
La Bete Humaine/The Human Beast/Judas Was a Woman (Jean Renoir, 1938)
Big Fish (Tim Burton, 2003)
The Big Short (Adam McKay, 2015)
The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946)
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (Stephen Herek, 1989)
The Birds (Alfred Hitchcock, 1963)
The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915)
Black Swan (Darren Aronofsky, 2010)
Blackmail (Alfred Hitchcock, 1929)
Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982)
Blade II (Guillermo del Toro, 2002)
Blazing Saddles (Mel Brooks, 1974)
Blue (Derek Jarman, 1993)
Blue Valentine (Derek Cianfrance, 2010)
Blue is the Warmest Colour (Abdellatif Kechiche, 2013)
The Blue Lamp (Basil Dearden, 1950)
Blue Velvet (David Lynch, 1986)
The Blues Brothers (John Landis, 1980)
Bowling for Columbine (Michael Moore, 2002)
Boys Don’t Cry (Kimberly Peirce, 1999)
Boyhood (Richard Linklater, 2014)
Boyz ’n the Hood (John Singleton, 1991)
Brazil (Terry Gilliam, 1985)
Breathless/A Bout de Souffle (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
Brick (Rian Johnson, 2005)
Bride & Prejudice (Gurinder Chadha, 2004)
Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, 2011)
Bridget Jones’s Diary (Sharon Maguire, 2001)
Bridge of Spies (Steven Spielberg, 2015)
Brighton Rock (John Boulting, 1947)
Brokeback Mountain (Ang Lee, 2005)
Brooklyn (John Crowley, 2015)
Broken Arrow (Delmer Daves, 1950)
Buck and the Preacher (Sidney Poitier, 1972)
Bugsy Malone (Alan Parker, 1976)
Bullet Boy (Saul Dibb, 2004)
The Business (Nick Love, 2005)
Cache/Hidden (Michael Haneke, 2005)
La Cage aux Folles (Edouard Molinaro, 1978) Calamity Jane (David Butler, 1953)
Caravaggio (Derek Jarman, 1986)
Carrie (Brian De Palma, 1976)
Carol (Todd Haynes, 2015)
Casablanca (Michael Curtiz, 1942)
Cathy Come Home (Ken Loach, 1966)
Chicago (Rob Marshall, 2002)
Un Chien Andalou/An Andalusian Dog (Luis Bunuel, 1928)
Child’s Play 3 (Jack Bender, 1991)
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1968)
A Christmas Carol (Robert Zemeckis, 2009)
Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941)
A Clockwork Orange (Stanley Kubrick, 1971)
Cloverfield (Matt Reeves, 2008)
Clubbed (Neil Thompson, 2008)
The Color Purple (Steven Spielberg, 1985)
Conan the Barbarian (John Milius, 1982)
Crash (David Cronenberg, 1996)
Crazy, Stupid Love (Glen Ficarra and John Requa, 2011)
Creed (Ryan Coogler, 2015)
Crimson Peak (Guillermo del Toro, 2015)
Cronos (Guillermo del Toro, 1993)
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000)
Cruel Intentions (Roger Kumble, 1999)
The Crying Game (Neil Jordan, 1992)
Curly Sue (John Hughes, 1991)
Cyberbully (Ben Shanan, 2015)
Dances with Wolves (Kevin Costner, 1990)
Dangerous Liaisons/Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Stephen Frears, 1988) Danish Girl (Tom Hooper,
2015)
Dark Shadows (Tim Burton, 2012)
The Day after Tomorrow (Roland Emmerich, 2004)
Dead Man (Jim Jarmusch, 1995)
Desperately Seeking Susan (Susan Seidelman, 1985)
Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966)
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012)
Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989)
Dogville (Lars von Trier, 2003)
Donnie Brasco (Mike Newell, 1997)
Dorian Gray (Oliver Parker, 2009)
Drive (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2011)
Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946)
Earth (Deepa Mehta, 1998)
Easy Rider (Dennis Hopper, 1969)
Edward Said: On Orientalism (Sut Jhally, 1998)
Edward Scissorhands (Tim Burton, 1990)
Edward II (Derek Jarman, 1991)
El Topo/The Mole (Alejandro Jodorowsky, 1970)
Elf (Jon Favreau, 2003) Empire State (Ron Peck, 1987)
The Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)
Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (Marcel Carne, 1945)
English Patient (Anthony Minghella, 1996)
Enigma (Michael Apted, 2001)
Escape from New York (John Carpenter, 1981)
El Espinazo del Diablo/The Devil’s Backbone (Guillermo del Toro, 2001)
Être et Avoir/To Be and to Have (Nicholas Philibert, 2002)
Evita (Alan Parker, 1996)
Ex Machina (Alex Garland, 2014)
The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973)
Eyes Wide Shut (Stanley Kubrick, 1999)
The Fall of the Krays (Zachary Adler, 2016)
Fame (Alan Parker, 1980)
Family Plot (Alfred Hitchcock, 1976)
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest (Bill Kroyer, 1992)
Festen (Thomas Vinterberg, 1998)
Fiddler on the Roof (Norman Jewison, 1971)
Fight Club (David Fincher, 1999)
Fire (Deepa Mehta, 1996)
Fireworks (Kenneth Anger, 1945)
A Fistful of Dollars (Sergio Leone, 1964)
The Fly (David Cronenberg, 1986)
For a Few Dollars More (Sergio Leone, 1965)
Fort Apache (John Ford, 1948)
Four in the Morning (Anthony Simmons, 1965)
Fracture (Gregory Hoblit, 2007)
Frenzy (Alfred Hitchcock, 1972)
Frozen (Chris Buck & Jennifer Lee, 2013)
Full Metal Jacket (Stanley Kubrick, 1987)
Gangster No.1 (Paul McGuigan, 2000)
Germania Anno Zero/Germany Year Zero (Roberto Rossellini, 1948)
Get Carter (Mike Hodges, 1971)
The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, 1957)
The Godfather Trilogy (Francis Ford Coppola, 1972–90)
Gold Diggers of 33 (Mervyn LeRoy, 1933)
GoldenEye (Martin Campbell, 1995)
Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio Leone, 1966) Goodfellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Good-Time Girl (David McDonald, 1949)
The Graduate (Mike Nichols, 1967)
Great Expectations (David Lean, 1946)
Great Expectations (Alfonso Cuarón, 1998)
The Great Gatsby (Baz Luhrmann, 2013)
La Grande Illusion/The Grand Illusion (Jean Renoir, 1937)
The Grapes of Wrath (John Ford, 1940)
Grease (Randal Kleiser, 1978)
The Great Train Robbery (Edwin S. Porter, 1903) Grey Owl (Richard Attenborough, 1998)
Groundhog Day (Harold Ramis, 1993)
Gunga Din (George Stevens, 1939)
The Guru (Daisy von Scherler Mayer, 2002)
Guys and Dolls (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1955)
Hairspray (John Waters, 1988 and Adam Shankman, 2007)
A Handful of Dust (Charles Sturridge, 1988)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Mike Newell, 2005)
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (Chris Columbus, 2001)
The Hateful Eight (Quentin Tarantino, 2015)
Hell is a City (Val Guest, 1959)
He Who Rides the Tiger (Charles Crichton, 1965)
Heaven’s Gate (Michael Cimino, 1980)
Hellboy (Guillermo del Toro, 2004)
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (Guillermo del Toro, 2008)
High Noon (Fred Zinnemann, 1952)
High Plains Drifter (Clint Eastwood, 1973)
High School Musical franchise (Kenny Ortega, 2006–8)
The Hit (Stephen Frears, 1984)
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (Peter Jackson, 2013)
La Hora de los Hornos/The Hour of the Furnaces (Octavio Getino and Fernando Solanas, 1968)
The Hulk (Ang Lee, 2003)
The Human Stain (Robert Benton, 2003)
The Hunger Games (Gary Ross, 2012)
The Iceman (Ariel Vromen, 2013)
Ichi the Killer (Takashi Miike, 2001)
The Idiots (Lars von Trier, 1998)
Imagine: Bollywood’s Big B: Amitabh Bachchan (C. Lockhart, 2007)
Imitation of Life (John M. Stahl, 1934 and Douglas Sirk, 1959)
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (Steven Spielberg, 1984)
Interview with the Vampire (Neil Jordan, 1994)
Into the Woods (Rob Marshall, 2014)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Don Siegel, 1956)
Iris (Richard Eyre, 2001)
Iron Man (Jon Favreau, 2008)
Irreversible (Gaspar Noé, 2002)
Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
The Jazz Singer (Alan Crosland, 1927)
Johnny Guitar (Nicholas Ray, 1954)
Journey from Berlin (Yvonne Rainer, 1971)
Jubilee (Derek Jarman, 1978)
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (Karan Johar, 2006)
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (Karan Johar, 2001)
Kes (Ken Loach, 1969)
Kidulthood (Menhaj Huda, 2006)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (Quentin Tarantino, 2004)
Killing them Softly (Andrew Dominik, 2012) A Kind of Loving (John Schlesinger, 1962)
Kindergarten Cop (Ivan Reitman, 1990)
The King and I (Walter Lang, 1956)
The King of Kings (Cecil B. DeMille, 1927)
Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance (Godfrey Reggio, 1982)
El Laberinto del Fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo del Toro, 2006)
Ladies in Lavender (Charles Dance, 2004)
Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves (Vittorio De Sica, 1948)
The Ladykillers (Alexander MacKendrick, 1955)
La La Land (Damien Chavelle, 2016)
Lan Yu (Stanley Kwan, 2001)
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (Simon West, 2001)
Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007)
The Last King of Scotland (Kevin Macdonald, 2006)
The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978)
The Lavender Hill Mob (Charles Crichton, 1951)
Layer Cake (Matthew Vaughn, 2004)
Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007)
Legend (Brian Helgeland, 2015)
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014)
Leon (Luc Besson, 1994)
Les Miserables (Tom Hooper, 2012)
Lift (Marc Isaacs, 2001)
Lincoln (Steven Spielberg, 2012)
Little Big Man (Arthur Penn, 1970)
Little Caesar (Mervyn LeRoy, 1931)
The Little Shop of Horrors (Frank Oz, 1986)
Living with Michael Jackson (Julie Shaw/Martin Bashir, 2003)
Lockout (James Mather and Stephen Saint Leger, 2012)
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels (Guy Ritchie, 1998).
The Lodger (Alfred Hitchcock, 1926)
The Long Good Friday (John Mackenzie, 1979)
Lola Rennt/Run Lola Run (Tom Tykwer, 1998)
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (Tony Richardson, 1962)
Look Back in Anger (Tony Richardson, 1959)
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (Peter Jackson, 2001)
Lost in Translation (Sofia Coppola, 2003)
The Mack (Michael Campus, 1973)
Mad Max: Fury Road (George Miller, 2015)
The Magnificent Seven (John Sturges, 1960)
Magnolia (P. T. Anderson, 1999)
Mamma Mia! (Phyllida Lloyd, 2008)
Mandingo (Richard Fleischer, 1975)
The Man Who Fell to Earth (Nicolas Roeg, 1976)
Man with a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929)
Manderlay (Lars von Trier, 2005)
Marathon Man (John Schlesinger, 1976)
March of the Penguins (Luc Jacquet, 2005) Marnie
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1964)
The Martian (Ridley Scott, 2015)
M*A*S*H (Robert Altman, 1970)
The Matrix (Andy and Larry Wachowski, 1999)
Meet the Spartans (Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer, 2008)
Memento (Christopher Nolan, 2000)
Menace II Society (Albert and Allen Hughes, 1993) Metropolis (Fritz Lang, 1927)
A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Peter Hall, 1968)
Millions Like Us (Sidney Launder and Frank Gilliat, 1943)
A Million Ways to Die in the West (Seth MacFarlane, 2014) Mimic (Guillermo del Toro, 1997)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Tim Burton, 2016)
Mona Lisa (Neil Jordan, 1986)
Moon (Duncan Jones, 2009)
The Moon Is the Sun’s Dream (Chan-Wook Park, 1992)
Moonlight (Barry Jenkins, 2016)
Mother India (Mehboob Khan, 1957)
Moulin Rouge! (Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
Mrs Brown (John Madden, 1997)
Mrs Doubtfire (Chris Columbus, 1993)
Mrs Henderson Presents (Stephen Frears, 2005)
Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
The Muppets Christmas Carol (Brian Henson, 1992)
The Musketeers of Pig Alley (D.W. Griffiths, 1912)
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (Joel Zwick, 2002)
My Darling Clementine (John Ford, 1946)
My Fair Lady (George Cukor, 1964)
My Own Private Idaho (Gus Van Sant, 1991)
New Jack City (Mario Van Peebles, 1991)
Night and the City (Jules Dassin, 1950)
The Nightmare Before Christmas (Tim Burton, 1993)
No Country for Old Men (Ethan and Joel Coen, 2007)
North by Northwest (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
The Notebook (John Cassavetes, 2004)
Notes on a Scandal (Richard Eyre, 2006)
Notorious (Alfred Hitchcock, 1946)
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Joel and Ethan Coen, 2000)
Oklahoma (Fred Zinnemann, 1954)
Oldboy (Chan-Wook Park, 2003)
Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968)
Only God Forgives (Nicholas Winding Refn, 2013)
El Orfanato/The Orphanage (Juan Antonio Bayona, 2007)
Paa (R. Balki, 2009)
Pacific Rim (Guillermo del Toro, 2013)
Paint Your Wagon (Joshua Logan, 1969)
Paisa/Paisan (Roberto Rossellini, 1946)
Paris Is Burning (Jennie Livingston, 1990)
Partie de Campagne/A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir, 1936)
Pepe le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Performance (Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg, 1970)
Peter Pan (Clyde Geronimi, Wilfred Jackson and Hamilton Luske, 1953)
The Phantom of the Opera (Joel Schumacher, 2004)
Phone Booth (Joel Schumacher, 2002)
Pinky (Elia Kazan, 1956)
Pinocchio (n.a., 1940)
Pitch Perfect (Jason Moore, 2012)
Pitch Perfect 2 (Elizabeth Banks, 2015)
The Place Beyond the Pines (Derek Cianfrance, 2012)
Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Shaffner, 1968 and Tim Burton, 2001)
The Player (Robert Altman, 1992)
Pocahontas (Mike Gabriel and Eric Goldberg, 1995)
Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation (Godfrey Reggio, 1988)
Pride (Matthew Warchus, 2014)
The Princess and the Frog (Ron Clements & John Musker, 2009)
Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Psycho (Gus Van Sant, 1998)
The Public Enemy (William A. Wellman, 1931)
Pulp Fiction (Quentin Tarantino, 1994)
Les Quatre Cents Coups/400 Blows (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
Queen Christina (Rouben Mamoulian, 1933)
Rabbit-Proof Fence (Philip Noyce, 2002)
Race, the Floating Signifier (Stuart Hall, 1997)
Raging Bull (Martin Scorsese, 1980)
Raiders of the Lost Ark (Steven Spielberg, 1981)
Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954)
Rebecca (Alfred Hitchcock, 1940)
Rebel Without a Cause (Nicholas Ray, 1955)
La Regle du Jeu/The Rules of the Game (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Requiem for a Dream (Darren Aronofsky, 2000)
The Revenant (Alejandro González Iñárritu, 2015)
The Revenge of the Nerds (Jeff Kanew, 1984)
Ride with the Devil (Ang Lee, 1999)
Riff-Raff (Ken Loach, 1991)
Rio Grande (John Ford, 1950)
The Rise (Rowan Athale, 2012)
Rise of the Foot Soldier (Julian Gilbey, 2007)
The Rise of the Krays (Zachary Adler, 2015)
Rocky (John G. Avildsen, 1976)
The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975)
Roma Citta Aperta/Rome Open City (Roberto Rossellini, 1945)
Romeo and Juliet (Baz Luhrmann, 1996)
Room (Lenny Abrahamson, 2015)
Room at the Top (Jack Clayton, 1959)
A Room with a View (James Ivory, 1985)
Rope (Alfred Hitchcock, 1948)
Russian Ark (Aleksandr Sokurov, 2002)
Samsara (Ron Fricke, 2011) Sapphire (Basil Dearden, 1959)
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
Saturday Night Fever (John Badham, 1977)
Scarface (Howard Hawks, 1932)
Scary Movie (Keenen Ivory Wayans, 2000)
Schindler’s List (Steven Spielberg, 1993)
Scream (Wes Craven, 1996)
The Searchers (John Ford, 1956)
Sebastiane (Derek Jarman, 1976)
The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (John Madden, 2015)
Sense and Sensibility (Ang Lee, 1995)
Serenity (Joss Whedon, 2005)
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers (Stanley Donen, 1954)
Sexy Beast (Jonathan Glazer, 2001)
Seven Samurai (Akira Kurosawa, 1954)
The Seventh Seal (Ingmar Bergman, 1957)
Shakespeare in Love (John Madden, 1998)
Shane (George Stevens, 1953)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (John Ford, 1949)
The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980)
The Shipping News (Lasse Hallstrom, 2001)
Sholay (Ramesh Sippy, 1975)
Showboat (James Whale, 1930 and George Sidney, 1946)
Shrek (Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson, 2001)
Shrek 2 (Andrew Adamson, Kelly Ashby and Conrad Vernon, 2004)
Singin’ in the Rain (Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1952)
A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009)
The Sixth Sense (M. Night Shyamalan, 1999)
Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012)
Sleepless in Seattle (Nora Ephron, 1993)
Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)
Sliding Doors (Peter Howitt, 1998)
Slumdog Millionaire (Danny Boyle, 2008)
Snatch (Guy Ritchie, 2000)
The Social Network (David Fincher, 2010)
Soldier Blue (Ralph Nelson, 1970)
Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Song of the South (Harve Foster and Wilfred Jackson, 1946)
La Sortie des Usines Lumiere/Workers Leaving the Factory (Louis Lumiere, 1895)
The Sound of Music (Robert Wise, 1965)
Spectre (Sam Mendes, 2015)
Spellbound (Alfred Hitchcock, 1945)
Stagecoach (John Ford, 1939)
Star Wars (George Lucas, 1977)
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (J.J. Abrams, 2015)
The Stepford Wives (Bryan Forbes, 1975 and Frank Oz, 2004)
Stone Roses: Made in Stone, (Shane, Meadows 2013)
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot (Roger Spottiswoode, 1992)
Stories we Tell (Sarah Polley, 2012)
Stormy Monday (Mike Figgis, 1987)
Strangers on a Train (Alfred Hitchcock, 1951)
Straw Dogs (Sam Peckinpah, 1971)
A Streetcar Named Desire (Elia Kazan, 1951)
Sunset Boulevard (Billy Wilder, 1950)
Suffragette (Sarah Gavron, 2015)
Superbad (Greg Mottola, 2007)
Superfly (Gordon Parks Jr, 1972)
Supersize Me (Morgan Spurlock, 2004)
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (Tim Burton, 2007)
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park, 2005)
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (Chan-Wook Park, 2002)
Target for Tonight (Harry Watt, 1941)
Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette, 2003)
A Taste of Honey (Tony Richardson, 1961)
Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976)
Tears of the Black Tiger (Wisit Sasanatieng, 2000)
The Ten Commandments (Cecil B. DeMille, 1956)
The Terminator I–III (James Cameron and Jonathan Mostow, 1984–91, 2003)
Terminator: Salvation (McG, 2009)
La Terra Trema/The Earth Trembles (Luchino Visconti, 1948)
They Live! (John Carpenter, 1988)
They Made Me a Fugitive (Alberto Calvalcanti, 1947)
The Third Secret (Charles Crichton, 1964)
The Thirty-Nine Steps (Alfred Hitchcock, 1935)
This Sporting Life (Lindsay Anderson, 1963)
Three Men and a Baby (Leonard Nimoy, 1987)
Throne of Blood (Akira Kurosawa, 1957)
Timecode (Mike Figgis, 2000)
Titanic (James Cameron, 1997)
Todo Sobre Mi Madre/All about My Mother (Pedro Almodovar, 1999)
Tongues Untied (Marlon Riggs, 1990)
Top Gun (Tony Scott, 1986)
Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996)
Transamerica (Duncan Tucker, 2005)
True Grit (Coen Brothers, 2010)
The Truman Show (Peter Weir, 1998)
Twilight(Catherine Hardwicke, 2008)
Twins (Ivan Reitman, 1988)
Umberto D (Vittorio De Sica, 1952)
Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992)
Unfriended (Levan/Leo Gabriadze, 2014)
The Usual Suspects (Bryan Singer, 1995)
V for Vendetta (James McTeigue, 2005)
Vanilla Sky (Cameron Crowe, 2001)
Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
Villain (Michael Tuchner, 1971)
Le Voyage dans la Lune/A Trip to the Moon (Georges Melies, 1902)
Walker (Alex Cox, 1987)
Water (Deepa Mehta, 2005)
Week End (Jean-Luc Godard, 1967)
Went the Day Well (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1942)
West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961)
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (Spike Lee, 2006)
Why We Fight (Frank Capra, 1943–4)
The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969)
Wild Wild West (Barry Sonnenfeld, 1999)
Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (Mel Stuart, 1971)
The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)
The World’s End (Edgar Wright, 2013)
The Wrong Man (Alfred Hitchcock, 1957)
Yield to the Night (J. Lee Thompson, 1956)
Young Guns II (Geoff Murphy, 1990)
Young Mr Lincoln (John Ford, 1939)
The Young Victoria (Jean-Marc Vallee, 2009)
Zanjeer (Prakash Mehra, 1973)

TV shows
24 (Various, 2001–11)
30 Rock (Various, 2006–13)
The 100 (Various, 2014– )
The Apprentice (Various, 2005– )
The Big Bang Theory (Various, 2007– )
Big Brother (Various, 1997–2010)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Various, 1997–2003)
Ellen (Various, 1994–8)
A Fine Romance (Bob Larbey, 1981–4)
Firefly (Joss Whedon, 2002)
The Get Down (Baz Luhrmann, 2016–17)
House of Cards (David Fincher, 2013– )
The L Word (Various, 2004–2009)
The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986– )
Pretty Little Liars’ (Various, 2010– )
Pride and Prejudice (Simon Langton, 1995)
Roots (Chomsky, Erman, Greene and Moses, 1977)
Scoobie Doo (Various, 1969–1971)
The Simpsons (Various, 1989– )
The Sweeney (Various, 1975–8)
This is England (Shane Meados and Tom Harper, 2010)
The Tracey Ullman Show (Various, 2016)
The Walking Dead (Various, 2010– )
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? (Various, 1991– )
The X Factor (Various, 2004– )
Index

3 Hommes et un Couffin/Three Men and a Cradle (1985) 198

3D 133–5, 151, 260, 285, 286
10 Things I Hate about You(1999) 33
12 Years a Slave (2014) 81, 144, 208, 242
30 Rock (2006–13) 205
42ndStreet (1933) 61–2
50 Shades of Grey (2015) 184
The 100 (2014– ) 227
300 (2006) 208
400 Blows/Les Quatre Cents Coup(1959) 76, 126
2001: A Space Odyssey 109

A
À Bout de Souffle/Breathless (1960) 67
Aboriginal 254, 255
Abrams, J. J 200
Abrahamson, Lenny 190
Abject 184–6; see also Kristeva, Julia
Abre los Ojos/Open Your Eyes(1997) 21
Acting 69, 201–45; see also Method Acting
The Act of Killing (2012) 137–8, 9
Adamson, Andrew 53
Adaptation, xiii, 2, 8, 16, 18, 19, 23–44, 60, 108, 113, 255, 263, 279, 284, 300
Adaptation & Appropriation 34–6
Adele 272
Adler, Zachary 281
Adorno, Theodor 107; see also Culture Industry
Adulthood (2008) 59
The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994) 221
Affirmative Culture 108–9; see also Marcuse
African Americans 49, 54, 91, 109, 110, 187–8, 210, 214, 233, 234, 235, 236, 238–9, 242, 244, 245
AIDS 211, 215, 215, 216, 217
Aladdin (1992) 251
Alexander (2004) 203
Alice in Wonderland (2010) 5
Alien (1979) 185
All About Eve (1950) 187, 283
Allen, Robert C. 283
Almodóvar, Pedro 19, 215, 221–2
Altma, Robert 58
Althusser, Louis 107, 110, 111–3, 117, 180; see also Interpellation; Symptomatic Reading
Altman, Rick 47–9, 50, 53, 56, 60–2; A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre 47–8
Altman, Robert 53
Amenábar, Alejandro 7, 17, 20, 54, 190
American Graffiti (1973) 144
American Hustle (2013) 189
American Splendor (2003) 204
Amistad (1997) 242
Asante, Amma 242
Anderson, Hans Christian 191
Anderson, Lindsay 128
Anderson, Paul Thomas 7, 21
Andrews, Julie 62
Anger, Kenneth 213, 215
Angry Young Men films 128; see also Realism
Annie (1982) 60
Annie Get Your Gun (1950) 53, 62 ‘Anti-Anti-fidelity: Truffaut, Roché, Shakespeare’ 43
Antichrist ( 2009) 297
Apocalypse Now (1979) 81–2
Apted, Michael 145
Archetypes/Spheres of Action 75, 80, 81, 82, 85, 163–5, 170, 171; see also Propp, Vladimir
Aronofsky, Darren 81, 164
L’Arrivèe d’un Train a la Ciotat/ Arrival of àTrain at a Station (1897) 122
Astaire, Fred 60–2
Astruc, Alexandre 1; ‘Camera- Stylo’ 1
Athale, Rowan 59: Audience 50–1
Atonement (2007) 39
Audience Research and Reception 107, 274, 283–99
Audition (1999) 297
Auteur 1–22, 27, 110, 115, 265 ‘Authorship in Film Adaptation’ 39–40
Avant-garde 123, 135, 150, 213, 214
Avatar (2009) 81, 134, 260–3
Avatar 2 (2018) 262
Avengers Assemble (2012) 133

B
Baartman, Saartje 234
Babuscio, Jack 218–220; ‘Camp and the Gay Sensibility’ 218–20
Bachchan, Abhishek 277
Bachchan, Amitabh 259, 276–81
Bachchan, Jaya 277
Back to the Future III (1990) 54
Bacon, Lloyd 61
Badham, John 51, 197
Bakhtin, Mikhail 32, 113–14;
Carnivalesque 113–14
Barker, Martin 269, 294–6 ‘Researching world audiences: The experience of complex
methodology’(2012)
Barthes, Roland 8, 9, 10, 21, 40, 78, 95–6, 102–3; ‘Death of the Author’ 9–10; Jouissance 95– 6,
102–3; Mythologies 9, 95–6; Plaisir 95–6, 102–3, Bashir, Martin 123
The Basketball Diaries (1995) 293, 297
Battle Royale (2000) 42, 297
Battleship Potemkin (1925) 69, 70
Baudrillard, Jean 43, 147, 148–50, 151; ‘The Gulf War Did Not Take Place’ 154; ‘The Precession of
Simulacra’ 148–50
Baudry, Jean-Louis 166, 183
Bayona, Juan Antonio 20
Bazin, André 2, 6, 26–8, 45, 71, 125, 127; see also ‘Adaptation, or the Cinema as Digest’ 26–8
Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) 110
Beauty and the Beast (1991) 19, 61, 62
Bechdel, Alison 189, 190
The Bechdel Test 190, 191
Beckham, David 203
Being John Malkovich (1999) 99
Beja, Morris 24
The Believer 206
Belle ( 2013) 242
Bellissima/Beautiful (1951) 127
Benjamin, Walter 107, 131–2; ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ 131–2
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel(2012) 279
Bergman, Ingmar 18, 109
Bergman, Ingrid 15, 98
Bergman, Robert Pulcini) 204
Berkeley, Busby 62, 218
Berry, Mary 280
Besson, Luc 35, 198
La Bête Humaine/The Human Beast(1938) 71, 126
Bhosle, Asha 64
The Big Bang Theory (2007– ) 204
Big Fish (2003) 3
Big Five, (Major) 268
The Big Short (2015) 190
Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure(1989) 109
Biograph Girl, (Florence Lawrence) 266
The Birds (1963) 15, 15, 100, 162, 165, 220
The Birth of a Nation (1915) 15, 21, 147, 235
Bisexual 162, 165, 190, 212, 213, 214, 225, 226; see also Homosexual
Black Swan (2010) 164
Blackmail (1929) 14, 16
Blade Runner (1982) 41, 161
Blade II (2002) 17, 19
Blair, Selma 109
Blanchett, Cate 89, 165, 275
Blandick, Clara 76
Blaxploitation 243–4
Blazing Saddles (1974) 46, 54
Bleibtreu, Moritz 82
Blue (1993) 215
Blue is the Warmest Colour(2013) 225–8, 300
Bluestone, George 24–26, 31; ‘Limits of the Novel and the Film’ 24–6
The Blues Brothers (1980) 61
Blue Valentine (2010) 204
Blue Velvet (1986) 162
BoBo, Jacqueline 284
Bogart, Humphrey 98, 197, 203
Bolger, Ray 77
Bollywood 223, 258, 259, 276–8, 285, 286
Bond, James 75, 204, 280
Booker, Chris 78
Boozer, Jack 37, 39–40; ‘Authorship in Film Adaptation’ 39–40
Bowie, David 145, 153, 221, 280
Bowling for Columbine (2002) 123
Boyhood (2014) 131
Boyle, Danny 81, 258–9
The Boy Blue (Thomas Gainsborough, 1770) 243, 243
Boys Don’t Cry (1999) 221
Boyz ‘n the Hood (1991) 49
Bradshaw, Peter 64
Brand, Russell 211
Brando, Marlon 130, 197, 207
Brazil (1985) 41
Breathless/À Bout de Souffle(1960) 67
Brecht, Bertolt 80, 81; Verfremdung 82
Bresson, Robert 12
Breton, André 162
Brick (2005) 145
Bride &Prejudice (2004) 145
Bridesmaids (2011) 175
Bridge of Spies (2015) 190
Bridget Jones’s Diary (2001) 175, 176
Brighton Rock (1947) 57
British New Wave 128–9
British Realist traditions 127–8; see also Free Cinema
Brokeback Mountain (2005) 12, 54, 128, 224, 226–7
Broken Arrow (1950) 53
Bronson, Charles 102
Brooks, Mel 46, 54, 238
Brooklyn (2015) 190
Bruzzi, Stella 138
Buck, Chris 191
Buck and the Preacher (1972) 54
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997– 2003) 228
Bugsy Malone (1976) 61, 63
Bulger, Jamie 293; see alsoviolence
Bullet Boy (2004) 59
Buñuel, Luis 162
Burke, Billie 77
Burton, Tim 3–4, 8, 55
Bury Your Gays 228
Buscombe, Edward 50; ‘The Idea of Genre in the American Cinema’ 50
The Business (2005) 59
Butler, David 53
Butler, Judith 213

C
Caché/Hidden (2005) 131, 263
La Cage aux Folles (1978) 221
Cahiers du cinema 2, 52 Cahiers Group 2–3, 5
Cahir, Linda 23, 33, 34, 36, 39; see also Literature into Film: Theory and Practical Approaches 33
Calamity Jane (1953) 53, 62
Callow, Simon 224
Cameron, James 7, 48, 81, 134, 145, 260–2
Camp 54, 143, 151, 153, 211, 215, 217–9, 222
Campbell, Joseph 78–9, 165, 185; The Hero with a Thousand Faces 79
Campbell, Martin 280
Campus, Michael 243
Canon 20, 49, 50–2, 54, 269
Capra, Frank 123
Caravaggio (1986) 215
Cardinale, Claudia 199
Carnivalesque 113–14
Carol (2015) 227
Carpenter, John 35, 106, 118
Carrie (1976) 185
Carry On films 114, 151
Carter, David 214–5; Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked the Gay Revolution
Casablanca (1942) 98
Cashmore, Ellis E. 229
Cathy Come Home (1966) 129; see also Loach, Ken
Cavalcanti, Alberto 57, 128
Celebrity 12–3, 58, 174, 265, 269, 272, 273, 274–5, 276, 278, 280, 281;see also stars
Censorship 26, 57, 59, 158, 188, 289, 290, 291, 293
CGI 33, 133, 151, 153, 200, 208
Chabrol, Claude 2
Chadha, Gurinder 38, 63, 278
Chalk, Penny 40–2
Chatman, Seymour 31
Chaudhuri, Shohini – Cinema of the Dark Side: Atrocity and the Ethics of Film Spectatorship(2014)
285
Chazelle, Damien 60
Chicago (2002) 60, 63
Chicken-and-Egg Dilemma 45–6, 106; see also Tudor, Andrew
Un Chien Andalou/An Andalusian Dog (1928) 162, 170
Child’s Play 3 (1991) 293
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968) 61
A Christmas Carol (1843) 109, 220
Cimino, Michael 54
Cianfrance, Derek 206
Cinémathèque Frangaise 2
Cisgender 221
Citizen Kane (1941) 75, 121, 126
Clayton, Jack 128
Clift, Montgomery 206
A Clockwork Orange (1971) 98, 183, 293
Cloverfield (2008) 100, 133
Clubbed (2008) 59
Coen brothers 39, 54, 55, 162
Collins, Suzanne 40–2
Colonial 200, 247, 248, 249, 250, 251–6, 259, 260, 261, 262;see also Neocolonialism
Colonization 247, 248, 249, 260
The Color Purple (1985) 284
Coltrane, Ella 131
Columbia Studios 268
Columbine High School Massacre 293, 298; see also violence
Columbus, Chris 221
ComicCon 287
Communism 104, 105
Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI) 33, 133, 151, 153, 200, 208
Conan the Barbarian (1982) 198, 198
Congo, Anwar 137–9
Connery, Sean 158
Conscious 156, 157–60, 163, 166 see also Pre-conscious, subconscious, unconscious
Continuity Editing 67–8, 71, 72, 123
Coogler, Ryan 200
Coolie (1983) 277
Copjec, Joan 172
Coppola, Francis Ford 49, 81
Coppola, Sofia
Copyright 10, 27, 35, 93
Corbucci, Sergio 243
Cordon, James 272
Corrigan, Timothy 12–13, 21; ‘The Commerce of Auteruism’ 12–3
Costner, Kevin 7, 54
Cox, Alex 106
Craig, Daniel 75, 204
Crash (1996) 162
Craven, Wes 53
Creed, Barbara 185–6; ‘Horror and the Monstrous Feminine; An Imaginary; Abjection’ 185–6
Creed (2015) 200
Crichton, Charles 58
Crimson Peak (2015) 17, 19
Croft, Lara 93
Cronenberg, David 17, 162
Cronos (1993) 17–19
Crosland, Alan 60
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon(2000) 12, 200
Crowe, Cameron 7
Crowe, Russell 281
Crowley, John 190
Cruel Intentions (1999) 109
Cruise, Tom 7, 99
The Crying Game (1992) 81, 221
Cuarón, Alfonso 17, 20, 38
Cukor, George 64
Culture Industry 107–8
Cumming, Alan 224
Curly Sue (1991) 198
Curtis, Richard 8
Curtis, Tony 221, 238
Curtiz, Michael 98
Cyberbully (2015) 131
Cyrus, Miley 179

D
Dalí, Salvador 141, 162, 170
Dances with Wolves (1990) 54, 260
Dangerous Liaisons/Liaisions Dangereuses (1988) 109
Danish Girl (2015) 221
Dargis, Manhola 226
Dark Shadows (2012) 5
Dassin, Jules 57
Davis, Geena 189
Davis, Sharen 243
The Day After Tomorrow (2004) 96, 97, 99
Day, Doris 273 De Cordova, Richard 266–7, 272, 279; The Emergence of the Star System 266–7
De Lauretis, Teresa 186–7; Alice Doesn’t. Feminism. Semiotics. Cinema 186–7
De Sica, Vittorio 126see also Italian Neo-realism
Dead Man (1995) 54
Deadpool (2016) xii, xiii, 159
Dean, James 130, 206, 207
Deconstruction 96, 98–9
Deep-focus composition/ photography 71, 90, 125, 131, 201 ‘Defamiliarization’ 81, 82, 100; see also
Shklovsky, Viktor
DeGeneres, Ellen 89, 224
Del Toro, Guillermo 17–20, 19
DeMille, Cecil B. 147, 284
Dench, Dame Judi 278–81
Depp, Johnny 4, 5
Derrida, Jacques 40, 97–9;
Deconstruction 98–9; Différance 97–8;
Trace and Graft 99;
Of Grammatology; 97–9
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) 187
Diaz, Cameron 99
Dibb, Saul 59
DiCaprio, Leonardo 89, 153, 203, 266, 278, 293
Dicecco, Nico 43
Dickens, Charles 38, 109, 220
Diesel, Vin 18
Dietrich, Marlene 225
Digital Realism 132
Dinklage, Peter 272
Disney 53, 62, 88, 110, 191–3, 206, 251, 252
Dixon, Wheeler Winston 287 Streaming: Movies, Media and Instant Access (2013)
Django (Sergio Corbucci, 1966) 243
Django Unchained (Quentin Tarantino, 2012) 242–4
Doane, Mary Ann 183–4, 186, 187; ‘Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the Female Spectator’
183–4
Documentary 84, 115, 122–4, 125, 126, 127, 129, 135, 137– 9, 231, 276; see also Nichols, Bill 123–
4
Dogme 95, 135–7
Dogville (2003) 82
Dolezal, Rachel 239
Dominik, Andrew 49
Donen, Stanley 51, 61
Donnie Brasco (1997) 49
Doppelgänger/double 161
Dorian Gray (2009) 161
Do the Right Thing (1989) 234
Double Consciousness 236, 237; see also Race and Ethnicity
Douglas, Mary 231
Downey Jr, Robert 266
Dreams 107, 157–9, 161, 162, 163, 164, 170, 172: see also Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung
Drive (2011) 206–7
Du Bois, W. E. B. 232, 236–7; The Souls of Black Folk 236–7
Dudley, Andrew 29, 32 see also Concepts in Film Theory 29
Duel in the Sun (1946) 53, 182
Duvivier, Julien 124
Dworkin, Andrea 188
Dyer, Richard 60, 200, 216, 239–41, 269–70, 279, 282; ‘Entertainment and Utopia’ 60; Heavenly
Bodies 269–70; Stars 269; White 239–41; ‘The White Man’s Muscles’ 200

E
Earth (1998) 223
Eastwood, Clint 7, 54, 102, 199, 277
Easy Rider (1969) 56
Edward Scissorhands (1990) 4–5
Edward II (1991) 216
Efron, Zac 62, 197
Ego 159, 163–5, 166, 184, 196, 201; see also Freud, Sigmund
Eichenbaum, Boris 66
Eisenstein, Sergei 66, 69–71, 83,84, 114; ‘Film Form’ 69–71
Electra complex 160; see also Freud, Sigmund; Jung, Carl
Elf (2003) 159
Elfman, Danny 8
Emmerich, Roland 96, 97
Empire State (1987) 58
The Empire Strikes Back (1980) 247
Endelman, Lee 219–20; No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive (2004) 220
Endorsement 274, 275–5; see also Stars
Les Enfants du Paradis/Children of Paradise (1945) 126
Engels, Friedrich 104, 106–7, 111, 119
The English Patient (1997) 39
Enigma (2001) 145
Ephron, Nora 145
Escape from New York (1981) 35
El Espinazo del Diablo/The Devil’s
Backbone (2001) 17–18, 20
Espinosa, Julio Garda 17
El Topo/ The Mole (1970) 54
Ethnicity 210, 229–46; see also
Jews/Jewish; Race
Evans, Owen 83
Event Cinema 285
Everett, Rupert 224
Evita (1996) 55
Exarchopoulos, Adéle 225
Ex Machina (2014) 161
The Exorcist (1973) 185, 293
Eyes Wide Shut (1999) 99, 183

F
Fabula 72–4; see also Syuzhet
The Fall of the Krays (2016)
Fame (1980) 63
Family Plot (1976) 16
Fandom 42, 204, 273–5, see also
Stars
Fan Fiction 38
Fanon, Frantz 248–9;Black Skin,
White Masks 248; ‘The
Wretched of the Earth’ 248–9
Farrell, Will 116
Favreau, John 110, 159
Feig, Paul 175
Feminism 112, 156, 172, 173–94, 195, 210, 273
Femme Fatales 179
Ferngully: The Last Rainforest(1992) 260
Festen (1998) 136
Fetishism 172, 180, 184, 185, 188see also Freud, Sigmund; Mulvey, Laura
Fiddler on the Roof (1971) 81
Fidelity 23–27, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34, 35, 42, 43, 121 see also Bluestone, George; see also ‘Anti-
Anti-fidelity: Truffaut, Roché, Shakespeare’ 43
Figgis, Mike 58, 131
Fight Club (1999) 81, 159, 201, 202
The Fighting Temeraire (1839) 204
Film Noir 47, 52, 108, 201
Fincher, David 7, 12, 21, 81, 159, 201, 204
A Fine Romance (1981–4) 279
Fire (1996) 223
Fireworks (1945) 213
First Cinema 50, 115
Fisher, Carrie 79
A Fistful of Dollars (1964) 54
Fleischer, Richard 242
Fleming, Victor 76, 81, 290
The Fly (1986) 162
Fonda, Henry 101–3
Fonda, Jane 174
Fonda, Peter 56
For a Few Dollars More (1965) 54
Forbes, Bryan 161
Ford, Harrison 80, 199, 200, 251
Ford, John 46, 51, 53, 101, 103
Ford, Tom 227
Formalism 66–85, 86, 100, 114
Fort Apache (1948) 53
Foster, Jodie 225
Foucault, Michel 9–11, 40, 180, 211–2;
The History of Sexuality:Volume 1 211–2;
What is an Author? 9–11
Four in the Morning (1965) 278
Fox, Michael J. 54
Foxx, Jamie 243
Fracture (2007) 206
Frankfurt School 107–8, 117, 292
Frears, Stephen 58, 109, 279
Free Association 157, 158
Free Cinema 128; see also Realism
French New Wave 2, 72, 98, 125–6, 135
Frenzy (1972) 15–16
Freud, Sigmund 107, 110, 156, 157–62, 163, 164, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 180, 181,
182, 184, 185; The Interpretation of Dreams 157
Freudian slip 157, 158
Fricke, Ron 123
Friedberg, Jason 46
Friedkin, William 185
Frozen ( 2013) 191–3, 286
Fry, Stephen 224, 280, 281
Functions 76–8, 80; see also Propp, Vladimir
Fukaska, Kinji, 42, 297

G
Gable, Clark 197
Gabriadze, Levan/Leo 131
Gangsta 49, 91
Gangster 48–51, 56–64, 202, 285
Gangster No.1 (2000) 59
Garber, Marjorie 221
Garbo, Greta 218, 225
Garland, Alex 161
Garland, Judy 62, 76, 219
Gaspar, Noé 297
Gay 54, 123, 153, 157, 187, 188, 190, 192, 210–28;
Stonewall 214–15;
Camp 217–20; see also Homosexual
Gavron, Sarah 145, 173
Geeks 203–5
Gellar, Sarah Michelle 109
Gender 56, 59, 117, 173–94, 195, 196, 199, 205, 210–28, 254, 271
Gender Fluidity/Genderqueer 221
Genette, Gérard 29, 30; see also Transtextualities
Genre 17, 24, 30, 45–65, 101, 123, 136, 137, 151, 153, 167, 175, 182–3, 186, 199, 201, 215, 218,
237, 239, 263, 265, 292
Genre Hybridity 34, 55, 62, 64, 143, 145
Genre Revisionism 53, 55; see also Subgenres
German Expressionism 3, 5, 47, 72, 98, 124
Germania Anno Zero/Germany Year Zero (1948) 127
Get Carter (1971) 58
The Get Down (2016–) 21
Getino, Octavio 114–15; see also Third Cinema
Gibson, Mel 7
Giese, Maria 189
Gilbey, Julian 59
Gill, Rosalind 176–9; Postfeminist Media Culture: Elements of a Sensibility (2006) 176–8
Gilliam, Terry 41, 162
Gilliat, Frank 127
The Girl Can’t Help It (1957) 219
Glazer, jonathan 59
Gless, Sharon 224
Godard, Jean-Luc 2, 67, 125, 144
The Godfather (1972) 8, 49
Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) 62
GoldenEye (1995) 280
Gone with the Wind (1939) 235, 290
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly(1966) 54
Good-Time Girl (1949) 57
Goodfellas (1990) 49
Gosling, Ryan 206–8
Goya, Francisco de 16; Saturn Devouring His Children 18, 19
The Graduate (1967) 160
Graft 99 see also Trace
Gramsci, Antonio 112–13, 116; see also hegemony
La Grande Illusion/The Grand Illusion (1937) 71, 126
Granger, Hermione 205
Grant, Cary 15, 220
The Grapes of Wrath (1940) 101
Grease (1978) 60–1, 63
The Great Train Robbery (1903) 53
Great Expectations (1946) 33, 38
The Great Gatsby (2013) 278
Greenaway, Peter 162
Greene, Peter 73
Grey Owl (1998) 239
Grierson, John 122, 127
Griffith, D. W. 57, 147
Groundhog Day (1993) 74, 161
Guest, Val 58
Guinness, Alec 79
Gunga Din (1939) 252, 252
The Guru (2002) 63
Guys and Dolls (1955) 62
Gyllenhaal, Jake 225

H
Habermas, Jürgen 150; ‘Modernity versus Postmodernity’ 150
Hairspray (1988) 63
Hairspray (2007) 175
Hall, Stuart 231, 292, 296; ‘Encoding/Decoding’ 292; ‘Race, the Floating Signifier’ 231
Hamill, Mark 79, 241
Hamilton, Linda 48
A Handful of Dust (1988) 279
Haneke, Michael 131
Hanks, Tom 7, 281
Harper, Sue 284
Harris, Neil Patrick 224
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) 33
Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (2001) 33, 41, 81, 93, 205
Harry Potter franchise 81, 205
Haskell, Molly 179; ‘From
Reverence to Rape’ 179
Hassler-Forest, Dan 43; see also
The Politics of Adaptation:
Media Convergence and Ideology
The Hateful Eight (2015) 178
Hawks, Howard 49, 57
Hazarika, Bhupen 64
Haynes, Todd 227
Heaven’s Gate (1980) 54
Hegemony 112–13, 116; see also
Gramsci, Antonio
Helgeland, Brian 59, 281
Hellboy (2004) 17, 18, 19, 19
Hellboy II: The Golden Army (2008) 17, 18
Hell is a City (1959) 58
Hemsworth, Chris 197
Henson, Brian 109
Hepburn, Audrey 64
Herek, Stephen 109
Herrmann, Bernard 14–15, 20
Hermansson, Casie 43
He Who Rides the Tiger (1965) 278
Higbee, Will 256, 263
High Definition (HD) 134
High Noon (1952) 53
High Plains Drifter (1973) 54
High School Musical franchise (2006–8) 60, 63, 197
Highsmith, Patricia 17, 227
The Hit (1984) 58
Hitchcock, Alfred 13–17, 20, 33, 35, 39, 158, 162, 181, 185, 186, 214, 220
The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug (2013) 134
Hobbs, Simon 296–8
Hoblit, Gregory 206
Hodges, Mike 58
Hoffman, Dustin 130, 160
Homoerotic 98, 151, 193, 196, 197, 202, 205, 207, 213
Homophobic 56 178, 196, 210, 222
Homosexual 13, 128, 187, 188, 195, 202, 210–40; see also
Bisexual; Gay; Lesbian
hooks, bell 175, 187–8; ‘The
Oppositional Gaze: Black
Female Spectators’ 187–8
Hooper, Tom 35, 221
Hopper, Dennis 56, 73, 74
La Hora de los Hornos/The Hour of
the Furnaces (1968) 114
Horkheimer, Max 108–9, 119, 292
Horror 17–20, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53, 63, 91, 151, 162, 167, 184, 185–6, 188, 218, 263; see also
Creed, Barbara ‘Horror and
the Monstrous Feminine; An
Imaginary; Abjection’ 185–6
Hottentot Venus 234
House of Cards (2013– ) 21
Howitt, Peter 74
Huda, Menhaj 59
Hudgens, Vanessa 62
Hughes, Albert and Allen 49
Hughes, Ken 61
The Hulk (2003) 12
The Human Stain (2003) 238
Humm, Maggie 188
The Hunger Games (2012) 40–2, 80, 300
Hunter, I.Q. 42
Huston, John 60
Hutcheon, Linda 36–8, 41, 145 see also A Theory of Adaptation and Transculturating
Hyde-Pierce, David 224
Hyper-masculinity 198, 208
Hypodermic Needle Model 107, 292–3

I
The Iceman (2013) 49
Ichi the Killer (2001) 297
Id 157, 158–9, 166, 167, 170; see also Freud, Sigmund
The Idiots (1998) 136
Imaginary 18, 93, 95, 166, 167, 168, see also Lacan, Jacques and Metz, Christian
Imitation of Life (1934 and 1959) 238
Imperfect Cinema 115
Iñárritu, Alejandro Gonzalez 17, 20, 21, 190
Inception (2010) 74, 133
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) 251, 251, 252
Indick, William 165, 172
Interpellation 111–12; see also Althusser, Louis
Interview with a Vampire (1994) 11
Into the Woods (2014) 61
Invasion of the Body Snatchers(1956) 51, 81
Iris (2001) 279
Iron Man (2008) 110
Irreversible (2002) 297
Italian Neo-realism 72, 98, 130

J
Jackie Brown (1997) 244
Jackson, Peter 8, 80, 134, 165, 294
Jackson, Samuel L. 73, 244 Jameson, Fredric 143–5, 150; ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’
144–5
Jarman, Derek 215, 216
Jarmusch, Jim 54
The Jazz Singer (1927) 60, 261
Jenkins, Barry 241
Jenkins, Henry 42, 286
Jenson, Vicky 53
Jews/Jewish 97, 157, 206, 229, 233, 234, 235, 237, 238, 240; see also ethnicity
Jodorowsky, Alejandro 54
Johnny Guitar (1954) 53
Johnson, Rian 145
Johnston, Claire 179; ‘Women’s Cinema as Counter-Cinema’ 179
Jones, Doug 19
Jones, Duncan 7
Jonze, Spike 99
Jordan, Neil 11, 58, 81
Journey from Berlin (1971) 188
Jubilee (1978) 215
Julien, Isaac 215
Julien, Max 243
Jung, Carl 156, 160, 162, 163–5, 169, 170, 171; ‘The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious’
163–5
Junger, Gil 33

K
Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehma (2006) 278
Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gham (2001) 278
Kajol 63
Kalvert, Scott 293, 297
Kahn, Shah Rukh 203
Kanew, Jeff 204
Kaplan, E. A. 182
Kapoor, Kareena 64
Kardashian, Kim 272
Kazan, Elia 197, 219, 238
Kechiche, Abdellatif 225–7
Keeler, Ruby 62
Keitel, Harvey 73
Kelly, Gene 51, 98, 153
Kelly, Grace 15
Kershner, Irvin 247
Kes (1969) 129
Khan, Mehboob 63
Khan, Salman 63
Kahn, Shah Rukh 63
Kendrick, Anna 62
Kerr, Deborah 64
Kidulthood (2006) 59
Kidman, Nicole 99, 152, 276, 281
Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Kill Bill Vol. 2(2003–4) 144, 175
Killing them Softly (2012) 49
A Kind of Loving (1962) 128
Kindergarten Cop (1990) 198
The King and I (1956) 64
The King of Kings (1927) 284
King, Stephen 35
kitchen-sink drama 128 see also Realism
Kitses, Jim 47, 61
Kleiser, Randal 60, 61
Knightley, Keira 89
Koyaanisqatsi: Life out of Balance(1982) 123
Kracauer, Siegfried 31
Kristeva, Julia 184, 185
Kubrick, Stanley 98, 99, 109, 161, 183, 293
Kuhn, Annette 186, 187, 283
Kuleshov, Lev 66, 71;
Kuleshov Effect 71
Kumble, Roger 109
Kurosawa, Akira 38, 54, 277

L
The L Word (2004–2009) 228
LaBeouf, Shia 272
Lacan, Jacques 40, 93, 156, 165, 166–7, 168, 169, 172, 180, 181, 183, 196, 220;
Imaginary 167; ‘The Mirror Stage’ 166–7, 168, 196;
Real 167;
Symbolic 167
Ladies in Lavender (2004) 279
Ladri di Biciclette/Bicycle Thieves(1948) 127
The Ladykillers (1955) 58
Laemmle, Carl 266
La La Land (2016) 60, 62, 206, 207
Landau, Martin 220
Lan yu (2001) 223, 228
Landis, John 61
Lang, Fritz 41, 51
Lang, Walter 64
Langlois, Henri 2
Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001) 93
Lars and the Real Girl (Craig Gillespie, 2007) 206
The Last King of Scotland (2006) 81
The Last Waltz (1978) 123
Launder, Sidney 127
The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) 58
Lawrence, Florence (The Biograph Girl) 266
Lawrence, Jennifer 89, 189, 266
Laxton, James 241
Layer Cake (2004) 59
Laying bare the device 67, 75
Lean, David 8, 33
Ledger, Heath 225
Lee, Ang 12, 54, 200, 225–7
Lee, Jennifer 191
Lee, Spike 5, 11, 234, 244, 276
Legend (2015) 59, 281
The Lego Movie (Phil Lord & Christopher Miller, 2014) 116–20, 118
Leigh, Janet 15
Leigh, Mike 129
Leitch, Thomas 30–3, 36; see also ‘Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory’
Lemmon, Jack 221
Léon (1991) 198
Leone, Sergio 8, 100–3, 244
LeRoy, Mervyn 49, 62
Lesbian 109, 123, 187, 189, 190, 192, 193, 211–6, 223–8, 279; see also Homosexual
Les Miserables (2012) 35
Levitt Jnr, Gordon 203
Lincoln ( 2012) 242
Lim, Song Hwee 256 ‘Limits of the Novel and the Film’ 24–26
Linklater, Richard 21, 131
Little Big Man (1970) 54
Little Caesar (1931) 49
The Little Shop of Horrors (1986) 63 Little Three (Minors) 268
Living with Michael Jackson (2003) 123
Livingstone, Jennie 123
Lloyd, Phyllida 64
Loach, Ken 106, 129
Lockout (2012) 35
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels(1998) 59
The Lodger (1926) 16
Logan, Joshua 62
Lohan, Lindsay 225
Lola Rennt/Run Lola Run (1998) 70, 82–5
The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) 128
The Long Good Friday (1979) 58
Long take 71, 91, 124–5
Look Back in Anger (1959) 128
The Lord of the Rings franchise (2001–3) 133, 296
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (2001) 165, 180
Loren, Sophia 89
Lost in Translation (2003) 81
Love, Nick 59
Lowenthal, Leo 107
Lucas, George 79, 144
Luhrmann, Baz 1, 21, 151–4, 278
Lumière brothers 122, 136
Lumley, Joanna 280
Lynch, David 162
Lyotard, Jean-François 143, 146, 147

M
Macdonald, David 57
Macdonald, Kevin 81
MacFarlane, Seth 55
MacGuffin 13
The Mack (1973) 243
MacKenzie, John 58
MacKendrick, Alexander 58
Macherey, Pierre 110
Madden, John 279
Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) 190
Madonna 151, 153, 276
The Magnificent Seven (1960) 54
Magnolia (1999) 7
Maguire, Sharon 175, 176
Maguire, Tobey 278
Male Gaze 177, 181–4, 187, 195
Maltby, Richard 272, 283, 284, 295
Mamma Mia! (2008) 64, 286 ‘Man and Baby’ 198
The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976) 145
Man with a Movie Camera (1929) 123
Manderlay (2005) 263
Mandingo (1975) 242
Mangeshkar, Lata 64
Mankiewicz, Joseph L. 62, 187
Marathon Man (1976) 130
Marcuse, H. 107, 108–9, 110; see also affirmative culture
Marley, Keith 137–9
Marnie (1964) 13, 16, 158, 181
Maroh, Julie 225–6
Marshall, Robert 60, 61
Marshall, Rob 61
The Martian (2015) 190
Marx, Karl 104, 105–6; ‘A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’ 105
Marxism/Marxist 104–120
Masculinity 58, 59, 182, 183, 184, 195–209 ‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ 196–7; see also Steve Neale
M*A*S*H (1970) 53
Masochism 184, 223
Masquerade 183–4
Mass Observation project 289
The Matrix (1999) 80, 148, 200, 222
Mathjis, Ernest - ‘Researching world audiences: The experience of complex methodology’ (2012)
294–6
McDonald, Paul 270–1
McDowell, Malcolm 98
McGregor, Ewan 89, 152, 276
McGowan, Todd 183
McGuigan, Paul 59
McKay, Adam 190
McKellen, Sir Ian 224
McQueen, Steve 81, 144, 242
McTeigue, James 145
Meadows, Shane 129
Media Effects 291–2, 298
Meet the Spartans (2008) 46
Mehta, Deepa 223–4
Méliès, Georges 122, 136, 153
Melodrama 45, 52, 127, 182, 186, 188, 222
Memento (2000) 74
Menace II Society (1993) 49
Mendes, Sam 75, 204, 205, 276, 279, 280
Metanarratives/Grand Narratives 146–7; see also Lyotard, Jean-François
Method Acting 130, 291
Metropolis (1927) 41, 51
Metrosexual male 203
Metteur-en-Scène 6
Metz, Christian 24, 93–5, 99, 166, 168–9, 184; Imaginary Signifier: Psychoanalysis and the Cinema
93–5
MGM 88, 268, 93–5
Micronarratives 146–7; see also Lyotard, Jean-François
A Midsummer Night’s Dream(1968) 278
Midler, Bette 62
Miller, George 190
Miller, Wentworth 239
Millions Like Us (1943) 127
A Million Ways to Die in the West(2014) 55
Mimic (1997) 17, 19
Minghella, Anthony 39
Ministry of Information (MOI) 127
Mintz, Christopher 204
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (2016) 5
Modernism 141–2
Modes of Documentary 122–3
The Mole (1970) see also El Topo 54
Mona Lisa (1986) 58
Monroe, Marilyn 130
Montage 66, 69–71, 83, 84, 91, 117, 124, 125
Moon (2009) 7 The Moon Is the Sun’s Dream(1992) 169
Moonlight (2016) 241
Moore, Michael 123
Morality/Moral Concern 57, 107
Morricone, Ennio 8, 54, 100, 102
Mostow, Jonathan 48
Mother India (1957) 63
Moulin Rouge! (2001) 1, 60, 61, 151–5
Mrs Brown (1997) 279
Mrs Doubtfire (1993) 221
Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) 279
MTV 153
Mulholland Drive (2001) 162
Mulligan, Carey 207
Mulvey, Laura 112, 172, 177, 179, 180, 181–2, 191, 195, 233, 273; ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative
Cinema’ 181–2; see also male gaze
Murray, Simone 42
Musicals 31, 37, 50, 51, 52, 55, 60–4, 108, 136, 197
The Musketeers of Pig Alley(1912) 57
Muybridge, Eadweard 122
My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002) 7
My Darling Clementine (1946) 53, 101
My Fair Lady (1964) 64
My Own Private Idaho (1990) 216
Mythologies 9, 95–6 Barthes, Roland

N
Napoleon Dynamite (Jared Hess, 2004) 204
Narcissism 180, 196, 197, 203; see also Freud, Sigmund; Mulvey, Laura
Narrative of Passing 235, 238–9; see also passing; Race
Narrative Structure 47, 51, 61, 66, 78, 146, 186, 265
National Treasure 278–82
Naturalism 121
Neale, Steve 52, 195–97; ‘Masculinity as Spectacle’ 196–7; ‘Questions of Genre’ 52
Neeson, Liam 117
Nelson, Ralph 54
Neocolonialism 249
Neo-feminism 175 see also Post-feminism
Neo-realism, Italian 72, 98, 130; see also Realism
Nerds 203–6
Netflix
New Jack City (1991) 49
New Queer Cinema 215–7
Newell, Mike 33, 49
Newman, Paul 130
Newton-John, Olivia 62, 281
Nichols, Bill 122–4, 138
Nichols, Mike 160
Nicklas, Pacals 43
Night and the City (1950) 57
The Nightmare Before Christmas(1993) 4
Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) 149
Nixon, Marni 64
No Country for Old Men (2007) 54
Nolan, Christopher 74, 133
North by Northwest (1959) 15, 16, 220
The Notebook (2004) 206
Notes on a Scandal (2006) 279, 280
Notorious (1946) 16 ‘The Novel and the Cinema’ 28–9; see also George Wagner
Noyce, Philip 254

O
Objectification 180, 181, 188, 197, 233
O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) 39
O’Donnell, Rosie 224
Oedipus complex/oedipal 13, 160, 167, 170, 183; see also Freud, Sigmund
O’Flynn, Siobhan 36, 38
Oklahoma (1954) 53, 62
Oldboy (2003) 169–171
Olivier, Laurence 130
Once Upon a Time in the West(1968) 54, 100–3
O’Neal, Ron 243
Only God Forgives (2013) 160, 206, 207
Oppenheimer, Joshua 137–8, 39
The Oprah Winfrey Show (1986– ) 224
Orient 249
Orientalism 249–53
The Orphanage/El Orfanato (2007) 20
Ortega, Kenny 60
Oz, Frank 53, 159, 161

P
Pacific Rim (2013) 17, 19
Pacino, Al 130
Page, Ellen 225
Paint Your Wagon (1969) 62
Paisà/Paisan (1946) 126
Pan’s Labyrinth/El Laberinto del Fauno (2006) 17–19, 19
Paramount 268
Paris Is Burning (1990) 123
Park, Chan-Wook 169–71; see also Oldboy
Parker, Alan 55, 61, 62
Parker, Oliver 161
Parks Jr, Gordon 243
Partie de Campagne (1936) 125, 125
Parton, Dolly 153, 211
Passing 235, 237–9; see also Aborigines; Jews/Jewish; Narrative of Passing; Race
Payne Fund studies (1929–32) 291–2
Pearl, Monica B. 216
Peck, Ron 58
Peckinpah, Sam 46, 54, 293
Peirce, Charles Sanders 86, 92, 133; ‘Logic, Regarded as Semeiotic’ 92
Peirce, Kimberley 221
Penn, Arthur 54
Pépéle Moko (1937) 126
Perkins, Anthony 15, 160
Perlman, Ron 19
Performance (1970) 218
Performative Mode of Documentary See also Nichols, Bill 138 Personalities 270, 272, 274; see also
Stars
The Phantom of the Opera (2004) 63
Phone Booth (2002) 131
Phongam, Yayaying Rhatha 207
Pine, Chris 275
Pinky (1956) 238
Pinocchio (1940) 159
Pitch Perfect Franchise 60, 61
Pitt, Brad 159, 197, 203, 275
The Place Beyond the Pines(2012) 206
Planet of the Apes (1968) 101, 101
The Player (1992) 87
Plummer, Amanda 73
Pocahontas (1995) 260
Poetic Realism 124–6, 130; see also Realism
Poitier, Sidney 54
Polley, Sarah, 123
Pope, Andrew 206–8
Porter, Edwin S. 53
Postcolonial and Transnational Cinemas 247–64
Postcolonial/Postcolonialism 175, 247, 253, 247–55, 257, 262; see also Orientalism; and Subaltern
Post-feminism 174–5, 179
Postmodernism34, 103, 141–53, 216, 300
Post-structuralism 96–103, 168, 175, 193; see also Structuralism Potente, Franka 82
Powaqqatsi: Life in Transformation(1988) 123
Potente, Franka 82
Powell, Dick 62
Pretty Little Liars (2010– ) 228
Pride (2014) 221
Prince, Stephen 133–34
The Princess and the Frog(2009) 110
Propp, Vladimir 66, 74–8, 80, 163, 182, 196; ‘Morphology of the Folktale’ 74–6
Prowse, David 71, 241
Psycho (1960) 13, 14, 15, 16, 32, 35, 160, 181, 185
Psycho (1998); see also Van Sant, Gus 32, 35
Psychoanalysis 93, 95, 107, 110, 156–172, 179, 180, 181, 188, 193, 196
The Public Enemy (1931) 49
Pulp Fiction (1994) 53, 72, 73–4, 147

Q
Les Quatre Cents coup/400 Blows(1959) 76, 126
Queen Christina (1933) 218
Queer Theory 210–228
Questionaires 283, 291, 295 ‘Questions of Genre’ 52; see also Steve Neale

R
Rabbit-Proof Fence (2002) 254–5
Race 48, 49, 50, 54, 174, 175, 182, 188, 192, 200, 215, 229–45, 248, 260, 263, 271, 284
Race and Ethnicity 229–45; see also Aborigines; Double Consciousness; Ethnicity; Jews/Jewish;
Otherness; Passing; Rabbit-Proof Fence; Slavery
Racial identity 45, 231
Racism 49, 121, 129, 230, 232, 238, 240, 242, 250
Racist 53, 101, 230, 232, 234, 248, 250, 251, 252
Raengo, Alessandra 29
Rai, Aishwarya 275, 278
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) 145
Rainer, Yvonne 188
Rains, Claude 98
Ramis, Harold 161
Ray, Billy 41
Ray, Nicholas 53, 206
The Real 167
Realism 121–140
Rear Window (1954) 15–6, 181
Rebecca (1940) 186, 187
Rebel Without a Cause(1955) 206
Reeves, Matt 100, 100, 133
Reggio, Godfrey 123
Reisz, Karel 128
Renoir, Jean 71, 124, 125
Repression 157, 159–60, 167, 196; see also Psychoanalysis
Requiem for a Dream (2000) 81, 276
Resnais, Alain 2
The Revenant (2015) 190
The Revenge of the Nerds(1984) 204
Rhames, Ving 73
Richardson, Tony 128
Ride with the Devil (1999) 54
Riff-Raff (1991) 129
Riggs, Marlon 123
Rio Grande (1950) 53
The Rise (2012) 59
Rise of the Foot Soldier (2007) 59
The Rise of the Krays (2015) 281
Ritchie, Guy 59
Rivette, Jacques 2
Rivière, Joan 183, 184
RKO 268
Road Movie 56
Robards, Jason 102
Robbins, Jerome 35, 61, 64
Rocky (1976) 198
The Rocky Horror Picture Show(1975) 63, 286
Roeg, Nicolas 58, 145, 218
Rogers, Ginger 60–2
Rojek, Chris 274–5; ‘Celebrity and Religion’ 274–5
Romantic Comedy 49, 51, 99
Romeo and Juliet (1996) 35
Rome Open City/Roma Citta Aperta(1945) 127
Room (2015) 190
Room at the Top (1959) 128
A Room with a View (1985) 40, 279
Rooney, Mickey 62
Roots (1977) 242
Rope (1948) 214 Rose, Ruby 221
Ross, Gary 40–1, 81
Rossellini, Roberto 126–7; see also Italian Neo-Realism
Roth, Tim 73
Rowell, Spencer 198
Rowling, J.K. 33
Ruby Rich, B: ‘New Queer Cinema’ 215–6, 226
The Rules of the Game/La Regle du Jeu (1939) 126
Rushdie, Salman 247
Russian Ark (2002) 131
Russell, David O 189
The Russo Test 190
Russo, Vito 190, 213

S
Said, Edward 249–50, 251–3, 257, 29
Samsara (Ron Fricke, 2011) 123
Sanders, Julie 34–6, 37, 39, 41 see also ‘Adaptation & Appropriation’
Santaniello, Enzo 100
Santaniello, Simonetta 100
Sapphire (1959) 238
Sarris, Andrew 5–6
Sasanatieng, Wisit 54
Saturday Night and Sunday Morning(1960) 128
Saturday Night Fever (1977) 51, 197
Saussure, Ferdinand de 86, 87–8, 92, 96, 97, 98, 99; Semiotics -Course in General Linguistics 87–8,
166, 231, 233
Scarface (1932) 49
Scary Movie (2000) 46
Schindler’s List (1993) 144
Schlesinger, John 128, 130
Schumacher, Joel 63, 131
Schwarzenegger, Arnold 48, 197, 198, 198, 199, 207, 271
Science Fiction 40–2, 49, 51, 148, 288
Scoobie Doo (1969–1971) 206
Scopophilia 172, 180, 181; see also Freud, Sigmund; Mulvey, Laura
Scorsese, Martin 5, 49, 110, 123
Scott, Ridley 185, 190
Scott-Thomas, Kristin 206
Scream Franchise (1996–2011)
Screenwriter 1, 11, 15, 16, 17, 21, 24, 27, 32, 33, 37, 38, 39, 41, 111, 172, 181, 266, 292, 300
The Searchers (1956) 51, 53, 101
Sebastiane (1976) 215
Second Cinema 115
Saltzer, Aaron 46
Selznick, David O. 16
Semiotics/Semiology 49, 86, 87–92, 93–5, 98, 100–3, 266, 267, 231–3
Sense and Sensibility (1995) 12
Serenity (2005) 55, 55
Seuss, Dr 35
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers(1954) 61, 62
Seven Samurai (1954) 54, 277
The Seventh Seal (1957) 109
Sexy Beast (2001) 59
Seydoux, Léa 225, 227
Shaffner, Franklin J. 101, 101
Shaheen, Jack G. 252, 253
Shakespeare in Love (1998) 279
Shakespeare, William 33, 35, 37, 38, 278, 279, 280
Shane (1953) 53, 129, 197
Shanan, Ben 131
Shankman, Adam 63, 175
Sharman, Jim 63
Shaw, Deborah 256, 258, 263
Shaw, Julie 123
Sheen, Erica 43 see also ‘Anti-Anti-fidelity: Truffaut, Roché, Shakespeare’
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949) 53
The Shining (1980) 161, 183
The Shipping News (2001) 279
Shklovsky, Viktor 66, 80–1
Sholay (1975) 277
Showboat (1930) 238
Shrek (2001) 53
Shyamalan, M. Night 81, 160
Skyfall (2012) 204, 279, 280
Sidney, George 53, 238
Siegel, Don 51
Singleton, John 49, 244
Silverman, Kaja 188; The
Acoustic Mirror: The Female
Voice in Psychoanalysis and
Cinema 188; ‘Dis-Embodying
the Female Voice’ 188
Simpson, Mark 203
The Simpsons (1989– ) 206
Simulacra/Simulacrum 148–9 see
also Baudrillard, Jean
Sinatra, Frank 62
A Single Man (Tom Ford, 2009) 227
Singer, Bryan 72
Singin’ in the Rain (1952) 51, 61, 96, 153
Singleton, John 49, 244
Sinthomosexual 220
The Sixth Sense (1999) 81, 160
Skyfall (Sam Mendes, 2012) 204, 279, 280
Sleepless in Seattle (1993) 145
Sleepy Hollow (1999) 3–4, 4
Sliding Doors (1998) 74
Slumdog Millionaire (2008)
258–9
Smart Technology 31, 38, 287
Smith, Jada 221
Smith, Jaden 221
Smith, Will 54, 221
Snatch (2000) 59
The Snow Queen (191)
The Social Network (2010)
204
Sokurov, Aleksandr 131
Solanas, Fernando 114–5; see also
Third Cinema
Soldier Blue (1970) 54
Some Like It Hot (1959) 221
Song of the South (1946) 234
Sonnenfeld, Barry 54
Sontag, Susan 217–8, 219; ‘Notes
on Camp’ 217–8
La Sortie des Usines Lumière/
Workers Leaving the Factory
(1985) 122
The Sound of Music (1965) 60, 286
Soviet Montage 66, 71, 124; see
also Montage
Spacey, Kevin 7
Spaghetti Westerns 54, 101–3, 243; see also Westerns
Spectre (2015) 75, 205, 276, 280
Spellbound (1945) 16
Spielberg, Steven 8, 144, 190, 242, 251–2, 284
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 175, 253–5, 257, 259, 261; ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ 253–4
Stacey, Jackie 178, 187, 221, 271, 273–4; ‘Desperately Seeking Difference’ 178; ‘Star Gazing:
Hollywood Film and Female Spectatorship’ 273–4
Stagecoach (1939) 51, 53
Staiger, Janet 55, 283
Stallone, Sylvester 197, 198, 198, 199, 200, 207
Stam, Robert 23, 29, 45, 52, 107
Star Contracts 268; see also studio system
Stardom 208, 266, 269, 270–1, 275, 280
Stars (Acting Studies) 265–82
Star System 266–7, 270, 272; see also De Cordova, Richard; Studio System
Star Wars (1977) 79, 85, 111, 159, 200, 241, 287
Star Wars: The Force Awakens(2015) 200
The Stepford Wives (1975) 161
Stereotyping 117, 189, 203, 211, 233–6, 242, 244, 245, 252 253, 254–6
Stevens, George 53, 197, 252
Stewart, Jimmy 15–17, 197
Stewart, Kirsten 275
Stolen Generations 232, 255
Stone, Emma 207
Stone Roses: Made in Stone, (2013) 129
Stonewall Riots 214–15
Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot(1992) 199; see also race and ethnicity
Stories We Tell (2012) 123
Stormy Monday (1987) 58
Strangers on a Train (1951) 13, 16, 17
Strasberg, Lee 130; see also Method Acting
Straw Dogs (1971) 293
Streamed Content 21, 31
Streep, Meryl 271, 281
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) 197, 219, 264
Streisand, Barbra 62
Structuralism 40, 85, 86–96, 97, 103, 168, 231; see also Post-structuralism
Studio Era 198, 203, 268, 271
Studio System 13, 115, 267–8, 275; see also Stars
Sturges, John 54
Subaltern 253–5, 261; see also Postcolonialism
Subgenres 55, 60, 64; see also Genre
Suffragette (2015) 145, 173
Sunset Boulevard (1950) 218
Superbad (2007) 204
Superego 157, 158–9, 160; see also Psychoanalysis
Superfly (1972) 243
Surrealism 141, 161–2, 169
Surrealist 150, 161, 162, 169, 170
Swanson, Gloria 218
Swashbuckling 4, 46
The Sweeney (1975–8) 58
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street (2007) 4, 55, 58, 63
Swinton, Tilda 221
Symbolic 167, 168 see also Lacan, Jacques
Sympathy for Lady Vengeance(2005) 169
Sympathy for Mr Vengeance (2002) 169
Symptomatic Reading 89; see also Althusser, Louis
Syntagmatic and Paradigmatic Axes 88–90, 99, 101, 102 see also Syuzhet; Fabula

T
Takashi, Miike 297
Takei, George 224
Tarantino, Quentin 9, 12, 72, 73, 144, 147, 175, 178, 242, 243–5, 243
Target for Tonight (1941) 128
Tartan Asia Extreme 297
Tartan Video 296–8
Tasker, Yvonne 175, 176, 199–200, 271; Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema
199–200
A Taste of Honey (1961) 128
Tatum, Channing 197
Taxi Driver (1976) 110
Taylor-Johnson, Sam 184
Tears of the Black Tiger (2000) 54
Temporal Realism 131
The Ten Commandments (1956) 147
The Terminator (1984) 48
La Terra Trema/The Earth Trembles (1948) 127
A Theory of Adaptation 36–8
They Live! (1988) 106
They Made Me a Fugitive (1947) 57
Third Cinema 106, 114–15; see also Getino, Octavio; Solanas, Fernando
The Third Secret (1964) 278
The Thirty-nine Steps (1935) 16
This is England films/TV series (2006, 2010, 2011) 129
This Sporting Life (1963) 128
Thompson, J. Lee 58
Thompson, Neil 59
Three Men and a Baby (1987) 198, 199
Thrillers 13, 45
Throne of Blood (1957) 38
Thurman, Uma 73
Timecode (2000) 131
Titanic (1997) 145, 153
Todorov, Tzvetan 65, 78
Todo Sobre Mi Madre/All about My Mother (1999) 221
Toland, Gregg 71, 125
Tolkien, J. R. R. 8, 262, 296
Tongues Untied (1990) 123
Top Gun (1986) 40, 276
Trace 99; see also Graft
The Tracey Ullman Show (BBC 2016) 281
Trainspotting (1996) 81
Transamerica (2005) 224
Transculturating 38; see also Linda Hutcheon
Transnational Cinemas 255–63 Transgender 190, 192, 212, 221–2, 228
Transsexuals 221–2, 228
Transtextualities 29; see also Genette, Gérard
Transvestites/Cross-Dressers 190, 221–2, 228
Travolta, John 62, 73, 197
Truffaut, Francois 2–3, 5, 6, 8, 13, 17, 39, 43, 76, 135; ‘Une Certain Tendance de Cinema Francais’
The Truman Show (1998) 148
Tuchner, Michael 58
Tudor, Andrew 45–6, 51 ‘Twelve Fallacies in Contemporary Adaptation Theory’ 30–3
Twentieth Century-Fox 268
Twilight Franchise 11, 41
Twins (1988) 199
Twitter 274, 275, 288, 290
Tykwer, Tom 70, 82–5
Tynanov, Yuri 66
Typage 69, 266

U
Umberto D (1952) 127
Uncanny/Das Unheimliche 161–2, 167, 169, 170
Unconscious 89, 132, 133, 135, 137, 140, 144, 146, 149, 153, 154
Unforgiven (1992) 31
Unfriended (2014) 131
Unheimliche/ Uncanny 161–2, 167, 169, 170
United Artists Studios 268
Universal Studios 268
The Usual Suspects (1995) 72

V
V for Vendetta (2005) 145
Vadim, Roger 2
Valentino, Rudolph 197, 219
Van Cleef, Lee 101–2
Van Damme, Jean-Claude 198
Van Loon, Robert 126
Vanilla Sky (2001) 7
Van Sant, Gus 32, 35, 216
Vaughn, Matthew 59
verisimilitude 52, 121, 122, 125, 126
Vertigo (1958) 15–16, 81, 162, 181, 186
Vertov, Dziga 66, 123
Videogame 38
Vidor, King 53, 182
Villain (1971) 58
Vinterberg, Thomas 135, 136
Violence 41–2, 57, 59, 201, 202, 206–8, 243, 293–4, 297
Visconti, Luchino 126, 127; see
also Italian Neo-realism
Volger, Christopher 78
Von Scherler Mayer, Daisy 63
Von Trier, Lars 8, 82, 135–6, 263, 297
Vow of Chastity 135, 136; see also
Dogme 95
Le Voyage dans la Lune/A Trip to the
Moon (1902) 153
voyeurism/voyeuristic 15, 16, 172, 180, 181, 184, 195, 196, 197, 198, 227, 261; see also Freud,
Sigmund; Mulvey, Laura
Vromen, Ariel 49

W
Wachowski, Andy and Larry see
also Wachowski, Lana and
Lilly 80, 148, 222
Wachowski, Lana and Lilly see also
Andy and Larry 80, 148, 222
Wagner, George 28–9, 39 see also ‘The Novel and the Cinema’
Walker (1987) 106
The Walking Dead (2010– ) 227
Walters, Julie 280
Warchus, Matthew 221
War films 53, 58, 202
Warners 268
Washington, Denzel 89
Water (2005) 223
Waters, John 63, 215
Watson, Emma 205, 276
Watt, Harry 128
Wayans, Keenen Ivory 46
Wayne, John 47, 53, 55, 101, 102
Weaver, Sigourney 7, 261
Week End (1967) 125
Weir, Peter 149
Welles, Orson 71, 125, 126
Wellman, William A. 49
Went the Day Well (1942) 128
West, Kanye 272
West Side Story (1961) 35, 61, 64
Westerns 45, 46, 53, 54, 62, 100, 103, 136, 165, 196, 202, 243
Whedon, Joss 55, 133
When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in
Four Acts (2006) 276
Whishaw, Ben 204
Why We Fight (1943–4) 123
The Wild Bunch (1969) 54
Wild Wild West (1999) 54
Wilder, Billy 218, 221
Willemen, Paul 196, 202, 207
Williams, John 8
Williams, Linda – ‘Film Bodies:
Gender, Genre and
Excess’ 188
Williams, Venus 272
Willis, Bruce 73, 160, 199
Willis, Gordon 8
Willy Wonka &the Chocolate
Factory (1971) 61
Wilson, Rebel 62, 89
Winding Refn, Nicolas 160, 206, 207
Wise, Robert 35, 60, 61, 64
The Wizard of Oz (1939) 51, 61, 76–8, 81
Wolff, Frank 100
Wollen, Peter 7
Wood, Victoria 280
Woolf, Virginia 173, 190
The World’s End ( 2013) 81
Worthington, Sam 260–1
The Wrong Man (1957) 16

Y
Yield to the Night (1956) 58
Young Guns ll (1990) 197
Young Mr Lincoln (1939) 101
YouTube 36, 119, 263, 289

Z
Zanjeer (1973) 277, 278
Zavattini, Cesare, 126; see also
Italian Neo-realism
Zemeckis, Robert 54, 109
Zinnemann, Fred 53
Žižek, Slavoj 149, 172
Zola, Emile 121, 124
Zwick, Joel 7