Andrew recommended a couple of books:

David Gauntlett’s – An Introduction to Media and Identity

Rosalind Gill – Gender and the Media

These were quite helpful in fleshing out some of the ideas with the original essay and on rereading and Andrew was quite right that the ending was far too “mushy”. Also overall the structure of the essay on re-reading in light of Andrews comment and some initial changes felt clunky therefore one of the major changes in this re-work was switching the first and second section to give the essay a better flow.

This final draft I feel is much more considered, easier for the reader, and focus more how we a society should be looking away from the heteronormative world of the 20th century.

IFC Assignment 4 Highlighted Tutor Feedback

My tutor’s feedback was very encouraging highlighting areas to rework work to strengthen the work one of which was the glossing over of Captain Philips and the sweeping statements.

I this rework I have concentrated on:

• adding a definition of propaganda
• adding more weight to the fact that Kapringen juxtaposes life at see with corporate life and reflects the lack corporate responsibility to staff over the desire to make and save money
• highlighted more that Fishing Without Nets presents a first person documentary to engage the audience in understanding, if not fully sympathise with, the pirate’s situation
• add weight to the theory of Paul Greengrass acting as a propagandist as pro-USA and showing the pirates just as archetypal bad guys not “genuine criminals” with a back story to understand
• slight change to title to correct English usage.

Overal I’m happy with this essay and would not have believed it possible that I could have produced such work after the faltering starts early in the course.

IFC Assignment 3 Highlighted Tutor Feedback

 Modern piracy has been a global issue since the turn of the 21st century as a direct result of the rise in sophisticated, organised groups of pirates attacking ships off the coast of Africa, Asia and, to a lesser extent, South America; holding crews for ransom or taking valuable cargo that is subsequently sold to buyers in pre-arranged agreements (BBC and Coughlan, 2006). This type of piracy is vastly different from the swashbuckling heroic pirate traditionally played by Errol Flynn on film and, more recently, revived by Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow in Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise. However, in examining such traditional representations of piracy on the high seas, Understanding Film Theory 2011 states: “These popular narratives have an underlying moral message. All swashbuckling stories expose the dangers of an all-powerful elite class, which given free rein tyrannises and exploits the less fortunate for materialistic gain” (Etherington-Wright and Doughty, 2011). While modern piracy is less glamorous than that shown by Errol Flynn, does it give filmmakers a platform in their role of propagandist to challenge the political establishment in the same way?

Propaganda is, by definition,  “information, especially of a biased or misleading nature used to promote a political cause or point of view” (Oxford Dictionaries | English, 2017). This essay will analyse the points of view that are conveyed in three films: Tobias Lindholm’s Kapringen (A Hijacking) (2012); Cutter Hodierne’s Fishing Without Nets (2012); and Paul Greengrass’s Captain Phillips (2013). It will examine how the directors may be considered propagandists with a view to assessing the theory that their cinematic products seek to influence public opinion on a topic – in this case, modern piracy – projecting the narrative from specific perspectives in order to encourage the audience to think about piracy in very specific ways.

The cinematography of all three movies actively reinforces the directors’ perspectives. In Lindholm’s Kapringen, it is important to note that, in order to establish a realistic environment for the narrative, it was actually shot on a genuine cargo ship, the MV Rozen, that was hijacked off the coast of Somalia. Also, the telephone conversations between Omar and Peter Ludvigsen were filmed with the actors in Kenya and Denmark respectively, again to help with realism and tension (Times and Olsen, 2013).

The opening scene maximises the impact of the authenticity by framing the character Hartmann against the open sea while he is on the phone to his family. There are several medium close-up shots of him in a similar vein that serve to present him as the main protagonist, whilst drawing attention to the juxtaposition of his life at sea and that with his family. This portrayal as family man positions Hartmann as a signifier of the film’s central idea about the human cost capitalism and corporate power. This introduction also frames the narrative by providing an environment in which neither the pirates nor the captives are in their own spatial field, instead framing them as displaced (Villarejo, 2013). This actively reinforces the power that those in the office – and by extension the corporate world – have over the fate of all those on board, and highlights the function of the movie as propaganda.

On the other hand, the cinematography in Hodierne’s Fishing Without Nets deliberately forces a shift in the discussion of modern piracy, presenting it through the eyes of the pirates, who also happen to be poor Somali fishermen with limited prospects and no other way of making a living. Although some scenes are cinematic, in that they are shot with smooth camera work and dramatic lighting (Bordwell & Thompson, 2016), it appears that the pirates are being interviewed for a documentary as a result of the medium close-up and the way in which they speak to camera. This is juxtaposed in the next scene with an unsteady camera that follows them to the ship, which is more reminiscent of observational documentaries. It is also supported by narration from the pirates, who discuss strategy and why they do what they do: “We don’t have to shoot! Only shoot if they don’t cooperate!” (Hodierne, 2012, 00:01:41-00:01:47), blurring the lines between fiction and documentary and creating realism in the form of a pseudo-documentary, which encourages the audience to empathise with those who feel that they have no choice but to become a “hapless criminal” (Macaulay, 2012). Fishing Without Nets re-establishes the importance of modern piracy on the political agenda but challenges the status quo, with its pseudo-documentary style demonstrating how far the deliberate use of the issue as propaganda may be manipulated by the individual filmmaker.

Editing is also important in the films’ roles as propaganda, in conjunction with cinematography. In Kapringen, the camerawork lends a sense of reality to the narrative, following the characters in the office and on the MV Rosen in a disjointed and often shaky way. However, it is the way in which the takeover of the ship is filmed that highlights the experience of the hostages. Although the takeover is revealed via a phone call to the CEO of the shipping company, Peter Ludvigsen, and is never actually shown in the film, the treatment of those on the ship is depicted as chaotic, with the camera rapidly cutting from Hartmann’s face to their Somali captors, to a medium close-up of the captain being rushed away from the rest. The abrupt cut to the relative silence of the shipping company’s office demonstrates their distance from the events, as does the editing of the scenes in which the CEO negotiates via speakerphone – as mentioned above, these were filmed in real time. This starkly highlights the difference in the players’ perspectives in the drama but also draws attention to Lindholm’s subtle reference to money being worth more than human life. Similar techniques are used in Captain Philips.  Paul Greengrass is well known for using a handheld camera and a frenetic style that disorientates the audience, shown in The Bourne Supremacy (2004) and The Bourne Ultimatum (2007) (Buhler and Newton, 2015). In Captain Phillips, the editing serves to deliberately frame the pirates as the archetypal “bad guys”, promoting the “West versus the Other” formula that has often been associated with race, and perceived as a threat to a specific way of life (Newman, 1996), steering the audience away from any empathy towards the pirates. While the film is tonally very different to the others in this essay, particularly with its pro-US action movie third act (Bradshaw, 2013) and lack of left wing agenda discussed below, it demonstrates that similar techniques may result in radically different outcomes for an audience. How Captain Phillips himself is portrayed many reports suggest that he was far from the hero Tom Hanks portrayed (Child, 2013) – together with casting twenty-eight-year-old Barkhad Abdi as the supposed sixteen-year-old pirate leader Muse, infers that Greengrass is fulfilling his role as propagandist by glamourising the US Navy’s actions (Tunzelmann, 2017).

Sound and lighting are also important elements in presenting the films as propaganda and highlighting the directors’ objectives. For example, in Lindholm’s Kapringen, the juxtaposition of the old, poorly lit, rusty cargo ship and the modern, clean, and very bright offices in which the shipping company operates: the lighting highlights the difference in status between the two groups and frames the experiences of negotiation appropriately, casting the rich in control whilst workers are left to suffer as a result of corporate unwillingness to prioritise the crew over deals. Sound, on the other hand, is used very effectively by Hodierne in Fishing Without Nets to draw attention to the gulf between the Somali fishermen and those profiting from the cargo ships. The opening shot of Fishing Without Nets, for example, is a long range shot that pans around the cargo ship, framing its stature against the backdrop of the horizon and providing an ominous hint of what is to come as a result of the strong, loud, and extremely tense notes of the soundtrack. Similar music is played over the transportation of the character Abdi through the streets, which highlights the abject poverty in which they live. The cinematic language of both films here can broadly be considered to bear a left-wing agenda, specifically in that they lend proper representation to the disempowered by providing an interpretation of actuality (Wells, 2012).

In conclusion, the analysis within this essay points to three specific films and by extension, the directors responsible for them, constituting propaganda that is designed to alert their audiences to the problems and issues surrounding modern piracy and the general Western attitude to humanity. Each of the three movies clearly adopts a different position in relation to the factors that underpin piracy and the perspective that is presented, clearly supplemented by carefully choreographed cinematography and judicious editing. For example, the juxtaposition of the MV Rosen and the offices in Kapringen is effective in highlighting the prioritisation of money over human life, whereas the framing of the narrative in Fishing Without Nets highlights the plight of the Somalis and the reasons why they pursue piracy as a valid course of action. The cinematic language and techniques used emphasise the need to approach piracy in disparate ways; each film pursues a specific agenda that calls on the political establishment to take what they deem appropriate courses of action. In all three films, Lindholm, Hodierne, and Greengrass have carefully constructed their cinematic products to influence public opinion on the topic of modern piracy and by extension, Western attitudes to humanity and money, encouraging viewers to think about piracy in very specific ways that point back to those in power.

Bibliography

Bakke, G. (2017). Continuum of the Human. [online] Academia.edu. Available at: http://www.academia.edu/763379/Continuum_of_the_Human [Accessed 26 Apr. 2017].

Barnes, H. and Shoard, C. (2013). Captain Phillips: Director Paul Greengrass on his thriller starring Tom Hanks – video interview. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2013/oct/16/captain-phillips-paul-greengrass-tom-hanks-video-interview [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Bradshaw, P. (2013). Captain Phillips – review. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/17/captain-phillips-review [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Callahan, M. (2013). Crew members: ‘Captain Phillips’ is one big lie. [online] Available at: http://nypost.com/2013/10/13/crew-members-deny-captain-phillips-heroism/ [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Captain Phillips. (2013). Directed by P. Greengrass.

Child, B. (2013). Captain Phillips ‘no hero’ in real life, say ship’s crew. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/14/captain-phillips-tom-hanks-real-life-no-hero [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Coughlan, S. and BBC (2006). Rise of modern-day pirates. BBC Magazine. [online] Available at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/5146582.stm [Accessed 21 Feb. 2017].

Cousins, M. (2015). The story of Film. 2nd ed. London: Pavilion.

Doughty, R. and Etherington-Wright, C. (2011). Understanding film theory: Theoretical and critical perspectives. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fishing without Nets. (2014). Directed by C. Hodierne.

Howden, D. (2013). A true-life tale of injustice left trailing in captain Phillips’ wake. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/24/somalia-pirate-film-captain-phillips [Accessed 11 Feb. 2017].

Jallaabasho shabaq la’aan. (2012). Directed by C. Hodierne.

Kapringen. (2013). Directed by T. Lindholm.

Lindholm, T. (2013). Kapringen. [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2216240/?ref_=tttr_tr_tt [Accessed 19 Feb. 2017].

Macaulay, S. (2012). Cutter Hodierne | Filmmaker Magazine. [online] Filmmaker Magazine. Available at: http://filmmakermagazine.com/people/cutter-hodierne/#.WWOJmROGPMU [Accessed 10 Jul. 2017].

 Newman, K., (1997). Exploitation and the Mainstream. In G. Nowell-Smith ed. The Oxford History of World Cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 509-515.

.Olsen, M. and Times, L. (2013). ‘A hijacking’ blurs line between fiction, reality. [online] Available at: http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun/23/entertainment/la-et-mn-ca-indie-focus-hijacking20130623 [Accessed 22 Feb. 2017].

Oxford Dictionaries | English. (2017). propaganda – definition of propaganda in English | Oxford Dictionaries. [online] Available at: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/propaganda [Accessed 10 Jul. 2017].

En.wikipedia.org. (n.d.). Richard Phillips (merchant mariner). [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Phillips_(merchant_mariner) [Accessed 10 Jul. 2017].

 Richardson, J., Herzog, A., Vernallis, C., Newton, A. and Buhler, J. (2015). The Oxford Handbook of sound and image in digital media. New York, NY, United States: Oxford University Press.

Thompson, K. and Bordwell, P. (2016). Film art: An introduction. 1st ed. United States: McGraw Hill Higher Education.

Thomson, D. (2014). The New Biographical Dictionary Of Film 6th Edition. 6th ed. Abacus.

Tunzelmann, A. (2017). Captain Phillips proves that America is awesome. Got it? Awesome!. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/oct/23/captain-phillips-america-awesome-tom-hanks [Accessed 10 Jul. 2017].

Villarejo, A. (2013). Film studies: The basics. London, United Kingdom: Routledge.

Wells, P., (2012). The Language of Animation. In J. Nelmes ed. Introduction to Film Studies. Abingdon: Routledge.

After a very rough start to the unit, I feel that I have progressed a long way and this final essay I feel is a reflection of that progress.

Demonstration of subject-based knowledge and understanding

The idea for an essay around Danny Boyle and his potential status as an auteur was the seed planted in my head after watching T2: Trainspotting back in January and listening to the Director interviewed on the Kermode and Mayo Film podcast around the same time. I have pulled together the background reading from the course on auteur theory to structure an essay which argues a specific point of view referring to established theories and teh directors body of work.

I have to admit that my initial idea was to write establishing that Boyle was clearly an auteur, however, reading some work by media Critic in particularly Edwin Page, I felt that there over eagerness to paint Boyle as an auteur made change tack somewhat especially when closely referring to established auteur theory.

Demonstration of research skill

As mentioned above it was my research into Danny Boyles work – as seen by various media commentators in relation to established writing on auteur theory that developed my point of view in this essay.

Comparisons of the writing of Biographer Amy Raphael and media writer Edwin Page to established theories by Saris and the writing of Bordwell & Thompson, Amy Vallejo etc I feel come through strongly in the essay.

Demonstration of critical and Evaluation skills

Again an extension to the above comments that the essays is based on established literature not written from within – I have added my personal thoughts to the essay in relation to the essay but alway relating back to established theory.

If I’m disappointed in away about this aspect is I did have enough courage to pursue the aspect that therre are subtitles within the Body of work and challenge the fact that perhaps auteur theory is a little outdated.

Communication

I find this the hardest part to comment on but I feel this is a major improvement to my earlier work and is well structured and readable essay (even I do say so myself).

Auteur theory is used as a method of examining a film in terms of the creative expression of an individual filmmaker (Watson, 2012). The release in early 2017 of T2: Trainspotting (2017) once again raises the question of Danny Boyle’s influence upon British cinema. With Shallow Grave (1994) and Trainspotting (1996) in the 1990’s, Boyle had awoken British cinema from its post-Thatcherite slumber, and he has continued to have a knack of capturing the spirit of the times, be it the nineties’ drug scene or the aspirations of noughties’ Indian slum-dwellers (Raphael 2011). The British director does not refer to himself as an auteur (Raphael, 2011), but rather acknowledges the collaborative nature of filmmaking. However, does his embracing of a complete collaborative filmmaking process and claims by media commentators that Boyle consistently captures the cultural and social zeitgeist (Ananda, 2009; Welsh, 2015; Fortune, 2017) infer Boyle is indeed an auteur?  In order to examine Boyle’s work, this essay will explore the development of auteur theory, and then attempting to find proof that Boyle’s films show thematic consistency, consider whether this is evidence of an authorial presence despite Boyle’s assertion.

“Auteur” is simply the French word for “author”; the director, as David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson have claimed, for the majority of people is “the film’s primary ‘author’” (Bordwell and Thompson, 2013). However, as John Caughie has pointed out, before the development of auteur theory, which became increasingly popular during the 1950s and 1960s, traditional film theory and criticism viewed the author of a film as the person who wrote the screenplay (Caughie, 1981).

Auteur theory originated from the French New Wave and an article published in 1954 by the French film critic and later filmmaker François Truffaut in Cahiers du Cinéma, a magazine devoted to film criticism and analysis. Truffaut’s original polemic was intended to raise questions about existing critical assumptions of the French film industry – which Truffaut believed was obsessed with “tradition de la qualité”, that is, films based mainly on adaptations of literary classics – and with the Cahier group he moved against the privileged role of writers to acknowledging more the role of directors (Etherington-Wright & Dougherty, 2011). As a result, the films of directors working outside the European tradition (primarily directors working within the Hollywood studio system), were initially ignored by mainstream film critics. Truffaut and other French film critics such as Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude Chabrol, André Bazin and Eric Rohmer, developed Truffaut’s article into what came to be referred to as the “politique des auteurs”; which was intended to bring to light the work of non-European filmmakers (Etherington-Wright & Dougherty, 2011). This led to auteur theory being adopted by American critics as a central concept of film criticism (Bordwell & Thompson, 2013).

The establishment of auteur theory as a viable method of analysing the work of a director led to a re-evaluation of films made by directors working within the Hollywood studio system, such as John Ford, Howard Hawks, etc. Prior to the widespread adoption of auteur theory, films by directors working mainly in Hollywood were routinely dismissed as products of a mass production system and, therefore, devoid of any artistic merit (Watson, 2012). Indeed, critics have argued that the reason why American films were largely ignored by mainstream film criticism was because “Hollywood pictures [were] not so much custom-built as manufactured” (Caughie, 1981).

In other words, the system of making films within the Hollywood studio system left no room, as far as mainstream film critics were concerned, for the director to impose any individual form of artistic expression. Critical enthusiasm for auteur theory meant that commercial products such as Hollywood films could then be re-evaluated.

In 1962, Andrew Sarris argued that a director should be technically competent; should show personal style; and finally, the auteur’s films should possess an interior meaning, exhibited by a film’s mise-en-scène (Etherington-Wright and Doughty, 2011).  In order to evaluate whether Danny Boyle fits the definition of an auteur, it is the third of Sarris’ system of three criteria that is the most appropriate to examine in this essay. Mise-en-scène refers to the many individual elements that appear within the cinematic frame such as lighting, setting, props, costumes, cinematography, make-up, the behaviour of the performers, and special effects (Speidel, 2012). Mise-en-scène is viewed as one of the main distinguishing characteristics of an auteur because it is the main area in which directors have complete control, unlike their limited influence over a film’s screenplay (Crofts, 1998).

Auteur theorists agree a director can be viewed as an auteur by analysing a number of a director’s films in order to uncover consistent styles. This is a point made by Amy Villarejo, who has argued that auteurs find a number of ways to “‘sign’ their films” (Villarejo, 2007). According to Villarejo, this authorial signature can reveal the thematic preoccupations of a director through the use of mise-en-scène (Villarejo, 2007). For example, the influence of German expressionism in Tim Burton’s work can be seen through the use of curves and angular objects within the frame, as well as by the surreal nature of his storytelling (Etherington-Wright & Dougherty, 2011). Furthermore, as stated by Etherington-Wright and Doughty, “it is necessary to identify consistent stylistic traits across films to decide whether or not a director can be classed as an auteur” (2011). With regard to the films of Danny Boyle, applying authorship is fraught with difficulties because of the eclectic nature of his cinematic output.

At the time of writing, Boyle has directed 13 feature films. However, unlike directors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock or Quentin Tarantino, who are viewed as auteurs, Boyle’s films do not display a thematic consistency. This has not prevented media commentators such as Edwin Page from finding evidence of cinematic authorship, as discussed below. Furthermore, claims of Boyle’s auteurship are also complicated by the director’s denials of any authorial intent in his films.

In reply to writer Amy Raphael’s question of whether he referred to himself as an auteur, Boyle replied that he did not think so (Raphael, 2011). In order to seek clarification, Raphael stated that what she meant was “your films reflect your creative vision and have a distinct quality” (Raphael, 2011). Boyle replied that he would “be happy to accept that word if it didn’t have such indulgent associations! That one word shuffles everybody else’s contribution sideways, and it’s obviously unfair” (Raphael, 2011).

Boyle’s modest thoughts correspond to one of the main criticisms of auteur theory, as Bordwell and Thompson. have noted, “Collective film production creates collective authorship” (Bordwell & Thompson., 2013). In other words, a film is a final product of a collaborative process, which incorporates a range of technical personnel from cinematographers, editors, composers, costumers, set designers and artistic directors. This point is reaffirmed by Boyle who has argued “…directors shouldn’t consider themselves special. Films are dependent on so many different people; so much of the work is not creative; it’s not about having ‘a gift’ but how well you carry out man-management. I always find it really odd when film-makers are referred to as artists. I think artists are people like Picasso.” (Raphael, 2011)

Nevertheless, and in spite of Boyle’s point of view, this has not prevented media commentators from assigning authorial intent to the director’s work. For example, Paul O’Callaghan, writing for the British Film Institute, has argued that Boyle’s films are linked by the director’s “impeccable knack for pairing arresting visuals with judiciously chosen music” (O’Callaghan, 2017). He argued that Boyle’s films employ “era-defining” soundtracks, which “remain in tune with the zeitgeist” (O’Callaghan, 2017,). The main film credited with capturing the zeitgeist is Boyle’s Trainspotting (1996), which memorably featured Iggy Pop’s ‘Lust for Life’ during the film’s opening sequence. O’Callaghan has stated that Boyle’s other films also feature memorable soundtracks that serve to define the director’s work: for example, Nina Simone’s ‘My Baby Just Cares for Me’ in Shallow Grave, ‘A Life Less Ordinary’ by Ash in A Life Less Ordinary (1997), ‘Pure Shores’ by All Saints in The Beach (2000), and ‘O…Saya’ by M.I.A. in Slumdog Millionaire (2008). However, it is arguable whether these songs (or indeed films) actually captured the defining mood or spirit of the time when they were made. This critique is even more pertinent when one considers that A Life Less Ordinary and The Beach are viewed as commercial failures (O’Callaghan, 2017). If they had truly reflected the zeitgeist, they might have been more successful. Boyle’s use of music is similar to that applied by directors such as Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino; nonetheless, both Scorsese and Tarantino are defined as auteurs not by their choice of music but by the thematic consistency of their films – a feature notably absent from Boyle’s work.

As noted above, one of the few commentators to argue that Boyle is an auteur is Edwin Page. Page has stated that Boyle is an auteur because the director makes use of a series of frequent themes and familiar stylistic devices (Page, 2009). However, Page’s definitions are open to a great deal of criticism and interpretation. According to Page, Boyle’s films feature ordinary protagonists who do not display “the usual traits of Hollywood heroes” (Page, 2009). The same claim can be made of any number of directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Scorsese, or Tarantino, and is merely a choice of subject matter and not specifically a thematic authorial choice. The same observation can be made about Page’s claim that Boyle’s films “portray friendship and the importance of connecting with others” (Page, 2009). However, this is not the case with Shallow Grave, which features three flatmates trying to kill each other in order to claim a suitcase of money, nor with Sunshine (2007), where the main characters are distinguished by their inability to work effectively as a team in order to fulfil their mission.

Page also argues that Boyle’s films feature abnormal psychology, which is found in nine of the director’s films (Page, 2009). However, Page’s argument is undermined by his choice of 28 Days Later (2007), where he argues that those infected display an abnormal psychology, but this is not a thematic choice: it is instead a choice made as a result of the story. Page also cites dreams and visions, references to religion, moral dilemmas, large amounts of money, subcultures, and open narratives as examples of a thematic consistency that serve to confirm Boyle’s status as an auteur (Page, 2009). However, according to traditional auteur theory, Page’s examples are merely narrative themes and do not reflect authorial intent to tap into the zeitgeist. In addition, these narrative themes are not consistent across Boyle’s films. For example, religion is not a major or relevant theme in T2: Trainspotting, Shallow Grave, or A Life Less Ordinary, and large amounts of money are not featured in Sunshine or 28 Days Later. In this respect, Page appears to have misunderstood how auteur theory should be applied and has leaned towards what Caughie has described “critical reductiveness” (Caughie, 1981), or reducing the content of Boyle’s films to a number of restrictive narrative themes.

In conclusion, while certain aspects of Boyle’s films retain a visual distinctiveness, and in films such as Trainspotting, the director successfully captured the prevailing zeitgeist through judicious use of music. Nevertheless, the majority of Boyle’s filmography, while employing contemporary and popular music, does not reveal the same level of thematic consistency.

While Boyle is an excellent conductor of the orchestra that is a film set, which shows in directorial distinctiveness, this essay has shown that the British director is not an auteur according to traditional auteur theory, consistent with Boyle’s personal point of view.

Bibliography

28 Days Later. (2002). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: DNA Film.

A Life Less Ordinary. (2017). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK/US: Figment Film/Channel Four Films.

Ananda, R. (2009) Slumdog Millionaire: Danny Boyle captures the zeitgeist. OpEdNews.com. [Online] 5 April. Available from: https://www.opednews.com/articles/Slumdog-Millionaire-Danny-by-Rady-Ananda-090405-124.html [Accessed: 28 June 2017].

Bordwell, D. and Thompson, K. (2013) Film Art: An Introduction. 10^th Edn. London & New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.

Caughie, J. (1981) Introduction. In Caughie, J. (ed.) Theories of Authorship. London & New York, NY: Routledge.

Crofts, S. (1998) Authorship and Hollywood. In Hill, J. and Gibson, P.C. (eds.) The Oxford Guide to Film Studies. London & New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Denney, A. (2016) How the Trainspotting soundtrack defined 90s cool. Dazed. [Online] Available from: http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandculture/article/30081/1/how-the-trainspotting-soundtrack-defined-90s-cool [Accessed: 28 June 2017].

Etherington-Wright, C. and Doughty, R. (2011) Understanding Film Theory. Basingstoke, Hampshire & New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.

Fortune, D. (2017) Danny Boyle on Why the Trainspotting Movies Are About More Than Drugs. Esquire. [Online] 16 March. Available from: http://www.esquire.com/entertainment/movies/a53898/danny-boyle-interview-t2-trainspotting/ [Accessed: 28 June 2017].

O’Callaghan, P. (2017) Danny Boyle: a career in 10 songs. British Film Institute. [Online] 27 January. Available from: http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/news-bfi/features/danny-boyle-career-10-songs / [Accessed: 28 June 2017].

Monaco, J. (2009). How to Read a Film [Kindle Edition]. New York: Oxford University Press.

Page, E. (2013). Ordinary Heroes: The Films of Danny Boyle. London: Red Pill Productions.

Raphael, A. (2011). Danny Boyle: Authorised Edition [Kindle Edition]. London: Faber and Faber.

Shallow Grave. (1994). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: Film4.

Slumdog Millionare. (2008). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: Film4.

Speidel, S. (2012) Film form and narrative. In Nelmes, J. (ed.) Introduction to Film Studies. London & New York, NY: Routledge.

Steve Jobs. (2015). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. US: Universal Pictures.

Sunshine. (2007). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: DNA Films.

T2: Trainspotting. (2017). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: Film4.

The Beach. (2000). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK/US: 20th Century Fox.

Trainspotting. (1996). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: Channel Four Films.

Trance. (2013). [film] Directed by D. Boyle. UK: Film4.

Villarejo, A. (2007) Film Studies: The Basics. Abingdon, Oxon & New York, NY: Routledge.

Watson, P. (2012) Cinematic authorship and the film auteur. In Nelmes, J. (ed.) Introduction to Film Studies. 5^th Edn. London & New York, NY: Routledge.

Welsh, A.C. (2015) How The Trainspotting Soundtrack Gave Us A Perfect Snapshot Of 1996 Music. New Musical Express. [Online] 1 October. Available from: http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/how-the-trainspotting-soundtrack-gave-us-a-perfect-snapshot-of-1996-music-15140 [Accessed: 28 June 2017].

YouTube. (2013). Danny Boyle interviewed by Kermode & Mayo. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QjhDHxnZmA [Accessed 27 Jun. 2017].

YouTube. (2017). Danny Boyle interviewed by Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowkdqVr0lA [Accessed 27 Jun. 2017].

YouTube. (2013). Danny Boyle: A film reflects the director’s personality – Interview. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAV2OGf8sfY [Accessed 28 Jun. 2017].

YouTube. (2016). Danny Boyle: A film reflects the director’s personality – Interview. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GAV2OGf8sfY [Accessed 27 Jun. 2017].

Above is the highlighted tutor feedback from assignment 2 (received on 16th November) and as with the feedback from A1 it was comprehensive and extremely insightful.

Andrew has pointed out that while there are some good ideas within my essay, it is littered with typos and grammatical errors from the first sentence; that it is unstructured and disorganised; and referenced; and lacking in enough analysis.

Andrew as also point out that I should not have struggled along alone when I was unsure of how to approach this essay, instead of blindly handing in substandard work we could have exchanged an email or 2 to help guide me in the right direction. Andrew was also kind enough to include a marked-up version showing me where the errors were and give a few pointers to think about in would need to be a substantial re-work.

Below is an exchange of emails with Andrew about the feedback:

On 17 November 2016 at 14:48, Pete Walker <peter514508@oca.ac.uk> wrote:

Andrew

Thank you for the email and first let me say OMG some of there errors are glaringly bad – I know my proof reading can be bad but that is just embarrassing. I use grammarly as a spell & grammar checker It is usually very reliable however, I did have some internet issues with it on the day of submission which might have compounded things. However It is fairly clear that my approach to essay’s is way off the standard required for the course together with the fat that i need to reference with the body of text not just in a bibliography and the end (additionally do I need to reference the screen shots?). Any advice you can give around this would be great weather that is ti or places I can look for for support would be greatly appricated.

Your feedback is encouraging, I’m sorry I didn’t email over my concerns, it was mainly out of a sense of embarrassment as I was almost going to be saying I don’t know what to do. Knowing that my idea and observations are good is a major step forward in building my confidence, with the first essay on the 7 Samurai etc I had a much bettering feeling that I was heading in the right direction. However, as I did with the A1 i found myself writing a lot from within as I was struggling to find the literature about the films I had chosen.

Taking brief encounter I read the comments about the Noel Coward reflecting his own sexuality in the script in book by David Thompson which I have referenced in the Bibliography however, I did not find any further literature on this – would be appropriate for me to expand with why I agree with the statement? Similar with the side story in brief encounter of flirtation guard and mangeress – could not find literature on this.

I also found the word limit challenging, as you say I have spent too much time describing and not enough on analysis, however i dad find myself rapidly running out of words without being able to say much – did try including some screen shots but I think I haven’t used the correctly? you haven’t mentioned the in feedback were they a help or another hindrance to clarity.

Would a general idea for he rework be:

Brief introduction (100 words)

introduction of hays code and comment (250 word)

Comments on Brief Encounter (250 word)

Comments on Breathless (250 word)

Comments on Breakfast at tiffanies (250 word)

conclusion/wrap up (100 word)

Are there particular point that you recommend I follow-up on or areas i should “dump” completely. Another thing I find myself doing is writing solely about the plot / story often neglecting the technical aspects of the film; is this something I should address in rework and further assignments?

Many thanks again for going the extra mile with this feedback it is very much appreciated and I am encouraged again my rework and the assignments to come.

I think video feed back would be good going forward however, would a brief chat be ok before moving on?

On 17 November 2016 at 17:02, Andrew Conroy <andrewconroy@oca.ac.uk> wrote:

Pete,

That’s ok. Proofreading should be about much more than just checking for spelling errors and typos, and needs to be more focused on structure, coherence, logic, clarity. I’d recommend spending much more time on it with future assignments, possibly to the point of producing a couple of drafts before sending any over to me. n.b., I’ve copied in Eddie and Lia, two of my esteemed OCA colleagues, who I’m hoping will be able to offer further guidance with some of the questions you’ve raised.

Beyond this, what your email seems to suggest is that you’re taking a rather limited approach to how you search for and use literature, and I get the feeling that you may be putting the cart before the horse. To write about a particular film doesn’t necessarily have to entail finding a piece of literature that’s specifically about it. The censorship article in the book I mentioned doesn’t necessarily touch on the films you mention, but this doesn’t mean that you couldn’t apply aspects of what it says to them. Likewise, while shedloads has been written about Brief Encounter, you wouldn’t necessarily need to look for anything specifically about the film in order to find useful stuff- literature on British cinema of the era and film and representations of sexuality are just a couple of things that you could research and incorporate in some way. What you need to do is find material that will help you understand film and its innumerable wider contexts, and then bring these into your discussions of the specific films you look at. If you do this, then your own ideas will be stronger and better informed, so you won’t just be casually expressing an opinion. For example, ‘In his article *****, David Thompson suggests that Brief Encounter was a parable about Noel Coward’s sexuality. At the time Coward wrote the film blah blah British social history blah blah and censorship was a major obstacle to filmmakers blah blah blah Hays Code blah blah blah. While it’s tempting to read the film in this way blah blah blah other have suggested that blah blah blah. The use of parable, metaphor and allegory in film is a device that has often been utilised blah blah blah and many films, such as **** and ****, have been read as expressing certain ideas in this way blah blah blah’ (I hope that makes at least some sense, btw, but the point is that anyone can express an opinion. To make it stick with a piece of academic writing you need to carefully develop your argument with reference to other literature and ideas. Oh, and it wasn’t clear that the point you were making about parable and sexuality was Thompson’s, so you definitely need to look at your referencing, otherwise it brings in the thorny topic of plagiarism)

The structure you’re suggesting looks ok, but this really is up to you, not me. What I will say is that 250 words is not a lot to introduce and assess a film, but with word length you do always need to play the hand that you’ve been dealt. Perhaps consider starting from the opposite end and get together some notes on what you want to say about each film and then take it from there. Structure is important, of course, but it’s not necessarily always about saying that section A will fit into 250 words, B into 200, etc etc. Get the ideas and content right and the structure should follow in a fairly straightforward manner (or so the theory goes).

To be honest, I didn’t really pay too much attention to the screenshots. They can have their uses, of course, but they do need to be thought about carefully. And, yes, they do need to be referenced in a separate ‘list of figures’ and numbered, e.g., Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc..

Hope that all helps. Good luck, and I’ll see you on Skype post-A3.

This exchange of email was very helpful, as it not only helped to vocalise my insecurities around my work, but it also allows me to gain some insight into how to structure a proper academic essay. This my first real foray into higher education, anything else I have done at this level has been quite practical based, so extended writing is very new.

Research and reading are the key to success here as this allow we to work with ideas that are out there already and expand on the to produce a reasoned piece of work. I have the books I have to sit down and read them not just have them sit on my iPad. However, I need to reference my reading correctly; this not only evidences my research to my tutor and assessors but it also avoids that thorny issue of plagiarism – how my essay was structured and presented in Assignment 2 I could very easily have been accused of plagiarism when that was never my intention.

Following on from this I concentrated on reading through my books to expand on the ideas I had, ensure that I had the appropriate references to put together a much more coherent reworked reversion of the assignment,

OCA Photography – Introduction to Film Culture

Assignment 1 – Hero’s and Villains ‘re-made’.

The has been an interesting exercise to watch five movies; three inspired by two of the others and a more interesting decision as to which two to reflect on together with the “Seven Samurai”. It would have been a much easier decision if had have reflect on any three – but I guess that would have drawn everyone to the low hanging fruit of “Yojimbo” and its two offspring. However, I want to reflect on the two I think that have had the most effect on me, “Yojimbo” and “Fistful of Dollars”.

As I have revealed earlier in exercise 1.2, I came to the Seven Samurai as an admirer of the Magnificent Seven and while not wanting to get into comparisons here between those two films it is significant to mention it as it has a bearing on how I viewed Kurosawa’s masterpiece work.

It is evident when you watch the “Seven Samurai” why it has inspired so many filmmakers; not only the recognised re-make the Magnificent Seven but others such as the Guns of Navarone and the Dirty Dozen. The film explores so many themes, from the cultural significance of the Ronin in Feudal Japan to the motivation of individuals and beyond; all wrapped in a package that any blockbuster Hollywood movie now or then would be grateful to have.

What is does have though above all it imitators is its running time, at over hours Kurosawa allows the plot points to develop slowly, the characters to marinate so that they become rounded individuals. It does not rely on an overly dramatic showdown that many of its offspring have, nor is there a “happy ending” of redemption for the group either in an honourable death or survival. No, what Kurosawa is showing in this film is that violence breeds violence and that for a warrior survival can be a form of death. They become obsolete there are no longer required and because of the class systems in feudal Japan they cannot quietly retire into the community, they have saved. The fact that they are ronin available in the first place is because of this class system, and Kurosawa shows that perpetual cycle to great effect in this movie.

The same director shows a different style in Yojimbo, classed as a thriller – the story is less class based and could be easily transported in any period as has been demonstrated with the two remakes we have studied. Here the director has focused on an individual and his mission to rid a town of two feuding gangs. While still set in feudal Japan, it is quite clearly at a period which is contemporary with the American western, as shown with the use of a Colt 45 or similar. The overall feel of the film is more of a western than the thoughtful subtleties of the directors earlier Chanbara masterpiece.

There are much more comic elements, and the score is heavier and more humorous if not cartoon in style, but overall the Kurosawa has pushed the samurai film away from its origins to show more realistically how brutal death can be in particular by a sword. However, unlike the more real characters that he has produced in the Seven Samurai, the hero is more the of the modern day action hero. Seemingly unstoppable and able to single-handedly bring down the “bad guys” no matter what happen to him, which is in nearly every modern day film, although, somehow I am drawn to a comparison to John McClane in Die Hard; how he can defeat the terrorists despite being barefoot.

In “A Fistful of Dollars” Sergio Leone remakes the Yojimbo while bringing a style to the film which pays homage to both Kurosawa and the chanbara and the great blockbuster American Westerns of the likes of John Ford. “A Fistful of Dollars” was the beginning of the Spaghetti Western and Leone had produced a film which was not a shot for shot remake make of Yojimbo nor has it the same tone. I would describe it as a more serious film than it predecessor. Yes, the overall story is the same, but the development of most charictors is less characteristic than Yojimbo, and the direction leads the way the use of extreme close-ups on the actor’s eyes that became a trademark of the spaghetti western.

A Fistful of Dollars is very much a western, and you can see that influence in the wide shots which bring in the landscape – especially when compared back to Yojimbo; mainly set within the claustrophobic surround of a village.

The overall look of Leone film is very similar in feel to both Yojimbo and Seven Samurai, but this achieved differently. Kurosawa makes great use of light and shadow for the dramatic effect his films; shot in black and white and the contrast gives the grittiness and darkness. Whereas “A Fistful of Dollars” is in full colour, but unlike many of it contemporary American Westerns there is a layer of dust over everything as you would expect in the American West – not the shiny bright colours of Hollywood.

Overall I think these two directors over these three movies have made a great contribution to each genre they represent, in Leones case even helping to give birth to the Spaghetti Western. They have transported them to another level for all that followed to look up to whether within the genre or outside. They have spawned many remakes, sequels and homages some less successful than others but they all owe that existence to the three films we have talked about today.