Essay for today mock exam - email

1. Complete the analysis grids of Black Swan using the Mirror Stage and Male Gaze

2. Read the 3 resources and apply their ideas to chosen scenes

3. Write a response to the essay question on Gender (title is under last weeks lesson) using each of the 4 critical approaches (psychoanalysis, mirror stage, male gaze, Spectatorship) to Black Swan as a separate paragraph.

4. Look at last weeks lesson (some didn't cover) to help you and the 3 resources on Black Swan

Intro
Answer the question - how significant gender to a spectators experience and what evidence do you have for your argument?

Para 1.
Psychoanalysis
Themes of parental influence (see clips on Psycho etc) on childhood and repressed subconscious animalistic desires (sex violence, sexuality)

Para 2.
Mirror stage
Themes of struggles with identity and the any Micro techniques used to break the God like perspective given by continuity editing and use of the 3rd person camera

Para 3
Male Gaze
Voyeurism and sexual gratification

Para 4
Spectatorship - alignment, emotional response/intellectual/spectacle and FACTORS - MAKE A JUDGMENT ABOUT GENDER IN BLACK SWAN
How does this GENDERED approach apply similarly to Clockwork Orange as well as Black Swan?
Make a judgement: IS GENDER SIGIFICANT STILL?

Conclusion
Sum up your points and argument

Email to Rich.barton@leighacademy.org.uk when complete

Homework for Easter - counter argument; Oppositional Gaze

Research oppositional gazes - queer gaze, female gaze, black gaze - and write Present an analysis on a contemporary film of your choice using reviews, ratings and google scholar to apply an Oppositional Gaze.
Present this film week 1 next module with key scenes that show your analysis of the oppositional gaze and how it is constructed (micro) to create response in the spectator

Use the grid to structure

La Haine Context Case Study

Lesson 4 la haine research lesson from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lesson 4 la haine research task handout from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh close analysis from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Aesthetics of la haine handout from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh 7 france and arabs from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Udder confusion cow meaning from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh7 massacre of setif from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh 5 jews in france and vinz from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh 5 m'bowole summary from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh 6 blackout - black culture in france from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh 6 black culture key scene handout from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh7 - culture vs subculture from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh7 key scene handout from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh8 narrative from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 1 - vinz driving around paris from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Lh8 narrative from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 1 - vinz driving around paris from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 2 - art gallery from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 3 - roof top from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 4 - tv crew from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 5 - huberts bedroom from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 6 - dj killa from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 7 - grunwalksi from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Narrative - Scene 8 - skinhead from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Set Work for Weds & Half Term

Read over the following slides on the Section B blog - this is where we will be studying from now on

http://leighmediaa2filmsectionb.blogspot.co.uk/

Identify the following terms for use in your case study

Last week
http://leighmediaa2filmsectionb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/spectatorship-responses-to-film-intro.html
Audience vs Spectator - define?
Emotional Response (last week)
Factor that affect (gender, sexuality, experiences, beliefs)

Processes of Spectatorship 1: Alignment & Allegiance

Define the following terms and apply to the clips - write up your notes on the attached worksheet
Consumption:
http://leighmediaa2filmsectionb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/film-consumption.html


Now use your note from last week and the clips to gather the Textual Evidence to discuss how we are aligned with the characters.

Alignment:
http://leighmediaa2filmsectionb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/alignment_11.html


Apply to demonstrate: Pick your Case Study from the list of Film recommended to discuss you own emotional response and alignment:

Task: Analyse the Micro techniques (MES, Cinematography, Editing, Sound) used by the director to provoke/manipulate these responses to gain the preferred reading/response from the spectator. Explain how this functions and what factors affect this?

Brokeback Mountain

Brokeback Mountain & The Exorcist: AUDIENCE RESPONSE in Ideology, Narrative, Cinematography, Mise-en-scene, Sound etc. from Gloria Asha-Tafa

Notes Wk 1: Emotional & Sensory Response, Reception Factors

Spectatorship - Intro Emotional Response & Spectatorship Theory

 

http://leighmediaa2filmsectionb.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/spectatorship-emotional-responses.html 

Spectatorship Theory

Emotional Responses - Spectatorship & FMJ

http://viooz.co/movies/4862-full-metal-jacket-1987.html

Phillip Seymour Hoffman Tribute

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-26025780

Full Metal Jacket Post Viewing - Duality of Man & Exemplar answer

Lesson 7 - Duality of Man from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Duality of man from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Example Answer from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Section B: Film & Audience Experience - Mark Scheme & Content

 

Theoretical Approaches: Spectatorship, Reception, Cognitive & The Gaze
HISTORICAL - Clockwork Orange/Full Metal Jacket
FUTURE - Fans Xmen & 3D 

Our Key texts: Clockwork Orange
Django Unchained- The Black Gaze
X-men Days of Future Past (or Hunger Games)
One other from your own case study
Prometheus
Irreversible
Baise-Moi
Requiem For a Dream

How successfully do the films you have studies represent National Cinema in their messages? Refer to specific examples in their cultural context.

Mark Scheme January Exam

1. Answer the question
How dependent are the films on Narrative to communicate their Messages (about Spain & France)

Task 1: What arguments have we got?
REVISION: Go through your notes -Mind Map:
WHAT ARE THE MESSAGES/Ideas the film expresses?
What National contexts have influenced these

2. How do the films differ in their dependency on Narrative to communicate Messages of France & Spanish National Cinema?

Make a Judgment - which depends more? Why? How are they different?

3. Give examples to back this up
Task: Go through your blog notes - back up the Mind Map with Textual Detail.

Conclusion: What detail on the key moments from the films related to Narrative are missing between you an your mentor partner?

Task: Self Evaluate:
Main Issues:

• Not READING and therefore NOT ANSWERING the question
• POOR PREPARATION - either:
• No Notes
• Incomplete Notes
• No ACTIVE Revision (Planning, reducing, practice, analysis of clips etc)
• No knowledge of Mark Scheme

Common Mistakes:
NOT AS question - not requiring you to consider whether they conform to CHN or individual theories on Narrative (Media students take note - not Q1b), but how the films USE and DEPEND on Narrative to get their messages across.

DO NOT go through and explain Propp, Todorov, CHN etc...USE these to analyse how the MESSAGES are communicated.

NOT a Trivia Quiz - irrelvant if Del Toro is Mexican or Kidnapped, or if Amelie is Racist - only if you APPLY it to your analysis to make a POINT that answers the question.

2nd Session:
30 minutes to prepare response to exam question:

Exam Question 1: Representation
How successfully are the films you have studied represent examples of National Cinema in their messages? Refer to specific examples in their cultural context.

6 degrees of Kevin Bacon

6 degrees of Kevin Bacon game

Kevin Bacon Game What is the Link between Amelie & La Haine? IMDB research

Watch La Haine 1995

IMDB

Mathieu Kassovitz

La Haine Revision Notes from South Sefton Sixth Form College

La haine booklet from tdcjackson

Lh8 narrative from South Sefton Sixth Form College

Revision & Quiz

Questions:

1. What 2 aspects are the focus for Authorship?

2. What other films has each director made?

3. What are the 3 themes that link each director's films?

4. What describes their recognisable Style?

5. What are 2 relevant characteristics of 'Cinema du Look' present in the Amelie?

6. What are the characteristics of 'Magical Realism' present in the films?

7. Are these traditions of film-making from their National Cinema - give examples of other films.

8. What other films National Cinema have influenced the idea, story or iconography of these films?

9. Which 2 artists influences the designs for Pans Labrynth?

10. What other actors do they regularly use and what roles do they play?

11. What do we know about Del Toro that links to his themes and interest in childhood, war and monsters?

 

12. Why is Pan's Labrynth 'New Mexican Cinema?'

13. To what extent are these films considered to be 'National Cinema' in the strictest sense?

14. Why did these films travel so well internationally?

15. To what extent do these directors qualifies as an Auteur (Bazin's definition)? 

16. What ideas or messages do they offer on masculinity, fascism, childhood, religion, politics, war and what it means to be French, Spanish/Mexican?

17. How were these films received in their domestic markets - were there any criticisms and why?

Examples of Short Films Genre & Style Film Noir & Surrealism

January Exam Prep

Authorship - how do the texts demonstrate the social, ideological, political and cultural contexts of their national of origin?

Why is this more complex with Pans & Del Toro?

Are they examples of National Cinema?

Create your own Narrative in the Authorial Style & Theme of These Directors/Countries - make this into an animatic trailer using found stills

Revision: Map Out the links to ideological context (Message & Values) from the Texts using Macro as the Centre

Authorship, Themes & Style
Narrative
Representation
Genre

Coursework Deadline: Planning Due End of Module 3

Cinema du look Style

http://www.screened.com/cinema-du-look/27-425/

Del Toro on Fascism, Violence, Mexico, Kidnappings & Catholism - Auteur

• Translation: What interests me about fascism is that it is a black hole of free will. It is a system which isn’t necessarily unique, but it absolves brutality, it absolves the lack of morals and it absolves people of their own decisions. When they tell you ‘you can kill these people because they are Jews, reds or homosexuals, or whatever!’ In this world you can permit a brutal action on the base of collective advice; that is what scares me. Interview with Guillermo del Toro on 10/23/2006. [3]

Fear they (fascists) inject into people - 2 farmers in Pans

Not allowing you to express yourself & an expression of masculinity juxtaposed with the innocence of a child

'we were only following orders' - Nazi soldiers

absence of father figure? Masculinity is tyranny

A dark fairy tale ... Pan's Labyrinth

For those with a weakness for the beautiful monsters of modern cinema, Mexican maestro Guillermo del Toro has earned a deserved reputation as the finest living exponent of fabulist film. Gregarious and personable, with an almost photographic recall of faces, he has charmed both the hardcore horror fans, who gave him a hero's welcome at London's Frightfest in August, and now the upmarket critical cognoscenti, who snapped to attention following his Palme d'Or nomination for his new film Pan's Labyrinth at Cannes in May.

1. Pan's Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno)
2. Production year: 2006
3. Countries: Latin America, Rest of the world, Spain
4. Cert (UK): 15
5. Runtime: 112 mins
6. Directors: Guillermo del Toro, Guillermo del Toro
7. Cast: Ariadna Gil, Doug Jones, Ivana Baquero, Maribel Verdu, Sergi Lopez
8. More on this film

See if this film is playing near you

UK postcode:

Set against the backdrop of fascist Spain in 1944, Pan's Labyrinth is a dark fairy tale that distils his distinctive mix of fact and fantasy, poetry and politics, pain and pleasure. It's an epic, poetic vision in which the grim realities of war are matched and mirrored by a descent into an underworld populated by fearsomely beautiful monsters - a transformative, life-affirming nightmare which is, for my money, the very best film of the year.

Since the early 1990s, del Toro has divided his film-making between personal European projects (the modern vampiric chiller Cronos in 1993; the ghostly Spanish Civil War fable The Devil's Backbone in 2001) and big-budget Hollywood hits (ongoing comic-book franchises Blade II in 2002, and Hellboy in 2004). Those familiar with the guilty ghosts of The Devil's Backbone will recognise key motifs in his new fable, about a young girl's exploration of a labyrinthine underworld in Franco-era Spain.

The young heroine of Pan's Labyrinth is Ofelia, whose widowed mother, Carmen, has recently married Vidal, a vicious captain in Spain's Civil Guard, involved in policing anti-fascist Maquis resistance in the mountainous wooded northern region. Vidal's housekeeper, Mercedes, befriends Ofelia, protecting her from her stepfather's wrath while maintaining secretive connections with the Maquis. Meanwhile, Ofelia meets an alarmingly devious faun who suggests that she may be the lost princess of a beautiful and terrifying netherworld. While Mercedes attempts to help the Maquis in their struggles, Ofelia embarks on a quest that will test her true nature.

This quest involves a journey through a labyrinth, a word with which the Civil War has become intrinsically linked (think of key historical accounts such as Gerald Brenan's The Spanish Labyrinth) and which served as the 'perfect metaphor' for del Toro's endeavours.

'A maze is a place where you get lost,' he explains. 'But a labyrinth is essentially a place of transit, an ethical, moral transit to one inevitable centre. You think of the transit of Spanish society from the 1940s to the incredible explosion of the post-Franco period. The 1980s in Spain were like the 1960s in the rest of the world! In the movie, Ofelia is a "princess who forgot who she was and where she came from", who progresses through the labyrinth to emerge as a promise that gives children the chance never to know the name of their father - the fascist. It's a parable, just as The Devil's Backbone was a parable of the Spanish Civil War.

'I was also trying to uncover a common thread between the "real world" and the "imaginary world"through one of the seminal concerns of fairy tales: choice. It's something that has intrigued me since Cronos, through Hellboy and now to Pan's Labyrinth: the way your choices define you. And I thought it would be great to counterpoint an institutional lack of choice, which is fascism, with the chance to choose, which the girl takes in this movie.'

Del Toro's faun is just one of the film's menagerie of fantastical creatures and monsters, drawn from sources that range from Goya's paintings to Clive Barker's Books of Blood. Amazingly for a film that features around 300 effects shots and boasts complex creature designs, Pan's Labyrinth was completed for a mere £10m, a feat del Toro attributes to the lessons learnt on Blade II and Hellboy ('I love to play with the big toys... and to learn from them'). As always, the director sketched each character in the notebooks that are his constant companions, extraordinary documents of his mind at work and his obsessive attention to detail. Here we find the original drawings for the 'vegetable baby' which Ofelia places beneath her mother's bed, nurtured with milk and magic, and the terrifying 'pale man' whose ire she arouses by stealing from his table.

'I wanted to represent political power within the creatures,' del Toro says. 'And that particular character somehow came to represent the church and the devouring of children. The original design was just an old man who seemed to have lost a lot of weight and was covered in loose skin. Then I removed the face, so it became part of the personality of the institution. But then, what to do about the eyes? So I decided to place stigmata on the hands and shove the eyes into the stigmata. Having done that, I thought it would be great to make the fingers like peacock feathers that fluff and open. That's how that figure evolved.

'The faun proved more difficult. The idea was to make him very masculine, not aggressively so, just sinuous. I remember talking to Doug Jones [who plays both the faun and the pale man] when he first started working on the role and saying, "More Mick Jagger, less David Bowie!" I wanted the faun to have a rock star quality. Everything about the faun and his personality needed to be masculine because you had to pit the female energy of the girl against something monolithic.'

In essence, del Toro is a divided soul, a realist attuned to the strange vibrations of the supernatural, a lapsed Catholic ('not quite the same thing as an atheist') with an interest in sacrifice and redemption who turned down the chance to direct The Chronicles of Narnia because he 'wasn't interested in the lion resurrecting'. Crucially, like the artistic refugees from Franco's Spain who first inspired him, the writer-director considers himself an exile from his home country, Mexico, not least because of the 1997 kidnapping of his father, at the height of a vogue for such ransomed abductions. He was released after 72 days.

'I was 33,' el Toro recalls. 'The perfect age to be crucified! I had lived my life believing two things - that pain should not be sought, but, by the same token, it should never be avoided, because there is a lesson in facing adversity. Having gone through that experience, I can attest, in a non-masochistic way, that pain is a great teacher. I don't relish it, but I learn from it. I always say, even as an ex-Catholic, that God sends the letter, but not the dictionary. You need to forge your own dictionary.'

This willingness to confront pain and to forge his own cinematic dictionary has informed the blend of innocence and brutality that is a trademark of del Toro's phantasmagorical cinema. From the crushing addiction of Cronos, whose ageing anti-hero is reduced to licking blood from the tiled floor of a public lavatory, to the redemptive fantasy of Hellboy, whose titular demon takes an industrial grinder to the horns on his head in a bid to take control of his destiny, del Toro has returned compulsively to these twinned themes. Now in Pan's Labyrinth, which he wrote, directed and produced, he has created a Citizen Kane of fantasy cinema, a masterpiece made entirely on his own terms.

Del Toro is working within the same tradition of cinematic horror that spawned A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven's seminal reinvention of the 'classic dark fairytale', in which Freddy Krueger emerged as an 1980s incarnation of the Big Bad Wolf. 'I think that really is one of the best fairytales of any decade, because Craven understands the roots of those myths,' says del Toro. Pan's Labyrinth is being promoted in America with a classic horror tagline: 'Innocence has a power that evil cannot imagine'.

That power is also self-generating. 'Pan's Labyrinth is a movie about a girl who gives birth to herself into the world she believes in,' del Toro continues. 'At that moment, it doesn't matter if her body lives or dies. And this is something I have experienced. I remember the worst experience of my life, even above the kidnapping of my father, was shooting Mimic [del Toro's first Hollywood feature, in 1997, which was severely compromised by producer interference]. Because what was happening to me and the movie was far more illogical than kidnapping, which is brutal, but at least there are rules. Now when I look at Mimic, what I see is the pain of a deeply flawed creature that could have been so beautiful.'

Pain and beauty, brutality and innocence - once again, del Toro's conversation finds a way back to the central duality of death and rebirth. 'Those things are one and the same,' he says. 'It would be a cliche to say that, because I am a Mexican, I see death in a certain way. But I have seen more than my share of corpses, certainly more than the average First World guy. I worked for months next to a morgue that I had to go through to get to work. I've seen people being shot; I've had guns put to my head; I've seen people burnt alive, stabbed, decapitated ... because Mexico is still a very violent place. So I do think that some of that element in my films comes from a Mexican sensibility.'

Like the heroine of Pan's Labyrinth, del Toro's career now seems to be at a point of rebirth and regeneration. 'Hopefully, this movie will allow me to start a new path,' he says. 'The way I see my craft, and the way I see the stories I tell, has completely changed as a result of this movie. Shooting Pan's Labyrinth was very painful, but it also became a war about me not compromising.

'I gave back my entire salary in order to get the film made the way I wanted it. I probably should have abandoned it the moment the funding fell through the first time, but I stuck with it for almost two-and-a-half years and refused to back down. It's the first time in the six movies I've directed where I've said: I'm doing this one my way, no matter what.

'Financiers ran out on me and everyone involved in my career was saying it was the biggest mistake I could make. But I'm very happy with the result. And for me, nothing will be the same again.'

· This is an edited version of an article from the December issue of Sight and Sound, on sale from Tuesday

Goya influence on Pans (Spanish Culture)

Goya Meets Grimm in Pan’s Labyrinth

 

 

The dark Spanish melancholy that informs director Guillermo del Toro’s small masterpiece of magic realism, gives this film unforgettable power. As dark as any Zurbarán or Ribera, Pan’s Labyrinth interweaves two worlds and two realities — that of a child’s fairytale longings, and the ruthless fascism of Franco’s Spain.
If it sounds like a marriage of hope and hell, it is — but the ending alone, which spins yet another uncanny twist, is pure enchantment. Del Toro’s imagination (Hellboy) provides visuals that evoke Cocteau and Buñuel, with a healthy dose of Brothers Grimm as visualized by Frida Kahlo. The deeply saturated colors of the film stock add to the mood of otherworldly adventure.
Our protagonist is a dreamy young girl Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), who goes to live at a rural millhouse occupied by Franco’s soldiers. Ofelia’s mother has married Capitan Vidal (the astonishing Sergi Lopez), a cold-blooded monster who cares only for the fact that the mother is pregnant with his child. Very quickly we, and Ofelia, encounter a secret underworld, complete with labyrinth, crumbling ruins, gossamer fairies — amazing art direction — and a spirit guide. The latter is the Pan of the film’s title, a harsh-but-kindly master who asks Ofelia to perform three tasks in order to take her rightful place as princess of a lost kingdom.
In Hollywood’s hands, such a scenario might amount to a sanitized Alice in Wonderland caper. In del Toro’s vision, the underworld mirrors the increasing danger to Ofelia’s household, and the brave partisans hiding out in the nearby forest. More psychological than political, Pan’s Labyrinth reminds us how we felt when we were 12-years-old, especially in dangerous, or unsettling circumstances —when we longed to slip into another realm where beauty and magic ruled. And where we felt safe. But this dialogue between fantasy and horror refuses to comply with our Hallmark needs, and the scenes of wartime brutality are echoed in demonic corridors beneath the floors, and behind the bedroom walls. Among the triumphs of this magical tour de force is the creation of what has to be the most grotesque and mesmerizing monster brought to the screen. Straight out of Goya, this macabre creature is more than matched by the human monster, embodied by the charismatic Capitan.
It will be clear to viewers who have encountered shamanic journeying, that Pan and his shape-shifting cohorts are spirit guides. On this deeper level, the film illustrates the subterranean psychology of secrets. Secrets — both isolating and comforting. On one level of the film’s oneiric odyssey, Ofelia’s secret life creates a refuge from the pain of her loneliness. On another, the secrets kept by her partisan housekeeper breed a dangerous isolation — and threaten the very possibility for survival during the last days of WWII.
Too harsh for young viewers, this is a film for those who believe in a harrowing, and bittersweet variety of redemption. Like Babel, Pan’s Labyrinth thrives on splendid casting and ingenious camerawork. And a ravishing score by Javier Navarrete. An Oscar for Best Foreign Film.