'A' Grade Exam Response: Film 'Sin City'/'Fish Tank'

Here is a condensed guide of how to make use of language to approach exam questions (Film)

How typical are your three main texts of their genre?

Another convention of film noir that is evident in 'Sin City' is the constant visual iconography and noir style in the mise-en-scene. When a character appears from the shadows, wearing a trench-coat in the rain it clearly indicates conventions of the film noir genre. The use of rain in 'Sin City's mise-en-scene highlights the dark and gloomy atmosphere of the post-war American society, using pathetic fallacy as away of representing its genre. In this same way the trench-coat Hartigan is wearing also visually references film noir protagonists, making it typical of its genre.

As well as its visual references to film noir 'Sin City' also uses key visual conventions and iconography of the comic-book genre. For example the trench-coat each protagonist wears highlights their status as a comic-book hero, by referencing the long cape of a superhero. This supports the idea that 'Sin City' may be untypical of its genre, as it combines two genres to create irony: a parody of conventions, rather than being truly typical.

'Fish Tank', my third text, is more typical of its social realism genre, and unlike my other films can be defined as more typical. The film deals with real life issues and can easily recognised as typical by its themes and technical stylistics. The scene when Connor, Michael Fassbender's character, 'grooms' and then sleeps with the underage Mia in a council flat highlights a very real and controversial issue in modern day British society. This makes it highly typical of the social realist genre as previous films in the genre, such as Ken Loach's 'My Name Is Joe' have explored similar representations of how alcoholism has affected and impacted upon individuals in British society.

The use of hand held camera and depth of field in the opening sequence, when Mia is followed through the council estate in an extended tracking wide shot, reinforce the visual aesthetics of the social realist style. The style makes it appear more realistic (a typical approach), adding to the impact and sense that these types of events really occur in society: almost as if it was 'documenting' real life. This connection between the chosen style and the context make 'Fish Tank' highly typical of the social realist genre; characters portray real life social problems and the visual style gives it more 'realism': unlike 'Sin City' which is highly stylised and based on a combination (or hybrid) of film noir and comic-book genre conventions.   

Key strengths:

References to the question: Repeated reference to key words in the question show an engagement with the central issues

Use of terminology: Details of stylistic features shows an understanding of how meaning is conveyed

Develops an argument: An argument is supported by reference to key moments & issues in each film

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Katie Jarvis:

In this interview in Little White Lies Fish Tank actress Katie Jarvis talks about her crazy last 12 months and her hopes for the future.

When Katie Jarvis won the Best British Performance award at Edinburgh this year, she didn’t need to thank God, or her hairdresser or any of the acceptance speech regulars. She needed to thank her boyfriend for being a pain in the arse.

Because if Katie’s boyfriend wasn’t a pain in the arse, they wouldn’t argue so much. And if they didn’t argue so much, she wouldn’t have been mouthing off at him across the platform of Tilbury Town train station in 2008. And if she hadn’t been mouthing off at him across the platform of Tilbury Town train station in 2008, the casting assistant for Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank would never have noticed her. And if the casting assistant for Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank had never noticed her, the landscape of young British actors would look subtly but vitally different. Plucked off the streets of Essex with no acting experience, Katie has seen her face plastered across billboards, her name celebrated in exalted circles and her debut film nominated for the prestigious Palme d’Or.

Fish Tank is the second feature from a writer/director whose hard-bitten debut, Red Road, catapulted her into the front line of young, socially conscious British filmmakers. Fish Tank is a worthy successor, shot entirely on location in Essex, where the urban sprawl of London gives way to the wide open spaces where the Thames meets the sea.

Read the full interview here.

'Fish Tank': Very Good Student Response

'Fish Tank' is a social realist film targeted at a niche audience; this is a film displaying a realistic portrayal of British society and the physical and mental struggles that some individuals face. The actors used in social realist films are usually unknown actors, for example; Mia was selected to feature in 'Fish Tank' because she was caught rowing with her boyfriend at a train station, the use of unknown actors adds to the realism factor of the text. Typically, films within the social realist genre are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind; this is true of this particular film. In this particular film, nearly all of the shots are filmed via a handheld camera; the use of the handheld camera in social realist films expresses the characters feelings and makes it more realistic and believable. Shots also used are tracking shots to show her walking at a very fast pace, almost as if she is running away from her problems. For example when Mia is first shown in the opening scene walking briskly through the estate the camera tracks her in a hand-held shot to reinforce the sense of realism. At this point only the diegetic sounds of the Urban estate can be heard with traffic noises recognised some way in the distance. When Mia throws stones and yells abuse at her friends father her attitude and behaviour reveal the working class conventions of the social realist genre. Her East London ascent and her use of swear words; such as "Tell your old man he's a ****" give a clear indication of her lower class upbringing and  'chavvy' representation; once again regular aspects within the genre.

During one scene Mia is using the hob and a saucepan to boil some water which shows they don’t have a kettle. This also displays the social realist convention of a lack of wealth, which is shown the miss-en-scene of the estate they live; they don’t even close the front door to their property. The horse in the film that Mia tries to free has a significant impact, I believe this is trying to show the fact they are connected in that they are both trapped and facing a struggle, the struggle faced is a convention of this particular genre of film. The lighting in a social realist film is usually natural because it makes the shots more open and doesn’t change the natural effect that the use of staged lighting may destroy. The only time natural lighting isn’t used is when Mia drifts into a fantasy moment and the lighting changes to an orange tint, her breathing also becomes heavier and exaggerated diegetically creating an enigma code as to why she is breathing this way. This enigma code is uncovered when she sleeps with Connor and the heavy breathing is repeated. Issues of representation and particularly Laura Mulvey’s theory of 'the male gaze' are opposed in 'Fish Tank' due to Mia’s female gaze and the way she sees Connor as lustful and the way her scopophillic desires are satisfied. Mia heard her mum having sex with Connor, but also Mia’s younger sister also heard Mia having sex with him, this shows that they are trapped in a cycle of learning behaviour from one another, as they are trapped in such a tightly-knit environment. When the balloon glides away at the end it could be to represent Mia’s freedom and how she has escaped the urban struggle which hopefully moving away with her new boyfriend will eliminate.

Good work Jack

'Fish Tank': It's Relevance to 1950's/1960's British Social Realist Films

In Andrea Arnold’s film, “Fish Tank,” an unsmiling 15-year-old named Mia (Katie Jarvis), who lives in a housing project in Essex, in England, becomes close to the boyfriend of her uncaring mother. The man, an Irish charmer named Connor, played by Michael Fassbender, gives her money and lends her his video camera so that she can tape herself dancing to hip-hop. It soon becomes apparent that the relationship between Mia and Connor is becoming dangerously intimate.

Ms. Arnold shot “Fish Tank” in a raw, nonjudgmental and observational style with plenty of hand-held camerawork. The film, which was in the United States on Friday, is recognizably the work of the same unflinching filmmaker who made “Red Road” (2006) and “Wasp,” which won the 2005 Oscar for best live-action short. The consistent look and the working-class milieu of Ms. Arnold’s films align them with the three British directors most associated with social realism: Ken Loach, Mike Leigh and Alan Clarke, who died in 1990.

The difficulties in Britain of raising money to make films prohibits cohesive movements in the national cinema, and like other directors who have worked in a social realist style — including Gary Oldman (the actor, who directed “Nil by Mouth”), Carine Adler (“Under the Skin”), Lynne Ramsay (“Ratcatcher”) and Duane Hopkins (“Better Things”) — Ms. Arnold is something of a lone voice. Her reputation as an auteur could come to rest on whether her films successfully harness her chosen style to express social themes, or whether they are merely anecdotes that look like Mr. Loach’s films.

Ms. Arnold admits to being a fan of Mr. Loach, but is hesitant about making claims for herself as a social realist. “I guess I am,” she allowed during a recent telephone interview. “When people have suggested it, I’ve said, ‘Oh, am I?’ I know it sounds kind of mad, but I just get on and make my films in my own way as best I can. I’m not aware that I’m joining any group. I know that all the people that have made similar films in the past paved the way for me to be able to do it, and I’m obviously influenced by what came before, but I’m not that conscious of it.”

Source: nytimes.com

'A' Grade Exam Response: Section A - Text (Film)

How typical are your three main texts of their genre?

The three texts chosen are a mixture of genres. Postmodern films in today's society are growing more prominent, two of the three films are hybrids of two or more genres, these two being 'Sin City' and 'District 9'. The third is 'Fish Tank', a purely social realist film.

'Sin City' is a hybrid of film noir, comic book and horror conventions which is not only postmodern but is also typical in its use of genre conventions. 'Sin City' uses classic film noir conventions such as a cynical protagonist in the form of two main characters Hartigan and Marv, rain-soaked streets, low-key lighting and a voice-over narrative. A good example of this cynical protagonist convention is Marv who states that "Hell is waking up every goddam day and not knowing why you're here" in a voice over. This shows how much he despises himself, it also shows a typical film noir genre convention in his character portrayal and the way his thoughts are conveyed. This stems from the theme of paranoia, an aspect of all film noir characters which originates from the 1940's view of society in the wake of World War II and the possibility of a new 'cold war'.

Another example of 'cold war' paranoia can be seen through Bruce Willis's character Hartigan. One scene reflects this mood when Hartigan is shot in the back by his cop 'buddy' Bob, again this displays the typical noir convention of corruption and anxiety present in such classic films as 'Double Indemnity' and 'The Maltese Falcon'. Hartigan's heroic actions are demonstrated in his desire to save the innocent girl Nancy from the corrupt Senator's son, he clearly wishes to stop evil which is dominating the powerful leaders in the city. He cannot depend upon friends and is impelled by his conscience to oppose 'sin' as a moralistic cause which leads to his demise as females tend to do in typical noir narratives.

In terms of mise-en-scene the trench coat Hartigan wears is typical of the noir genre but it also resembles the typical comic-book convention of a 'caped super-hero', making the film somewhat of a hybrid. Applying Propp's character roles within the comic-book genre in 'Sin City' we can see how the cape has been used to represent a superhero, constantly blowing in the wind. However when Marv goes to kill or hurt somebody he removes his trench coat showing he is carrying out a good deed, his character is more complex, more of an anti-hero another typical noir convention.

Noir films typically also contain a femme-fatale and 'Sin City' contains many. Each male character has contact with a female character who could, in some way, be said to resemble this common character; for Hartigan it's Nancy, for Marv it's Wendy and for Dwight it's Shelley & Gail. Wheras Wendy and Shelley are typical femme-fatales, Nancy is also seen as an innocent young girl, displaying how the genre can be made different for a postmodern audience.

'District 9' is also a hybrid genre, mixing typical Sci-Fi conventions with documentary stylistics and narrative structure. Typical Sci-Fi conventions can be seen with the use of advanced technology, aliens, robotics and spaceships. These conventions are mixed though with a documentary style approach to the narrative structure creating a feeling that the events are 'real'. The use of 'faux' stock footage of news reports and interviews with experts and civilians makes the events seem more truthful or realistic. The use of hand-held camera also reinforces this reading as this is a typical cinematic technique of a documentary.

In the opening scenes of 'District 9' we see interviews with various 'expert' witnesses giving us clear exposition to the events which have led up to the alien landings. This is important in developing a realistic documentary approach to the narrative, something that may be seen as new to the typical Sci-Fi conventions of other films such as 'The Fly' or 'Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers'. The interaction between the main character Wikus and the cameraman, when he is unable to remove his microphone from his clothing, is playful in its approach to mixing the realistic and the fictional elements of the film. This is something not typical of the Sci-Fi genre but shows how genres repeat conventions and also make them different by mixing styles.

'Fish Tank' however is not a hybrid, it follows the codes and conventions of the social realist genre very closely. Its kitchen sink style relates to well established generic techniques and themes. It revolves around topical social issues (family dysfunction & underage sex), makes use of hand-held camera and can be viewed as gritty and realistic in terms of its representation of British social life. The mise-en-scene of a working class council estate can be seen in the opening sequence and is typical of the genre. In this scene we can instinctively conclude that this is of the social realist genre as Mia shouts "Tell your old man that I think he's a c*nt". This alone clearly shows her working class upbringing; but the use of long takes, hand-held camera and use of only diegetic urban sounds as she quickly walks through the estate can be seen as typical stylistic conventions of the social realist genre. Her brisk walking continues throughout the film and suggests a character who is going nowhere fast. Original social realist films of the 1960's such as 'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning' and 'A Taste of Honey' dealt with similar social issues and also contained similar techniques, but they tended to include non-diegetic music to support the action and emotional context to appeal to a mainstream audience. This shows how the genre has developed over time, as all genres do, but 'Fish Tank' has pushed the genre to new depths of realism by attempting to create more realistic representations of social situations. 

The narrative issue of 15 year old Mia's desire for a sexual relationship with Connor, her mother's boyfriend, could also be seen as a controversial topic in today's society to spark debate, a regular consequence of the generic conventions of social realism. 

In conclusion, all three texts are very typical of their genres, using many classic conventions from each different genre. In some cases these may be mixed with other genres to develop a wider audience and create difference for modern audiences.      

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Social Realism

Better than any other genre, social realism has shown us to ourselves, pushing the boundaries in the effort to put the experiences of real Britons on the screen, and shaping our ideas of what British cinema and British life can be.

Social realism in films is representative of real life, with all its difficulties. The stories and people portrayed are everyday characters, usually from working class backgrounds. Typically, films within the social realist genre are gritty, urban dramas about the struggle to survive the daily grind.

One of the strongest images of postwar British cinema is that of factory worker Arthur Seaton downing a pint in one at the end of another week in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Also in A Taste of Honey (1961) prejudices and social values were explored in British cinema for the first time.

These films dealt with prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, alienation and relationship problems; issues that were seen as controversial at the time. Here were factory workers, office underlings, dissatisfied wives, pregnant girlfriends, runaways, the marginalised, poor and depressed.

This British New Wave was symptomatic of a worldwide emergence of art cinemas challenging mainstream aesthetics and attitudes. The New Wave protagonist was usually a working-class male without bearings in a society in which traditional industries and the cultures that went with them were in decline. Directors like Ken Loach and films such as those by Mike Leigh's High Hopes (1988) and The Full Monty (1997) have addressed the erosion of regional and class identities amid a landscape rendered increasingly uniform by consumerism and social structures.

Descendants of this style at the BBC in the 1960s, Ken Loach and Mike Leigh assessed the impact of the consumer society on family life, charting the erosion of the welfare state and the consensus that built it. Looking back, Loach's work seems to reflect the shift from the collectivist mood of the war years to the individualism of the postwar decades in its very form. Loach's films went from the improvised long-take naturalism of Poor Cow and Kes (both 1969) to the 'social melodrama' of Raining Stones (1993).

In the 1980s, publisher-broadcaster Channel 4 attempted to cultivate a cinema audience for realism. Responding to the moralistic entrepreneurialism of the Thatcher years, 'Films on Four' My Beautiful Laundrette and Letter to Brezhnev (both 1985) followed characters from the margins as they attempted to stake a claim in the new order. Meanwhile, more lethal and complex representations of men and women appeared in Shane Meadows' A Room for Romeo Brass (1999) and This Is England (2006) added more diverse representations of modern culture.

'Fish Tank' can be seen as a direct descendant of this type of cinema in its portrayal of a young girl disillusioned by her lifestyle, social insignificance and prospects who seeks escape in her passion to express herself in dance.

Genre & Narrative Theory

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Film

'A' Grade Exam Response

Section A: Text

To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre? [30]

The three chosen texts that I have analysed are 'Sin City', 'District 9' and 'Fish Tank'. All of which use different genre codes and conventions to create an interesting text that communicates a unique message to its audience.

'Sin City' is a product of postmodernism and is a hybrid of comic book and film noir conventions. This film focuses and is influenced mainly by the film noir genre and takes the feelings and attitudes felt at the time of the cold war, post WW2. These feelings include mistrust, paranoia, corruption and depression. This could also be linked to how film noir protagonists are cynical. For example, Marv says “I don’t even know why I’m on this Earth”. This is clearly a sign of depression that adds to the cynical attitude that Marv has throughout the film. A good example of the corruption within the film is the scene where Bob (John Hartigans partner) shoots John in the back because he wants to stop the senator’s son from hurting Nancy (a young girl).

Another convention of film noir that is present in 'Sin City' is the use of voice over narration. These are used only for the main protagonists to allow the audience to gain a deeper insight into that they are feeling at that moment in time. An example of this is when Dwight is talking about how he misheard his girlfriend saying, “Stop” when she actually said, “Cop” after the women in Old Town had just killed him. With this narration it helps guide the audience into what is happening with each interweaving storyline within the film and is typical of classic film noir from the 40's.

Other typical conventions of the film noir genre is the consumption of alcohol, prostitution and smoking. This is shown throughout the whole film. For example, the scene where Marv gets kidnapped in the bar, when he is drinking. The scene whereby Dwight has just fought off the cops with the women, he is clearly shown to smoke. Finally the scene whereby JackieBoy is trying to pick up one of the girls in old town hints at the idea at prostitution and perverse sexuality, clear indications of noir conventions.

All of the above are typical conventions of the film noir genre, however 'Sin City' also includes comic book conventions to create a more modern and interesting film that would appeal to a wider modern audience. For example, the protagonists have superhero powers often found in comic book/films. A scene which shows this well is when Bob shoots John in the back 5-7 times after he tries to save Nancy from the senator’s son. After getting shot this many times he still doesn’t die, instead he falls to the floor and continues talking - a reference to superhuman abilities, typical of the comic book genre.

Within 'Sin City' there are clear hero/villain roles, a convention often seen in comic book/films. The character of Marv, Dwight and John are seen as heroes by saving the princesses (regarding Propp's character theory) i.e. Nancy and Goldie. The most obvious villains within the film are Kevin, the villian who ate many prostitutes and the ‘Yellow Bastard’, the person who kidnaps Nancy near the end of the film who finds sexual pleasure in his victims screaming so then he can rape them.

Another film that could be considered postmodern for its experimentation with genre conventions is the sci-fi film ‘District 9’. The film contains conventions of the science fiction genre and a documentary approach to many of its stylistics, in effect it takes a similar approach to ‘Sin City’ in adopting new conventions. The film could be seen as science fiction, for its use of intertextuality within the genre. The scene in which Wikus begins to transform, biting off his own nails in the mirror, is a visual reference to David Cronenberg’s film ‘The Fly’. This is postmodern for its use of intertextuality and therefore makes it typical of the sci-fi genre. However, there are also more blatant science fiction conventions that could also be mentioned. For instance during the final scenes of the film, Wikus fights the MNU soldiers in a giant robotic suit, displaying his ability to use new alien technology. The use of new and futuristic technology here is a key element of science fiction, a genre that is heavily influenced by the realities of modern scientific discoveries. This action sequence is also reminiscent (and a convention) of many other science fiction films, most notably ‘Aliens’ when Ripley fights the alien creature in a similar way. The genre also lends itself to long futuristic action sequences, something that a sci-fi audience would expect. As well as this, District 9 features a completely new social and cultural way of living. The scene that depicts a street sign saying ‘No non-human loitering’, is an example of how the social way of living has adapted itself to alien life. This convention is typical of the science fiction genre, as it takes a futuristic way of life and combines it with reality. It is reminiscent of the science fiction film ‘Serenity’ which combines a futuristic setting with genre conventions of a western.

Despite its heavy science fiction influence, ‘District 9’ also takes conventions of the documentary format, thus making it less typical of the science fiction genre. As with ‘Sin City’, the film’s exploration in convention dilutes it from being considered one genre alone, making it postmodern. For example, its use of on- screen graphics and news montage is a convention of documentary, applied to a fictional text to give it the illusion of reality. In the opening sequence, an on screen newsreel reading ‘Aliens riot in the streets of Johannesburg’, accompanies news footage of rioting aliens. Blomkamp is using irony here, to reflect the reality of the themes and representations: the aliens represent the black people during the apartheid in South Africa. By giving something so obviously fictional a realistic documentary convention, it makes it postmodern, again making it impossible to identify it as one genre. Another example of documentary conventions.

'Fish Tank' is more typical in its use of social realism conventions and could also be considered very much a 'kitchen sink drama'. Social realism conventions include the use of predominantly diegetic sound, hand held camera work, a narrow depth of field, working class lifestyles and social problems, but it also presents a linear narrative for the audience making it appear more realistic. Hand held camera work can be seen throughout the film, it helps to show to the audiences Mia’s point of view, it helps to track her movements and constantly follows her round in the film. At the start of the film the audience sees Mia walking around on her own, the use of a wide angle shows that she is comfortable in the environment she is in and shows that she is in touch with the environment. This stylistic quality clearly makes 'Fish Tank' appear the most realistic representation of the texts I have studied and sets it apart from the other films discussed as it has more relevance to 'real life' than the fantasy aspects of both 'Sin City' and 'District 9'.

The locations and regional accents also help to reinforce social realism conventions, it helps the audience recognize that Mia's from London, this can be identified through the accent and the language they use “tell her that her old mans a c**t”. The mise-en-scene helps to establish the location of the film; working class council flats, which are also a regular convention of the genre.

Fundamentally when analysing to what extent a film is typical of its genre, it is important to look at the codes and conventions used within the text. With this in mind, many films can experiment with conventions, creating a hybrid of genres showing that many modern films are now considered postmodern. Both 'Sin City' and 'District 9' mix elements of genres and style whilst 'Fish Tank' could be said to be more typical of its use of classic conventions.

How To Construct An 'A' Grade Response - MS4 Section: Text

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Read an interview with Andrea Arnold, the director of 'Fish Tank', here @ filmmakermagazine.com. Filmmaker spoke with Arnold about her faith in cinema, the simple act of observing everyday life, and why her New Year’s resolution is to dance every day. Watch an interview with Michael Fassbender below.

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Andrea Arnold's acclaimed story of forbidden love in Essex is a powerful film in a bleak landscape, powered by fizzing performances from Michael Fassbender and newcomer Katie Jarvis. Read this review from The Guardian for a critical perspective of the film.

British social realism in film

British Social Realism from M Taylor

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

'Kes' is a 1969 British film from the social realist director Ken Loach (a former student at King Edward Grammar School, Nuneaton). The film has certain similarities to 'Fish Tank' as it focuses on 15-year-old Billy Casper, who has little hope in life and is bullied both at home, by his physically and verbally abusive half-brother, Judd, as well as at school. He is mischievous himself; he steals milk from milk floats, gets other students into trouble and generally fights and misbehaves. Billy comes over as an emotionally neglected boy with little self-respect. Billy's mother refers to him in the film as a "hopeless case".

'Kes' and social realism:

• Low budget filmmaking
• Hand-held camera (documentary feel)
• On location
• Deals with social issues/problems
• Socio-political messages and values
• Working class lifestyles
• Non-actors
• 'Kitchen Sink'

Fish Tank: Genre/Representation - Social Realism

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

The British New Wave Cinema lasted only a few years, in effect from 1959 to 1963. And its output amounted to no more than, arguably, half a dozen films at most. But, albeit small in number, they were influential films and powerfully evocative, and enough to prompt leading critics of the day to talk of ‘a renaissance in British cinema’.

Coming at the end of a decade that was widely perceived as ‘a doldrums era’, replete with lightweight comedy fare, gothic horror films and endless war vehicles, or so it seemed, the New Wave films were greeted by audiences as a breath of fresh air – and paved the way, moreover, for the transatlantic success that awaited British cinema in the Swinging Sixties.

Directors and Writers

The leading directors of New Wave cinema were Tony Richardson, Karel Reisz, John Schlesinger and Lindsay Anderson. Most came from the theatre, principally the Royal Court Theatre, where Richardson had directed the plays of John Osborne, notably Look Back in Anger and The Entertainer to great critical acclaim. In fact, the major production company behind British New Wave cinema, Woodfall films, was set up by Richardson and Osborne precisely to put these stage plays on to the big screen, which they did with the likes of Richard Burton and Laurence Olivier in the leading roles.

Woodfall’s fortunes fared even better when Richardson and Reisz spread their net wider to draw on northern realist novelists or playwrights such as Alan Sillitoe and Shelagh Delaney, and, what’s more, took the unusual step for the film industry of those times of engaging these authors to do the screenplays for the films of their own works. Taking the cameras out of the studio confines and engaging in larger amounts of location shooting was another first for the industry, and not at all welcomed in mainstream circles. But social realism was the watchword of these new film-makers, scriptwriters, and a younger generation of actors, including Albert Finney, Rita Tushingham, Shirley Anne Field, Tom Courtenay, Alan Bates, Rachel Roberts, Richard Harris and the like.

Karel Reisz had the first big commercial success with Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960), while Tony Richardson made A Taste of Honey (1961) and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962) and Lindsay Anderson engaged David Storey to script his own book of This Sporting Life (1963), which effectively brought New Wave Cinema to an end.

Realism and After

The social realism fostered by New Wave Cinema, in particular, made an indelible and lasting impression on British film-makers for many years, and can even be discerned in such recent films as Pater Cattaneo’s international hit, The Full Monty (1997), as well as Lynne Ramsay’s art-house success, Ratcatcher (1999) and Andrea Arnold's Fish Tank (2009). The spirit of the New Wave, in short, extended way beyond its own period and, indeed, still flourishes in British cinema today.

'Saturday Night and Sunday Morning'

Adapted from Alan Sillitoe’s rebellious first popular novel, which is about the new young working class, directed by Karel Reisz and produced by Tony Richardson, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning stars Albert Finney, Rachel Roberts and Shirley Anne Field. The film was a revelation when it was initially released, not just for its realistic style, but also for its graphic portrayal of sex, extra-marital affairs, strong language, and, most contentious of all, abortion.

The British Board of Film Censors, for instance, urged a general toning down of all the language and sex scenes. In particular, it required that the successful abortion scene promised in the screenplay and evident from the first in Sillitoe’s original novel, be rendered ultimately ineffective and that the film-makers follow a policy of ‘social responsibility’ as far as possible.

Extract edited from: The Open University

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

What is Social Realism?

Cinematically the British New Wave is part of a tradition of social realism within British film which has seen many shifts since the growth of the British documentary movement in the 1930s. Realism is a difficult concept because encapsulated within it there are a range of changing aesthetic conventions all of which have as a central concern the intention of representing ‘the world as it really is’ or ‘life as it is really lived’. Lay (2002) points out:

There is no universal, all-encompassing definition of realism, nor is there agreement amongst academics and film-makers as to its purpose and use. But what we can say is that there are many ‘realisms’ and these realisms all share an interest in presenting some aspect of life as it is lived’. Carroll (1996) suggests that the term should only be used with a prefix attached. This is because another important feature of all realisms is how they are produced at specific historical points. The addition of a prefix, such as social-, neo-, documentary-, specifies the’ what’ and crucially, ‘when’ of that movement or moment. What is regarded as ‘real’, by whom, and how it is represented is unstable dynamic, and ever-changing, precisely because realism is irrevocably tied to the specifics of time and place. ‘Moment’” (Lay, Samantha, 2002: p 8)

As Andre Bazin also noted, each era looks to the technique and aesthetic which can best capture aspects of reality, thus realism is in itself an aesthetic construct dependent upon a set of artistic conventions and forms. It has been noted that for a film to be realist rather than just realistic there are 2 necessary fundamentals. There must have been the intention to capture the experience of the event depicted and secondly the film-maker must have a specific argument or message to make about the social world employing realist conventions to express this.

Raymond Williams has argued that the four main criteria of social realism incorporate the following features:

• Firstly that the texts are secular, released from mysticism and religion
• Secondly that they are grounded in the contemporary scene in terms of setting, characters and social issues
• Thirdly that they contain an element of social extension by which previously under-represented groupings in society become represented
• Fourthly there is the intent of the artist which is mostly a political one although some artists have used the genre as route into a mainstream film-making career.

Social Realism and Representation

Social realist texts usually focus on the type of characters not generally found in mainstream films. Social realist texts draw in characters who inhabit the social margins of society in terms of status and power. This ‘social extension’ has usually involved the representation of the working class at moments of social and economic change.

For example there was a shift in modes of representation of the working class from the Grierson documentaries of the 1930s to British Free Cinema documentaries and the British New Wave features which followed on from the Free Cinema Movement. Free Cinema and New Wave chose to represent the working class neither in victim mode, nor in heroic worker mode as had been done previously. The working class were to be seen as more energetic and vibrant.

Critics generally accept that women have faired badly in the representations of the British New Wave, although Loach’s Poor Cow (1967) and TV docudramas Up the Junction and Cathy Come Home helped redress the balance. By the 1980s social realist films such as Letter to Brehznev (1985), Sammy and Rosie Get Laid (1987) reflected the changing nature of society and the growing importance of women in the workforce, not only women but humour too was more apparent. This approach continued into the 1990s with films such as Mike Leigh’s Career Girls (1997). Some have argued that the portrayal of women took a retrograde step in the mid to late 1990s as they became adept consumers unsupportive of husbands as in Brassed Off (1996) and The Full Monty (1997). Alternatively women became victims of domestic violence or sexual abuse such as Stella Does Tricks (1996) or Nil By Mouth (1997).

It has been argued that in general the representation of the working class has shifted from being producers to consumers reflected in a move which has seen members of the working class in more privatised domestic environments and leisure-time settings instead of as members of geographical communities or in workplace environments where collective bargaining procedures are in place.

Whilst social realist representation has tended to focus upon white working class males there has been some breakthrough in terms of race in films such as My Beautiful Laundrette (1985) and Bahji on the Beach (1994). The changing sense of Britishness has been represented through cultural hybridity and multiculturalism from the mid 1980s through until Chada’s Bend it Like Beckham moving from social real to a more fantasy mode in the process. Recently social extension has begun to be granted to the position of asylum seekers and refugees and those effected by the diasporic forces relating to globalisation and the collapse of the post-capitalist states such as Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things (2002) which concerns issues of globalised inequality from a social realist perspective.

Source: blogs.warwick.ac.uk

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

Fish Tank: Review

Director Andrea Arnold works wonders in Fish Tank, an Essex-based kitchen sink drama which shows British film at its best.

It was clear from Red Road, Andrea Arnold’s darkly compulsive tale of surveillance and revenge in Glasgow, that a distinctive new British filmmaker had arrived on the scene.

We need all of these we can get, so praise be that Arnold’s follow-up, Fish Tank, has the same confident signature. The sinuous camerawork of Robbie Ryan prowls around a housing estate, this time in Essex, and the story is a collision course whose precise moment of impact we can’t guess. If this is social realism, it’s a kind with prickly cinematic voltage and no redundant lesson to teach. It’s tremendous.

Fifteen-year-old Mia (newcomer Katie Jarvis) is the film’s heroine, and rarely has a more scowling, stroppy, wilful teenager had the whole forcefield of a movie at her disposal. She lives on insult. “Call me back, you bitch!” may not be the best-chosen words to patch up a blighted friendship; there’s even less love lost between Mia and her single mum (Kierston Wareing), who wants to pack her off into juvenile care.

If Arnold has one great skill, it’s charging up the spaces between her characters – she can put two people in a room and make it seethe. When Irish charmer Connor (Michael Fassbender) walks half-naked into their kitchen for the first time, sex is added to Fish Tank’s miasma of tensions.

Mia falls back on her natural defence mechanism – lippiness – but there’s clearly something between them. She peeks into her mother’s bedroom at night, and pays Connor coy visits at work. His own status in the household is hard to read. Is he protector, predator, or what?

Even by Fassbender’s high standards, this is a spellbinding turn, and the film shifts gears unmistakably whenever it’s around him. Arnold coaxes totally convincing performances from Jarvis, who ably suggests awkwardness and shyness beneath Mia’s keep-off exterior, and Rebecca Griffiths as her younger sister Tyler, a swearing tyke with an amazingly filthy laugh.

There are false notes here and there: a subplot about a local gipsy (Harry Treadaway) and his ailing white horse feels like standard urban fairy tale. But Arnold works wonders almost everywhere in this film: the drip-drop drabness of kitchen-sink drama is stilled, alive, and newly dangerous.

By Tim Robey3 (Telegraph) : 10 Sep 2009

MS4 - Text, Industry & Audience: Fish Tank (Genre/Representation)

For a history of Social Realism in British Cinema visit the Screenonline site here. it will be useful for understanding the genre and representational issues at work in 'Fish Tank'. Watch the trailer below.

British New Wave Cinema 1959-1969 (including Social Realism)

What is Social Realism?

Cinematically the British New Wave is part of a tradition of social realism within British film which has seen many shifts since the growth of the British documentary movement in the 1930s. Realism is a difficult concept because encapsulated within it there are a range of changing aesthetic conventions all of which have as a central concern the intention of representing ‘the world as it really is’ or ‘life as it is really lived’.

Britain today is still a society in many ways defined by class, but in the 1950s divisions were far more rigid. The 'new wave' films and the sources that inspired them gave a voice to a working-class that was for the first time gaining some economic power.

Previously, working-class characters in British cinema had largely been used for comic effect or as 'salt of the earth' cannon fodder. Here we see their lives at the centre of the action. That action, such as it is, details everyday dramas - hence 'the kitchen sink' tag. We see events through the emotional journeys of the characters.

Interestingly, only Room at the Top (d. Jack Clayton, 1958) and Look Back in Anger (d. Tony Richardson, 1959) look directly at conflict between working-class and middle-class characters.

The later films concentrate on conflicts within the working-class contrasting 'rough' (the very poor, unskilled, criminal and hedonistic - represented by characters like Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (d. Karel Reisz, 1960) and Colin Smith and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, d. Richardson, 1962) with 'respectable' (skilled, aspirational, educated and 'moral' - such as the heroes of John Schlesinger's films: Vic Brown in A Kind of Loving (1962) and the life that Billy Fisher in Billy Liar (1963) appears to lead).

The debates around class are complex. There is recognition that social change and affluence will make society 'freer' but there is also an understanding that the basis of power will not change.

Section A: Text - Exam Response for Film Texts

To what extent are your chosen texts typical of their genre? [30]

The three chosen texts are all films typical of their genres; focusing on the films Sin City, District 9 and Fish Tank.

Sin City is classified as a Hybrid genre, film noir and comic book. By creating Sin City in this post modern form, it mixes genre conventions to create a new identity and broadening its audience by not limiting individual genre conventions and excluding viewers who hold an oppositional reading of them. Postmodern is the recycling of ideas, showing that nothing is original anymore.

The Film Noir conventions are present throughout the film; with themes of mistrust, paranoia, corruption and depression; these themes of mistrust and paranoia can be seen early on the in the film when Bob, a corrupted cop, stabs Hartigan in the back and then shoots him. All of the protagonists are depressed and they don’t care for their own life and safety, (one of the protagonists) John Hartigan doesn’t care if he gets killed while rescuing the young girl, Nancy, he says “Old man dies a young girl lives” clearing displaying to the audience that he doesn’t care about himself and backing up the idea of depression in the protagonists is a typical convention of film noir. 

Film noir films have very distinguishable character roles, notably a cynical protagonist and a femme fatale. This noir protagonist is normally driven by their past and is often represented as a hard hearted, disillusioned male character who has encountered a beautiful seductive femme fatale; this can be seen in the character of Marv who is on a mission for women – femme fatale, he states “hell for me is waking up everyday not knowing why I’m here”. A femme fatale is a beautiful woman, cruel and dishonest, willing to do anything to reach her goal and uses the protagonist as a tool to help her accomplish some unsavory deed. The character of Wendy is typical of this role and uses her body to persuade Marv to help her with finding out Goldie’s killer; she is both seductive and deadly another example of a typical character trait.

Comic book conventions are also present throughout the film; the super powers that each protagonist seems to have, the use of diegetic and non-diegetic sounds, and the mise-en-scene is important to make this film a hybrid of the two genres. The use of non-diegetic sound is present throughout the film but is clearly heard through the use of a voice over, it helps the audience to know the protagonists thoughts but also gives the audience an insight into their past. At the beginning of the film when the character of John Hartigan is going to save the character of Nancy it is showing to the audience his thought process and how he has to will himself to go on. This convention is typical of this genre. However, Sin City’s mix of these two genres is also not uncharacteristic of other productions as it is also present in the stylistically similar ‘The Spirit’.

The use of over exaggerated superhuman strength and super powers can seen in the film when a grenade lands in Dwight’s lap and he survives, this is typical of the comic book convention. Another character, Marv is able to jump off a building and is able to walk away unhurt, his super human strength can also be seen in the film shortly after he has been electrocuted he comes back to life. The use of hard and low key lighting is also another key convention of this hybrid genre, casting shadows onto the faces of characters and creating an air of suspense around them. Kev the Cannibal is first shown in hard lighting showing to the audience that this character is untrustworthy. The lighting is key for when the audience first meets the character.

District 9, like Sin City, is also classified as a hybrid genre mixing together sci-fi conventions with documentary conventions. The Sci-Fi conventions are present throughout the film; with the theme of aliens and humans living together, futuristic themes, new technologies and their consequences but also scientific explanations to justify the narrative plot are all common of the sci-fi genre. The use of new technologies and their consequences can be seen when Wikus is carrying out a search of a slum and finds a canister filled full of liquid, he tampers with the canister which results in the liquid being sprayed in his face, the fluid makes him feel sick and it becomes clear that is it causing his body to change into an alien.

Futuristic themes are also a common sci-fi convention this can be seen when the audience sees the alien’s spacecraft hovering over Johannesburg, they have travelled through space to get there and now can’t move, with no one from the outside being able to get inside.

Many of the sequences in District 9 are presented as documentary footage; with characters addressing the camera. During these sequences, mobile framing helps to create the impression of a total reality, a complete world; the camera appears free to cast its gaze wherever it wants. In these sequences and in those where the camera is more straightforwardly a dramatic fiction camera, not present in the world the film. The mise-en-scene abounds in revealing details, and looks extremely “lived in” and effect greatly by the extensive use of location shooting in Johannesburg. An extended documentary style sequence at the beginning of the mobile deftly sketches a network of relations between groups; the soldiers-turned private military contractors that MNU in turn employs groups that promote the aliens’ rights.

The use of on screen logos helps to make the footage we are watching to make it feel more realistic as being a documentary. A lot of the footage is shot by ‘MNU’ and is showing how the company works, all of the workers are talking about an event that has already happened, creating an enigma code for the audience, it switches narratives, starting of in the present then flipping to clips of people that work at MNU.

Fish Tank is also a hybrid of genres, mixing together social realism conventions and drama conventions. Social realism conventions include the use of diegetic sound, hand held camera work, a narrow depth of field, working class lifestyles and social problems, but also present a linear narrative for the audience. Hand held camera work can be seen throughout the film, it helps to show to the audiences Mia’s point of view, it helps to track her movements and constantly follows her round in the film. At the start of the film the audience sees Mia walking around on her own, the use of a wide angle shows that she is comfortable in the environment she is in and shows that she is in touch with the environment.

The locations and regional accents help to reinforce social realism conventions, it helps the audience recognize that Mia s from London, this can be identified through the accent and the language they use “tell her that her old mans a c**t”. The mise-en-scene also helps to establish the location of the film within working class council flats, a highly typical convention of the social realist genre.