This blog post covers:
THE AUTEUR THEORY
DEFINITION
- The auteur theory
- Laura Mulvey's male gaze
- Postmodernism deconstructionism intertextuality and simulacra
- Bechdel Test
- The gant rule
THE AUTEUR THEORY
DEFINITION
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| Richard Curtis |
- The director has a distinctive style (like Tarantino)
- They tackle social issues
- Assumption that the director is the creator (ignores the editor and writer etc.)
RICHARD CURTIS (A COUNTER EXAMPLE?)
Screenwriter, film director, film producer, television producer.
Known for Love Actually (2003), Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994) and About Time (2013). Associated with a subsidiary of a big 5 conglomerate NBC-Universal. Very successful in commercial terms - his movies don't usually get critically acclaimed!
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Has a distinctive style. Typically rom-coms (hybrid) with white, middle class, southern English actors. Doesn't tackle social issues such as racism, sexism, poverty etc. but arguably disguises it therefore he is not considered an auteur.
However... he's known for working with a mainly female centred genre. Just as is the case with others such as soap operas and women's magazines, this is considered "trashy".
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| Filmography |
SHANE MEADOWS
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| Shane Meadows |
Director, screenwriter, actor.
Known for Dead Man's Shoes (2004), This Is England (2006) and TwentyFourSeven (1997). Associated with an Indie company, Warp.
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Has a very distinctive style. Mainly social realism genre with characters with different representations - e.g. working class, northern English. Tackles racism, mental health and poverty.
- fits definition
- warp minimal box office
- win lots of awards
- flawed and complex protagonist who by the end you sympathise with
- low budget
- racism, mental health, poverty all included
- actors with different accents and races
- social realism genre
- Dead Man's Shoes - hybrid - psychological thriller and social realist
LAURA MULVEY MALE GAZE
The Male Gaze theory by Laura Mulvey focuses on the sexual objectification of women in media. Click here to find out more.
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Carroll Clover another feminist pointed out that this isn't always the case. In Slasher movies, there is a final girl. The protagonist is almost always a teenage girl who isn't sexualised.
- argument against the male gaze
- agencing - having a sense of ownership/control
- Clover agrees that males are more active and females are more passive however not in the horror genre due to the final girl having agency
POSTMODERNISM DECONSTRUCTIONISM INTERTEXTUALITY AND SIMULACRA
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POSTMODERNISM
Argues that all the 'isms', eg. capitalism, communism, are now meaningless - the meta-narratives no longer have the power to explain the world or reality. It is of course self-contradictory: postmodernism is an ism!
Strinati argues there is a collapse in the high/popular culture divide - all are now equally valid.
Such notions lead to playfulness.
The concept of postmodernism denies definition to some extent, but Dominic Strinati outlined 5 key characteristics in 1995 that are often cited:
The ironic use of existing conventions in a knowing way; the audience is assumed to be in on the irony. EG: in Scream the Matthew Lillard character cries out dramatically "I'll be right back", an old horror trope being that this denotes a character will be killed. The other teens at the party respond with that in mind, in a scene where they're sat watching Halloween. Craven is poking fun at, or critiquing, the very genre he helped to create with 1972's The Last House on the Left.
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This occurs across all media - this Depeche Mode video is a classic example, deconstructing the band's poor, tawdry image and the male gaze.
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via GIPHY
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INTERTEXTUALITY
A simple but profound concept originating with Kristeva - the preferred reading (Stuart Hall) of two texts are linked; the viewer needs knowledge of the earlier text to be able to follow the preferred reading of the newer text. TV shows like The Simpsons are built on this, and there is a strong vein of this running through the slasher genre.
To help generate cheap publicity for his 1978 proto-slasher Halloween, director John Capenter cast the daughter of the Psycho's scream queen.
In Scream, the characters are watching Halloween.
SIMULACRA
Scary Movie exemplifies the ideas above - it takes intertextuality to a new level: Scream had the working title of Scary Movie, and this film is a satirical remake, quite literally signposting the conventions (eg the Carmen Electra scream queen sees a sign giving the options for either death or safety... and runs up the stairs where the death sign points to, as the dumb scream queens tend to).
These movies have been much analysed, not least for gender representations. Baudrillard might argue that this leads nowhere as there is no ultimate meaning behind an endless sea of signifiers; Scary Movie is an expression of many existing ideas or signifiers, which cannot be tracked back to any concrete 'true reality' or meaning.
Ideas like encourage playfulness, as seen in these two films.
BECHDEL TEST
The Bechdel Test is a measure of the representation of woman in fiction. To pass the Bechdel test, a movie simply must apply to ONLY 3 rules.
3 RULES:
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POSTMODERNISM
Argues that all the 'isms', eg. capitalism, communism, are now meaningless - the meta-narratives no longer have the power to explain the world or reality. It is of course self-contradictory: postmodernism is an ism!
Strinati argues there is a collapse in the high/popular culture divide - all are now equally valid.
Such notions lead to playfulness.
The concept of postmodernism denies definition to some extent, but Dominic Strinati outlined 5 key characteristics in 1995 that are often cited:
- Breakdown of the distinction between culture and society
- An emphasis on style over substance
- Breakdown of the distinction between high art and popular culture
- Confusions over time and space
- Decline of metanarratives ['grand theories such as Marxism, Christianity and ... modernism have lost their currency for modern societies']*
The ironic use of existing conventions in a knowing way; the audience is assumed to be in on the irony. EG: in Scream the Matthew Lillard character cries out dramatically "I'll be right back", an old horror trope being that this denotes a character will be killed. The other teens at the party respond with that in mind, in a scene where they're sat watching Halloween. Craven is poking fun at, or critiquing, the very genre he helped to create with 1972's The Last House on the Left.
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This occurs across all media - this Depeche Mode video is a classic example, deconstructing the band's poor, tawdry image and the male gaze.
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via GIPHY
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INTERTEXTUALITY
A simple but profound concept originating with Kristeva - the preferred reading (Stuart Hall) of two texts are linked; the viewer needs knowledge of the earlier text to be able to follow the preferred reading of the newer text. TV shows like The Simpsons are built on this, and there is a strong vein of this running through the slasher genre.
To help generate cheap publicity for his 1978 proto-slasher Halloween, director John Capenter cast the daughter of the Psycho's scream queen.
In Scream, the characters are watching Halloween.
SIMULACRA
Scary Movie exemplifies the ideas above - it takes intertextuality to a new level: Scream had the working title of Scary Movie, and this film is a satirical remake, quite literally signposting the conventions (eg the Carmen Electra scream queen sees a sign giving the options for either death or safety... and runs up the stairs where the death sign points to, as the dumb scream queens tend to).
These movies have been much analysed, not least for gender representations. Baudrillard might argue that this leads nowhere as there is no ultimate meaning behind an endless sea of signifiers; Scary Movie is an expression of many existing ideas or signifiers, which cannot be tracked back to any concrete 'true reality' or meaning.
Ideas like encourage playfulness, as seen in these two films.
BECHDEL TEST
The Bechdel Test is a measure of the representation of woman in fiction. To pass the Bechdel test, a movie simply must apply to ONLY 3 rules.
3 RULES:
- It has to have at least 2 (named) women in it
- These 2 women must talk to each other
- They must talk about something other than a man
FILMS WHICH PASS:
- A Star is Born
- Black Panther
- Ocean's 8
- The Meg
- Rampage
FILMS WHICH FAIL:
- Toy Story 2
- La La Land
- Avatar
- Finding Nemo
- Thor: Ragnarok
VIDEO EXPLAINING BECHDEL TEST:
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THE GANT RULE
The Gant Rule is an observation that a movie will make approximately 10 times more box office in the US than the UK. There are around 10 times more cinemas and screens in the US.
US
UK
EXAMPLE
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
Captain America: Civil War, released in 2016, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, roughly complies with the Gant rule.
COUNTER-EXAMPLES
BABY DRIVER
Baby driver, released in 2007, directed by Edgar Wright, is an exception to the Gant Rule as the UK box office is only 6 times less than the American box office.
AVATAR
Avatar, released in 2009, directed by James Cameron, is an exception to the Gant Rule as the UK box office is only 5 times less than the American box office.
THE GANT RULE
The Gant Rule is an observation that a movie will make approximately 10 times more box office in the US than the UK. There are around 10 times more cinemas and screens in the US.
US
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| No. of movie theatres |
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| No. of movie screens |
UK
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| No. of cinemas |
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| No. of cinema screens |
EXAMPLE
CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR
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| domestic (US), international and worldwide box office |
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| UK box office |
Captain America: Civil War, released in 2016, directed by Joe and Anthony Russo, roughly complies with the Gant rule.
COUNTER-EXAMPLES
BABY DRIVER
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| domestic (US), international and worldwide box office |
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| UK box office |
Baby driver, released in 2007, directed by Edgar Wright, is an exception to the Gant Rule as the UK box office is only 6 times less than the American box office.
AVATAR
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| domestic (US), international and worldwide box office |
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| UK box office |
Avatar, released in 2009, directed by James Cameron, is an exception to the Gant Rule as the UK box office is only 5 times less than the American box office.
1 comment:
I can see several times my own distinctive writing style/use of vocab. Take care to paraphrase your own way
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