This is a practice Textual Analysis that came out of recent lessons with my current first year Film group. We did all the research and planning together in class, and wrote the first 2 paragraphs together. I then sent all students away to finish their own version of the essay, and I did the same. This is my version. Textual Analysis Film: Dr. Strangelove or: … Continue reading IBDP Textual Analysis: Dr Strangelove
Both Shane Meadows’ This is England and Lynne Ramsay’s We Need To Talk About Kevin centre around the difficulties associated with teenage boys approaching adulthood, however whereas This Is England revolves around Shaun as the central protagonist, …Kevin pursues an alternative perspective, using the title character as a focal point to explore the identity of his mother, Eva. Although the spectator will automatically form their … Continue reading A-Level exam answer: How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding key characters in This Is England and We Need To Talk About Kevin?
Please note the following is taken from my dissertation (dated 2006) on the television play and its role in the development of the British film industry. Ken Loach and Mike Leigh represent two of Britain’s most dedicated and long-standing filmmakers. Numerous other directors of their generation, coming from similar roots in television drama, have left Britain for Hollywood – Alan Parker has had … Continue reading The Careers of Mike Leigh and Ken Loach
The British film industry of the 1980s and 1990s was dominated by the ‘heritage’ film, to an extent where such films often overshadowed examples of different types of filmmaking. The 1980s in particular where characterised by the success of such films as Chariots of Fire (1981) and A Room With a View (1985), and this was a pattern which continued into the 1990s, with … Continue reading Breaking free from heritage: ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ and ‘Trainspotting’
The 1980s and 1990s were a time of rapid social change; as class barriers shifted, attitudes evolved – towards class, but also towards the different nationalities that make up Britain. Devolution of power to the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly in the late 1990s was an important step in undermining what Peter J. Taylor called ‘the English presumption’ – the automatic equation of ‘British’ … Continue reading ‘Britishness’ and British Film in the 1980s and ‘90s
Since his 1988 debut with As Tears Go By, Wong Kar-Wai has established himself as one of Hong Kong’s premier filmmakers, both locally and internationally. He is one of the major success stories to come out of the region’s ‘Second Wave’ of art cinema, courting huge international interest with his enigmatic and individual film style. Wong’s unique approach to filmmaking could be viewed as … Continue reading Shifting and Uncertain Identity in the Films of Wong Kar-Wai
Throughout her directorial career, Lynne Ramsay has consistently sought to consider themes of violence and death. But whereas her earlier films (1999’s ‘Ratcatcher’; 2002’s Morvern Callar) explore the lives of people dealing with loss, her recent work is more concerned with those who inflict violence. Both ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ (2011) and ‘You Were Never Really Here’ (2017) explore the motivations and psychology … Continue reading Lynne Ramsay’s American Killers: ‘We Need To Talk About Kevin’ and ‘You Were Never Really Here’
The costume design in Matt Ross’s directorial debut is one of the most visually interesting elements of the film, from Ben’s red ‘clown suit’ through to Zaja’s gas mask and road kill hat. (It’s worth reading the New York Times’ interview with costume designer Courtney Hoffman here: Homespun Hippie or Backwoods Gucci?) From the outset, the Cash family’s abundant hair is a further visual indicator … Continue reading Some observations on hair in Captain Fantastic
In ‘Captain Fantastic’ (2016), director Matt Ross constructs a self-consciously egalitarian haven ‘out of Plato’s republic’. The film’s opening sequence presents us with girls who skin animals and build shrines to Pol Pot; men who nurture both plants and small children. In this forest commune, it seems, inequalities of age and gender are swept aside – or at least kept safely at bay in the … Continue reading The Absent Mother: Female Agency and Identity in ‘Captain Fantastic’
Film Studies with Miss Home 