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IN YOUR SHADOW RESEARCH
Created by British writer and director Shane Meadows, This is England 88 (2011) is the second TV series in the kitchen sink drama saga that began with the film This is England (2006). The story centres on Lol (Vicky McClure), who is haunted by visions of her sexually abusive father Mick (Johnny Harris), who she killed two and a half years earlier after he raped Trev (Danielle Watson), a close friend of hers, then attacked Lol while she confronted him. Set across the Christmas period, the narrative of This is England 88 holds some similarities to the classic festive tale A Christmas Carol (1951), the protagonists of both films being visited by “ghosts” from their respective pasts. The festive period is a time when many people feel at their most vulnerable, plagued by negative thoughts towards their broken family life’s while feeling isolated and alone at a time where the majority of people are happy to be surrounded by family. The story of This is England 88 is driven by such negative thoughts towards family, the stress of keeping Mick’s death a secret manifesting in visions of her dead father. The re-appearance of Mick is a physical embodiment of the guilt that haunts Lol for her part in his death, a spectre of the id and reminder of past traumatic times. The scene in the video above is the second time that Lol encounters a vision of Mick and takes place in her bathroom. This is a location that most people would associate with vulnerability, as we are often in a state of undress or engaging with intimate acts such as using the toilet when in this room. Perhaps this unconscious sense of vulnerability, combined with the fact that Lol has spent the evening with Trev who is now sleeping on her sofa downstairs, is the mechanism that triggers the vision. The jarring reveal of Mick’s reflection in the mirror, his hung jaw, recessed stare and asthmatic breathing instantly conveying an unsettling, unnatural desire, is a simple but effective compositing effect that is in line with the naturalistic tone of the This is England saga. The characterisation of Mick in this scene, however, leans more to the subtly abstract when considering the often lose and improvised nature of the performances of the saga as a whole. This helps give the vision a slight otherworldly feeling of artificialness. It is Mick in physical appearance and voice but beyond the outer surface, there is nothing else there that can harm Lol. After confronting this vision and deciding that it isn’t real, Lol hastily walks past Mick, who closes his eyes, implying that his presence no longer has any power over her. Mick remains as the light is turned off, plunging him into darkness, suggesting that Lol’s refusal to be affected by his presence has pushed him back into a dark corner of her mind. Although the context for Lol’s visions is very different from the context that Mathew has his visions within, there are strong similarities. Both protagonists have lost someone close to them and are suffering from visions of these people that represent repressed emotions. REFERENCE LIST A Christmas Carol (1951) Directed by Brian Desmond-Hurst [Film]. USA: United Artists. This is England (2006) Directed by Shane Meadows [Film]. UK: Optimum Releasing. This is England 88 (2011) Channel 4, 13 December.
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https://cinephiliabeyond.org/persona-ingmar-bergmans-psychological-masterpiece-white-whale-critical-analysis/ http://www.dazeddigital.com/film-tv/article/38844/1/how-persona-reimagined-mental-illness-in-the-movies https://brightlightsfilm.com/a-mindscape-of-mirrors-persona-and-the-cinema-of-self-perception/#.XFtD4tHgpBw Written and directed by Swedish experimental filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, Persona (1966) is a highly atmospheric and complex study of identity that refuses to conform to the tried and tested cinematic standards of narrative and thematic cohesiveness. When famed actress Elisabet Vogler (Liv Ullmann) suddenly stops speaking during a stage performance, a young nurse, Alma (Bibi Andersson), is assigned to care for her. Convalescing at an isolated cottage, Alma begins to confide in her mute patient, while finding it increasingly difficult to distinguish her own persona from that of Elisabet’s. While several key themes are clearly inherent in the quietly chilling narrative of persona, the ambiguous tapestry in which they weave together is very much open to individual interpretation. The word persona translates from Latin to English as “mask”, and as such, the two protagonists can be read as a portrayal of both the way we view our self’s as individuals and the masks that we hide behind when we present ourselves to others. Such thinking is valid when we consider that Elisabet stopped communicating verbally while acting in front of a crowd of cinema goers. This would suggest that Elisabet’s status as an actor represents the mask that we portray to people in our day to day life’s, literally playing a part on our own stage as we engage with other personalities. Elisabet has publicly rejected her mask as a performer on the stage of life and now seeks to acquire a new persona in the form of the overly forthcoming and entrusting Alma, consuming the intimate details that her silence has brought forth from her. A theme of duality is very much evident in this reading, with no solid answer provided come the end of the film as to if Alma and Elisabet are indeed two sides of the same personality. This is the power of the ambiguity that lies at the heart of the narrative choices of Persona. Bergman is wholly willing to surrender the surface value of established cinematic story telling to explore a more deeper, rich tapestry of honest human emotion that is as intangible and fleeting as the depths of the human psyche. The theme of duality extends to the cinematography by frequent Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist. Scenes alternate between the harsh, enveloping shadows of low key lighting and the smooth, hazy softness of high key lighting, reflecting the silence and vocalisation of the protagonist’s duplexity. The framing of the individual shots captures Alma and Elisabet in exquisitely composed two shots, favouring close ups that capture every detail of the emotions that the actress’s eyes and facial expressions authentically convey. Such closeness, when combined with the stillness of the blocking, effortlessly implies an internal intimacy, as if the two woman are somehow sharing the same psychological head space. Inspired by the carefully considered cinematography of Persona, Mathew’s encounters with the Shadow will be captured in two shots that will visually suggest that her presence is a physical representation of Mathew’s repressed desire. This will continue the experimentation with the intimacy of two shots that I felt was very successful when shooting the teaser. REFERENCE LIST Persona (1966) Directed by Ingmar Bergman [Film]. Sweden: Svensk Filmindustri. https://kelseyprofcomm.wordpress.com/2015/10/18/the-male-gaze-in-hitchocks-vertigo/ Continuing from my prior research into Laura Mulvey’s Male Gaze theory, I was inspired to re-watch Vertigo (1958). Directed by master craftsman of suspense Alfred Hitchcock, Vertigo is a taunt, mysterious thriller that explores the theme of obsessive male desire through an evocation of the male gaze. Detective John 'Scottie' Ferguson (James Stewart) retires from the police force after an intense bout of acrophobia, more commonly known as a fear of heights, causes the death of a colleague. An acquaintance of Scottie, Gavin Elster (Tom Helmore), then asks him to spy on his wife Madeleine Elster (Kim Novak), believing that she is possessed by the spirit of her dead grandmother. Scottie reluctantly accepts the job and starts to fall in love with Madeleine. Declaring their love for one another, Madeleine tells Scottie about a recurring nightmare that takes place at a church. While visiting this place, Madeleine throws herself from the bell tower, Scottie unable to reach the top in time to save her after suffering from another attack of acrophobia. Scottie becomes catatonic, spending a year in psychiatric care unable to overcome the lose of Madeleine. When he is finally released, he starts dating Judy Barton (Kim Novak) who bears a striking resemblance to Madeleine, Scottie becoming ever more obsessed with changing Judy’s clothes and hair until she resembles Madeleine down to the very last detail. Both modes of the male gaze that Laura Mulvey defined, the voyeuristic and fetishistic, are represented in the key plot points of Vertigo. The voyeuristic male gaze is strongly evident in the first act of the story. Madeleine is unquestionably presented to Scottie as an object of his desire to be lured towards. Scottie spends a large part of the first act literally gazing upon Madeleine as he tails her, becoming more intrigued with the details of her appearance. In a scene where he follows Madeleine into a museum, he looks at Madeleine’s hair, tied back in a spiral, then up at the painting she is contemplating, noticing that the hair of the subject in the painting is tied back into the same spiral. She is unaware that he is watching him at all times. In the films third act, Scottie’s attention to the details of Judy’s appearance will take on a fetishitic form as he obsesses over every detail of it, turning Judy into a near perfect replica of Madeleine. Neither Judy nor Madeleine are allowed to exist as themselves in the shadow of Scottie’s desire, only as one and the same in his disillusioned fantasy. Vertigo is a film that has been carefully crafted to evoke the male gaze in a thoughtfully voyeuristic manner that can be considered far less crass than the over sexualization of the female form that many other films evoke with its use. Hitchcock’s attention is clearly drawn towards placing the audience within the psychology of the male who is gazing on the female form when designing the shots of the film. He achieves this by purposefully implicating the audience in Scottie’s gaze by merging both his and the audience’s perspective via camera movement. The first shot of the scene where Scottie first sets eyes on Madeleine shows him sat at the bar turning his head to look into the dinning area. The camera then pulls back and away from him in the direction he gazes towards until the camera is now among the dinners then dollies forward through the crowd on Madeline sat at one of the tables. This creates a sense of both Scottie and the audience’s perspectives coming together, as well as a sense of voyeurism as we move through the dinners who are unaware of the audience’s presence. With In Your Shadow, I would like to evoke the male gaze through plot and cinematography in a similar manner to Vertigo but direct it towards Mathew, inverting the gaze through which he captured the photo and the hardline perspective of the public that he has offended. REFERENCE LIST Vertigo (1958) Directed by Alfred Hitchcock [Film]. USA: Paramount Pictures. |
AuthorMy name is Clay Sandford and I am currently studying an FDA in Film and Media Production at University Centre Weston. I have a keen interest in directing, writing and cinematography. ArchivesCategories |