“Explore how the narratives of the films you have studied influence your response to key characters.”

Plan

Intro: A film’s narrative... Both Trainspotting and This Is England are films that very intensely focus on reflecting their key characters’ experiences, and this is often achieved through narrative devices.

Point 1: narration, positions us very closely to renton, so we respond to him positively despite him being a druggy and not adhering to our ideas of what a ‘good’ or ‘attractive’ person would act like

Point 2: episodic timeline (chunks are missed out but largely chronological timeline) alongside expressive filmmaking elements (emotional realism), reflects the emotions of the character (subjective filmmaking, lighting and cinematography reflects perspective of main character) so again we are positioned so strongly alongside renton, to sympathise and identify with him more

Point 3: character arc for renton like at first his rejection of modern middle-class ideals (nihilism) feels cool and like youthful and attractive, but by the end he becomes like complacent which the filmmaking reflects (no longer expressive), which is kinda a shame .. like he could be so much more. Almost feels lame by the end to me

Point 4: character arc for shaun is a bit different because we watch this lost boy make some friends and then get led astray down the wrong path, and he only realises that it’s wrong once it’s too late and he’s been branded by this toxic ideology – very tragic and we are positioned to feel sad for the pitiful path he has chosen and how he has been led down the wrong path by the wrong people (established through tragic non-diegetic composed score that plays throughout the entire film almost like a theme song)

Point 5: montage (in both but mainly this is england), monologues really emphasise the tragedy of shaun’s character arc like him laughing along Combo’s racist story in slow-mo (alongside tragic score) and then his racist indoctrination (again tragic score and pathetic behaviours) prompt us to respond very sympathetically for shaun because he’s just a child with the wrong role models

(Point 6: social realism + reflection of the zeitgeist in story and visuals, this roots shaun as a very real child, he’s relatable, which makes him easier to empathise with and emote with i..e. makes film more emotive.)

Conc.:

Version 1

A film’s narrative refers to the flow and perspective of the story. Both Trainspotting and This Is England are films that very intensely focus on reflecting their key characters’ experiences – this is achieved mainly through the use of narrative devices.

Trainspotting is a film which follows a drug addict through his struggles to quit and pursue a more ‘normal’ lifestyle. The film has a very intriguing narrative, very much serving to immerse the audience more into the characters’ lives – this is mainly achieved through the main character’s narration driving the film, as well as the episodic timeline, expressive filmmaking techniques, and a distinct character arc.

Trainspotting is driven by narration from its very opening sequence: Renton opens the film with this impactful rejection of modern-day ideals, where he mocks the “choose life” anti-drug movement of the eighties and shows scorn for the mundane middle-class life that he’s expected to live. This scene breaks the 4^th wall quite a bit: there is a profile shot of Renton looking straight into the camera after he gets hit by a car, laughing with the audience at the absurdity of the situation that he himself acknowledges. He also sounds like he’s talking to the audience at moments, such as when he says “We’re not stupid”: this not only positions Renton closer to the audience, but also shows a sense of self-awareness that allows him to feel distinct from the type of character we would expect of a drug addict. This characterisation of Renton is definitely one of the most effective things about Trainspotting: his opening monologue clearly illustrates that he is an articulate and thoughtful individual, questioning the status-quo – on top of this, he is a conventionally attractive and well-dressed young man. Audiences are very likely to view him as charming and already be interested in his story from the very beginning, despite him being a drug addict and not adhering to common preconceptions about what a ‘good’ or ‘attractive’ person would act like. This is intriguing and unique, causing us to respond with more curiosity and appeal for how Renton’s storyline will continue.

Another narrative device used to influence our response to Renton is expressive narrative and filmmaking techniques. The narrative is episodic, meaning that although the events largely occur chronologically in the timeline, there are gaps of time between each scene that are not explicitly filled in – rather, the audience infers what has happened in between these moments through elements of the story. The film also uses expressive cinematography and lighting to reflect Renton’s subjective experiences: Boyle reflects his reality and his emotions, but with expressive filmmaking – this is known as emotional realism. An example of this is the sequence where Renton tries to quit heroin cold-turkey, and he experiences severe withdrawal hallucinations: the sequence is nonsensical, with characters appearing and disappearing in front of him to reflect his psychological torment, and his increasing struggles are visually represented through his bedroom becoming longer and his bed moving backwards. A similar technique is used when Renton overdoses just before the previous sequence: when he loses control over his body, this is visually reflected by him sinking into the carpet, and the film takes on a portrait 9:16 aspect ratio, putting the audience in Renton’s viewpoint, his field of vision obstructed by the ‘carpet’ that he’s sunk into until he gets treated at A&E. The entire film’s aesthetics all also reflect Renton’s perspective: when he is living a free, nihilist life, the film’s aesthetics are more vibrant and surreal; when he’s living in London and beginning to adapt to ‘normal’ modern life, the mise-en-scene is much duller, and Renton’s behaviours turn from noticeable and charismatic to naturalistic. All of these techniques serve to position viewers strongly alongside Renton in all aspects of the film, prompting audiences to sympathise and identify with him more, thus greatly influencing our responses to him and his story.

But the strongest influence on my response to Renton in Trainspotting came from the character arc that he goes through: at the beginning of this film, he performs this monologue that almost feels like a nihilist manifesto – it is both impactful and attractive. I think that openly rejecting the status-quo is a very cool thing for an eighteen-year-old to be doing – at least, to other youths who probably have the same desires for change and uniqueness – so even though he’s doing this through something disagreeable like taking drugs, it is still youthful and enticing, which gets us on-board with Renton very quickly. However, as the film progresses, Renton seems to lose this charm as he stops questioning the society he is in – this is particularly evident in the film’s closing sequence, where Renton delivers a monologue that parallels his opening one, but this time embracing the capitalist life that he had rejected previously. He directly addresses the audience in this sequence, as he rhythmically delivers his lines in out-of-focus extreme close-up: he says, “I’m going to be just like you”, as he now wants the “starter homes”, “dental insurance” and “electric tin opener”. This change is reflected visually as well, as mentioned earlier with the film acquiring more of a social realism aesthetic as Renton progresses. Despite this being a healthier choice for him than taking heroin, it feels oddly like giving up, or being complacent – which is a shame, because compared to his appeal at the beginning of the film, this new Renton felt almost pathetic to me. This shows the clear impact that this arc has on the response that the audience has to Renton, as he is likely to be received very differently at the beginning of the film than he is at the end.

This Is England has a similarly emotional narrative, which also utilises specific techniques to influence the audience’s responses to key characters – particularly, the main character, Shaun. These devices include character arcs and montages.

Shaun’s character arc is rather different to Renton’s journey – while Renton goes from a charismatic drug addict to a complacent materialist, Shaun goes from a lost young boy to a grossly misguided toxic patriot. At the beginning of the film, he is very much shown to be astray: this is established through the film’s main sequence opening with a close-up of a picture of his late father, connoting that Shaun lacks a parent to model his behaviour on – this is potentially what later leads him to latch onto Combo, as he might view him as a replacement father figure. His misbehaviour, such as when he swears at a corner shop owner for not letting him read a comic without paying for it, illustrates how he is misguided. He then seems to find a healthy support group through Woody and his skinhead gang: contrary to potential preconceptions, they feel very much more like a friend group than they do a gang. This is especially shown in the montage that comes just after they shave Shaun’s hair: the group are shown going swimming and hanging out together in slow-motion alongside a heartwarming non-diegetic composed score – this is very much just children having fun together, so it’s a good community for Shaun to have. However, when Combo comes into the picture, Shaun gets drawn in by his strong will and patriotism, which we see through the close-up reaction shots of Shaun laughing at Combo’s racist story that he tells on the first night that they meet. Shaun soon imitates Combo’s racism as he seems to look up to him, which shows his change from a young lost boy to an indoctrinated hateful child. By the end of the film, though, Shaun realises the wrong of his ways: after Combo beats up Milky until he is unconscious, there are multiple reaction shots of Shaun visibly panicking or being distressed – it is clear that he regrets his choice after realising how extreme Combo is. His arc is rather tragic, especially considering how young he is, which is likely to elicit a more emotional response from sympathetic and understanding audiences.

Another way that Meadows influences our response to Shaun is through montage, because they really serve to emphasise the tragedy of Shaun’s character arc. This begins when Combo crashes their party and tells his racist story: the slow-motion shots of Combo’s exaggerated, hateful performance and Shaun laughing along, accompanied with the tragic non-diegetic composed score and appalled reactions of the other people in the room, reflect how Shaun is beginning to be drawn down the wrong path, and audiences are prompted to feel worried about who he will end up siding with. This is then furthered in the montage after Shaun picks Combo over Woody and is being indoctrinated into his gang: this montage mirrors the earlier montage of Shaun with Woody’s group, except this time focuses on the pathetic hate crimes that they partake in. There is a particularly striking handheld tracking shot of Shaun rehearsing the slurs that Combo has taught him: this is especially cringeworthy to watch, and again, the tragedy of Shaun’s behaviour is reflected through the same non-diegetic composed score as mentioned earlier. At the end of this montage, there is a scene where Combo and Shaun are sitting in a car, and Combo gifts Shaun an English flag: through the reaction shot of Shaun, we can see how much this means to him, and the following two-shot of the duo deliberately causes them to resemble a father and a son. This may cause audiences to respond more sympathetically to Shaun conforming to this ideology: Combo fills in the role of ‘father’ for him, even calling him “son” at times, so it is clear to viewers why Shaun would do this kind of thing, just to be accepted by him.

It is thus very clear that both Trainspotting and This Is England narratives are manipulative at heart, crafted deliberately to influence our responses to their main characters – this makes the film more engaging and effective, and particularly for This Is England, makes audiences more likely to take on on the film’s messages.

“How useful has an ideological critical approach been in analysing the films you have studied? Refer in detail to one or more sequences from each film.”

Initial Thoughts

• this is england is much more about the reasons why the characters are racist than just being anti-racist, i.e. it is much more anti-thatcherist because it points out that these are real people who are just damaged and turned into racist idiots through the situations which they are win

• the film sympathises with these characters for being a result of their political climate, but tbh i feel like there still needs to be a disjunction here like Woody and his gang are part of the same political climate and they do not end up racist, so it may be a reason and a cause, but it is not an excuse and the film still very much holds these characters accountable by presenting them as pathetic and tragic on their chosen life path.

• trainspotting, renton’s nihilist ideology through the opening monologue (the capitalist life that’s promised to them is meaningless to him, like he doesn’t care, there’s no actual reason behind it all, it’s just what you’re expected to do) “and the reasons? there are no reasons”

• also hedonism “who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin?”, fun is great, consequences be damned

• the film’s change from expressionist to more realist reflects renton’s change to accepting the capitalist values that are presented

• by the end of the film he rejects that nihilist ideology and absorbs the middle-class complacency that he’s been faced with

Plan

Intro:

Point 1: basically nihilist manifesto in the beginning monologue

Point 2: physical changes between

Point 3: ending monologue rejection of nihilist morals mentioned at beginning, embracing of modern middle-class complacency (arguably still nihilist despite this though because even though he isn’t personally advocating for nihilistic life anymore, he is still just taking the money and running off with it because he can, with no questioning of his morals or anything) but like he loses his charm and his yk youthful questioning of the status-quo by the end, which sort of feels sad and hopeless to me?

Point 4: anti-thatcherist with the montages at the beginning at the end

Point 5: racism as a product of social climate i.e., all thatcher’s fault (not an excuse tho!)

Outro:

Version 1

Ideology refers to the beliefs and messages encoded into a film by its filmmakers. Both Trainspotting and This Is England are films that greatly benefit from viewers looking past the surface-level and actively watching the film through specific ideological perspectives.

Trainspotting mainly reflects ideology through the main character Renton: purely on the surface, audiences may find it hard to understand why Renton and his friends chose the lifestyle that they did – it feels like no real person with a moral compass would adhere to that lifestyle. Their actions make a lot more sense when considering nihilism, which can be defined as a ‘the rejection of all moral principles with the belief that life is meaningless’: this is very much observable in Trainspotting, particularly through Renton’s monologue in the film’s opening sequence.

Renton begins his monologue with the phrase “choose life”: this is a sarcastic allusion to the anti-drug campaign that was plastered everywhere in the 80s – the point of the campaign was that you should choose a healthy and fulfilling life rather than drugs, but it was such a ubiquitous and annoying campaign that young people deliberately subverted that message. Renton’s monologue continues by listing things that relate to the everyday mundane middle-class life of the time, including “starter homes”, “fixed interest mortgage repayments” and “compact disc players”: having all of these things is nice, but putting it all in a list almost trivialises them a little bit, and makes it seem too pointless or insignificant to strive for. Renton is mocking the concept of ‘choosing life’, because if what he’s listed is all that life is, then it feels rather unimportant and boring – despite it being better for him. The society in which Renton is in is thus presented as nihilist through how individuals are just expected to accept the financially comfortable life, ignoring any person desires for excitement or uniqueness. In order to break out of that system, him and his friends take heroin – audiences are likely to be able to empathise with and identify with these characters more by taking this perspective, as it makes them feel more like relatable teenagers who are questioning the status-quo. Renton then adds another layer to this presentation of a nihilistic world when he says that “there are no reasons” for them taking heroin, linking to the lack of motive or meaning behind their behaviours – they just do what they do because it's what they do. There are also links to hedonism in this monologue, which ties in very closely with nihilism: Renton says, “who needs reasons when you’ve got heroin”, showing the lack of morals amongst characters in the film (thus linking to nihilism) and reflecting his hedonistic belief that the consequences of his actions – potentially, death – are outweighed by the pleasures of drug-taking.

In the film’s ending monologue, Renton embraces the modern middle-class complacency that he rejected at the beginning of the film, but his behaviours could be still argued as nihilistic. The closing monologue parallels the opening one with many similarities, including the mentions of “starter homes” and “dental insurance”: except, this time, he is listing them as things that he wants. Renton just took off with the money because he had the opportunity, with less questioning of morals and more questioning of whether the feat was plausible. He doesn’t seem to have any proper or normal reasons for taking the money: rather, it just feels like a replacement form of excitement after giving up drugs. This lack of motivation or guilt very much reflects his actions as nihilistic, even though he isn’t personally advocating for a pointless hedonistic heroin-filled life anymore. Through his acceptance of the life that he is expected to live, it almost feels like Renton loses a lot of his charm: the majority of the film is expressively edited and beautifully shot and lit, and as the film is very much positioned as Renton’s perspective, the aesthetics – alongside Renton’s witty and attractive character traits – present him as a charming, articulate teenager, naively but passionately and almost admirably questioning the status-quo. Nearing the end, the film very much loses a lot of its expressive qualities, turning much more into the look and feel and performance of social realism. This is perhaps Danny Boyle reflecting the mundane nature of the life that Renton is newly subscribed to, almost with an air of hopelessness, as if conforming to this lifestyle strips you of your intriguing identity – ultimately turning to complacency in the Capitalist society almost feels pitiful. Perhaps this is a pro-nihilist stance – though that might be a smidgen of a stretch.

It is thus rather clear that Trainspotting is a truly complex and thought-provoking film, best understood through the critical lens of nihilism.

This Is England is a film that similarly benefits from considering a specific ideological perspective: the film very clearly represents a time where England’s values were very much skewed as a result of the political climate at the time – thus, the film is arguably anti-Thatcherist. This can mainly be seen through the film’s many montages.

The film opens with a montage that begins by reflecting many iconic elements of pop-culture in the 1980s, including shots of Ronald Rat, Space Invaders and Nighthawk, illustrating the racial diversity and rapidly developing media industry at the time – this is a presentation of the rather positive aspects of the eighties. However, these are intertwined with shots of Margaret Thatcher, damaged housing estates, and collapsed buildings: this is a reflection of the more negative aspects of the society at the time. It is useful to consider the context of the time, and why certain areas of the UK were in such severe poverty and breakdown: in early 1984, the Thatcher government announced that they were closing the biggest coal mines in the country, leaving thousands of miners redundant and without the right qualifications to get any other jobs. This greatly impacted the UK’s economy, pivoting many into a period of severe poverty. This led to the miner strikes and riots, shots of which can also be seen in the opening montage. The almost sinister tone of this montage reflects how, although the imports of new media were fun new novelties, the montage reflects the underlying damaging effects of Thatcher’s position as Prime Minister – thus positioning the film as critical of her cabinet and everything that it stood for. The miners were left angry and with nothing to do after leaving their jobs, and so a lot of them directed this fury into racial hatred: there are shots alluding to this included in the montage, including immigrants with broken windows, smashed-in car windshields, and being harassed on the streets. These shots being positioned alongside shots of Thatcher and the consequences of her government perhaps suggest that this racism is borne of the rankly disrupted political climate at the time – this later becomes a very central concept to the film with Combo’s character. This is clearly anti-Thatcherist, as it suggests that the negativity in the eighties was all her/her cabinet’s fault.

This presentation gets even stronger with the mentions of the Falklands War, both in the opening montage and the closing montage. It is first important to keep the context of the war in mind: with thousands of angry and jobless men in the UK, the country needed something to do – and, in perfect timing, Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in order to gain occupation of the area that was right next to their coast. Thatcher and her government decided that the best thing to get these redundant men to do was go to war, and put that energy into some good old-fashioned fighting: Shaun’s father was one of these men who fought and died in this war, as we learn later on in the film. Because of this, there was a widespread rise in toxic patriotism across the UK: the war was greatly unbalanced – these tiny islands with a tiny army, versus a whole British army. It was nothing to be proud of, but the Brits needed this sense of triumph in the midst of economic decline and national distress. The film is critical of this war, though: particularly in the closing sequence, there are many shots of the aftermath of the war, including shots of bodies being carried on stretchers and trucks full of corpses covered in sheets. This seems to be Meadows questioning the necessity of the war: was all the loss really worth it for a bit of national pride? Thatcher used the war as a point of improvement for her campaign, which then led to her being re-elected: the performative nature of this war makes the loss and consequences feel even more tragic, as it was not even necessary or for a good cause. This is clearly anti-Thatcherist, as it prompts viewers to criticise and question the necessity of the war and the morals behind Thatcher’s decision.

The film is especially reliant on viewers understanding this anti-Thatcherist stance as the racism in the film – which is very much central – is argued to be a product of Thatcher’s England: Combo seems to be one of those lost men who have no purpose, no qualifications, and a lot of pent-up anger, so he targets his negativity towards minorities – women also, but particularly, South Asians. However, this behaviour is very much presented as pathetic: this can particularly be seen in the montage where Shaun has been indoctrinated into Combo’s racist clan, and the quintet go around terrorizing people and plastering slurs on the walls. There are quite a few aspects that make them look rather embarrassing: firstly, the opening shot of this sequence is of them all walking towards the camera in a low-angle front-on tracking shot – this simulates how they want to be seen, or perhaps how they believe they are being perceived. However, they are walking towards the camera from a wall, suggesting that they took the time to line up before walking, which is quite pathetic as it shows that they’re trying too hard to fit into this intimidating visual. The things that they do also feel very small-scale and unimportant, such as calling a run-down area “their streets” and threatening some little boys just to play football there – it all feels very much childish. This, alongside the non-diegetic composed score with a tragic quality, makes audiences feel ashamed for them at the pitiful route that they’ve chosen. By positioning the audience to view these characters as pathetic, Meadows is illustrating how, despite behaving awfully, we should be more sad for them than angry at them, because they are only this way due to the political climate at the time – due to what Thatcherism perpetuates.

It is therefore evident that Shane Meadows has encoded This Is England with an ideology that matches with his own, which prompts the criticism of Thatcherism – thus, the film is aligned with anti-Thatcherism. The film greatly benefits from taking this contextual critical perspective, as it allows for the societal issues in the film to be better understood.

Although there is a good balance throughout the entire film between realistic mise-en-scène and expressive mise-en-scène, the drug-house set at the beginning was very exaggerated and symbolic, but by the time we get to nearing the end of the film, there’s a lot less of that: these used to be expressive bits like ‘The Worst Toilet In Scotland’ near the beginning, but that falls away by this point, giving the film much more the aesthetic of British social realism. This may reflect the changing of Renton’s mindset, as he is absorbing the clean Capitalist complacent city lifestyle.

This scene is rather humorous because we see these characters in an environment that’s out of their comfort zone, so they’re nowhere near as charismatic or cool as they used to look - Renton even comments on this by calling them “small-time wasters with an accidental big deal”.

The man who is in charge of the drug deal also played the man that died in Shallow Grave, and he also had a suitcase of money in that film, so this is like a callback to their first project together. The way that this sequence is shot already reflects Renton’s separation from the rest of the group, as he is shown to be isolated in the frame on the other side of the room while Begbie, Sick Boy and Spud are shown in three-shot on the other side of the room.

There is no score present in this scene unlike for the majority of the film up to this point, furthering this scene as rooted in reality, less expressive than the rest of the film. The film is very much bland at this point as we are nearing the end and the rejection of the nihilist values Renton established at the beginning of the film, so the visuals reflect the mundane materialistic middle-class values that Renton is now subscribing to - heroin is not enough when you’ve got £16k on the horizon.

There is an overhead static shot of the group hugging and celebrating after their triumphant deal, and this is really where the real closing sequence begins, as the music starts. The narrative resolution of the film is approaching: these ex-druggies have come into the possession of drugs, and they’ve sold them instead of doing them, but now the remainder of the film follows the consequences of deal.

When we get to the scene at the pub, it’s shot in pretty much shot-reverse-shot between Spud and Renton and Begbie and Sick Boy, very symmetrical and indicating a senes of unity. Then, as they begin to contemplate the idea of going solo, these shots turn into close-up single shots of the characters. When Begbie gets into that fight, it almost serves as a reminder for Renton - this is the kind of world that they’re in. It’s brutal and dangerous. It could be argue that Begbie himself acts as a metaphor: he’s this ticking time bomb that’s going to explode at some point, but you don’t know when it will happen, so you’re constantly on edge - this reflects Renton and the fact that, if he continues this heroin lifestyle, it will one day catch up to him, so he’s just playing the waiting game and sort-of gambling with his life until then. And this sequence simply acts as a representation of the choice that Renton has to make - either staying in this world and accepting the consequences, or escaping from it.

We soon get this cross-cutting between profile silhouettes of Renton and Begbie, and this seems to reflect the moment of decision-making for Renton: he’s looking into the eyes of this uncontrollable, unreadable metaphor for his future, and realises that he can’t continue on this way.

As the group are all sleeping in the apartment and Renton begins to escape, the music accompanying the sequence is a similar type of music as we got in the London montage - it’s electronic dance music, the new music that was replacing the Brit-pop of the early-90s. This reflects Renton changing to adopt this lifestyle that he’s choosing.

There is very much a visual difference in Renton’s performance compared to earlier on in the film: his confident and charismatic demeanour has turned into this cautious and unsure behaviour, because he’s entering unfamiliar territory. There is an over-the-shoulder shot of him looking into the mirror above the sink, reflecting a moment of self-reflection. The tempo of the music increases as he takes the bag from Begbie, illustrating the tense nature of the moment. This scene is very notably filmed to the rhythm - they clearly knew what song they were going to be using before they filmed it.

Renton’s closing monologue is a comparison to the opening monologue: it’s delivered in a different tone, with less confidence and more of an apologetic nature; more human, more thoughtful. The scene is almost filmed like a montage in itself: music plays and we see images of him leaving his druggie life behind, as he leaves the apartment, then leaves the money for Spud in the locker, and then we see him (rather symbolically) crossing a bridge. As he walks down the bridge, we get a front-on close-up profile shot of him, shot from very far away with a very long lens that’s been zoomed in, which isolates him against the London landscape - we’re in his head again.

Now I’ve justified this to myself in all sorts of ways. It wasn’t a big deal, just a minor betrayal. Or we’d outgrown each other, you know, that sort of thing. But let’s face it, I ripped them off - my so-called mates. But Begbie, I couldn’t give a shit about him. And Sick Boy, well, he’d done the same thing to me, if he’d only thought of it first. And Spud— well, okay, I felt sorry for spud. He never hurt anybody. So why did I do it? I could offer a million answers - all false. The truth is that I’m a bad person. But that’s gonna change - I’m going to change. This is the last of that sort of thing. Now I’m cleaning up and I’m moving on, going straight and choosing life. I’m looking forward to it already. I’m gonna be just like you. The job, the family, the big fucking television. The washing machine, the car, the compact disc and electric tin opener, good health, low cholesterol, dental insurance, mortgage, starter home, leisure wear, luggage, three-piece suite, DIY, game shows, junk food, children, walks in the park, nine to five, good at golf, washing the car, choice of sweaters, family Christmas, indexed pension, tax exemption, clearing gutters, getting by, looking ahead, the day you die.

“I’m cleaning up and moving on - choosing life”: while Renton’s “choose life” was sarcastic in the opening monologue, this is much more genuine, and what was a rejection of capitalism and ‘the modern life’ at the beginning of the film has now been reversed, as he now sees the value in all of those things - he just wants the normal life.

“I’m gonna be just like you”: this direct address to the audience indicates him accepting the normal life that most people lead. There are also direct callbacks to the opening monologue, including the mentions of “leisure-wear”, “DIY” and “starter home”.

Even though it is good that he’s leaving the heroin life behind, it sort of almost feels like he’s making the wrong choice - Renton appears complacent, as if he’s given up on his rejection of materialistic modern ideals.

The London montage is filmed on video rather than film, in natural lighting and nowhere near as deliberate as the rest of the film: it hasn’t got that colour grading and lighting and meticulous placement that gives the rest of the film its distinct look and feel. It’s deliberately reminiscent of tourist footage: a montage of stereotypical, clichéd attractions like Tower Bridge and St. Paul’s Cathedral.

There is a bit of breaking of the fourth wall in this scene, such as when the policeman on the horse waves at the camera: there’s definitely a sense of playfulness here - Danny Boyle is messing with film form a little. The camera movements and music are all quite disruptive: there’s no suggestion here that this is what Renton is seeing as he goes through london - this is expressive, entirely for us, to signal this change.

The rapid editing and rapid camera movements are slightly disorienting, signalling a change in pace and in lifestyle for Renton. As the music fades, we see Renton in a different context to what we have before: he’s wearing a suit, doing paid work in a proper job. Time has gone for award and things have changed, but Renton’s haircut still remains the same, and his top button is undone - he is still recognisably very much the same person.

This montage lands roughly mid-film, perhaps indicating the beginning of Renton’s rejection of the values expressed in his monologue at the beginning of the film, OR the beginning of Renton embracing the values expressed in the monologue at the end of the film.

We get this fast-paced chase scene with Renton and Spud, scrawny and shaven-headed, already at odds with the people around them, being chased by security guards. We cut to a front-on follow shot and see the duo carelessly dropping the things that they’ve been caught shoplifting: DVDs, CDs, magazines - quite literally the things that Renton is about to mention in his monologue.

As the music pounds and the chase progresses, Renton’s monologue begins: he very much states the film’s ideology here.

Choose life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television. Choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players, and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance. Choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisure wear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life . . . But why would I want to do a thing like that? I chose not to choose life: I chose something else. And the reasons? There are no reasons. Who needs reasons when you've got heroin?

“Choose life” is a sarcastic illusion to an anti-drugs campaign that ran in the 1980s - Renton and his friends would’ve grown up hearing about it. The point of the campaign was that you should choose a healthy and fulfilling life rather than drugs, but it was such a ubiquitous and annoying campaign that young people deliberately subverted that message.

Renton’s monologue is a subversion of societal norms: he mentions the middle-class aspirations (e.g. starter-homes and TV) but the tone presents it as less of what we aspire to and more what we just end up with, and what we learn to understand is a ‘normal’ and ‘good’ life. From an 18-year-old’s perspective, it sounds like a hollow promise: is that what normal life is, and is that the only thing that we’ve got to look forward to? Listing these things trivialises them a bit: it’s all well and good to have a nice house and financial stability and dental insurance, but it isn’t really exciting, and putting it together in a bullet-point list makes it feel pointless.

As the monologue goes on, he deliberately starts to mock these things (e.g. “DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning” and “mind-numbing-spirit-crushing game shows”: a lifestyle with these things feels very much like an existence more than a life, just waiting for time to pass. Particularly the phrases “rotting away at the end of it all” and “selfish fucked-up brats you’ve spawned to replace yourselves” reflects this sense of hopelessness at what the future promises, so it makes ‘choosing your future’ or ‘choosing your life’ seem completely meaningless. This is where the nihilist ideology of the film becomes prevalent.

This links very closely into hedonism: Renton and his friends wonder why you would choose possessions, good health, security, and relationships, when you can just have heroin. The explanation of their motives is just “it’s fun; we’re not stupid” - they only care about enjoyment, and the consequences are irrelevant.

What makes this film so interesting is that, as the film goes on, he rejects his own ideology that he states here: by the end of the film, he delivers another monologue in which he embraces all of the things that he criticises here, showing his character journey from nihilism to everyday complacency.

The mise-en-scène from these very opening shots are rooted in British reality, especially with the shops on the high-street that they run down.

Very early on in the film - 30 seconds in - we have this breaking of the fourth wall: as Renton’s name card appears on-screen, he looks at the audience and laughs, letting us know what kind of film we’re about to be watching - a post-modern, self-aware, entertaining film. Renton seems to almost be commenting on the absurdity of his own situation, giving us almost a sense of disassociation, as if he’s looking in on his own life and commenting on it like an outsider.

We cut to either a scene of prolepsis or analepsis which is a representative image of Renton taking drugs. These scenes are intertwined through parallel editing with another sequence of the group playing football, where the other four main characters - Tommy, Spud, Sick Boy, and Begbie. They very much seem like normal people that you’d see anywhere… but a couple of them are also druggies. These two sequences (Renton in the drug house and the group playing football) are tied together with more or less a motion-match, with Renton falling down on the football field paralleled with him falling down after a hit of heroin.

This sequence is honestly almost like a montage itself: it is very much a series of images set to music to establish time (youth), place (urban scotland), and character (through the title cards).

Ewan McGreggor is incredibly charismatic in this film: he’s got a really appealing smile and the way he speaks is appealing and engaging - he’s intelligent and funny, engaging with us in a humorous way through his narration. This is juxtaposed with the gross mise-en-scène and the run-down apartments. It feels like the charisma of the character(s) almost encourages us to disregard the squalor surrounding them: it’s likely due to a combination of narration, soundtrack, and charm, but we’re already on board with them - even though they’re heroin addicts.

As in the rest of the film, the camera is moving all the time there’s this relentless drive to the narrative where we’re being constantly moved forward into the story, which is perhaps what makes the film so engaging and easy to watch despite being of a sensitive and gross topic.

Within what they’re doing in this drug house, they are close with each other and helping each other, as if they’re bonded through this community of drugs.

The intertwining of narration and dialogue helps with the film’s relentless drive. There’s some irony here with Begbie and Tommy saying that they’d never ‘poison their body with that shite’, but they’re drinking and smoking. This is also touched on later when Renton says that his mother is a drug addict ‘in the socially-acceptable way’ (alcohol) - he’s questioning whether one is worse than the other, like “are we any different?”

As Renton declares that he’s quitting drugs, the song ends and we get a very brief part of the film that isn’t accompanied by soundtrack.

Renton’s narration leads to the expressive illustration of what’s going on in the narrative: him nailing wooden planks against the door to stop himself from going out is very cartoonish - no human being would actually do this, so it gives the film a bit more of its humorous charm. Again, the list of ingredients (soup, ice cream, mouthwash, etc.) accompanied by the classical music is comical, and helps position the film as not taking itself too seriously - almost satirical.

The sequence ends with this expressive representation of escape with the dramatic music as we get a static shot of the boards smashed on the ground, indicating the struggle that Renton has to hold himself back from the drugs. Overall a perfect opening sequence that establishes effectively the themes and characters that are central to the film.

The opening shot is of a union jack: he victory seems trivial, contrasting with the glorious image of triumph that you would expect - Shane Meadows is perhaps commenting on the unnecessary triumphant patriotism that came from a war that was purely for show, for PR. This aligns itself with Combo’s monologue about how war is unnecessary, presenting him as a more complex character than he initially seemed: perhaps his racist ideology is a subsequence of the political climate of Thatcherist UK.

The footage of the war alongside the emotionally manipulative non-diegetic composed score furthers the suggestion that Meadows is challenging the perceived necessity of war by certain patriots. This is further alluded to by the shots of clutter and dead bodies, showing the true consequences of war - the shots of the soldiers returning home, kissing their lovers, seem almost performative in contrast.

The sequence ends with a close-up of Shaun’s dad, bringing the film full-circle and suggesting a character arc for Shaun to reflect on himself and how he should truly question his position in a changing society.

The group look simultaneously threatening and ridiculous: they are five gangsters who are looking to make trouble, but they’re this ragtag group of total misfits, to the point of being laughable - pathetic, but scary in their own way. The camera is pulling back in a low-angle shot, tracking their movement as they walk towards it, with the overlay of an English flag as the symbol of their group and ideologies - the way this is filmed who’s us the image they want to project, not the true objective image, and is perhaps Shane Meadows reminding us of their negative ideology (which is associated with the English flag). Combo particularly is wearing red and centrally framed, positioning him as the leader and the one who has poisoned this group of people with his racist beliefs.

The same non-diegetic composed score repeats again, giving no question that what we are seeing is tragic and we should be pitying these characters for their poor direction.

The next few bits very much show the extent of how pathetic they are: they mark their kingdom/territory by graffitiing racist slurs on the walls, but on the walls of a stinky underpass - their territory is pretty underwhelming, and these are the people that believe they’re going to ‘take back control’, so it just gives second-hand embarrassment. The other gang members ask Combo what to write on the walls, and he doesn’t even know what to answer, i.e. he hasn’t even got a plan. After being told to write whatever he wants, Shaun just writes ‘Shaun’ like the naive little kid he is, wile Combo writes slurs.

Combo shouting slurs at the women who pass by is even more of an indication that they’ve got nothing: they’re just frustrated and insecure, so they’ll latch onto any sort of behaviour that makes them feel superior or masculine or important.

The highest point of tragedy in this montage is when Shaun is being taught the slurs and then he rehearses them, like a performance - it is very painful to watch a child repeating these disgusting behaviours.

It is established quite heavily in this sequence that Shaun sees Combo as a father figure: Combo calls him “son” a couple of times and even gives him the flag as a gift. It’s pretty clear that Shaun’s vulnerability from losing his dad is what truly led him to latch onto Combo so much, but it’s just sad to watch him attach to the wrong kind of role model.

These characters are presented as pathetic again when they go to terrorise three brown boys for just playing football, just to impose some racial terror and kick the ball around in a dirty run-down area. Even Combo’s language is rather childish: “that’s our ball and we’re playing here now” - that’s, like, primary school language. He calls this area “their streets”, but again, if this is their territory, it really isn’t anything grand. There is also some graffiti on the walls that says ‘Milky woz here’, showing that this used to be an area that Woody and his gang hung out jovially, but it’s now been corrupted by this racist group.

The low-angle shot of Shaun walking through the tunnel surrounded by graffiti is an illusion to another shot from a famous skinhead character - Made In Britain (Alan Clarke, 1982). This show shows that he’s fully indoctrinated now as a fully-fledged racist.

The stick-and-poke tattoo is similar to him changing his hair and his clothes to fit in with Woody’s group, but the tattoo is more severe because it’s a permanent branding: through this symbol of ownership, Combo is now going further than mentally indoctrinating him by now physically claiming him as part of his racist club. It’s difficult to take the lifestyle back after this point, because even if you don’t personally subscribe to those ideals anymore, you’ve still got that marking on you for everybody else to see.

As Combo’s monologue gets more intensely racist, all of the other diegetic sound dies down so that his voice is isolated in the mix as the camera tightens in on him, centrally framed and isolated in the frame. The highly manipulative non-diegetic composed score then begins, and its volume rises as Combo’s voice decreases - we start out this very short sequence with nothing but Combo’s voice audible, and as the sequence goes on we can no longer hear him and only hear the score.

We cut away from Combo to see the reactions of the various characters in the room, and this marks an important narrative turning point because some characters are engaging with Combo and seem to be enjoying the humour of his anecdote, while others are appalled and uncomfortable - this signifies a split in the group. We are, unquestionably, being aligned with those who are disgusted at his behaviour, as the tragic score and the appalled reaction-shots are favoured (i.e., given more screen time). The fact that the audience is being positioned with these characters who are repulsed by his racism illustrates the film’s anti-racist ideology.

Combo’s really exaggerated performance gives us no doubt that he is being racist, even though we can barely hear him - this is almost more powerful than him speaking, because we can see the hatred in his gestures.

This particular youth subculture - skinheads - are a bunch of ‘stray kids’ who are a little bit dodgy, and are certainly no angels, but they are harmless. They define themselves through their appearance - docs, braces, turned-up blue jeans, etc. And he hasn’t got any of that, so they help him fit in by buying him the clothes and shaving his head - he’s being indoctrinated (consensually). Shane Meadows follows this up with a montage, showing him as a proper part of the group.

The montage starts with a rapidly edited sequence of shots of graffiti and urban decay, accompanied by this upbeat non-diegetic compiled score consisting of the popular music amongst skinheads at the time (ska music). It’s all about belonging - he’s just been initiated into this gang of nobodies, just kids who are in their school holidays with little to do or barely anywhere to go, so they’re just mucking about on the streets. There is a series of shots of graffiti before we cut so some sort of alleyway - an area of urban deprivation, but they’ve claimed it, i.e. it’s theirs, a place where they can comfortably roam around. And there is something about childhood that makes you feel like you don’t really have a place, and maybe the more of a deprived background you come from, the more you feel the disparity between you and your parents and thus search for a community elsewhere.

This montage is overwhelmingly positive in tone: their group is very diverse, with both boys and girls, even with Milky as ethnic representation. It’s a really inclusive group, acceptive and - in its own way - caring. The fact that Shaun has found his place in this group has been visually reflected in his change from a scruffy little boy to a proper little skinhead, in uniform, centrally framed, surrounded by friends, jauntily walking down an alleyway and smiling.

Like the rest of the film, this montage is filmed predominantly with a handheld camera, which gives it its intimate, social-realist feel. It’s almost got documentary-style editing, with no real attempt to do motion-matches or cool editing techniques or anything.

The film reflects the characters at this strange point in their lives where they aren’t children (apart from Shaun), but they aren’t adults either - some of the girls especially feel like they’re trying to dress up to look extra tough, but what they actually spend their time doing is skipping stones and going swimming together, even jumping in puddles like kids. The long shot of them all before they jump into the pool is especially notable because they’re this strange jumble of different types of people, all with different personal styles and attributes, but they all mesh so well and get along perfectly together. So even though they all adopt the same skinhead uniform when they’re out together, they’ve still maintained their individuality.

They are very much the ‘lost kids’ of the estate: Woody was on the fringes of criminality, Shaun is fatherless - these are just a bunch of lost children who have been united through this youth subculture. They’re drawn towards it because it gives them a sense of belonging. A bit later in the film, Combo comes along and offers them the exact same thing, and people like Shaun are drawn towards him because he gives them a sense of importance and belonging. Woody is a more positive example of this because he almost acts like a father figure to this group; Combo does a similar thing, but in a much more toxic way. These characters soon have to choose between the benign but arguably ineffective Woody and the much more powerful but dangerous and toxic Combo.

The montage begins with a shot of Ronald Rat, a significant pop-culture figure from the 80s: he subverted the ideas of typical BBC anchors, speaking in an accent, in order to appeal to a different demographic.

On the first beat of the non-diegetic composed score, there is a shot of Margaret Thatcher, followed by a clip of Space Invaders, reflecting the new entertainment of the era. There is also a clip of Nighthawk, alluding to the UK’s first imports of American media. The following shot is of a damaged housing estate, referencing the common areas of urban poverty in the UK. There are also later shots of a train crash and a collapsed building, linking to the destruction of said new technology and infrastructure.

There is then a series of shots showcasing the emerging youth subcultures of the 80s, including snippets into skinhead and Oi band cultures. Following this are a series of shots of Princess Diana and the royal wedding, linking back to the widespread support for the monarchy and patriotism in the UK - viewers in 2006 will also be aware of Princess Diana’s tragic death, so this is perhaps not a shot supporting the monarchy and patriotism but rather a shot to allude back to the tragedy laced in popular British concepts.

Followed by this is footage of American nuclear misses and Iranian assembly hostages being freed - this is reflective of the political/war climate a the time.

The sequence continues intertwining shots of entertainment and shots of political events, including the miner strikes and a National Front, which alludes to the radical ideologies experiences in the UK’s period of instability. There are also shots of immigrant families being targeted, being attacked at rallies or having their windows smashed - this reflects the rise in racial discrimination at the time. The beginning of this montage feels quite positive in tone but it soon progresses to negative with shots of social disruption and attention drawn to the consequences of the Falklands War.

We then fade to black and then from black to a close-up of a portrait of Shaun’s dad in an army uniform - we later find out that he has died in the war, which is a link between the end of the montage and beginning of the film. The montage was a shortcut to rooting us in a particular time and place (the early 1980s, Britain), while the opening shots of the film zoom into something even more specific, particularly with the captions “July 1983”, telling us the year and month. In a moment we also get a ‘Last Day Of Term’ title which is rooting us in an even more specific time and place.

The first thing we hear is diegetic sound of Margaret Thatcher on the radio making some sort of public statement, further pinpointing the time and place but also the zeitgeist and politics of the era. The peeling paint in the background of Shaun’s bedroom is an illusion to the poetry, and there is a juxtaposition between the proud soldier in the picture and run-down nature of the room.

The camera pulls back slowly and we see that the arm is attached to Shaun, introducing us to this little boy in his bedroom. There is an image of childhood being presented: there are family pictures in his room, the biggest of which is of his dad, indicating how much emphasis he puts on the memory of his father. He’s also got football stickers underneath his alarm clock, showing that he is still a child.

This Is England opens and ends with film-reel style montages: apart from the montages, the films are largely linear, with captions contextualising time and place. There is quite a bit of prolepsis because the story plays out within months but we don’t see every single event. We mainly see the buildup to a climactic event (buildup to the pummelling of Milky) and the impacts/aftermath this has on Shaun, giving us a character arc/journey of Shaun realising that, despite looking at Combo as a father figure, he stands for ideologies that Shaun himself should not adhere to. Despite this toxic ideology being very prevalent in the film, their behaviours are depicted openly as brutal, unquestionably positioning the film’s stance as anti-racist.

Trainspotting is, conversely, not as linear, with lots of expressive filmmaking: there’s a lot of prolepsis and analepsis, jumping around in the timeline. Boyle effectively ties together the film in a way that feels like one big montage because the non-diegetic compiled score is almost always playing: the individual sequences feel very much episodic, but they are tied together with sound bridges or narration or music, to the point where the audio never ends at the same time as a scene does, which gives the film this relentless forward drive. It is very clearly meticulously planned and deliberate.

Character Arcs

In both Trainspotting and This Is England, we start and finish the film with our main characters. Both characters go on a very clear journey, but they’re rather different journeys.

Shaun is, at the start, a real little boy, who’s cheeky and from a poor family, and so he’s a little lost, and lonely - this presentation is very much rooted in reality for a young boy from a random little town in the 80s. He goes through a journey where he finds belonging in a group of warmhearted skinheads, and then gets ‘adopted’ by Combo who indoctrinates him into these toxic racist ideologies. After Combo beats up Milky due to his insecurities, Shaun realises that the situation he’s put himself in is infinitely less than ideal, so he retires from this lifestyle and has likely learnt from his mistake of trusting Combo and blindly adhering to these racist ideologies. Audiences are positioned to worry or sympathise for him, as he is dragged into this lifestyle.

Renton, on the other hand, is a rather unrealistic character: he’s representative of drug addicts, but he’s unexpectedly charming and articulate and funny - not your stereotypical substance abuser. This is, again, deliberate and manipulative, which gets us on board with him from the very early moments of the film. We’re dragged along for the ride through his narration, which moves us through the story alongside him.

Montage

Both films use montages to establish time and place. The main example of montage in Trainspotting is the London montage, which is essentially just functional to establish the typically touristy London, in order to juxtapose with the mundane day-to-day London that Renton experiences. This Is England has a lot more montages, the most notable of which is the opening and closing montages, which are mainly used to establish the sociopolitical context of the film and to indicate the tone in which the films are reflecting these events (mainly a critical tone).

Perspective

Films are always going to have a third-person perspective to an extent, but in Trainspotting, we see most things in relation to Renton, and we are very much positioned alongside him. This Is England is more tightly shown in Shaun’s perspective, but with a certain sense of distance while we properly follow him as this little child that we’re meant to feel sorry for. So, we sympathise with but are separate from Shaun, while we are prompted to identify with Renton.

Narration

There was no narration in This Is England. The narration in Trainspotting is posting and expressive through Renton - the opening narration feels very much like a poem, and so does the ending monologue as it even rhymes at the end. The narration almost seamlessly blends into dialogue at points, and vice versa.

Captioning

This Is England starts with captions establishing time and place. Trainspotting only has captions to introduce the characters during the opening sequence, as well as during the ‘Worst Toilet In England’ sequence (for dramatic comedic effect)

Score

This Is England has a mainly non-diegetic composed score which is very manipulative: the majority of the music is just variations of the same piece, used throughout almost like a theme. Trainspotting has a bit of composed score, but it’s mainly a compiled score of popular Britpop of the 70s and 80s, which is reflective of the music that the characters likely grew up with. It works well in a rather manipulative way because the songs are cool and cleverly pricked, working to drive the rhythm of the editing.

Stereotypes

Both films play with stereotypes. Combo is a rather intriguing depiction of a stereotypical British patriot, full of toxic masculinity and racist ideals, but he is also presented to be rather complex - purely the product of his social climate. In Trainspotting, Renton does look like your typical drug addict: he’s scrawny, scruffy, and unkempt - but he’s also charming and articulate, which is less expected of his character archetype.

Visual Styling

This is England very much sticks to a British social-realism aesthetic with its handheld cameras, natural lighting, realistic mise-en-scene and performance, and on-location filming - it almost feels like grainy found footage. Trainspotting, on the other hand, is highly stylised, with meticulously constructed locations (sets) and concise camera movements. It’s a bit showy-offy, in the best way, and a bit experimental - and, most importantly, it works.

Zeitgeist

Trainspotting was known as the British film of its time: it both reflected the zeitgeist of the time and defined it going forward. This Is England was not as influential. This is perhaps because Trainspotting almost has this sense of glamour to it: it’s got attractiveness and pazazz that This Is England lacks through its child-lead character and social-realism aesthetic.

Humour

This Is England is very serious in tone due to the serious nature of its ideology, but it is funny on occasion, mainly through Shaun trying to act older than he is. Trainspotting has this sense of black humour, such as when Renton wakes up in the morning after a club night and realises that the girl he slept with is in a school uniform. It has this sense of funny satirical irony to it, which heightens the sense of tragedy for these characters who are wasting their lives away and risking death just for some drugs.

The era was also a time of political uncertainty, where the conservative government was about to get re-elected due to the victory in the Falklands War. Basically, after the closing of mines and privatisation of industries, there were a lot of angry men who’d lost their jobs and had no real qualifications to do anything else. They were stuck, and lost. The government wondered what they could give all these men who had nothing to do and a lot of pent-up anger, and the timing of the Falkland Island’s shout for independence was perfect: they devised upon a war. Among a certain demographic (the patriots), wars are always popular because it gives them this sense of pride and superiority in their country - something which is totally unnecessary, but common in Brits nonetheless.

This war led to a glorious serendipity for the conservative government: these tiny islands had no chance at all of being able to fight back against the troops that Thatcher sent, so it was an inevitable that Britain won the war. It was very much more of a PR stunt than it was something to be genuinely proud of. Thatcher used the war as a way to garner support for her re-election campaign, but all it really led to was a lot of death and a lot of toxic superiority complex from the white supremacists of the country. This political climate is what leads to the events that occur in This Is England: Meadows is not arguing that people are inherently racist, but rather turned that way due to the misfortune, events and attitudes of their society.

Shaun initially befriends a group of young skinheads who have his best interests at heart. Soon, some of their old friends (Combo and Banjo) who recently got out of prison return, and Combo is rather open about his racist ideals. While the majority of Shaun’s friends are uncomfortable with this stance, Shaun and a couple of the others laugh along and eat up the racism. Woody, the leader of the ‘good skinheads’, eventually initiates a divide in the group, as he doesn’t agree with the racism – Shaun decides to stay with Combo, and begins to adopt these racist ideologies.

Throughout the film, there are references to the National Party’s cultlike following and the fact that the racism stems from an insecurity and incompetency from the white-supremacists. This is particularly evident when the only person of colour in the skinhead group, Milky, befriends Combo nearing the end: they bond over weed and being British – because, at the end of the day, despite having black heritage, Milky is still a British national. Combo asks about Milky’s family, and he talks about their traditions and supportive gatherings, and Combo is clearly jealous. Because of how inferior he feels, he gets mad and shouts slurs at him while he beats him to death. This is reflective of the fragile masculinity of the British patriot.

The film is told entirely through a linear narrative, with frequent montages to compress time while still conveying information.

Overall, the film was good, but it wasn’t a very enjoyable watch. It is definitely spreading an anti-racist message, which is good. I just probably would never choose to watch it in my own time.

★★★☆☆

Trainspotting is a depiction of youth culture in one of the forgotten areas of the UK, showing us young people growing up with no sort of discernible future, at a time when there’s suddenly a great increase in the availability of cheap strong drugs. We are shown the picture of a disaffected youth in parts of the country that have been left behind in the economic upturn.

The film is based on a book of the same name written by Irvine Walsh, and it was believed to be unfilmable. Danny Boyle was a young filmmaker at film school in the early 1990s, and him and two friends got together to try and make a film. They knew that it would have to be small-scale, cheap, and filmmable locally, so they came up with a plan: John Hodge would write, Andrew McDonald would produce and Danny Boyle would direct. Their first screenplay for a short film got funded by Film4 and they created Shallow Grave, a modest UK hit; a dark-thriller which garnered rather good word-of-mouth after showing it off at film festivals. The main character in this film was played by Ewan McGreggor, and the film was made on the cheap but with a lot of talent behind it.

There was afterwards a lot of talk about what Boyle would do next, before it was announced that he had acquired the rights to Trainspotting. This was to be a much larger production, and there was quite a bit of pre-production buzz around it from the very early stages (thanks to the efforts of the filmmakers to advertise, plastering posters and advertisements almost a year before the film came out). They created trainspotting with the same model, and with the same four auteurs: Hodge, McDoland, Boyle, and McGreggor.

Everything about Trainspotting worked: the film edits together really well, it has a great rhythm to it, a great narrative flow, and an engaging storyline. It was hugely successful - one of the biggest British films ever - and successfully crossed the barriers that you would expect a film like that to encounter: everybody watched it, and it was massively talked about even outside of cinephile circles. It was a must-see film that totally launched those four main creators into their careers.

The quartet decided to stay together and attempt another film following that same model: they eventually announced that they were going to make a romantic comedy, in America, with Ewan as the leading man to attempt to revitalise romcoms. A Life Less Ordinary didn’t live up to Trainspotting’s expectations, and it led to the beginning of a reassessment amongst the four - whether they could really survive sticking together as a four in the film industry, or not.

Boyle then acquired the rights to film an adaptation of The Beach, a book that everybody read at the time and was also believed to be unfilmable. It was going to be a big Hollywood studio production, and it was going to cost a lot of money. However, the stipulation was that the studio didn’t want to cast Ewan McGreggor as the leading man, and they were forced to make a choice - film The Beach on a lower budget and keep McGreggor, or have the budget they wanted and cast Leonardo Di Caprio. They picked the budget.

That was pretty much the end of the line for those four: John Hodge gave up and went back to medical school, Andrew McDonald does his own solo producing jobs, and Ewan McGreggor sort-of hangs on in the industry despite having never really found a solid place in the industry. Trainspotting is essentially this little group of four’s legacy.

To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what to expect: I knew that Ewan McGreggor was in it, and that was as far as my knowledge went.

Trainspotting follows Mark Renton, a skinhead and drug addict from Edinburgh, struggling with his rehabilitation and adulthood. He is accompanied by his friends Spud, Sick Boy and Tommy, as well as an older, violent acquaintance called Franco. The film follows Mark as he attempts to stop taking drugs, starts again, overdoses, almost starts again, tries to turn over a new leaf by moving to London, gets followed by his old friends to London, ends up partaking on one last drug deal after Tommy’s death, and then betrays all his other friends by running off with all the money - only leaving a small amount for Spud.

It’s a little difficult to initially decipher the true meaning of this film: the main character is fundamentally not a very good person, but something about his actions feels so relatable and understandable. It feels like he, and all of his friends, are just products of the trash, unhealthy society that they’re a part of.

The story is told very uniquely, with a lot of creative and expressive devices used: for example, when Mark overdoses, this is symbolised visually with him sinking into the carpet, and when he’s having withdrawals after quitting heroin cold-turkey, his bed travels backwards and his room becomes long, distorted. This scene where Mark is having his withdrawals is particularly interesting, because it more or less tells us what it is that is affecting him, driving him to relapse: he sees Tommy, who started taking drugs because his girlfriend broke up with him - which was Mark’s fault; he sees Spud in jail, hackled down with a ball and chain - which Mark was also involved in, but got out of a sentence due to being in rehab; he sees the baby that died at their drug house. It’s just a really interesting and unique technique.

I honestly loved the film: despite barely being able to understand half of what they were saying because we had no subtitles, it was still incredible. The filmmakers seemed to be trying to emulate what it was like to be a teenager in Edinburgh in the 1990s, and I think it stayed very much true to that.

★★★★☆

Explore how far the two films you have studied demonstrate the filmmakers’ attempt to control the spectator’s response.

Planning

Intro: “Spectatorship refers to the messages taken from a film by its audience, and how that aligns with what the filmmakers have encoded into the film – many things can influence an audience’s response to a film, including ideologies, narrative devices, and filmmaking techniques. Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone are rather abstract films, but they do seem to be aiming to elicit specific responses for audiences – perhaps one more effectively than the other.”

Point 1: NCFOM very confusing at first, could be seen as ineffective by subverting from audience expectations – we don’t see Llewelyn’s death, nor do we see anything to contextualise Chigurh’s role as villain (i.e. everything he does seems so motiveless), so passive audiences are unlikely to enjoy or understand this story that they cannot comprehend. This may be passed off as incompetent filmmaking for some, perhaps suggesting that the filmmakers failed in effectively directing their spectators to take a meaningful message from the film. but those who know the Coen brothers and their filmography are unlikely to believe that this due to competence – active viewers of the film may entertain the possibility that this is deliberate, and so the film therefore prompts viewers to take an active stance by being deliberately ambiguous.

Point 2: Viewers need to consciously question and consider how this ambiguity serves the story – it aids in the creation of a nihilist world. The society being nihilist is shown through the lack of motive as mentioned earlier and also lack of morality with right behaviours being punished, wrong behaviours being rewarded, and characters such as Llewelyn not fitting into the standard of Hero. Perhaps this nihilist world is the Coen brothers reflecting an exaggeration of modern and/or American society. Taking this stance is very effective because viewers who understand this are likely to have a much more positive response to the film, like “oh! That’s so clever!”

Point 3: I think that the theme of fate and decisions, especially with Chigurh and Clara Jean, is what makes this film so interesting because these scenes plant questions about determinism/free will in audience’s minds. Again, active spectators, particularly those who are looking for some critical takeaway from the film, are likely to appreciate this. TBH overall I do think that NCFOM does go very far to control the audience and encourage them to respond thoughtfully to the material.

Point 4: Winter’s Bone does similarly attempt to influence audience responses but it is arguably less effective. Similarly to NCFOM, it feels very anti-climactic and boring during the watching process – there is quite a lot of Ree going places and talking to people, only to return home no wiser and in no better of a position than she was before. The film’s entire story also revolves around finding out what happened to her father, but we never see him or find out what actually happened to him (like, we see his bones, but we don’t find out who killed him or what happened or anything). It can feel like a very pointless film to a large number of viewers, particularly because it seems to have no real takeaway or message just from the narrative

Point 5: feminist reading – strong ree, keeping eye contact + being brave for ANYONE, not just for a woman, and also women being the people to help ree in the end, cows a metaphor for patriarchal oppression

Point 6: oppositional reading – can be argued that the film isn’t really feminist. The women are complacent in this patriarchal society. I think one of the most important things about feminist film is that it should show male characters learning and understanding, because that prompts male viewers to understand the importance of feminism. Films that only present men as these brutal thoughtless helpless men only feed into the problem, because the men feel threatened by the negative almost mocking portrayal and so view feminism as a mockery of ‘masculinity’, when it isn’t. The filmmakers’ attempts to control the audience’s response kinda backfired, basically making it ineffective.

Version 1

Spectatorship refers to the messages taken from a film by its audience, and how that aligns with what the filmmakers have encoded into the film (i.e. its ideologies). Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone are rather abstract, but viewers can greatly benefit from being active spectators, taking the film’s potential messages into account.

Winter’s Bone tells the story of a teenage girl called Ree, who is the main caregiver for her mother and her younger siblings, on a journey to find her father. The film seems to be attempting to promote feminist ideologies to its viewers.

Winter’s Bone introduces womanhood as one of its very central scenes from the opening sequence: throughout the sequence, the non-diegetic score takes the form of a woman singing about motherhood. This music accompanies a montage of static shots of Ree doing chores such as hanging up laundry – this positions her in the role of ‘mother’ in this story. In these scenes, Ree’s younger sister Ashlee can be observed modelling her behaviour, leaning how to complete these chores; Sonny, Ree’s younger brother, is always sat in the background playing or resting – this shows the female characters to be more proactive than the male ones in the film’s society. Throughout the rest of this sequence, Ree continues entrusting Ashlee to help with tasks but does not ask Sonny for anything, positioning Ashlee as the next in-line to take charge. Later on in the sequence, when the policeman comes to tell Ree that their house will be taken from them if her dad doesn’t appear at trial, Ree is presented as confident through holding his gaze and speaking to him firmly – this very much solidifies her as a strong-willed character. This characterisation is very important in terms of feminism in order to combat the weak, inactive female archetype that is often perpetuated in media, thus emphasising the film’s feminist stance to its viewers.

The film also portrays the struggles experienced by women in a male-dominated society, as can particularly be seen in the ‘Cattle Market’ sequence. The sequence starts with Ree entering this auditorium-like room where all the men in her village are auctioning off cows: we follow Ree’s eyeline to a low-angle shot looking up at the men sat on the bleachers – this positions Ree as lower than them, thus suggesting that she is inferior to or holds less power than them in their society. Ree is also shown entirely in profile shots in this sequence, isolated in the frame and signifying how alone she feels in her current situation. A bit later in the scene, when Ree is chasing after Thump Milton, the film takes on a very monotonous, dark, cold, and grey colour scheme, perhaps reflecting Ree’s feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Milton is on the ground, able to weave in and out of the cow cages and move around however he wants; Ree is on a narrow bridge above the cow cages, able to see Milton but unable to reach him, and only able to run in one direction: behind the railings of the bridge, as if she is in a cage, she appears trapped, stuck on that one path. She shouts, but over the loud mooing, Milton does not hear her – this is reflective of a woman’s voice being unheard by the men in their society. The cows themselves can also be viewed as a metaphor for women, being caged and mistreated by men – these negative presentations of how male-dominated society functions further the film’s feminist ideology, and may lead to audiences empathising on a deeper level with Ree.

The closing sequence of the film is really where the film’s feminist ideals come more to the fore-front: after spending the entire film searching for her father, the people who finally end up taking her to his bones are the women in the society. While all the men do in this story is tell her not to get involved, the women warn her of the consequences and yet aid her when it truly comes down to it. It’s important to note that none of the characters in this film are particularly gendered: they could be played by men, and their characterisations would still be considered normal. Especially in terms of Ree, the way she behaves isn’t just brave ‘for a woman’ – audiences are likely to recognise that cutting off your dead father’s hands in order to prove that he’s dead so you get to keep your house is a brave feat for anyone. This very much fits with the concept of the Female Gaze, thus emphasising the feminist stance that it portrays to the audience.

No Country For Old Men does not benefit as much from taking a feminist perspective, but perhaps the film is trying to spread a message to its viewers about nihilism.

The characters themselves are not necessarily nihilists, but the film itself seems to perpetuate a rejection of morals in the society within which it is set: both our Hero – Llewelyn – and our Villain – Chigurh – are very morally ambiguous, and they neither get punished for their ‘bad’ deeds nor rewarded for their ‘good’ deeds. For example, despite murdering many people throughout the film, often unprovoked, Chigurh gets what many would argue to be a happy ending: he is injured, but after the help of some teenage boys, he waddles off into the distance – he’s still alive, and what he does continues after the film ends. Llewelyn, in his last moments, is offered to go and drink beer with a woman in her hotel room, but he stays loyal to Clara Jean and goes back to his own room – it has been noted that, if he had cheated on Clara Jean, the people chasing after him wouldn’t have found him to be where they were expecting him to be, and so he may have lived to see the next day. And despite being our Hero, Llewelyn does not seem to be ‘good’, getting into such a huge battle because of some money that isn’t even rightfully his. Clara Jean is the only character that seems to be truly ‘good’, caring for both her mother and Llewelyn, going along with Llewelyn because she trusts him, but then sensibly reporting him to the police in order to ensure at least a slight degree of safety – and, yet, she dies, too. There is a huge disjunction here between the audience’s expectations and the presented moral takeaways of the film, thus aligning it with a nihilist ideology that rejects the presence of morals in this society. A passive spectator is likely to respond to this rather negatively, while active spectators are likely to appreciate this subversion of expectations.

The film also perpetuates the belief that life is meaningless and nothing really has any cause or drive – a key belief of nihilism. In the film, things just happen, and it’s no deeper than that, and none of the characters have any motive for what they do. Take Llewelyn, for example: he finds this case full of money left behind at the scene of a drug exchange gone wrong, and then spends the rest of his film fighting for it with his life, uprooting himself and Clara Jean from their stable and decent life – and for what? For greed? It gets to the point where, if he was only doing it for the money, he would surely give up once he realised that his life was very much at stake – when you’re dead, you haven’t got any money at all. He’s not fighting for anything meaningful – he’s acting as if he’s just programmed to do this. Similarly, Chigurh also seems to be only acting on his set path: we are given no insight into his past or his motive, and he doesn’t at all seem to be emotionally invested in it, either. The scene where he lets the coin flip decide if he’s going to kill the gas station worker particularly displays his detachment form the situation – he’s not actively thinking about what he’s doing, he’s just doing it because that’s what he does. This meaningless nature furthers the film’s alignment with a nihilist ideology, and may leave some audiences confused or dissatisfied with this rejection of common film conventions.

This lack of meaning also extends past the characters, into the film itself: it’s not giving us any sort of moral takeaway with the triumph of a good-willed Hero or the demise of a blood-thirsty antagonist, and it refuses to show us the endings of the characters we care about the most – we spend the majority of our time as viewers positioned alongside Llewelyn, just for him to die twenty minutes before the film ends, and we don’t even get to see his death. We are denied this satisfaction deliberately by the Coen brothers, to really emphasise that there is no meaning, no moral compass here – the usual audience-filmmaker relationship has sort of been flipped on its head, adding to the nihilist stance of the film.

It can be argued that, despite none of the characters being nihilistic as such, Ed Tom Bell is the most nihilist of the lot because he doesn’t understand anything: he spends the entire film practically doing nothing because he can’t wrap his head around what’s going on in his society. The cause and effect of both Llewelyn and Chigurh’s actions are impossible for him to interpret, so nothing makes sense – he exists in a world that he cannot comprehend, and so he is powerless. Audiences are likely to sympathise with him as a product of the dysfunctional world of which he is a part.

Looking at No Country For Old Men from this perspective, the film is so rich with meaning, and rather thought-provoking. It therefore does seem that it skilfully controls the audience’s response by emphasising its nihilist ideology.

Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone greatly attempt to control the spectator’s response by strongly presenting their respective ideological perspectives, enriching the viewing experience and creating a more insightful watching process.

Version 2

Spectatorship refers to the messages taken from a film by its audience, and how that aligns with what the filmmakers have encoded into the film. Many things can influence an audience’s response to a film, including ideologies, narrative devices, and filmmaking techniques. Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone are rather abstract films, but they do seem to be aiming to elicit specific responses from audiences – perhaps one more effectively than the other.

At first, No Country For Old Men may be a rather confusing watch, especially for passive viewers. This is mainly because the film greatly diverts from audience expectations, both in terms of character and story progression. It could be argued that the films ‘main character’ is Llewelyn, as he seems to take the position of Hero in this story as the opposing force to the villain, Chigurh: despite spending the majority of the film following his story, from taking the briefcase of money in the opening sequence to narrowly escaping death in a street shoot-out, the audience is not shown his death – we find out that he has been killed through the Sheriff’s – Ed Tom Bell’s – reaction, with about a fifth of the film’s runtime still remaining. Not is it only unusual to not show the audience the ending of the character that they’ve spent the most time with, but it is also odd that the film continues for a while even after the character that we’re supposed to care about the most has died. This may be very unsatisfying for some viewers. Chigurh’s character is also rather strange, as we are never given any context for why he is the villain: usually, antagonists have intricate origin stories or backgrounds that are at least implied throughout the story in order to make the villain’s actions more understandable as a product of their past, but there is none of that for Chigurh. We are denied any sort of humanity from him, and we are left with no inclination as to what is going on in his mind. Usually, films bank on the creation of relatable villains so that audiences empathise and engage with the character more, but this isn’t at all present in No Country For Old Men. Many audiences may pass this off as incompetent filmmaking, as passive spectators are unlikely to enjoy or understand a story that is nonsensical on the surface level. However, the Coen Brothers are known for their sophisticated storytelling, so those more quizzical or aware viewers may entertain the possibility that these elements of the film are very much deliberate. Therefore, the film prompts viewers to take an active stance: by being deliberately ambiguous, it attracts an audience of critical film spectators who are likely to search for the Coen Brother’s reasoning for creating such a peculiar film.

Particularly the lack of morals and motivation in the world of No Country For Old Men are an interesting point to consider, as it seems to be presenting the world that the film is set in as nihilist. Nihilism can be defined as ‘the rejection of all moral principles with the belief that life is meaningless’ – both a rejection of morals and a lack of meaning are very much observable in the film. As mentioned earlier, we get no inclination of a motive for Chigurh doing what he does, and it is also very difficult to fathom what Llewelyn’s motive could possibly be: in the opening sequence, he is illegally hunting when he comes across a drug deal gone wrong, and he just happens to stumble across a briefcase full of money. Despite having to right to claim this money, he takes it and spends the rest of the film protecting it with his life – as if it is worth more. By the middle of the film, he has already encountered Chigurh and barely been able to come out alive – by this point, a normal person would give up the money, because he’s likely going to die anyway, and at least by surrendering the money he might receive some mercy. Chigurh even tells him a bit before his death that, if he gives up the money, he’ll spare Clara Jean – but until the end, Llewelyn sticks with the money, even calling Clara Jean and putting her in even more danger. The characters’ thought processes don’t make any logical sense, because they aren’t meant to be multi-dimensional real people: they are characters who reflect the nihilism of their society, stuck on their set paths, unable to question or deviate as real people can.

The lack of morals is more presented through what happens to the characters than the characters themselves, as it seems that the ‘bad’ deeds go unpunished while the ‘good’ deeds often face repercussions: for example, when Llewelyn is entering the motel just before he dies, he has a conversation with a woman at the swimming pool who invites him into her room for some beer – Llewelyn picks up on the fact that this is her flirting, and declines because he would be cheating on Clara Jean. However, if Llewelyn took her up on her offer and was in her room, Chigurh would not have been as likely to have found him, and so he might’ve stayed alive – the one actually sensible and ‘moral’ decision he actually makes in the film leads to his demise. Similarly, despite Chigurh having killed many people throughout the course of the film, he has the best ending out of all the characters: the film even ends with a static shot of him walking into the distance, suggesting that his journey is continuing and he will continue to do what he does – the film does not hold him accountable for these actions, because, in this society, morals don’t matter. Some more passive viewers may find these characterisations confusing as they can be hard to comprehend because they’re so ‘unrealistic’, which Ed Tom Bell himself represents in the film: despite being the Sheriff, he struggles to understand the patterns behind Chigurh’s crimes or the reasoning for Llewelyn’s greed, and so he spends the entire film being unable to do anything. When taking a more active viewing role, the details and world-building in No Country For Old Men are really interesting, and I believe that’s what the Coen Brothers were aiming for – a thought-provoking film that, once you find your way to interpret it, is really intricate and well-done.

An alternative viewpoint to take is that the film is about fate: Chigurh and Llewelyn don’t seem to have any motive for what they do because their paths have always been predetermined, and they have no power to change that. This concept then comes to the forefront in the scene where Chigurh is at a gas station and asks the owner to ‘call it’ – heads or tails – to determine whether Chigurh will kill him or not: this presents the possibility of free will, suggesting that Chigurh is making conscious decisions whether to kill or not to kill. However, there is a similar scene at the end of the film where Chigurh asks Clara Jean to ‘call it’, and she refuses, stating that it’s decided anyway: the fact that she says this in a profile shot that pushes into a close-up solidifies the deterministic nature of the film’s world as central and notable. This, again, allows the ‘weird’ aspects of the film to make sense, because you’re viewing them through a certain critical lens. Again, active spectators are likely to respond to this very positively, as critical film-enjoyers are likely to enjoy a story that you need to think about in order to truly understand.

I do think that No Country For Old Men does go very far to control the audience and encourage them to respond thoughtfully to the film’s content: it’s the kind of film that may be hard to grasp on your first watch, but if you try to rewatch it a second time with an open mind, you’re likely to notice themes and choices that are very cleverly implemented.

Winter’s Bone does similarly attempt to influence audience responses, but it is arguably less effective. Like No Country For Old Men, the film can feel very anti-climactic at times: the vast majority of Winter’s Bone follows Ree in static or handheld shots, filmed on-location and in natural lighting, as she talks to someone, finds out nothing useful, goes back home, and then repeats – there’s nothing eye-catching or engaging. Ree’s journey is set into motion because her family will lose their house unless she finds her father, but the audience never actually sees him or finds out what happened to him: we watch Ree take his hands from his head body during the penultimate sequence of the film, but we don’t find out who killed him or anything, despite the entire film being just Ree walking around and trying to find out whether he’s dead or not and who else is involved. Especially to passive spectators, the film can feel very much pointless, especially because – through its anticlimactic nature – it seems to have no real takeaway or message.

However, active viewers may take note of the feminist ideologies encoded in the film, and therefore have a more positive response to the film. Ree, despite being a young woman in a patriarchal society, is very strong and determined: when the Sheriff comes to her house and warns that they’ll be evicted if her father does not show up to court, Ree meets his eyes and responds to him assertively; similarly, when Ree goes to Teardrop’s house and he is physically aggressive towards her, she does not break eye contact. Ree’s bravery is then furthered at the end where she has to saw off her dead father’s hands in order to retain her family’s right to live in their house: this is a difficult feat for anyone, not just for a woman, and this is a key point of feminist film – characters should not be ‘adjusted’ just because they are being played by a woman. Throughout the film, the male characters are entirely useless to Ree’s cause, and in the end, it is the other women in their village who guide Ree to her father’s bones and help her obtain the evidence she needs for his death – this display of women helping women is a fundamental feminist image. The patriarchy is also presented as harmful in the film: for example, there is a sequence where Ree is chasing after a man in a barn full of cows that are being sold, and there seems to be a metaphor here for the oppression in their society – while the man she is trying to reach can go in and out of the cages, walking freely on the floor, Ree somehow gets stuck on this barricaded path above him, where she can see him but he cannot hear her, acting as a metaphor for how women’s voices are unheard and their paths are predetermined for them. Granik is attempting to control audiences to respond empathetically to Ree, perhaps serving as a criticism of patriarchal society – active spectators are more likely to pick up on this.

Though, ‘attempt’ is the key word here, as some spectators may take an oppositional reading and argue that the film’s feminist portrayal is ineffective. In my opinion, one of the most important aspects of feminist film is showing male characters learning and understanding that the society they are in is flawed: this then, in extension, prompts more active male viewers to internalise these constructs in their real life, and to understand the importance of perpetuating a society that is fair for all genders. Films that present men as nothing but brutal and thoughtless only feed into the problem, because male viewers are likely to feel offended by the negative, almost mocking portrayal of men as these innately violent beings – and that only plays into the stereotype, leading them to associate feminism with the ‘mockery of masculinity’, thus leading to more negative preconceptions around feminism. This is extremely evident with Teardrop in this film: he is totally the stereotypical patriarchal man, with his drug-taking tendencies and condescending treatment of Ree. An even bigger issue is the female characters, who are very much complacent in this patriarchal society: despite helping Ree in the end, they spend the majority of the film shielding their cowardly husbands and telling Ree to not get involved. Even if one argues that the film is feminist, it doesn’t add anything to the movement or spread any helpful messages – it is simply not sexist, at that point.

Even though Granik seems to have aimed for a specific (positive) response to the film through its ideology rather than any interesting narrative, thematic or filmmaking techniques, it arguably does not translate to audiences in the way that was intended.

"How valuable has ideological analysis been in developing your understanding of the themes of your chosen films?”

Planning

Intro:

• Ideology refers to the beliefs and messages encoded into a film by its filmmaker(s).

• Both NCFOM and WB are rather abstract films, and it can be hard to identify the intended takeaways of the film without considering the potential ideologies.

WB1: Winter’s Bone is a film can be more understood when looked at from a feminist critical perspective.

• Opening sequence – authentic female experience, song = establishes motherhood as central concept in the film, nursing imagery ashlee models ree wheeas sonny just stays resting, lots of shots of things behind cage-like structures – male-dominated (patriarchal) society but a story with a female-centred focus, competent women, esp.  Ree as the strong woman, holding polieceman’s gaze and being the teacher and such (can also be seen as teacher in Squirrel Gutting sequence)

WB2:

• Cattle market sequence: trapped, in a male-dominated society, small female voice unheard by the men, metaphor between Ree and cows, symbolism for men herding and caging, controlling and holding-back women. Negative presentation through the cold, dark, grey colour scheme and growling, discomfort-inducing score, emphasising the film’s anti-patriarchy ideology.

WB3:

• Closing sequence – very uncomfortable task, not just brave ‘for a woman’ but brave for anyone (female gaze). All the men do in this story is p. much useless, it’s the women that help her in the end. The characters aren’t particularly gendered either like the stuff that they do could come from either men or women, so it’s like god bc !! not gendered

WB4:

• Film is very much from the female gaze, acknowledges women as equal to men, thus feminist!

NCFOM1: NCFOM benefits from taking a nihilist perspective.

• Film seems to perpetuate a rejection of morals in this society – each of the characters are very morally ambiguous and they don’t get punished for their ‘bad’ deeds nor rewarded for their ‘good’ deeds (Chigurh staying alive despite being the villain; Llewelyn wouldn’t have died if he had cheated; Clara Jean is the only character that sems to be truly ‘good’, and yet she dies.

NCFOM2:

• The film itself also perpetuates the belief that life is meaningless and nothing really has any cause of drive – things just happen and it’s no deeper than that. None of the characters have any motive for doing what they do – why is Llewelyn fighting over the money like it’s rightfully his, uprooting himself and Clara Jean from their stable and decent life, and for what? And surely if it was just about greed, when it became life-or-death he would’ve given up? What is he fighting for?

• Similarly, Chigurh is just working on his set path – there is no motive given, and he doesn’t seem to be emotionally invested in it, either. He’s just doing what he’s doing because that’s what he does.

NCFOM3:

• Not only lack of meaning behind characters’ actions but also in the lack of meaning behind the film itself: it doesn’t seem to be perpetuating a triumph for a hero or a demise for a villain, it isn’t giving us an ultimatum, and it refuses to shw us the endings of the characters that we care about the mot – we are refused this satisfaction deliberately, because there is no reason behind any of it. There’s nothing behind it. That audience-filmmaker relationship where the audience expects some sort of moral takeaway has been turned on its head.

NCFOM4:

• Can be argued that, despite none of the characters being nihilistic as such, Ed Tom Bell is the most nihilistic of the lot because he doesn’t understand anything, he can’t see the cause and effect of both Llewelyn and Chigurh, so nothing makes sense – he exists in this world he cannot comprehend, and so he is powerless.

• So when you look at NCFOM from this perspective, it’s so rich with meaning and tbh really cool to think about. Taking this critical viewpoint definitely aids in developing understanding!

Version 1

Ideology refers to the beliefs and messages encoded into a film by its filmmakers. Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone are rather abstract films, and it can be hard to identify the intended takeaways of the films without considering their likely ideologies.

Winter’s Bone tells the story of a teenaged girl called Ree, who is the main caregiver for her mother and her younger siblings, on a journey to find her father. The film benefits from being observed through a feminist lens.

Winter’s Bone introduces womanhood as one of its very central scenes from the opening sequence: throughout the sequence, the non-diegetic score takes the form of a woman singing about motherhood. This music accompanies a montage of static shots of Ree doing chores such as hanging up laundry – this positions her in the role of ‘mother’ in this story. In these scenes, Ree’s younger sister Ashlee can be observed modelling her behaviour, leaning how to complete these chores; Sonny, Ree’s younger brother, is always sat in the background playing or resting – this shows the female characters to be more proactive than the male ones in the film’s society. Throughout the rest of this sequence, Ree continues entrusting Ashlee to help with tasks but does not ask Sonny for anything, positioning Ashlee as the next in-line to take charge. Later on in the sequence, when the policeman comes to tell Ree that their house will be taken from them if her dad doesn’t appear at trial, Ree is presented as confident through holding his gaze and speaking to him firmly – this very much solidifies her as a strong-willed character. This characterisation is very important in terms of feminism in order to combat the weak, inactive female archetype that is often perpetuated in media.

The film also portrays the struggles experienced by women in a male-dominated society, as can particularly be seen in the ‘Cattle Market’ sequence. The sequence starts with Ree entering this auditorium-like room where all the men in her village are auctioning off cows: we follow Ree’s eyeline to a low-angle shot looking up at the men sat on the bleachers – this positions Ree as lower than them, thus suggesting that she is inferior to or holds less power than them in their society. Ree is also shown entirely in profile shots in this sequence, isolated in the frame and signifying how alone she feels in her current situation. A bit later in the scene, when Ree is chasing after Thump Milton, the film takes on a very monotonous, dark, cold, and grey colour scheme, perhaps reflecting Ree’s feelings of desperation and hopelessness. Milton is on the ground, able to weave in and out of the cow cages and move around however he wants; Ree is on a narrow bridge above the cow cages, able to see Milton but unable to reach him, and only able to run in one direction: behind the railings of the bridge, as if she is in a cage, she appears trapped, stuck on that one path. She shouts, but over the loud mooing, Milton does not hear her – this is reflective of a woman’s voice being unheard by the men in their society. The cows themselves can also be viewed as a metaphor for women, being caged and mistreated by men – these negative presentations of how male-dominated society functions further the film’s feminist ideology.

The closing sequence of the film is really where the film’s feminist ideals come more to the fore-front: after spending the entire film searching for her father, the people who finally end up taking her to his bones are the women in the society. While all the men do in this story is tell her not to get involved, the women warn her of the consequences and yet aid her when it truly comes down to it. It’s important to note that none of the characters in this film are particularly gendered: they could be played by men, and their characterisations would still be considered normal. Especially in terms of Ree, the way she behaves isn’t just brave ‘for a woman’ – cutting off your dead father’s hands in order to prove that he’s dead so you get to keep your house is a brave feat for anyone. This very much fits with the concept of the Female Gaze, thus emphasising its feminist stance.

No Country For Old Men does not benefit as much from taking a feminist perspective, but a lot of interesting points can be made in relation to nihilism.

The characters themselves are not necessarily nihilist, but the film itself seems to perpetuate a rejection of morals in the society within which it is set: both our Hero – Llewelyn – and our Villain – Chigurh – are very morally ambiguous, and they neither get punished for their ‘bad’ deeds nor rewarded for their ‘good’ deeds. For example, despite murdering many people throughout the film, often unprovoked, Chigurh gets what many would argue to be a happy ending: he is injured, but after the help of some teenaged boys, he waddles off into the distance – he’s still alive, and what he does continues after the film ends. Llewelyn, in his last moments, is offered to go and drink beer with a woman in her hotel room, but he stays loyal to Clara Jean and goes back to his own room – it has been noted that, if he had cheated on Clara Jean, the people chasing after him wouldn’t have found him to be where they were expecting him to be, and so he may have lived to see the next day. And despite being our Hero, Llewelyn does not seem to be ‘good’, getting into such a huge battle because of some money that isn’t even rightfully his. Clara Jean is the only character that seems to be truly ‘good’, caring for both her mother and Llewelyn, going along with Llewelyn because she trusts him, but then sensibly reporting him to the police in order to ensure at least a slight degree of safety – and, yet, she dies, too. There is a huge disjunction here between audience’s expectations and the presented moral takeaways of the film, thus aligning it with a nihilist ideology that rejects the presence of morals in this society.

The film also perpetuates the belief that life is meaningless and nothing really has any cause or drive – a key belief of nihilism. In the film, things just happen, and it’s no deeper than that, and none of the characters have any motive for what they do. Take Llewelyn, for example: he finds this case full of money left behind at the scene of a drug exchange gone-wrong, and then spends the rest of his film fighting for it with his life, uprooting himself and Clara Jean from their stable and decent life – and for what? For greed? It gets to the point where, if he was only doing it for the money, he would surely give up once he realised that his life was very much at stake – when you’re dead, you haven’t got any money at all. He’s not fighting for anything meaningful – he’s acting as if he’s just programmed to do this. Similarly, Chigurh also seems to be only acting on his set path: we are given no insight into his past or his motive, and he doesn’t at all seem to be emotionally invested in it, either. The scene where he lets the coin flip decide if he’s going to kill the gas station worker particularly displays his detachment form the situation – he’s not actively thinking about what he’s doing, he’s just doing it because that’s what he does. This meaningless nature furthers the film’s alignment with a nihilist ideology.

This lack of meaning also extends past the characters, into the film itself: it’s not giving us any sort of moral takeaway with the triumph of a good-willed Hero or the demise of a blood-thirsty antagonist, and it refuses to show us the endings of the characters we care about the most – we spend the majority of our time as viewers positioned alongside Llewelyn, just for him to die twenty minutes before the film ends, and we don’t even get to see his death. We are denied this satisfaction deliberately by the Coen brothers, to really emphasise that there is no meaning, no moral compass here – the usual audience-filmmaker relationship has sort-of been flipped on its head, adding to the nihilist stance of the film.

It can be argued that, despite none of the characters being nihilistic as such, Ed Tom Bell is the most nihilist of the lot because he doesn’t understand anything: he spends the entire film practically doing nothing because he can’t wrap his head around what’s going on in his society. The cause and effect of both Llewelyn and Chigurh’s actions are impossible for him to interpret, so nothing makes sense – he exists in a world that he cannot comprehend, and so he is powerless.

Looking at No Country For Old Men from this perspective, the film is so rich with meaning, and rather thought-provoking. Taking a nihilist ideological viewpoint definitely does help enrich the presentations of the film’s themes.

Both No Country For Old Men and Winter’s Bone greatly benefit from audiences watching the films through their respective ideological perspectives, enriching the viewing experience and creating a more insightful watching process.