Dirty Pretty Things

Everyone should now have seen both Trainspotting and Dirty Pretty Things, the film texts you will use to answer the 'Borders and Belonging' part of the exam. As I said in class Trainspotting is more explicitly to do with the borders part of the unit and Dirty Pretty Things examines aspects of a sense of belonging to an idea of Britishness. However, they could both be use used to analyse and consider both the idea of national identity and borders and how film looks at outsiders in our country and nation. Tonight there is a programme on BBC1 at 8.30 which directly looks at illegal immigrants and their place in the workforce. It deals with some of the ideas we are considering in our unit and so will be helpful in your own understanding of the concepts and theory.

Mean Streets essay help

This is due in either Monday 2nd or Tuesday 3rd, depending on the day of your lesson.

All the class handouts are on Eloreto now. The most important one is the "different approaches to narrative" handout.

As a general guide you should concentrate on the following areas in your essay:

• comparing the narrative of Mean Streets to a traditional Hollywood narrative. Explain why Mean Streets does not fit into the classical Hollywood narrative structure and why it doesn't conform to Todorov's narrative model.
• Suggest some reasons why Scorsese has not followed a traditional narrative structure in Mean Streets.
• Discuss the different primary and secondary narratives present in Mean Streets
• Consider other approaches to understanding the narrative such as the 'ever increasing violence' narrative and the 'religious redemption' narrative.

It is well worth clicking on the picture on the previous 'Mean Streets' post and reading 'A Cinema of Loneliness' (pages 184- 195) to find more information on Mean Streets.

Trainspotting essay help.

I know it's only three days to the deadline and you may well be well on with this or have even finished it but here are a few pointers. For both essays you need to spell out the nature of the identity that is constructed in the film through location, characters, themes and subject matter, narrative, etc You obviously need to explore the going to 'the great outdoors' and Renton going to London to come to particular conclusions about what the film is saying about national identity and being British. Clearly the film challenges many of our preconceptions about a shared Britsh identity and gives us a very distinctive set of representations.
For the second essay you will need to analyse how the stories of the characters are distinctive and/or challenging. You should include how characters such as Begbie are developed in the narrative of the film as well as any of the other characters. Tommy, Sickboy, Spud and Dianne all have something to say about being Scottish and clearly Renton, as the protagonist, is particularly important.

This information may be useful:


Trainspotting

Class
Essentially deals with an underclass
Class here represents a social trap: the notion that one cannot escape ones class
An underprivileged class
A marginalized class

Work (ethic)
The ‘world of work’ is a largely absent institution
There is no sense of a strong work ethic
Success is not tied to work
Material wealth is not a goal achieved through work

Morality
A free floating morality regarding almost everything
Heroin use is not placed within a moral framework: it is not put forward as right or wrong
Crime is seen as an inevitable consequence of drug use
It challenges what might be described as widely held morality regarding many aspects of social behaviour.

Gender
A demasculinated representation of the males
Inadequate in many ways: sexually, socially mentally etc
Challenges the status of men in the wider society
Puts forward some strong representations of women
The female character, Diane, is strong, articulate, confident, purposeful and insightful despite her young age

Nationality (nationhood)
The film challenges a sense of Britishness
Examines a sense of Scottishness
Renton tells us that it’s ‘shite being Scottish’
Is critical of the conventional notion of Scotland
Arguably challenges the significance of the nation state

AS Mean Streets Essay

With reference to detailed, specific examples from the film, discuss different ways of understanding the narrative of Mean Streets.

Deadline: Monday a.m. group- Monday 2nd March
Tuesday p.m. group- Tuesday 3rd March

Click on the image to access an extract from Robert Phillip Kolker's book 'A Cinema of Loneliness'. Pages 184- 195 are all about Mean Streets.

All recent handouts on Mean Streets can be accessed on Eloreto, in the FM2, British and American Cinema folder

AS Trainspotting Essay

Here are several parts to the documentary about Trainspotting on BBC 1 recently. It give some useful background context for the film. It shows how in many ways it is a Scottish film.

AS Film - Trainspotting Essay

British Cinema: Identity Study – Borders and Belonging.

Discuss to what extent Trainspotting contributes to a shared sense of British belonging.

or

How far do the narratives of the films you have studied for this topic explore questions of belonging and exclusion?

800 words.

Deadline: Thursday 26 February 2009.





We will continue with our analysis of the film next week but you may wish to consider the essay title from your own understanding and the work we have already done on how the film constructs a sense of Scotland and Scottishness. If you click on the picture of Renton and Spud above a research paper will open which talks about how the film constructs ideas about identity. It's quite a complex document but you might find it useful.

A2 Film - City of God - Essay

Choose one of the following real exam questions as the title for your essay.
1000 words. Deadline Friday 27 February. Click on the picture of Rocket to see some interesting articles about the film.

Discuss one or more aspects of film form [for example, sound, mise-en-scene, editing and cinematography] in your Close Study film, which contributes to the impact the film has had on you.

By what means is the contrast between the characters of bene and Li’l Ze shown in City of God?

Discuss some of the particular challenges presented by your Close Study film when you saw it for the first time. Make detailed reference to at least TWO sequences.