Todays Lesson

In today's lesson we firstly learnt about the basic principles of Marxism in relation to political Britain and the media. This began by discussing movements such as the 'French Revolution' and how aspects were carried on to other countries (including Britain). We also went into detail about certain political aspects and ideologies in Britain from the 19th century onwards.

The second lesson we were split into groups and assigned a specific company and told to gather research on them in preparation for a PowerPoint presentation to be presented in our next lesson. My group including myself, Chris and Ibby were assigned ITV. Aspects of the company we were told to research included funding streams values any known political affiliations global positioning and brands/products.

Four Weddings and Sense & Sensibility.

Both sense and sensibility and four weddings and a funeral are two very different styled films primarily because of the time they are set in. Four weddings and a funeral depicts a much more ‘easy going’ view of weddings and how women are shown generally given the modern view where marriage is not necessarily the norm. In sense and sensibility this is an entirely different story as women were expected to live with their parents until (if they were luck enough) they got married. In the time sense and sensibility was set unmarried cohabitation was seen as completely absurd. In sense and sensibility women are basically treated as second class citizens due to social rankings, this can be seen early on in the film as the fathers estate must be passed down to a male descendant, leaving the women of the family virtually destitute. Within in sense and sensibility there are very few references to breaking of stereotypes but one part I picked up on was when a young girl corrects a ‘gentlemen’ on his geographic knowledge. This applies both to age and gender as the man is considerably older than the girl and being female the girl lacks both power and authority.

Four weddings, being a Curtis film is about a young man who falls head over heels in love with a mysterious girl being assured that she is the one for him. The ending however depicts quite a powerful message as he doesn’t end up marrying her, the message of course being that you do not have to be married to be happy. For example in four weddings one of the characters states his theory about marriage, which is that people only get married when they have exhausted all other resources within their relationships which is a very post-modern thing to say. This again is another very conflicting difference between the two films as sense and sensibility very bluntly implies that getting married is more or less the most ‘sensible’ and ‘happy’ thing you can achieve in your lifetime, however it could also be interpreted as a form of escape from their family life that the have been tied to for so long.

Funnily enough the class that is displayed in each of the movies are at about the same level (middle bordering on upper). Although the two classes shown are the same they are perceived in different ways as in four weddings money doesn’t seem as important, where as in sense and sensibility you get the feeling that money is favoured for the wrong reasons, for example for generally keeping up appearances. Hugh Grant appears in both the films as very different characters, never the less this can be seen as a similarity in respect to British casting. Unfortunately I don’t have a large amount to write about camera shots although one that I noticed in sense and sensibility was a slow paced, sweeping tracking shot which passed a number of portraits of passed generations of people within the family in question. This was used to show the wealth of the family which again allows the audience to feel empathy for the women who have been cheated out of any money being left to them.

In relation to Britishness these films have aspects that are very British and some that are not. For example in the more modern set of the two films (Four Weddings) it only depicts middle and upper class lifestyle, where as a lot of other British films have been commended for their gritty realistic approach to life today, generally displaying working class life also. This can been linked to sense and sensibility also in a way as the women who have been denied access to the majority of the money left in their family have to make large lifestyle changes, such as moving house, firing servants and cutting down on ‘luxuries’ that they have been so accustomed to.

Mrs Baird - Homework Personal Respone To Media texts.

Media, Pleasure and Identity: What i gathered from reading the text, this article is about how audiences interpret different forms of media and why they appeal to them in such a way. A general theme that i seemed to understand from the article was that media (T.V and films in particular) are used as a form of escape from the real world. From this a sense a of relaxation or pleasure is assured which is what appeals to the audience in the first place.

In this text the term "Escapism" is used i had to research it to understand the meaning of the word, so i thought i should post a definition for future reference.

Escapism - Involves doing a activity you like as a form of relaxation or escape from reality. Examples can include: watching mindless T.V, Playing computer games and even eating. It has been argued that escapism can become addictive, which when you truly think about it is a very plausible theory. This can be seen through countless examples such as people comfort eating to an extreme.

Observer Film Quarterly: This article is generally about Richard Curtis. The article contains listings of some of his most famous films, such as, Four weddings and a funeral, Love Actually and of course Mr Bean. The article questions whether with the fall of New labour if Curtis was to succumb to the same fate. Throughout the article the term 'Curtisland' is used profusely this merely refers to New labours happy outlook on everything which just happens to appear in a selection of his films generally to do with the topic of love, for example Wimbledon. There are certain characters that can be seen in most of his films to do with this topic the majority being lovesick young men tripping over themselves for that one 'love at first sight' women. In my opinion this can be seen the most clearly in 4 weddings and a funeral.

Contemporary British Cinema: Within the article it goes through different eras of British film suggesting that what films may imply can have subliminal positive and negative effects on what the audience may think. For example in a film such as 'This Is England' can be seen to both raise awareness of racism but possibly make it seem as if its ok. This is a very difficult concept grasp as their are two very understandable sides to the argument, I would also imagine the film brought up a great deal of controversy between critics.

This article is about representation within British Cinema. The article covers 3 types of representation in detail, Sexuality, Class and Ethnicity.

Sexuality: It is clear to see that sexuality is not the most frequent thing represented within British film especially if you were to compare it to say American films where their seems to be a lot more generally shocking content. Even when sex is portrayed in British film there is always some form of complication in the storyline leading to it.

Class: Class within British film is displayed very stereotypically (both lower and upper). This is visible in countless films and as I said before very stereotypical, for example in films representing working class families a manual job held up by the father is generally all that is supporting the entire family. Within the films displaying working class situations there is always a very 'gritty' depiction of the context of the film where as a hugely glamorous depiction of upper classes.

Ethnicity: Within the article it states that British film fails to represent ethnic minorities justly purely by lack of content. I have never really thought about this but upon consideration I generally agree.

Michael Caine

Sir Michael Caine was born on the 14 march 1933. He has appeared in more than 100 films and is seen as one of the most influential and iconic British film actors ever. Amazingly Michael Caine has been nominated for a Academy award in every decade since the 60's making him one of the two only actors to have achieved such an incredible track record. Caine has appeared in numerous films which allow him to portray gritty realistic characters and exploit his reasonably strong cockney accent, such as Get Carter (1971). Caines more recent appearnences include the butler in Batman begins and The Dark Knight starring as the butler in both which shows his flexability within the characters he can play. In an interview Caine (76) stated that "I don't have to work, and just sit there - if a movie comes in that I want to do, I will do it, if one never comes in that I want to do, then I'm retired,". This implies a great passion for his acting career not letting age stop him from doing what he loves. He also stated "I'll retire quietly when I stop finding roles that interest me". Caines influences biggest influences include: Frank Sinatra, Stanislavsky, The Beatles and John Wayne.