James Pearson

PR3: Critical Responses to Media Products

In this document I am going to be exploring the different aspects and critical responses of the media product Leon the Professional, exploring the different genre defining aspects and how the characters differ away from conventional movie characters how they react with each other and what they represent as a genre defined character, one of the other main things I will be looking at is how the different inanimate objects and colours that you see and what they represent about the landscape around the characters. Also in the article I will be exploring the genre representations along with the narrative and how it separates from any other action film, the last thing that I will be analysing is the different ways in which the director uses certain colours and objects to represent certain facts about a scene.

To start of the article, I am going to be recording the initial information about the film:

Year of Production: 1994

Director: Luc Besson

Cast: Natalie Portman, Jean Reno, Gary Oldman.

At first glance when the film opens it doesn’t feel like an action film even though we have all the anticipation of the scenes but it completely takes you by surprise when it shows you a calm tracking shot taking you through New York city and with the addition of the calm music that completely changes the atmosphere of the film and gives it an alien feel to it and it instantly makes you want to watch more, within the first few scenes we are introduced to all of the main characters both clearly representing who they are and what they are bringing to the story.

when we see Leon for the first time we don’t see him saving a life or in a fast pace chase in fact we barely see him at all, we don’t actually see him fully till the end of the first scene when he threatens the mob boss, this represents something new that we had never seen in a movie hero before he is not shown in full view and he is not doing anything heroic, he works in the dark and kills silently and with no moral remorse constantly scaring the life of the people who he is targeting, it is as if the director is intentionally trying to make you afraid of Leon because he wants you to know that Leon is not a good person, he kills people because he is payed to, he kills at least 8 people in the opening scene but there is one thing that separates him from the villain, he doesn’t kill women or children and that is the case for the whole film, the way the director shows this quality of him when we meet the villain and in his opening sequence he kills both women and children showing that he too is a killer but he is worse of the two because he is supposed to represent good as a cop but he is worse than an assassin who is supposed to represent everything bad.

Within the next the few scenes we are introduced to Mathilda who is the second main character in the film and she is supposed to represent everything Leon is and isn’t, and

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troubled yet innocent because the way she dresses is a like a typical child but her whole domineer is of a troubled girl who is really struggling to cope and this is shown in the first shot when she is shown smoking but later when her dad shows up she swaps it for a lolly pop showing that she is very intelligent and knows how to get away with things. She is meant to represent a victim of an incident but as the film goes on she starts to drift away from that role and she gets stronger and stronger and as this happens we see a lighter side to Leon, seeing him grow more and more caring towards Mathilda and by the end it is as if she becomes Leon not even afraid to kill someone if she was given the chance, it is characters like her that give this film a real gravity within the character development, always keeping them alive within dialogue and reactions.

The last main character of the film is the villain Stansfield who is magnificently portrayed by Gary Oldman who portrays the psychotic and dangerous actions of a corrupt cop who will do anything to get what he wants and that includes killing, but the way they portray him was so unique even for a movie villain because it was if he held no moral compass, unlike other villains in this genre he was willing to kill anyone in his way and that includes women and children, the way the director wanted this character to be portrayed as if he was everything he was supposed to protect people from, killing, stealing, drug abuse, selling drugs, everything he is as a character is everything Leon despises and everything that he doesn’t want to become.

Iconography

Many defining elements of this film can be told in the atmosphere and the very props that the character’s use to define their character along with the colours that come with it and what they represent for instance the milk that Leon drinks has a very distinct packaging with the colours red and white on the cover, it can be said that each of the colours on the milk carton represent the two divided aspects of Leon’s character, Red indicating the dangerous side to him with the fact that he kills people for a living, on the other hand the White colour represents life and hope when he saves a little girls life, so it can be explained that the milk carton is a perfect representation of Leon and who he is as a person.

The Villain of the film Stansfield on the other hand every time that he commits a violent act towards someone or threatening someone he always has his tablets with him which are coloured yellow and green , both of the colours are meant to represent corruption and brutality within the very department meant to keep people safe so every time he is even in a room with someone there is at least one of these colours to represent him and in the scene where he kills Mathilda’s family and he is talking to one of his men he is stood closely behind a beaded curtain and all the beads were coloured either yellow or green keeping in mind this is the first time we are properly introduced to his corruptive nature and it fully introduces his character.

Style

The style that the director uses for this film is very unique in a way that it appears as an everyday action film but there are aspects of the film the solidify it as a very unique and

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gripping film always keeping you guessing what is going to happen because of the unique character structures in the film even though when we don’t see the characters we see a very simple exterior to the film such as the setting which was set in new York which is a very easy choice for a film like this but the director uses the city in a way that it represents two different worlds one being the lush and beautiful city of New York which in the film represents corruption and brutality as in when we are in the smaller, more confined part of town we feel more at home with the characters and we can easily band with them when they are in that kind of atmosphere, keeping in mind that the first kills that we see in the film take place in a hotel room located in the centre of new York, giving us the feeling of unease when we first see Leon appear from the dark making us feel very unsafe. On the other side of the city is where Leon lives and every time that he is over there in that area in the film apart from the end he is always calm and collected going about his everyday life, it is this technique that makes this film so unique, the fact that the director was able to define characters through where they are in the city so it is as if the city is presented as a state of mind for the characters and when they interlock like they did at the end it explodes in a frenzy.

Narrative theory to Leon

Act 1: When it come to the narrative structure of the film Leon the professional it shows you quite a basic narrative structure that reveals a situation between the characters and therefore creates an inciting incident when Stansfield kills Mathilda’s family and makes her an orphan and linking this to the exposition where she returns and sees what has happened and she walks to Leon’s door and he saves her life signifying him as a good man.

Act 2: The rising action of the story is when Leon agrees to train Mathilda to clean (kill) and she gets better and better at it and from then on tries to kill Stansfield but fails and it results in one of the most compelling scenes in the entire film when Stansfield integrates Mathilda solidifying Mathilda’s hatred for him, leading to the climax when Stansfield and his men track down Leon and Mathilda resulting in a large scale gun fight between Leon and the police.

Act 3: the final falling action of the film is when Leon and Stansfield are killed in a suicide bombing inflicted by Leon himself, giving his life so that Mathilda can get away in the chaos and the final denouement of the story is when Mathilda goes to her old school and plants Leon’s plant outside on the school grounds representing life as she is getting her life back on track.

Propp’s character rolls: The hero, (Seeks Something) The Villain, (Opposes the Hero) The Donor, (Helps the hero by providing a magic object)The Dispatcher, (Send the Hero on his way) The false Hero, (Falsely assuming the role of hero) The Helper, (Gives Support to the Hero) The Princess, (The Reward for the hero, but also needs protection from the villain) Her Father.

James Pearson

Todorov’s Theory: His whole theory is based around the assumption that each story starts in a state of equilibrium meaning that life for both the Hero and the Princess are happy, with this comes a disrupting force which has to be stopped by the Hero so the equilibrium can be returned. This theory can be applied to the structure of many films that we see in cinema today.

Straus’s theory: He was in belief that a story can be studied through myths and tribal cultures and how it reflects on it almost unconsciously this is usually expressed in a form of binary opposition, this theory has been studied and adapted by many media theorists who learn this for future media texts.

I will now apply the exact same method of analysis to a new Title Production.

The Hateful Eight Critical Responses In this section of audience critical responses, I will be looking at the film The Hateful Eight and the impact that it had on me as a viewer, the main aspects of the film that I will be looking at are the genre conventions along with the narrative and the semiotics, I will also be talking about the representation, all of these aspects of the films production is what I am going to analyses to see what kind of film it is and what it was trying to represent as a genre. . Name of Production: The Hateful Eight . Director: Quinton Tarantino . Year of Production: 2015 . Cast: Samuel L Jackson, Tim Roth, Kurt Russel, Channing Tatum, Walton Goggins. Setting The main setting for the film was very unconventional and very unknown for a film like this for instance Quinton Terantino always loves to film in unconventional locations and he went far of the lines with Tellirude which is a very isolated location which is what the director was going for because it is as if the very surroundings of the film are meant to make you feel unsafe and on edge the whole time making you feel that something is going to go wrong The second main setting for the film is a lodge which is where a large proportion of the film takes place and with it being a small environment for so many characters it makes you feel a sense of claustrophobia every time a character even talks. With that it is as if the two locations in the film are connected for instance the storm outside is the unrelenting force that keeps these people trapped inside and the lodge is keeping them safe but it is the characters themselves that are the main threat to the story. Characters The characters in this are truly the best part because each one of them has a certain ideology that another character would not agree with and it is that sort of tension that slowly builds up higher and higher until it explodes in a fight towards the end, the whole point of each one of the characters is that they each have factor of their personality that a person wouldn’t like even with the very characters that are meant to represent good have something that a regular person would despise, for instance John Ruth who is a strong character who could be likable but he is very a very violent man who enjoys hitting the prisoner but won’t kill her so it is those two factors that divide his personality between good and bad, and it is the exact same sanario for each one of the other 7 characters they all represent something that is meant to be good but each one of them has something that we

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hate in each of them that is what sets them away from other conventional movie characters. Iconography There are not many iconic features to this film that are visible but the storm and the lodge both represent safety and danger and every time that the characters are in the snow a person is always in danger of death but when they are in the lodge they feel safe even though they are not. Style The style of the film really sticks to the Terantino format for instance he always likes to push the boundaries with the narrative and the dialogue and those are the main aspects of the film with action as a secondary aspect making the film a sort of murder thriller rather than an action thriller, keeping in mind the fact that every kill in the film carries weight similar the format of Pulp Fiction every time a person dies you feel as if a person dies not just some secondary character but an actual person, that is the great thing about a Quinton Terantino film it makes every character feel real no matter how wacky that character may be. Narrative

Act 1: The Inciting event for the film is the scene when John Ruth is poisoned and along with his driver chokes to death on the coffee but the exposition is Sam L Jackson putting a stop to it by taking the gun of the prisoner and taking control of the situation. Act 2: The rising action is the bounty hunter killing the gang members one by one eliminating the threat but this all comes to a climax when him and the sheriff shoot the last gang member leaving just them and the prisoner.Act 3: The falling action is when the two characters Mannox and Warren hanging Daisy until she died paying homage to John Ruth The Hangman and the denouement of the story is when Mannox reads the letter from Abraham Lincoln and it fades out to credits as they both slowly yet silently die on the bed ending the film.On this Document I will also be discussing the narrative for the film pulp fiction and how it put a trademark on unconventional narrative and how the intertextuality shows something new and how you can’t pin point key points of the film because it doesn’t go by beginning middle and end it completely goes off the rails when it comes to characters and story telling.

Pulp Fiction

Genre and conventions Pulp fiction as a production is very unconventional because it does everything in its power to separate itself from the normal action thriller due to either the extended dialogue or the unconventional storyline mixing interlocking storylines and characters, it is all of these factors that make the film more of a crime thriller rather than an action thriller because of the lack of action but the high rate of build up to the murders giving more gravity to every event that takes place in the film. Style and Representation (Parody and Pastiche) the style of the film is very productive in recreating media products and in some parts it acts like a pastiche because in scenes you will see remnants of past media productions this is especially represented in the Jack Rabbit slim scene with Mia and Vincent going to eat, it is in this scene that Quinton Terantino pays homage two multiple directors and characters from the past that would have had a massive impact on both him and the people he works

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with so he pays homage to them all in this very scene. However this film can also act as a kind of parody with John Travolta in mind because when he was younger he loved making dancing productions which always resulted him in creating flashy performances and in Pulp fiction we see him again in a completely different role but Terantino adds small points in the film which is basically him having fun with Travolta creating it as an in joke creating shots of images that are exactly the same as the older films that Travolta had made, in that split 15 minute of the film we had been referenced to 2 past films that John Travolta had made named grease and Saturday night fever, but the parody aspect of it is that John Travolta is now older and he is no way close to being as athletic as he used to be and that was made apparent in the dancing scene with Mia when rather than doing an impressive dance he does a very old person like dance creating the joke about his dancing making the movie funny for a split second Pulp Fiction Narrative Theory analysis Act 1: the inciting event for the film may sound confusing but it is when Butches Dads friend gives him his father’s watch and telling him how important it was to him and that he needs to keep it safe, it is that moment that actually kicked off the film and the exposition being him going to the bar to meet the crime boss Marsellous Wallace to talk about the fight that he will throw. Act 2: the rising action of the film is when butch turns on the crime boss and steals from him and runs off to get the cash that he stole leading to climax when the crime boss finds butch and chases him, leading to the events that cause butch and the crime boss to work together to escape the pawn shop basement leading to the crime boss sparing Butch even with a shotgun in his hand but just tells him to leave town immediately.Act 3: The falling action for the film is when butch rides of with his wife on Zeds motorcycle creating a kind of cliché ending to a film when he is riding of into the sunset with his women by his side but it is that that reminds us why we love Quinton Terantino films so much, he can take clichés and flip them upside down with the characters help. Full disclosure I now that that isn’t the way the film went but when you re arrange the timeline you will find that it has a beginning middle and end and in the end it all revolves around butch and his father’s watch and all the other characters are just playing as part in the story line but it is all that intertextuality that makes us love the unconventional narrative of the film and why we respect Quinton Terantino and each one of his films that he directs.

Production Technology and distribution

During the many years in which film and cinema has been part of the main stream and many productions that have been made over the years have been viewed and remembered by the viewers and are constantly referenced in present day productions as the media industry gets bigger and more advanced we always track it back to the start when we only had cinema and as it gets more and more advanced we always keep aspects of that old technique with us because we are still using televisions and we are still going to the cinema respecting the old technology and how it contributed to the development and distribution of technology in the media industry.

James Pearson