Choose any one of the module films, and explore in detail the strategies by which Hitchcock encourages emotional involvement and/or detachment on the part of the audience.

Case Study: Psycho

When it comes to suspense, there is undisputedly no greater film director than Alfred Hitchcock. The “Master of Suspense”, as he is hailed, exemplified over the course of his five-decade career filmic techniques that have highly influenced the landscape of modern film around the world. This essay however only touches upon a section of his substantial impact in film, but nonetheless an important part of which he is especially remembered for; his encouragement of audience involvement. I will concentrate on his 1960 film Psycho, chronologically exploring Hitchcock’s methods in placing the audience as an important part of the film. While Psycho has certainly influenced the horror genre (and horror’s sub-genres such as the slasher film), the themes and craft that Hitchcock employs are far more complex. Rather than placing a fear on the supernatural, Hitchcock locates the terror to the very normal everyday life, playing with human psychological fears. The film not only revolutionized the horror film, but changed the entire movie-going experience. Critics were excluded from advanced showings and no one was allowed to be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance (McGilligan 2004: 599). The camera-work in Psycho works in a very purposeful manner, allowing for and also encouraging the audience’s emotional involvement as well as detachment. Not only is the audience’s role important in Psycho, but in fact crucial. Robin Wood’s argues that “the spectator becomes the chief protagonist, uniting in himself all the characters” (2002: 147). While Hitchcock has in his films prior to Psycho employed similar techniques, Psycho is the exemplary example of audience participation.

Privileging the audience with information and prohibiting it from the character in the shot was a trademark in Hitchcock’s work, which allowed for more suspense, as opposed to mere shock or surprise. He explained that “if a group of people is sitting at a table and a bomb unexpectedly goes off, we experience shock. But if we know that they are unaware of the bomb ticking away underneath their table, we will be caught in the grip of suspense” (Knight & McKnight in Allen & Gonzalès 1999: 107). Psycho though, combines elements of suspense and surprise on multiple occasions, hence placing the audience in an uncomfortable situation. From the very opening credit scenes, Saul Bass’ title animation and Bernard Herrmann’s continuous score already positions the spectators in a state of uneasiness. The text appears horizontally, but is split from the vertical. Susan Smith explains that the scene

Propels the viewer into a much earlier, more sudden and far more advanced state of suspense by evoking an instantaneous sense of dread (rather than mere suspicion or apprehension) about what is to follow… the film therefore mixes up and reworks the various stages of suspense in a way that is much more disruptive and unsettling than a gradual, predictable build-up tension (which at least offers a certain security of expectation) (2000: 26).

Once the intense ‘text-splitting’ credits – which play on the very themes of the film such as duality – end without a clear resolution still echoing in the audiences ears, Hitchcock transitions the viewer back to the very ‘normal’. The date and time of day is very precise and once the camera moves towards a supposedly random window, it briefly hesitates as if the location is neither here nor there; it could be the lives of anyone. Furthermore William Rothman argues that “the precise specification of date and time reinforces the suggestion that what we are about to view is no ordinary fiction. Psycho’s fiction is that its world is real” (1982: 251). The ‘soaring’ of the camera over the cityscape of Phoenix in itself suggests an embodiment of a bird-like creature – perhaps even the mythical phoenix bird – when intruding into the lives of a couple. The camera at this point has taken a free role and the morality of the audience’s voyeurism is already questioned. But once the camera (or the audience) commits its first intrusion, it takes a subjective stance with the character of Marion.

         

Rothman argues that once the camera arbitrarily chooses Marion as the film’s subject, it “also seals Marion’s fate when it singles her out. Its entrance into Marion’s life is fateful; the mark she bears is also the camera’s mark” (ibid: 253). Hitchcock has therefore incorporated the audience as a factor in the story. Once the relationship – which Robin Wood argues is nothing short from normal human behavior (2002: 143) – between Marion and Sam has been established, the audience’s sympathies lie with Marion after her situation with Sam seems hopeless. This scene thus creates a relationship between Marion and the audience, further augmented by the following scene and Cassidy’s crude character. Cassidy is, as best described by Wood, “a vulgar, drunken oaf” (ibid.), and the opposite of Marion. His boastful nature and plans to buy his daughter’s love with money furthermore highlights the audience’s sympathies for Marion. The moral implications of the crime she soon commits in stealing the $40,000 is lessened after the blame could be equally placed on Sam’s financial debts and now Cassidy’s persona; the emotional connection between the audience and Marion therefore remains. Moreover, Hitchcock maintains the subjective relationship with Marion when upon her escape the audience is granted “access to her stream of consciousness” (Rothman 1982: 261). Herrmann’s endless score reappears reflecting Marion’s anxieties. Herrmann himself has acknowledged the importance of his music in Hitchcock’s films by stating that “music becomes a communicating link between the screen and the audience, reaching out and developing all into one single experience” (Smith 2000: 104). Furthermore film editor Paul Hirsch explains that “the best film music… is an expression of the interior psychological state of a character in a scene” (ibid: 105) reflecting heavily on what Marion is feeling. In the previous confrontations between Marion and the police officer and car salesman, the audience is privileged in knowing Marion’s past and rooting for her despite her crime. Wood writes, “like her we resent, with fear and impatience, everything… that impedes or interferes with her obsessive flight, despite the fact that only interference can help her” (2002: 145). If Hitchcock has concentrated the beginning of the film on the ‘normal’ and ordinary, Marion’s journey establishes the shift to the ‘abnormal’.

With the introduction of Norman Bates – whose name is only one letter away from ‘normal’ – the audience’s character relationship starts to alter subtly in Norman’s direction. The first encounter between the pair comes when Norman takes Marion’s luggage into the motel reception where the placement of a mirror seems of grand importance according to Rothman. He explains that

Momentarily, she enters the frame in the flesh and turns to face the mirror, her turning precisely synchronized with the appearance of Norman’s reflection. At this moment, Marion (in full face) and Norman (in profile) are contiguous, as if the mirror framed not two people but a single composite being (1982: 267).  

In essence, Rothman observes that this moment in the film marks a symbolic transition in the identification process. George Toles notes that in the following shot, the positioning of Marion and Norman is perfectly symmetrical, acting as mirror images of each other (Allen & Gonzalès 1999: 167). If in the beginning Hitchcock’s camera-work exhibited a slight hesitation that has been argued to have sealed Marion’s fate, a similar parallel can be drawn from Norman’s hesitation when reaching for the motel room key in this very scene. At first he reaches for room key number three, but ultimately chooses the first cabin and setting of Marion’s murder after Marion lies about her city of origin. As discussed, Hitchcock has more than explicitly defined Marion’s place of origin, and thus, through her lie starts becoming less sympathetic to the viewer whilst compared to the charming youth of Norman. In the scene that follows Norman captures the audience’s emotional sympathies when it turns out that his mother is ill during the pair’s dinner conversation. The identification process however, is not complete until the rapid surprise departure of Marion where the spectator is left with no choice but to sympathize with Norman (when it is assumed that his mother is the killer). Robin Wood describes that

                    We have been carefully prepared for this shift of sympathies. For one thing, Norman is an intensely sympathetic character, sensitive, vulnerable, trapped by his devotion to his mother – a devotion, self-sacrifice, which our society tends to regard as highly laudable. That he is very unbalanced merely serves to evoke our protective instincts: he is also so helpless. Beyond this, the whole film hitherto has led us to Norman, by making us identify with a condition in many ways analogous to his: the transition is easy (2002: 146).     

Furthermore Hitchcock employs a subjective point-of-view when Norman mops up the blood off the bathtub and bathroom floor as if it were directly the spectator having to do the cleaning. Even when Norman dumps Marion’s car with her corpse in the trunk into the swamp, it is made clear that Norman still has the viewer’s sympathies. Once the car stops sinking, for a brief moment (or, again, hesitation) the tension builds in fear of Norman’s capture, only to be relieved with the car’s full descent.

In the second half of the film Hitchcock reintroduces Sam and two new characters in Marion’s sister Lila and detective Arbogast. The relationship with the aforementioned characters and the audience refrains from any sort of emotional involvement but grants important access to the mystery of the plot. “Our only link with these characters is the act of searching, but they are only able to search for things that we know are not there… They futilely retrace each other’s steps and imitate each other’s actions, without ever having the sense of what their eyes need to connect with” (Toles in Allen & Gonzalès: 171). The identification remains with Norman despite an obvious resemblance to Sam – portrayed once more in the motel reception – because the audience supposedly already knows the “truth”. Also the audience is aware of Sam’s past and the likeability remains clearly on Norman’s side. But as the plot thickens during the investigation when claiming that Mrs. Bates had died years ago, the audience is forced to second-guess the mystery and therefore utilizes Sam, Lila and Arbogast in solving it. Once Arbogast enters the unknown into Bates’ house, Hitchcock presents the suspense from Arbogast’s subjective point-of-view when mounting the stairs. This moment, though, is only brief as the camera-work Hitchcock employs rapidly shifts to a high angle view when “Mrs. Bates” comes rushing to stab him accompanied by Hermann’s loud and disturbing music. This moment in time the audience is in limbo between expectation and shock, suspense and surprise. The spectator was certainly aware of the possible implications of Arbogast’s passage, but nonetheless is left in a state of shock due to the crime’s coldness and rapidity. Arbogast is essentially the body employed to lead the audience to discovering the mystery, despite its implications. The lack in emotional ties further reinforces and encourages Arbogast’s investigation for answers.  The scene eventually changes to the murderer’s perspective, exposing the horror in Arbogast’s face when finding out the truth and also fuelling the audience’s curiosities.   

Similar to Sam and Norman, physical distinctions can be paralleled between Lila and Marion. It is as if Lila is an extension of Marion, but again, due to the lack of knowledge about Lila, the emotional tie is cut. When Lila enters Mrs. Bates’ room, Hitchcock once more utilizes mirrors. During her search her focus in centred on a set of bronze hands only to be frightened by a double reflection of herself in the mirror. William Rothman argues that the second reflection of her image (the reflection of the reflection), actually is the presence of the viewer standing behind her (1982: 321-321). During the moment when Lila discovers Norman’s room, the sympathies still very much lie on Norman’s side, further empowered by Sam’s rude behavior when questioning Norman. His room seems nothing short of normal and Hitchcock with the placement of toys, an unmade bed and an Eroica Symphony record, stays loyal to his man/child image. But once the climax of the film reveals to truth about Norman, the outcome is unexpected and extremely shocking. The emotions that the spectator has been feeling towards Norman through Hitchcock’s subjectivity complicate and question the viewer’s very own morality. Wood argues that “we have been led to accept Norman Bates as a potential extension of ourselves” (2002: 148).          

In conclusion, audience participation in Psycho can best be described through Robin Wood: “The characters of Psycho are one character, thanks to the identifications the film evokes, is us” (2002: 147). It comes to no surprise why Hitchcock would not allow audiences to enter the cinema once the film began, as the audience is an integral component of the film itself. From the very beginning, the undivided attention of the viewing participant is needed, in order for the full experience to be achieved. Hitchcock at first leads the audience to expect the eventual salvation of Marion despite her predicament, only to fully let down expectations by a graphically violent death. Furthermore Herrmann’s score empowers the raging fear, leaving the audience in a near state of trauma. The only person available to relate to after Marion’s death is the character of Norman, whom Hitchcock has designed with the utmost precision. His sympathetic nature misleads the viewer to believe in his innocence, until the twist in plot reveals the audience’s most horrifying fears; even the most ‘normal’ human being can be dangerous. While the Hitchcock has filmed some of the most horrific physically violent murder scenes in Psycho, the horror that stays with the participating protagonist, is in fact, psychological. The element of participation in Psycho forced the viewer to emotionally connect with Marion and Norman, two predominantly ‘normal’ characters and relate it to the viewer’s very own life. A moral dilemma therefore arises within the psyche of the watcher once the mystery is solved. In essence, “we all carry within us somewhere every human potentiality, for good of evil, so that we all share in common guilt, may be, intellectually, a truism: the greatness of Psycho  lies in its ability, not merely to tell us this, but to make us experience it” (Wood 2002: 148).

 

Bibliography

Allen, R. & Gonzalès, S.I. (eds.) (1999) Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays. London: British Film Institute.

McGilligan, P. (2004) Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light. Chichester: Wiley.

Rothman, W. (1982) Hitchcock: The Murderous Gaze. Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press.

Smith, S. (2000) Hitchcock: Suspense, Humour and Tone. London: British Film Institute.

Wood, R. (2002) Hitchcock’s Films Revisited. New York: Columbia University Press.

Using a relevant case study involving a particular individual or sport discuss how assumptions about ‘blackness’ have an impact on sport?

Case Study: Assumptions about ‘Blackness’ in the Sport of Ice Hockey

“It was important to see black players in the NHL to see it was possible and keep my dream alive.”

-          Jerome Iginla, captain of the Calgary Flames

Case studies about individual athletes involving the likes of Muhammad Ali in boxing, Michael Jordan in basketball and Tiger Woods in golf have certainly been discussed in the field of media studies, therefore in this essay I have chosen to concentrate on a particular sport that perhaps does not appear in the wider academic discussions about ‘race’ in sports: African-American ice hockey players in the National Hockey League (NHL). Having lived in Britain for the past three years where sport culture is dominated mainly by football and rugby, I have observed that ice hockey is left unnoticed almost entirely. It is also clear to acknowledge that ice hockey as a worldwide sport is quite marginal, but in countries such as Canada, Finland, Sweden and Russia – just to name a few – the sport is a major part of each country’s national identity. However, before moving into my case study certain terms must be clarified in order for a better understanding of my arguments to be achieved. Highly ambiguous terms such as ‘race’ and ‘blackness’ will be the focus of the first half of this paper prior to my discussions about the power  of the Western media itself. A substantial amount of research has been done about ‘race’ in media discourse, therefore my work will reference some of the key arguments provided by scholars such as David Mason, John Solomos and Les Back. The purpose of this paper is to argue that along with the colour of a person’s skin come certain assumptions and stereotypes that though false, are often perceived as truths.

Firstly, it is important to note that amongst human beings there are no such things as ‘races’. ‘Race’ is merely an ideological construct invented at a time when the dominance of white Europeans aimed to justify the cruelties against native peoples around the world for the sake of capital. Solomos and Back note that,

It is certainly from the eighteenth century that we can trace the emergence in Europe of writings about race and what we now call racism. The idea that races existed involved the affirmation in popular, scientific and political discourses that humanity could be divided into distinct groupings whose member possessed common physical characteristics” (1996: 32).

Furthermore James Donald and Ali Rattansi argue that “no persuasive empirical case has been made for ascribing common psychological, intellectual or moral capacities or characteristics to individuals on the basis of skin colour or physiognomy” (1992: 1). However, despite no clear data has ever proven for there to be biological differences between varied ethnicities, through the existence of racism different connotations of colour have brought along certain stereotypes through representation. In David Mason’s Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain, Mason observes the writings of American historian Winthrop Jordan who explains that the first encounters that the British had with West Africans came with peaceful results, but developed popular emotional and negative connotations of colour through the Victorian English language (Jordan 1974 in Mason 2000: 5-6). He writes, “while ‘white’ represented good, purity, and virginity, ‘black’ was the colour of death, evil, debasement (ibid.). While it is fair to say that modern day society has certainly progressed in terms of equality, the unfortunate truth is that still today, despite a lack of scientific evidence, many stereotypes regarding the ‘natural’ (fixed) superiority and inferiority based on biology still exist. Arguments surrounding blacks as physiologically more superior also assert claims in accordance to the “Law of Compensation”, whereas whites therefore must be intellectually superior. Plec argues that, “one particularly problematic variation on the theme of Black athletic superiority relies upon a racist logic of inversion in which mental and physical acuity are juxtaposed” (12).   

The second thing to call into question when discussing the issue of ‘race’ is the role that the Western media plays in representation. It is important to stress ‘Western’ when talking about the mainstream media because it is precisely through this geopolitical concept that representation is controlled. Stuart Hall argues that through power differentials come what he describes as a ‘regime of representation’ (1997: 259). “Power, it seems, has to be understood here, not only in terms of economic exploitation and physical coercion, but also in broader cultural or symbolic terms, including the power to represent someone or something in a certain way” (ibid.) ‘West’ therefore functions as the norm and aims to separate itself from the ‘East’, the ‘Orient’ and the ‘Other’. Edward Said argues that contrasting ‘West’ from ‘East’ allows for the existence of difference. In Orientalism he writes,

The Orient is not only adjacent to Europe; it is also the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages, its cultural contestant, and one of its deepest and most recurring images of the Other. In addition, the Orient has helped to define Europe (or the West) as its contrasting image, idea, personality, experience. ¹

      Hall in addition argues that representational practices often involve stereotyping, which “reduces people to a few, simple, essential characteristics, which are represented as fixed by Nature” (1997: 257). In sport for instance, stereotypes often involve categorizing athletes according to skin colour; blacks are faster runners, whites are better swimmers, et cetera. As stereotypes have been in many cases perceived as truths, ‘‘race’ science’ in sports on many occasions has strived to prove biological differences between white and black athletes. An example of this can be found from the writings of Martin Kane in the January 1971 Sports Illustrated issue entitled “An Assessment of Black is Best”. Kane went on to argue the following:

Researchers have found that the black American, on the average, tends to have a shorter trunk, a more slender pelvis, longer arms (especially forearms) and longer legs (especially from the knees down) than his white counterpart. He has more muscle in the upper arms and legs, less in the calves. There is reason to believe that his fat distribution is patterned differently from that of the white man—leaner extremities but not much difference in the trunk. And there is a trifle of evidence—this aspect has been studied so little that it still is in the highly speculative state—that the black man’s adrenal glands, a vital factor in many sports, are larger than the white man’s. (Kane 1971: 74 in Plec: 11).

However, many have been quick to dismiss such claims including sociologist Harry Edwards of Berkeley University, California who states that “there has never been a single study linking a genetic trait, racial or otherwise, with athletic performance” (Entine 2000: x). Moreover, sociologist Ellis Cashmore argues that after the discovery of the DNA double helix in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson, further research has indicated that “in terms of genetic profile, we humans have been found to be astonishingly similar: every human being on the planet was 99.9 percent the same” (Cashmore 2010: 30).

While the evidence above clearly evades from arguments supporting biological superiority of blacks, other considerations therefore have to be taken into account of why for instance there are more black players in the NBA and far the fewer in the NHL. A logical explanation that must be considered is the role of geographic, environmental and economic factors. While The United States has become more ethnically diverse and through diversity more tolerant, as of 2010 out of the 13.6 percent of blacks which make up America’s population, 27.4 percent were living under poverty (NPC). Out of black children under the age of 18, 38.2 percent were living under poverty. As ice hockey is an expensive sport due to the variety of equipment (not to mention the limited facilities); based on simple mathematics, the opportunities to excel in such a sport for a minority may seem quite unlikely. Robert Pankin explains, “the socioenvironmental side of the argument indicates that the alleged reason that large numbers of blacks play, and, subsequently, are successful in boxing, football, and the like is the availability of certain athletic facilities as they are growing up” (1982: 108). Furthermore Pankin notes that,

The majority of black and impoverished children, therefore, will participate in sporting events in which the initial and continued outlay of funds are comparable with their socioeconomic status. Tennis courts, swimming pools, and downhill slopes, hockey arenas, fencing strips, golf courses, and bowling alleys and their related equipment appear to be out of the ecological reach of the mass of black children (ibid.).           

   

Geographic factors can also be reasoned. Looking at a global scale, Kenyans are amongst the most successful long-distance runners in the world, if not the most successful. High altitude training camps for runners located in the Rift Valley allow for the development of a better lung capacity, thus increasing a runner’s stamina. The ideal geographic location along with the inexpensiveness of the sport can surely be justified to the successes of Kenyans.         

The previous factors can often be precursors for another notable reason: the lack of role models from similar backgrounds. The NHL was formed in 1916, but only in 1958 was the ‘all-white’ trend broken when Willie O’Ree joined the Boston Bruins to become the first ever black hockey player in the NHL. For over forty years the lack in black players was explained through simplistic assertions of biological racism, claiming that blacks “had weak ankles and weak knees” (Douglas 2011), as explained by O’Ree himself. But once O’Ree broke the stereotypes, slowly did more blacks begin to appear towards the end of the century. Mike Marson was the next African-American to be drafted in 1974 and by 1991 already 18 black players had appeared, including Hockey Hall of Fame goaltender Grant Fuhr, who played for the famous Edmonton Oilers franchise of the ‘80s along with Wayne Gretzky, winning the Stanley Cup five times. Former NHL goaltender Kevin Weekes explains that “the more people see people that look like them on the ice, the more likely they are to want to play the game” (Douglas 2011). Certainly a factor to why O’Ree was the only black player to play in the NHL by 1971 was the fact that “Canadians made up over 95% of the NHL, and only .02% of all Canadians were black” (Morrison & Frantz). But as the sport has evolved, more Americans and Europeans have become a part of the league, and today “the United States, with a much higher black population than Canada, now contributes approximately 15% of all NHL players while Canada produces just over 60%” (ibid.). 

   Interestingly, NHL demographics are not measured by ethnicity, but by nationality, therefore the precise statistics about black players in the NHL are incredibly hard to get by. However, in the 2010-2011 season out of thirty organizations – of which are allowed fifty players under a professional contract – there were only 32 black players listed ². What furthermore has hardened the task of more black players arising is the replacing of the Atlanta Thrashers with the Winnipeg Jets in the current 2011-2012 season. Atlanta, Georgia which by demographics according to the 2010 census report has a total population of 5,2 million of which nearly 1,8 million are blacks also had the most black players on the Thrashers’ roster (five) in the previous season (Black Demographics). Manitoba, in which Winnipeg is located, on the other hand, out of a total population of 1,133,515 (according to the census report of 2006), only had a black population of 15,655 ³. It is therefore fair to say based on the previous statistics that in the future it is even less likely to see a changing trend in hockey ethnicity.           

To conclude, Stuart Hall states it well when he says that there seems to be an obsession with ‘difference’ and ‘otherness’ (1997: 225). Due to such a simple factor as the colour of a person’s skin have theories about intellectual superiority and inferiority been fabricated. Of course it must be noted that these fabrications are often products of dominant ideologies in the maintenance of social order. Though still today there are very few blacks in the NHL, it is far too simplistic to base this purely on “blackness”. As discussed, socio-economic and socio-environmental factors have to be taken into account. It comes to no surprise why for instance my native Finland is the current world champion in hockey as the climate conditions allow for the sport to be played outside during the winter. But an issue which I have yet to address is the debate around cultural differences being factors to sports success. Explaining cultural differences also seems too trivial, because after all cultures are “subject to constant change and are forever remade” (Carrington & McDonald 2001: 4). In short, as the world – and especially the United States – has become a multicultural Mecca, explaining sports due to cultural differences seems little to add up. Claims about food diet and religion also seem too far-fetched in my opinion, and therefore should be ignored altogether. Willie O’Ree as the first black NHL player broke the stereotypes of blacks’ biological limitations in hockey, which was certainly aided by the fact that he himself was raised within a hockey-crazed community in Fredericton, in the New Brunswick province in Canada (Harris 2003: 77). O’Ree was the exception to the rule; not only was he the first black player, but there were very few blacks living in Canada at the time altogether. But once O’Ree broke from the bonds of “blackness” as an obstacle, he proved to be a role model for more black hockey enthusiasts. ‘Race’ is merely an ideology, a distortion that only can be righted when challenging past stereotypes. The media may reinforce stereotypes but as players like Jerome Iginla, Dustin Byfuglien, Wayne Simmonds and Kyle Okposo continue to strive and the NHL continues its work in promoting diversity (through its Diversity Program, founded in 1995) among other things such as the Used Equipment Bank (for economically disadvantaged youths), “blackness” or “whiteness” will become irrelevant.                

Bibliography

Book Sources

Cashmore, E. (2010) Making Sense of Sports (Fifth Edition). Taylor & Francis.

Donald, J. & Rattansi, A. (1992) ‘Race’, Culture and Difference. London: Sage.

Entine, J. (2010) Taboo: Why Black Athletes Dominate Sports and Why we’re Afraid to Talk About it. Perseus Books Group.

Hall, S. (ed.) (1997) Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Sage.

Harris, C. (2003) Breaking the Ice: The Black Experience in Professional Hockey. Insomniac Press.

Johal, S. (2001) Playing their own game: A South Asian football experience in Carrington, B. and McDonald, I. (eds.) ‘Race’, Sport and British Society, Oxon: Routledge.

Mason, D. (2000) Race and Ethnicity in Modern Britain (2^nd Edition). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Pankin, R.M. (ed.) (1982) Social Approaches to Sport. Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press.

Solomos, J. & Back, L. (1996) Racism and Society. London: McMillan.

Online Sources

¹ Orientalism: A Brief Definition,” Political Discourse—Theories of Colonialism and Postcolonialism. [Online] Available from: http://www.postcolonialweb.org/poldiscourse/pol11.html [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

² Thrashers Top NHL With Highest Percentage Of Black Players. [Online] Available from: http://www.wsbtv.com/news/sports/thrashers-top-nhl-with-highest-percentage-of-black/nFC2p/ [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

³ Ethnicity Series: A Demographic Portrait of Manitoba. [Online] Available from: http://www.gov.mb.ca/immigration/pdf/manitoba-immigration-ethnicity-series-3.pdf [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

Black Demographics http://www.blackdemographics.com/atlantablackdemographics.html [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

Douglas, W. (2011) Days of All-White Hockey Over, On Ice and in Booth. [Online] Available from: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/31/107773/days-of-all-white-hockey-over.html [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

Morrison, M. & Frantz, C. (2007) Icing the Stereotypes: Black Hockey Players in a Traditionally White Sport. [Online] Available from: http://www.infoplease.com/spot/bhmhockey1.html [Accessed: 5th May, 2012]

National Poverty Center (NPC) http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/ [Accessed 5^th May, 2012]

Plec, E. The Great White Hype: Rhetoric and Racial Biology in Coverage of the 1968 Olympic Protest. [Online] Available from: http://wou.academia.edu/EmilyPlec/Papers/825943/The_Great_White_Hype_Rhetoric_and_Racial_Biology_in_Coverage_of_the_1968_Olympic_Protest [Accessed 5th May, 2012]

Compare and contrast the representation of social problems in "La Haine" (1995) and "Un Prophète" (2009)

This essay will analyse Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995) and Jacques Audiard’s Un Prophète (2009) and their representations of France’s social problems. Dominated by two genres in the 1980s and early 1990s, heritage films and cinéma du look concentrated very little on the on-going social problems in France. The representation of Paris particularly was largely portrayed as a Disneyesque locale associated with romance and glamour while at the same time in truth riots and a wide separation between classes was taking place. It was not until through the introduction of cinéma de banlieue that many of these anxieties were being uncovered on camera for the wider audience. While it can be argued that Kassovitz was not the sole creator of the new genre, the international success of La Haine did however help mobilize a whole movement of films dealing with the state of France. I find it necessary to offer an introduction to the milieu of many of the issues which saw filmmakers like Kassovitz and later Audiard make the films in question. While it can be argued that Un Prophète does not exactly fit the category of the banlieue genre, it nonetheless embodies many of the issues depicted a decade earlier.    

La Haine and Un Prophète may be over a decade apart, but nonetheless the majority of commonalities they share is very much due to the credit of France’s never-ending social problems. The restlessness and violent confrontations between the youth and police of the early 1990s saw the mass media begin to pay more attention on the suburban banlieues. The separation between the urban and suburban terrains in the period of which the films were released can be put into context by the appointment of Jacques Chirac as president in the same year of which La Haine was released. Chirac’s election promises of healing France’s ‘fracture sociale’ saw him take office, but little did it calm the nerves of the voters. Instead, Chirac’s election resulted in massive chaos when his aggressive stance for instance implemented “changes to the penal code to allow prison sentences for public order violations such as loitering in their entrance ways and stairwells” (Siciliano 2007: 217). Chirac’s right-wing government – the first in 14 years – took a specific interest in “solving” the rising concerns of the banlieues. The media’s influence in publicising an issue that had been around since the 1970s also became a large factor in the dispute. This can be traced all the way back to post-World War II France, when the aftermath of the Second World War saw a large economic boom and increase in population enter Paris creating a lack in housing migrating factory workers.

Branded as Les Trente Glorieuses, this period extended from 1945 to 1974, and was marked by extraordinary growth in the banlieues, as the so-called bidonvilles on the outskirts of the city were demolished to produce clean, modern homes (Ross 1996; Merlin 1998 in Siciliano: 215).

While France was enjoying the “glorious thirty years”, Paris was being rebuilt and modernized under the pretext of hygiene and security due to its strong economy (ibid.). The housing projects originally built for French upper- and middle-class citizens by the mid-1970s had become known as low-income housing estates mainly inhabited by immigrants seeking work from the Maghreb. It was in the 1960s when France highly encouraged a large increase in immigration from its colonies in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to find work in factories during the boom. Along with the economic success did a vast racial divide happen as the majority of the North-African immigrants now were being situated amongst one another in the now-deteriorating banlieues. When the mid-1970s hit, jobs no longer were available and many of the factory workers were now being laid off. “Between 1975 and 1990 France lost 1.3 million industrial jobs and most of the public housing estates were concentrated in the areas severely affected by this deindustrialization” (Body-Gendrot 2000 in ibid.). By the 1990s, unemployment reached from 50 to 80 percent in some banlieues and with young residents between 30 and 85 percent. Not only was the growing situation of dire living conditions being solved, but “there have actually been over 300,000 more apartments phased out than built since 1989” (Silverstein & Tetreault 2006). A growing national fear upon the youth of the banlieues – rather than simply ethnic fears – was surfacing with ample reports of crude violence and crime in the outskirts. It was at this time when the most violent confrontations between the youth and police force led to several deaths including the shooting of 16-year-old Zairian Makomé M’Bowole in 1993. Chirac’s government can be seen as further powering the debate when even tougher stances were taken, only with even more upsetting results.      

It comes to no surprise why Kassovitz chose to begin his film with images of rioting along with Bob Marley’s “Burnin’ and Lootin’’’ playing in the background. As Will Higbee writes, 

[the] song [was] originally written in response to the state-sanctioned police brutality in the shanty towns of Kingston, Jamaica during the 1970s... [and] therefore functions as a preface to the action that will follow by establishing the violent tension between the banlieue youth and the forces of law and order (2006: 70).

The music Kassovitz employs in the film is with a precise purpose with sub-culture references to hip-hop, graffiti art and break-dance playing throughout the film. After the hip-hop scene arrived in The United States in the early 1970s in New York, the Parisian banlieues by 1979 next adopted the widespread form of musical expression as a direct result of the current political situation. Much like the message in reggae, minorities’ expression through hip-hop was principally used against police brutality only now in a more aggressive fashion. Kassovitz certainly does not shy away from portraying the police force in a negative light; for instance in one scene a DJ – played by the famous Cut Killer – in the top floor of a banlieue apartment raucously blasts a remix between KRS-One’s “The Sound of da Police”, Edith Piaf’s “Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien” (No, I Regret Nothing) and NTM’s “Nique La Police”, the French version of NWA’s “Fuck the Police”. “Kassovitz contantly repeats in interviews that his film is about police blunders, thus putting it firmly in the realm of hip-hop culture, pervaded by strong anti-police feelings.” (Konstantarakos in Powrie 1999: 161) The first shots of the film firmly assert its stance in the battle between the police and the youth. The police are seen as a force with a hefty arsenal going against mere students with nothing but rocks to throw. The images pay homage to Makomé and the entire 24-hour narrative is set around a similar situation when Abdel is hospitalized as a result of police assault. Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé) and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui) may come from different ethnic backgrounds, but in the issues Kassovitz tries to address, skin colour is irrelevant.  The issue of the matter is the youth in the banlieues and nothing else, not even gender. As O’Shaughnessy argues, “La Haine deliberately presents us with a class-driven narrative of the banlieue’s troubles, despite the clearly signalled ethnic origins of its three main protagonists” (2007: 72). All three are unemployed with a lack of education and seemingly nothing but time on their hands. This is illustrated when after hotwiring a car not one of them knows how to drive and Hubert in one scene struggles to even help his little sister with her homework. Their daily routine consists of wandering around in search of something to do. The trio leave to Paris using the RER train at one point to claim Saïd’s unpaid debt despite the sum being reasonably modest. Much to their annoyance after being held in police custody, they find themselves missing the final departing train of the night. It is the second half of the film that truly exposes the grand problem of a nation under a severe lack of unity.    

The film can be seen as divided into two parts, the first in the banlieue and the second in Paris. Konstantarakos even describes that Kassovitz originally wanted to film the sequence of Paris in colour, even using different camera techniques for effect (Powrie: 163). Instead, he chose to shoot the first sequence by day and most of the other by night. Perhaps one of the more significant scenes of the film is when the three arrive at their station in Paris “the whole atmosphere and sound changes and they feel out of place and strangers” (ibid.); quite literally as Kassovitz’s camerawork shows. The scenery of Paris behind them is completely detached from where they stand, once more clueless of how to act. Vinz in particular embodies a tough egotistic persona confronting anyone who comes in his way, but when it comes to using the police gun he found after the riots, even if it is on a racist skinhead, he falters. The trio seem to be but mere children in an adult metropolis amputated from what France’s motto liberté, égalité, fraternité strives for. “The protagonists are paradoxically only a train ride away, but a world apart from the cosmopolitan culture of late capitalist urban space” (Siciliano: 220). The apartment they go into collect Saïd’s debt does not compare to the living quarters where they sleep. The walls are white and tall and Saïd at one point even jokes how even the police are friendlier, ironically getting arrested only moments later. When they arrive in an open art exhibit, they indulge themselves in the free food and drink available, failing to engage with any of the works. When trying to strike a conversation with a pair of women the trio’s lack in sophistication and social skills fails to impress them, resulting in calamitous disorder. 

Un Prophète offers a different viewpoint to the on-going class struggle represented through its crude penal system. Many of the social issues being played Un Prophète reappear through the character of Malik El Djebena (Tahar Rahim). Malik is a French Muslim coming from a rough background being imprisoned for violent acts against police officers. In Un Prophète the facts about Malik’s life outside of the prison walls are more secretive than of those in La Haine, so one is merely left with slight clues and assumptions of where he is coming from. At the beginning of the film Malik is nineteen years old sentenced to six years, being stripped of all his possessions, completely dehumanizing him in the process. In a jail interview he reveals that he was raised without parents in a youth centre until eleven years old and it is quite clear that he has not received a proper education when it is discovered he lacks the most basic reading and writing skills. When entering the prison it becomes a moral identity struggle due to the jail being divided quite literally into two groups: the Corsicans and the Muslims. Malik sticks to himself but is forced to make the decision of killing or being killed when the Corsican mob orders him to kill fellow Muslim Reyeb, the one person who at first takes care of him. There is an issue of him as a clear victim of the French colonization – when in being situated outside the sphere of society – he falls into the same category as the repressed banlieue youth. He only comes to terms with his true identity under imprisonment when his status outside the realm of society gets him into contact with other Muslims. Slowly Malik begins to realise his identity of being a Muslim when secretly viewing prayer sessions, but is in limbo between doing the right thing and staying alive. The repercussions of murdering Reyeb begin to haunt him, as he seeks help and starts to have conversations with the imaginary. This is not to suggest that Malik when released in any way is rehabilitated, but in fact quite the opposite. He enters as merely a troubled young man, but exists as an experienced criminal. The film in more obvious manner presents issues of racism and xenophobia in modern French society through the representation of the Corsicans. Corsica – under the rule of France but geographically and linguistically more Italian – in its years has pursued full autonomy from France through a number of even violent nationalist movements. While it is regarded as French, it receives very little aid from the government, therefore being one of the most underdeveloped regions. The Corsicans’ and mob leader César Luciano’s (Niels Arestrup) actions seem to characterise the dismay of belonging to France. The mob degrades Malik in various ways and through him being treated with a lower status furthermore fuels his desire to be part of the Arabs. While Audiard denies that the film serves as any sort of social commentary, he does admit to Malik being an example of a youths “rise to power, a rise to visibility” (Laurier 2010).  

To conclude, both La Haine and Un Prophète raise questions of a divided French society. Since the Second World War, France has become a multi-ethnic nation and claims of equality have been more than questionable. La Haine explores the distance between Paris and the suburban banlieues, while in Un Prophète the isolation between minorities and equality lies inside the prison walls. Kassovitz tries to focus less on issues of racism than Audiard, but nonetheless this issue almost inevitably becomes apparent especially in the second half of the film. The three protagonists in La Haine as well as Malik all beg the importance of a quality education system, which France lacks to provide for all. Chirac’s government took it upon themselves to ‘solve’ the banlieue issue by employing tougher action against an unprivileged generation. La Haine therefore presents a telling narrative, concentrating on the brutality of the police force, however, intelligently so that it can be argued that the film itself is not entirely biased in representing the police as the villain. For example the character of Samir gets Saïd out of jail, even helping Hubert with a grant to rebuild his gym which was destroyed as result of the riots. Un Prophète on the other hand explores the penal system from within, which seems to be crowded with minorities and a corrupt power structure run by the Corsicans offers little glimmer of optimism.

Bibliography

Book Sources

Higbee, W. (2006) Mathieu Kassovitz. Manchester: Manchester University Press.

O’Shaughnessy, M. (2007) The New Face of Political Cinema: Commitment in French Cinema Since 1995. New York; Oxford: Berghahn.

Powrie, P. (ed.) (1999) French Cinema in the 1990s: Continuity and Difference. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Online Sources

Laurier, J. (2010) Jacques Audiard’s Un prophète: An extreme case of making a virtue out of necessity. Available from: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/prop-a20.shtml

Siciliano, A. (2007) La Haine: Framing ‘Urban Outcasts’. Available from: http://www.acme-journal.org/vol6/ASi.pdf

Silverstein, P. & Tetrault, C. (2006) Postcolonial Urban Apartheid. Available from: http://riotsfrance.ssrc.org/Silverstein_Tetreault/

"Run Lola Run" (1998): An Analysis on the First Segment of the Film

In this essay I will be thoroughly focusing on the first segment of Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt, 1999) spanning from the very beginning of the film until exactly thirty-three minutes. My main objective is to give my personal view of that segment in particular, while providing examples of how the narrative and mis en scène play part in the extract. I will be going into detail about the different themes and meanings as I see them, at the same time getting support from various sources from different academics, and of course the clip itself. I will refrain from being biased, for my writing of this essay itself should show my admiration for the film. I hope to engage in the character of Lola and her choices and actions in relation to what I think Tykwer is out to prove. His usage of different elements – clocks and time, the whole film as a sort of metaphor for a video game, shots of photographs of people passing by, the colour red, and finally a flashback sequence of the two central characters in a crimson room lying on a bed having a conversation – have different meanings on which I hope to share my understanding on. 

Time is really all Run Lola Run is about. Whether it were the representations of clocks seen in several scenes, or her being literally split-seconds away from stopping Manni from robbing the grocery store, time is a key element in the film. The film sets off its narrative through the simple element of the ticking of a clock, whereas we (the viewer) are “given a ‘treatment’ in terms of plotline, and this is perceived as being what the film is ‘about’” (Rowe, A. and Wells, P., 2003: 78). Lola has been put under an impossible task that even heroes in comic books would most likely fail to accomplish. The only difference is that Lola has the luxury of getting more than one chance to do this – of course without her knowing so – and even the power to learn from her mistakes as if she were some sort of character in a video game. As the film so obviously challenges realism – as we see bottles shatter by her scream, the telephone land in place after she so neglectfully tosses it over her shoulder, the irony of her passing the homeless man on the street with the money and of course having only 20 minutes to find 100,000 DM – the narrative allows her to ‘jump in time’ and restart after her previous failure.

I also see the film as a very built-in character study. The film’s narrative is mainly seen from Lola’s point of view as the viewer is taken to a journey from her perspective. Tykwer is trying to establish a relationship with how Lola’s views relate with that of what the narrator talks about in the very beginning of the film. As the narrator goes on to ask a set of rhetorical questions such as “who are we?”, “where do we come from?”, “where are we going?”, we have yet to meet Lola as the camera peers through a ‘crowd of strangers’. I understand this shot as a metaphor for Lola’s ‘big day’. We are taken to a brief trip with Lola only to see her shot in the chest before cutting into a bedroom where she is in the midst of a similar deep conversation with Manni. “Narrative involves the viewer in making sense of what is seen” (ibid: 80) and as she questions her love for him the thoughts of the narrator bring much relevance to the scene as in reality she is right when she tells Manni that “I could be anyone”. She appears to be lost, but not only is she risking her own life for Manni, she is transforming the world around her. “Narrative develops on the basis of cause-and-effect” (ibid: 80) and as she passes random people on the street her encounter with these individuals always has a different outcome as in the previous, making every encounter anyone makes in the world seem meaningful.“Tykwer illustrates how the smallest change in what a person does can alter the rest of their life (not to mention the lives of others, including complete strangers she passes on the street)”. (Elsaesser, 2005: 276) I see this as every individual choice that Lola makes has its consequences, in which every action has its different set of motions. It affects all the people around her whether she knows it or not or whether she wishes so or not. She is clueless struggling in the midst of her own troubles leaving her blinded by the world moving around her. 

The mis en scène in the film is set up to make Lola seem nothing more than a vulnerable and troubled chess piece in the game too grand for her to control. The way the camera works with the music changes the tone of the film. As we see Lola run only after the camera has spun around her having chosen her father as the “chosen one”, she exits her apartment building with the camera being placed high up from her making her seem the size of an insect compared to the world she embarks upon. “Conventional accounts suggest that low-angle shots imply the power of the subject – usually a human figure – and a high-angle shot its weakness”. (Rowe, A. and Wells, P., 2003: 72). This happens as the journey from her apartment building continues all the way to the destination of the grocery store where Manni is. Berlin is her playground and the camera moves with her even appearing in slow motion while she moves with desperation on her face as if she were running in water. While the camera shows her as weak, the music starts off in an upbeat and fast-tempo techno track giving the viewer the sense that despite the odds that are against her, she has hope. While the stage stays the same, events change when she is seen running away with Manni and the bag of money; the camera slows down and as the music turns into a slow-tempo blues song by Dinah Washington little hope is left in the couple’s getaway.     

The colour red is seen as a very strong visual element or even ‘prop’. I see all these – the colour of her hair, the telephone, the ambulance, the bag with the money after the robbery and finally the room where Lola and Manni lie in – with much connotation when it comes to the mis en scène. “Films are also dependent on ‘props’ as a device for conveying meaning” (ibid: 66). Even before we see Lola in the film, we see a close-up of the red telephone ringing in urgency waiting to get picked up, followed by a lady in red (this time none other than her visually striking coloured dark red hair). The viewer is swiftly taken to the understanding that we are dealing with a strong central female character with not the most feminine of traits seen by her clothing and her hairstyle. Instead, a strong, maybe even troubled young woman expecting a phone call that might have the direst of consequences. Red may only be a colour but the striking force behind it is immediately recognisable. I may even call it a double-edged sword for as it may represent softer images such as love and joy, traits like danger and death also come to mind. As she races to save her love, an ambulance in an equal hurry passes her, nearly crashing while the driver is stricken by her panic. One cannot but see the irony behind this, for a vehicle attempting to rescue lives nearly becomes the taker of life – and eventually, it does. Finally, the last part of the segment ends with a red room having the camera point down towards Lola and Manni. What only a few seconds ago ended with death cuts into a very different place in the life of the two where a conversation about love instigates.

As I have been trying to prove, Run Lola Run has numerous amounts of meaning under its rough exterior. I have sought to explore these matters through a close viewing of the film as a whole while going back to the first segment several times. Tykwer proves that he does not have to escape a setting for the film to excel, as the power is in the strong character of Lola and the events that circulate around her. While she is no Lara Croft, she may appear to be in the same situation. As she does not succeed at first through her moves and mistakes, it makes her seem all the more human. Tykwer’s camera-work, storytelling technique, the props and the characters he presents help transform a simple idea into a journey of unanswered questions. The narrative works along with the idea of her getting several chances without further explaining how this happens, for it gives the viewer that much more room for the imagination. While the film is associated with its usages of colour, one may come to devalue its meaning and ask of its relevance in the form of ‘why?’ as I may go on to question it as well, but only in the form of ‘why not?’ It is precisely the small things that make the difference in the end and Run Lola Run proves this ever so well.

Bibliography

Rowe, A. and Wells, P. ed. Nelmes, J. (2003). An Introduction to Film Studies: Fourth Edition. London: Routledge.

Elsaesser, T. (2005) European Cinema: Face to Face with Hollywood. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.