1. Oliver Toone
How do we analyse a film
Intro: Genre analysis – codes and conventions, themes, characters, narrative etc
Auteur directors – a film maker who has unconventional film storylines
Conventional war movie – Green Berets
Director – John Wayne, Ray Kellogg (1968)
Convention of character – main character, heroic, fight war to save innocent people
Apocalypse now
Directed – Francis ford Copplar (auteur)
When analysing a film we normally look at the codes and conventions and see if the film follows
them. The codes and conventions include themes, setting, characters and even the narrative of the
film. For example if the film is following the codes and conventions and it is a horror genre film you
would be looking out for a dark spooky looking house, this is a typical setting for a horror genre to
take place also the young adults in a small group would fall under that genres conventions. Film
analysis is a great way of understanding the mind of the directors. There are two types of directors
and they are a Conventional director or an Auteur director. A conventional director follows all the
codes and conventions of film e.g. in there script the blonde attractive girl will die first, there will
normally be the ‘Last girl standing’ when the bad guy/monster has killed everyone else and she’s the
only one left. And a Auteur director will break these codes and conventions to give the audience a
much different film experience. For example the film Leon has many scenes that break the codes
and conventions.
Leon is a great example of an Auteur director’s film. Leon
was directed by Luc Besson who normal makes action
thrillers. Leon is an action thriller but breaks codes and
conventions. Leon starts off like an action thriller, gun
battle, drugs and a prostitute. These are all characters
and props that you will find in an action thriller, but then
the film breaks off and doesn’t follow the codes and
conventions. The films main storyline was very
unconventional in a sense because the main character
(Leon) has a different sort of relationship with another
character in the film that is called Mathilda. Mathilda is a little girl who has a troubled family and
lives next door to Leon. Leon then takes her in when her family get killed by corrupt cops. Then Leon
2. Oliver Toone
trains Mathilda to become a killer and she falls in love with Leon despite the age gap. You wouldn’t
normally see this in a film that follows codes and conventions.
Also auteur directors don’t use much product placement in there film, in films like Leon, Luc Besson
doesn’t show any Products that are known. However other directors that are considered Auteur like
Steven Spielberg will still use product placement in there film. A good example of a film that has
product placement in it is James Bond: Skyfall. In the opening scene to the film you see some
Volkswagen Beetles on the back of the train, even mentioned in the film. Even his signature drink
the Martini has been changed to a well know brand named beer Heineken. And then his can the
Aston Martin