Monday, 6 October 2014

The Streets analysis writeup

The clip in question:



My analysis:

Editing 
The editing in this clip of "The Streets" is powerful and creates meaning when discussing the gender of characters. First of all, the man has more screen time than the wife does during the fight, this shows he has more dialogue and thus is being more dominant within the household at this time than the wife, which is a masculine trait.The sequencing of the clips creates a comparison between the camera angles. All shots are from outside of the kitchen in which the fight occurs. The man is shown from a camera placed at the right side of the room, where the two sons are sitting, this could show that the boys look up to their dad as a role model or as a figure of authority and fear him more. The shots of the wife are from the slight-left-center of the living room, where the girl is sitting at the table, which means that the daughter sees the mum as her role model and looks up to her as she is a maternal figure. This is linked by rough, jump cutting of all the clips in this scene, portraying aggression and potentially adding more realism to the scene than there would be if fade transitions were used, this is more of a masculine edit, in my opinion, despite most of the shots used are following the feminine wife character, shown by her having overall more screen time than any other character, we are therefore positioned with her. The edits in this scene are quick and decisive due to the lack of transitions and the cut occurring just after the motivation. The motivation during this scene could be one of many things, including: shouting of that character causing the shot to cut to them, when the man slams the door, we cut to a shot inside of the kitchen, to continue our following of that character. When she leaves the room, the motivation is activated yet again and the shot cuts to a medium long-shot of the room. Lots of motivation means lots of jump cuts, which are a more masculine editing technique 
Overall, I believe the editing portrays masculine traits such as lack of transitions between quick and decisive edits, making the scene a lot quicker and aggressive 
MES 
Mise-En-Scene can say a lot about a character, for example, gender, in this case. We can see that the man feels more comfortable at the building site rather than his own home, meaning he belongs there more than at home. This can be considered stereotypical, but is a true fact. The woman spends most of her time in the kitchen in this scene (during the fight and when the appliance breaks) thus meaning she had belonging there in this scene. The man represents the stereotypical "man's man" or alpha male shown by his aggression and dominance within the household. The wife on the other hand appears to be more of a maternal, housewife figure shown by her care and affection toward her children and her time spent (all of which) in the house. The scenes are usually lit with at a low-level with directional lighting to accentuate a certain feature of each character or make it appear more gloomy, adding to the tension within the scene. The roles within the scene, performed by the actors very much fill stereotypes and are "expected" behavior of each gender, this means the man has physical power as he is emotive through his aggression, unlike the wife who has narrative power, being the more emotional one in the scene 
Camera 
During this scene, the camera subliminally shows underlying features about each character. For example, the man and wife have a large proximity between each other as they are rarely shown in the same shot (relating back to the perspectives mentioned in the editing paragraph, filmed in a point of view). During the fight, the man appears larger on screen as he has the loudest voice too, making him most prominent in shot. The characters are facing each other, showing that the dialogue and thus emotion is aimed towards the other person. Most shots for both the man and the woman are slightly below eye-level, making them seem more powerful. However, they are both around the same height, showing a closeness in power. This is a masculine camera angleCloseups in this scene are mainly directed toward the facial area to better portray and display emotion, rather than objectify. The camera in this scene is detached and handheld, but not erratic, just slight jitter, showing that it's not complete chaos and that there might be some hope for this family. 
Sound 
The sounds in the male scenes are very stereotypical. We associate the working man with sounds that are heavy and industrial like in the scene on the building site as we presume a role of a builder is filled by a man due to society's teachings. This is deliberately loud and aggressive to show the anger and frustration the character is undergoing after the argument with his wife. The sounds are those of the events occurring within the scene (eg: hammering sound is from the action of the husband character) some of the hammering sounds cause a jump between shots, showing different perspectives of the same action (using match on action in some instances) and a final blow with the hammer causes the shot to change to one of the wife agiain

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