Aileen

'Aileen: the selling of a serial killer'

 

 

 

 

Aileen: The selling of a serial Killer was the documentary film we concentrated on within the lecture. The 1993 documentary is directed by Nick Broomfield and takes a very participatory mode of documentary, with Nick being extremely involved in his own documentary, it becomes almost about him and his relationship with Aileen. Other Participatory directors include Michael Moore with 'Bowling for Columbine' and 'Supersize me', where he personally goes out to investigate and the documentary effects his life personally.

 

''What happens because of the filmmakers presence becomes crucial as anything that happens despite his presence.'' - Bill Nichols (2001, P.101)

 

'the life and death of a serial killer'

Nick Broomfield asks 'stupid questions' to his interviewees to open up a bigger story and how and why they have/had a relationship with Aileen. In the second follow-up film of Aileen 'The life and death of a serial killer' (2003), we even see Nick being interviewed in court as part of her case. What i find fascinating about the first documentary on Aileen is how the documentary gives the viewer an argument on weather to agree and believe Aileen or not to. we are not told what to think and can change our views on what we've heard about her from the media. Once i watched this, part of me felt sorry for her as we followed her and her self defence stories were believable. Also i felt this sorrow as people were knowing her just for media attention and money. For example, she went on to Nick about the police making deals with movie companies and the media making accusations about her. Worse however, was the couple that adopted her as their daughter after she went into prison and who were making money from media, asking Nick for quite a large sum for an interview.

Nick with Aileen's 'adopted mum'

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nick and Aileen

By the end of the second documentary, we see Nick shouting his apologies at Aileen after she walks off unhappy with Nicks questions. You can see how generally upset he is at thinking he has hurt her feelings, showing just how much of himself he has put into Aileen and her story.

 

Monster - the film made on Aileen's life

 

 

Other modes of Documentary!

 

Poetic - I find the poetic mode to portray a message more visually and metaphorically. For example, show London as a busy place i might show a time lapse of traffic, quick cuts, tubes racing by, a clock ticking away ect. It's a challenging and creative mode.

 

Expository - This mode is to educate and inform which we see a lot of on our TV's. Such as BBC2's 'The battle of Malta', which simply gives the audience an insight into the history of Malta and their help within the war, along with interviews of those who were there in this time period.

 

Observational - This mode usually is a fly on the wall type of documentary, where we simply follow a person or subject around. This is my favourite mode of documentary with examples such as 'The Family' and all David Attenborough programmes such as 'Africa' and 'Life'. I enjoy the insight into other lives and situations we may never experience or even know of without television.

 

Reflexive - showing the full development process of the film and establishing the crew and cameras such as in 'Catfish' where we begin with a different narrative following the man about and seeing what paintings he is being sent and his love life developing until the crew along with him discover somethings not right and take it up on themselves to go find this family. Another example is at the end of David Attenborough's nature programmes as we see how the crew have managed to film this and what issues they come across ect.

 

Performative - This mode would count for 'Man on a wire' as we follow his story through his interviews and see archive footage of the events and reenactments.

 

Nichols,B. (2001) 'Modes of Documentary'. P.101

Buffy and Horror

 Horror is a genre that has always been successful and has 4 main sub-texts.

VAMPIRE!
GHOST!
WARE WOLF!
THE THING!

However, horror has changed over the years due to the audiences having to be scared more and more as what scared the audience back in the 40's is no longer as scary in the 21st century. When horror movies used to be set in the haunted houses with the corpses and graveyards, we now are more likely to see the setting in a public place, high schools and middle-class American neighbourhoods. this brings the audience closer to the fear in the storyline making it seem a possible scenario to occur within their own lives.

In Ghost horror, we usually see hidden secrets or a fear of the past within the context. Yet I find this subtext to relate more to a thriller genre as the Ghost subtext don't often contain much blood or gore, which i think plays a big part in horror. Such as in the film 'The sixth sense', we see the little boy, who sees dead people who don't always know they are dead. Most of the dead people need this little boys help, such as one example of the little girl who gets him to uncover the real cause of her death to her dad, as her step-mum poisoned her.



Creep

The Thing horrors, involve the characters and audiences fear of the unknown. My best example for a thing horror is 'Creep', where a woman finds herself trapped in the London underground at night and comes across a strange looking 'thing', holding people hostage. this gives us as an audience a fear of the unknown, as it's set in a public place that many of us in London, travel through maybe everyday and we don't know what may go on through the night or behind the walls.

''Morticians are modern priests, working their arcane magic of cosmetics and preservation in rooms that are clearly marked 'off limits'. - ''Is it true that the dead are encoffined sans shoes? How are strangulation bruises hidden? The answers to all these questions are available, but they are not common knowledge. And if you try to make the answers part of your store of knowledge, people are going to think you are a bit peculiar.''  - Steven King (2010, P.158)
 

This quote relates to 'the thing' horror, as we are allowed to see what someones imagination has created when they have thought about what may be behind the 'off-limits' area which scares yet excites us.

Edward Scissorhands

Ware wolf horror is something i don't see around much in the cinema yet creates a sense of the fear of yourself as the protagonist is usually the ware wolf. Metaphorically, this ware wolf horror then does still pop up, such as 'Edward Scissorhands' which is more related to 'the thing' subtext, yet could go into this subtext with the main character being the character that many are still scared off and sometimes accidentally hurts others with his hands that he cannot control.




Buffy

Finally, we have the Vampire horror, which is widely popular in the 21st century with the teenage 'Twilight' films. The main characteristic in vampire films and what they gain their viewings from is the amount of sexuality used. 'Buffy the vampire slayer' takes on this sex role widely also. this is what makes this subtext the most pleasurable and scary together. I think this is therefore what has made Buffy such a success to have run 7 series over 6 years. Buffy is based on a vampire slayer who is a teenage girl who goes to high-school, which is something horror likes to pick up on with the setting in an everyday place, giving the audience the 'what if?' question. we see Buffy as a strong female lead, killing off the vampires and saving the day, which attracts us to her more so. Buffy is praised by critics for it's brilliant writing, being able to come up with the story lines and create a television series for a horror genre is something we see little of now. I think it's the normal teenage high school narrative and situations that occur such as romance and friendships yet then giving this horror vampire twist into the mix that then creates this artwork.




Buffy

Buffy

 

King.S, (2010). 'Danse macabre'. 'The modern American horror movie: Text and Subtext'. P.158.

War and history within films

Platoon

'Platoon' is known as one of the best Vitenam war films with it's portrayal on the events yet has been criticised for its bad representation and acknowledgement of the Vietnamese roles within this war. Oliver Stone was the director for Platoon and is a well established director and producer for history films such as 'JFK' and 'Savior'.

'Platoon' gave me a window into the world at this time and that's the great element of films with a history event as the setting. However, as filmmakers have a structure to follow and an audience to entertain, we nearly always end up following one main character and therefore a bias view on subjects, such as war, normally following the Americans. Other war films like 'Saving Private Ryan' and 'Pearl Harbor' are also prime examples of this, following an American group of soldiers to save this American Private and we hear the Americans speaking of 'Dirty Germans' in Pearl Harbor. However, Platoon showed an honest view of the soldiers in that they didn't want to be there. They were scared. As an audience Stone educates us on the society differences and rights, with the poor characters were forced to go to war yet Charlie Sheen's character, Chris Taylor, chose to be there, who had a wealthy background. He later realises it's not somewhere anyone wants to be.


Pearl Harbor

What i enjoy about war films is telling a story from particular viewpoints and the different types of emotions they go through, when going through events we clearly know off through public history, yet are not aware of the people involved within these events. Fictional characters or not, it's a chance for us to experience history and imagine how we may feel through the characters we follow.

Saving Private Ryan - Normandy scene

With war films, there is the brutality of the scenes with gun-fires and explosions, along with many deaths. Saving Private Ryan has it's most realistic scene right at the beginning with the portrayal of the Normandy landing, going straight into peoples guts exploding everywhere and non-stop shooting. This shows just how suddenly war was and the In-humane of it. Platoon, I noticed also serves this effect with extremely quick cuts in the war battle scenes, with hand-held cameras following the characters as if we were another soldier behind them. With this shaky style, it creates a tension and relates us to the characters emotions as neither of us are that aware of where the bullets are flying or hitting.

Saving Private Ryan

Platoon

Platoon - re-creation on houses on fire

I think the main reasons for Platoon being praised as a great portrayal of the Vietnam war, is due to Oliver Stone's experience in the war and how he re-created scenes from famous photographs that the audience would relate to when thinking of that war.

'Platoon also painstakingly re-enacts a number of key photographs of the war including the burning of houses with Zippo cigarette lighters at Cam Ne, a Viet Cong suspect shot in the head during the Tet offensive and photos of civilians murdered by US troops at My Lai.'

                                (Westwell.G, 2006. P.78)

Westwell.G. (2006) 'War Cinema' 'Hollywoods Vietnam' P.78

fantasy and the fantastic

This week we explored the fantasy and the fantastic genre within film and TV. Yet what i got out of the seminar and lectures was that instead of fantasy being of it's own single genre to a film piece, it is in-fact a genre that occurs within all other genres of films, just approached in different ways. For example, we watched an episode of 'Awake' (NBC, 2012), which is based on a man living in two different worlds, not sure which one is false. This programme has a drama genre within it, working out his relationships with his wife and son, yet as he is living two different lives. The show picks up the fantasy genre with the classic alternate realities element of the genre.

Horror is often a genre which involves a fantasy genre, using monsters, supernaturals and witch craft, such as creep, with much reality from the scenario in the tube station yet the 'mad man' is somewhat of a monster and very fantasy. There is also normally a confusion between sci-fi and fantasy yet i have learnt that they often combined in genres, such as LOST, with the sci-fi being that they back up the concept with science. Such as the island not being seen from satellite with the planes signals disappearing along with the islands magnetism's is all very science fiction along with the history of the real-life Bermuda triangle in North-Atlantic. This gives the audience a 'what if?' feel, a common factor of sci-fi, along with technology.

Fantasy includes elements of magic, alternate realities, special effects and a wide use of CGI. We also see in fantasy films, some having their own worlds and even languages such as Harry Potter and Avatar. This last factor of their own worlds, widely applies to the second screening we had within the lecture, Games of Thrones (HBO, 2011). This episode, spoke widely of monsters and creatures within the world which do not exist in our reality, making it fictional and fantasy. Fantasy allows the audience to be fascinated and has grown over the years, beginning in 1906 with the audience simply beginning fascinated with moving images on screen yet as we have grown with the norm of this, content has become important to fascinate. Such as from 'A Trip to the Moon' (George Melies, 1902) to Avatar (James Cameron, 2010).

There is also a big debate on where fantasy begins and where reality ends in a film, such as do we class the cinematography as fantasy if it's CGI or green screened and the manipulation of space and time, such as flashbacks? Normally these two genres co-exist with 'Awake' being a prime example, which i mentioned earlier on, with the audience not sure on the mortality of the characters, which is also the case in LOST, with a number of flashbacks, flash-forwards and flash-sideways. Inception is also a confusion to time space and mortality to the audience and the characters.

I think my favourite part of the fantasy genre is the fact that it can be put into so many genres and how anything within the imagination can be shown through fantasy films, especially through animation, where the viewer really can escape reality, such as in 'Cloudy with a chance of meatballs', with the character making his world rain food. However, fantasy can also include valuable messages and look into the future, such as 'The Lorex', a completely fantasy world, yet carrying a valuable message to children about the damage to nature and the big decrease in trees.

Entertainmentwallpaper, 2004 -2013. 'Cloudy with a chance of meatballs wallpaper'. Available at: http://www.entertainmentwallpaper.com/download/10018254/
consumtionblog, 2012. 'consumptive judgement'. Available at: http://consumptionblog.com/2012/01/17/consumptive-judgement-homeland-vs-game-of-thrones/
fanpop,2012. 'Awake'. Available at: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/awake-nbc/images/24364390/title/awake-fanart
funscrape.com,2007-2012.'LOST plane crash' Available at: http://www.funscrape.com/Picture/61070/Lost
Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P, 2012. 'The Lorex printables'. Available at: https://h30495.www3.hp.com/detail/10000002.1