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    Short Essays on Film
    Short Essays on Film
    Short Essays on Film
    Ebook81 pages55 minutes

    Short Essays on Film

    By Adrian Ryan

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    About this ebook

    13 short essays on film covering subjects as wide ranging as Genre, cognitive/neo-formalist readings, signs in visual culture, editing and much more.

    A collection brought together over a 3 year period, between 2008-2011 and re editing for a 2022 release. Artist, Graphic Designer and Motion Designer, Adrian Ryan, explores how film often reflects our society, delves deep into our collective psyche and sometimes leaves us with more questions than answers.

    The age-old human pastime of storytelling often has subplots and ideologies built in, whether we acknowledge them or not is a matter for the individual, but we will all have an experience when consuming the moving image, be it consciously or on a subconscious level.

     

     

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAdrian Ryan
    Release dateAug 9, 2022
    ISBN9798201263188
    Short Essays on Film

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      Book preview

      Short Essays on Film - Adrian Ryan

      Short Essays on Film

      Adrian Ryan

      ––––––––

      British Cinema

      Trainspotting. Britain at a specific moment in history?

      Troubles Cinema’ mini-genre in its own right.

      Cahier (Notebook) One

      Mad Max 2

      La Jetee

      Performance

      Shane

      Cahier (Notebook) Two

      Bloody Sunday

      Cloverfield

      Fight Club

      Minority Report

      Other Musings

      Minority Report. A cognitive/’neo-formalist’ reading

      Good Bye Lenin, how it depicts the tension between US culture and its own ‘indigenous’ national culture

      How is the ‘arbitrary’ nature of the sign exploited in visual culture?

      British Cinema

      Trainspotting. Britain at a specific moment in history?

      ‘The Trainspotting moment signalled the rejection, at least temporarily, of one kind of Britishness – the kind that routinely looked away from, and denied, anything with which it was not comfortable’ (Paget, 1999: 140). What types of Britishness does the film explore? Does the film document Britain at a specific moment in history?

      ––––––––

      Before discussing the types of Britishness that Trainspotting (Danny Boyle, 1996) explores, it is essential to explore the notion of what ‘British’ actually means. Since the process of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland began, national identity has become increasingly difficult to pinpoint or define.

      ––––––––

      Trainspotting has been acknowledged as an example of ‘new Scottish cinema’; it rejects the romanticised depictions of Scottish identity, as laid out in productions with origins from Hollywood or London. But more importantly, what depictions or examples does Trainspotting offer in place of the typical traits of Scottishness? These alternative depictions are vital in discovering and understanding the Britishness that is being explored, not just as a whole but also by individual characters. Does a Scottish national identity have to be overlooked or cast aside to embrace a British one? Renton’s actions and voice in the film would suggest that this is not the case; Renton displays his acceptance of British identity without eradicating his Scottishness when Tommy (Kevin McKidd) takes Renton (Ewan McGregor), Spud (Ewen Bremner) and Sick boy (Jonny Lee Miller) to the Scottish highlands.

      ––––––––

      Renton’s rant that follows Tommy’s question, Doesn’t it make you proud to be Scottish? does not just display his acceptance of a British identity but also demeans the proud Scottish highlands by saying all the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference. Renton is both accepting that Scotland is colonised by England or the English and that Renton and other characters are all, very much removed from this typical, tourist notion of Scotland. Notice that during most of the film they don’t make much effort to get from place to place, however when visiting the highlands they have to leave their comfort zone of Edinburgh and take a train. Once they arrive, they clearly feel disconnected from this typical Scottish setting, one that is made familiar to us by tourism advertisements and as depicted in previous on screen offerings of Scotland.

      ––––––––

      Duncan Petrie has described recent developments in Scotland as a ‘form of devolved British cinema’. Certainly Trainspotting and Human Traffic seem to suggest that the homogeneity of British cinema – national cinema as national allegory – has been replaced by a cinema of fissiparous irreverence and unstable identity. This recent cinema, as the Northern Irish films also suggest, sets itself firmly against the accumulated traditions of representation that underlie both the cultural term ‘British’ and the political entity ‘United Kingdom’. Perhaps, also, it marks a significant moment in the cultural decolonisation of Britain’s Celtic fringe – a process that not only begins to re-imagine the periphery but also marks the beginnings of a cultural project to re-imagine the very notion of Britain itself. (Mcloone, pg 186)

      ––––––––

      It is also evident that the proud Scottishness felt by Renton is all in the past, indicating that times have changed and so too has his attitude along with it. At the end of his sexual encounter with Diane (Kelly McDonald), Renton explains that he has not felt that good since Archie Gemmel scored against Holland in 1978. This is significant to examining his sense of Scottish national pride as the film is set in 1989. Also, Renton’s bedroom is decorated with children’s wallpaper featuring trains, indicating that Renton could still be living in his youth and is being held back, is it Scottishness that is holding him back? Or is it a metaphor that Scotland is holding itself back.

      ––––––––

      Also included in this shot are Hibernian Football Club flags and scarves. Hibernian is one of two big football clubs in Edinburgh and is a Catholic club, the other being Hearts, is Protestant. 

      ––––––––

      The colours of Hibernian football club can be seen twice in

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