Marina Assignment 26.1:
In this report I will be critically analysing both of the films ‘The Witches’ and ‘Brokeback Mountain’ by two very different directors with different applicable theories, which consist of the queer theory and the auteur theory. Starting with Nicolas Roeg who was an auteur director that took his own illustrated interpretation of Roald Dahl’s fantasy novel for a young targeted audience, and transformed it into his film ‘The Witches’. This way Roeg had allowed the film to gain much more recognition, as his work on the film ‘The Witches’ was vastly ahead of its time due to the high use of special FX makeup and CGI usage, "This story has a genuinely twisted flavour that some children will love and others will find disturbing. -Nell Minow" (4). On the other hand, Ang Lee’s film, ‘Brokeback Mountain’ uses the queer theory to portray unconventional gay roles in the film to make an attempt at subverting gender norms and behaviours for a man or woman’s sexuality and what is expected of them in society. Therefore, a contrast in types of directors and films will be discussed in this report.
Roeg’s film ‘The Witches’ shows forms of subverting codes and conventions of young children’s films by creating a real sense of horror, at a time where most films targeted at a younger audience showed use of symbolism to create a much lighter and happier tone to the storyline and film itself. Many reviews also consist of the same thoughts, “Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror” (1). Thus allowing the film to fall into the hybrid genre of comedy/horror, as the comedic humour during the film allows a sense of a light-hearted tone to come through to not scare the young audience too much. The use of comedy is also a common convention for horror movies as a satirical tone in place allows the audience to ease down without becoming to scared by the sense of horror created on screen. ‘The Witches’ uses different conventions; one example would be its use of a third person narrative. The film starts with the story being told and illustrated from the grandmother’s point of view, this is a common convention of a children’s film. Therefore, the film shows traits of unconventional and conventional codes for its time of release. However, as the film was based on the fantasy novel by Roald Dahl, Roeg puts his illustration into form in the end of the movie causing the film to be “hated by Dahl because its ending differs from the book” (2). This could be argued as a different form, as the audience would not expect to see Roeg’s own take onto the ending of the film due to the storyline being based on the novel, this encourages the audience to have an initial thought of the whole storyline which is then made to be regressive because of Roeg’s alternative ending.
In this report symbolism in both movies will also be discussed. The symbolism in ‘The Witches’ conveys constant use of the colours purple for the witches’ eyes. The colour purple often has association with the Halloween festival and witches are often linked with this season due to it being a pagan festival. Therefore, Roeg intentionally uses the colour purple to reinforce the stigma behind the colour creating further fear towards the witches from the young audience. Whilst the colours used are conventional, the setting is not. As the movie was based in the ‘Headland Hotel’ in Newquay, many of its audience would not expect this to be linked with witches as hotels are usually portrayed with happy and joyful connotations due to a hotels common use for holidays. Thus, making the movie more forward thinking by challenging conventions of the horror genre for younger audiences. The hotel’s history also shows no link to witchery furthermore challenging the storyline in the film, instead it shows an amazing contextual history of royal kings and queens of London staying at the hotel, showing its extravagancy. Nick Roeg had chosen Anjelica Huston to play the main grand witch. Anjelica Huston is also well known for her main motherly role in ‘Addams Family’, which is also based on a similar genre, showing her expertise in this field proving her main roles in these movies to be of good choice whilst creating a star persona for Huston, therefore showing the acting in the film to be highly convincing to its audience as it is often known to be one of the scariest films for children.
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Through use of the mise en scene Roeg uses dark costumes of black for the grand high witch played by Anjelica Huston, who fills the role of a powerful antagonist. The colour black shows connotations of death and creates use of the enigma code as the dark colours foreshadow a downfall in the plot of the storyline for the film creating suspense. Furthermore, the technical elements for Roeg’s film show high usage of CGI for the laser beams of the witches from their eyes, once again promoting the ideology that the witches’ eyes have much significance as the colour purple also often appears in their eyes when transforming or when using their powers, this is achieved by camera effects. For the film’s times of release (1990), it was more common to see special FX makeup more than CGI for production. However, Roeg’s film shows use of both special FX and CGI showing its expensive production. The special FX is used mainly on the witches when they transform into their ghastly form at a conference in the hotel whilst discussing their attempt to takeover, this enlightens us on their true form as they peel away their skin and embody their real witch form. The special FX also frightens the young audience due to its realistic look of skin, allowing the scene to be imprinted as a key scene from the whole film as it thickens the plot by frightening the audience by showing the unexpected. When discussing technical elements for the film ‘The Witches’, it also shows use of diegetic sound as the grandmother narrates the whole story, which the characters cannot hear throughout the movie as she speaks in third person. This creates a more personal feel between the audience and narrator making them more engaged into the movie.
Ang Lee’s film, ‘Brokeback mountain’ shows use of the queer theory throughout the film. The queer theory sprouted from feminism and gender studies in the 1990’s. It portrays gender behaviours that are not of the typical mainstream by challenging social norms, making the film have less of a mass audience through non-normative expressions of gender. This theory was intentionally explored in Ang Lee’s film, ‘Brokeback Mountain’, to show his audience that identities are not fixed but are more fluid and changing by having the two main roles reject conventions of genders, making the film progressive to create an insight into the challenge’s gays would face in society when they are just as normal as anyone else. Therefore, Lee showing the main male roles act out sexual scenes is a form to normalise the idea of being gay as films often show sexual scenes of heterosexual couples to entice the audience. Furthermore, an audience member that could experience discrimination of some sort would then be able to relate to the narrative of being an outcast, making the emotional response from the audience much stronger.
Based on the mise en scene it is shown that ‘Brokeback Mountain’ contains good use of pathetic fallacy as the more mellow scenes would be conveyed through a change in weather for the setting. This would help create the mood and tone for the audience through its symbolism. The symbolism also portrays the actors in typical male wear for the south of America, in Texas. This is intentionally done to furthermore break norms and codes of convention for male roles as both lead actors’ bond in an unexpected gay relationship. However, their costumes are purposefully made to be typical men’s fashion of the time to try and mask their un-normative behaviour for the time the movie was based in, to make them feel somewhat part of societies norms. Lastly, the symbolism also appears to show many cool blue tones by the settings used throughout the film. As the colour blue is cool toned it links to mellow mood of sorrow, almost foreshadowing that the ending of the film will also be of loss and sadness as the constant blue tones in the settings, costumes and even film cover overall trigger a sense of emotion to be more down from the audience.
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The spoken language in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ is purposefully covered in a thick Texan accent with an emphasis on a restricted speech code by the actors with high usage of slang to show the lower class of wealth that the two main male roles belonged to. This way the audience already begins to gain an insight on the character and their past or upbringing. In addition to this, the accent and tone used allows a form to be created as the audience begins to accord the narrative to its Texan setting and know the expectations faced from men when thinking according to the society of that era.
In conclusion, the queer theory used in ‘Brokeback Mountain’ allowed the narrative to be more authentic due to its subversion of gender norms, allowing the film to become progressive as a form of movement to show the moral that love is love and not just something felt between a man and woman. Due to Ang Lee’s progressive moral being reinforced throughout the film it allowed the narrative and acting to emotionally hit the audience gaining more popularity for the film with an outcome of an Oscar award. This was also stated by him during his Oscar award for best director, “Brokeback Mountain so much about, not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself. Thank you. Thank you, members of the Academy, for this tremendous honour” (6).Therefore, Ang Lee’s use of the queer theory for directing his film allowed him to achieve much more recognition due to his awards gained for his authenticity. Overall, in reference to the film ‘The Witches’ Roeg’s use of the auteur theory allowed an initial boost to his star persona of being an auteur director by having this film as one of his most recognised and most awarded to date. Furthermore, the auteur theory used gave Roeg a form of expression allowing his audience to see a visual of his unique interpretation to Roald Dahl’s fantasy novel. This gave children and families a film to bond over and be engaged in due to its slightly different narrative to the actual novel. Therefore, when directors can apply certain theories to their films it allows the audience to create a mental form by expecting what to see but when this is subverted, as done by Nick Roeg and Ang Lee, it boosts authenticity as it creates more engagement from the audience with use of an unpredictable narrative.
Bibliography:
1) Deliciously cruel to children, Roeg remains true to Dahl's underlying sense of real horror.
(5/12/18)
2) “hated by Dahl because its ending differs from the book.”
(5/12/18)
3)
(5/12/18)
4) (5/12/18)
"This story has a genuinely twisted flavour that some children will love and others will find disturbing. -Nell Minow"
(10/12/18)
6) "Brokeback Mountain" so much about, not just all the gay men and women whose love is denied by society, but just as important, the greatness of love itself. Thank you. Thank you, members of the Academy, for this tremendous honor.
(10/12/18)
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