Fourth Wall: the imaginary invisible wall through which an audience views film, television and stage drama productions. Clive Owen breaks this wall in the beginning of the film, giving him an omniscent persona.
Protagonist: the leading character or hero in a film with whom the audience can identify and from whose point of view the action is positioned, often set in binary opposition against the antagonist. Denzel Washington plays the protagonist, Clive Owen is displayed as the antagonist but this status is dispelled toward the ending on the movie.
Hybrid: A cross betweenone film genre and another. Inside Man is a mixture of crime and thriller.
Equilibrium: the harmonious state that often exists at the start of a narrative before disruptive or transforming elements are introduced. The equilibrium is when the bank is moving along fine and people are going about their business in the bank.
Disequilibrium: the disruption of narrative by persons or events presenting a challenege to the harmonious equilibrium often found at the beginning of a film or other media text. The disequilibrium is created when the bank robbers enter the bank, the disruption itself it highlighted when the security guad notices something is odd and goes to stop the robbers but is held up at gunpoint.
Institution: any of the organisations responsible for the production, marketing, distribution or regulation of media texts.
Tuesday 4 November 2008
Wednesday 24 September 2008
Tuesday 23 September 2008
SHEP analysis of Inside Man
Social: The sensitive issue of Jewish people and the war has been addressed in this film in that people of the later generations want revenge for the crimes committed in the war. The robbers are,in a sense, portrayed as saviours/heroes as they are punishing people who had profited from the war. However, it is their ends that justify their means as robbing a bank isn't a normal (or the best) way to do it.
Historic: Bank robberies have happened frequently throughout American history[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_bank_robbers_and_robberies]. However, Inside Man put a twist on it by making the motive a fulfilment of an ideal rather than for monetary gain. Also, usually bank robbers are portrayed as desperate men with big guns. These robbers are very smart, they even outsmart the police who have superior resources.
Economic: The large divide between rich and poor in America and the pursuit of "The American Dream" may convince people into thinking that they have to rob a bank to become rich. However, Inside Man twists this ideal in that not only money is kept in a bank, people hide things that they don't want anyone else to see.
Political: American politics are usually biased toward making the richer citizens richer by giving them tax breaks etc. Inside Man could be trying to say that them and their money is not as safe as they think it is and that they should not be so greedy.
Historic: Bank robberies have happened frequently throughout American history[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_famous_bank_robbers_and_robberies]. However, Inside Man put a twist on it by making the motive a fulfilment of an ideal rather than for monetary gain. Also, usually bank robbers are portrayed as desperate men with big guns. These robbers are very smart, they even outsmart the police who have superior resources.
Economic: The large divide between rich and poor in America and the pursuit of "The American Dream" may convince people into thinking that they have to rob a bank to become rich. However, Inside Man twists this ideal in that not only money is kept in a bank, people hide things that they don't want anyone else to see.
Political: American politics are usually biased toward making the richer citizens richer by giving them tax breaks etc. Inside Man could be trying to say that them and their money is not as safe as they think it is and that they should not be so greedy.
Thursday 18 September 2008
Rotten Tomato review of Inside Man
What's going down inside Manhattan Trust's Wall Street branch may or may not be the usual bank robbery, but "Inside Man," the crime drama that details those nefarious doings, is careful to keep its distance from your standard heist movie.
Smartly plotted by newcomer Russell Gewirtz and smoothly directed by, of all people, Spike Lee, "Inside Man" is a deft and satisfying entertainment, an elegant, expertly acted puzzler that is just off-base and out-of-the-ordinary enough to keep us consistently involved.
he broad outline of "Inside Man," of course, couldn't be more familiar. We're talking perfect-crime territory here, the classic cat-and-mouse encounter between criminal mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) and Det. Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), the NYPD operative charged with outthinking the man with the master plan. Screenwriter Gewirtz, though, is not interested in doing anything quite that formulaic. Though its eye is always on the final showdown, his script is especially good at doling out confounding information on a need-to-know basis, providing a multitude of incidents to occupy our minds until all the pieces fall into place. This is one of the rare films Lee has directed without at minimum co-writing the script, and you can see why. Though he has made his own versions of standard Hollywood films before — witness the classic biopic "Malcolm X," also starring Washington — it's obvious that Lee is more at home with argumentative, provocative, socially relevant films than he is with this kind of genre material. Which turns out to be a good thing.
For though he is perfectly capable of crisply handling nuts-and-bolts action scenes like that of the quartet of robbers securing the bank and taking dozens of hostages, that is never going to be enough to hold Lee's interest.
So the director found ways to be slightly off the mark, from the minor — starting the film with the unmistakable and beautifully disorienting rhythms of Bollywood superstar composer A.R. Rahman — to the major, including the decision to use both Washington and costar Jodie Foster in roles that depart a bit from what they usually do. And what else could the shot of Brooklyn's legendary Cyclone roller coaster under the opening credits be telling us except that this is going to be quite the wild ride? Lee has also been able to make political points around the film's edges, to be himself without sacrificing the project's plausibility in the process. A Sikh hostage complains of police mistreatment and being called "an Arab." Two police officers have a racially charged conversation. A boy is chided for playing a particularly brutal and insensitive video game. Not to mention that one of "Inside Man's" themes, the notion of systemic political corruption, doubtless found a receptive audience with the filmmaker.
Finally, like any nongenre director, Lee is interested in people, in what they look like and how they act. It's an interest that exists outside of considerations of suspense, but when characters are made individual, it inevitably means that we worry more about them, which of course heightens tension.
One person who is cast exactly to type with excellent results is the redoubtable Owen, who opens the film by looking directly at the camera and saying, as only he can, "My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say. I choose my words carefully, and I never repeat myself." What Russell, no paragon of modesty, proceeds to tell us is that he's planned the perfect bank robbery. The film immediately shows him and his team, all dressed identically in painters' coveralls, swiftly taking over the bank in question and telling cowed hostages, "My friends and I are making a very large withdrawal. Anyone who gets in the way gets a bullet in the brain."
Charged with negotiating with the man is Washington's Det. Frazier and his partner, Bill Mitchell (the always convincing Chiwetel Ejiofor). Frazier, however, is not the superstar cop you might be expecting. He is a veteran detective second grade with the slightest hint of a paunch who got the assignment only because the department's top guy was on vacation.
At first the situation develops like any other bank robbery, with Russell eventually demanding the usual fully fueled jet ready to take him and his team out of town. But first the audience and then Frazier begin to sense through the actions of others that there are as yet unnamed factors in play.
The first hint of this comes when Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), Manhattan Trust's board chairman, is informed of the robbery and says, "Oh, dear God." He next calls Madeline White (a picture-stealing performance by Foster), who is the ultimate ice-princess power broker in a city of power brokers, and asks for her services.
From that point on, "Inside Man's" plot takes more twists and turns than the venerable Cyclone and includes the interesting technique of periodically flashing forward to police interrogations of the hostages after the siege is over. Like everything else about this engrossing thriller, it's a tactic intended to keep the audience on its toes, and it does.
"Inside Man"
Los Angeles Times review
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/turan/cl-et-inside24mar24,0,3832143.story
Smartly plotted by newcomer Russell Gewirtz and smoothly directed by, of all people, Spike Lee, "Inside Man" is a deft and satisfying entertainment, an elegant, expertly acted puzzler that is just off-base and out-of-the-ordinary enough to keep us consistently involved.
he broad outline of "Inside Man," of course, couldn't be more familiar. We're talking perfect-crime territory here, the classic cat-and-mouse encounter between criminal mastermind Dalton Russell (Clive Owen) and Det. Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), the NYPD operative charged with outthinking the man with the master plan. Screenwriter Gewirtz, though, is not interested in doing anything quite that formulaic. Though its eye is always on the final showdown, his script is especially good at doling out confounding information on a need-to-know basis, providing a multitude of incidents to occupy our minds until all the pieces fall into place. This is one of the rare films Lee has directed without at minimum co-writing the script, and you can see why. Though he has made his own versions of standard Hollywood films before — witness the classic biopic "Malcolm X," also starring Washington — it's obvious that Lee is more at home with argumentative, provocative, socially relevant films than he is with this kind of genre material. Which turns out to be a good thing.
For though he is perfectly capable of crisply handling nuts-and-bolts action scenes like that of the quartet of robbers securing the bank and taking dozens of hostages, that is never going to be enough to hold Lee's interest.
So the director found ways to be slightly off the mark, from the minor — starting the film with the unmistakable and beautifully disorienting rhythms of Bollywood superstar composer A.R. Rahman — to the major, including the decision to use both Washington and costar Jodie Foster in roles that depart a bit from what they usually do. And what else could the shot of Brooklyn's legendary Cyclone roller coaster under the opening credits be telling us except that this is going to be quite the wild ride? Lee has also been able to make political points around the film's edges, to be himself without sacrificing the project's plausibility in the process. A Sikh hostage complains of police mistreatment and being called "an Arab." Two police officers have a racially charged conversation. A boy is chided for playing a particularly brutal and insensitive video game. Not to mention that one of "Inside Man's" themes, the notion of systemic political corruption, doubtless found a receptive audience with the filmmaker.
Finally, like any nongenre director, Lee is interested in people, in what they look like and how they act. It's an interest that exists outside of considerations of suspense, but when characters are made individual, it inevitably means that we worry more about them, which of course heightens tension.
One person who is cast exactly to type with excellent results is the redoubtable Owen, who opens the film by looking directly at the camera and saying, as only he can, "My name is Dalton Russell. Pay strict attention to what I say. I choose my words carefully, and I never repeat myself." What Russell, no paragon of modesty, proceeds to tell us is that he's planned the perfect bank robbery. The film immediately shows him and his team, all dressed identically in painters' coveralls, swiftly taking over the bank in question and telling cowed hostages, "My friends and I are making a very large withdrawal. Anyone who gets in the way gets a bullet in the brain."
Charged with negotiating with the man is Washington's Det. Frazier and his partner, Bill Mitchell (the always convincing Chiwetel Ejiofor). Frazier, however, is not the superstar cop you might be expecting. He is a veteran detective second grade with the slightest hint of a paunch who got the assignment only because the department's top guy was on vacation.
At first the situation develops like any other bank robbery, with Russell eventually demanding the usual fully fueled jet ready to take him and his team out of town. But first the audience and then Frazier begin to sense through the actions of others that there are as yet unnamed factors in play.
The first hint of this comes when Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer), Manhattan Trust's board chairman, is informed of the robbery and says, "Oh, dear God." He next calls Madeline White (a picture-stealing performance by Foster), who is the ultimate ice-princess power broker in a city of power brokers, and asks for her services.
From that point on, "Inside Man's" plot takes more twists and turns than the venerable Cyclone and includes the interesting technique of periodically flashing forward to police interrogations of the hostages after the siege is over. Like everything else about this engrossing thriller, it's a tactic intended to keep the audience on its toes, and it does.
"Inside Man"
Los Angeles Times review
http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/turan/cl-et-inside24mar24,0,3832143.story
Media Institutions
The film was produced by Universal Studios, Imagine Entertainment, 40 Arces & A Mule Filmworks and GH Two. It was directed by Spike Lee.
Spike Lee's films usually have some racial or other ideological theme to them. In Inside Man, the robbers objective is to uncover a war criminal, the robbers themselves are Jewish, which gives them a motive to rob the bank despite the negative repercussions to the public and themselves.
Spike Lee's films usually have some racial or other ideological theme to them. In Inside Man, the robbers objective is to uncover a war criminal, the robbers themselves are Jewish, which gives them a motive to rob the bank despite the negative repercussions to the public and themselves.
Narrative
The film begins with a flashback after Clive Owen explains his plan for a "perfect" robbery. This creates a narrative enigma into how this "perfect" robbery is pulled off. Because of this, the audience has become interested in how the robber is done; this is one of the narrative techniques that the generic convention of thriller movies use.
Flash-fowards are used when the police try and predict the outcomes of raiding the bank, this creates a tense feeling in the audience as the storyline has now developed multiple outcomes and it is not known which one will be chosen.
The narrative of Inside Man makes it difficult for the audience to position themselves with the robbers or the police. However, during the film the audience would side with the police because of the obvious villian type connotations linked with bank robbers. It comes to light, to the police as well as the audience that the robbers are not as they seem as their actions are not of typical robbers; they are ordered and do not make mistakes, they even go as far as to bug the police (a technique mostly used by police, not on them). This inginuity shown by the robbers creates another narrative enigma as they clearly are not run of the mill.
Toward the end of the film, an ideological aspect is revealed. The bank robbers chose that particular bank because the director had link to Nazis and had committed war crime in which he recieved money, money which he used to start the bank. It could be said that "the ends justified the means" regardless of the fact that potentially, innocent people could have died a war criminal has been uncovered.
Flash-fowards are used when the police try and predict the outcomes of raiding the bank, this creates a tense feeling in the audience as the storyline has now developed multiple outcomes and it is not known which one will be chosen.
The narrative of Inside Man makes it difficult for the audience to position themselves with the robbers or the police. However, during the film the audience would side with the police because of the obvious villian type connotations linked with bank robbers. It comes to light, to the police as well as the audience that the robbers are not as they seem as their actions are not of typical robbers; they are ordered and do not make mistakes, they even go as far as to bug the police (a technique mostly used by police, not on them). This inginuity shown by the robbers creates another narrative enigma as they clearly are not run of the mill.
Toward the end of the film, an ideological aspect is revealed. The bank robbers chose that particular bank because the director had link to Nazis and had committed war crime in which he recieved money, money which he used to start the bank. It could be said that "the ends justified the means" regardless of the fact that potentially, innocent people could have died a war criminal has been uncovered.
Sunday 31 August 2008
Media Representations
Who is being represented?
The Police - Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Captain Darius (William Dafoe)
The Bank Robbers - Dalton Russell (Clive Owen)
The Bank Director - Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer)
The Lawyer -Madeleine White (Jodie Foster)
How are they being represented?
The police are shown as having not much control over the situation as they try to figure out the intentions of the bank robbers, while the bank robbers are very focused in their objectives inside the bank and to fool the police. The robbers also seem to have an understanding of police tactics as they make the hostages dress the same way as them so that the police snipers cannot take them out. The main robber Dalton Russell also seemingly beats a man viciously in order for the hostages to fear him so they obey him without question. Captain Darius is shown to have a more blunt, straightfoward way plan of dealing with the robbers - to raid the bank and shoot anyone who tries to resist; however Keith Frazier wants to understand the motives of the robbers as their actions don't portray them as the typical kind.
This representation of the robbers and police is a juxtaposition of real life. As the robbers would normally have the element of surprise; the large resources that the police have at their disposal. However, the mysterious motives and techniques of the robbers and the inquisitive nature of Keith Frazier along with the wildcard character, Madeleine White.
The Police - Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington), Bill Mitchell (Chiwetel Ejiofor), Captain Darius (William Dafoe)
The Bank Robbers - Dalton Russell (Clive Owen)
The Bank Director - Arthur Case (Christopher Plummer)
The Lawyer -Madeleine White (Jodie Foster)
How are they being represented?
The police are shown as having not much control over the situation as they try to figure out the intentions of the bank robbers, while the bank robbers are very focused in their objectives inside the bank and to fool the police. The robbers also seem to have an understanding of police tactics as they make the hostages dress the same way as them so that the police snipers cannot take them out. The main robber Dalton Russell also seemingly beats a man viciously in order for the hostages to fear him so they obey him without question. Captain Darius is shown to have a more blunt, straightfoward way plan of dealing with the robbers - to raid the bank and shoot anyone who tries to resist; however Keith Frazier wants to understand the motives of the robbers as their actions don't portray them as the typical kind.
This representation of the robbers and police is a juxtaposition of real life. As the robbers would normally have the element of surprise; the large resources that the police have at their disposal. However, the mysterious motives and techniques of the robbers and the inquisitive nature of Keith Frazier along with the wildcard character, Madeleine White.
Tuesday 1 July 2008
Independent Study Proposal
Title: How films of the thriller genre entertain and grasp their audience throughout a film.
Hypothesis: Thrillers use a multitude of dramatic devices to manipulate the audience into becoming attached to the plot and events the hero/heroine goes through. I will investigate how the film Inside Man (2006) directed by Spike Lee does this. Other thrillers, such as Lucky Number Slevin (2006) and Fight Club (1996) are also known for having seemingly simple plots but then reveal the complex links between previously mundane events.
The premise of the film is a bank robbery where the theives have taken hostages, this puts the police in the situation that they do not want any civilian casualities and therefore send Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) to negoiate with the robbers. This creates a very tense situation for the police and also for the audience watching as they both have no idea what the robbers are planning.
Hypothesis: Thrillers use a multitude of dramatic devices to manipulate the audience into becoming attached to the plot and events the hero/heroine goes through. I will investigate how the film Inside Man (2006) directed by Spike Lee does this. Other thrillers, such as Lucky Number Slevin (2006) and Fight Club (1996) are also known for having seemingly simple plots but then reveal the complex links between previously mundane events.
The premise of the film is a bank robbery where the theives have taken hostages, this puts the police in the situation that they do not want any civilian casualities and therefore send Keith Frazier (Denzel Washington) to negoiate with the robbers. This creates a very tense situation for the police and also for the audience watching as they both have no idea what the robbers are planning.
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