Film Language - Shane Meadows and other stories

In this lecture, we looked at the work of Shane Meadows and also the theories of realism. Here are the aims for the day:

• To analyse the works of Meadows within British social realism
• To introduce the concept of realism and its place within the film
• To understand realism as having a social and an aesthetic dimension
• To analyse the work of Meadows as Auteur

We need to define what realism was in terms of film, and the best description our lecturer said that he could think of was: ''Realism is a tangible representation of lived experience''.
We started to look at Shane Meadows' work and tried to find themes throughout. Here are a list of themes present in Shane Meadows films:
Themes

• Break up of family - absent fathers
• Bonding between friends
• Crisis of masculinity
• Violence
• Retribution and revenge
• Break down of relationships
• Racism
• Focus on working class life

We then moved on to looking at the style of filming that Meadows uses. This refers to the likes of camera work, etc.
Style

• Frequent use of handheld camera - contrasting his use of static camera work
• Frequently uses slow motion in order to draw the viewers attention
• Using a combination of established actors and inexperienced actors
• He has the ability to capture a sense of both place and local culture

Meadows likes to use music as a large part of his productions. He uses it in many ways:
Music

• Acting as an important signifier
• Acting as an interlude (little narrative development takes place)
• This Is England (2007) is a prime example of these

After the lecture, we watched the film Dead Man's Shoes by Meadows. I have never seen this film before so I was excited because I like other work by Meadows. We were told to look at the narration, listen to the sound used, pay attention to the flashback scenes and the trip scene, and also answer the question 'is it social realism?'

From watching the film I could see that again Meadows has used music as an extra character in his work. He likes to emphasise sounds that could usually be over-looked by other directors. He gives the audience the sense that they are in the room with the characters rather than watching from the outside. The change in volume depending on how close/far you are from things such as a frit machine gives a realistic feel to the film. In the 'trip' scene, the camera angles and use of handheld camera made the scene a lot more effective. If he hadn't used such camera work, the whole peice would not have been as effective. I believe that Meadows makes his films very real, and as our lecturer said, you can see that he has experienced these things (because he was from such areas and eras).
I thouroughly enjoyed the film and I want to look at other work by Meadows that I have not yet seen such as A Room For Romeo Brass.

Speak soon!