Category Archives: Contexts

Batman Context and Critical Reception

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These are notes on the similarities of the September attacks to The Dark Knight and how they relate.

Notes:

Crash Course Video:

Dark Knight, Dark idea’s Article:

Turner, P., 2020. Dark Knight, Dark Ideas: The Ideology of Nolan’s Batman Trilogy. Media Magazine, [Online]. Available at: https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/media-magazine/articles/16916 [Accessed 11 December 2020].

Pan’s Labyrinth Context Research

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Each of us in class were assigned a different review to look at in terms of context in class and to pick apart key quotes from the review.

Context can help the audience understand the film in different ways:

  • Historical – Historical context gives the audience a sense of where they are in time and space. Pan’s Labyrinth is set in the Spanish Civil War for example which explains the costumes and sets in the real world of Pan’s.
  • Cultural and Artistic – These two types on context helps the audience understand any cultural references and shows why the director may of used something in a certain way (drawing on his or her culture they grew up in). In Pan’s Labyrinth the design on the mythical creatures (Faun, Pale Man, Fairies) would have all been influenced by how the director sees these creatures and what fairy tale stories he grew up on.
  • Critical Reception – This gives context to the audience by giving them a a quick look into what the film will be like an how it was received. For example someone might want to watch Pan’s Labyrinth already but they don’t know if they will enjoy it so they look at some of the reviews to give context to see if they like the type of narrative and themes.

 

Genre Poster

Posted on by under Contexts, Genre, Narrative

We designed a poster for the genre action.

We looked through some films (Sharknado, Mission impossible, James Bond, The Bourne Identity) in clips and the relevant posters to analyse which elements and generic conventions were shown most frequently.

For the repertoire of elements that we identified:

  • Fire – Many action films use fire
  • Explosion – Most action films have some sort of explosion. For example, the mushroom clouds in the genre poster above to a small car explosion.
  • A Gun and Knife (weapons) – Action usually contains some sort of fight using guns or other weapons such as a knife.
  • A Car Flipped Over – A lot of action films include car chases which sometimes end in a crashed car in flames.
  • A Skyline – Most of the action films are filmed in cities and at nighttime.
  • Target – With weapons comes targets (usually humans).
  • Agent – Agents and men in suits often appear in action films (James bond)
  • Shark – In Sharknado sharks are prominent feature, sharks and other animals that humans find scary are used in other films.
  • A person going through lasers – Most heist based action films include people going through lasers to steal something important, like a document or object (Mission Impossible).

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