Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral – Britishness

Both Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral both have lots of elements of Britishness that makes them very British films, but they are British in two totally different ways. The largest difference of Britishness is the timeline these films are set in. Four Weddings and a Funeral was set in the very late nineties, while Sense and Sensibility was set over a hundred years ago still in the time when women had absolutely no power compared to the men. However they still have similarities in some respects, such as the actors they use (Hugh Grant is in both films), the morals that the films are showing and the way that both are sending out political messages which were relevant to the times that they were filmed in. For instance, Sense and Sensibility was actually a book before a film written by Jane Austin. She used the book to show about the in-equality women have in society in Britain and she could of been also been saying something about the greed that people have for money and status by using the character fanny. In a similar way, Four Weddings and a Funeral have been thought to send out a political message about British society and what marriage means to people today. One of the characters in it talks of how people get married when they have nothing else to say to each other in a relationship, which although is moralistically wrong and a very post modernist thing to say as well as totally stereotyping, it has certain elements of truth within it. It is saying that people don’t need to get married to have a healthy relationship and getting married won’t make you happy. The interesting contrast is that in Sense and Sensibility, the thing that makes them all so happy is when they do all get married, but this could also be interpreted as the only way for the women to escape from what they have is to get married.

The traditional thoughts of what is Britishness within a film is usually rough, gritty, violent, cockney etc ... The majority of most famous British films have been those types of films such as Trainspotting, This is England, Snatch etc ... However with Sense and Sensibility and Four Weddings and a Funeral, they are British but at the other end of the spectrum. Much more of the middle / upper class area, where the most common British films are usually to do with social drama’s in the working class or underground cockney thug type films. The way these films maintain so much Britishness is a lot because of British actors, directors, authors, filmed in Britain and actually both films use a lot of the British countryside to set their scenes in, this for both films is using Mise En Scene but for different reasons. Sense and Sensibility is using the countryside filming because that’s the way people think of Britain over a hundred years ago, Britain was very much a more rural place. With Four Weddings and a Funeral it is because the British countryside is still very much associated with the upper classes which is where a lot of these weddings took place as they were being paid for by the more affluent member of society. It’s very interesting how in Four Weddings and a Funeral the way they send their message across to some degree is by using comedy. All the characters are very childish, but also using actors like Rowan Atkinson (Mr Bean) for a priest which is a very serious position in the church and very highly thought of, and turning the whole thing of marriage into a joke, shows that people do not always take it seriously these days and the point of it has to some degree gone away.

The ways the films are filmed are very different. Sense and Sensibility is quite a dark film because actually so many of the scenes are sort of negative scenes, they are very sympathetic scenes. Fanny, a character who is thoroughly disliked is not only wearing black lots of the time, but she is often also in dark scenes, or the lighting won’t be on her as much as it is on the other characters. But when Edward is playing with swords in the garden and also chatting to one of the young ladies in the library, the scenes are much lighter and happier. This is very different to Four Weddings and a Funeral as most of the scenes are bright, fast and upbeat. This is partly because it’s much more of a comedy film so it has to be, but it uses sounds much more than Sense and Sensibility to show the emotions of the characters. For instance when Hugh Grant is talking to the girl of his dreams when they bump into each other by accident, it’s the sound that makes the audience so in touch with the feelings of Hugh Grant.

Slumdog Millionaire and Somerstown

Slumdog Millionaire and Somerstown

Slumdog Millionaire
Directed by Danny Boyle Written by Simon Beaufoy
Starring
Dev Patel
Freida Pinto
Madhur Mittal
Anil Kapoor
Ayush Mahesh Khedekar
Tanay Chheda
Rubina Ali
Tanvi Ganesh Lonkar
Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail
Ashutosh Lobo Gajiwala

Country United Kingdom
Language – English - Hindi
Budget $15.1 million Gross revenue $360,032,690

Somerstown
Directed by Shane Meadows
Written by Paul Fraser
Starring Thomas Turgoose
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Low Budget

The two films have both been classed as British, but for different reasons. Somerstown is much more ‘obviously” and ‘out there/in your face’ British than Slumdog Millionaire. This is mainly because of the setting of the film and the actors nearly all being British, it being set in London on a low budget. I quote the telegraphg review “At barely 70 minutes, it's the length of a B-movie or the low-budget, low-quality "quota quickies" churned out during the 1930s”. It shows all the elements of a classic British film such as the grittyness. It is also done a very “classic” British thing, where it is a low budgeted film that has done so well partly because of it’s low Budget, much like ‘This is England’. Slumdog Millionaire has created some controversy over if it is actually British or not. It wasnt filmed in Britian and it isn’t about British society. However it still has lots of elements of Britishness in it, although it wasnt filmed in Britian, it was filmed in another ‘gritty’ atmosphere, it still remains in British morals, it was funded by British institutions like channel 4, it has British actors and Directors and it is even based around a indian version of a British show (who wants to be a millionaire). I think that Somerstown would be classed as a lot more British than Slumdog Millionaire, but they both can be highly classed as British films. Just Slumdog Millionaire being a less classic conventional British film like Somerstown is.

3 Article's and my brief Interpretations

Contemporary Britian

This article discusses several era’s and decades of British film and social realism. It points out a lot about social realism in British cinema such as Billy Elliot and The Full Monty and talks about the impact these types of films have on our society. It points out the influences these films have on people and the way that they take in the information. For example in This is England, the film points out about hooliganism and racist Britian, but this could have a very negative impact on some people’s minds making them take it to literally.

Media Pleasure

This article talks about the way that people interpret media information differently. The three different types of reading that people can do by doing the preferred reading, opposite reading or in-between. It talks about how people like to escape from reality using media content such as film, video gaming and reading. This is called Escapism. Escapism can become very addictive, however video gaming is proven to be the far most addictive form of escapism. They use it as a sense of relaxation much like smokers may use a cigarette to relax.

Richard Curtis Article

The article talks about how films can be very political and represent political ideologies. It says a lot of films have subtle things in them that can denote certain ideologies that are often to do with things that are happening in the present. Such as Love actually in 2003. The prime minister in Love Actually is a sweeter and shallower prime minister than Tony Blair actually was. He calls the US president a bully and suggests that love is the answer to the horror of 9/11. It talks about how these film techniques have been using in the present but also lots in the time of Margaret Thatcher for instance, E.g. Billy Elliot.

Year 13 Film Project Proposal - Four's a Crowd

Documentary / comedy film about kids – Four’s a Crowd

Four teenagers (18 yrs old) studying at 6 form. Live together a non care free life. However, two of them meet girls. This leads to two of the four boys beginning to change their lives. As the plot progresses we have interview’s with the characters. All the characters are sarcastic and laid back individuals.

Three main points in the story.

The four guys lives are shown to the audience, the documentary team go into there gritty house and see what they do in there every day lives. It starts off with them just on a Saturday day and shows what they do on it. Smoke, giggle, mong, eat, smoke, do the dishes and sleep.

Audience see the four meetings these two girls. Two of the guys are interested, two are not, we see them getting along really well, but the guys are clearly in-experienced and kind of loosers, but the girls like this about them.


The two who are un-interested are still doing the same thing. The other two, one of the girls has cheated on him and he begins to set back into his old life. While the other moves out and sorts out his life still with this girl.



Pitch

The IGC Foundation Research Corporation are looking into the lives of four boarder lined average A2 students in Oxford, who attempt to live on there own with only money from their part time work and government support. One of them claims disability benefits for an allegedly paralyzed right arm. However the IGC camera crew will follow there lives over the period of one month, if there is one chance to make a mends on there lives, this is it, will they make it or will they break it?




Values and Ideologies

Coming of age. Learning the value of money. Maturing. Not wasting opportunities that arise. Relationships. Fraud. 6th form environment. Friendship. Zero to Hero.

Director of Rock'N'Rolla

Guy Stuart Ritchie
10 September 1968 (age 40)
Hatfield, Hertfordshire, England Occupation Filmmaker, Screenwriter Years active 1995–present

Other films

RockNRolla
Suspect
Revolver
Swept Away
Star
Snatch
Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
The Hard Case

Rock'N'Rolla Presentation

Rock N Rolla Media Presentation

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