PR3: How we respond to media Products

We start of talking about how we respond to Leon due to a few things

such as:

Genre

Narrative

Semiotics

Representation

So First is the genre, I enjoy to watch action/thriller type of films this

made me find the film interesting, it also to stereotype on the such film

making assumptions like there is always are hero and a villain to equal

out the rivalry and there is always a victim, a damsel in distress if you

are talking about fairy-tale type action thrillers.

Then there is the narrative, this is the story line and how it affects me

when watching it, there a few scenes that make me uncomfortable and

overs making me feel on edge wanting to see what happens next, to

start off I will talk about the scene where Mathilda is in the room with

Leon it’s the fact that she says” Leon, I think I'm kinda falling in love with

you.” This makes me feel uncomfortable because there are different

ages making it feel like he could be her dad. Then there is the over seen

where Mathilda talks to the receptionist saying “He's not my father. He's

my lover.” This also makes me feel uncomfortable because if I was the

receptionist, I’d call the police or get it sorted out. On the other hand the

good scenes of the film were most of the actions scenes the first would

be where Leon is introduced in the exposition where he is showing the

audience his skills. The second would be where Leon is going after

Mathilda it is a good scene because it shows much the bond between

the two characters have grown and finally the scene where Leon and

Stansfield get blown up, it made me feel as though he was going to

make it until this twist happened just near the end.

Then we have the semiotics did really appeal to me it only seems to

attract the word in the film when it says clean because infact there are

refereeing to killing someone, you’d only know this if you watch the film.

Then finally we have representation, if you like theses sort of films it will

attract to you because the people who make it have researched previous

film which makes them know who will like the film and what to write

about for the story for an action/thriller I like action so I enjoyed this film.

This part we will talk about the 3 act structure and apply it to Leon’s

story.

Leon is a film directed by Luc Besson, his more recent work would be

Lucy, featuring Scarlett Johansson, but this film was released on the 18th

of November 1994, which has the actors such as Jean Reno who plays

Leon, the Professional assassin, then there is Natalie Portman which

featured in this film as a very young age making this one of her first

appearance in the movie industry. She plays a 12 year old girl that

meets Jean Reno’s character due to unfortunate event near the

beginning of the film making Natalie Portman’s character getting help by

Jean Reno’s character. Then there is the antagonist which is played by

Gary Oldman which was well known for the Dark Knight trilogy which he

played a similar role but less corrupt. Then there are the lesser main

characters such as Danny Aiello and Peter Appeal’s characters because

they weren’t as much in but still had a good amount of dialog to speak

from. Firstly there was Danny Aiello’s role which entails his character to

assign Leon with his assassinations then there is Peter Appeal’s

character he plays the role of Gary Oldman’s right hand man, his partner

since they both work for the D.E.A.

Now I’ll give you a quick summary of the film told by the 3 act structure,

this contained the following:

Act One: Exposition

Inciting Incident

Act Two: Rising Action

Climax

Act Three: Falling Action

Denouement

So Firstly there is Act One, the Exposition basically explains the setting

of the film and some back story for the film. So for Leon this would be

the city of New York, in USA,

in central park, then it goes

to a scene where some

character is picking of

characters, then it reveals

that he is the main character

this shows that both the

setting of the film and the main character is shown on the exposition.

Secondly there is inciting Incident this is where an event is created to the

protagonist making their life changes from the normal lifestyle they

normally have to change due the story’s plot. So in this part of the film

the character Mathilda is shown but also her family is murdered making

Mathilda coming home

to a devastating site

where she walks up to

Leon’s apartment asking

to seek refuge there, so

she would end up like

her family, Then the

killers escape due to

finding Mathilda.

Thirdly there is Act Two, it entails of Rising Action. In the rising action, a

series of related scenes that build up to the climax, in Leon the rising

action is that he agrees to look after Mathilda, due to the actions that

took place in the inciting incident. Then she seeks revenge for her little

brother’s

murder and

is furious at

the Gary

Oldman

character.

Then it

escalates

even

further when Leon trains Mathilda to become an assassin so she can

take on her on vendetta. The Second part of the rising action would be

when Mathilda finds out where

Gary Oldman’s character

hangs out, she finds out he is

part of the D.E.A she goes in

undetected with her hidden

weapon. She follows him into

the bathroom to finish the final

blow, when he appears behind the door, one of his goon’s also tell him

when he is face to face with Mathilda that someone killed his guys

because it was personal, just like Mathilda.

Then there is the climax, this is where the story is reached its highest

tension of the

story, so in

Leon’s story

would be the

downfall of

Leon and

Stansfield, they

bit the dust

whilst Mathilda

is free because

Stansfield’s

character won’t hunt her anymore. They both die doesn’t show the

murder but you know they are dead because it shows the dead bodies

lying on the floor.

Finally we come to the last part

of the 3 act structure, the first bit

is about the falling action, this is

where the protagonist and the

antagonist unravel on who is

victories, it is quite obviously due

to what happen in the climax, In Leon the falling action is that Mathilda is

given Leon’s money, she decides to head back to school so this shows

that the protagonist over ruled because of Mathilda’s safety and knowing

she is still alive.

To finish off we have the denouement, which is the end of the film or

gathers what happens

in the falling action to

make an ending scene.

In this case it would be

where she is in the

school and heads to

the garden, holding

Leon’s plant, she plants

the plant and then she

says bye as if the plant reminds her of Leon you know this when she

says “I think we’ll be ok here, Leon.”

The next part is where I will talk about the genre theory and apply it to

the film Leon. There are four things to talk about such as:

Setting

Character (Representation)

Iconography

Style

Firstly there is the setting, the setting in Leon is very easy to identify

because the location is easy to identify but in Leon it is New York, it is

very conventional you can tell this because it is show when the opening

shows central park this show that you can also tell it is New York. This

show of the genre because most action/thriller are based in a big city

well-known of viewers making the film relate to people who live in that

area.

Secondly we have the character this basically who is who in the film, it

easy to know who the antagonist is, it is Gary Oldman’s character

because he is taken a drug every time he plans to kill someone but also

he kills people he even says “I take no pleasure in taking life if it's from a

person who doesn't care about it.” This is the part where he’s confronting

with Mathilda in the bathroom of his workplace. Then we have the

protagonist, you wouldn’t really say Leon is the protagonist but he is the

closest to the film has of one because he looks and saves the girl from

being killed a numerous amount of time making him close to one, it’s

hard to say he is one due to what he does for a living, he is an assassin.

Next we have the victim. It is easy to say that Mathilda is the victim due

to her family’s death and seeking revenge to kill Stansfield. You can

identify this when she says “After I've seen the outline of my brother's

body on the floor, you expect me to forget? I wanna kill those sons of

bitches, and blow their fucking heads off!” this shows she want to

become Leon’s apprentice. The lesser known characters in the film

would be Leon’s associate and also Stansfield’s colleagues, these

characters are not well developed because they are not in most of the

film but when they are in the film, they are killing or being killed. On the

other hand there is Leon’s associate he is in near the beginning of the

film helping Leon out then again helping Mathilda out. You’d expect to

see this in an action/thriller so it shows off its genre.

Next we have the iconography this is where we talk about well-known

things that I can see in the film that are iconic to that the genre of the

film. So for Leon it would be; the guns, murder, corrupt officers, abusive

parents, killers, blood. You’d expect to see theses in an action thriller.

This is obviously why Leon has these in its film due its genre.

Finally we have the style of the Leon, you can tell it represents the

genre, the music goes well with the action that is happening but then it

comes together well because of the thriller story that is shown, the film is

well put together making it good and realistic towards its genre.

Then we had to choose our own film then apply how we respond to the

media, I decided to pick from the varied of films, I finally decided to

choose the top grossing film of 2014, it hit the theatres in the UK in

august, Guardians of the Galaxy, I enjoy this film so much it was a

highlight of 2014.

So we have to apply what we did to Leon on to my own chosen and I

have chosen guardians of the galaxy and the things I’m going to talk

about are:

Genre

Narrative

Semiotics

Representation

Firstly there was the genre, guardians of the galaxy is

action/adventure/Sci-Fi. I enjoyed this film because of its genre because

I like sci-fi films but also I like action and adventure because they are

interesting because for one, you would expect to see a space themed

movie when it comes to sci-fi but other than that the adventure makes

you want to explore into the movie and find out what adventures they

attend in the film and I love seeing action films because I like when two

people fight it out for a reason because it gives me a thrill enjoying these

types of films.

Then there is the narrative, like I’ve said previously I enjoy it but a

numerous scenes in the guardians of the galaxy made me feel mix

emotions. For example, at the beginning of the film you are welcomed

with a song by the name off I’m not in love by 10CC and you find out that

the little boy’s mum dies due to cancer which makes me feel sad

because we didn’t get to progress the story with the mother. Then

another scene would have to be where the main protagonist saves his a

women’s life and this is the scene that makes it feels like it’s a superhero

movie and then finally there is the scene where the character groot uses

some sort of light gift which illuminates the room and it made me feel

happy and it was very beautiful scene, I couldn’t fault the film because I

thought it was brilliant in every way and couldn’t find any horrible scenes

that made me hate it in anyway.

Next there is semiotics you could say there were a few that caught my

eye. For example, it was mostly based in space or on other planets,

firstly what struck my interest was all the neon coloured signs that were

in the decapitated space head it appealed to me because it was a space

market, then there was something I couldn’t figure out, it was why they

are speaking English and not their own language so I re-watched the

film and founded out that when the protagonist are getting line-up in a

space prison and their names and info came on the holographic wall it

said that he was installed with a translation implant in the neck which

may explain how he and the audience can understand what people are

saying.

Then finally there is representation the reason I like this movie is

because it is a marvel based film and no matter what I’ll enjoy them and

the people who were making this said that it was a risky move to try

Guardians of the galaxy and it was a hit which made it a good risk, so

most comic book fans would want to see this or other sci-fi fans because

if you enjoyed films such as star trek you’d enjoy this because they both

are based in space.

Then again like Leon we talk about the 3 act structure but for guardians

of the galaxy.

Guardians of the galaxy was directed by James Gunn, it released in the

cinema’s on the 1st of august 2014 and its sequel will be out 2017 so we

have a long wait to see how the gang of guardians of the galaxy is

doing. The actors and actress in the guardians are; Chris Pratt as Peter

Quill/Star Lord, Zoe Saldana as Gamora, Dave Bautista as Drax the

Destroyer, Groot voiced by Vin Diesel, Rocket voiced by Bradley

Cooper. Then the main antagonist as Lee Pace as Ronan, Then you

have the lesser villains and characters who have an important role such

as; Michael Rooker as Yondu Udonta, Karen Gillian as Nebula, Djimon

Hounsou as Korath John C. Reilly as Corpsman Rey, Glenn Close as

Nova Prime, Benicio Del Toro as the collector, Laura Haddock as

Meredith Quill she also was shown in the first Captain America even

before Guardians of galaxy was announced. They were mostly the

characters that were in the movie and had some lines to say. To tell you

what the film is about I will have to explain most things or you might not

understand if deciding to watch it for yourself. The soundtrack was a key

part to the film because the director says that “Peter’s mother gave him

a tape with her favourite songs that she loved when she was growing up

and peter throughout plays the mix tape on his Walkman and he

escapes to her era of music as if they are together again” this explains

that it is important and I will mention most of the songs in my summary of

the film.

The film starts off by playing the song I’m not in love by 10CC and the

year 1988 as a boy called Peter Quill is listening to the music on his mix

tape when his grandfather steps into the room and he is summoned to

the room with his family surrounding his mother, his mother is dying due

to cancer so she hasn’t got much time which is why she says “hold my

hand” then her heart stops and Peter runs out of the room with his bag

on back and escapes from the hospital and leaves, then a beam of light

which then he gets abducted for reason he doesn’t know, then it turns to

the next scene and it has gone more into the future into 2014 and this

time he’s not on earth but on a planet known as Morag, we find a

character which is easy to identify when he starts to play his Walkman

which we can identify as Peter then he starts to play the song come and

get your love by Redbone he finds himself finding a mysterious orb

which he doesn’t know the content off suddenly he gets ambushed by

Korath and his men who are unfamiliar of Peter, Peter makes his

getaway with the orb not knowing the consciences that he has brought

upon himself, He escapes to his ship and is able to escape, when he

surprise to see a girl appearing on her ship, then cuts to another scene

and the next song is Go All The Way – Raspberries whilst Quill and his

visitor are chilling on his ship when suddenly he gets a call from the

character Yondu, he is furious to found out he took the item Yondu was

going to salvage and sell to a brooker in Xandar which is home of the

nova corps, then it cuts to a ship showing the characters; Nebula,

Gamora, Ronan and Korath on Ronan’s ship as Korath tells Ronan

about Peter Quills intensions of the orb and tell its being sold in Xandar,

Ronan commands Nebula to go down and retrieve the orb but Gamora

protests and changing his mind and makes Gamora the one to retrieve

it. Then it changes to Xandar and introduces two more characters;

Rocket and Groot, they are scanning for people and it reveals that they

capture targets and get bounty on them and they have Peter on

scanning device, they decide to go after him then it cuts to a scene with

peter talking to the brooker about the orb suddenly Peter mentions

Ronan and the brooker wants nothing to do with him or the orb which

leads to him kicking Peter out, then Peter finds himself talking to

Gamora as she suddenly attacks Peter and takes the orb from him,

there is a huge fight which causes them to fight over the orb whilst Groot

and Rocket just want Peter, the fight ends when they are captured by

the Nova corps and are taken to a holding cell which then it introduces

Corpsman Rey and he decides to send them to a prison, then when they

are walking to their cells they walk past a room where an alien is

checking out peter’s Walkman he doesn’t like this so he enters the room

then he is shock upon entry and is tasered to the ground whilst the song

Hooked On A Feeling by Blue Swede plays, Gamora isn’t very welcome

due to her adopted father Thanos who is counted for many deaths, they

eventually meet, Drax which doesn’t truly get metaphors and peter

persuades him not to kill Gamora and they plan to escape via Rockets

plan, during the escape whilst getting there things back Peter realised

that he was missing something, so the others headed back to the ship

whilst Peter went to recover his Walkman, then it turns to the others in

peter’s ship worrying for Peter then Drax spots something coming from

the ship and it’s peter and the song Escape (The Pina Colada Song) by

Rupert Holmes plays. They venture to the place known as Knowhere

and whilst they are going through the song Moonage Daydream - David

Bowie plays. We later find out that that the buyer is The Collector but

before meeting him the characters must wait so Rocket, Drax and Groot

stay at a bar whilst Gamora and Peter are on a balcony and Gamora is

curious about the Walkman and peter shows what it does and he plays

Fooled Around And Fell In Love - Elvin Bishop for her then there are

now able to see the collector. He reveals that there is a gem in the orb

which has an amazing power which in the wrong hands could be

catastrophic, one of collector’s employee touches the gem and it

destroys her and destroys most of the room then they escape just in

time unfortunately they realise that both Yondu and Ronan has come for

something so both Gamora and peter escape, they are chased by

Nebula and a few ships Gamora is corned so she has to head out in to

space and she is shot out of it and Nebula recovers the gem, then Peter

helps Gamora by giving her his mask, then they are picked up by Yondu,

then they make an agreement to get the gem back and they walked

down the corridor pre-mission whilst the song Cherry Bomb - The

Runaways. When they get on the ship a big fight breaks out with most of

the characters when they get to Ronan they are able to take down the

ship and Groot sacrifices himself to save the rest whilst saying “we are

groot”. They are able to get the destroy Ronan’s ship where it crashes in

Xandar all the guardians are accounted for except Groot as he is just

twigs on the ground whilst Rocket cries over it, then suddenly Ronan

emerges from the rubble whilst the song O-O-H Child - The Five

Stairsteps and they all give each other signals and peter stands up and

faces Ronan and starts dancing to the song and Ronan is very

confused, then Drax fires Rockets invention at Ronan’s staff and it

shatters then it shows peter and Ronan grabbing for the gem in slow

motion, peter is the first to grab it and surrounds them in a cloud of

purple cloud made by the gem, the rest of the guardians face the cloud

of the gem and hook on with each other and peter controls the gem

destroying Ronan and re-capturing the gem and the cloud disappears.

They trick Yondu by giving him the wrong capsule and giving the real

one to the Nova Corps for their thanks to the guardians they rebuilt the

ship and they all leave Xandar and enter the ship and they all ask

“where’s now?” and peter replies by saying “Something good, something

bad... a bit of both.” Then the films end on the song Ain't No Mountain

High Enough by Marvin Gay and the film finishes.

Now I’ll give you a quick summary of the film told by the 3 act structure,

this contained the following:

Act One: Exposition

Inciting Incident

Act Two: Rising Action

Climax

Act Three: Falling Action

Denouement

So firstly there is the exposition this is

where the characters meet for

guardians of the galaxy most of the

beginning is where we meet our

characters from the first scene in 1988

to where we meet Drax in the prison,

you knows that these are the main

characters because they are focused on them throughout the film.

Secondly we have the inciting incident, where the main characters

experience something that change something, for this guardians of the

galaxy I’d say it would be after they escape the prison and they have to

work together get the orb to Gamora’s buyer. This changes what they

were previously going to do, for example Drax wants to kill Ronan,

Rocket and Groot wanted to

give other Peter to Yondu.

Peter wanted to gets money

for the orb and so does

Gamora so their lives didn’t

change that much.

Thirdly there is rising action I’d reckon it would be the part after they

meet Gamora’s buyer called the collector and the explosion is created

by collector’s employee but

also when Ronan and Yondu

reach were the guardians are

and they run from them causing

a huge chase to occur, you can

tell this is the rising action

because there is a conflict with Yondu’s crew and Ronan’s people and

they have a disagreement causing it to be the rising action.

Next there is climax this part in the film would be where they are getting

ready on to attack Ronan and

planning on how to, this is the

climax because it is where the

protagonist makes the outcome of a

big decision change so like the

planning of the attack on Ronan.

Then we come to the falling action

where Ronan comes out of the ship

when everyone thinks it’s over causing

the guardians to keep on guard this is

the falling action because you realise

that the antagonist is still alive and they

must solve it quickly before he

destroys the whole planet.

Then finally we have the

denouement this scene is

that actual last scene of the

film, you could say it would

be where the guardians are

in the ship and they ask one

another where to next, this is the denouement because it’s the last

scene on the actual film other than the baby Groot scene.

Finally I’ll talk about the genre theory and apply it to guardians of the

galaxy. There are four things to talk about such as:

Setting

Character (Representation)

Iconography

Style

There are a lot of settings in guardians of the galaxy, for example there

is Knowhere, Xandar and lots more you can tell it sticks with its genre as

sci-fi because most sci-fi films are based on unknown planets and

worlds. People like to see places other than earth which makes people

want to see what it’s all about.

Then we have characters, this is who is in the film, I listed who was in

the film in the intro to this but you can tell that the guardians are the

protagonist, not at first because they are seem to do something that is

illegal but gradually becoming the heroes when the antagonist Ronan is

plotting to get rid of Xandar with the power gem that he poses, when he

says “The Xandorians and your culture are a disease.” It’s like he’s

saying that they are the disease and he is the cure you know this when

he says “No. I will cure it!” Then also you have Yondu, you wouldn’t

really say he’s good or bad because he helps the guardians but he is a

Ravagers they do a lot of things that they but they normally will abduct

life forms and eat them, Which is not a good thing to do. It is well suited

to the genre sci-fi because there is only one human and the rest are

aliens.

Then we have Iconography, this would be easy because you’d expect to

see are aliens, space ships, alien tech these are all iconic to the genre

because you’d expect to see these types of things in sci-fi films but also

you’d expect to see fight scenes in action films scenes to which would

be why there is a lot of fighting because of the action side of the genre,

the iconic things to do for adventure would be the power gem because

the whole plot was surrounding on getting the power gem to safety

which you could say refers the adventure side of the genre.

Finally we have the style of the Guardians of the galaxy, you can tell it

represents the genre, the music goes well with the action that is

happening but also shows that the certain soundtracks represent his

mother’s era of music, then it comes together well because of the

adventure story that is shown, the film is well put together making it good

and fictional towards its genre because it’s based in space so it shows it

well in all the scenes that it is a sci-fi, action and adventure film.

Finally we will talk about postmodernism in Pulp fiction giving a few

examples, understanding of postmodernism.

Pulp Fiction was directed by Quentin Tarantino and was released in

1994 on the 14th of October, the story is nonlinear because the story

doesn’t go under the 3 act structure but also the narrative doesn’t go in

order so some scenes may be in the past and future which shows why it

doesn’t follow the 3 act structure due to someone seems to be alive in a

later scene if that character dies in a scene before that scene. The main

characters are;

Tim Roth as Ringo, Amanda Plummer as Yolanda, John Travolta as

Vincent Vega, Samuel L. Jackson as Jules Winnfield, Bruce Willis as

Butch Coolidge, Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace and what happens in the

film is, The lives of two mob hit men which are Vincent and Jules, a

boxer is butch, a gangster's wife which is Mia Wallace, and a pair of

diner bandits which are Ringo and Yolanda, intertwine in four tales of

violence and redemption.

Now I will talk about the postmodernism in Pulp Fiction, The scene that I

will talk about is the Jack Rabbit Slims scenes where John Travolta and

Uma Thurman are in the Club. I will show what is shown in the scene

that can relate to postmodernism the different types of this are:

Intertextuality

Parody

Pastiche

Reflexivity

Bricolage

Self-referentiality

So firstly there is intertextuality, this is where it refers to other media

texts, there are many things in this scene that can be class as

intertextuality. For example, there

is a scene in grease where John

Travolta is in the car you can say

this is intertextuality because it

refers to a previous film that has a

similar Mise en scene, then Uma’s

character talks about her a TV

show that she has been it, called

the fox force five this was also

mentioned in kill bill, then finally there is a scene where a waitress in

dressed as Marylin Monroe and her dress flies up because of the air

vents as seen in seven year itch this is also intertextuality because it

relates to other media.

Next there is parody, this is where they copy media text and convert it

into a humorous manner. For example, in the scene jack rabbit slims you

seen John Travolta dancing with

Uma Thurman and you could say it

humorous because he played a

similar role when he was in the film

Saturday night fever. You could also

say that there was the guy who

introduced them was similar to Ed

Sullivan, you could call these are parody because it doesn’t feel serious

as the actually roles they copy from.

Next we have pastiche this is the opposite of parody because instead of

copying and making it humorous, it imitates previous work and respects

the work and takes homage to the media so in the jack rabbit scene you

can see that the Marylin Monroe scene where her dress lifts up due to

the air vents, it is pastiche

because it takes homage to

the director of the film Bill

Wilder.

Next is reflexivity this is where the film crew refers to the Mise en scene

or narrative, breaking the illusion that the film or TV show is not real. For

example, Uma Thurman’s

character draws a square

(rectangle) with her hands and

then the shape appears which

indicates that it isn’t actually

there. You can say this is

reflexivity because you don’t

expect to see a shape magically appear when drawing it with your

fingers so this is how you know it isn’t real.

Then there is bricolage which is a mix of genres or historical eras. So for

example, the scene with Marylin Monroe in it, there are people sitting

around her it mixes with

era because they are

wearing different clothing

which mix with each other

from different generation,

then it shows a scene

when Uma is in the

bathroom and she is

taking drugs that would be

a 90’s thing to do and the women are brushing their hair and those

hairstyles are mostly from the 50’s which you can tell this is a bricolage

scene.

Then finally there is Self-referentiality which is where a producer of a

media text or actor makes direct reference to previous work. For

example, the scene where he is in the same scene from the car this is

self-referentiality because john Travolta is in the car in both scenes.

Then there is a scene when Mia Wallace

mentions about her being in a TV show

called fox force five and she describes

her character in the film kill bill, this is

also self-referentiality because refers to

kill bill when it eventually came out, there

is a scene where john Travolta is dancing

and he previously did a film where he was dancing in Saturday night

fever also in grease there’s a scene where he is dancing this is self-

referentiality because he did previous work dancing in films.