wag the dog analysis
DESCRIPTION
.TRANSCRIPT
Wag the DogAnalysis of script, cinematography and
mise en scene
Mise en scene
• Placement in the frame• Comprised of seven key elements:
• the frame• space in the frame• composition• character placement• lighting/colour• costume• setting
• Creates the director’s signature and intention
Film shots
ECU: Extreme close up
CU: Close up
MCU: Medium close up
CMS: Close mid-shot
MS: Mid-shot
MLS: Medium long shot
LS: Long shot
Application of film analysis
Written Task One:•How to stage the appearance of a war guide
Written Task Two:•How and why is a social group represented in a particular way?
• The American public• Politicians
Further Oral Activity:•Analysis of key scene(s) from Wag the Dog•Compare and contrast the ideas of Wag the Dog with real presidential speeches or electoral campaign
Context
Premise
Presidential campaign
Presidential campaigns
Who is in control?
Who is in control?
Who is in control?
“This place is even bigger than the Whitehouse!”
Representations of the American public
Representations of the American public
The public as consumers
• “One image of one bomb. The American people bought that war. That’s show business” (Brean about Gulf War)
• “You’ll have remembered the picture 50 years from now but forgotten the war.”
(Brean)
The public as consumers
From Carol Ann Duffy’s ‘War Photographer’
… A hundred agonies in black-and-whitefrom which his editor will pick out five or sixfor Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers. From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns a living and they do not care.
‘Not a war, it’s a pageant’
Pageantry: ‘give them what they want to see’
Pageantry
“We guard our American bordersWe guard the American dream”
“We have the right to fight for democracyWe fight for liberty…”
“This is nothing. Try making The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when three of your horsemen die, two weeks from the end of Principal Photography!”
Pageantry
Pageantry
Conrad Brean: ‘Mr Fix It’
Resolution