When looking at the creative and artistic industry it has always been male dominated. As Virginia Woolf said about poetry “I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was a woman” (Cobb, 2015, p.2). This quote was written in 1929 from Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own showing that from early on, women are a minority in art industry. In 1998 17% of the people that worked on the top 250 grossing films were women and in 2013 it was 16% showing how low the number of women in comparison to men in the industry are (Cobb, 2015, p.3). In Britain, in 2009, women were accounted for 17.2% of British film directors overall (Hockenhull, 2015, p. 6). Before WW2 there was little opportunity for female directors and according to Sue Harper “in the 1930s, women experienced extreme difficulties breaking into the technical side of production” resulting in the few female directors at that time. The outbreak of war also saw a slight rise in female directors including Muriel Box and Jill Craigie for documentary films, although by 1947 documentary filmmaking “was rapidly becoming the preserve of men” (Hockenhull. 2015, p. 7). During the 1960s women made children’s films and then the 1970s focused on avant-garde and feminist cinema. During this period Sally Potter began her career and Laura Mulvey’s feminist writing was hugely significant amongst feminist filmmaking. Channel 4 then began funding independent projects and female cinema including Bhaji on the Beach (Chadha, 1993). The UKFC was introduced in 2000 which directed lottery funding into British filmmaking. Tanya Seghatchian became the Head of funding for UKFC from 2010 and she was described by the Guardian as “the most powerful woman in the British film industry.” (Hockenhull, 2015, p. 11). “Seghatchian had access to both the Premiere Fund and the New Cinema Fund, a sizeable budget enabling her to support the production of both smalland large-scale projects” and has supported the films of Lynne Ramsay, Clio Barnard, Andrea Arnold, etc. In this essay I will be focusing on Andrea Arnold as her films follow the British feminist route in terms of funding and how she began but also feminist in her use of gender regarding the focus on her female characters. I will be focusing on Arnold’s constructions of gender and youth culture in Fish Tank (Arnold, 2009) and her most recent film, American Honey (Arnold, 2016). One of the aspects that makes Arnold an auteur is through her interest in her young female characters and how they grow, make mistakes and their sexuality. She also has a British New Wave approach to film-making, shooting on "real locations and the employment of non-professional or little-known actors" (Taylor, 2000, p.3) “to tackle 'real' social issues and experiences in a manner which matched, a style which was honest and realistic as well." (Hill, 1986, p.127). Through Arnold’s oeuvre she is known for her female protagonists. The examples I will be using, Star in American Honey and Mia in Fish Tank, both fit into the youth demographic and certain stereotypes of this are shown throughout each film. When we are introduced to each of the protagonists, they’re unrecognisable to us. To use unprofessional/ amateur actors is a trait of the British New Wave which Arnold often homages. She discovered Katie Jarvis (Mia) having an argument with her boyfriend on a station platform (Christie, 2011, p.1) and Sasha Lane (Star) “on a beach in Panama during Spring Break” (Hans, 2016, p. 19). Arnold also most likely chooses to focus on the youth demographic due to the fact she “worked as a performer and presenter on youth-oriented television for much of the 1980s and ’90s” (Christie, 2011, p.1). We are introduced to Mia through a medium long shot in the apartment where she dances. The camera pans around her head looking around the window, which establishes the council estate setting. “Urban living’s concrete drabness is both bemoaned and limned with colour and grace, the smallest and most desolate corner yet capable of offering escape and earthbound pleasure. Her characters may not transcend their place in the world, but at least they’re allowed to fully inhabit it.” (Hynes, 2010, p.1). This first sequence immediately inhabits the audience into Mia’s stereotypical, rebellious youth culture. We see her dance, arguing on the phone and with her mother and headbutting a girl all in the first sequence establishing her as being a delinquent teenager. This is further supported by her clothing codes of a tracksuit which typically is the dress code of someone lower class. Although Fish Tank is about youth culture it also explores the world of sex for fifteen-year-old Mia when she is introduced to her neglective mother’s new boyfriend, Conor (Michael Fassbender). We are introduced to him when Mia is dancing in the kitchen and he walks in shirtless with ill-fitting jeans. He is the only one in the film who speaks to Mia like an adult, showing her transition into womanhood. There is a constant sexual undertone when it comes to Conor and Mia. For example, when Mia cuts her foot when trying to catch a fish, Conor carries her on his back. Her breathing becomes louder and we know she is allured by him. Her mother becomes jealous of Mia’s emerging sexuality, asking her to put some clothes on in front of Conor when they are kitchen as Mia is wearing her underwear and a t-shirt. The “powerful pull of sex” theme is something that has always interested Arnold and how it impacts her young female characters (Hans, 2016, p.18). We are introduced to Star in American Honey rummaging through garbage for food with her younger half siblings. She is dressed ruggedly in a tank top. When she sticks her thumb out to try and get a ride there is an extreme close-up of her hand, showing her chipped nail polish. This along with the smoking, tattoos and dreadlocks fits her into the stereotype of reckless youth. Her language is also quite aggressive in this scene as a car with a “God is coming sticker” on the back ignores her she shouts, “I hope he comes all over your car.” She then says to the children that they are invisible. The youth are in a way as people have stereotyped them. The mag crew she accompanies are part of the youth generation. She is first introduced to Jake in a supermarket with We Found Love- Rihanna playing. Jake starts jumping on the counters, security is called, and he is escorted out. The lyrics “we found love in a hopeless place” links to their situation perfectly as Star is currently in a hopeless place but breaks out of this, falling for Jake. Star is currently living with her alcoholic stepfather and half siblings who call her “mum”. Her stepfather, “a “cardboard cut-out of masculine oppression” abuses her in their small trailer home (West-Knights, 2016, p.1). While we see the abuse, the lighting is low key and the setting is claustrophobic, presenting her being trapped. The song Take Your Time- Sam Hunt is playing with the lyric “I don’t want to steal your freedom” with a shot of a moth stuck in a spiderweb. This represents Star being stuck in an abusive atmosphere. She escapes the situation by running off with the mag crew and falling in love with Jake. Both of their sex scenes completely juxtapose the abuse as the lighting is high key and they’re surrounded by nature instead of the isolated, dark setting. This is then contrasted again when Star turns to prostitution to earn money by pleasuring an oil field worker in his truck. The lighting is dark, and the car presents entrapment. One of the main constructions of gender that Arnold focuses on in her films is that of motherly tendencies from her female leads. She has always explored this, especially in her short films such as Wasp (Arnold, 2003) and Milk, (Arnold, 1998) one about a mother and the other about a woman who has lost her baby and begins to mother a young adult. Arnold was the “oldest of four children growing up in a council house in Dartford, Kent, on the opposite side of the Thames Estuary from where Fish Tank is set” which is probably a reason why she uses characters with younger siblings and presents them as motherly (Christie, 2011,p.1). Both Mia and Star have siblings in the films and to some degree mother them as both mothers in the film are neglective. Star is shown caring for insects in the film, including rescuing a bee from drowning in a pool saying “i got you” showing a maternal and caring side. “Arnold’s cut-in shots of butterflies, birds and bugs failing to take flight reinforce the feeling that something is keeping these young Americans down. Only Star pauses to set the bugs free. And her essential virtue, taking care of neglected children and dreaming of a trailer and family of her own, distinguishes her from her fellow travellers” (Hutchinson, 2016, p.1). Jacobs suggests that Arnold’s work is part of “maternal creaturely cinema” (Jacobs, 2016, p.161) due to her characters but also the way she presents them in terms of camerawork. Both Mia and Star are presented this way through the “phenomenological” filmmaking which forces “a physical engagement with the bodies on screen” (Jacobs, 2016, p.161). Arnold achieves this through her close camerawork. From the equilibrium in Fish Tank, the camera is tracking beside Mia closely like we are a child following its mother or it pans around her like the earth orbiting the sun. The film is mediated to revolve around Mia and even if she makes a mistake we stay with and support her. When Mia makes the mistake of taking Conor’s daughter Kiera, the camera goes in and out of focus and becomes jagged. The audience is omniscient, knowing she is doing something wrong, but we still support her. The camera is also close to Star in American Honey. “Arnold crops the Midwestern landscapes, framing sunset-hued vistas as Instagram squares.” Arnold says she likes using this aspect ratio as she wants to “home in on the person.” (Hill, 2016, p.21). One of the constructions of gender that Arnold puts place in her characters is that they have dreams and the hope of freedom in their social realist world. The title “Fish Tank” could refer to youth being trapped in small spaces where they are made to believe that this is all there is to life, when in actual fact there is so much more in the ocean. There is the metaphor of a white horse that Mia tries to free from its chains. When returning to see the horse she is told that the horse was killed “she was sixteen. It was her time”. Mia is fifteen almost sixteen and this symbolises it’s her time to leave too. When she drives away with Billy, her sister is chasing the car. The shot is looking at her through the back window of the car, framing her as being in a tank. It is her turn escape next. The theme of dreaming and freedom is also shown in American Honey, not just through the freedom of Star saving insects but through other means. One of the main way’s freedom is shown is through the American flag representing the American dream. The flag is shown in many scenes, examples being the curtain in her stepdad’s house, on the rodeo men’s house and when Star makes her first sale she says “I feel like fucking America” as she feels free and elated. In a scene towards the end, Star is riding with a truck driver and he asks her if she has any dreams. She says that no one has ever asked her that before “this ultimately is what the film is concerned with a young woman interrogating for the first time what it is she actually wants for herself”. (West-Knights, 2016, p.1). Star says she wants her “own trailer [...] somewhere with lots of trees [...] and lots of kids” (Arnold, 2016), again showing her maternal side. While this scene is happening Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Dream Baby Dream’ is playing which is ironic giving the subject matter is about dreaming. This also happens in Fish Tank with the song California Dreamin’ as we know Mia has dreams too. In conclusion, Andrea Arnold chooses to present her youthful teenage girl characters as maternal beings due to their personality and the close camerawork but also presents them as coming from hardship and striving for freedom as they have their own dreams. Bibliography
Arnold, A. (Director). (1998). Milk. [Short Film]. United Kingdom: Anglia Television. Arnold, A. (Director). (2003). Wasp. [Short Film]. United Kingdom: FilmFour. Arnold, A. (Director). (2009). Fish Tank. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: BBC Films. Arnold, A. (Director). (2016). American Honey. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: Maven Pictures. Chadha, G. (Director). (2003). Bhaji on the Beach. [Motion Picture]. United Kingdom: Channel Four Films. Christie, I. (2011, February 22). Fish Tank: An England Story. Retrieved from https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1764-fish-tank-an-england-story . Cobb, S. (2015) Adaptation, authorship, and contemporary women filmmakers. Basingstoke, England. Hans, S. (2016, October). Wandering Star. Sight & Sound, 26(10) pp. 18- 22. Hill, J. (1986) Sex, Class and Realism British Cinema 1956-1963. London: British Film Institute. Hockenhull, S. (2015) ‘Damsels in Distress?’, Film International, 13(1), pp. 6–19. Hutchinson, P. (2016, December 14). Film of the week: American Honey. Retrieved from https://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/reviews-recommendations/american-honey-review . Hynes, E. (2010, January 12) The Girl Can’t Help It: Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank”. Retrieved from https://www.indiewire.com/2010/01/review-the-girl-cant-help-it-andrea-arnolds-fish-tank-245992/ . Jacobs, A. (2016) ‘On the maternal “creaturely” cinema of Andrea Arnold’, Journal of British Cinema and Television, 13(1), pp. 160–176. Taylor, B.F. (2000) The British New Wave A Certain Tendency? Manchester: Manchester University Press. West-Knights, I. (2016, November 16). REVIEW: ‘AMERICAN HONEY’. Retrieved from https://www.anothergaze.com/review-american-honey/ .
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMegan Hilborne is a freelance film writer and graduated from the University of Portsmouth in 2020 with a degree in film. ArchivesCategories |