Grease Analysis

Grease

The other film I decided to analyse is Grease, made in 1978, directed by Randal Kleiser and produced by Allan Carr. The film was predominantly recorded at an American high school but also branched off into some additional locations such a diner and viaduct. The movie rates as a Pg-13 due to sexual references, drug and alcohol use and profanity. The film was targeted to those who grew up in the age of rock and roll however it came to appeal to teenagers. In addition is would have also attracted those who were a fan of the original musical. I will be looking at the conventions of musicals and how grease conformed to them.

Synopsis

Grease is a musical about Sandy Olsson and Danny Zuko who fell in love over the summer and then meet again in the new school year. The story follows the ups and downs of their relationships with Sandy clashing with Danny upon them meeting again due to him holding up an act in front of his friends. They resolve their conflicts and Danny makes efforts to change for Sandy, who also makes efforts to change herself for him. In the end Sandy matches the more rebellious greaser look and she and Danny go off happily together at the end of year graduation funfair. Alongside the main couple with film also explores the conflicts of both the lover’s friend groups. Those of the ‘Pink Ladies’ include Frenchy having insecurities surrounding her academic aspirations and Rizzo with relationship troubles and pregnancy scares. Within the ‘T-Birds’ (Danny’s group) they get involved in a car race against another group known as ‘The Scorpions’ and predominantly are working to make their car come up to shape. Accompanying all of the plot points there are many songs, some of the most well-known being ‘Greased Lightning’ and ‘Summer Nights.’

Genre Analysis

In musical films a key characteristic is that songs will be sung to advance the plot and have the characters actively involved and expressing their feelings. In ‘Summer Nights’ Sandy, Danny and their groups break into song when recalling their memories and feelings about the summer. Additionally, in musicals the world is somewhat a fantasy setting with characters spontaneously breaking into song with extras becoming back-up dancers which you see in many of the songs. A great example is in ‘We Go together’ where many of the high school students join in with the dancing and singing. The narrative is usually very happy and has the protagonist prevail over their problems. In Grease we see this in Danny and Sandys love overcoming the differences in their social groups and other conflicts that arose throughout the film.

Narrative Analysis

Grease has a linear story line, all of the events happen in order with jumps of time between many sections, the film happening over the space of a year. The protagonist roles are held by Sandy and Danny, Danny being the typical dashing male lead and Sandy being the female love interest to be won over. Both of them have a sidekick, Sandy’s being Frenchy who helps her with advice surrounding Danny and assists her with the final change of appearance to win over Danny in the final scene. Danny’s is Kenickie who is his closest friend and they remain by each other’s side, with Danny being trusted in the driving race when Kenickie gets injured. There is no real antagonist within Grease but social differences and the occasional character such as Cha Cha acted as barriers to the love between the protagonists being achieved. Most of the film is set within a high school as all of the characters are school students and the movies focus is the teen romance so the setting is typical to that. The film is from a third person point of view and everything is seen from the onlooker’s perspective. The inside feelings of characters are not expressed through narration however the songs throughout act as a way for internal feelings to be expressed such as Rizzo’s song ‘there are worse things’ where she contemplates her choices regarding sleeping around. The main themes in Grease are love and change, love being obviously apparent as the main narrative revolves around Danny and Sandy’s relationship as well as all of side characters pairing up with each other. Change is also very relevant as both Danny and Sandy find it necessary to change themselves for each other’s love, Danny doing P.E in school despite it contradicting his Greaser persona. Sandy completely changed the way she acted and dressed at the very end to win over Danny and leave behind the goody two-shoes appearance she had.

Film Content

The biggest aspect of the film’s content is the songs, within every scene there was a song to express what was happening or the feelings of the characters involved. Predominantly up beat and happy songs to fit the young teen image as well as more slow and serious songs used for individual reflection of a character e.g. ‘Beauty school drop-out’. In many of the songs and scenes, wide camera shots were used to capture the choreography of dancers and with many scenes being in school settings, there were always lots of characters involved.

Conclusion

In general, grease is a great example of a Musical that fits the conventions and does it very well. It has a 77% rating on rotten tomatoes with a review saying ‘Grease is a pleasing, energetic musical with infectiously catchy songs and an ode to young love that never gets old.’ To me the film is an extremely fun and entertaining musical. The songs are all catchy and the never get old. I would recommend it as a classic musical to anyone, but its views of love are somewhat outdated however I would overlook this as it’s a quality musical and film for its time and still today. 

Genre

What is genre?

Genre is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse whether written or spoken, audio or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time as new genres are invented and the use of old ones are discontinued.

All genres are governed by a set of codes and conventions.

Horror - Suspenseful music, an evil presence (monsters, ghosts, spirits, murderers etc), jump scares, darkness, rainy/stormy weather, death/murder, shadows, isolated locations, weapons, gore, screaming, heavy breathing/sounds, silence to build suspense

Genre & movie	Characters	Props	Settings/locations	Music/ sound effects	Lighting
Moana - animated and adventure	Moana - Main character, teen lady Maui - Demigod, Man		On the ocean, lots of ships. A place of action due to storms and conflict on the seas. Beaches	Magical sound effects for powerscreates wonder. Happy music. dramatic music	bright lighting on the most part. Some darker scenes for action
Tropic thunder - Comedy and action	The actors, their manager. the locals to the jungle	Guns and military things, explosives	in a jungle, in a village - the unknown to them, allows for funny situations as well as danger.	lots of action, gun/explosion sounds.	mainly light (comedy scenes) some darker (more serious)
The purge - horror thriller	Family, stranger and murderers	Guns, machetes	house	glitchy sounds, screaming, silence, alarm sounds, eerie music	all very dark, middle of the night

Shawshank Redemption Film Analysis

The Shawshank Redemption

The first film I chose was the Shawshank redemption, directed by Frank Darabont. And produced by Niki Marvin. The film was made in 1994 but was set from the 1940s to the 1960s in an American prison. The movie was rated R due to sexual and violent themes as well as profanity. The target audience for the film is predominantly adults and potentially matured teenagers. I will be analysing the content of the film as well as if it fits the conventions typical of the drama genre.

Synopsis

The film, based off of the novel by Stephan King, is about a man named Andy Defresne who was sentenced to two lifetimes in prison for the murder of his wife and the man she cheated on him with despite being innocent. The story follows his life in prison where he befriends a man named Red and eventually makes a decent name for himself in the prison among prison mates and the guards and warden. Andy ends up doing financial work for the guards and works directly for the warden to ensure he doesn’t get caught for money he was immorally gaining through under-priced labour costs and bribes. Eventually, Andy escapes from the prison through a tunnel he had been digging for years and uses the money and identification he’d created for the warden to begin a new life as a new man. Some years after this, Red is released and finds Andy and the two friends are reunited as free men.

Genre

The Shawshank redemption’s genre is drama and it fits the conventions very well. Drama films should normally depict real life situations with realistic characters and setting, which the film manages very well. It showed the very real corruption of prisons with a wide variety of characters both innocent and not who were both relatable and realistic. They should also include character development, which we see in Andy Defresne’s character as he becomes accustomed to life in the prison and we are able to see how the different experiences impacted him such as the emotional damage caused by the sexual abuse he suffered from a group of the men in the prison. The story should also be emotionally moving which we experience throughout, the film evoking emotions like anticipation, fear, sadness, happiness, humour and contemplation. A specifically sad scene is when Brooks (an elderly man who was released from the prison after many years) commits suicide after he isn’t able to cope with life outside of the prison. It shows the harsh reality that some prisoners experienced when no real support prepared them for real life and so they lived in fear and unease. Climaxes and anti-climaxes are also important features of drama as it keeps the audience engaged. Throughout the Shawshank redemption there were several points of conflict and also periods of happiness and peace such as where the library was running smoothly, or when Andy played music for everyone in the prison.  Most importantly, the ending should have some form of realisation or happy ending, which is achieved in the Shawshank redemption with the corrupt prison being revealed to the press and Andy’s escape to live his life once again.

Narrative Analysis

The story was told following the story of Andy Defresne however was narrated by Red and followed his characters perspective and thoughts on what was happening. The film itself was linear and in chronological order, however the narration was in the past tense as he’s telling the story as it’s already happened. The film was set over about 20 years so had many time skips to show the most important experiences of his time in prison.  The protagonist of the story is Andy, with the narrative following his problems and experiences. Red fills the role of the sidekick, being by Andy’s side throughout the whole film and helping him and getting others to help him with anything he needs. For example when he got all of the men to collect rocks for Andy to make chess pieces out of, or when he got posters for Andy’s room (though not aware the purpose was to cover the tunnel Andy had created). The warden holds the antagonist role as he controls the prison and is the undeniable force of power in the prison. Despite a temporary truce between him and Andy where he is happily working for the warden, upon Andy discovering evidence he’s innocent the warden locks him in solitary for 2 months to ensure he doesn’t consider leaving the warden and orders the murder of the man who provided Andy with the evidence source (Tommy). Some of the biggest themes within the Shawshank Redemption are freedom, confinement and hope. With the film being set in a prison, freedom is a huge theme as our main characters want freedom from the prison and in Andy’s case he doesn’t even deserve to be there. Confinement is explored not only through the literal prison setting but the restrictions on everything the individual stand for, with their entertainment, education, hope and lives being restricted by life in prison. Hope is also a huge theme as that’s what Andy stands as a symbol of throughout the story, with his efforts to create a new library, that succeeds, and being able to get privileges outside of the norm for those in the prison and of course when he escapes its proof that their lives do not end inside the prison.

Film content

Throughout the film, very little music is used in the background apart from atmospheric music when red is narrating the story. This keeps the serious tone of the story and is suitable to the prison setting where things like music wouldn’t be present in the first place. It also gave much more impact to the scene where Andy plays music to the whole prison due to the lack of it previously making it stand out as entertainment more. Lighting is also used well in the film to set mood in scenes and portray dark characters. In the scene where the warden has Tommy murdered, he walks out from the darkness into the light foreshadowing the evil intentions he had in the scene and clearly showing the viewer that he is an evil character.  

Conclusion

Overall, the Shawshank redemption tells its story effectively using all of the different elements of the drama genre and following conventions. Throughout, mood and tone are set very well and create a very emotional and well told film. The film has received many positive reviews, one example being “The Shawshank Redemption is an uplifting, deeply satisfying prison drama with sensitive direction and fine performances,” which I firmly agree with. Personally, I would consider this film one of my favourites due to its maturity and seriousness while being emotionally gripping. The characters are likeable and complex and the whole film brings up many moral questions and is thought provoking. I would recommend anyone to watch this film as it’s a truly great film with many turns in the plot to keep you engaged.