Characters

Question 1

Who plays Saïd?

Answer 1

Saïd Taghmaoui

Question 2

What does ‘Beur’ mean?

Answer 2

Verlan for ‘arabe’/ arab

Question 3

Who plays Vinz?

Answer 3

Vincent Cassel

Question 4

Who plays Hubert?

Answer 4

Hubert Koundé

Question 5

What is the name of the ‘local sympathetic policeman’ who tries to helps the trio?

Answer 5

Samir

Question 6

What is the name of the local policeman that shoots Vinz?

Answer 6

‘Notre Dame’

Question 7

How are the trio often described?

Answer 7

Black Blanc Beur

Question 8

What is the name of the young Beur injured by a policeman at the beginning of the film?

Answer 8

Abdel Ichaha

Question 9

Who does Vinz imitate in the mirror scene?

Answer 9

Travis Bickle (Robert de Niro) from Scorsese’s ‘Taxi Driver’

Question 10

Translate and cite:
‘The trio of young men are part heroes, part villains, all at once social victims, attractive and sympathetic survivors and ‘little jerks’’

Answer 10

Le trio des hommes jeunes sont à la fois les héros et les méchants, à la fois les victimes sociales, attirants et survivants compatissants et les petit imbéciles.

Vincendeau, Ginette, La Haine French Film Guide, New York, 2005

Question 11

What affect does the use of the actors real names create? (according to Vincendeau)?

Answer 11

This, as well as the naturalistic performance of the three actors, ‘contributes to the film’s aura of authenticity’

Question 12

How does Vincendeau summarise the three characters?

Answer 12

Vinz: l’aggressif

Saïd: le blagueur

Hubert: le sage

Question 13

What arguably makes Vinz the most attractive character for viewers?

Answer 13

• -most experienced actor
• -white actor
• -most ‘full-fledged character’, dream sequences, hallucinations, insight into family life

Question 14

What suggests Vinz aggressive personality?

Answer 14

• -initial shot, knuckle duster (coup de poing américain)
• -sharp face, shaven face
• -spitting, grimacing, grinding teeth
• -‘his speech is a mixture of aggression and inarticulacy, suggesting suppressed hatred about to erupt: his occasional stutter makes words even more explosive when they emerge.’ (Vincendeau)
• -attire an ‘updated version of the 1950’s blousons noirs delinquents’ look’ black sports clothes

–however his grace of movement, perhaps linked to his dancing background, does conflict with this aggression and the image of Vinz as a common macho thug.

Question 15

What does Carrie Tarr think about the omission of Saïd’s family in the film?

Answer 15

That it ‘erases Maghrebi culture’

Question 16

Gift of the gab

Answer 16

Tchatche

Question 17

How does Saïd mock the Parisiennes in the art gallery?

Answer 17

He mocks their use of intonation, a common banlieursard response, defensively parodying learned French as ‘both bourgeois and effeminate’ (Begag, ‘L’enfermement linguisitique)

Question 18

Translate:
‘In this respect, one function of his (Said) character is to show the language as the- ultimately ineffectual- weapon of the dispossessed’

Answer 18

Dans ce regard, l’un des fonctions de son personnage c’est pour montrer le langage comme le –en fin de compte inefficace—outil des défavorisés

Question 19

Translate:

‘Everything about Hubert celebrates his blackness’

Answer 19

Tout d’Hubert glorifie sa noirceur

Question 20

What signifies Hubert’s ‘noirceur’?

Answer 20

• -hair plaited in an Afro-American style

- -posters of iconic black athletes: Muhammed Ali

Question 21

What film does the slow-mo boxing sequence reference?

Answer 21

Raging Bull

The credits sequence

Question 22

What does the torn (déchiré) poster of Hubert represent?

Answer 22

It could mirror the destruction of his gym and be an attack on his ambitions. The attack on the gym seems to represent the impossibility of escaping the cités or of improving them.

Question 23

What does Carrie Tarr argue La Haine does in terms of ideas concerning race?

Answer 23

Carrie Tarr argues that La Haine, despite its intentions, in fact reinforces a racist agenda, as it puts its white character first and marginalizes its beur character.

Question 24

What evidence is there of Carrie Tarr’s suggestion that Vinz, the white protagonist, is portrayed as the most important character?

Answer 24

–Although Vinz is not in significantly more shots (plans) than Said, he is the subject of many more close-ups (gros plans).

–As the wielder of the gun, he is arguably more central to the plotline and the public campaign for the film.

–More insight into Vinz’s home life

Question 25

How does the ending arguably reinforce racial stereotypes?

Answer 25

–Although it justifies banlieue violence, it also arguably reinforces certain stereotypes:
Vinz (white) is the victim
Said (beur) is the impotent witness
Hubert (black) is linked to drug trafficking and the perpetrator (auteur/ responsable) of violence

Question 26

How is the film ‘confused’ in terms of race? What could explain this?

Answer 26

The film is full of racial paradoxes:
--La Haine exposes racism, especially on the part of white characters, yet privileges its white leading character, as is created by a white middle class director.

–The film worships aspects of blackness (looks, music) as portrays Hubert as the most dignified of the trio, yet also aligns him with drug trafficking and murder (potentially).

–The film higlights anti-beur racism, yet one of the policeman that torture Said and Hubert is a beur, and Said as a character is the most marginalised.

While some argue that the film is ‘politically naive’ others argue that this ‘confusion’ derives from the complexity of the real life situation. Whilst France is becoming more and more ethnically diverse, it is also paradoxically becoming more and more racist.

Question 27

Knuckle duster

Answer 27

coup de poing américain

Question 28

Spit

Answer 28

Cracher: to spit

Crachat: spit

Question 29

To grind one’s teeth

Answer 29

Grincer des dents

Question 30

Attire

Answer 30

Tenue

vêtements, habits

Question 31

Inarticulacy

Answer 31

Problème d’élocution

Question 32

his speech is a mixture of aggression and inarticulacy, suggesting suppressed hatred about to erupt

Answer 32

Ses paroles sont un mélange d’agression et des problèmes d’élocution, ce qui suggère la haine réprimé sur le point d’éclater

Question 33

stutter

Answer 33

bégaiement

Question 34

thug

Answer 34

voyou
brute
malfrat

Question 35

involvement with drug trafficking

Answer 35

implication avec trafic de stupéfiants

Question 36

in slow motion

Answer 36

au ralenti

Question 37

muddled, confused

Answer 37

embrouillé