Under The Skin Flashcards
(16 cards)
Summarise Barbara Creed’s Theory of the Male Gaze.
Creed posits that the camera positions us with a male attitude to characters and events, regardless of the nature of the audience; for example by sexualising or focussing on the bodies of female characters.
Cinematographer?
Daniel Landin
Composer?
Mica Levi
eerie, at times ambient, aural motif that heightens tension
Tension in Cinematography?
-Hidden Camera, CCTV and cinema verité techniques ground our perspective.
-High (almost birds eye view) angle shots and ultra wide establishing shots work to isolate our perspective, suggest omniscience.
The contrast here might represent the conflict between the Alien/Human dynamic or more generally; the conflict between cold objectivity and emotional subjectivity.
Examples of Binary oppositions?
Masculinity vs Femininity
Literal vs Abstract
Isolation vs Inclusion
Alien vs Human identity
Agency vs Passivity
Prey vs Predator
Double Exposure; she is metaphotically and literally “in the woods” - a place of self discovery, transition or danger (literature/fairytales)
Mica Levi’s ambient score compliments the digetic howling of wind
Performance, Body Langauge - foetal position implies vulnerability, rebirth
Wide, static shot isolates her in frame, makes her movements and small - disempowers her physicality
Costume; loss of prior glamour, lumberjack’s hi-vis signals authority.
Wide establishing shot employs deep focus; echoing her alienation with an apathetic calm.
Fire works on two levels; persecution of women as witches, (binary) opposite to the cold snow - emphasisng alienation from environment.
Handheld Camera pans to an over the shoulder and pulls focus to the woman, moving through a Dutch angle as frame shakes; This moment is all about the man’s subjective response to the Alien underneath, it is a dirty moment fraught with fear and uncertainty, a threat that begets violence
The threat of male physicality is recognised
Special effects; the unmasking as sci-fi genre convention
the Woman deceives the lumberjack, and, acting out of fear of having been manipulated, she must be destroyed to save masculine face.
Key Contrast between the Woman’s demise and those of her prey?
The predation of men happens in an abstract void; her death is met in the real world.
The contrast between the sterility of the void she lures men into, and the site of her own assault being so immersed in the natural world is a conscious use of set design to highlight how the threat to feminine identities is more tangible than the threats to male identities - Glazer contrasts the abstract with the literal.
What would Freud think of the Void?
Castration Anxiety
The abstract space of the void can be taken as a metaphorical realization of this anxiety – the complete and utter removal of power and autonomy, and thus masculinity, as a result of their attraction to the Woman.
Double exposure reveals her ‘true’ nature - the part of her that isn’t only skin deep, and it’s no coincidence that we see this just as she falters in her mission of predation.
After this she stares in the mirror;
Close up, no score, held for a minute and a half; this is some serious soul searching - she looks within herself, and is moved to mercy
The flies buzzes against glass (dieg. noise) trapped in the dark, longing for the light - symbolises the disfigured man, who, like the fly, she will free.
Her rebellion is in vain - the fly will die, the man too, at the hands of the biker.
Abstract representation which is later recontextualised as the eye (symbolic of gaze dynamics) - also references ‘A clockwork orange’, the eye as a tool of reprogramming (female socialisation)
Jonic/Phallic symbo.; shot of a big tube passing into a hole - yeah yeah okay boss man she’s being concieved we get it - but at the same time, plays to sci-fi genre conventions (maybe it’s a big spaceship…)
Referencing 2001 a Space Odyssey
Diegetic(?) noise; Johansson enunciates simple sounds, then words, mirroring CLA, plays on ‘Born Sexy Yesterday’
First word is NO (her last?.. YES)
Costume; Biker leathers - masculine yes, vaguely evocative of spacesuit also
Hypermasculine leatherclad gimp with a woman slung over his shoulder - Patriarchy oozes out of the screen
Shot before this, the biker is framed uber-intrusively, face in the camera - domineering presence shrouded in darkness.
Lack of expositional dialogue, or even the chance to see his face - we’re reaching for straws
