BBC DRAMA: The Street by Jimmy Mcgovern - Series one (2006)

Episode 5: Asylum

Starring Timothy Spall

Study the following scenes and analyse them in terms of the following:

• Camera angles, movement & position
• Editing
• Sound
• Mise en Scene

Also remember to discuss Representation whenever it is appropriate

Scene 1

Context: Eddie (Timothy spall) is a cab driver who has been called to pick someone up.

Camera angles, movement & position

• A long shot in terms of framing and in movement and positioning a slow horizontal pan left which fixes onto the front of the cab as it approaches the camera which then goes static.
• Cut to a medium shot of a man wearing a suit and overcoat talking to Eddie. Throughout his discussion we see a shot reverse shot between Eddie and the landlord. Then we get some close up of both men who are shot separately throughout the one sided chat.
• Cut to a close up, slight pan left of Ojo coming out of the house. Then a long shot re-established the space and shows ojo entering the back of the taxi. Medium shots follow of Eddie getting piece of paper and then cut back out to a long shot of the taxi leaving the street

Editing

• The editing is infrequent at the beginning as the taxi pulls into the street

• The seamless editing builds up when we see the landlord having a rant at Eddie through various shot reverse shots, intercutting between the two

• The pace of cuts builds up when ojo appears and enters the taxi, then slows down when the taxi leaves the street

Sound

• The taxi engine can be heard diegetically as it enters the street and then pulls up to a house

• Workmen can be heard in the background knocking walls etc which builds up the ambient, diegetic sound

• The landlord starts talking and over the engine/workmen ambient sound we can still hear him speak

• Through his dialogue, in terms of representation he comes across as being partially nostalgic but ultimately racist in blaming immigrants for the decline of the area socially

• Eddie doesn’t speak at all and just vaguely listens

• Through sound we can hear the representation of the landlord as loud, abrupt and highly aggressive towards Ojo

Mise en Scene

• The location is a red brick terraced street with most of the houses boarded up with metal shutters. The street is depleted as no community is present this represents deprived area of a northern city where nobody wants to live
• The red bricks and terraced nature represent Victorian homes from the early 1900’s in the north of the country; Liverpool, Manchester et al
• The lighting is natural and displays a bleakish autumn setting, stereotypical representation of the “grim north"
• The taxi is a brownish in colour and is a ‘hackney carriage’ this implies a career taxi driver who works full time, mostly days
• In terms of representation the landlord is positioned quite negatively as he wears a black overcoat which implies autumn/winter as does the skyline and the fact he has his hands in his pockets. He also wears a black suit which could give us the connotation of his sinister and harsh personality, not a very nice man as black can connote evil
• He is white and middle aged with a moustache, old school northerner. He has a regional accent which also gives us the connotation that he is from the north, Manchester, Liverpool etc
• Through his posture, demeanour and dialogue he is represented as a craggy, aggressive old man. He is visibly upset and fed up with his current situation of standing in the street waiting for Ojo to leave the house. He physically forces Ojo into the taxi and thrust a piece of paper in front of Eddie and tells him to put it on the bill which implies that Eddie’s taxi company does quite a bit of work for the landlord or immigration services
• Eddie is represented as a slightly portly white middle aged man, with a poor dress sense due to his type of job, he seems working class
• Another part of his representation is that Eddie doesn’t respond to the landlords gripes about immigration which suggests he may not hold the same prejudiced views and thus isn’t racist
• Ojo is represented as being confused as he exits the house and doesn’t respond verbally to anyone, due to the fact the landlord called him an immigrant this could build to suggest that Ojo doesn’t understand English as he doesn’t react negatively to the landlords racist jibes as well

N.B: Throughout your discussion make sure that you replace words such as 'IMPLIES', 'SUGGESTS', 'CONNOTES' with 'REPRESENTS' or 'REPRESENTATION'.

*Now analyse the next 2 scenes from Asylum in the same way