It was 1987 when the world discovered that Rock Hudson, the star of many Hollywood classics, had died of AIDS, which only a few years previously had been feared as the gay cancer. Many would say his death gave AIDS a face, and for many, AIDS was now seen as everyones problem. Since the AIDS epidemic surfaced in the early 1980s, Hollywood has proven to be a champion of AIDS activism behind the scenes. Key figures in Hollywood, such as the openly homosexual principal of DreamWorks, David Geffen, and the producer Steve Tisch to stars such as Elizabeth Taylor have donated money, time and effort into campaigns for AIDS awareness. An example of Hollywoods commitment to this cause is exemplified in eighty per cent of funding for The AIDS Project Los Angeles coming from the entertainment industry.

Such a positive reaction from Hollywood seems hypocritical when there is no reaction from its core activity. It seems it is acceptable for Hollywood to privately donate millions of dollars towards fighting AIDS, but it is unacceptable, through its own self-censorship, for Hollywood to use millions of dollars, if any, towards representing AIDS cinematically.

Vito Russo (1987) lists drama, passion and tragedy as all the elements of a good movie. He does, however, specifically refer to AIDS when he says this. This highlights why it is surprising that Hollywood has not acknowledged AIDS in its filmmaking, because it has the potential to sell to an audience that demand drama, passion and tragedy. There is only one film about AIDS that has been produced by mainstream Hollywood, which is the 1993 film, Philadelphia. However, this film appeared some time after the beginning of the AIDS crisis, acknowledged to be the years between 1981-3, and is an example of how Hollywood has failed the issue of AIDS by its lacklustre attempt to represent the subject in mainstream cinema.

AIDS has made little impact upon mainstream Hollywood filmmaking, and three key reasons can be identified that attempt to explain why this is. First is the political atmosphere that untimely coincided with the emergence of an AIDS epidemic in America. AIDS cures homosexuality, an extreme right-wing slogan, sums up the Reaganite homophobia that pervaded society during the early years of the crisis. The Reagan administration blamed the AIDS epidemic on the perverse sexual practices of homosexual men. Along with the hysterical media, the New Right decided that AIDS was the result of the excesses of the 1960s sexual revolution and gay mens promiscuous lifestyles. Corber (2003:109) states that because of AIDS, "homosexuality emerged as an abjected site of displacement for national anxieties about the breakdown of the family and the loss of morality". In other words, the New Right needed a scapegoat for a disease they did not understand, and ultimately feared. AIDS gave them the excuse to continue condemning homosexuals for undermining American society and its values.

This extreme conservatism also pressured Hollywood, and blamed it for the breakdown of family values, labelling the industry immoral. Hollywood responded to this. There was a shift in Hollywood representations of the family and throughout the 1980s there was a resurgence of films depicting the middle class, white, nuclear family: the Reagan fantasy of American society. Homosexuality was avoided because of AIDS being a difficult subject, but largely because AIDS was still firmly associated with a gay lifestyle, which during the 1980s was still seen as transgressive in nature. Hollywood did not object to Reaganite homophobia: it supported it.

The second key reason to why AIDS is an avoided issue in Hollywood films is inextricably linked to the first. Corbers description of the homosexual as abjected can be applied directly to Hollywood representations of homosexuality. Hollywood has a long history of homophobia in its films, and even past the 1980s is still condemned by those fighting homophobia for its distorted representations of homosexuals in its texts. Bill Sherwood, director of Parting Glances, criticises the attempts that Hollywood has made to depict gay lifestyles: " One of the problems Hollywood has had dealing with this subject is that its usually approached so gingerly"(Levy 1999:486). A gingerly approach, however, has not been taken in regard to films in the 1980s and early 1990s, depicting homosexuals as victimisers and placed in the category of villain, as opposed to hero. Cruising (1980), Basic Instinct (1991) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) are just three examples of films depicting homosexuals as deviant and evil. Cruising depicts the entrapment, rape and murder of homosexual by an apparent homosexual; Basic Instinct depicts a manipulative, psychotic, bisexual female; and The Silence of the Lambs depicts a transgender male as a sadistic psychotic murderer. This is a dangerous representation of a community that had previously been depicted in earlier Hollywood films as most often the sissy, harmless yet ridiculous. But Hollywood shifted to a more sinister representation, influenced by the fear of AIDS and government vilification of the "AIDS-carriers": homosexuals. The government equated homosexuality with AIDS, thus Hollywood agreed, and this homophobic collusion resulted in a deliberate avoidance of representing the issue onscreen.

It was not homophobia alone that was stopping AIDS from emerging as a represented issue in Hollywood movies. It was other cultural shifts that were emerging at the start of the 1980s through to the present day. The third key reason as to why AIDS has been ignored is Hollywoods new age of spectacle. Whereas 1970s Hollywood was characterised by a certain degree of radical and political filmmaking, the 1980s saw a shift that saw the arrival of the blockbuster and the emergence of the possibilities of franchise and merchandising. This meant that vast amounts of money were ploughed into films that were felt to be profitable with the tide of teenage cinemagoers. Therefore it meant that personal filmmaking that characterized the 1970s was marginalized to make way for the mass financial gains incurred from this new wave of blockbusters. Geoff King (2002:80) noted this shift in 1980s and 1990s filmmaking, stating that "films dealing more or less directly with contentious contemporary issues tended to be overshadowed by works operating in the modes of fantasy or wish fulfilment". AIDS was a contentious contemporary issue, and would not likely be the key theme in a film that tended towards fantasy or wish fulfilment. AIDS did not belong in an industry that sought financial gain through mindless and exploitative entertainment.

These three key factors to why AIDS is under-represented in mainstream cinema led, paradoxically, to the making of Philadelphia. The film continues Hollywoods homophobia by depoliticising AIDS and repressing the protagonists homosexuality in favour of notions of the family, which corresponds with the New Right governments distorted vision of American society.

The precedence of the family can be seen in the final scene of Philadelphia, where the families of Andy, Joe Miller (the homophobic lawyer representing Andy) and Andys lover, Miguel, gather to remember the now dead Andy. The scene "provides narrative closure by "replying" to the films opening credits" (Corber 2003:120). This shows a preference for representing the family rather than AIDS, because identification is established at the beginning, and affirmed with the conclusion of the film. The scene shows the gathering of families watching old home movie clips of Andy as a boy. Corber (2003:120) critiques this, as Andy can only be a part of this family " as a boy before his sexual identity is fully formed. The movies simultaneously restore him to the locus of heterosexual reproduction and divest him of his homosexuality" In other words, Andys homosexuality made visible by AIDS is a barrier that denies him a position within the family sphere, thus his position in the film is marginalized.

Specifically, it is Joes status as a family man that marginalizes Andy (thus marginalizes AIDS). Joes family receive much screen time. For example, we see the birth of his family through the birth of his first child. However, his status as a family man legitimises Joes homophobia. Instead of the film castigating him for his prejudice, it provides these prejudices with a platform that allows for a defence. The film is littered with hate words such as faggot, loosely voiced by Joe on a number of occasions, legitimised by our identification with the heterosexual (but not white) middle class family man. An exemplar scene depicts Joe in a bar, corralled by, presumably, heterosexual men. The discussions are homophobic in nature, referring to queers as them, thus as the Other, and so to be feared, hated and castigated. Joe expresses these opinions, and the (white) bartender agrees with Joe over one thing: hatred of "tutti-fruttis". The bars atmosphere of masculinity, seen as interchangeable with male heterosexuality, can only justify the messages voiced in this scene. It is homosexuals who are castigated in Philadelphia, not the homophobes. Not Joe. The fact that Andy has AIDS only exacerbates the problem that Joe has with Andys homosexuality, and Joe only learns to see Andy as a human because of familiarity, but his contempt remains.

Joe also is assigned most of the films point of view over Andy. Thus this denies Andys subjectivity, and so denies identification with the homosexual with AIDS. Roger Corber (2003:110) states " the film traces the increasing sentimentalization of (Joes) look". This suggests that Andy is objectified, and denied subjectivity. This is exemplified in a scene at Andys apartment with just Joe and Andy present. Andy plays an operatic aria, which Joe does not understand, and so Andy explains the intricacies of the emotions being relayed by the operatic diva. Andy asks Joe " Can you hear the heartache in her voice, can you feel it, Joe?" The high emotion makes Andy cry, and it is his identification with the opera singers vocal technique that sentimentalises Andy and his state of health. But it is through Joe that the spectator identifies with, not Andy, as we sentimentalise Andy through Joes gaze (and in this case, the scene crosscuts Andy with the literal gaze of Joe).

This scene is further criticised by Douglas Crimp (2002:255) for subjugating Andys point of view, as it is " the subjectivity of the spectator, constructed by Demmes film as straight and unaffected by AIDS". Crimp argues that the scene cutting to Joe returning home to his family and his marital bed is a betrayal, and what should have been shown was Andy getting into his bed with his lover, Miguel. Thus Demme steals the opera singers aria from Andy, which "reveals (Andys) subjectivity through his identification with her, and gives (the aria) away- to Joe and his wife and baby and thus implicitly to every "normal" family unit" (Crimp 2002:256). Thus the potential to identify with AIDS is lost in favour of taking the less contentious route, which is through identification with a heterosexual, safe from AIDS.

The repression of the protagonists homosexuality is evident in Philadelphia and it could justly be argued to therefore repress the issue of AIDS, because AIDS has a link with homosexuality that is not denied by the film, and was certainly not denied, but a link fervently upheld by the American government during many years of the epidemic. This is evidenced in Corbers discussion of the look of Miguel, Andys lover, and how it "tends to express compassion rather than desire" for Andy (2003:116). Corber asserts that it is this extinction of the erotic in their relationship that represses Andys sexuality, and that this repression is required so that the spectators identification with him is unhindered. Corber continues revealing that the spectator is essentially seen as incapable of dealing with the fact that AIDS is " a disease whose primary mode of transmission among gay men is unprotected anal sex" (2003:116).

Another fact to consider is Philadelphias condescension of its audience. The audience is granted the right to feel intellectually superior when Andy is treated with extreme (and crudely obvious) discrimination. An example of this is situated in a scene where Andy is reading about the legal issues surrounding AIDS discrimination. People around him realise that he has AIDS, and is told to move to a private reading room, as an audience, we associate this with the segregation of blacks and whites in the earlier part of the twentieth century. This reference to civil rights activism permeates the film, from a framed picture of Martin Luther King, to an adoring shot of the liberty bell to Andys mother announcing she didnt raise (her) kids to sit at the back of the bus". Such references widen the issue of discrimination beyond AIDS and in doing so, AIDS is absorbed into the empathetic mainstream culture, where it has been split from the problematic and distasteful link with homosexuality. Corber (2003:108) states that the film "represses the militant AIDS activist movementand puts in its place a discourse of civil rights that is less threatening". Thus AIDS in Philadelphia becomes acceptable to the heterosexual audience, because a homosexual voice has also been absorbed into the mainstream, and is lost.

The de-politicising nature of the film, and its repression of a political, especially militant, realm of activism further worsen such a mistreatment by Philadelphia of the issues surrounding AIDS. A particular scene in the film that illustrates the rejection of politics is outside of the courthouse, where the discrimination trial takes place. In response to media interrogation, Andy is displaced from the AIDS activists by stating, " I am not political. I just want what is fair, what is right." The purpose of this seen is to displace the protagonist from the demonstrators, thus displacing him from a political space. " It takes a position neither on AIDS nor on gay rights and so should be seen as "fair" "(Corber 2003:108) Thus Philadelphia squanders an opportunity to represent AIDS in an acceptable way.

Finally, commenting on Hollywoods obsession with escapist films and the aversion to contentious contemporary issues, Philadelphia could be viewed as an anomaly. It could not reasonably be said to work in the modes of fantasy or wish fulfilment, which is the expected output of Hollywood. Philadelphia was released by Tri-Star and Columbia Pictures, which are both divisions of Sony Pictures Entertainment, Inc. Sony purchased Columbia Pictures Entertainment in 1989, changing the name in 1991. This purchase provided Sony with its leading revenue segment in 1991 for the U.S. market. Tri Star generated $1.8 billion in sales for Sony. It is not difficult to see that this global business had the finances to focus on blockbusters and spectacle, yet made and distributed a film that may not have been particularly contentious, but it could not easily be categorised as fantastical or wish fulfilling. A possible reason can be suggested as to why Philadelphia was made. Describing aspects of Hollywood production, King (2003:83) stresses:

" Space for less obviously commercial or more challenging material

is determined to a significant extent by the success of the

mainstream blockbuster. A period of sustained success creates

more scope for indulgences"

If Philadelphia was to be considered an indulgence" then there is evidence to suggest that Tri-Star had a period between 1989 and 1992 of success in terms of high grossing blockbusters for each of these years. In 1989, Look Whos Talking made a U.S. gross of $140 million, both Total Recall (1990) and Hook (1991) made $119 million, and Basic Instinct made $117 million. This sustained success for Tri Star could suggest a reason why Philadelphia, seen as an indulgence when compared to this particular selection of films, was made in 1993.

To conclude on Philadelphias ironic support of the American government and Hollywoods combined histories of homophobia as well as the films emergence in a new Hollywood keen to forget issues in preference for spectacle, it has shown itself to be a weak representation of AIDS.

An example of a superior representation of AIDS can be found in the 1986 American independent film, Parting Glances. The film tells the story of twenty-four hours in the lives of a group of gay yuppies. One of the central characters is Nick who is dying of AIDS. Nick is not the protagonist, but Michael, Nicks past lover, and also Michaels one true love. Parting Glances does not sensationalise homosexuality. In fact it attempts the opposite: to naturalise it (that it needs naturalising is once more Hollywoods homophobic legacy withstanding). This is exemplified in the opening sequence where we are introduced to Michael and Robert. Robert is jogging while Michael sits and reads. They playfully interact when Michael gently kicks Robert. The scene cuts to an apartment, where Robert distracts Michael from his book by kissing him. Michael is seduced by his lovers attention, and duly takes him into the bedroom. A scene follows that suggestively shows clothes being taken off but no flesh can be seen. The audience is left to assume what has happened when there is a cut to a shower curtain, presuming a post-coital cleanse is in progress. But the curtain is drawn back to reveal the lovers naked and embracing. What is surprising is not the shock of homosexual practices, but the voyeuristic delight of being privileged to see homosexual desire so naturally enacted on screen.

In comparison, the opening sequence to Philadelphia is a montage depicting the people of Philadelphia, such as children, families in the suburbs, mostly white and middle class with some representation of blacks and the poor cross cut with images of historical landmarks in the state. It is followed by the introduction of Andy as a lawyer, not as a homosexual or as a person with AIDS. This illustrates how Philadelphia panders to a presumed heterosexual audience by establishing their sexuality as the immediate point of identification. Homosexuality is thus displaced by a heterosexual point of view initiated in this opening sequence, which pervades the entire film.

Parting Glances does not present AIDS as the main theme or issue of the film, but it is not avoided. Nick plays an integral role within the film, as much of Michaels progression is related back to Nick. For example, Michael fears that Nick is about to take his own life and so buys a last minute flight to where Nick is, which happens to be a location central to the relationship between Nick and Michael, as it is tied to their past and we, as an audience, acknowledge that much of what we learn of Nick through Michaels memories of him is depicted at this beach side location). Michael leaves behind his long-term partner, Robert, despite Roberts unexpected cancellation of a long-term overseas trip. This illustrates Nicks centrality to Michaels development. Nick pervades Michaels dreams and thoughts, which none of the other characters do, and essentially it is not the issue of AIDS that causes this, it is a combination with Robert leaving that causes Michael to reflect on his love of Nick. We see Michael reliving moments shared with Nick, but not in a state of grief, but as memories and images that remind Michael that he loves Nicks uniqueness as Nick, and that Nick is still alive. The film elevates the importance of Nick as a character, not Nick as an AIDS victim.

However, AIDS is still shown as something to fear in Parting Glances. An example is where we see a brief scene where Michael questions Nick over the last time he had used a particular knife that Michael cuts himself with accidentally. This fear of AIDS is also illustrated by Roberts avoidance of Nick, where he is only willing to confront his fear at a distance with the safe barrier of a phone line. Both these examples show a fear of the reality of AIDS, rather than a fear of all the surrounding issues, especially homophobia. Philadelphia condemns ignorance over the facts of AIDS, but deals with the fear of homosexuality by repressing any overt signs of it. In Parting Glances, none of the characters aside from Robert have any qualms about touching and interacting with a man with AIDS, treating him like everyone else but not ignorant to the fact that he is dying (although a minor character makes a remark that highlights the reality that we all die soon, and it would be easier to die young anyway). So, Nick is not vilified and treated like an invalid like Andy is in Philadelphia.

Much can be said about the actors who play these characters. Steve Buscemi plays Nick in Parting Glances, and Tom Hanks takes the role of Andy in Philadelphia. Both are heterosexual actors, yet it is only Tom Hanks portrayal of a homosexual with AIDS that comes across as artificial. Hanks image as a Hollywood actor has been affected by the roles he has always chosen. They are usually of a typical heterosexual man, straightforward and of an earnest sort, a hero as opposed to a villain. Because Hanks is always cast as a good guy, these would rarely suggest to an audience that Tom Hanks could be believed to be homosexual. Such a star persona disturbs an audience from suspending their disbelief that they are following the story of a gay man. The audience know that he is really straight, so are comfortable viewing this role as they identify with Tom Hanks over Andy Beckett.

Steve Buscemi did not have a star persona in 1986 on the same level as Hanks, so his actual heterosexuality poses less of a problem with audiences. But why Nick is a more realistic depiction of a homosexual with AIDS is the visibility of Nicks sexuality. Whereas Hanks Andy appears to be somewhat asexual, Buscemis Nick is a key sexual figure. Nick is not shown kissing or sleeping with anyone, but through Michaels point of view, we see the desire that he has for Nick. Nick is sexualised throughout the film, through Michaels flash images of Nick, to Nicks pin-up status as a rock-star, and specifically in a sexually charged scene in which Michael grabs Nick and pulls him into his lap playfully. Homosexual desire of and for a person with AIDS is dealt with honestly and naturally, as AIDS is not seen as the death of sexual desire.

The existence of humour in relation to the issue of AIDS in Parting Glances is testament to the films credibility as a film dealing with AIDS sincerely and with intelligence. A humorous scene shows Nick dreaming of the character of a ghost, named the Commendatore in an opera he is listening to who is urged to repent for his sins (we see this earlier in a transcript of the opera depicting the particular verse and an image of the ghost). The Commendatore appears and informs Nick that "Heaven is boring; hang on as long as you can". This is in contrast with Philadelphia, where the mood remains largely sombre and humourless, and holds an undercurrent of repentance. The trial eventually leads to discussion of how Andy contracted AIDS through cheating on his partner Miguel with a stranger in a seedy gay cinema. This participation in gay sexual culture is seen by Corber (2003:117) to allow his illness to emerge as a "symbolic punishment for his deviation from heteronormative values and expectations". In other words, the assumption that homosexuals are perverted and promiscuous by nature is legitimised and duly punished. Nicks infection in Parting Glances, however, is not mentioned, but Nick himself in a video-will states adamantly that he wasnt "some kamikaze dick". Nick is criticising those assumptions made about homosexuals and AIDS that Philadelphia preserves.

Finally, the tangible fact that Nick does not die within the frame of the film is a statement for the films message: that life is to be enjoyed and not regretted. The films final sequence is of Nick and Michael, where Michael relives a time when he and Nick played an artistically crafted prank on a rich friend who owned a summerhouse by the beach. This is a memory that has punctuated the entire film, and Nick and Michaels return to this place signals a return to the joy they shared. The film finally suggests a continuum, as Nick points in the direction of Africa and suggests travelling there. Andy in Philadelphia, however, seems to live to die. His character is set up to die, as the focus is on death, socially as well as physically. His death gives a neat end to a complex issue, and provides a relief for an audience who are made to feel that his death, in the end is obviously inevitable yet also justified by his actions, and his death allows for the family to resurface as the central theme.

Philadelphia presents AIDS as an issue to be sentimentalised whereas in Parting Glances, the issue of AIDS is the reality for a gay community, and it is not a byword for death, but a chance to re-ignite a love for life.

However, as effective as Parting Glances is at dealing with the issue of AIDS, the film is not Hollywood filmmaking. It is a low budget independent film that was initially seen by few. It made $537,681 compared to Philadelphias U.S. gross of $77 million. The audience was likely to have been gay as the distributor, Cinecom, promoted it as a gay film. Its time of release was at a point where AIDS was seen to be a disease spread by homosexuals, and so AIDS belonged to the gay community. Homosexuals did not deny this, as it is evident that many homosexual artists and filmmakers, as well as writers and academics, took in AIDS as their own, making it a part of their community.

Hollywoods delayed interest in AIDS was at a time when AIDS was being said to belong to everyone. AIDS became everyones problem, and it is this notion that has resulted in a Hollywood film that fails in its attempts to go beyond Hollywoods past prejudices and Hollywoods remaining associations with the Reagan administrations own prejudices against AIDS.

Corber, R. J. "Nationalizing the Gay Body: AIDS and Sentimental Pedagogy in Philadelphia". American Literary History.15: 1: 107-133, 2003.

Crimp, Douglas. Melancholia and moralism: essays on AIDS and queer politics. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2002.

King, Geoff. New Hollywood Cinema: An Introduction. London: I.B. Tauris, 2002

Levy, Emmanuel. Cinema of outsiders: the rise of American independent film. New York: New York University Press, 1999.

Russo, Vitto. The Celluloid Closet: Homosexuality in the movies. New York: Harper, 1987.

www.imdb.com Internet Movie Database. Accessed 20.12.2003.

http://www.poz.com/archive/dec1995jan1996/inside/hollywoodshuffles.html Article on Hollywood and AIDS. Accessed 06.12.2003.

Controversy reigns over whether the Nicholas Barker film Unmade Beds (1997) should be categorised as a documentary film or as a fiction film. The film charts the love lives of four New Yorkers determined to find the perfect date, but far from being a typical documentary that observes and interviews in a realistic way, the film borrows heavily from fictional devices, even so far as to present the characters acting out obviously rehearsed and scripted lines. This has led to uncertainty over its documentary status, which can be evidenced in the films submission into narrative film categories at film festivals in Venice, Florida and Toronto as examples. But to browse through the various reviews in books and on the internet shows the film classed as a documentary, but often described in phrases that imply its hybridisation; pseudo-documentary, quasi-documentary and so on. The film exemplifies the continuing debate over what exactly constitutes a documentary. Many refer back to Griersons definition of documentary as " the creative treatment of actuality" (Winston, 1995:11). But this in itself is a contradiction, and the phrase has only heightened the confusions and disputes concerning the place of fact and the place of fiction in the realm of the documentary. For many, it is assumed that creativity, or drama belongs to the world of fiction film, and that actuality, or fact, belongs to the world of documentary.

There is a general assumption that documentary is fact, and that " every documentary issues a truth claim of a sort" (Renov 1986:71-2). Michael Renov deliberately chooses to write truth claim as opposed to truth claim, which is revealing. It suggests that documentary truth is a mislead belief, and not integral nor even an existing notion in documentary. Because truth purports to be fact, its place in documentary is problematic, as it claims evidence and reality. However, truth and fact are linked to objectivity, a term that is denied an existence in documentary, as the post-modern theory is that " there are no facts, only interpretations" (Nietzsche 1988). So, if it is assumed that because objectivity cannot viably exist, because everything is an interpretation and so is subjective, then the persistence of the belief that documentary is about facts equalling truth is a misconstruction.

This misconstruction has also lead to a denial of fictions position in documentary. Fiction is seen to be " an absence of reality" (Nichols 1994: 95), and again, this presumes that documentary is better able at representing reality than a fiction film. But both represent valid interpretations of reality, and it is this interpretation that again appears to perpetuate the argument. Again, that assumed belief of documentarys credibility through facts is undermined by its unavoidable state as a filmic representation, and it shares this with the fiction film.

So, the relationship between fiction and fact in documentary persists to be seen as one of two opposing notions in conflict. A more credible approach to this debate would be to understand this relationship as one of collusion, instead of conflict.

Unmade Beds can be applied to the notion: " Every documentary works out its own device for penetrating and reconstructing reality" (Niney 1994:21).

Nineys statement can also be applied to the documentary film Nanook of the North (1922), as it displays characteristics that include the literal reconstruction of reality. Flaherty had made a documentary charting his time spent with the Inuit families who survived in extreme conditions in isolated areas of Canada. But when he returned, the film was accidentally destroyed and so he went back to film a reconstruction of the events he had come to experience whilst living with the Inuit. Flaherty also felt that his previous footage was dull, and so he aimed to make it more entertaining and hoped to capture the spirit that he had felt when he had spent time living with the Inuit people (Flaherty 1996:37-8). It did not seem to trouble Flaherty that it was a paradox to re-enact and reconstruct the documentation of a people, and his re-interpretation of the reality he had witnessed was a logical resolution to the loss of previous footage. It is a reinterpretation because Flaherty presents his own understanding of the Inuit people through the device of reconstructing that interpretation.

Considered to be one of the greatest documentaries, Nanook of the Norths fictional quality is often overlooked in favour of its documentation. But the film relies heavily on what Bill Nichols sees, aforementioned, as " an absence of reality": the Hollywood fiction film (1994: 95). Nanook of the North displays technical aspects of the fiction film. Flaherty edits in similar ways to the fiction film, by conforming to a continuity style of editing.

For example, when Nanook goes walrus hunting, there is a sense of chronology with the ordering of shots. Flaherty is careful to math shots that match on action and provide logic to what is happening. A shot of the Walrus being held by Nanook is followed by a cut to his comrades in a long-shot walking across the frame from right to left, finally cutting to a shot of Nanook and the arrival of his comrades to help him from the right of the frame. Flaherty also adopts the close-up, a common convention in fiction films. Shots in close-up are often used to create dramatic and emotional impact, as the spectator is saturated by what is the focus of the shot. Flahertys close-ups are often of faces, especially Nanooks, and this creates an emotional resonance. One of the final shots of the film is of a close-up of Nanook as he sleeps. His face saturates the frame and so the spectator feels an emotional attachment, typical of fiction, rather than an observational detachment, assumed to be typical of non-fiction.

Nanook of the North also displays dramatic aspects of the fiction film. The film depicts a typical romantic tale of a hero on a quest. Nanook is the hero, exemplified by his description as The Bear, and his quest is ultimately to survive. The film promotes climax and resolution with its use of inter-titles to set up a scene that will provide an obstacle for Nanook to overcome. For example, a climactic moment is in the scene where Nanook faces starvation unless he traverses dangerous ice floes to get to places to catch fish. The inter-title says: " No bait. Instead, a lure of two pieces of ivory jigging at the end of a seal-hide line". This shows Flahertys use of suspense, as the spectator is forced to question whether Nanook will be successful or unsuccessful, given the extraordinary high-risk fishing bait. These mini-climaxes throughout the film build up to the films main climax being whether or not Nanook and his family can survive.

The question of the survival of Nanook and his family illustrates another typical Hollywood theme of the family. Nanook of the North allows emotional identification with the character as they represent the spectator: Nanook and his family are the nuclear family, ideal and central to our society. The emphasis in the film on typical family scenarios, such as playing with their children, eating together and obeying what their gender roles dictate, typify Hollywood fiction, and are prevalent in Nanook of the North.

So, for Nichols to suggest that reality plays no part in fiction is undermined by Nanook of the Norths use of typical Hollywood conventions to heighten the effect of a documentary, a type of filmmaking assumed to be fact, and in conflict with fiction. It can be seen that this is not the case concerning Nanook of the North, where there is collusion between fact and fiction.

Unmade Beds is doubted to be a documentary for the same reasons that Nanook of the North is seen as the definitive documentary. Both are reconstructed and use the conventions of Hollywood fiction filmmaking.

Like Nanook of the North, its reconstruction stems from a need to remake events previously recorded. Barker spent seven months recording the subjects with a camcorder, finally collating and condensing what they said into a script. Thus, like Flaherty, Barker reconstructs and reinterprets an event. Barker clarifies the lack of objectivity within any documentary when, in interview, he comments that all he was doing was refining and finessing their language and then turning it into a script, so that he would then teach them to act their own story in his version of their lives. This can be wholly applied to Flahertys own approach with the Inuit people. Flaherty turned their lives into a script, and he also taught them to act their own story in his version of their lives.

However, Unmade Beds is more overtly constructed. It is highly stylised, with well-lit sets and high-quality compositions, and such a high level of aesthetics has an assumed link with fiction filmmaking. The films actor-subjects clearly act out a script, as there are shots that are constructed to be ideal cutaways, such as a character sifting through old photographs of previous lovers, or deliberate still posing for the camera to make a portrait of the characters. It is also overt in its construction through Barkers inclusion of window shots of the supposedly private moments of a selection of anonymous people that the spectator is granted to voyeuristically witness. These shots draw attention to Barkers careful construction to display the complexities of these characters and our relationship to them. They, alongside the four principle characters, show a deliberate fictionalisation that attempts to go beyond highlighting subjectivity by also undermining the fixed notion that documentary should be fact. The film does this by providing the spectator with a wide and complex range of interpretations of the fiction presented to them. They are asked not only to question the characters, but also to question their relationship, as a spectator, with the filmmaker. Furthermore, Unmade Beds questioning and interpretation of the relationship between fact and fiction in documentary influence this.

Unmade Beds deploys conventions of Hollywood fiction. On a fundamental level, Unmade Beds is filmed in wide-screen. This is not common in documentaries, and so assigns the film to a fictional domain. Unmade Beds has components of typical Hollywood fiction filmmaking not only in its visual style, but also in the way the film is structured and its content. Like a fiction film, Unmade Beds deploys characters, plots, dialogue and a typical Hollywood thematic. Nicholas Barker purposely planned in advance the type of characters that he wanted: one character who is too short, one character who is too fat, one character who is too old, and one character who has traded romance for materialism. These are Michael de Stefano, Aimee Copp, Mikey Russo and Brenda Monte respectively. These characters act out their own life, but with the support of a script based on interviews conducted with Barker beforehand. Nanook of the North can be seen to follow a similar pattern, where Flaherty selected an Eskimo named Allakariallak to play the role of Nanook. The film is based on Flahertys previous expeditions and experience with the Inuit people, and so is comparable to Unmade Beds in this sense.

Barkers film has four main, interwoven narratives, where the characters are their own narrators, yet Barkers influence on their dialogue is visible. Each story has its own themes, and some imply the existence of a genre within the individual story. Mikeys story has a distinct noirish element to it. This can be evidenced through Mikeys presentation as a marginalised protagonist in conflict with a feminine antagonist. Mikey answers date advertisements in the hope of spending a night with an attractive female, so this pursuit allows for this noirish concept to be exposed. He is an aspiring writer, and is shown in the film to appear quite marginalised, yet remaining as a kind of alienated hero in pursuit of women. They are essentially the antagonists, considering Mikeys rejection and lack of fortune with women he has met in his past and through the advertisements. Stylistically, Mikey is shown at a bar, behind a desk, and is often seen smoking, all which are iconic elements of the film noir genre.

The other characters also can be thematically characterised. Aimee pursues the concept of the American Dream, which is a typical Hollywood theme. Brenda could be considered to be a container for dark comedy for her humorous pursuit of a rich man despite the brutal fact that she is attempting a form of prostitution. And Michaels bitterness and aggression make for a harsh tale, where he becomes the underdog to be romanticised. Finally, the film as a whole seems to suggest that it is a romantic comedy, for the film is based on the pursuit of relationships, and it is directed towards an interpretation that sees the intrinsic humour. So, it can be seen that Unmade Beds uses many thematic elements and genres of the fiction film, similar to Nanooks use of dramatic themes that, like Unmade Beds, romanticise the characters pursuits equal to that of a fiction film.

Another similarity exists between Unmade Beds and Nanook of the North. This is their shared natural objective as documentaries, which is to provide an interpretation that is understood by their spectator. However, there is a disclaimer at the beginning of Unmade Beds that informs the audience that the characters are real, which is the result of confused test audiences. This may indicate that Unmade Beds does not communicate effectively its intent. The relationship between spectator and filmmaker requires a negotiation that negotiates understandings of the language that is communicated. In other words, a filmmaker must be honest with their audience. However, Unmade Beds provides as much honesty as Nanook of the North, in which both reconstruct events and use fictional devices that, to an audience, would appear to oppose fact. So both films are partially dishonest with their audience, yet they still provide an audience with a documentary that is honest concerning its undeniable fictional elements that highlight the false notion of an objective recording of fact being the definition of a documentary.

Nicholas Barkers Unmade Beds is doubted to be a documentary because of its reconstruction and use of typically Hollywood fictional devices. Consequently, Unmade Beds is categorized as either a fiction film or as a deficient documentary. This is despite sharing similarity in form, style and objectives with Nanook of the North. Clearly, this bias is the result of the assumed belief that fact and fiction conflicts in documentary. But given the similarities between Nanook of the North and Unmade Beds, the theory that this bias is the fault of a false assumption does not hold true. In other words, if both Nanook of the North and Unmade Beds display collusion between fiction and fact, why Unmade Beds is seen as problematic remains a question.

A possible answer as to why Unmade Beds is affected by criticism more so than Nanook of the North has been the emergence of certain documentary movements during the twentieth century following Nanook of the North. These have pushed Documentary into a realm of factual representation and also towards the idea of Documentary as a cinema truth.

Documentaries succeeding Nanook of the North pushed the practice toward a pedagogical didacticism. This concerned the educational value of Documentary as a carrier of facts. Other documentary movements that emerged in the 1960s challenged this authoritative form by affirming that cinema truth could be revealed through the invisibility of the filmmaker and their detachment from the events recorded. These were Cinema Verité and Direct Cinema. Cinema Verité translates from French into "cinema truth", and intended to display truth through realism and an avoidance of the

filmmakers intervention. Direct Cinema intended for similar objectives, asserting documentarys ability to capture reality.

Frederick Wiseman as a key representative of the Direct Cinema movement adds to the debate between fact and fiction when he claims that documentaries are fiction of some sort. What he implies is that all documentaries are interpretative, and that the facts within a documentary are simple creations of the filmmakers interpretation of reality, similar to Flahertys creative interpretation of the reality that he felt he saw in the Inuit people. Wisemans claim is interesting; as it is the Cinema Verité/ Direct Cinema movement that has most influenced the assumption that documentary is fact/truth, and that fiction conflicts with documentarys essence.

Bill Nichols categorises these movements into a mode that he calls the observational: "An observational mode of representation allowed the film-maker to record unobtrusively what people did when they were not explicitly addressing the camera But the observational mode limited the film-maker to the present moment and required a disciplined detachment from the events themselves" (Nichols:1991). Nichols assumes that the subject and the event is unaffected by the presence of the filmmaker, when it is precisely the filmmakers presence that affects unequivocally both subject and event. This is because of the cameras ability to reinterpret the subject through the subjects own awareness of his subjection and the filmmakers own interpretative eye. The detachment that is so desired illustrates this continued assumption that the filmmaker strives for objectivity, reality, truth, and so facts.

This is inconsistent with Wisemans assertion, and is further contradictory given Wisemans position as a key representative of the observational mode. Wisemans first feature documentary, Titicut Follies (1967), can be assessed for its truth claims but also for its subtle interventions that allude to both fiction as a narrative style and to its assumed fakery (or, more appropriately, subjectivity) within a documentary realm.

Titicut Follies, like many of Wisemans films, centres on routine events in an institution, this time for the criminally insane. His focus on mundane circumstances is comparable to a kind of reality, as what appears to be witnessed has not been overly condensed temporally in order to heighten drama. It is also ordinary as opposed to extraordinary, in which the latter would potentially link it to a fictional world. These ordinary routine events played out for the camera are further attempts to reveal a reality through particular aesthetic devices. Often, shots last many minutes before they cut to another event. An example in Titicut Follies is a shot of an old man singing, which is uncut and lasts over three minutes. This is typical of the film to include mundane moments with few cuts. This example illustrates how a device such as the long take assumes credibility, as it does not disrupt the spectators witness of the reality. Other devices that assume to make the recording more real and truthful are the use of natural lighting and the use of hand-held cameras. Firstly, a lack of artificial lighting is seen to be a lack of artificiality as a whole concept. In Titicut Follies, some shots are too dark to see clearly what is occurring, and it is frequent that silhouettes and obtrusive shadows permeate the film, characterising it with this evidence that it is free of artifice. The use of a hand held camera also alludes to a rejection of artificiality. Titicut Follies illustrates the manoeuvrability that this technology supports, as the camera is allowed to capture events quickly. For example, the camera often follows the guards as they fulfil their duties. A static and composed camera would have denied such shots in these scenes, whereas the hand held camera connotes immediacy and actual witness. Thus it is believed to be recording reality as it occurs, which corresponds with the Direct Cinema proclamation.

So it is evident that Wiseman, as a purist of Direct Cinema, follows strictly these conventions. Titicut Follies can be read as a documentary of truth that attempts to record reality. However, Wiseman denies this reading in his assertion that documentaries are fictional. Titicut Follies reveals its fiction through subtle devices, and the truth claim that is interpreted to define documentary is undermined.

Titicut Follies is fictional because it is an interpretation of reality, just as a fiction film is an interpretation of reality. Both create a world that represents its own reality, different from the reality that exists outside of the camera. For example, Wiseman interprets reality and so fictionalises his documentary, in turn opposing the presumption that documentary is concerned with fact alone. Wiseman effects this fictionalisation through his skill as an editor, deploying careful juxtapositions to create a personal interpretation, undermining the truth of facts.

Titicut Follies contains a sequence that exemplifies Wisemans ability to fictionalise and reinterpret through editing. The sequence is comprised of two different scenes in which shots from each are crosscut and juxtaposed. The main scene is of a patient who refuses to eat, and so is led into a medical room to be force-fed through a crude rubber tube pushed down his nose through to his stomach. The recording of this scene is done so as any other routine event that has been captured previously. However, the subject matter shocks to an extent, but this shock at the event is heightened by Wisemans interruption of the continuity by crosscutting this scene with shots of the same man being prepared for burial. The initial scene has the patient lying with his head to the right of the shot. The scene that is crosscut with this shows the dead man in the same position. It is clear that Wiseman intended a comparison to be made between these two scenes, and so he has created a meaning that provides particular interpretations. No longer are these two separate scenes of a man being fed, and a man lying in a mortuary: their combined effect has created a new meaning that links the death of the man with the institution that holds him.

As can be seen in Titicut Follies, its fictional quality is subtle compared to Unmade Beds. It is the look of Cinema Verité that became the definition of documentary. This visual style has now permeated general thought and led to the assumption that documentary is cinema truth. This assumption can be seen in fictions own incorporation of this documentary aesthetic into its films, resulting in new hybrid genres such as the rockumentary the mockumentary, and the drama-documentary. Films such as This Is Spinal Tap (1984), Man Bites Dog (1992), and The Blair Witch Project (1999) parody the Cinema Verité aesthetic. However, specifically Man Bites Dog and The Blair Witch Project use this aesthetic in an attempt " to authenticate the fictionalisation"(Bruzzi 2000) with a deliberate attempt to make the spectator believe in the truth that they are witnessing. This is despite the incredulous nature of what occurs: the killings of a serial killer and lost teenagers being murdered by a witch respectively. Authenticating the fiction film is thus seen to be achievable with the deployment of devices of Cinema Verité, and so the assumption that documentary provides truth is continued. Is seems unfair that documentary cannot deploy devices of fiction without falsifying the documentary.

It can be seen that the observational mode has influenced the belief that fiction has a troubled relationship with documentary. It is because documentary continues to be seen as a factual representation of reality, and this has perpetuated the belief that documentarys concern authenticity, and that fiction destroys this authenticity.

Stella Bruzzi (2000:155) discusses the performative documentary mode as one that uses performance to highlight the impossibility of authenticity. Bruzzi, in reference to performativity, affirms that " the enactment of the documentary specifically for the cameras-will always be the heart of the non-fiction film. This affirmation can be applied to Unmade Beds and its predecessor, Nanook of the North. Both are clearly enacted, yet it is Unmade Beds that is doubted to be the documentary, and it is a film like Titicut Follies that has influenced this doubt through its truth claims.

In support of Griersons definition of documentary aforementioned, Brian Winston (1995:103) concludes that: "For Grierson, it is exactly the fictionalising quality of narrative- dramatic form- that is the distinguishing mark of documentary". This supports Wisemans belief that all documentary is fiction of some sort. It can be concluded that, despite this existence of fiction within its films, documentary is held to be fact. This is because cinema truth has occupied a superior position as representative of documentary, and this will remain until documentary can prove that there is a natural collusive relationship between fact and fiction that can exist within a documentary.

Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

Flaherty, Robert. "Robert Flaherty Talking" in Kevin McDonald and Mark Cousins (eds) Imagining Reality: The Faber Book of Documentary. London: Faber and Faber, 1996:37-38

Nichols, Bill. Representing Reality: Issues and Concepts of Documentary. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1994.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. Twilight of the Idols. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1988.

Niney, François. "The Fiction of Reality" DOX; Documentary Film Quarterly 1994: 2:21.

Renov, Michael. "Re-thinking Documentary: towards a taxonomy of mediation". Wide Angle, 8 (1986): 3-4

Winston, Brian. Claiming the Real: The Documentary Film Revisited. London: British Film Institute, 1995.

http://www.indiewire.com/people/int_Barker_Nicholas_980805.html. Interview with Nicholas Barker. Accessed 06.12.03.

Film & Television Histories

Issues can be raised by the suggestion that John Hustons The Battle of San

Pietro (1945) and Humphrey Jennings Fires Were Started (1943) are both merely

subtle propaganda

Such a question implies that both these films are being dismissed as solely

propagandist, and that propaganda has levels of concentration: that propaganda can

be blatant or it can be subtle. This can be understandably true: often in many mediums

elements are often split into binary opposites. Good versus evil is an example that

would be evident in propaganda that was not attempting to be too subtle. For example,

in Frank Capras film, Prelude to War, the voice-over says remember the faces-if

you meet them dont hesitate. The images shown are of Hitler and Mussolini. This

shows how crude juxtapositions can be worked to present blatant propaganda.

The sole outcome that a propagandist hopes to achieve is to hold influence

over an audience, and make them believe in the propagandists point of view

to influence people on a subliminal level (Chapman 1998: see below).

This quotation illustrates propagandas ability to be subtle.

The Battle of San Pietro could be considered in many differing lights

depending on which way you view this Huston documentary.

The Battle of San Pietro was a United States government-sponsored project

that was given to Huston to explain to the American public why the American troops

were taking so long to get through Italy. What was expected of Huston was for him to

make a documentary in support of the war effort. This aim was clearly not achieved

for two reasons. Firstly, the government refused to show the film until after the war

(thus it did not support the war effort as that was mainly over). Secondly, the

government refused to show The Battle of San Pietro because John Huston had made

a film that was not clear-cut pro-war propaganda, thus the U.S. government

condemned the film as pacifistic (Scott Hammen 1996:see below).

Huston blatantly criticises the U.S. Army in The Battle of San Pietro. At the

beginning, General Mark Clark speaks of the Battles loss of life as being not

excessive. Huston throughout the film seeks to undermine this statement by

showing loss of life as being far too excessive, showing death in a high percentage

of the images.

The government disparaged The Battle of San Pietros pacifistic nature by

only reading into Hustons use of juxtapositions: a device of blatant (or visible)

propaganda. He used harrowing images of death and ruin against a calm, monotonous

and often matter-of-fact voice-over. Note: interesting treatment of chancel was

uttered as a church in ruins meets our eyes. Hustons use of irony, like this, was

enough to cause uproar with the officials.

Huston did not attempt to use binary opposites like Frank Capra. Huston used

blatant propagandist devices like Capra, but he combined these with tonal shifts

(Stella Bruzzi 2000: see below) that made his message subtle, even subliminal: an

effective device of propaganda.

Although The Battle of San Pietro was condemned as anti-war, it still remains

a type of propaganda, as propaganda can come from any source as long as that source

is promoted as the truth. Hustons documentary was made the truth as his voice is

an authority and is thus believed. Stella Bruzzi in New Documentary: A Critical

Introduction (see below) speaks about the idea that a voice-over can be seen as the

voice of god: what the commentator says is true, therefore we shall believe not just

what Huston speaks, but what he shows, too. His truth is further cemented by

knowing that he was actually there at the time, risking his own life.

This would suggest that his depiction of dead American soldiers is supportive

of the idea that The Battle of San Pietro is entirely an anti-war documentary. I believe

this is not so. I have so far spoken of The Battle of San Pietro as being a blatant

form of anti-war propaganda. I believe that The Battle of San Pietro is also illustrating

a form of subtle propaganda that is pro-U.S. and maybe it is even pro-war in some

sense. For example, using images where the camera mostly remains focussed on the

same side as the American soldiers is obviously unavoidable, yet it remains a

powerful device to promote the American point of view. It is as if the viewer is seeing

through the eyes of the American soldier. The camera also looks into the eyes of the

liberated children in the last sequence. Although a little contrived, these images

promote The American Soldier as exactly what the authorities wanted the American

public to believe: that they were liberators.

Huston has made an effort to present to us images of bodies that are not our

own, but of faceless men. Yet, when the viewer sees through the cameras viewpoint,

these bodies are no longer distanciated from us. This could mean that we empathise

with the American soldier yet, at the same time, distance ourselves from the death of

those that are strangers to us. I feel this works to undermine Hustons message: the

American soldier is still depicted as an ideal; a hero. Many of these you see alive

here have since joined the ranks of their brothers in arms who fell at San Pietro. This

quotation derived from Hustons commentary has an air of glorification. Brothers

and fell are standard words used in propagandist material to allude to unity (similar

to the use of comrades by Marx).

The American soldier is never attacked by John Huston, which makes it hard

to understand why the U.S. Army felt that The Battle of San Pietro was so terribly

repugnant. The films power to promote America was dismissed. The Battle of San

Pietro had a powerful message to give. It was a mixture of different propaganda, and

provided a multitude of meanings for an audience to choose. It could quite easily have

made an effective piece of propaganda: this was realised by General George Marshall,

who interpreted it as an effective means of portraying the reality of war.

The Battle of San Pietro mixes subtlety with visibility when creating this

documentary. It is not merely subtle propaganda- it works on different levels of

propaganda, as aforementioned.

Concerning the dismissive nature of merely in this question, Humphrey

Jennings Fires Were Started is interesting in that it is clearly propaganda and does

not hide this fact. Jennings gladly worked for the GPO Film Unit, which funded this

film. Humphrey Jennings intentions were never to undermine the war effort. His

work was propagandist as it followed the British trend for that time of representing

Britain as unified, working together against the common enemy. Fires Were Started

can therefore be categorised as a Britain can take it! documentary film, thus can be

reasonably categorised as British propaganda.

I believe Jennings work is subtle in the sense that viewing it now will not

encourage cynicism nor ironic amusement that many dated propaganda films can

incite. This is because Fires Were Started presents war operations through the eyes

of the men involved rather than through the filter of politics or propaganda (Richard

M. Barsam 1992:see below). That is to say, Jennings documentary is more concerned

with the characters it creates (this film is not actual footage- it is entirely constructed,

so could be classed as Realism as opposed to factual documentary). Scenes of a

fireman play-boxing with his son, singsongs around the stations piano, general chit-

chat and tom-foolery make up much of this film, which shows that Fires Were Started

is equal in its combination of propaganda with human drama. (Robert

Murphy,2000:see below). This quote shows that Fires Were Started is not just

merely propaganda.

Hustons documentary is more than subtle propaganda in that it has differing

levels, angles and types of propaganda, but Humphrey Jennings work steps away

from propaganda completely, to reveal a work that is often described as filmic

poetry . Fires Were Started is concerned with style, which is an issue: can style really

take importance over content in this context? Whether or not so, Jennings work is

evidently more than just mere propaganda. Being more than just mere propaganda, I

would suggest that this films poetry aids the cause of the war effort, thus aids the

films propagandist content. Lindsay Anderson in his article "Only Connect" (Sight

and Sound: see below), describes how Jennings poetic style assists in creating

propaganda for the war effort: it is of the greatest subtlety, richly poetic in feeling,

intense with tenderness and admiration for the unassuming heroes whom it honours.

This honour is what the propaganda is trying to make clear. British propaganda

films wanted to show solidarity, unity and heroes in the ordinary people, to encourage

the ordinary peoples spirits in those bleak times.

The propaganda in this film can be subtle in the sense that it creates these

likeable characters that are more or less reflections of the viewer- there are no great

feats accomplished. The mundanely executed fire sequence does not depict the

firemen as action heroes; rather it illustrates them as getting on with it: a message

that was one of the key aims of propaganda in the Second World War.

To conclude, neither The Battle of San Pietro nor Fires Were Started can be

said to be merely subtle propaganda. Hustons film is a complex selection of

subtle as well as visible propaganda, thus is not merely so. Jennings work in

particular disputes the entire question: Jennings work is propaganda and is subtle at

times, but never could it be considered mere propaganda-it is poetry as well,

stylised and constructed to create enjoyment aside from an incessant propagandist

assault.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anderson, Lindsay. "Only Connect: Some Aspects of the Work Of Humphrey Jennings". Sight and Sound: London, April/June 1954.

Barsam, Richard M. Non-fiction Film: A Critical History. Revised and Expanded. Bloomington and Indianopolis: Indiana UP, 1992.

Bruzzi, Stella. New Documentary: A Critical Introduction. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.

Chapman, James. The British at war: cinema, state and propaganda, 1939-1945. London : I. B. Tauris,1998.

Hammen, Scott. " John Huston at War". Imagining Reality: The Faber Book of Documentary. London: Faber, 1996

Murphy, Robert. British Cinema and The Second World War: London and New York: Continuum, 2000.

Nichols, Bill. Ideology and the Image: Social Representation in the Cinema. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana UP, 1981.

Melodramas such as All That Heaven Allows are particularly receptive to

Close Analysis, as their mise-en-scene is dense in illustrating characters emotions

through the interaction of the films elements, and helps us to understand the film as a

whole.

The mise-en-scene of the sequence chosen is valuable for concluding what the

film as a whole is attempting to announce. The present characters emotional

positions are accurately represented by the interaction of the elements of mise-en-

scene.

The sequence to be analysed commences with Cary (Jane Wyman) looking out

of her home window, and finishes with Cary looking at her own reflection in the

newly purchased television screen.

The sequence consists of nineteen shots, all which reveal something of the

narrative and themes of the film through mise-en-scene, thus deserve close analysis.

However, many of these are continuity-driven, so elements worthy of discussing that

are repeated in following shots shall be passed over in order to prevent analytical

repetition. This means that shots six to seventeen appear neglected, which I can you

are not.

The opening shot to this sequence allows for much to be said of mise-en-

scenes ability to show the narrative, themes and character emotions through simple

visuals. Cary is framed literally by the window frame. She is split into four quadrants

by the design of the white, cold wooden frame. This brings a sense of entrapment for

Cary, echoing her daughter Kays earlier remark on the Egyptian custom: holing up

a widow in the tomb of her late husband. We know that Cary is a widow, so this

concept bears significance: Cary is holed up in her own tomb, her cold, lifeless

middle class existence as portrayed by her houses décor (which is evident in the

following shot).

Cary is crying, expressionless, and is gazing out at the falling snow. We can

presume by her acting and expression (an important element of mise-en-scene) that

this is a reaction to her situation: we know she has lost out on happiness with Ron

(Rock Hudson) for the sake of her childrens happiness (read: reputations).

Carys lips are painted red, which hints at her sexuality. That these red lips are

also behind the frame of the window is significant: she is alone in the house because

this is what her children want. Her children do not want their mother to be sexualised,

thus have entombed her by manipulating her into giving up Ron. Therefore in this

context we can identify exactly what the visuals are telling us.

Cary is imprisoned emotionally/sexually behind the cold frame, her gaze and

crying suggests she is evaluating her hopeless situation. Our knowledge of Kays

earlier remarks on entombment reveals the director Douglas Sirks intention to build

significance through repetition of ideas, and also reveals his interest in seeing the

irony in situations.

Toward the end of this shot, she lets the white veil curtain fall back in place,

which shields her face. This is open to a number of interpretations. It could be an

ironic touch by symbolising a wedding veil, which she wants to wear but cannot (or

will not?). It could symbolise her own wishes to hide herself away from any potential

embarrassments that the whole Ron-situation has caused (we know that she remains

uncomfortable at her brief taste of non-conformity). These potential meanings are

aided by previous knowledge of the film, which plays an important part in evaluating

a films mise-en-scene.

This analysis of just one shot shows how important mise-en-scene is to a

films presentation of narrative and themes. Although a context of the films narrative

is needed to see some meanings, it is not essential in analysing mise-en-scene in

order to reveal character emotion.

The second shot is a time lapse, when her children arrive home for Christmas.

The interior contains a Christmas tree and a roaring fire, yet neither of these can

bring life to the décor, which appears lifeless/bloodless. A mixture of beige and

cream, the décor is an element of mise-en-scene that intensifies the fact that Cary is

isolated, repressed and bored with her interior existence. When the children enter the

house there is an excited atmosphere. The son, Ned, is restless (being youthful and

male, he has that freedom). A screen (a fireguard?) is most often present in the

background of the frame, especially in shots with Ned. This is because, in an earlier

scene, the screen stood in between him and his mother during an argument over Ron:

it represented their emotional, psychological (and literal) division/detachment. Now it

remains. This shows how important mise-en-scene is: the screen is still present, hence

our interpretation is that their emotional division remains unresolved. You would not

see this from their expressions, especially Neds (one can easily hide their true

feelings behind a false face).

Camera positioning and character placements are used in this shot as methods

of subjugating Carrie: the angle is high, and she is forced to look up at her standing

son. Her gaze is mainly centred on her children, until she finds out in the ensuing

shots (through her childrens conversations) that her sacrifice has been all in vain (in

shot sixteen Cary exclaims, its been sopointless! Her expression in these end

shots reverts back to her expression in the opening shot of the sequence).

The third shot shows Kay in a red dress. Again, this is another reference to an

earlier scene where Cary wore her red dress connotating sexuality. Kays is less

sexual in its cut, but represents her own blossoming sexuality through marriage (she

is showing off her engagement ring). The more conservative cut of the dress may hint

at her marriage being one of societal conformity. In shot six we get a clear

comparison between Cary and Kays lips. Kays are very red, whilst Carys look

drained- another representation of repression versus sexuality. These shots show the

importance of the analysis of costume as mise-en-scene.

Kays reflection in the mirror in the background of this shot contains Carrie,

as Kay is in front of Carrie on the right of the frame, whilst the reflection of her head

is on the left of the frame; behind Carrie. Her children are thus seen as trapping their

mother (Ned with the screen) through use of a well-constructed mise-en-scene.

Shot four is where light is used as an effective means of communicating a

message with the viewer. Laura Mulvey writes, Carries world is divided between

theblues and yellowsof loneliness, repression and oppression and

thered/orangeof hope, emotional freedom and sexual satisfaction Kay is

bathed in orange light (sexuality) whilst Cary is in cold yellow light. This represents

their emotional positions in the narrative at this point.

The penultimate shot shows Carrie (presumably looking at the screen at this

point) with Kay lowering her head as Ned reveals that Kay helped to pay for the

television set. This movement by Gloria Talbott (Kay) is interesting as a depiction of

shame (shot sixteen shows Kay attempting to rectify the pain she has caused her

mother by squeezing the pain out of Cary!). But it is also interesting as a

commentary on female togetherness (not feminism, which would be an

anachronistic suggestion considering the date of the film is 1955). Kay lets down her

mother as she conforms to patriarchal society: marriage to the right man, as opposed

to her mothers interest in marrying Ron for her own fulfilment.

The final shot is considered by some to be one of cinemas greatest- the

entombment of Carrie when she is reflected in her television set. (Gary Morris: 2001:

see below). The camera tracks slowly in, closer to her reflection. The process of

tracking in deepens our view of her psychology. However, this shot is clearly not

Carries point of view - Carrie is not looking at us, she is looking at herself- hence we

have been distanced from her, disallowing us to empathise with her emotionally, but

allowing us to analyse her situation intellectually.

Again, like the window frame at the beginning of this sequence, she is framed

within a frame, and so is isolated, entombed. It also suggests enforced chastity that

her children are delivering her into. They cannot bear to see her sexuality: she is the

mother, of course! This shows connection of the mise-en-scene and the narrative

being central to creating a meaning.

Kay is also in the reflection, yet her head is cut off by the red rosette on the

television set, thus showing Kays red dress, but allowing for the effective isolation of

Carrie by removing Kays face. Isolating the red dress within this frame allows for

Carries already ironic situation (the voiceover of the salesman adds with

unintentionally shocking irony: lifes parade at your fingertips) to reach new heights

of hopelessness: the red dress, as I have said before, is symbolic of sexuality. Thus,

the red dress/her sexual freedom is detached from her and unreachable, yet always

there with her, by her side, trapped within the same walls that she is trapped within.

It is interesting to note that the next shot following the end of this sequence is

of a long shot of Ron outside, at one with nature. The long shot is an effective

juxtaposition with the previous sequence of shots as the only frame that contains it is

that of the camera. Carries house has walls, windows, screens, children and television

screens to frame and contain her.

To conclude this analysis, to quote from Thomas Elsaesser (1972, see

below), mise-en-sceneprovides a central point of orientation for the spectator.

That is to say mise-en-scene, in the case of All That Heaven Allows, speaks through

its visuals, its mise-en-scene, and thus reveals the narrative and its major themes:

sexual repression, the sexuality of mothers, conflict between those tied by love and/or

blood, and the family as a unit.

Elsaesser, Thomas. "Tales of Sound and Fury: Observations on the Family Melodrama". Monogram 4: 2-15(1972)

Gibbs, John. Mise-en-scene: Film Style and Interpretation. London: Wallflower Press, 2002.

Morris, Gary. Film review: www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/reviews/sirk accessed on 3^rd November 2002.

Mulvey, Laura. "Notes on Sirk and Melodrama." Movie 25 (1977/78): 53-56.

John Caughie (2000) has defined drama-documentary as "documenting the real, as actual events and situations are acted out in a recognisably dramatic form". This definition, if taken as the true description of the form, is applicable to Cathy Come Home in that actual events are acted out in a drama. However, whether the dramatic form is recognisable, and whether Cathy Come Home documents the real, are issues that shall be discussed in the context of this question.

The question asks whether the drama-documentary form aids in furthering or heightening this plays controversial and realistic nature, which my argument will wish to prove true. However, the original question implies that British television drama in the 1960s solely aimed for such dramas as The Wednesday Play series to be realistic and controversial. This does not consider other possible aims. Certainly, an aim for British television in general was (and still is to a degree) objectivity. It was not until the sixties that legally forbidding the expression of opinion was considered widespread to be an impossible concept, as all expression has a subjective element, a natural bias in ideologies. Another flaw in presuming that these were the sole aims of British television drama in the stated era ignores the presence of an institution (namely the British Broadcasting Company) that was made up of many persons with varying viewpoints as to what television should be. Such persons wished to sustain an institution that would not cause controversy through experimentation with various drama forms.

The argument to be put forth shall discuss how the purported aims to be realistic and controversial actually came into existence, and how Cathy Come Home uses the form of drama-documentary, not just to contribute to these aims, but to cement them.

Derek Paget (1990) has written extensively on the realistic devices used in Cathy Come Home that display the plays form as drama-documentary. Paget lists "Carol Whites performance as Cathy, location filming, the use of the soundtrack, the real people extras, shot composition and montage" as creating the realistic tone that is the form of drama-documentary. However, the elements he has listed do not wholly support an argument for Cathy Come Home as being wholly realistic.

To begin with, Pagets assertion that Carol Whites portrayal as Cathy contributed to the plays realistic effect is misled. Certainly, her naturalistic acting does aid drama-documentarys own aims to be realistic (in order for it to remain defined as drama-documentary). But it can be argued, and has so been by various persons and the feminist movement in particular, that Carol White is unrealistic as a representation of a working- class girl. White was labelled as being "too glamorous" (Paget: 1990) a casting choice, resulting in accusations that male-domination in institutions like the BBC had influenced the choice, thus destroying the plays realistic nature. This is an example of the makers of Cathy Come Home unintentionally weakening the plays realistic nature. Another point to make that questions the documentary feel, therefore the realistic feel of this play, is its filmic tendency.

As Paget lists, the use of a soundtrack (the last shot of Cathy Come Home is accompanied by The Beatles Shes Leaving Home) implies that we as an audience are watching a feature film rather than a drama-documentary. This assumption can be further supported by the use of a three-act narrative structure typical of film. Each stage shows Cathys situation as worse off than before. This is not typical of conventional film narratives, which usually seek emotional balance, thus maybe such a filmic quality is closely linked in with the form of drama-documentary, which seeks not an escapist narrative but a realistic, albeit doom-laden, narrative. There is evidence of typical shot conventions of Cinema, such as over-the-shoulder shots, which cannot be seen as a convention of documentary. Framing devices are used typical of film, such as when Cathys stay at the hostel is nearly up, the camera is suggestively positioned behind and between the two authoritative figures shoulders, framing Cathy and representing her isolation. What gives Cathy Come Home the filmic quality suggested is the fact that this play was the first in The Wednesday Play series to be entirely filmed on actual film stock. It was considered that " film implied documentary truth a level of fact that studio- based recording could never achieve" (MacMurraugh-Kavanagh: 1997).

Drama-documentary in this case utilised the effects that film as a form can achieve. Film has the ability to manipulate an audience into believing the film as a type of truth. Combined with the devices of drama-documentary it "intensified the message (within Cathy Come Home) since it implied a further layer of veracity."

Many drama-documentary devices are visible in Cathy Come Home and help to maintain the element of truth, and the realistic. Further analysis of the text Cathy Come Home supports Pagets belief that drama-documentary creates a " discourse of factuality deriving from the documentary" (1990), and shows how the drama-documentary form makes the play realistic.

The use of a voice-over is a tool used in documentary filmmaking to provide an authoritative truth: we trust what is being said. In Cathy Come Home, the housing and homeless statistics are delivered to an audience in a pleasant male voice-over. We believe and trust him, maybe in a paternalistic sense. We also believe and trust in the images because of the use of a newsreel/ actuality footage style. Simulating this documentary technique through the use of hand- held cameras and open framing creates a sense of the real: as it is not real, it is realistic, and this is enough to make an audience believe in the plays credibility.

The scheduling of Cathy Come Home in its first transmission was between the news and a current affairs programme. Thus, for an audience watching the television flow, programme boundaries can be blurred, thus elements of the real filtered into Cathy Come Home through the subconsciouss of the audience in their viewing flow.¹

Cathy Come Home can justly be established as a drama-documentary which utilises devices of documentary, film and drama as separate forms to impact upon the plays content, making it a realistic television drama. But was realistic television drama an aim for the British broadcasting institutions?

Certainly, the writers and directors of these plays aimed to be realistic because for them it was about getting across a social (therefore realistic) message (and often a personal agenda) to the general public, informing them of what was happening in British society as of then. All of the plays in The Wednesday Play series of the 1960s conveyed social messages. John Hopkinss Fable (transmitted 27 January 1965, directed by Christopher Morahan), Hopkinss Horror of Darkness (transmitted 10 March 1965, directed by Anthony Page), and James OConnors Three Clear Sundays (transmitted 7 April 1965, directed by Ken Loach), all produced by James McTaggart, are early examples which "set the tone for the clear intervention of issues of social legislation that was to characterise one strain of The Wednesday Play." (MacMurraugh-Kavanagh: 1997). These plays dealt with immigration/ apartheid, homosexuality and capital punishment respectively, while Cathy Come Homes agenda, in the words of its writer, Jeremy Sandford, was "to stop the dreadful custom of removing children from their mothersfor no other reason than homelessness". The director, Ken Loach, "wanted to get this actuality aliveness in" (Sandford in Paget: 1990). Both strove to generate belief in the play as realistic. Therefore all those directly involved in the creation of these plays aimed for a realistic message to get across to the public, through presenting the drama as realistic. Cathy Come Home was more successful as a realistic play because it was a better form of drama-documentary in that it used the devices more strategically and with precision, avoiding polysemic social messages and creating a greater impact upon the publics consciousness.

The appointment of the BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Carlton-Greene (1960-69) did allow the creators of the plays to be more experimental and innovative. Greenes appointment was fortunately timed with the changing shape of British society. He was keen to push forward change and innovation, so did aim for BBC dramas to be realistic in the hope that this would have a social impact. ITV also had Armchair Theatre, which The Wednesday Play format was copied from, so they too had similar aims, especially if it boosted ratings. But there were those traditionalists who saw the potential in realistic dramas as encouraging and supporting the changes in society. Thus there was a bitter division between those that wished to preserve the BBC and British society as it was. Arthur Marwick explains the 1960s contestation between old and new factions as a time when " the old secure framework of morality, authority and discipline disintegrated" (1998:3). For example, a producer for the plays, Peter Luke, rejected Sandfords script for Cathy Come Home in 1965. Luke thought The Wednesday Play was " not a political platform." (Luke: 1965 in Shubit:1975:129). His suggestion that the series could turn into a platform for politically left-minded messages shows that the fear surrounding apparent aims to make issues realistic, thus real, is evidence to reject the notion that all those creating these plays aimed for realistic drama.

The realistic caused the controversial. If drama-documentary is what made Cathy Come Home realistic, it is therefore accurate to say that it is the drama-documentary form that contributed to the aim for controversy. But it is difficult to agree that BBC television drama in the 1960s aimed for controversy. It is true that this was an era that challenged the standard views held in society: views of morality, ethics, culture and philosophies were amongst many other concepts to be questioned. Social issues were also being debated, so it is true that those who were a part of the sixties revolution would naturally aim to challenge, question and cause controversy to impact changes within the system. It can be argued that Hugh Greene was one of these people, and so too were Garnett, Loach and Sandford. For Greene, the results of controversy would be higher ratings at a time where rivalry over an audience, or consumer, with more channel choice was rife.

The makers of Cathy Come Home did have a social agenda, thus broke the rule of objectivity, thus defied the BBC tradition of apparent impartiality. This legal requirement shows that the BBC as an institution that commissioned such plays would not necessarily aim for controversy, but they would not be able to compress it, and would eventually accept it and even encourage it when the benefits were realised.

Cathy Come Home is most relevant in The Wednesday Play series as it caused mass public controversy. There were charges of propaganda and bias brought against the play in the British Press. Public debates specifically regarding this play were attended by many. For example, in Birmingham on 28 November 1966, a public discussion took place as a direct consequence of the transmission of Cathy Come Home twelve days before. Sandford and Loach were there to discuss homelessness with Birmingham City Councillors, who were unhappy with the unfavourable presentation of Birmingham in the play.²

In 1961, the Conservative government claimed that Britains had never had it so good. This was the myth of affluence that people like Jeremy Sandford, Ken Loach and the producer Tony Garnett hoped to dispel. Such a challenge to authority was bound to spark controversy. The election of a Labour government led by Harold Wilson in 1963 was likely to have stood on the side of controversy concerning social issues, thus controversy would never get out of hand if the government saw through the veil of controversy to what really mattered.

Cathy Come Home had an aim to dispel the myth of affluence, thus challenge those in power, many of whom were those traditionalists. The representation of authority is shown as the banker who patronises Cathy and the judge who is cold, distant and treats Reg (Cathys on-screen husband) as a liar. Th representation of the working- class is through conversations with individuals who make intelligent observations on societal problems. Whether this is realistic or not, it certainly is controversial, as it is presenting things differently, and the difference is constructed so as to clarify its intended, biased meanings.

Garnett, who had learnt from the previous plays mistakes in conveying misleading and polysemic messages, perfected the plays clarity in its intended message. For example, Up the Junction left an audience in varying minds. The intended message was to portray the horrors of illegal, unsafe abortions in the hope that it would lead to legalised, thus safer, abortions. Unfortunately, many read the message as a judgement on women who got themselves into such immoral situations. Garnett and Loach went as far as to construct an essentially real scene in Cathy Come Home, thus make no mistake about the intended message. The scene towards the end of the play where Cathys children are taken away from her in the train station was actually real: they were Carol Whites children, and with a hidden camera and one take, the children believed that they were being taken, so the cries are genuine. If the children believed this, then why not an audience? This shot in particular shows how drama-documentary as a form used realistic devices as effects, which led to an affect. A generally passive audience television audience were woken up, the attention of a Press who saw the story-making and selling potential of the play was caught, and incensed were the traditionalists, thus the realistic and the controversial were inextricably linked in this context by the drama-documentary form.

Certainly, the various devices of drama-documentary discussed did contribute to the aims to be realistic and controversial. It was a tool used by radicals to portray a drama that was realistic enough to be considered a truth, and it was used by many to provoke controversy. Thus it sold more newspapers, gave the BBC higher ratings, fulfilled personal agendas and activated a passive television audience.

Caughie, John. Television Drama: Realism, Modernism, and British Culture. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2000.

MacMurraugh-Kavanagh, M.K. Drama into news: Strategies of intervention in The Wednesday Play. Screen 38:3 (1997).

Marwick, Arthur. The Sixties: Cultural Revolution in Britain, France, Italy and the United States, 1958-9. Oxford: Oxford UP. 1998.

Jostein Gripsrud (1998) argues that metaphors such as flow, liveness and broadcasting in the context of theorising television are misleading, "obscuring important differences" and thus should be treated "with a degree of suspicion". Metaphors are used in a way that gives a clue as to the best way for an audience to understand a concept, by means of comparing the concept to another that encompasses some of the basic intentions of the original concept. In other words, metaphors are used to provide a comparable meaning of what is being presented. Describing the use of a metaphor as re-presenting in a different context may possibly oversimplify the complexity of this tool of language, yet this simplification can be justified concerning the metaphors to be discussed.

The exploration of flow, liveness and broadcasting as metaphors, and their use in exploring the medium of television shall be discussed. The argument to be conveyed shall consider each metaphors significance as key to understanding television as a medium. The argument shall explore each metaphors relationship with television, and hope to present a logical conclusion that all three metaphors can be considered to have shaped this medium to what it is perceived as by television theorists, analysts and critics.

It was Raymond Williams who wrote about the existence of a flow in regard to watching television. The concept of flow is central to a viewers experience of television:

"One of the most obvious elements of television is its quality as sequence. We can switch on or off for particular programmes but in the same ways the programmes are conceived as a whole and theyre often received as a continuity." (Williams: 1975 in OConnor: 1989).

It is difficult to accept flow as a metaphor for understanding television, as it is a flawed concept. It implies that we care more for the evenings viewing than for individual programmes, which is untrue if taking into account the massive demand for individual programmes on VHS or DVD.

I would argue that the metaphor of flow is becoming less useful as a metaphor for understanding the medium of television as the history of television progresses. The word flow is suggestive of a continuous, one-directional stream that is never-ending. In the early years of television, they were aware that there was a continuous flow. Interludes were thus used to break up this flow in between programmes. To cite one example of an interlude was The Potters Wheel, a short film where a clay pot was shaped. The aim of this short film was to prevent what the BBC thought was drifting: viewers idly and passively drifting through one programme to another. Interludes are still used, but now the emphasis is less on breaking up the flow, and more about promoting the image of the BBC. The latest BBC interludes depict what one can only assume to be the nation represented in cultural activities, whether that be artistic, sportive, creative, popular and sub-cultural.

Therefore, the use of interludes proves that the television-makers assume that flow is a reality, which shows that television and flow are inextricably linked. Individual television texts form a flow because temporal logic allows this. It would not make sense for television to transmit randomly and erratically various programmes; thus flow helps us to understand the format of television.

The metaphor liveness suggests something that is not live, but has the appearance of being live. Some television is actually live. For example, the news headlines are announced live, but the quality of liveness plays a part in such a programme. The news headlines are often decided a long time before being transmitted live on air, carefully selected and constructed to create a news programme with a mixture of different types of news. Also, the news reports are most often pre- recorded on location, unless it is stated that they are live. The sense of liveness is further enhanced by television news presentation of its construction. For example, the television studio is often shown in the background. Other programmes do tend to showcase their artificial construction. For example, breakfast magazine shows like the axed Big Breakfast and RI:SE, both on Channel Four, often had their presenters communicating with the men and women behind the cameras. By showcasing the constructiveness of these programmes, the apparent liveness becomes more real: it could be said that it proves that these shows are live and occurring in real-time. Such a format a mixture of live and pre-recorded segments in an apparently live programme is common in television. It shows that liveness is a construct, ideal for a medium that relies on its audio-visual to be constructed so that it can transmit content, and whatever that may be. Therefore television can be understood to mediate an audio-visual image with some purpose intended for a viewer.

Reality television has become an increasing trend on television. The programme Big Brother as an example of such a programme shows how liveness is delivered to an audience as live. We are led to believe that sitting down to watch this show at a certain time will reveal to us what is happening. We are aware that what we are being shown is what happened but, as there was no way of seeing what was happening at that precise moment until series two (with the arrival of Big Brother Live satellite and digital television), we accept it as a live programme. We see the credibility of liveness and its ability to echo live effectively.

Liveness as opposed to live has become increasingly important as television as a technology has evolved. Early television regularly transmitted into homes live broadcasts. Dramas were performed live for transmission, such as Quatermass II. This science-fiction drama shows how television in the fifties despite being fairly new already had the technology to pre-record parts of the programme. These were recorded outside the studio on film, and were placed in the gaps in the drama as it was recorded and transmitted live. This shows how immediacy was evident in early television mainly because of technological limitations. New technologies, such as video machines developed from the late 1950s onwards, resulted in television becoming " what at the moment is being played on the broadcasters VCR" (Grisprud: 1998). Immediacy or liveness is now a central aspect of television texts. Soap operas and drama serials in particular rely on temporal logic to convey a sense of liveness; we often see a day in the life of particular characters, and occurrences in our reality, such as seasonal changes or festivities will often occur in the programmes own reality. Chat shows and many morning magazine format shows, such as Des and Mel and This Morning discuss topics that have a sense of contemporaneity. Often topics centre on issues highlighted in the news, which is decided as our reality. Adverts and trailers plead an audience to buy their products now, informing us that these products can be instantly acquired, if we put on our coats and get to the shop. These examples all show how television texts support each other in attempts to appear new, relevant, and immediately conveying that sense of liveness.

I would therefore suggest that liveness is fundamental to understanding television as a medium. Liveness is both an aesthetic and ideological apparatus, which are both important elements that make television what it is. Liveness is an element that television displays: it is televisions style, its aesthetic form. Thus we understand television to be a stylised medium. For example, many drama series such as The Bill and Casualty have recently begun to use erratic camera movements suggesting a hand-held camera is being used. This is to make the viewer believe in the realness of the drama programme, as such a style of camera work has always been associated with newsreel/documentary footage which films reality. Thus a style is used to convey a sense of the real. Liveness also helps in understanding television as an ideological medium. We are delivered the truth. We are addressed directly, we are often asked questions, and the regularity and reliability of the schedule are a part of the stylisation that liveness offers, but also present to us an ideology. The news is a good example of this, in that dominant ideologies are expressed as opposed too non-western, non-Capitalist views, etc. Thus, " the metaphor lives on since there is still much live programming, and since liveness is a key element in the mediums social role as provider of reality. Television is the medium of the message" (Gripsrud: 1998).

Like liveness, ideologies in television are supported and sustained by broadcasting. As a metaphor, broadcasting literally refers to the agricultural technique of spreading seeds broadly by hand. This metaphor is apt for applying to television. Considering the BBC as a particular example of a broadcasting institution shows how a paternalistic stance was taken to serve the nation as a whole, "raising the general level of education or culture" (Gripsrud: 1998). Thus, like liveness delivers ideologies through the medium of the television, so too did the broadcasters. This shows how these particular metaphors help us to understand television as a medium of the message.

Jostein Gripsrud (1998) suggests another form of broadcasting aside from the European public service model. The USA broadcasters treatment of its audience as consumers delivers a different form of television to its viewers. It is one more of commercialism than education, evident in Americas tradition of having entertainment programmes outnumbering educational ones, and treating its audience as consumers, serving them with an abnormal amount of advertisements in their regular commercial breaks, although that is now filtering into British television. This suggests two versions of television exist, so television is understood through the metaphor broadcasting because television is broadcasting: there is no other organisation of television. However, there were alternatives put forward at the beginnings of the television era. Types of two-way communication through television were suggested, and partly developed until the large corporations who wanted monopolistic control over the medium forced out such grassroots. Even now, a type of two-way communication has been developed: interactive television. However, this can not be understood within the boundary of the metaphor broadcasting. The metaphor being of agricultural origin thus implies seed-sowing and a harvest that enriched the sower of the seeds. The television broadcasters sow television texts into an audiences mind and we enrich the broadcaster by carrying on watching (and in the case of commercial television, we buy the products advertised). It is not possible for seeds to be thrown back at the seed-sower; thus interactive television is not truly a two-way communication.

The arrival of Satellite television " represented the end to the exclusively national television of the decades before 1980" (Gripsrud: 1998). This shows how changes in broadcasting changes television as a medium, thus to understand the usefulness of the broadcasting metaphor is to understand how television has been shaped by it.

Having explored all three metaphors, I can conclude that they have a close relationship with television as a medium, and are useful in understanding television as something that can be interpreted as having differing objectives as a medium. These metaphors help us to understand that television has aims. It aims to be a medium of flow, but that it also aims for a disruption to this flow. It aims to be a broadcasting medium only because of chance and a lack of alternatives, and television aims to be a stylistic medium, taking on the superficiality of liveness.

However, there are fundamental flaws in the application of these metaphors in the study of television. Another medium similar to television is the radio. It is dissimilar in that it provides solely an audio transmission as opposed to televisions provision of an audio-visual communication. But it is similar in that all three metaphors can be used to understand radio as a medium. Radio can have pre-recorded shows, and it uses liveness as a stylistic device, thus is also an aesthetic medium like television. Radio is also a broadcasting medium, in that it is not a two- way communication (if Ham Radio is not taken into account). The flow concept can also apply to radio as radio also creates a programme of events that has a continuous flow of mainly music. Flow is also an element of magazines and newspapers, in the sense that their layout and organisation is a flow. However, this particular metaphor is more useful when applied to television, because with television the audio is combined with the visual and so requires full concentration on behalf of the viewer. This shows how the image is a powerful medium, and the image is what makes television unique as a domestic form of technological entertainment. Radio only requires audio concentration: the visual concentration is elsewhere, so flow is not as fluid for this medium.

Now having questioned the usefulness of all three metaphors, I shall persist in fracturing the argument that the metaphors can aid our understanding of television. Television, itself, is a metaphor. Its metaphor means to view at a distance, which is inaccurate as we do not view television at a distance; we view it in close proximity in a domestic, intimate environment. Also, television as a technological medium thus results in evolution. Television will evolve, as it has done so already, which may mean that the relevance and usefulness of these metaphors may increase and decrease depending on what television understands its self to be.

Gripsrud, Jostein. "Television, broadcasting, flow": Key metaphors in TV theory. In Geraghty, Christine; Lusted, David (eds.): The television studies book. London-New York: Arnold, 1998. pp. 17-32.

Williams, Raymond. In OConnor, Alan (ed.): Raymond Williams on Television: Selected Writings. New York: Routledge. 1989, pp 133.

Examine Ken Loachs combination of melodrama and realism in Ladybird Ladybird (1994).By defining the genre of melodrama and the concept of realism, clarity can be attained in examining how melodrama and realism are used in combination in Ladybird Ladybird. The exploration of how they are combined will be an aim of this essay. Whether these terms combine through their permeation of certain elements of the text (I cite narrative, mise-en-scène and technical devices as examples) or their combination is more fused (for example, the narrative displays both melodrama and realism) shall be the body of this discussion.

It is of vital importance that melodrama and realism are separately defined in what may be considered a restricted approach. By not making clear a definition of each term, their meanings will become too broad, thus irrelevant. For this reason, I shall define melodrama and realism as written by a number of critics and academics; those of which I feel have an intelligent approach to the relevant suggested meanings of these two terms.

Melodrama shall be defined as two separate types: the first is the melodrama of protest. This type is characterised by its various aims: " to stimulate awareness, question established values, expose injustice, champion reform, fuel argument on ways and means and sometimes incite direct support for bloody revolution" (Smith 1973:72 in Leigh 2002:22). Such aims are conventional to Ken Loach. His filmmaking vision is of a drive towards social action, and this is evident in Ladybird Ladybird. Maggie struggles to maintain her family life with the constant and sometimes horrifying intrusion of the authorities. The Social Services and the Courts seem determined to make life hard for Maggie and, as an audience, we react with anger at what we perceive to be injustice. Therefore Ladybird Ladybird succeeds as a melodrama of protest (although it does not go quite so far as to incitesupport for bloody revolution). Another key theme of the melodrama of protest is the "misrecognition of the innocence of a central protagonist." (Gledhill 1987:30 in Leigh 2002: 20). This is evident in Loachs film, as those who do not know Maggie perceive her to be a bad mother. For example, she is described in Ladybird Ladybird by a judge as having low intellect. We as an audience can see that she is innocent, as she genuinely can love and look after her children, but is let down by her inability to control her temper. We can see that this temper is not harmful, but the authorities misrecognise this and so judge her to be an unfit mother. A final key convention to the melodrama of protest is that "they all use the death of an innocent" (Walker 1982:14 in Leigh 2002:22). There is metaphorical death within this text: her children being taken from her, never to be seen again, can be equated with a type of death.

The second type of melodrama is the womens melodrama. E. Ann Kaplans view is that " the womens melodrama articulates womens deepest unconscious fears and fantasies about their lives in patriarchy (Kaplan 1987:17 in Leigh 2002: 155). Jacob Leigh applies this to the narrative framework of the film: "Ladybird Ladybird articulates these fears and fantasies by provoking thoughts about who controls a womans right to be a mother." This shows a definition of melodrama that is applicable to Ladybird Ladybird, and therefore is of use for a direct reply to the title question.

These definitions of melodrama show that Loach is using the genre as key to the delivery of the emotions and drama within the plot. It is his awareness of the power of realism in film that makes his films a success. Ladybird Ladybird is evidently a melodrama, but it is also evident that it espouses realism, like most (if not all) of Ken Loachs films.

Realism shall be defined in accordance with the thoughts of André Bazin and Linda Nochlin. Nochlin discusses five elements intrinsic to the realist work of art. A "connection between history and experienced fact" and contemporaneity are two characteristics of the realist work of art according to Nochlin. She also lists an aversion to surrealism and fantasy in favour of realism as more empirical and scientific, and also an element within the work that purports to tell the truth about reality, providing a recognisable context. Finally, she stresses the importance of the work to have the voice of the ordinary person, which she categorises under the heading of democracy. These five elements are all evident in Ladybird Ladybird, due to Loach using ordinary, working- class actors and characters, basing the film on a true story about issues affecting the modern social environment, and avoiding the surrealistic and fantastic.

André Bazin had already explored Nochlins ideas of realism in his pursuit to examine Vittorio De Sicas Ladri di Biciclette as an Italian neo-realist film. His analysis of its devices produces two kinds of realism: first, the realism of depiction. By using street locations (" not one scene shot in a studio") non- professional actors, and "a banal incident", Bazin uses De Sicas film to provide a base for defining realism in film. The second kind of realism is that which looks for the advancement of a thesis; a social message for society. In the case of Ladri di Biciclette, it is "the haunting specter of unemployment". In the case of Ladybird Ladybird, it is the questioning of the governments right to deny a mother access to her children

With both terms defined, an awareness of a friction between melodrama and realism becomes apparent. Melodrama is about excess, whereas realism is about representing the subtlety of reality. This would suggest that combining the two would be ineffectual, but Loach manages to achieve this by realising that the two are different, but not polar opposites. His combination works on using a melodramatic narrative combined with technical devices that showcase realism. John Hill (2000) proposes this idea, citing specific scenes in the film:

"for all of its claims to documentary realism, Ladybird Ladybird may also be read as a maternal melodrama that achieves many of its emotional effects through the employment of melodramatic themes (the enforced separations of mother and children) and plot devices (the dramatic coincidence of fire breaking out at the refuge when Maggies children have been left alone; the surprise of the social workers seizing a new-born baby). What separates Loachs work from conventional melodrama, however, is not only the way that it discourages too strong an emotional identification with characters but its insistence upon the economic and social underpinnings of their action."

Hills argument suggests that Loach combines melodrama and realism by diluting the effects of the conventional melodrama to allow space for realism to stylise the aesthetics i.e. in a documentary style. But it is my view that realism plays a more important role within Ladybird Ladybird. Loach uses realist devices, such as non-professional actors, improvisation and naturalistic dialogue, the withholding of the script until the days of filming, hand-held camera shots, unplanned shots, long takes, deep-focus photography to recreate real vision (where the background and foreground of the frame is in focus similar to human vision), and a naturalistic mise-en-scène in most of his films. Deep-focus photography is not obviously used in Ladybird Ladybird. For example, the flashback of Maggie as a child watching her father beat her mother places her in the background: we see a hint of the foreground, but it is out of focus. The childs expression is one of fright and horror, and must have been actual, as a child could not act out such an emotion. Thus, despite any apparent use of deep-focus, the realism exists. The other technical devices aforementioned are used to promote realism.

So, Hills argument combined with my own argument on Loachs use of realism shows that his combination of melodrama and realism is a relationship not of friction, but one of co-existence: generally, the melodrama is evident in the narrative, and realism in the technical devices. The shift from one to the other can be exposed by the following analysis that identifies three main approaches that Ken Loach has to combining melodrama and realism. The first is the way in which the films soundtrack is divided between moments of melodrama and moments of realism. For example, in the opening sequence to the film, the first shot is hand-held, following a Karaoke-singing womans movements. It feels unplanned for this reason. It is an open-frame, which further suggests that we are watching a documentary. The action cuts to another Karaoke performance. It is a cut in image and in sound, suggesting a movement through time ( so far as to the next song).. the camera pans to reveal a busy public house, and stops on a frame of Jorge looking around to identify with the shared amusement. There is another cut in image and visuals, thus time, of a more controlled camera that inconspicuously reframe another man singing Karaoke. The camera doesnt follow this man when he often moves out of the centre of the frame, suggesting a move away from realism. The soundtrack of the man singing continues, whereas the image turns to black to introduce the cast credits. The soundtrack, instead of cutting like before, now fades out to allow the fading in of Maggies singing voice (we do not know that this is Maggie yet), and this is where the title appears, and is followed by the line " based on a true story". The image then appears of Maggie singing. This sequence shows how fading the sound aids the merging of melodrama and realism, the introduction of Maggies voice introduces the melodrama that, throughout the film, is often punctuated by a melodic musical score. The sequence also shows how Loach layers melodrama and realism, especially with Maggies melodramatic voice being the soundtrack of the information that Ladybird Ladybird is " based on a true story": a device of realism, because it is clear to an audience that there is truth in this film.

Secondly, the use of realism as style and melodrama as substance is not a static assumption to be made about Ladybird Ladybird. There are times when melodrama is the style, and realism is the substance. For example, the first flashback to Maggie as a child witnessing her mother being beaten by her father has both melodrama and realism as substance. That we are seeing a real reaction in the performance of the young Maggie shows realism plays a part in the narrative- without knowing Maggies reaction, we would not be able to understand and identify with how she reacts later on (with anger and fright). We also see (or to be more accurate, hear) a melodramatic performance from the character of the father against the maternal, echoing the womans melodrama. He shouts vile words at the mother whilst simultaneously hitting and kicking her. He is almost too archetypically evil: we do not get to understand why he does this, so the excess of melodrama prevails. This shows how melodrama and realism can be combined through the exchange of cinematic roles, and being in the frame physically at the same time.

The third main approach that Ken Loach makes in order to combine melodrama and realism is the use of performance. This would be regarded as a technical device, which I have argued within this essay to be the haunt of realism in Ladybird Ladybird. But I have also concluded that the roles can be exchanged effectively, and this is evident in the performance of Crissy Rock who plays Maggie.

Bazin argues that performance is key to reinforce realism in film: "we no longer ask whether the character gives a good performance or not, since here (Ladri di Biciclette) man and the character he portrays are so completely one".

Ken Loach expands on Bazins thoughts by suggesting that film acting reveals the actor as much as the character: " there are some things you cant act in films. A film can see right into your eyes, it can see you think and then it becomes very hard to disguise your class, where youre from and all these things" (Loach in Nicholls:1999). Loach cast Crissy Rock, for she had a similar background to the character of Maggie. For this reason, she is convincing as Maggie throughout the film. Loach uses Rocks performance to combine melodrama and realism. Rock takes the excess of the melodramatic plot and turns this excess into realism. For example, the scene where her second baby with Jorge is taken from her as a new-born results in Maggie screaming and wailing, eventually needing to be sedated. As an audience, we are convinced by not just a capable performance from Rock, but from a cast that act naturally, a natural, realistic hospital set (most likely a real hospital) and the use of a long take. This is key to creating realism within a melodramatic framework of this particular section of the narrative

To conclude, Ladybird Ladybird is melodrama and is realism. Ken Loach uses various devices, especially the soundtrack, to merge these two terms so that they overlap. Generally, melodrama is evident in the narrative and plot devices, whereas realism is evident in the technical devices used in Ladybird Ladybird. However, Loach allows for melodrama to infiltrate technical devices and realism at times to lie within the narrative. Main examples already discussed of this combination and exchange is the use of a melodramatic performance, which I would consider a technical device and not a plot device, and the narrative being based on true events, thus invoking realism. I would also highlight the soundtrack as a key tool that Ken Loach uses to combine scenes of melodrama and scenes of realism. He creates fluidity between the two terms and allows for not only their co-existence, but for their effective integration within the text of Ladybird Ladybird.