The film ‘Hook’ is my chosen focus film, it comes under the
fantasy-adventure genre, this genre is a mixture of being in an unknown place
with excitement and struggles as well as being filled with mythical creatures,
magic and the supernatural. ‘Hook’ is all of these things, we are transported,
with Peter, to Neverland, an unknown, magical land full of magic and mythical
people, there is excitement and battles as well as personal struggles and so it
fits in with this genre perfectly. This film fits in with the codes and
conventions of a fantasy-adventure film, firstly it is an emotive, linear
storyline, with struggles that make the audience sympathise with the characters
who are portrayed innocently and almost childlike. The storyline is in a linear
order, discovery, then an obstacle comes along and then a happy ending, it has
a positive narrative outcome and an escapist character, looking for his past
and undertaking a quest to save his children from the evil character with other
struggles along the way. Another code and convention is that it is targeted at a
younger audience but has older appeal and it is widely distributed
internationally, not just domestically as well as the production cost being
high, which it was compared to other films at the time. Other films in this
genre are successful franchises such as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings and
The Chronicles of Narnia.
‘Hook’ is a twist on the original Peter Pan story, instead,
we see Peter Pan as a grown man who is married with children, they go to London
to visit Moira (Peters Wife) grandmother, Wendy Darling. Peter and the two
children go to Neverland where Peter has to then convince the lost boys it
really is him after tinkerbell reminds him about his past in Neverland and he
relearns everything he had lost when he left Neverland to grow up such as
fighting and flying. Peter has to rescue his kids from Captain Hook who has
tried to convince them that he is their father and Peter is evil and through
the lost boys and tinkerbells help, there is a battle between Peter and Hook
resulting in Peter winning, Hook dying and them returning happily back to
London.
There are many different narrative theories and I’m going to
explain the main three below:
Propp’s theory
was developed after his study of Russian folklore and fairy tales, he studied
how there is always certain types of characters and a linear sequence of
events, starting from an initial situation, a character from the family leaves
on a quest although there is an interdiction given to the character, then the
villain makes an appearance and takes something, after this the hero character
decides to counter-act and make a plan on how to make things right again before
being helped by a side-kick and others to achieve this goal and eventually have
a battle with the villain, rescuing what they lost and being called a hero.
That is a very brief description of the 31 steps Vladimir Propp set out as the
narrative structure and I think it is a perfect description of Hook, the
storyline pretty much is identical to Propp’s theory of narrative structure, as
there is an initial situation, an obstacle that they have to train to overcome
and resolve and then resolving it and a happy ending. Propp’s character theory
is also correct and relevant to Hook, as there is a Hero (Peter Pan), a villain
(Captain Hook), a magical helper (tinkerbell), the prize (the children who have
been kidnapped) and the donor (the lost boys and eventually Rufio, who at first
is the false hero). Hook complies perfectly with Propp’s theory as it is a
linear sequence matching his fairy tale narrative structure and has all the
characters that Propp concluded are in these films.
Todorov was a
Bulgarian who’s started publishing his theories from the 1960’s, his theory is
that at the beginning of the film there is a state of equilibrium which is then
disrupted and there is an issue and struggle for the hero, which is followed by
a resolution and back to the state of equilibrium. I think Hook also complies
with this theory as well as Propp’s, they are both very similar but Todorov’s
is more of an overview in less detail than Propp’s. There is a state of
equilibrium at the start of the film when they visit London and first arrive in
Neverland, then the disruption is Hook taking the kids and the battle and then
equilibrium is returned when Hook is dead and Peter is a hero and they return
to London. This theory is common amongst most films, most have a happy start, a
problem and then a happy ending.
Lastly there is Levi-Strauss’
theory, he believed in binary opposites which are the sets of opposite values
in a text, for example Good and Evil, Weak and Strong etc. He was not
interested in syntagmatic relations so how the narrative structure of events in
the plot goes but he was interested in the paradigmatic relation which focuses
more on the themes. I also think this theory comes into place in the film Hook,
there is a clear good and evil character although this can be turned around,
the audience sees hook as the bad character (from previous knowledge of the
role of Captain Hook), however throughout the film he comes across as the good
character towards the children and pirates but evil to everyone else whereas
Rufio, comes off as a bad character at first but he, over time, turns into a
character you sympathise with and love, however Levi-Strauss’ theory of binary
opposites exists throughout the themes of the film.
I’m analysing an emotional and memorable part of ‘Hook’,
when one of the youngest lost boys goes up to Peter, starts moving is face and
seeing if it is the real Peter Pan, after one minute of this with no speech, he
pulls his face back and says “oh there you are Peter!” and some of the other
lost boys run over to look closer, Rufio who is the current leader of The Lost
Boys, stands his authority and they go running back, the little boy stands up
for Peter and the lost boys run back and forth between Peter and Rufio, not
sure of who to follow, Peter then stands up and says how his kids are in danger
and he needs their help to save them. In this scene there is emotional,
classical music playing to match the tone of the scene, the music is called ‘You
are the Pan’ by John Williams, who composed the soundtrack for Hook; orchestral
music is common in fantasy-adventure films, it can quickly change the tone from
happy to angry to sad to happy again in a second which a song with lyrics is
unable to do. This non-diegetic music plays over the top of this important,
emotional scene to create a tone and a mood, for the first minute of the two
minute scene, it is completely silent and so the music is the most important
component of the scene and that tells the audience how to feel. My denotation
of this scene is how we watch the young boy walks over to Peter and sits him
down, the camera movements and editing is slow to match the tone, we see a
close up of the boy, then a panning long shot of him walking round Peter,
capturing the lost boys, stood watching, we then get over the shoulder shots of
both Peter and the lost boy as he feels his face, trying to identify who this
man is. We get reaction shots and a realistic and moving performance from this
little boy, semiotics show the audience that we should feel suspense for whether
this boy will recognise Peter and we can see how concentrated he is into trying
to discover if it is Peter. The music
then gets louder and more dramatic when the other lost boys run to see Peter
from a low shot camera angle, then we get a close up of Rufio, realising that
he may not be leader anymore and his power is going away, then onto a panning
close-up of Tinkerbell who is smiling because the lost boys recognise him. We
then get Rufio asserting his authority with low angle side shots of him, the connotation
of this is that it tells the audience that he has the power and he is bigger
than us. There are a range of different camera shots like high shots, low
shots, long shots, mid-shots etc., all combined it gives the viewer a chance to
see the scene from different angles, seeing close ups of all their reactions to
what is happening. I love the cinematography in this scene, like I mentioned
earlier, we have a low angle shot of Rufio to show the audience that he has
power, but on the other hand, when the camera is on Peter, it’s either high
angle or eye-level, it makes the audience feel like they are amongst the huddle
and actually there, shows the audience he is the character we want to
sympathise with and like. The editing and cuts are slow unlike the battle
scenes where there is a lot of action and it needs to be fast-paced because it
fits the tempo of the acting however in this scene it is very emotional and
there is no need for fast cuts, it would not suit the nature of the scene,
children also will be able to understand and identify what they should feel by
the editing e.g. excitement, suspense and nerves when fast editing and sad and
empathetic in a slow cut scene. Mise-en-scene is a big component of this film,
if it didn’t have the realistic props and scenery then it wouldn’t be the film
that it is, the majority of the reviews say that this was the best element of
the film. We get a restricted view as the audience to this scene, we don’t know
what will happen or how Rufio will react any more than the main character, it
is restricted viewing throughout. Overall, this scene fits in with its genre of
a fantasy film as it is slow-paced, orchestral music with gentle camera
movements which make the audience feel the emotion they are trying to portray,
the lighting, the costumes, the acting, the soundtrack and visual elements all
add up to make this a key, momentous event in the film where the lost boys
follow Peter instead of Rufio, believing him to be the real Peter Pan and so I
think this is the most important moment with the film but also the most
underrated for its beautiful cinematography, capturing both the emotion, anger
and happiness of the event from all angles. The director manages to perfectly
identify and portray how the main character is having an identity crisis as
well as many other problems which adult viewers can relate with. Many other
films in the fantasy-adventure genre have similar editing styles, it is slow
editing the majority of the way through the film, however in the action scenes
fast cuts are made to emphasise the action, suspense and excitement. They all
have similar narrative structure to this film and so I think Hook fits in with
its genre through the codes and conventions shown.
The denotation of the costumes is that Tinkerbell is dressed
in pretty dresses, emphasises her femininity amongst all the males in Neverland
and women are meant to empathise with her because she is in love with peter and
everyone knows what unrequited love feels like but women tend to prefer it in movies
and so this is how Tinkerbell is liked and relatable to women. How Peter and
all the lost boys are in scruffy clothes, hats, smart shirts or t-shirts and
shorts or trouser, a range but all look scruffy but innocent, this gives the
impression to the audience that they are the weaker and more vulnerable
characters that are in need of help, we sympathise with them because they are
seen to be the ones with all the problems. On the other hand Rufio is dressed
in black and red, these colours generally represent danger and darkness. He is
wearing black jeans with cuts down them, bracelets, has black hair with 3 red
Mohawks, a very distinctive look for the leader of the Lost boys, he is also a
teenager whereas all the other lost boys are 12 and under, the connotation is
that he is the one they look up to because he is older, like all children do,
the way he dresses shows his individuality, leadership and power above the
group and is a stereotypical ‘bad boy rebel’ who is dangerous and up to no
good. Despite this look, as the film continues we see his true personality and
how he is in fact a good character and so the message I think this teaches
children is that you shouldn’t judge a person by what they look like because
there is more to them than that, a person who you could think is bad is
actually good. Again we can see within
the pirates the same separation in authority through clothing, Captain Hook is
regally dressed, again in red to show us that he is dangerous however he looks
very royal, however the pirates who all obey him are scruffily dressed too,
this tells us that Captain Hook is the leader and the person of most importance
who they all look up to and the pirates are below him and of a lower class. The
fact that The Lost Boys are young boys, especially the main ones are under the
age of 8, we immediately feel empathy for them, want the best for them, want
them to be safe and find them cute, it’s an appeal to women, maybe even men, as
they look so innocent even though they fight and kill pirates. Adults can also
sympathise with Peter Pan, long days at work and a hard family life because you
have to provide, not having imagination like your child and constantly thinking
of safeness and money; the character brings real life every day struggles, into
the main character.
Some dominant ideology that I can see in this film is the
family life through the narrative theory set up by Todorov, Peter has his
family life and it is fine, the kids are kidnapped by Captain Hook and he has
to save them, he battles with Hook and rescues the children and goes home and
the family life is better, family values are an important ideal for most adults
and for children to look up to and this demonstrates that. Another ideology
present is that Tinkerbell is the only woman around, she is highly respected
amongst The Lost Boys and she is a mother figure to them all, it shows that
women also can have an important role and power however they all look up and follow
Rufio, the older male and that’s also an ideology amongst others present
throughout the film.
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