Genre Theory

Steve Neale stresses that 'genres are not systems: they are processes of systematisation' (Neale 1980, 51; my emphasis; cf. Neale 1995, 463). Traditionally, genres (particularly literary genres) tended to be regarded as fixed forms, but contemporary theory emphasizes that both their forms and functions are dynamic.

David Buckingham argues that 'genre is not... simply "given" by the culture: rather, it is in a constant process of negotiation and change' (Buckingham 1993, 137).

Nicholas Abercrombie suggests that 'the boundaries between genres are shifting and becoming more permeable' (Abercrombie 1996, 45); Abercrombie is concerned with modern television, which he suggests seems to be engaged in 'a steady dismantling of genre' which can be attributed in part to economic pressures to pursue new audiences.

One may acknowledge the dynamic fluidity of genres without positing the final demise of genre as an interpretive framework. As the generic corpus ceaselessly expands, genres (and the relationships between them) change over time; the conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are 'discontinued' (though note that certain genres seem particularly long-lasting).

Tzvetan Todorov argued that 'a new genre is always the transformation of one or several old genres' (cited in Swales 1990, 36). Each new work within a genre has the potential to influence changes within the genre or perhaps the emergence of new sub-genres (which may later blossom into fully-fledged genres). However, such a perspective tends to highlight the role of authorial experimentation in changing genres and their conventions, whereas it is important to recognize not only the social nature of text production but especially the role of economic and technological factors as well as changing audience preferences.

Idealist theoretical approaches to genre which seek to categorise 'ideal types' in terms of essential textual characteristics are ahistorical. As a result of their dynamic nature as processes, Neale argues that definitions of genre 'are always historically relative, and therefore historically specific' (Neale 1995, 464). Similarly, Boris Tomashevsky insists that 'no firm logical classification of genres is possible. Their demarcation is always historical, that is to say, it is correct only for a specific moment of history' (cited in Bordwell 1989, 147). Some genres are defined only retrospectively, being unrecognized as such by the original producers and audiences. Genres need to be studied as historical phenomena; a popular focus in film studies, for instance, has been the evolution of conventions within a genre.

Roland Barthes' Structuralism

Barthes ‘argued that the importance of the media in the dissemination of ideology or views of the world rested on their ability to structure signs and images in particular ways. He examined the ways in which signs (that is, images, words, music and objects) convey deeper meanings within society and culture than might outwardly appear so. In particular he saw the media, through the process of signification, making certain meanings and views in society appear natural and common sense.

Kevin Williams, Understanding Media Theory (Schools of Thought: Developing Approaches to Media Theory) p. 55

Neo Marxist Theory

The most important shift was from the classical model of Marx, linking ideology and culture to the economic basis of society, to neo-Marxist or structuralist approaches stressing the autonomy of ideological practices. This re-formulation is important for the way in which we understand the media – rather than conceptualise the media as acting as tools of the class that owns and controls them, and serving the interests of this class by concealing and misrepresenting the true nature of society, the media are seen as sites of struggle between the competing ideas and interests albeit that some ideas and interests are more powerful than others.

Kevin Williams, Understanding Media Theory (Schools of Thought: Developing Approaches to Media Theory) p. 52

Marxist Theory

Marxist Theory

According to Marx, the capitalist class – the bourgeoisie – control the ‘production and distribution of ideas’ because of their control of the ‘means of material production’. As a result it is their ideas, their views and accounts of the world and how it works, that dominate the outlook of capitalist society.

The outcome is that the ideology of the bourgeoisie becomes the dominant ideology of the society, thereby shaping the thinking and action of all other classes in society, including the working class or proletariat. This ideological domination is crucial in the maintenance of the inequality between the social classes.

Culture – like religion – is, then, is the often quoted words of Marx the ‘opiate of the people’. It is like a drug injected by social agencies such as the media and education under the influence of which working people fail to see how they are being exploited. For Marxism social conflict is inherent in the nature of production in capitalist societies. The media in this context takes sides, so to speak. They are part of the established power structures of society, presenting a picture of the world that reinforces these power structures and offers a false representation of what is happening in the world.

Kevin Williams, Understanding Media Theory (Mass Society and Modernity) p. 37-38

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - How it ends!

It ends on an ambiguous note of stone-throwing anger, leaving you wondering if Finney's independent spirit might yet save the day... or be squashed into passive middle age on the housing estate he loathes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0054269/quotes

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Quotes and Messages

"Don't let the bastards grind you down," is the message in this belligerent portrait of working class manhood, adapted from the 50s novel by Alan Sillitoe.

"What I want is a good time, the rest is all propaganda," is Seaton's mantra, but in the end, he realizes he's fighting a losing battle as an affair with his best friend's wife (Roberts) ends badly, and his aggressive attitude alienates him from everyone.

Arthur says: “Mam called me barmy when I told her I fell of a gasometer for a bet. But I'm not barmy, I'm a fighting pit prop that wants a pint of beer, that's me. But if any knowing bastard says that's me I'll tell them I'm a dynamite dealer waiting to blow the factory to kingdom come. Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not because they don't know a bloody thing about me! God knows what I am.”

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Facts

Cinema Release: 1961

Writer: Novel and screenplay written by Alan Sillitoe

Director: Karel Reisz

Awards: Nominated for 6 and won 3 BAFTA Film Awards, as well as 4 other awards.

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Synopsis

The rebellious energy of post-war theatre's 'angry young man' erupted on screen in 1960 with Karel Reisz's radical drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Arthur Seaton (Albert Finney), first seen amid the noise of a Nottingham factory, is a young labourer who just wants to get through the week and raise hell at the weekend: "All I want is a good time. The rest is propaganda".

Arthur Seaton, a young machinist at a Nottingham factory, is having an affair with Brenda, the wife of an older co-worker. He also has a relationship with Doreen, a woman closer to his own age. When Brenda gets pregnant, Arthur asks his aunt for advice on aborting the child. Brenda's husband discovers the affair, and his brother (a burly soldier) and a fellow soldier give Arthur a vicious beating. After recovering, Arthur returns to work, and the film ends on an ambiguous note, with Arthur and Doreen discussing marriage and the prospect of a new home.

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Genre

Social Realism

One of the strongest images of postwar British cinema is that of factory worker Arthur Seaton downing a pint in one at the end of another week in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1960). Related to, though independent of, the commercial mainstream, the New Wave was fed by the 'Angry Young Men' of 1950s theatre. Amid the smokestacks and terraces of regional life, Room at the Top (1958) brought wide shots and plain speaking to stories of ordinary Britons negotiating the social structures of post-war Britain.

Thanks to the relaxation of censorship, characters had sex lives, money worries, social problems. British 'auteurs' like Karel Reisz, Tony Richardson and John Schlesinger dealt with prostitution, abortion, homosexuality, alienation and relationship problems. Here were factory workers, office underlings, dissatisfied wives, pregnant girlfriends, runaways, the marginalised, poor and depressed.

The New Wave was symptomatic of a worldwide emergence of art cinemas challenging mainstream aesthetics and attitudes. Identified with their directors rather than with the industry, the New Wave films tended to address issues around masculinity that would become common in British social realism. The New Wave protagonist was usually a working-class male without bearings in a society in which traditional industries and the cultures that went with them were in decline. Directors from Ken Loach to Patrick Keiller, and films from Mike Leigh's High Hopes (1988) to The Full Monty (1997) have addressed the erosion of regional and class identities amid a landscape rendered increasingly uniform by consumerism.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/1037898/

British New Wave/Kitchen Sink

Britain today is still a society in many ways defined by class, but in the 1950s divisions were far more rigid. The 'new wave' films and the sources that inspired them gave a voice to a working-class that was for the first time gaining some economic power.

Previously, working-class characters in British cinema had largely been used for comic effect or as 'salt of the earth' cannon fodder. Here we see their lives at the centre of the action. That action, such as it is, details everyday dramas - hence 'the kitchen sink' tag. We see events through the emotional journeys of the characters.

Interestingly, only Room at the Top (d. Jack Clayton, 1958) and Look Back in Anger (d. Tony Richardson, 1959) look directly at conflict between working-class and middle-class characters.

The later films concentrate on conflicts within the working-class contrasting 'rough' (the very poor, unskilled, criminal and hedonistic - represented by characters like Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (d. Karel Reisz, 1960) and Colin Smith and The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, d. Richardson, 1962) with 'respectable' (skilled, aspirational, educated and 'moral' - such as the heroes of John Schlesinger's films: Vic Brown in A Kind of Loving (1962) and the life that Billy Fisher in Billy Liar (1963) appears to lead).

The debates around class are complex. There is recognition that social change and affluence will make the system more fluid. There is also an understanding that the essentials of power will not change - the mindset that reinforces divisions is still very much there.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/id/445176/

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Declining UK Cinema Admissions

Cinemas benefited in wartime from the absence of most rival leisure activities, and, in the wake of its victorious conclusion, an all-time peak of 1,635 million admissions was reached in 1946. However, building restrictions meant that new cinemas could not be build in areas of expanding population nor war-damaged ones repaired. A tax dispute, which resulted in Hollywood withholding new films for nine months in 1947-48 and encouraged the hasty production of inferior British pictures, did little harm, but several factors contributed to the slow decline in attendances up to the mid-1950s: the revival of other forms of leisure, the rise in the number of people watching black-and-white BBC Television (especially after the live coverage of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II was watched by half the population in 1952), and the increasing comfort of the home.

Hollywood suffered the impact of television from the late 1940s, much earlier than Britain. Its attempts to fight back with more colour films, 3-D, and wide screens had a beneficial effect in British cinemas until the novelty element wore off. Admissions more than halved between 1956 and 1960, particularly as a result of the regional spread of ITV, which offered a more popular alternative to BBC programmes and highlighted the showing of films, some quite recently made. But the fall in attendances was exacerbated by the reduction in the number of cinemas and by a serious shortage of American movies. Cinema newsreels closed down because they could no longer compete with the immediacy of television. (Most newsreel cinemas survived by showing cartoons or new foreign films or old features.)

Some cinemas were built in new towns, such as Harlow and Hemel Hempstead. Many huge picture palaces were replaced by smaller modern cinemas, primarily included to obtain planning permission for office developments and often tucked away in the basement. The most profitable cinemas were extensively modernised but others were turned over to potentially more lucrative leisure uses, becoming bingo halls, bowling alleys, dance halls, etc. - or sold off to be replaced by supermarkets, petrol stations and office blocks. Still more sat as boarded-up, derelict eyesores, testimony to the big screen's grave decline. From a post-war total of 4,700, the number of British cinemas had declined to 3,050 at the end of 1960, and to 1,971 at the end of 1965.

http://www.screenonline.org.uk/film/cinemas/sect4.html

Year	Figure in Millions
1933	903,000
1940	1,027,000
1950	1,395,800
1955	1,181,800
1956	1,100,800
1957	915,200
1958	754,700
1959	581,000
1960	500,800
1965	326,600
1970	193,000

www.screenonline.com/films/facts

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Sound

How does the director use sound effectively in the film?

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Mise en Scene

In the opening of the film, what message does the mise en scene convey to the audience?

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Language

How is language used to convey messages to the audience?

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Institution

Why was this film successful? What was the motivation for making it?

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Audience

How did audiences respond to Saturday Night & Sunday Morning, and in particular Arthur's character?

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning - Arthur's Philosophy

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning - Trailer