Film Studies 1022 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Naomi Klein, Totalitarianism, Nativity Scene
100 views2 pages
4 Oct 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Background
●Children of Men
takes place in the very near future and amplifies our reality.
○Nearly everything in the background references the real world
■Ex. the image of dead cows in a field references an outbreak of “foot-in-mouth” disease
○It presents the UK as the world’s only country with a functioning government
■Media in the movie advertises this
○It refers to global migration trends and refugees rushing across borders
○The film implies that the earth cannot survive our treatment and that therefore neither can we
○What does it have to say about the state of affairs in the real world and how it has come to be?
○Dystopia: “An imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or
environmentally degraded one. The opposite of a Utopia.” (Oxford Dictionary)
■Elements of Dystopia:
●Environmental catastrophes
●Human rights abuses
●Totalitarian or dictatorship
●Scientific knowledge working against us
■“We need to fear [those] who love systems more than people” because they will attack “anything or
anyone that interferes with the realization of that system.” (Naomi Klein)
●We must be careful when dreaming up these societies
■Global capitalism
●People are not the priority of the system
●There is an extremely oppressive centre of a large system
●The system of state control works with fear
●Segregation, oppression, human rights abuses
●Rebellion against the system to turn a desperate situation into a new beginning
○The UK is seen as a society to be obsessed with their fear of immigrants, and this fear regulates everything
○The film allegory is not removed far enough from reality to be a cautionary tale about possible future
■The film suggests that if you don’t already live in it, this reality is around the corner
■Reality has somewhat caught up with the film since its 2006 release
●How does Children of Men
build this dystopian world?
○We see London divided into zones of privilege as Theo is driven around in a nice car and watches the people
on the street as he passes
○Advertising throughout the film warns everyone to be on the lookout for illegal immigrants
○Security checkpoints are everywhere - this is a police state
■The urban space has been militarized
○The refugee camp looks like Guantanamo Bay
○Much of the film resembles the evening news and imagery heavily references current war zones
○The homeland security sign suggests a post-9/11 America
○The first scene:
■ Exposition: newscaster voices announcing recent news events to fill the audience in
●The screen is black while these announcements happen
●We see a tacit approval of these policies - the public doesn’t care much
●The crowd is all fixated on the screen
●Theo seems apathetic and unfazed, buying a coffee and leaving
●The news screen gives us the date; 2027
■“The youngest person in the world” is a major red flag
■Colour is dark and gloomy
■Streets look dirty and everything looks worse in general