Harry Brown (2009)

Dir: Daniel Barber

• How are youths being represented? (specific examples)

On the very first scene, a high angle shot was used on a group of youths. This is to emphasize their power. The mise-en-scene, suggests that they are under a tunnel of a road bridge, shown by the shape and the bright lighting during the night. This is representing the youths as a stereotype as we tend to think that youths hang around in this sort of environment and at this time.

The next scene with youths is again very stereotypical as this time they are in a park scenery. A couple of youths use a moped and start shooting around what seems to be innocent women with a pram, until eventually shooting her. They are being represented as horrible senseless people.

They are represented very stereotypical again in a scene where a gang of youths are hanging around the roads at night, creating a lot of noise, making an unpleasant sight for habitants around. They make noise by making the sirens of a car go off and start beating up a person, giving a sense that youths don’t care about the people around them.

• How are the audience being positioned? (do we like them/not?) (to identify with the characters)

During the beginning of the film, in many scenes of the presence of youth, we don’t get to see a clear, visible image of one of their faces, often shown in a long shot. In contrast to the old man, where we get to understand and see his emotions, the camera has close up shots of him. The audience immediately identifies that he is the main character, (as he has more screen time) and the audience get to like him. This is helped in the scene in the hospital, where someone close to him has died, and we feel sorry for him, the camera has a close up shot of his face, where he is clearly distraught. Shortly after, another of his close friend dies. In the scene with the police coming into his house to tell the bad news; once they went away the man burst out into tears. He became very isolated and lonely at this stage; again the audience feel for him and are on his side. We then see many scenes of him being alone such as in the pub or on his bed.

The scene in the interrogation room, we see a clear contrast between the youths and the policeman. The lighting was dimmer on the potential killers (youths) whereas the policemen where clear and visible, as they had a brighter lighting on them. This creates an evil, creepy feel to the youths towards the audience.

The man goes to his friend’s house that has died, and see’s the youth by looking down, out of the window where they are gathered near a bridge in a long shot. The camera is closer to the man rather than the youths which further suggest the audience are on his side.

In the scene where he is trying to get hold of a gun from some strange drugged people; he ends up saving an innocent girl who was in bad health which further makes the audience on his side. However he had to kill the two people in order to save her, which shows that he has no problem of killing people. Though there was a purpose for it, in contrast to the youths as they are represented to the audience that they kill for no reason.

• What is the significance of social class?

In this film, the significance of social class is clearly important and has had a major impact on the each individual character.

One key scene showing the impact of social class was when the man was coming out of the pub and previously a youth saw a lot of cash from his wallet and followed him outside. The youth threatened him under a bridge at night with a knife, but the man stabbed the youth instead which the audience might have not expected. This is because genuinely the youth turn out more powerful in these circumstances and would normally get the money he wanted. This film shows that the old middle class man gets the better of the youths and he gets his revenge.

The youths seem very much contrasted to anyone else no matter what class, intimidating people around them. From the lady in the park, to the policemen, the youth are not scared of anyone; until the main character goes toe to toe with them and plays them at their own game! This shows that social class doesn’t automatically determine who kills people.