The Crying Game, Emotional Response, Shock

Spectatorship: Popular Film and Emotional Response.

·         Reasons for Use of Shock in The Crying Game

Consider 

‘However obvious the techniques used, the spectator will nearly always surrender to the
manipulation of their emotions by the filmmaker.’ Discuss how far this is true with reference to
the films you have studied for this topic.

Shocking could be defined in three ways:

1. Visceral shock (often sex and/or violence)

2. Narrative shock unexpected ‘turn’ of the plot – e.g. Marion Crane’s demise in Psycho.

3. Political shock (a subversive message).

Starter:
In groups, discuss and note the occasions of visceral shock in The Crying Game.

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The Crying Game is a 1992 British psychological thriller drama film written and directed by Neil Jordan. The film explores themes of race, gender, nationality, and sexuality against the backdrop of the Irish Troubles. The original working title of the film was The Soldier’s Wife.

The use of of ‘shock’ in cinema to communicate powerful messages to audiences and elicit a range of responses from them is an important aspect for you to study when approaching section B of the exam.

Task:

In groups, discuss and note the occasions of narrative shock unexpected ‘turn’ of the plot in The Crying Game.

Themes, Messages and Values

Jordan’s enduring concerns are for political, sexual and racial tolerance and these concerns permeate The Crying Game.

The basic premise was the friendship that develops between two opponents during a conflict. Jordan also wanted to contrast black and Irish experience in Britain.

The Crying Game is the story of the redemption of its protagonist Fergus, one of Jordan’s tormented heroes who must accept personal responsibility, having previously followed orders. The film examines a triangular affair that has its roots in the broader history of Anglo-Irish relationships. It is an exceptionally bold combination of the personal and the political and crossed over from its independent origins to ask conservative, mainstream audiences to root for the love affair of an IRA terrorist and a gay transvestite.

The Crying Game is a warning against violence and a persuasive plea for tolerance. Jordan equates sexual difference with race, side-steps the issue of homosexuality and presents its only female character as a killing machine who also has to make the tea.

 Nearly all of Jordan’s books and films play out variations on this single most dominant theme of his work; the triangular relationship. In most cases this takes the form of a sexually naive man becoming obsessed by an (often, though not in the case of this film) older woman, whose identity is a mystery to him and who has already been claimed by another. In addition to its personal manifestations this relationship could be seen to represent the triangle comprising Eire, Northern Ireland and England. In his introduction to the published script of The Crying Game Jordan claimed that he wanted his film to dig past the surface of friendship between hostage and captive to uncover the erotic possibility and sense of mutual need and identification that could have provided salvation. He found the key to this by adding a third character to the equation - Dil, who embodied the love the two men cannot express for each other.

Questions for consideration

How does film work to generate emotion? Here the emphasis may be on relatively straightforward issues like the use of mise-en- scene, staging and music or more complex issues of identification and spectator alignment with particular characters?

Discuss in groups, make notes individually.

How far does the emotional impact of the film derive from contextual knowledge - in this case, our ability to respond to the film in the gap between fictional representation and historical fact?

Discuss in groups, make notes individually.

Emotional response and emotional involvement

An important feature of the narrative are the characters: In mainstream films, characters are frequently cast in terms of the characters we like and those we don’t (crudely: heroes and villains).

We are encouraged to identify with characters, to become emotionally involved with them, to feel as they do.

How are we encouraged to identify with characters in the film The Crying Game?

Discuss in groups, make notes individually.

It is a modern love story set against a contemporary war, yet the film’s sense of Fergus’ destiny and emphasis on gallantry seem like something out of time. Fergus is himself caught between past and future, between Jude (the devil he knows) and the deep blue sea of Dil. 

These two characters are continually compared or contrasted but the film is ultimately more concerned with masculinity than femininity.

Homework:
Answer the following previous exam question:

How far do spectators respond to the emotional content in films in the way that the director intended?

1 1/2 - 2 pages

E-mail responses to Ealey_A@sjd.ac.uk before Monday 13.1.17