Appendix 3.2: Sample films - synopses and character lists
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT UK 64 ` “
Melies (France) and Hac^r (UK) in the pre first war period and
later that of Mack Sennettor the Marx brothers in the US.
Some of these are, no doubt, conscious references. Speeded up
action, extreme camera angles and diegetically illogical
editing (for instance the scene with John in the bath, or the
fantasy performance in the guard's van of the train) are all
employed in the service of the film's humour in addition to
their inevitable function of drawing attention to the facts of
performance and of cinematic artifice. The film, in effect,
claims to have it both ways: it purveys both the Voyeurist's
intimate view of the popular heroes off stage (realism) and
the technologically based fantasy allowing suspension of
disbelief claimed by the fairy story (surrealism). The
slapstick, zany humour of the film also recalls many
quintessentially British precedents from the Goon Show of the
1950s and the contemporary Carry On films, to the nonsense
poetry of Lear or the crude wit of the music halls. It is a
film constructed, in fact, very much like a music hall or
variety show. Within the rather tenuously observed logic of
the narrative, which spans about twenty four hours, various
set pieces are embedded in series, having no narrative
connection with each other. Not only musical numbers and more
or less choreographed performances but also one off jokes such
as the repartee with the businessman on the train at the start
of the film, or the vignette of the car thief near the end.
Some of these set pieces, or gags, have a satirical edge to
them, such as Ringo's po-faced close up shot of milk bottles
in a crate, or George's encounter with Lionel, producer of the
teenage TV show; some are, simply, absurd, such as Ringo's
gallantry on the building site on laying his coat on a puddle
for a woman to step on (the third puddle turns out to be a
large hole into which she disappears like some jungle animal
caught in a primitive trap).
The film opens with the four Beatles running to a station,
presumably in Liverpool, hotly pursued by crowds of screaming
fans. Various adventures take place on the train journey and
in addition to the Beatles themselves we meet most of the
other major characters - their manager Norman, their 'roadie'
Shake, and Paul's grandfather played by Wilfrid Brambell,
later of Steptoe fame. Once they arrive in London there is
their escape from the station, an interlude in their hotel
suite, and scenes in a disco and a gambling club, before their
arrival the next day at a press reception at the television
centre. Various rehearsals and delays ensue during which we
follow individuals in quite irrelevant adventures before the
final stage performance takes place in front of both a live
audience and the TV cameras.
The representation of the Beatles' fans in the film is of
particular interest, not least because we may assume that they
were also the major audience to which the film was addressed.
Here we have a film, then, which includes its putative
audience in the pro-filmic event. This is a powerful way
indeed of binding its cinema audience into the diegesis. These
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