Appendix 3.2: Seunple films - synopses and character lists
A HARD DAY'S NIGHT UK 64 '
fans are almost exclusively young teenage girls. We always
see them in large groups or crowds, and the same range of
camera techniques are used throughout the film in the frequent
scenes involving fans. These are long shots of the crowd,
fast pans, often hand held, shot in medium or medium close up;
cut aways to close or extreme close up shots of individual
faces. There is never any direct contact between the Beatles
and their fans, and the Beatles' response to their pursuit is
always shown to be one of good natured amusement. The chase in
which they are the quarry is fun, never frightening,
irritating or dangerous. When we see close ups of individual
fans they are always shown in an emotionally extreme
condition: ecstatically happy, sometimes crying, sometimes
screaming hysterically. Often the camera will linger on a
close up long enough for us to understand, through lip
reading, that the name of one of the Beatles is being spoken
over and over again. In general these scenes do not have
synchronised sound; though we frequently hear the sound of
screaming fans it is generally used separately from images of
the same. In fact throughout the film there is a disjunction
between image and sound: they are used in counterpoint, as it
were, except in direct performance or in conversations between
characters.
The representation of women in the film is extremely
schematic, the very young female fans having by far the
largest screen presence in terms of both their numbers and of
the amount of screen time devoted to their images. They
always recognise and invariably then pursue the Beatles.
Other representations of women on screen fall into two
distinct groups. These are, firstly, attractive young women in
their early twenties who generally do not recognise the
Beatles - such as the TV producer's secretary or the woman
outside the junk shop. It is this group which the Beatles
themselves pursue - albeit mildly. They take the make up
technicians to the studio set, they are seen dancing in the
disco with women in this age group. Secondly a very small
number of much older women appear on screen. These are the
elegant and bejewelled women in the gambling club, and the
white coated canteen staff in the television centre. These
older women not only do not recognise the Beatles when they
see them - they do not even see them. The fans recognise and
pursue the Beatles; the young women do not recognise them but
are potentially susceptible to their charm on an individual
basis; the older women ignore them completely. It is
important to note that not one woman in any of these three
categories is subject to any character development, not even
the minimal amount required to allow them the function of
motivating the narrative. All the women represented fall into
character group 4, that is to say that they simply people the
screen, furnish the diegesis.
Finally we should note that this imbalance in gender
representation is accompanied by an emphasis on generation
difference in which the address of the film is unequivocally
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