The Selfish Giant (Dir. Clio Barnard) 2013

Sebastian Black                                         Film Studies A Level                Thursday 15th October 2015

The Selfish Giant (Dir. Clio Barnard) 2013

The Selfish Giant is a drama film with the sub genre social realism. This film covers the themes of poverty, & friendship. This film is located in Bradford.

BFI Films & Film4 presented the Selfish Giant & it is a Moonspun Films productions. Artificial Eye distributed the film.

I believe that this film is called the Selfish Giant because Arbor is selfish, & he thinks of himself as a big boy, especially with his friend Swifty following him which makes him feel big, hence the name the Selfish Giant.

Mise-en-Scene:

The costume for both Arbor & Swifty are rather dull colours (greys) & this makes the audience feel the way Arbor & Swifty feel. The colours symbolise hopelessness & low emotions. These colours were chosen specifically to show us these emotions. If the colours were more vibrant it would subconsciously tell the audience that Arbor & Swifty are happy.

 The sofa in Swifty’s house was red. The sofa was the motivation for Arbor & Swifty & once the sofa was taken away, things started to change; it’s as if the sofa represented hope & when it was taken away, the hope was also gone & this made Swifty & Arbor work harder to earn money.

Cinematography:

This film uses a lot of hand held camera movements in order to emphasis the movement of the characters Arbor & Swifty.

The colour in this film is grey, the grey symbolises the mood & the emotions Arbor & Swifty are facing.

The shots in this film are not interrupted; this makes the audience feel like it’s a real life observation of the conversations & situations going on.

Performance:

In the beginning, we are introduced to Swifty & Arbor, Conner Chapman plays Arbor & Swifty is played by Shaun Thomas. Arbor is underneath a bed & he is hitting the bed out of anger, he is also shouting. We see that Swifty calms Arbor down. Arbor says, “get off me” however when Arbor finds out that it’s Swifty, he calms down. We see this at the beginning & the end. At the end where Swifty is dead & Arbor is underneath the bed again, although Swifty is dead, he still manages to make Arbor calm down because Arbor imagines Swifty holding his hand again & this symbolises a new equilibrium.

We have the impression that Arbor & Swifty are brothers however they’re not, they’re really close friends, best friends even but the closeness of their relationship suggests that they are like siblings.

Arbor suffers from a hyperactive disorder, which makes him get into trouble without meaning to. Swifty is the opposite of Arbor, he is more reserved  & he just follows Swifty. Whilst Swifty is waiting in the school reception, Arbor comes with the horse from Kitten’s & the school receptionists tells Swifty that Arbor is a bad influence.

Arbor grew up with crime in his family, his brother is a junkie, we find this out from Swifty when he says “fuck off you druggie bastard.” Arbor’s mother askes if he has taken his medication, Arbor says yes but Swifty nods his head to say no, Arbor’s mother then calls Mike in the kitchen because he has toyed with Arbor’s medication. This again tells us about Mike’s drug use & despite the medication being used for his brother’s wellbeing.

Swifty’s house is packed with children; we are introduced to his family when Swifty’s dad calls him in home & the father calls Swifty’s mother useless for not leaving money at the side for the electricity.

The Sofa is taken away because Swifty’s dad has sold it for money, & one of the kids ask “what are we going to sit on now?” Swifty being the older, he says we can sit on the floor, however he says this in a monotone, this again tells us how Swifty feels about the sofa being removed, it’s as if his hope had been taken away.

Arbor is always standing up for Swifty. Arbor motivates Swifty to defend himself however Swifty would only do this on Arbor’s orders.

Swifty has little in his life that makes him feel important, the only thing that does make him feel important is the horse, especially when Kitten tells him to train the horse for a race, this made an impact on Swifty.

Whilst watching the film, we see that Arbor & Swifty have no choice with going to the scrap yard to make money, the poverty runs in the family, the families have little hope for their children. Arbor & Mike both have been kicked out of school & Swifty’s mother really wants Swifty to go to school because she wants life to be better for Swifty however this isn’t something Swifty can imagine because the poverty just surrounds him.

Edit:

The editing has been tailored in a way to represent reality, especially with the pace & the uninterrupted camera shots & these are another convention of Social Realistic films.

Sound:

Majority of the sound in this film are diegetic, this is done intentionally to represent reality & it also a convention of Social Realistic films.

This film has been made so the audience will feel empathy, pity & guilt towards the people in this film. The five micro features that are in this film have enabled the audience to feel these emotions towards the film & that is the purpose of this film, to make you feel like this.