Introduction

We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) is the second film we will study for

Section C of Paper 1 – British Film Since 1995, you will be asked to compare it

to Under the Skin in the exam. We will focus particularly on the issues of

narrative and ideology.

Before we go any further you are going to do some research into Lynne Ramsay and

contemporary British film industry. The rest of this presentation, the unit guide, the

textbook (P160-189) will help with this. Find the answers to the following questions:

1. Who are the biggest funders/distributors of film in the UK? How are these

organisations different to the major American film studios?

2. Where does the BFI get most of the funding from that it puts into UK filmmaking?

3. What can you say about the size and scale of the UK film industry compared to

the American film industry?

4. What can you find out about Lynne Ramsay:▪ Biographical details and how she developed as a filmmaker.

▪ How she operates within the film industry.

▪ The themes and stylistic features of her films. What characterises her films and style as

an “auteur” (see task on the next slide)?

▪ Her most famous films.

Lynne Ramsay is perhaps one of the most significant British filmmakers to have emerged in the last 20 years or so. With a first degree in Photography, she graduated from the

National Film and Television School with qualifications in cinematography and directing. Ramsay has a distinct style and vision as a filmmaker. As with many other British

directors her films, particularly the short films she made as a film student and her first two features Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar (all made on relatively low production

budgets), are clearly influenced by the British social realist tradition, tending to focus on marginalised characters (often children and young people) from working class

backgrounds. However, arguably Ramsay’s style as a filmmaker moves beyond social realism. Her films are characterised by a distinctive impressionistic, poetic and

atmospheric visual and audio style. She also tends to make use of relatively limited dialogue and an enigmatic, ambiguous approach to narrative and character. Her films

regularly deal with challenging themes such as death, grief, social isolation and a search for meaning in a hostile world.

Ramsay tends to both write and direct her own films and is credited as producer and/or cinematographer on many of them, demonstrating the importance she places on

maintaining creative control over the projects she works on. While her first feature film Ratcatcher (1999) was made on an estimated budget of $30,000, in more recent years she

has worked on projects with larger production budgets such as We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) which was made for $7 million. However, Ramsay has always insisted on

maintaining creative control over the projects that she works on, something that lead her to leave the only film she has worked on that had involved the input of the mainstream

American film industry, The Lovely Bones, distributed by Paramount Pictures. Ramsay was contracted to write the screenplay for the film and direct it but wanted to make

significant changes to the plot, making it less sentimental than the novel it was based on. After the rejection of several drafts of her screenplay by the film’s producers Ramsay

either walked away from the project or was asked to leave, Peter Jackson was then brought in to direct a much more conventional version of the film that was more faithful to the

plot of the original book.

Task:

Watch as many of Lynne Ramsay’s films, short films and trailers listed on the next slide as you can What do you notice about Ramsay’s approach as a filmmaker? Think about:

▪ Narrative

▪ Themes

▪ Mise-en-Scene (set, setting, costume, props, casting, performance)

▪ Cinematography and visual style.

▪ Use of SFX

Short Films:

▪ Small Deaths (1996): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twLZx4uUg6I

▪ Kill the Day (1996): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrcoGDU9v5s

▪ Gas Man (1997): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aM-93ZDlVF0

▪ Swimmer (2012): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fT1UCPtrtbI

Feature Films:

▪ Ratcatcher (1999): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_P_dMVLa48,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0PDalxB1dg

▪ Morvern Callar (2002): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jS322z4FH_Y

▪ We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011):https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLRgAe2jLaw

▪ You Were Never Really Here (2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8oYYg75Qvg

Use: www.imdb.com, www.boxofficemojo.com, www.the-numbers.com/movies to find out the following

information about We Need to Talk About Kevin:

1. When was the film released? Is there any significance to the release date of the film?

2. What was the film’s production budget - how much did it cost to make?

3. How was the film funded?

4. Which studio(s)/institutions produced the film? What do we know about these institutions?

5. Which company/companies distributed the film? What do we know about the film’s distributor(s)?

6. How much money was spent promoting the film? How was the film promoted?

7. Who stars in the film?

8. What is/was the:

- first weekend box office gross?

- UK box office gross to date?

- US box office gross to date?

- worldwide box office gross to date?

- DVD sales/rental gross to date?

9. Has the film been shown at any film festivals? Has it won any awards? Does this tell us anything about the

film?

10. How many screens was the film shown at at the time of its widest release?

In order to understand We Need to Talk About Kevin and how Lynne Ramsay is able to operate as a filmmaker within the UK film

industry you have to have an understanding of how that film industry operates. While the UK has one of the biggest film industries

in the world and generated around £5 billion of revenue in 2018 (making it similar in size to the film industries of Japan and China –

see the links below to some very useful BFI documents on the British film industry), it is dwarfed by the American film industry

which made in excess of £25 billion in revenue in the same year. The British film industry is structured in a very different way to

the mainstream, vertically integrated American film industry. Rather than being distribution lead and commercially driven it is

largely production lead, with filmmakers or production companies developing productions before securing finance or distribution

deals. Much of the funding for UK films comes from three publicly owned non-profit organisations, the BFI, the BBC and Channel 4.

While the UK film industry does produce the occasional global commercial hit, when compared to the mainstream American film

industry much of its output is more low key, made on relatively low production budgets and watched by a primarily domestic

audience. However, arguably the smaller scale and production lead and less commercially driven nature of the British film

industry allows some filmmakers opportunities to work in more experimental or unconventional ways.

Defining a British film can be confusing though. Many films made in the UK, even though they might be scripted by British

writers, shot in the UK using a British cast and crew and a British director are in fact commissioned and distributed by the big six

American studios and as such are classified as American rather than British films, as the vast majority of their profits go back to the

American studios that developed and funded them. The Harry Potter franchise, with films commissioned and distributed by Warner

Brothers but produced in the UK and based on books written by a British writer, is a good example of this.

BFI – The British Film Industry by Numbers documents:

▪ https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-media-conference-2014-the-british-film-industry-by-numbers.pdf

▪ https://www.bfi.org.uk/sites/bfi.org.uk/files/downloads/bfi-research-the-british-film-industry-by-numbers-alex-tosta.pdf

The production lead nature of the British film industry means that a British film is often funded from a range of different sources, these include:

The BBC, Channel 4 and the BFI:

The three biggest funders of British film production are publicly owned, non-profit organisations. Two of these are divisions of public service broadcasters,

BBC Films (part of the BBC) and Film4 (part of Channel 4). The third, the BFI (the British Film Institute - https://www.bfi.org.uk/supporting-uk-film/film-fund),

runs film education services and manages the national film archive as well as being responsible for distributing lottery funding to filmmakers through its Film

Funds. It took over this role from the UK Film Council which was disbanded by the UK government in 2011. The BFI has an annual budget of around £21

million to fund British films and BBC Films and Film4 have a £12 million and £25 million annual budget respectively. While certainly not insignificant amounts

of money, compared to the major American film studios the budgets of these organisations are tiny, adding up to far less than the production budget of a

single blockbuster produced by one of the big six American studios.

Regional Film Funds and Other Sources of Funding:

There are a number of other organisations that will offer funding to filmmakers in the UK. Many of these are regional film funds, set up by city or regional

councils who will provide funding to attract filmmakers and their crews to film in a specific location, support the local economy or local film industry or

publicise the area. Other arts organisations such as The Arts Council, Creative England or Creative Scotland may also part fund films or provide them with

grants, again often on the condition that the film is shot in a certain location within the UK or deals with specific national or regional issues. As stated above,

many British filmmakers will end up securing the finance they need to go into production from a range of such sources.

The Distribution of British Films:

British films are distributed by a number of different distribution companies from a range of backgrounds. Some independently produced British films are

distributed by major American studios or their subsidiaries, but most are distributed by the independent distribution companies listed below. We Need to

Talk About Kevin was distributed by Artificial Eye in the UK and Oscilloscope Laboratories in North America.

The most significant distributors of contemporary British film are:

▪ Curzon/Artifical Eye

▪ Arrow Films

▪ Lionsgate

▪ Pathé

▪ Studio Canal

INSTITUTIONAL/PRODUCTION CONTEXT – WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN AND THE UK FILM INDUSTRY

We Need to Talk About Kevin is adapted from a novel by the American writer Lionel Shriver, BBC Films

bought the film production rights to the book in 2005 and Ramsay was signed to write the screenplay and

direct soon after. As with many British films, We Need to Talk about Kevin ended up being funded from a

range of different sources, BBC Films were the principal financers but it also received lottery funding

through the UK Film Council (the forerunner of the BFI Film Fund) and funding from a number of film

production and financing companies. As with other low budget, production lead films we have studied,

Ramsay had to make significant changes to her original screenplay to reduce the film’s production costs

and make it easier for the project to secure the funding it needed to go into production.

The film premiered in May 2011 at the Cannes Film Festival in France, it opened in the UK on 21st October

2011 and on only a single screen in America on 4th September the same year, at its widest release it was

shown at 80 screens in the US. We Need to Talk About Kevin was nominated for a number of awards at

international film festivals, winning (amongst others) the award for Best Film at the 2011 London Film

Festival. The film achieved a worldwide box office gross of $10.8 million, making a profit of $3.8 million.

More extensive information on the production context of We Need to Talk About Kevin here:

https://www.bfi.org.uk/films-tv-people/4f4b8b91a5380

Ramsay has never been an overtly “political” filmmaker but arguably her films have reflected and/or indirectly

commented on the historical, social and political periods they were created in or set in. As we’ve discussed previously,

Ramsay’s earlier work (her short films and her first two features Ratcatcher and Morvern Callar) focused on the lives of

working class characters trying to exist, and find a meaning for their existence, in marginalised communities in modern

day de-industrialised Britain. In order to understand this we maybe need to have an understanding of some of the

political changes that took place in the UK and USA from the 1970s to the present day. The post war economic boom came

to an end in the early 1970s and by the 1980s Britain (under Margaret Thatcher) and America (under Presidents Regan

and Bush) had a new kind of conservative, right wing government. This period became defined by a political and

economic culture known by its critics as neo-conservatism. Those critical of this political philosophy say it has reduced

the role of the government in public life, empowered and enriched large corporations at the expense of individuals,

increased social inequality and the gap between the rich and the poor and lead to a culture of individualism where

people have to compete with each other and take what they can in order to survive. During this period Britain, America

and other developed countries have also seen a process of de-industrialisation, with many heavy industries and the

skilled, secure, well paid jobs they provided, which often held entire communities together, being lost This lead to high

levels of unemployment and then the replacement of those secure, well paid jobs with low paid, often insecure transient

work.

Clearly We Need to Talk About Kevin isn’t centred around these kinds of issues or the kind of working class communities

Ramsay’s earlier, British set, films focused on. It is a film about a professional, middle class American family. However, it

could be argued that the film explores the same sense of isolation and alienation that was the focus of Ramsay’s earlier

work and also examines, through the extreme nature of Kevin’s actions, the ultimate consequences of the kind of

individualism celebrated in the dominant political ideology of late 20th and early 21st century Britain and America.

In order to fully understand We Need to Talk About Kevin it is maybe also useful to have an understanding

of the changing social position of women in British and American society over the last 100 years or so. By

the time of the film’s release in 2011 women made up almost 50% of the workforce in Britain and America

and it was more or less universally accepted that women should have an equal role to men both in the

workplace and in the division of domestic work (although the degree to which this is true in practice is

very much open to debate!) Eva’s role as a successful professional reflects this, the film also tackles the

tension inherent in her attempt to maintain a clear sense of individual personal identity and her career

while also being a parent. The film takes a complex approach to these conflicts and to issues of gender

more generally, these are things that are explored in more detail in the gender representations section of

this presentation and which we will look at later.

It is also perhaps useful to have an understanding of the kind of mass casualty attack of the kind that

Kevin carries out that have taken place in America in recent years. While Kevin carries out his attack with

a bow and arrows, in real life these are usually shootings. Perhaps the most notorious of these was the

1999 Columbine High School shooting where 13 teenagers were shot dead by disgruntled fellow students.

There have also been mass shootings at Virginia Tech, a higher education college, where 32 people were

shot dead in 2007 and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, where 27 people were killed, including 20

children aged 7 and under. In the aftermath of all these attacks, and many others, there has been wide

ranging debate about what causes them and where responsibility for them lies. These are issues the film

clearly explores, but Ramsay does so in away that doesn’t direct her audience to any clear conclusions.

Now that we have viewed the film we will need to take some detailed notes analysing it. Use

the analysis sheet to take your own notes on the macro and micro aspects of We Need to Talk

About Kevin . The next few slides will help you with this as will earlier slides in this

presentation and the exam board resource on this film. You might want to consider some of

the following points:

▪ How does the film differ stylistically and thematically from the the approach we see taken in

our other British film, Under the Skin?

▪ How does the film fit in with what we know about Lynne Ramsay’s style as a director and the

characteristics of contemporary British film?

▪ How does the film make use of and/or subvert narrative conventions?

▪ What values or ideologies does the film embody? Does it uphold or subvert conventional

ideology?

Ramsay has a reputation for taking an experimental and unconventional approach to cinematography and lighting. In

much of her output as a director she makes use of an approach that is indebted to the British Social Realist tradition, using

a natural approach to lighting that encourages her audiences to suspend their sense of disbelief. Lighting in large

sequences in her films also tends to be low contrast, which arguably, when combined with desaturated, low contrast film

stock, emphasises the bleakness of the subject matter of many of her films. However, like other contemporary British

directors such as Andrea Arnold and Jonathan Glazer, Ramsay combines this with a more experimental and symbolic use

of colour and lighting. In earlier films, perhaps most notably Morvern Callar (2002), Ramsay has made use of markedly

different “looks” within the film to denote changing moods, atmospheres or shifts in narrative through drastically

changing film stock, lighting or using filters, lighting gels or alternative film processing techniques. We can see a similar

approach being taken in We Need to Talk About Kevin. While much of the film is lit naturally, in a way that creates a clear

sense of verisimilitude, and is shot on low contrast film stock with normal levels of saturation there are significant

sequences when colour and the “look” of the film are used in a much less realistic and far more symbolic way – the

extensive use of the colour red in the mise en scene at the start of the film for example, foreshadowing the violence that is

to come or the use of colour and lighting to emphasise Eva’s isolation in the scenes in the film that depict her life after

Kevin’s attack, perhaps most notably where she sits alone and in near darkness framed in the café window or the in the

harsh, starkly lit, blindingly white environment of the supermarket. Similarly, there is a contrast between the naturalistic

approach to shot framing and composition and choice of shot types in much of the film and a far more unconventional

approach used in other sequences. Ramsay’s makes use of close ups, extreme close ups and canted angles, most notably

in the scenes that flash back to Eva and Franklin’s relationship before Kevin’s birth but also when she wants the audience

to focus on a specific element of mise en scene, usually one that is significant to the narrative of the film – the extreme

close up of Kevin crushing the lychee for example in the aftermath of the injury to Celia’s eye. Ramsay also makes

extensive use of a static camera and symmetrical framing, unconventional techniques that give the film a formality and

slowness of pace that maybe indicate to the audience that she wants to explore the controversial issues at the film’s heart

in a way that acknowledges their complexity.

As with her approach to cinematography and lighting, on the one hand we see Ramsay

using editing in a way that follows convention, contributes to a sense of realism and

encourages the suspension of the audience’s sense of disbelief. Arguably this is done to

emphasise the “normality” of Kevin’s background, emphasising the horror of his actions

by suggesting that they originate in an ordinary family. On the other hand, and as we’ve

also seen with her approach to cinematography and lighting, in significant sections of the

film Ramsay subverts convention in her use of editing, fragmenting time and narrative

and using editing in a much more expressive and symbolic way. This is perhaps most

notable in the sequences showing Eva and Franklin’s lives before Kevin’s birth and

Kevin’s preparations for his attack and its immediate aftermath, where Ramsay’s use of

montage and the jump cut and high speed editing compress time, leaving the audience

to work out the ellipses this approach leaves behind. Much more will be said about the

non sequential and non chronological approach taken to the structure of the film by

Ramsay in the narrative section later in this presentation, what we can say here is that

Ramsay’s unconventional use of editing in significant sections of the film contributes to a

sense of narrative complexity and ambiguity and combines with other elements of film

form to unsettle the viewer.

While the American middle class settings of We Need to Talk About Kevin may be

different to the settings used in Ramsay’s earlier films, her approach to mise en

scene is typical of her style as a filmmaker. Set, settings costume and props are

largely realistic, encouraging the audience to suspend their sense of disbelief and,

as we mentioned in relation to editing, constructing a sense of normality that makes

Kevin’s final actions seem all the more horrific. However, these elements of mise en

scene are used in a more stylised and symbolic way in places – consider the use of

ketchup and tomatoes towards the beginning of the film and how these props are

used as a precursor to the horror of the film’s ending. Props are also used to help the

audience structure the film’s narrative, with items such as the garden sprinkler,

Kevin’s toy bow and arrow, Celia’s eye patch and the yellow locks used by Kevin to

barricade the gym appearing innocuously at points in the narrative, foreshadowing

the significance they will gain later in the film.

Performance is similarly naturalistic, and while actors are performing the roles of people experiencing extremes of emotion their performances are largely subtle and restrained, leaving the audience to interpret the characters for themselves. Ramsay was known for her use of untrained or unknown actors in her earlier films. A different approach is used in We Need to Talk About Kevin, with experienced actors cast in all of the lead roles in the film. John C Reilly, who plays Franklin, has appeared in many films including those directed by leading independent directors such as Brian de Palma and Paul Thomas Anderson. Ezra Miller had appeared in a number of films before We Need to Talk About Kevin but was not widely known at the time. Tilda Swinton is renowned for her roles in highly unconventional British films and is associated with two experimental British filmmakers in particular, Peter Greenway and Derek Jarman. While employed for their abilities to play the roles they were cast in, the casting of these actors would have undoubtedly made it easier for the film to secure funding. The casting of Swinton in particular, with her association with experimental filmmaking and art cinema, marks out the film’s own unconventional credentials and may make the film more marketable to the film’s arthouse audience.

As with many other aspects of the film, Ramsay’s use of sound in the film is consistent with her style as an

auteur. Diegetic sound is largely natural and used in a way that creates a sense of verisimilitude and

encourages suspension of disbelief. However it is used in creative and less naturalistic and more

impressionistic and expressive ways in places in the film, particularly in the flash forwards and flash backs

which are almost completely free from dialogue and where certain diegetic sounds are heightened and

emphasised. In other sequences diegetic sound is taken from one sequence in the film and used non

diegetically in another, often foreshadowing an event that occurs later in the film. There are other

sequences in the film where diegetic dialogue is minimised, leaving events unexplained and forcing the

audience to make their own interpretations of them.

Ramsay’s use of non diegetic music is also highly characteristic of her as a filmmaker. Rather than

following convention and using a score specifically composed for the film to direct her audience, Ramsay

uses existing individual, often classic, songs in a contrapuntal way, with a disconnect between songs and

the action, an approach used by other filmmakers of her generation – perhaps most notably Quentin

Tarantino. The non diegetic music is largely upbeat and positive in its pace, pitch, tone and lyrics,

something that contrasts starkly with the darkness of the action it is set against, adding to the sense of

unease that runs through the film. The use of individual existing tracks rather than a specifically

commissioned score, also undoubtedly reduce the production budget of the film and arguably add to the

film’s ready made, independent aesthetic.

Ramsay also blurs the distinction between diegetic and non diegetic sound through her use of music,

music that begins playing diegetically will continue non diegetically or vice versa in a number of

sequences, perhaps reminding the audience of the constructed nature of the film.

While We Need to Talk About Kevin borrows from conventional genres, as with

many films produced outside of the mainstream American film industry it doesn’t

sit comfortably within the definition of any genre in particular and doesn’t make

use of genre in the way that a more mainstream film might do, to help its

audience to classify the film and to make it easier to distribute. We Need to Talk

About Kevin seems to deliberately subvert the conventions of genres such as

crime or psychological thriller. There is little to guide or entertain the audience

in the way more conventional films from these genres might do. The film uses a

complex narrative structure, with little narrative exposition or resolution and as

we have seen already, the film is highly unconventional in its approach to

cinematography, editing and sound. Ramsay is perhaps trying to signal to the

audience, through the film’s complexity and lack of convention, that she wants to

take a different approach to the challenging subject of spree killings, something

We Need to Talk About Kevin has in common with another contemporary

independent film on the subject, Gus Van Sant’s 2003 film Elephant.

As we know from studying Under the Skin narrative is a key area of study for this section of the exam. We

Need to Talk About Kevin is highly unconventional in its approach to narrative, employing a range of narrative

techniques that help Ramsay communicate the ideological complexity of the issues her film deals with and

force the audience to draw their own conclusions about them. As with Under the Skin, Ramsay largely rejects

the conventional narrative structures commonly used in the mainstream film industry. The narrative structure

of the film is broadly non chronological and non sequential, with Ramsay both jumping backwards and

forwards through time and using extended montage sequences to compress it, techniques which force the

audience to take on a very active form of spectatorship and assemble the structure of the film for themselves.

Similarly, Ramsay also makes extensive use of enigma, allusion and ellipsis in her narrative, leaving out or just

hinting at key events, especially Kevin’s acts of violence (the killing of the hamster, the blinding of his sister

and his final horrific act) again, encouraging the audience to piece together the film’s narrative for

themselves. In a way that is similar to her use of significant or symbolic props or sounds that appear in the

film and then reappear later in the narrative with added significance, Ramsay also uses moments of narrative

allusion and foreshadowing where events from earlier in the film recur or are mirrored later in the narrative.

The film also seems to actively reject the conventional three part narrative structure used widely in the

mainstream film industry. There is little in the way of a conventional setup, with early sections of the film

shifting rapidly through time and locations. And while the film ends on a conversation between Eva and

Kevin and the screenplay and performance imply that there are significant things both characters want to

discuss (as close as the narrative gets to a decisive confrontation between the film’s protagonists) little is

ultimately said and the film ends with no real narrative resolution.

As we’ve seen, narrative is a key area of study for this unit and key points about the narrative structure of We

Need to Talk About Kevin were summarised on the previous slide. Over the next few slides you’ll find summaries

of some of the key theories on narrative that we’ve studied before. Consider these theories in relation to We

Need to Talk About Kevin and complete the following task:

Task: Answer the following questions about We Need to Talk About Kevin and narrative:

▪ Does the film make use of any of the narrative structures or patterns we have studied?:

- The pattern Todorov identified.

- The Three Act structure.

- The pattern Propp identified.

- The pattern Levi Strauss identified.

- Any of the codes identified by Barthes, particularly the enigma code.

- Narrative ellipsis.

▪ If so, how does it do this?

▪ If not, is this significant? What might the director be suggesting through deliberately breaking with conventional

methods of structuring narrative?

Tzvetan Todorov was an academic who studied the narrative structure of many cultural texts, he concluded that many narratives were structured around the following five stage pattern:

Stage One: A sense of equilibrium or normality is established.

Stage Two: The sense of equilibrium is disrupted.

Stage Three: There is a realisation that equilibrium has been disrupted.

Stage Four: There is an attempt by the hero/central characters to restore equilibrium.

Stage Five: The sense of equilibrium or normality is restored or a new sense of equilibrium is established.

Todorov’s theory can be simplified into a three stage model:

Stage One: Establishment of equilibrium.

Stage Two: Disruption of equilibrium.

Stage Three: Restoration of equilibrium.

The three act structure is similar to the the narrative pattern Todorovidentified and is perhaps more commonly referred to in Film Studies:

First Act (otherwise known as the setup): The first act is used to establish the central character(s) and the world they inhabit. Towards the end of this act something will happen to challenge or cause disruption to the life of the central character(s)/the world they inhabit.

Second Act (otherwise known as rising action or confrontation): In the second act the narrative develops as the central character(s) attempt to resolve the situation established at the end of the first act.

Third Act (otherwise known as resolution): In the third and final act the narrative reaches a climax before being resolved, with normality being restored or a new sense of normality established.

Vladimir Propp stated that the narratives of cultural texts were often based around fixed character types. Propp identified the following character types:

▪ Hero (protagonist).

▪ Villain (antagonist).

▪ Dispatcher – sends the hero on a mission.

▪ Helper – helps the hero on their mission.

▪ Donor – gives the hero something that will help them with their mission.

▪ Princess – acts as a prize for the hero.

▪ False hero – takes credit for the hero’s actions, attempts to rescue or marry the princess.

Levi Strauss observed that many

narratives are structured around

confrontations between pairs of opposing

forces, what he described as binary

oppositions (good versus evil, antagonist

versus protagonist, night versus day etc.)

Roland Barthes identified five “codes” that are present in the narrative structures of many cultural texts, including films. These are:

▪ The Enigma or Hermeneutic code – the way tension is built up in a narrative, engaging an audience by holding back information or leaving clues to create a sense of mystery and anticipation and leaving the audience wanting to know what happens next.

▪ The Semantic code – the way objects, characters and settings take on additional meanings. The audience are engaged by understanding elements in the text that have symbolic meaning and go beyond what is simply denoted.

▪ The Symbolic code – the larger symbolism in a text, particularly the way that many narratives are constructed around a conflict between binary opposites.

▪ Proairetic or Action code – these are signs that tell the audience that something is about to happen, they are shorthand ways of advancing the action. For example a cowboy putting his hand on his gun, looking straight ahead and chewing on a matchstick tells the audience he is going to kill the other man in a shootout without it being explicitly stated.

▪ Cultural code – elements of a narrative that refer to the audience’s wider cultural knowledge. The audience need to have this knowledge to understand the reference.

Narrative ellipsis is a term used to describe elements of narrative that are not concluded or resolved, or left to the audience to work out. For example a film might contain a scene where a character we know to be violent is left with a more vulnerable or innocent character. If the director then cut away from that scene to a shot of the antagonistic character on their own and we were left to conclude that they’d killed the other character the director would be making use of narrative ellipsis.

As we’ve discussed already, We need to Talk About Kevin focuses on a

controversial and emotive subject where it would be quite easy for a filmmaker

to direct their audience towards a clearly defined response towards key

elements of the narrative or judgements of characters. However, Ramsay doesn’t

do this. As we’ve seen in the section on narrative, the structure of the film is full

of ellipsis and enigma. Characters are also complex. While the audience are

positioned to see events largely through the eyes of Eva, she is presented as a

multi faceted character, flawed and clearly with her faults but also perhaps

unfairly blamed and punished for Kevin’s actions. It could be argued that these

devices, combined with elements such as Ramsay’s unconventional and

unemotional approach to non diegetic music, or her naturalistic approach to

performance largely allow her audience to draw their own conclusions about the

issues the film raises, an approach Ramsay takes in all her films and one we’ve

seen in many other production lead films we’ve studied.

As we know from studying Under the Skin, ideology is the second key area of study for this section of the exam and as with that film you will

need to explore the messages, values and beliefs We Need to Talk About Kevin embodies. As with many independently produced, production

lead films We Need to Talk About Kevin is unconventional in its values and the messages it communicates to its audience. Many key points

about ideology are addressed in the slides on social and historical context, audience, representations and narrative in this presentation but as

it’s a central key concept for this unit we’ll try to summarise the key points here and cover any issues that aren’t raised elsewhere.

Ideology and Audience

As discussed on the last slide, while Ramsay deals with some significant moral and social issues in the film she doesn’t do this in a didactic

way, rather she constructs her film in a way that allows her audience to make their own negotiated readings of the narrative and draw their

own conclusions rather than directing them towards a specific ideological reading of the film.

Ideology and Narrative

Following on from the previous point and as discussed on the slide on narrative, Ramsay largely rejects conventional Hollywood narrative

structures and instead uses an elliptical and non chronological narrative structure to force her audience to consider the ideological issues the

film raises and draw their own conclusions about them. The narrative structure of the film is not being used by the director to lead the

audience to a preferred reading of the film.

Ideology and Gender Represesentations

As outlined in the slides on gender representation and feminism later in the presentation, We Need to Talk About Kevin is a film very much shot

from a female perspective. However it is complex in its representation of women, exploring the expectations and pressures placed on women

in what is still a male centred society but also perhaps examining the limits and restrictions of ambition and the consequences of the

individual refusing to accept the limitations of life that they have or adapt to the changes that life throws at them. Rather than judging or

declaring a clear ideological position on these issues, the film seems to remain ambiguous about them, again allowing the audience to draw

their own conclusions.

Ideology and Social/Historical Context

Through its intimate exploration of the impact of extreme violence on an essentially ordinary family, the film clearly rejects the kind of

conventional, idealised representations of domestic life represented in many films. Ramsay presents her audience with a complex and

uncomfortable representation of the American family but does so in a way that is without moral judgment.

The questions you get in this section of the exam may ask you to analyse how a specific ideological perspective enables you to gain an understanding of the film. As with Under the Skin we will look at two ideological perspectives, feminism and existentialism and explore how these might inform our interpretation of the film.

As with Under the Skin we can also make use of existentialist ideas to help us gain a deeper understanding of

We Need to Talk About Kevin. As we know existentialism is a European philosophical concept that developed in

Europe in the 19th and 20th centuries through the work of philosophers and writers such as Søren Kierkegaard

(1813-1855), Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821-1881), Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), Albert Camus (1913-1960) and

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986). Existentialism maintains that our existence is essentially meaningless,

godless and absurd and that a realisation of this can lead to sense of confusion, fear or dread. However, it also

puts forward the idea that human beings have the freedom and autonomy to create their own sense of meaning in

life and that an essential part of leading a meaningful life is the exercising of the individual’s own free will and

maintaining a sense of authenticity at all costs – being true to oneself and one’s beliefs.

Unlike Jonathan Glazer’s approach in Under the Skin where the individual’s search for meaning in life appears to

be celebrated, Ramsay explores the limitations of this search in a number of her films, perhaps most notably in

Morvern Callar (2002). In both that film and through Eva’s character in We Need to Talk About Kevin, Ramsay pays

particular attention to human ambition and the tendency of individuals to look for meaning and happiness

elsewhere and to strive for more in their lives. In both films Ramsay explores the tension between this impulse

and the need for the individual to accept the realities of their existence and to make the best of the life they have.

Extension: Watch Ramsay’s 2002 film Morvern Callar, what parallels can you observe between the themes of the

two films and the character of Morvern in that Morvern Callar and Eva in We Need to Talk About Kevin?

Feminism is an ideological perspective that can provide us with a framework that helps us to better understand We Need to Talk

About Kevin as a film. We will explore the film in relation to feminism in the next slide, first it will be useful to have some

understanding of the origins of feminism and how it has developed over the last hundred years or so:

First Wave Feminism:

First wave feminism is a term used to describe the struggle, largely during the late 19th and early 20th century to achieve basic

gender equality, primarily the right for women to vote and to stand as candidates in elections. First wave feminism secured the

right for women to vote across the developed world in the early part of the 20th century, most especially in the 1910s and 1920s in

the aftermath of the First World War. It also won important rights for women regarding the ownership of land and property.

Second Wave Feminism:

Second wave feminism is considered to have begun in the early 1960s but was influenced by events earlier in the 20th century. It

involved a struggle for a much greater degree of gender equality and female autonomy than had been achieved through the first

wave of the feminist movement in areas such as sex, sexuality and relationships, employment and the division of labour in the

home and in relation to raising children. Rights won by the second wave feminist movement included women gaining easy access

to contraception, putting them in charge of their own reproductive health, the de-criminalisation of abortion, changing perceptions

of women’s capabilities in the workplace and achieving legally enforced pay equality.

Third/Fourth Wave Feminism:

Definitions of third (and even fourth) wave feminism are less clear than the first and second waves. There is even debate about

whether there have been third or fourth waves of the feminist movement at all. Those who believe there have suggest that they

have focused on redressing social gender inequalities that have continued after the major legal “battles” for gender equality were

won in the first three quarters of the 20th Century.

Is We Need to Talk About Kevin a feminist film, and does having an understanding of feminism lead

us to a greater understanding of the film? It is certainly an interesting film to consider in relation to

the representation of women. Ramsay’s films regularly focus on female characters, perspectives

and experiences and women in Ramsay’s films are often complex and conflicted, something that is

certainly true of Eva in We Need to Talk About Kevin. While the title of the film suggests that it will

focus on Kevin, it is actually far more focused on Eva and the impact of Kevin’s actions have on her.

Indeed, although Kevin is undoubtedly a central character in the film it could be argued that he is

sidelined to a certain extent and that his most extreme behaviour is deliberately ignored by the

film. Large sections of the film also explore Eva’s life before Kevin’s birth and examine the ways in

which parenthood can affect women’s working lives, ambitions and sense of self. Arguably the film

also explores the responsibility often placed on women in the aftermath of the kind of extreme male

violence committed by Kevin. In this sense perhaps, having an understanding of the context of

second and third wave feminism can provide us with a better understanding of the film. The world

depicted in it is one where women have “won” all the major battles for equality and yet are still

expected to take a leading role in the upbringing of their children and are held socially responsible

for their children’s actions, while at the same time having to negotiate the conflicts and tensions

between parenthood and a maintaining a broader sense of self (particularly in relation to

continuing a career) to a much greater extent than men are.

However the film (and the book it was based on) is far from a conventional feminist

exploration of parenthood or the impact of male violence on women. While the audience

might be positioned to sympathise with Eva to a significant extent, she is also presented

to the audience as a complex, flawed and somewhat unsympathetic character, unable to

accept or adapt to changed circumstances, resentful, impatient, lacking in emotion or

empathy and self centred. Are Ramsay and Lionel Shriver, who wrote the original book

the film is based on, presenting Eva to us as the victim of Kevin’s behaviour and of a

patriarchal society that in some way excuses male violence and blames women (or

encourages women to blame themselves) for it? Or are they presenting their audience

with a critique of second and third wave feminism, highlighting the limits of pursuing self

fulfillment and individual freedom at the expense of accepting life’s realities and

responsibilities? Perhaps both and neither. As discussed elsewhere, what is perhaps

most distinctive about both Ramsay and Shriver’s approach is that they present the

audience with these debates in all their complexity without guiding them towards clear

conclusions, something Shriver elaborates on in the following Guardian article:

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/may/17/4

▪ Opening scene: 00:00:00 – 00:06:30

▪ Breaking Kevin’s arm: 00:37:03 – 00:43:03

▪ Celia’s birth and Robin Hood: 00:51:11 –

00: 55:06

▪Final scene: 01:25:00 to the end

We are going to plan out an answer for the following question on We Need to Talk About

Kevin alone, we’ll look at answering questions that focus on both films for this unit later:

‘Analysing a film ideologically enhances our understanding.’ How far is this true of

your two chosen films? [40]

1. Break down the question, pull out key words, re-phrase the question in your own

words if it helps. What is the question asking you to do?

2. How could you approach the question, what strategies could you use to structure an

essay answering this question?

3. Look over your notes and the teaching resources, make a list of points on Ramsay’s

approach to narrative. Make sure you provide clear examples from key scenes to

support each point.

4. Now write a more detailed plan for your essay.

We are also going to plan out an answer for the following question, this time we are going to analyse

both We Need to Talk About Kevin and Under the Skin, use the prompt questions on the previous slide

to help with this:

How useful has an ideological critical approach been in studying the narratives of your two

chosen films? [40]

1. Break down the question, pull out key words, re-phrase the question in your own words if it

helps. What is the question asking you to do?

2. How could you approach the question, what strategies could you use to structure an essay

answering this question?

3. Look over your notes and the teaching resources, make a list of points on the ideological

approach taken in the film. Make sure you provide clear examples from key scenes to support

each point.

4. Now write a more detailed plan for your essay.

1. How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding the narrative resolution of your chosen films? [40]

2. How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding binary oppositions in the narratives of your chosen films? [40]

▪ “Better responses had a secure ideological understanding of their chosen films and were able to reflect upon how useful this

way of studying the films had been to them”

▪ “Weaker responses tended to be very confused about what an ideological critical approach to [the candidates’] chosen films

would be and completely ignored the evaluation [aspect of] the question.

▪ “Basic responses to this question often failed to evaluate an ideological critical approach and just recited a superficial

ideological reading of the films.”

▪ “Better responses were able to make some evaluative points about an ideological reading of the films studied and relate this to

the films’ narratives.”

▪ “There were some good and very good responses that clearly showed how ideological analysis can help to illuminate features

of narrative or narrative devices in films. Some candidates produced really good responses by showing how ideological analysis

of films is not necessarily important in studying the narratives of particular films. The best answers clearly identified strengths

and weaknesses of an ideological approach, sometimes by comparing this approach with another approach.”

▪ “Some sophisticated work on this question was produced by candidates who had studied Under The Skin and We Need To Talk

About Kevin, two films with complex, multifaceted plot structures and story elements.”

▪ “Many candidates suggested that an ideological critical approach, such as applying Feminism or even just considering gender

representations in the films, had helped them understand the complexities of the plot structures more clearly and made

character construction and motivation far more understandable to them.”

▪ “This was a very open question with many possible ways of answering it. Some candidates considered how ideological analysis

can enhance an understanding of filmmakers’ intentions or help us understanding how the film ‘works’ or even how the film has

become important culturally.”

▪ “A common problem was that many candidates ignored the evaluative aspect of the question and did not reflect on ‘how far’ the

statement was true for their chosen films. The more successful answers were those that did have a confident grasp of what an

ideological critical approach can bring to a film and had obviously discussed this in lessons before the exam.”

▪ “There was some excellent work on We Need To Talk About Kevin [and] Under The Skin… where candidates looked at how

ideological analysis had helped them understand how and why the film had been constructed in the way it had and why the

films were so important culturally.”

▪ “Some candidates argued that other critical approaches had enhanced their understanding of the films more than an

ideological approach, for example [some candidates] made convincing arguments that the films are better understood through

the use of contextual, generic or narrative approaches… and that there might be other, more important, ways of understanding

[films such as We Need to Talk About Kevin or] Under The Skin than through the lens of Feminism. ”