The Direction of Ridley Scott - Movies Good Enough to Eat

Ridley Scott has never received an Oscar. A lone nomination, for Thelma & Louise way back in 1991, is the closest the man has ever got to true recognition of his work. Despite this, a number of his films have been huge box-office successes, and his status as a safe bet is as good as cemented in the world of Hollywood – quite an achievement for a man born in South Shields.

Scott is often accused of being more invested in creating a world than in creating the characters, a problem stemming all the way back to his advertising background. The idea goes that Scott knows how to sell things – you see Rome in Gladiator, you want to buy it – but he doesn’t know how to make you emotionally invest in the characters. Another reason for this criticism comes from Scott himself – he constantly talks about creating a world rather than the people in it. His philosophy has always been that if you cast well, then creating the nuances of the characters can take a back seat as good actors will do it for you.

A problem Scott has repeatedly run into is the industry’s habit of handing out Oscars only to films released in the preceding year. A lot of his greatest works, especially Blade Runner and Kingdom of Heaven, were critically slammed originally – only to be re-evaluated years later. Blade Runner especially is now considered a masterpiece – but Scott will never receive any formal recognition of this.

A Prophet & City of God - Power, Poverty and Conflict.

Despite differing in both time period and location, City of God (2002, Dir. Fernando Meirelles) and A Prophet (2009, Dir. Jacques Audiard) share many similarities in their themes.

Starting with poverty, the least applicable thematic link between the two. Whilst all the characters in City of God clearly live in abject poverty, right the way through the 20 or so years the film covers, the same simple statement is more difficult to make when looking at A Prophet. Set in a prison, it can certainly be assumed that almost everyone is doing pretty badly for money (at least when the profits from their crimes are taken away!), but it doesn't really push this angle in the same way City of God does. In City of God we see the occasional glimpse of the richer, better world just on their doorstep, physically close but realistically a world away. In A Prophet, the drabness of every single person and thing in the prison, and in fact outside, does nothing to dispel the notion that the entire world is in fact like this.

In A Prophet, power could be described as the single most important thing in the movie. When Malik arrives in the prison, aged just 19, he holds no power whatsoever. The film is as much about the tipping of the balance of power as it is about the actual progression in the story, the two being tightly intertwined. The Corsican Mafia who Malik is able to get into favour with early in the film hold all the power initially, but by the end of the film Malik is able to leave prison with a full-on bodyguard of protectors from the now-powerful Muslim gang. The transition between the two is slow, a key turning point being when Luciani, a Corsican who arranges for Malik to get day leave from the prison, discovers he is using this same day leave to sell drugs. He attacks Malik and causes some temporary damage to his eye, but from this moment the audience knows he's lost the power. And he knows it too.

In City of God, there is also a balance of power, although presented slightly differently due to the larger time period covered. Early in the film the power is held by the "Tender Trio", a fairly "neighbourhood friendly" gang. Pretty quickly though the gang starts to fall apart, as the guys are not totally cut out for a life of crime. In their place comes a much more dangerous boy, Lil' Dice, who after killing a motel full of people and one of the Tender Trio, starts to take the power for himself. The film then jumps forwards 10 years, where Lil' Dice, now known as Lil' Ze, has taken control of almost all the city through his drug empire. The balance of power shifts between him and his main rival Carrot during their gang wars throughout the 1970s, ending as the next generation kills him off and intend to take over the city themselves, much like Lil' Ze did originally.

Conflict is the final area I will look at, and really, it's fairly simple. Conflict invades every minute of City of God. Characters and random people die left, right and centre in this film, especially in the fatality-heavy second half. The whole film is about, effectively, one massive war that has raged since the 1970s (and continues now, to the point where it was actually too dangerous to go there and film).  A Prophet, on the other hand, does not hammer home a theme of conflict. It's always there, in the way people glare at each other across the prison courtyard and huddle in little groups, but it rarely manifests itself beyond the odd shower fight or prison killing. I feel I must be pretty desensitised at this point to consider that as "not hammering it home".

Overall, City of God and A Prophet share some key underlying themes, which although sometimes reinforced and introduced differently, make them feel at times to be similar movies. Most important to this feeling is the constant feeling of entrapment, whether directly through poverty (in City of God) or directly through imprisonment (A Prophet).

City of God

The main message of City of God is that violence only breeds violence. The society is shown as relatively peaceful at the beginning of the film, with only a few "innocent" hold ups in a relatively nice area. "The hoods" share their profits with the locals and are generally decent people. However, this low-scale violence ramps up in the second portion of the film, as one gangster takes over the entire city. Each act of violence merely causes a larger retaliation, ad infinitum.

The film uses several scenes with quick cutting, giving the film an almost non-stop feel. Even during scenes that are relatively slow, the use of bleeding the sound from the following scene into the end of the current scene keeps the pace moving. The use of split-screen in some scenes allows some action to happen in one scene whilst a more conversation-based scene takes place on the other side. At all times the story seems to be moving forward, helped by the regular narration that allows the story to jump characters, locations and time periods without any confusion. Mostly it is shot in a documentary style, using handheld cameras and colour desaturation to create a feeling of realism. Sometimes, however (specifically the shot of Rocket standing between the two gangs, taken from the matrix) it uses more advanced cinematic techniques.

The film was set in the nearby favelas - filming was not possible in the actual Cidade de Deus as it was still too dangerous. The film was almost all cast from actual favelas - only one established actor was in the film, in the role of Carrot.