La Haine Revision Notes
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La Haine, directed by Mathieu Kassovitz, follows three youths—Vinz, Hubert, and Saïd—in the aftermath of a violent riot in a Parisian housing estate triggered by a young man's police custody injuries. Over a 24-hour period, they grapple with escalating tensions and personal identity while confronting societal violence, leading to a tragic climax as they navigate their desperate circumstances. The film serves as a critique of social unrest and youth disenfranchisement in France, symbolized by the ticking clock that amplifies the narrative's suspense and urgency.
![The following notes are taken from the York Film Notes guide or unidentifiable voiceovers – the ‘voice of God’ – on the
to La Haine by Roy Stafford published in 2000. The guide is soundtrack. Essentially, what we see and hear on the screen
now out of print. The notes have been revised and updated is ‘plot’ – the sense we make of it is ‘story’. The filmmaker has
where possible. taken the story and turned it into plot. The story is always
bigger than the plot and because it requires audiences to
play with inferences, it is also open to wide interpretation
Part One: Film Form and Narrative Structures – different ‘readings’ of what it all means.
Narrative The plot of La Haine
La Haine is a one-off film – a generic hybrid with a strong From 10.38 a.m. one morning to 6.01 the next, three youths
authorial presence. The keys to an understanding of how it is survey the aftermath of a riot on their estate, hang out with
constructed as a filmic narrative are provided by some of the other youths and make two trips – to the hospital and to
decisions taken by Mathieu Kassovitz before the production the city centre to meet a drug dealer. One of the youths is
began: carrying a police revolver. In a final confrontation with the
police, two shots are fired.
• Start from the ending
• Time constraint Put like this, the story which the audience might construct
• A story rooted in reality seems limited in potential, but the specific narrative structure
• Three youths as central characters – no single narrator and the way in which the narrative unfolds – the process
• A journey to the city centre and back of narration – are crucial in turning something seemingly
• Location shooting mundane into 95 minutes of gripping narrative cinema.
• Carefully prepared camera set-ups
• Lenses and filmstock Which story?
• Use of different forms of popular music and ‘ambient’ How much are audiences expected to infer in order to
sound discover the story of La Haine? How much is the story about
the events of twenty hours in the lives of three young men
Some of these decisions will be explored further in Part Three and how much about the whole estate (and others like it)
under the heading ‘Style’. First, we will consider some basic and twenty years of conflict between the residents and the
ideas about analysing narratives. police? There are plot clues to help answer these questions,
but a significant amount of background knowledge about
Approaching Narrative les banlieues is needed to get the full story (See Part Four:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson suggest that a Context).
narrative is:
In many fiction films, narrative questions or ‘enigmas’ are
“… a chain of events in cause-effect relationship relatively straightforward – will the girl get the boy, will the
occurring in time and space.” (Bordwell & Thompson murderer be caught? La Haine has such a central question
1986) – will the gun be used, will anyone be hurt? But it also has
much bigger questions. The original title of the film was
A specific narrative structure is therefore a construction Jusqu’ici tout va bien … (So far everything is OK …). This
of events in a particular order with linking devices refers to the story told at the beginning of the film (and twice
which tie together events separated by time and space. more later on) about the man falling from the high building,
The manipulation of narrative time and space and the who as he passes each floor on the way down says to himself,
deployment of various narrative devices comprises the main “so far, so good”. The film’s plot can be seen as one long fall.
work of the film director as ‘storyteller’. But in a metaphorical sense it could be the whole of French
society that is falling (the third time the story is told, ‘society’
Bordwell and Thompson also usefully distinguish between is substituted for ‘man’). The eventual title ‘Hate’ then refers
‘story’ and ‘plot’. A story will include all the ‘inferred events’ to the destructive force which is destroying society. Seen in
which aren’t presented explicitly in a film, as well as all those these terms, a narrative analysis takes on a very serious tone
that are. Inferred events could include the experiences of for discussion of what is a tale of despair, albeit filmed with
the characters as children or the readers’ assumptions about an aesthetic which is vibrant and life affirming.
what characters might be doing when they don’t appear on
screen, but are involved in the narrative. The ‘plot’ includes Keys to the narrative
the same explicitly presented events plus all the non-diegetic 1. Start from the ending
information supplied by the filmmaker. Diegesis refers to the Mathieu Kassovitz has said that he knew the ending of La
presentation of the fictional world on the screen. Anything Haine before he knew the story:
‘diegetic’ belongs in the world of the film – characters could
use it or experience it directly. Non-diegetic information “The atmosphere is what I am interested in describing,
might be the titles overlaid on the action. La Haine includes even before I know the story. This is the ‘message’.
several such titles which remind the audience of the time Atmosphere and title are what come first. With Métisse
of day. The other common non-diegetic material is music [his first film] and La Haine, I knew the ending before I
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![with French rap music and some of the other French youth Other critics are similarly split, although the balance comes
pictures, including Maghrebi films. The references to down on Kassovitz’s side. What is unfortunate is that most
‘difference’ between the three youths are accepted as part of of the Maghrebi films, which might offer an alternative way
friendly banter. Saïd makes jokes about Vinz being a ‘kike’ of representing the lives of youths on the estates are not
and Hubert being ‘chocolate’. In return Saïd is teased about available for viewing in the UK.
his sister and mocked as a ‘pseudo Arab’. These would be
offensive comments made by anyone outside the accepted Gender
group, but it is similar to the use of the term ‘nigger’ between If La Haine is not about race, it is also not ‘about’ gender as
Black youths and it has been argued that this kind of friendly such. It does not, for instance explore how young men and
insult strengthens the bonds between the youths and stresses young women react differently to conditions in les banlieues.
the sense of unity through oppression. It is a masculine story about three young men. There is no
interest in the female characters other than as foils for the
The French estates do have more ethnic mixing than youths at particular moments. The sisters and mother/aunt/
American housing projects and perhaps the black-blanc- grandmother provide the sense of a family needed to root the
Maghrebi trio is not so outlandish. But this mixing only goes youths in the community, but not to offer a close relationship.
so far. The Vietnamese shopkeeper is identified as ‘not one of The young women they meet in the art gallery are there
us’ and this could be read as another nod to American film only to emphasise the youth’s exclusion based on class and
models (where the Korean store owner is often the victim education/cultural knowledge.
of shoplifting and portrayed as the enemy of the African-
American community). This may be an instance of class La Haine has been criticised by feminist writers, not so much
solidarity – the shopkeeper is identified as an enemy because because of the concentration on the male characters – there
of his ownership of the shop rather than his racial difference. will always be a place for films which concentrate on groups
of men or groups of women – but because of the generic
Racism is alluded to by Saïd when he says an Arab is never references to other French films about similar issues which
safe in a police station and confirmed when he and Hubert also ignore women (i.e. most Maghrebi films deal with
are arrested and Vinz is not automatically assumed to be young men – young Maghrebi women are excluded from
with them. But despite this sequence, racism is much less the discourse). More problematic still is the level of violence
evident in the film than might be expected from its setting. and the nihilism imported from American gang pictures.
Indeed the most contentious issue – the Front National’s This is evident in so many ways; the violence of the language,
definition of Islam as ‘alien’ – is not mentioned at all. Without the ‘tough’ clothes, the ‘extreme’ rap music, the aggressive
some knowledge of the history of racist activity in France, gestures of Vinz, the sheer macho energy of the youths etc.
British and American audiences could be forgiven for not (see Vincendeau 2000).
totally understanding the sense of exclusion. There are coded
references to specific instances of exclusion as in the refusal As David Styan points out, La Haine does not seem to be
of entry to the nightclub and the lack of meeting places for about any of the ‘problem issues’, but about the realisation
the youth on the estate. Black and Maghrebi youth are forced by the youths that their predicament is partly of their own
onto the roof of an apartment block or into a basement. They making. When they riot they hurt themselves (burning down
are not allowed adult recreation but must sit in the children’s the school, wrecking Hubert’s gym). The young men who
play area, effectively kept as children by the authorities. join the police are also caught in the trap and are “every bit
as insecure as the three protagonists; this is seen most clearly
Kassovitz treads a fine line over racism in les banlieues. Some in the false bravado of the cop who has the final shot as La
critics have come down on the film because of its failure to Haine itself crashes to the ground” (Styan 1995).
adumbrate the specificities of the race agenda in France and
concentrate too much on importing American images of A feminist reading points to a common theme in many films
the ‘hood’ (see Alexander 1995). Carrie Tarr argues that too of the 1990s – the emasculation of male characters, shorn
much status is given to the white character and not enough of any purpose, bewildered by what to do and resorting to
to the black and Maghrebi characters – the white character sexist and violent behaviour and idle boasting of non-existent
does take on a hybrid identity but this is “a one-way crossing deeds in the place of positive action. This argument can
of racial boundaries, and the complex hybrid identities of certainly be sustained but the performances of the three leads
the ethnic others in these two films [i.e. including Métisse] work against it. By the time we get to the final shoot-out it is
are much less adequately explored” (Tarr 1997). Conversely, difficult to see the three youths as other than basically ‘good
David Styan, writing a companion piece to Karen Alexander’s lads’ who could be redeemed. The real problem here is that
is much more prepared to read the film as about the common our attention has been diverted to their behaviour – they
identity of the three youths: “What is relevant is that they are could change – and away from the problems of society which
all stuck on the edge, lacking jobs and purpose. If they’ve any have pushed them towards such behaviour.
aim it is to resist categorisation and to forge a new French
identity, both in spite and because of ‘those wearing leather The media
jackets and voting Le Pen’ whom they deride in the Metro.” Running throughout La Haine is a discourse about ‘the
(Styan 1995) media’ (but represented largely by television and video).
The film directly blames the media for the representations
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![New York during one blazing hot summer day when tension “ After the mistakes of my first film, I learned two things
on the street is sparked into conflagration by the refusal from watching the Coen brothers’ films – you have to
of the Italian owner of a pizza parlour to put up images of write exactly what you want to film, and then you have
heroes of African American culture on the walls above his to film with a strong point of view. When you look at
dining tables. Clockers is a ‘hood’ style story about youths Orson Welles’ films – he was a genius anyway – the point
on an estate and drug dealing, with a concerned cop played of view in his films is so strong that he can’t be wrong.”
by Harvey Keitel. Kassovitz is no doubt well versed in the (Kassovitz quoted by Loewenstein 1995)
sumptuous camerawork of Lee’s earlier films, photographed
by Ernest Dickerson, but it may be that Lee’s attitude towards The context of production and distribution
cinema has been more important than his aesthetics. Like The budget for La Haine was around 15-16 million French
Kassovitz, Lee has a father involved in the ‘creative industries’ francs (about £1.5 million or US$2.4 million). This is about
(as a composer-musician). Lee is producer, writer and the same as the budget for Trainspotting and slightly below
director of his films and also acts in them. Ten years older the average for a French feature (considerably below the
than Kassovitz, he made his first feature at 28 and from the budget for a ‘super production’ like The Horseman on the Roof
beginning ran his own production company, 40 Acres and (France, 1995) which La Haine trounced at the box office.)
a Mule (a name based on the (false) promise made to freed
slaves after the Civil War). He quickly ‘got into bed’ with Mathieu Kassovitz was content with the budget, he had been
the Hollywood studios to make his films after She’s Gotta used to much less on his previous films. It allowed him to
Have It, whilst maintaining a high degree of control over
It prepare carefully for shooting on the estate. An idea of the
the projects. Kassovitz is still working in France and Lee’s nature of the shoot can be developed from the material in
role in developing his ideas about a commercially viable, Parts 2 and 3. Kassovitz became involved in the editing,
but artistically independent African-American cinema make sharing the work on Avid non-linear suites, a relative new
him a special case. But he offers a model of how to work development in France at the time.
successfully in the international film industry.
The success of the film at Cannes a week before it opened in
Ironically perhaps, the Spike Lee film that offers the most French cinemas signalled its great potential. The distributors,
direct scene-by-scene comparison with La Haine is the assuming a ‘small’ auteur film initially made only 50 prints
historical biopic Malcolm X (US 1992). The film begins with available, but this was quickly raised to 250, more like the
contemporary footage of the police assault on Rodney King figure for a mainstream French or indeed American film
in Los Angeles in 1991 as part of the credit sequence and release in France. La Haine played throughout the summer
later in the film, Denzel Washington as a young Malcolm of 1995 and ended the year as Number 13 at the French box
X in the 1950s leads a delegation to a police station when a office with nearly 2 million admissions. This translates to a
man in Harlem is beaten by police. Leading his Black Muslim box office of around £8 million – puny by the standards of
followers to the hospital where the wounded man is being successful American blockbusters, but very good for a small
treated, he challenges the police to ensure that the man film (like Trainspotting and The Full Monty (UK, 1997) it
receives the proper treatment – the collective power of the represents a very good profit to cost ratio). In Britain the film
Black Muslims on the street is evident. was released in November 1995 and for a foreign language
film it was remarkably successful entering the Top 15 in
America or France? Screen International’s chart and grossing a total of nearly
Mathieu Kassovitz rarely mentions French directors and £400,000. More significantly perhaps, La Haine has continued
French films in the interviews which helped promote La to be a cult film screening on a regular basis at individual
Haine. It is reasonable to assume that he has learned from the venues throughout the late 1990s. Its release in North
directors with whom he has worked as an actor, in particular America (where French language films benefit from the
his father, Peter, his business partner Luc Besson, and Jacques substantial audience in French speaking Canada), garnered
Audiard who gave him a leading role. But it would seem that a total box office of around US$500,000. The relatively
although the cultural references are French, the visual style disappointing American box office, behind several more
owes much to those graduates of NYU, Scorsese, Jarmusch conventional (i.e. relatively conservative) French films could
and Lee and others who have shown supreme control of the be used to argue either that a) the film was ‘too French’ for
camera and the edit suite (e.g. Stephen Spielberg in the earlier the American market or b) that it was too American and not
part of his career). “Unlike many young French directors who exotic enough. Either way, as in Britain, the film has gained
are trained at FEMIS [a leading French film school], and who a cult reputation in North America and has been heavily
only swear by Godard, Pialat or Truffaut, Kassovitz readily supported by users of the Internet Movie Database.
quotes Scorsese and Spielberg” (a comment by Christophe
D’Yvoire of Studio magazine, quoted by Vincendeau 2000). Reception
La Haine has been termed a ‘film event’ in France (Jäckel
Kassovitz gets his cinephilia – his obsessive interest in cinema 1997). Throughout the summer it stimulated news stories,
and especially auteur cinema – from his experience of French not least because it attracted a youth audience to the
film culture, but his models do seem to be American: multiplex to see an auteur picture. Kassovitz himself had
a lot to do with the fuss the film created. He plunged into
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La Haine Revision Notes
- 1. La Haine Notes by Roy Stafford
- 2. La Haine France 1995 director: Mathieu Kassovitz producer: Christophe Rossignon script: Mathieu Kassovitz director of photography: Pierre Aïm video documentary: Armelle Bayle editors: Mathieu Kassovitz, Scott Stevenson art director: Giuseppe Ponturo sound/sound design: Vincent Tulli running time: 90 mins cast Vincent Cassel Vinz Hubert Kounde Hubert Saïd Taghmaoui Saïd Karim Belkhadra Samir Edwarde Montoute Darty François Levantal Astérix Solo Santo Marc Duret Inspector ‘Notre Dame’ Heloïse Rauth Sarah Rywka Wajsbrot Vinz's Grandmother Synopsis A public housing estate outside Paris has been shaken by rioting for 24 hours because of injuries suffered by Abdel, a youth from the estate, while in police custody.Vinz, Hubert and Saïd, three local friends, have all been involved. Hubert, a boxer, discovers his training area has been wrecked.Vinz tells the others that he has the pistol lost by a police officer during the rioting and that he intends to avenge Abdel if he dies from his injuries. The youths spend the day hanging out as the tension mounts. Towards evening they go to Paris to visit a dealer known as Astérix, who owes Saïd money. Vinz endangers the deal by provoking Astérix with the gun. Leaving hurriedly, Hubert and Saïd are grabbed by the police, while Vinz gets away. Hubert and Saïd get a brutal going-over at the police station. They are released and miss the last train back to the estate, but meet Vinz again at the station. The trio walk around the city and unsuccessfully attempt to steal a car. They sleep in a shopping mall and wake to a news broadcast informing them that Abdel is dead. Hubert and Saïd restrain Vinz from threatening a traffic warden. Angry with Vinz, the other two leave him but they are attacked by National Front skinheads.Vinz arrives and threatens the skinheads with the gun and they run off. Vinz is nearly out of control, but when the trio arrive back at their estate he hands Hubert the gun to get rid of it. A car draws up and a plainclothes police officer gets out. Vinz and the cop tussle and the cop's gun goes off, shooting Vinz in the head. Hubert advances on the cop, and they face each other with guns drawn. Saïd looks on in horror as gunfire is heard. 2
- 3. The following notes are taken from the York Film Notes guide or unidentifiable voiceovers – the ‘voice of God’ – on the to La Haine by Roy Stafford published in 2000. The guide is soundtrack. Essentially, what we see and hear on the screen now out of print. The notes have been revised and updated is ‘plot’ – the sense we make of it is ‘story’. The filmmaker has where possible. taken the story and turned it into plot. The story is always bigger than the plot and because it requires audiences to play with inferences, it is also open to wide interpretation Part One: Film Form and Narrative Structures – different ‘readings’ of what it all means. Narrative The plot of La Haine La Haine is a one-off film – a generic hybrid with a strong From 10.38 a.m. one morning to 6.01 the next, three youths authorial presence. The keys to an understanding of how it is survey the aftermath of a riot on their estate, hang out with constructed as a filmic narrative are provided by some of the other youths and make two trips – to the hospital and to decisions taken by Mathieu Kassovitz before the production the city centre to meet a drug dealer. One of the youths is began: carrying a police revolver. In a final confrontation with the police, two shots are fired. • Start from the ending • Time constraint Put like this, the story which the audience might construct • A story rooted in reality seems limited in potential, but the specific narrative structure • Three youths as central characters – no single narrator and the way in which the narrative unfolds – the process • A journey to the city centre and back of narration – are crucial in turning something seemingly • Location shooting mundane into 95 minutes of gripping narrative cinema. • Carefully prepared camera set-ups • Lenses and filmstock Which story? • Use of different forms of popular music and ‘ambient’ How much are audiences expected to infer in order to sound discover the story of La Haine? How much is the story about the events of twenty hours in the lives of three young men Some of these decisions will be explored further in Part Three and how much about the whole estate (and others like it) under the heading ‘Style’. First, we will consider some basic and twenty years of conflict between the residents and the ideas about analysing narratives. police? There are plot clues to help answer these questions, but a significant amount of background knowledge about Approaching Narrative les banlieues is needed to get the full story (See Part Four: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson suggest that a Context). narrative is: In many fiction films, narrative questions or ‘enigmas’ are “… a chain of events in cause-effect relationship relatively straightforward – will the girl get the boy, will the occurring in time and space.” (Bordwell & Thompson murderer be caught? La Haine has such a central question 1986) – will the gun be used, will anyone be hurt? But it also has much bigger questions. The original title of the film was A specific narrative structure is therefore a construction Jusqu’ici tout va bien … (So far everything is OK …). This of events in a particular order with linking devices refers to the story told at the beginning of the film (and twice which tie together events separated by time and space. more later on) about the man falling from the high building, The manipulation of narrative time and space and the who as he passes each floor on the way down says to himself, deployment of various narrative devices comprises the main “so far, so good”. The film’s plot can be seen as one long fall. work of the film director as ‘storyteller’. But in a metaphorical sense it could be the whole of French society that is falling (the third time the story is told, ‘society’ Bordwell and Thompson also usefully distinguish between is substituted for ‘man’). The eventual title ‘Hate’ then refers ‘story’ and ‘plot’. A story will include all the ‘inferred events’ to the destructive force which is destroying society. Seen in which aren’t presented explicitly in a film, as well as all those these terms, a narrative analysis takes on a very serious tone that are. Inferred events could include the experiences of for discussion of what is a tale of despair, albeit filmed with the characters as children or the readers’ assumptions about an aesthetic which is vibrant and life affirming. what characters might be doing when they don’t appear on screen, but are involved in the narrative. The ‘plot’ includes Keys to the narrative the same explicitly presented events plus all the non-diegetic 1. Start from the ending information supplied by the filmmaker. Diegesis refers to the Mathieu Kassovitz has said that he knew the ending of La presentation of the fictional world on the screen. Anything Haine before he knew the story: ‘diegetic’ belongs in the world of the film – characters could use it or experience it directly. Non-diegetic information “The atmosphere is what I am interested in describing, might be the titles overlaid on the action. La Haine includes even before I know the story. This is the ‘message’. several such titles which remind the audience of the time Atmosphere and title are what come first. With Métisse of day. The other common non-diegetic material is music [his first film] and La Haine, I knew the ending before I 3
- 4. knew the storyline. Everything is about the end, the last seemingly purposeful compared to the pointlessness of life on few seconds.” (Mathieu Kassovitz quoted in Bourguignon the estate. and Tobin 1999) The manipulation of time is limited to the credit sequence Kassovitz gives a good interview and he goes on to argue that montage (which may refer to riots on the estates generally he is particularly interested in endings and that he believes both ‘now’ and in the past, but is most likely to refer to the they throw a whole new light on the rest of the story. This specific riot of the previous night). The only time when the makes sense in recognising how tightly structured the film trio is split up and the action may be in parallel time is when feels – that although there is relatively little ‘action’ as such, Saïd and Hubert are arrested and Vinz escapes to go to the there is still a strong sense of suspense. cinema and a boxing match. Earlier in the opening part of the narrative, the action follows Vinz and Saïd and then Hubert 2. Time constraint separately, but we assume that the action is presented in The restriction to a tightly defined time period is unusual sequence with compression of ‘dead time’ to bring it down to for an entire film narrative – often it is reserved for a specific the 95 minutes of screen time. Here again, the clock prevents suspense sequence. It is possibly a generic trait of some youth the audience from thinking that this is a conventional linear picture narratives, since youths are more likely to be ‘out all narrative: night’ and stranded by lack of resources, public transport etc. A twenty-hour period without sleep suggests an adventure, “… it enables the audience to understand that they are an uncommon experience. But most of all the concentration not following a linear plot, they are being presented with on a limited timespan helps to increase tension and to build an event at a specific time: the hours go by and then suspense – that emotional involvement of an audience something is going to happen at one precise moment. with screen events which creates the thrill of expectation of That’s why the audience don’t mind there being no plot, something about to happen. Suspense works by carefully it’s like a diary or a news report.” (Mathieu Kassovitz feeding the audience with information, but always keeping quoted in Bourguignon and Tobin 1999) something back. In La Haine the source of suspense is the gun and the condition of Abdel in hospital. If Abdel dies, There is a plot of course – in Bordwell and Thompson’s Vinz has vowed to kill a police officer. terms. It is a very carefully constructed plot, but Kassovitz is trying to emphasise that the important issue for the The use of titles to tell the audience the time works in favour audience is not the following of narrative action as such but of the suspense narrative in a number of ways. How much the development of feeling towards the characters and their longer will Vinz be able to maintain his self-control, before he situation and the build-up of tension about what might does something stupid? How much longer will Abdel survive? happen. The time passing also works symbolically. Vinz is like a time bomb, primed to go off. Each tick of the clock winds on 3. A story rooted in reality the ratchet another notch. It is a reminder of the metaphor, In the introduction to the initial script and in the interviews ‘so far, so good’ – we are still falling, but perhaps getting in which he promoted the film, Kassovitz referred to a real life nearer the ground. (Some critics, it should be noted, see the incident in which an 18 year-old black youth was shot dead insertions of the precise time as having no real narrative by a police officer during interrogation in 1992. (McNeill relevance – Kassovitz himself suggests that they are there (1998) refers to a 16 year-old Zairean shot in 1993 – one of to refer to the television news and magazine programmes the protestor’s placards in the opening montage of La Haine (‘reality’ programming), but he has also said that he took the refers to ‘Mako’.) The story of La Haine and specifically the sound of the ticking clock directly from a laserdisc of The ‘spark’ of the shooting of Abdel is thus rooted in the ‘reality’ Hudsucker Proxy (US, 1994) – implying that it was another of newspaper and other media reports (Kassovitz and his aspect of his attempt to explore the use of sound.) friend Vincent Cassel did not live on the estates but were aware of the conflict with the police and had taken part There are long periods in La Haine when ‘nothing happens’ in demonstrations – to this extent, their experience was – these are unemployed youths with nothing to do and time ‘first hand’). As the debates around La Haine have revealed, stretches before them. The clock titles then emphasise the there have been several other incidents in which black and opposite pressure of time – how to fill the long hours of Maghrebi youths have been killed in conflicts with the police tedium. This is well illustrated in the scene where the younger (see McNeill 1998). boy tells the trio about things he has seen on television and again when they miss the last train. Their whole lives seem Taking a ‘real’ incident as a starting point for writing a aimless and often the stories they tell have no real endings. fiction narrative, does not necessarily make the narrative ‘realist’. It does give it a sense of urgency and the possibility Overall, the manipulation of narrative time in La Haine of vibrancy in performance and relevance in the arguments creates a sense of unease – the clock ticking builds up tension it might explore. Films which take stories from news events which is exacerbated by the meanderings and frustration are likely to be widely discussed, since the issue is already shown by the youths. By contrast, the opening montage of part of public discourse. In practical terms it also means that news footage of the riot emphasises the ‘rush’ of adrenaline journalists wanting to write about the film have an immediate created by the disturbance. The riot is something new and hook on which to hang a story. But the real importance 4
- 5. of the Makome incident is to mark La Haine as a film Hubert is presented as a young man with a strong sense of which shouted about its relevance to a discussion of social identity and an African heritage. In his room, as he divides importance. up his hash to sell, we see posters on the wall showing Muhammed Ali in a boxing stance and the African-American “A kid got shot in the head in the eighteenth athlete Tommie Smith giving the black power salute at the arrondissement arrondissement, and maybe 500 people came to the 1968 Mexico City Olympics. This last image is one of the demonstration in the street. Two million people came most potent in the history of black culture – a defiant gesture to see our movie. People might reproach us for doing of resistance to the American establishment as the American a movie like this, but at least it’s a step in the right national anthem is played. The music he is playing is also direction.” (Vincent Cassel quoted in Premiere (US) African-American music. February 1996 – Kassovitz used the same quote in interviews elsewhere.) Vinz too is intrigued by American culture, but this time by the performance of Robert de Niro as the deranged Travis Kassovitz has said that he developed the idea from the Bickle in Taxi Driver. We also have an insight into Vinz’s starting point of “a boy who wakes up one morning, not sense of identity with his dream about dancing to Jewish realising that this day will be his last” (Empire November Empire folk music. The dialogue in Vinz’s home also emphasises his 1995). This sounds very much like the auteur explaining his Jewishness. We never see Saïd at home, but perhaps this is motivation or the director pitching a story to a producer. because his is the dominant culture on the estate and he is Kassovitz does not mention him directly, but the producer/ more ‘at home’ out in the community, where his brother and director who more than most took his stories from news sister are also to be found, in contrast with Vinz and Hubert’s reports was Sam Fuller, an ex-newspaper man and an families who are seen only in their homes. Maghrebi youth innovator in the use of the camera. Fuller’s low-budget work represent the largest 'ethnic minority' in French society with attracted many European fans amongst young directors in the a concentration in certain areas, including Greater Paris. 1960s and his films would provide a useful comparison for La Haine (in terms of camera style as well as narrative). In one interview Mathieu Kassovitz suggested that his original intention was to make Hubert the character through 4. Three youths as central characters – no single narrator whose eyes we see the story, on the grounds that he was the La Haine is unusual in having three central protagonists. furthest removed from the action – it certainly couldn’t be Hubert, Saïd and Vinz are perhaps unlikely ‘mates’. Although Vinz who was the narrator (Bourguignon and Tobin 1999). they might all live on the same estate, their different ethnic backgrounds – West African-French, Maghrebi and Jewish In the event, several sequences are ‘told’ by other characters – would probably keep them apart. This suggests that because Hubert is not in the scene. Kassovitz is not a audiences should think about them in metaphorical rather particularly reliable source, since it seems clear from the than realist terms (a point emphasised by the decision to opening and closing of the film that Saïd is the main narrator keep the actors’ first names and not to use family names of the events – his eyes open and close to signal the start and – making the characters less ‘real’ in terms of ‘documenting’ end of the film (but Hubert tells us the story of the falling a person). They are each ‘introduced’ by a visual device: Saïd man on the soundtrack in voiceover). sprays his name on the police van. Vinz wears his name as a knuckleduster and Hubert appears on a boxing poster. They The performances of the three youths are strong – partly are representative of oppressed groups in society and all three no doubt because to a certain extent the actors are ‘playing are part of a large single oppressed group – unemployed themselves’. Vincent Cassel had more acting experience and working class young males on estates. would have used this in the creation of Vinz but Hubert Koundé who had appeared with Kassovitz himself in Métisse, While they are ‘representative’, the three characters are also and Saïd Taghmaoui, who was a friend of Cassel’s with no distinguished by different personal qualities. Hubert is previous experience, must have relied much more on their seemingly the oldest (early twenties?) and most experienced. understanding of the issues and their own ‘life experiences’. He is the most mature in terms of his relationships and (Kassovitz persuaded Cassel to shave his head and this helped level-headed in his actions. Clues scattered in the text suggest get him into role.) he has learned from his experiences – he was involved in serious criminal activity, but got out before he was caught. By selecting young men in this way, Kassovitz was consciously He has done service in the French Navy. Vinz is the most excluding older men – the ‘first generation’ of immigrants. ‘loutish’, shooting off his mouth and seemingly on the There are no fathers in the film. We see Vinz’s grandmother edge of violence. He may be on the verge of schizophrenia and aunt, Hubert’s mother and sister (and we hear about (suggested by the hallucinations of the cow). Saïd appears to his other brothers), Saïd’s sister and older brother and the be the youngest. He displays naïvety and an adolescent wit Jewish ‘grandfather’ figure who appears in the Paris public backed up by a terrific talent for invective. But underneath he toilet. Apart from ‘Monsieur Toilettes’ there is no parental/ is pretty sensible. These personal qualities are confirmed by patriarchal figure who tells the youths how to behave (but what we see of the characters in their home situations. see below for surrogates). Whilst there are several younger women as relatives – all three youths have sisters – none 5
- 6. of them have girlfriends. This is essentially a male and them packing with the explanation that the estate is not a masculine text. safari park with animals on display – but for comfortable middle class viewers it surely is something just as exotic. (The The three characters have clearly defined roles. Hubert is sequence is also playful in locating Hubert sitting at the end the source of knowledge and experience. He knows his way of a hippopotamus slide and in emphasising Vinz’s ignorance round, he is accepted everywhere, yet he has to compromise. of the safari park.) At the start of the film he has lost the gym he worked so hard to create (and he suspects that Vinz may be partly Kassovitz’s decision to base the shooting on one specific estate responsible). He must look after his mother, giving her his (La Noë in the ‘new town’ of Chanteloup-les-Vignes, north profits from dealing in order to pay the bills. Saïd is our west of Paris) and to spend a great deal of time setting up guide through the more mundane scenes. He is curious and shots and getting to know the people on the estate is evident wants the standard experiences. He wants a girlfriend and in the ‘feel’ of the locations as a ‘real place’, rather than one excitement. He wants his just rewards from the drug dealer. constructed solely through editing. Ginette Vincendeau Vinz is the source of danger and of threat. Seen in these points out that the estate chosen is not so obviously desolate terms, the ending of the film is desperate, as Vinz, realising as those with very high towers, but it is well known in Paris as how unhinged he has become, gives the gun to Hubert, the a model estate built to house workers at a car factory that has character in whom the audience probably has the most faith. since closed down. The problems of the unemployed on the Vinz is punished when he hasn’t committed the crime. estate are well known and the journalistic assumptions are accurately captured in the play area scene (Vincendeau 2000). 5. A journey to the city Narratives which deal with journeys are often concerned 7. Camera set-ups with the ‘growth’ of the characters who learn from new Reviews of La Haine tend to over-emphasise the use of experiences or who find themselves in conflicts created by ‘documentary techniques’ which suggests a narrative based the very different environments. (In fact, this concept of on ‘ordinary, everyday experience’, like the ‘day in a life’ style a journey implying character development is strongest in of documentary. Instead, much of La Haine is constructed Hollywood – in other film cultures the link is not so strong.) around a series of carefully choreographed set pieces which The journey in La Haine is short – about 40 minutes by train are rehearsed and photographed in long single takes. The into Paris – but it does take the youths to a distinctly different long take here is less a marker for ‘realism’ and more an environment. This is ironically signalled by the poster which expressionistic device suited to a narrative which attempts tells them “the world is yours” (when it clearly isn’t), by to be a commentary on youth in the estates. Indeed, Saïd’s first encounter with a policeman who is polite and Bourguignon and Tobin refer to the film not as ‘realistic’, calls him ‘Sir’ (which would never happen on the estate) and but as a ‘contemporary fairy tale’. This feeling for the more by the camera movement which ‘makes strange’ the image fantastical kind of story is created partly by the kind of of the three youths against the Paris skyline. Later they try camerawork in the scene where a local DJ mixes two records the old trick of switching off the lights on the Eiffel tower live from his flat as the camera glides out above the tower – but it doesn’t work, they are tourists after all. They are not blocks. at home in the city centre and the journey enables them to learn something about themselves, but they must return and 8. Lenses and filmstock by the end of the film they have not learned enough to save Cinematography is also used as a form of narrative device. themselves. The journey also allows the audience to consider An attempt was made, although not completely followed how isolated the communities in les banlieues are, compared through, to film all the scenes on the estate with a short, to the city centre and how great is the disparity in wealth and ‘wide’ lens and the scenes in Paris with a longer lens (see Part amenities. Unlike some other films about les banlieues, La Three). This has the effect of emphasising the closeness to Haine has no scenes about the boundaries of the estate – one the environment of the people on the estate and the relative moment the youths are on the estate, then they are nearly in distance from the environment – people stand out from the Paris. The estate, ‘real’ as it is, appears to be simply ‘out there’. background – in the Paris scenes. Although barely perceptible in most scenes this has an almost unconscious effect on the 6. Location shooting audience. The narrative ‘space’ of the film comprises the estate and selected areas of the city centre. The estate almost becomes The film was shot on colour stock, but then printed for another character. It is a soul-less place, an environment of projection as black and white because Kassovitch decided open desolate spaces dominated by looming blocks of flats. that this fitted the story much better. It suggests the downbeat The camera is used to emphasise the ‘canyons’ between the nature of the estates, but also frames Paris in an unfamiliar blocks and the shouting up to Vinz’s flat by Saïd emphasises guise (except for audiences old enough to remember the early the lack of privacy and of real communication between films of Godard and Truffaut perhaps). The only splash of the residents. The environment brutalises the inhabitants colour in the whole film is the Molotov cocktail falling to the and this point is nicely explored in the sequence where the ground in the opening frame – much more powerful because television news crew attempt to interview the three youths it is isolated in this way. when they are sitting in a children’s play area. Hubert sends 6
- 7. 9. Use of different forms of popular music and ambient Vinz actually refers to the DJ as a “killer”. The traditional sound song is ‘Je ne regrette rien’, the best known song by Edith There are several different ways to use music in a fiction film. Piaf, the working-class Parisian singer of romantic and tragic It can be used to create mood and enhance suspense or fear songs. Piaf has no British or American equivalent but she or other emotions. It can be used to make a specific comment was something like Gracie Fields crossed with Judy Garland. on a sequence or the actions of a character. It can carry a The mix of the two songs (the refrain from Supreme NTM theme, repeating a specific motif. Or it can simply be used to is ‘Fuck the police’) produces a powerful statement which enhance the marketing of the film by the use of a hit record manages to combine the working-class popular culture of or a performance by a specific artist. La Haine uses music Paris, a very ‘French’ culture, with the more internationalist to perform several of these functions but, arguably, it is also and modern perspective of rap. Ginette Vincendeau (2000) used in a more sophisticated way to complement the visual also points out that Piaf was a heroine for the extreme right- narrative in a coherent and continuous way. wing paratroopers who fought against the Algerians in the war of independence, suggesting a very heady cocktail of The use of different forms of popular music – reggae, rap, allegiances in the mix. As the camera soars above the estate hip hop, funk, jazz, African etc. – and the choice of specific with its 1970s apartment blocks and occasional tall trees, it tracks suggests a rare sensibility and possibly an inspiration suggests a notion of potential solidarity between generations from other filmmakers. Tarantino was a name mentioned and a general antagonism against the metropolitan by some of the reviewers but a more likely source is Martin authorities. Scorsese and his first commercial independent feature, Mean Streets (US, 1973) – very much a favourite of Mathieu Other approaches to narrative Kassovitz. Mean Streets mixed black American music with The keys above are based on what appear to have been opera, popular Italian songs and the Rolling Stones, both Kassovitz’s own approach to the narrative structure of commenting on the action and developing ideas for the La Haine. We can also explore what can be learned about audience about the cultural milieu – using the music as a La Haine as a narrative by applying some other standard means of developing characters and moving the narrative approaches such as those associated with Todorov and Propp. forward. (See Branston with Stafford (2010) for more background on these two theorists.) It is difficult from an Anglo-American perspective to analyse the use of the specific tracks on the La Haine soundtrack, 1. Todorov and equilibrium but the cultural diversity is evident. The film opens with the Tzvetan Todorov is credited with introducing the idea of Wailers’ ‘Burnin’ and Lootin’’ from the 1973 album Burnin’. narrative as a process of disruption and equilibrium. Every The use of this song from the early career of Bob Marley narrative is assumed to start with a range of potentially effectively links the actions of the youth on the estates to conflicting forces in some kind of balance or equilibrium. the universal movement of black people in their ‘uprisings’ This is then disrupted by an event which creates actual against oppression in post-colonial Jamaica and in the racist conflict. The conflict develops up to a climactic point, after societies of Britain and the United States. Although racism which there is some form of resolution and the establishment is not confronted directly in La Haine, this opening does of a new equilibrium. suggest an outward looking and universal resistance. Marley and the Wailers were still thought of as radical in 1973, In La Haine the ‘initial equilibrium’ is the precarious balance not yet the ‘sell-out’ to the white music industry as seen by between the anger of the youths and the repressive power some parts of the black community in Britain at the end of of the police. The balance is only maintained through the 1970s. While Marley himself was popular in France, his an element of self-control in each case. What then is the influence, especially in West Africa, saw reggae also entering disruption? Is it the shooting of Abdel, the riot which ensues France via French-speaking African performers. or the loss of the pistol which is found by Vinz? All of these actions occur before the plot begins, as is often the case in But recognition of Marley on the soundtrack is more of a film narratives. It does make a difference which is chosen as trigger for older audiences. The youth audience would be far the disruption. It could be argued that because the important more likely to respond to the rap acts such as Supreme NTM. balance is between the police and the youths in general, the According to one music fan in Australia: riot is the most significant. But for Hubert, Saïd and Vinz the pistol is more important. Is the film primarily about society “… the DJ in the window is Cut Killer (a famous NOVA in general, or is it the story of three youths? radio DJ,) and it's a song of his own mixing. I believe it includes some singing by a famous French singer from The main part of the film is certainly concerned with the the 40s (‘real’ famous, but I forget the name,) as well as escalating conflict between the youths and the police, a sample from Supreme NTM. There's also a loop that's although we only see the three friends for most of the time the same one as used by Notorious Big in ‘Things Done and their conflict is with a range of forces representing a Changed’ and the ‘woop-woop’ sound is KRS-1 (once threat to their safety, including fascist skinheads and the again, I forget the song name!)” (from an internet news angry middle class residents of Astérix’s block of flats, as group on the Acid Jazz Archive). well as the police in their different guises. There is clearly a climactic moment – the shooting of Vinz and the ‘Mexican 7
- 8. standoff ’ between Hubert and the police officer. Is there a 3. Genre resolution? No. We can only infer what happens when Saïd Is La Haine a generic narrative? What can we learn about closes his eyes and the gun goes off. We fear that we have its narrative by applying genre concepts as critical tools or crash landed after our fall from the 50 storey building. This comparing La Haine with other films from similar genres? lack of traditional resolution – the ‘open’ ending – makes La Haine a progressive narrative in the sense that it draws Although an interest in film genres can be traced back far back from a conservative resolution (i.e. one which neatly into the history of cinema, the main interest in ‘genre theory’ ties up the loose ends and suggests that the conflict can be only developed in the 1960s as part of the more general contained). What might happen after the gun goes off? Will application of structuralist ideas. Structuralism can be seen there be another, bigger riot? Will the authorities finally as an attempt to consider the similarities of study objects begin to do something about the underlying problems of – in this case film texts – and the ways in which they are racism and unemployment? Applying Todorov often makes constructed. Ideas about genre in film studies derive to a large the political questions about narratives more accessible extent from literature studies and the structuralist move to through its emphasis on a ‘balance of forces’. It foregrounds study film genres could be seen as an attempt to work against the inherent conservative nature of Hollywood films which the then prevailing influence of literature on film – the conform to the ‘happy ending’ syndrome. concentration on the auteur, the single ‘author’ of the film, usually taken to be the director. So, was Kassovitz creating 2. Propp and fairytales from scratch or was he working with generic conventions? Propp’s work on Russian folktales and his presentation of a series of common ‘character functions’ (Propp 1968) is also The road movie useful in thinking about film narratives if it means that we We’ve already noted that one of Kassovitz’s decisions was to can pose interesting critical questions about a specific text. send the trio on a journey into Paris. Many of the narrative La Haine has already been termed a ‘fairy tale’ (Bourguignon devices which propel them through their adventures in the and Tobin 1999), so applying Propp should produce some big city are recognisable from American road movies. The insights. appeal of the road movie as a genre comes from the conflicts which arise because of ‘difference’ – when the protagonists The most important character functions in a Proppian travel through communities with different values and beliefs. analysis relate to the hero, the villain and the princess. The This can be represented as country v. town, sophisticated v. fairytales Propp studied often concerned knights who set out backwoods etc. or more directly in terms of race, wealth etc. to rescue damsels, who were ‘in distress’ because they had A classic example of a youth orientated road movie would be been kidnapped by an evil lord. The knight is sent out on Easy Rider (US 1969), in which two hippies ride through rural the journey by the king, the keeper of order, and is aided by America on motorbikes, encountering ferocious opposition ‘helpers’ (e.g. a good wizard), but impeded by ‘blockers’. The from communities who treat them as an alien intruders. rescue of the princess is the ‘goal’ in the narrative and the new resolution is often the marriage of knight and princess after There are other films which share a concern with youths the villain has been defeated. from the suburbs experiencing the city centre and a common device is to abandon the protagonists in the centre at night, At first glance, the Proppian tale has little in common with exposing them to danger. A celebrated Hollywood example La Haine. However, it is still useful to consider some of is The Warriors (US, 1979) which translates an ancient Greek the character functions. The hero is perhaps a composite story of warriors fighting their way home from overseas of the three youths. The quest is to secure the honour of battles to the world of gang warfare in New York where one the wounded Abdel (is he the princess?) – Vinz argues that gang must cross enemy territory in the city to get home to shooting a police offer is the way to achieve this, but for Saïd its ‘patch’. The narrative of the road movie is often described and Hubert simply getting through the day in one piece as ‘picaresque’ – comprising a series of adventures for would be an achievement. The villains are the plain clothes ‘vagabond’ characters. This loose structure does sometimes police, especially ‘Notre Dame’. The helpers are perhaps the have a clear goal for the heroes and often implies a change in DJ and the characters who tell the heroes stories and generally attitude brought about by experience. The initial narrative keep up their morale. The blockers are the other police units, thrust of the road movie can be negative – the hero escapes Astérix and his neighbours, the skinheads etc. It isn’t easy from something bad like the Joad family leaving their to see a king, a ‘sender’ for the mission. Perhaps the king is desolate farm in The Grapes of Wrath (US, 1940) or Thelma represented by the parents on the estate, such as Hubert’s and Louise (US, 1991) on the run from the police. It can also mother, who unwittingly send out the youths on their quest. be positive – a conscious attempt to go and look for a new Seen in this light, the gun is a kind of ‘poisoned chalice’ that life, a better life ‘out there’. In most cases, however, characters acts like a temptation to the heroes. At the end of the tale, are forced onto the road for a learning experience. In most they appear to have resisted the temptation, only using it to cases this eventually leads to a happy ending after obstacles fend off the skinheads. Abdel is dead, but his honour is still to have been overcome. In two of the examples celebrated above, be saved. But in Proppian terms, the quest is never fulfilled, Easy Rider and Thelma and Louise, the characters certainly the villains are successful in stopping the quest. There is no learn a great deal both about themselves and about America, happy ending, the forces of evil are too powerful. but the knowledge is arguably so dangerous that they must die. Perhaps this nihilistic sense of characters who learn but 8
- 9. have no power to change their predicament is a key to La ensues, it is Hubert who helps Samir to try to pacify the Haine? youths. With Samir as surrogate father to all the youths, this could be a family melodrama (i.e. a genre more interested Youth pictures in the emotional relationships between family members Perhaps the most useful genre definition to investigate is than in action), but the sociological point is that no matter that of the youth picture. This is a broad classification that how many black and Maghrebi police officers like Samir are depends mainly on an obvious appeal to a youth audience recruited, the real problem is elsewhere (i.e. society’s fall). – very roughly 14-25, the single most important age group in the cinema audience. In order to appeal to this age group the The social problem film film must also, to a certain extent, alienate an adult audience This is to a large extent a British cinema genre which is not and we have already noted that the youths are likely to be found so readily in other national cinemas, where similar opposed to figures of authority. subject material forms the basis for action dramas or character studies. The generic base of such films could be La Haine is clearly identifiable as a youth picture – partly melodrama, but the defining criterion is the film’s concern because of its adoption of the ‘iconography of international with a designated social problem that is investigated by a youth culture’, the largely American-inspired music, clothes (usually liberal-minded) hero representing authority, or and lifestyle concerns. The film is narrated by the three which is illustrated by a ‘case study’ of a particular person, youths (one of whom is on screen or on the soundtrack family or community. The style of such films will also tend throughout the entire film). They are relatively ‘rounded’ towards ‘social realism’. A classic example from Britain might characters in the sense that we learn quite a lot about them. be Sapphire (UK, 1959), in which a liberal detective inspector The other characters are seen through their eyes. This raises and his racist sidekick investigate the murder of a mixed expectations that parents, police and other authority figures race girl who has ‘passed for white’. Made partly in response will be viewed as ‘outside’ the youth world and represented to the 1958 ‘race riots’ in Notting Hill, the film enabled a as sketches, drawn with little detail on the outline of familiar debate about racism to develop around a conventional ‘police genre types. This is also going to be the case with other procedural’ detective story. youths, shopkeepers etc. Imagine Samir as the lead character in La Haine – how Thinking about representations generally in the film, it is different would the narrative be? A more direct comparison evident that the members of the youths’ families are indeed for La Haine might be the Ken Loach film Looks and Smiles built up by short scenes with brief snatches of dialogue (1981) made for television in the UK in which two young conforming to the genre expectation, but also rooted in men leave school looking for work during the collapse of a sense of ‘real’ families. The younger sisters show only employment prospects for teenagers in industrial Britain. contempt or indifference towards their brothers. Saïd’s Shot like La Haine in black and white on location in Sheffield, elder brother takes on the father role. The mothers are long this film has a clear political purpose – to present the need to suffering etc. The characters the youths meet include generic debate why the young people are suffering in the industrial types like the fence, the drug dealers on the estate, the TV decline of Britain. crew, the boxing fans, the man who helps them when they try to steal a car etc. This is particularly so of the interrogation in La Haine obviously has the potential to address a number of the police station where the evil cop tries to impress the more social issues or ‘problems’ – racism, youth unemployment, liberal one who is disgusted by the brutality shown to Hubert police brutality, housing and environmental/recreational and Saïd. The three ‘extraordinary’ characters (the boy provision etc., but it avoids the British approach of presenting who tells the story about the TV show, the old Jewish man, arguments, looking directly for reasons and possible Astérix) all effectively ‘put on a show’, stopping the narrative. solutions. Instead it emphasises a French insistence on They seem much more part of the ‘road movie’, the string of philosophical questions or an American insistence on action. adventures and strange encounters. The action/crime film The one more sympathetic character, with whom the In Britain, youth has often been taken to present a ‘social youths do interact, is Samir, the Maghrebi police officer, problem’ in itself and there are many British films which who extricates the trio from the possibility of arrest at the combine ‘social problem’ and ‘youth picture’ narratives. A hospital. Although his role is relatively small, the exchanges more common American practice is to make ‘youth’ versions he has with Saïd and his brother, Nordine, are emotionally of popular Hollywood genres. There have been ‘young charged and crucial to the overall argument of the film. On westerns’ such as Young Guns (US, 1988) and ‘young action the roof top Samir approaches Nordine who denies he knows pictures’ like Top Gun (US, 1986) – a high school picture with him and when Samir rescues Saïd, he says: “I did it for your military technology. La Haine has been related to the ‘young brother”. Saïd eventually shakes his hand – to Vinz’s disgust. gangster/gang’ pictures such as Juice (US, 1992) in which We could read these exchanges as suggesting that Samir is the Black youth in the housing projects, drug dealing and rap only rational character in the film – but that would be too music are all generic elements. easy. Samir offers to help Hubert with the gym, but Hubert turns him down: “The kids want to hit more than punchbags Mathieu Kassovitz names his influences as American cinema, now”. When Samir is attacked by Abdel’s brother and a scuffle but the ‘independents’ rather than the mainstream. We do not 9
- 10. have to refer to his intentions as the basis for any genre study. and surrendered the gun to Hubert, being senselessly shot. There is evidence for at least some elements of all the genres Hubert, the reformed and more mature character is about to mentioned here to be found in La Haine, but overall La Haine kill or be killed and Saïd – perhaps the representative of most is not a genre movie, rather it ‘plays’ with generic elements in of us in the audience – can’t bear to watch. a ‘post genre’ way. Kassovitz’s polemical outburts in his interviews are Reading La Haine sometimes misleading. He wants people to see his film and so The ‘open’ narrative structure of La Haine means that every he says provocative things (e.g. that it is an anti-police film). audience is invited to take the narrative ingredients and write But closer examination reveals that he balances the police their own story according to the way they wish to read it. By violence by showing the disgust of some police officers and contrast, many mainstream Hollywood movies are ‘closed’ the helplessness of others. He also shows the youths as aware – they present a resolution that leaves little space for the of their own aimlessness and their need to change or get out audience to do any more than tie up loose ends and accept (which Hubert articulates). The youths are not innocents, the the outcome. police are not devils. La Haine is a complex text and deserves to be read carefully. Following Kassovitz’s own statements, it has generally been assumed that La Haine is a ‘political’ film in the sense that In Part Two we consider how these meanings are constructed it has something important to say and despite its generic via selected cinematic techniques and in Part Three how the references and entertainment features, most readers will context of the film might influence our readings as well as the draw upon their own political ideas in deciding what sense ways in which meanings were offered to audiences for debate. to make of it. ‘Political’ here is taken to refer to politics in the widest sense of ‘involvement in social and cultural relations’ Part Two: Style and there are many different stances which might be taken towards the film. We will consider just two readings. The success of La Haine is as much to do with its aesthetic as its content or narrative drive. Aesthetics is concerned with The events of La Haine are rooted in reality – they could beauty and conceptions of art. It is applicable to cinema in happen and they already have. The deaths of youths in these terms of how filmmakers conceive of their films as art and circumstances are senseless and most of us would want them how they organise the creative contributions of camera, to stop. Does the film suggest the reasons why the deaths lighting, production design, sound and music in production, happen? Does it suggest any means of stopping the next and then editing in post-production, in order to present a death? One reading might come at the film from a relatively coherent work. La Haine is notable for major contributions detached viewpoint, seeing the problem of les banlieues as in all these areas. It is a film designed to be seen in cinemas part of the general condition of the ‘post-industrial’ global on the biggest screen possible. If you have only watched it on economy with its underclass of the socially excluded – young video, you will not have experienced the full force of a film unemployed men, fed a diet of debased culture and caught which for cinema audiences is an overwhelming experience in a consumer trap of unfulfillable expectations of affluence. – the complex camerawork and the subtle use of sound and Their masculinity is as much a problem as their unemployed music demand the big auditorium. status, pushing them towards violent solutions because they have no alternative goals. The state is unable or unwilling to Overall approach help them and becomes repressive in trying to contain their La Haine is ‘different’ from both the mainstream of frustration. This reading puts emphasis on the global power Hollywood film culture and from some of the more of international capital and the consequent dominance of specialised forms of European or American independent American culture with its detrimental effects on French cinema. Many American reviewers have taken the film to be society – importing violent behaviour. The solution is to directly influenced by the urban gangster or ‘hood’ films such change the youths behaviour and bring them back into as New Jack City (US 1991) and have imagined that somehow mainstream culture. it has a similar aesthetic. Others have assumed a social realist style associated with location shooting and a gritty content. A slightly different reading might place more ‘blame’ on More knowledgeable writers have noted Kassovitz’s references the French state and its treatment of the youths, based to his mentors – a range of mostly American independents on racism and fear. This reading, whilst not denying the and Hollywood auteurs – and have recognised a whole- problems of masculinity, might show more interest in the hearted commitment to the development of a suitable camera youths themselves and the possibility of their redemption. and editing style for this specific film. It might be more optimistic in creating an anger against the actions of the police and recognising the adoption of The preparation certainly pays off in terms of the some aspects of American culture as progressive if it allows camerawork and then the possibilities for editing which the youths to resist more effectively. If this reading is given the careful, choreographed shooting allows. A personal slightly more support here it is perhaps because of Kassovitz’s opinion might be that La Haine displays some of the best own reference to the ending. When Hubert tells the story cinematography seen anywhere during the 1990s. It is highly of the fall a third time he substitutes ‘society’ for ‘man’. The stylised without drawing attention to its own devices, so open ending presents us with Vinz, who has learned a lesson that it registers as visually exciting, but not flashy. Overall it 10
- 11. creates a developing tension between a slow almost dreamlike the opposite effect of ‘foreshortening’ – cutting out the dead wander about the environment punctuated by sudden sharp ground between the viewer and a distant object so that it bursts of action. This is achieved by the use of a highly mobile appears much closer. The long lens is often called a ‘telephoto’ camera, often on tracks, and an editing motif which in the – literally ‘photographs across a long distance’. Long lenses are early part of the film always cuts on some form of ‘explosive’ often used in films detailing outdoor action such as westerns image. or war films allowing an audience to be taken into the midst of a battle or to see a group of mounted horsemen close up. Camerawork Kassovitz worked very closely with his cinematographer, A photographic image is captured using a combination of Pierre Aïm and his camera operator, Georges Diane. The crew lens and aperture – the small opening through which the worked on the estate for a month. They were conscious of light reflected on the scene reaches the film. The aperture is not wanting to antagonise the residents and so the shooting like the human iris. When there is plenty of light, the aperture was balanced between the need to prepare carefully for can be closed down – when there is little light it must be very complicated shots and the decision to take risks on opened. The smaller the aperture the longer the focal length shots which were unlikely to be repeatable. Kassovitz had a and the greater the depth of focus – the portion of the scene reasonable budget, but he was also working under restraints in front of the camera which will appear in sharp focus. With created by the relationship with the people of the estate: a very small aperture it is possible to achieve ‘deep focus’ so that virtually everything in front of the camera is in focus, “The aim was to make the estate seem beautiful, supple, from objects a few feet away to buildings fifty yards away. This fluid. I had the money I needed. It seemed too much at effect was achieved in early cinema where outdoor shooting times, a bit of a come-on, like a pop promo when the in strong sunlight gave plenty of light for a small aperture. In director’s ideas are bad. That’s the danger – when you can a studio it was more difficult to achieve with artificial lights afford to you’re tempted to use every trick you can think and so techniques developed to film the action in a restricted of. That’s the way I am. If I know I’ve got tracks in the depth of focus – just in the middle ground, with no objects in truck, I can’t just leave them there … the foreground and no discernible background to the shot. In modern cinema the shallow depth of focus is sometimes used … You have to know how to handle an estate, it only in a scene to shift attention from one character to another takes someone on the crew to hit a child because he’s sick – e.g. in a scene with two characters, one of whom is nearer of being insulted and that’s the end of the shoot. We all the camera, the focus may switch between the characters knew that. We were very tense, but it was good tension. as they speak – with sharp focus causing that character to We knew we were making a film that was ‘different’. We stand out against a slightly fuzzy background. This effect is tried things out. As a director, I refused to play safe and noticeable at the beginning of La Haine when we see Saïd for get lots of cover. I took risks. That was exciting. The the first time. The camera suddenly moves behind him so that cast and the crew did too.” (Kassovitz interviewed by the back of his head almost fills the screen. Then it moves Bourguignon and Tobin 1999) upwards and we are aware of a fuzzy background image with slight movements. As the focus switches, Saïd’s head becomes In the interview quoted above Kassovitz distinguishes an out of focus foreground and the background comes into between the role of the cinematographer to organise lighting focus to reveal the line of riot police. and select, stock, filters etc. and the camera operator who frames the shot. Framing is crucial in La Haine, especially Combining the effect of lens and aperture produces quite in the way it is achieved by camera movement. Later we striking results. A wide angle lens and a small aperture will consider a sequence in detail in terms of framing and produces a very deep field of action, nearly all of which is in movement. First it is necessary to discuss some of the focus. This is the basis of the visual style of the scenes in La techniques Kassovitz deploys. Haine set on the estate. A good example early in the film sees Vinz and Saïd walking through the estate on the way to the Deep focus/depth of field burned out gym to meet Hubert. The long take begins with The economy of shots in La Haine is organised around a low angle shot with the camera tilting down to normal eye camera lenses so that in the first half of the film on the level and Vinz and Saïd walk into the frame from behind the estate, lens are ‘short/wide angle’, but in Paris they are long/ camera. They carry on walking ahead and the camera follows telephoto. them a little way, but then stops by a petrol pump daubed with graffiti. Vinz and Saïd walk on into the background Lenses are measured in millimetres representing the distance across an open space towards the gym, meeting two younger between the lens and the image capturing device – the film in boys halfway and then carrying on all the way to the doors a traditional camera or a light sensing chip in a digital (video) of the gym. It is difficult to judge the distance but it must camera. A ‘short’ lens of around 25mm on a film camera be thirty or forty yards. The whole scene is in focus, from produces a ‘wide angle’ effect so that compared to normal the moment Vinz and Saïd pass the camera until the final human vision, objects appear further away but more of the moment when they reach the door of the gym. In the next scene can be ‘crammed in’. A relatively short lens is useful scene, inside the gym, the camera moves constantly, again when filming in enclosed spaces. A ‘long’ lens of 80mm has largely maintaining focus, but it is much more difficult inside 11
- 12. the darkened gym to create the depth of focus with low light changed. Opening with a wide angle lens quite close to the levels, so some blurring further away from the camera is characters, the whole of Paris is in focus behind them and the inevitable. foreground appears slightly deeper than in ‘normal vision’. Zooming in brings the background closer but loses the focus The scene with the walk to the gym is unusual in mainstream and shrinks the foreground. As the camera pulls back the features. Long shots are rare, unless they are used for ‘foreshortening’ effect increases (there is now more ‘dead dramatic moments (a sniper lining up a shot) or to emphasise ground’ between the camera and the subject). The characters a tiny human figure against the inhuman scale of buildings in the shot appear to be in the same place, but now we tend to or natural environments. This is not how they are used in La feel on top of them. It is difficult to describe this process and Haine – there are characters against the desolate environment the best way to understand it is to try the trick yourself with a of the estate, but they belong there. As well as the walk to video camera. the gym, there are other similar scenes in La Haine – the youths sat in the children’s play area when the television crew After this ‘switch’, which is also marked by a sound change appears, the aerial shot with Cut Killer’s rap mix, the youths (to the roar of Paris traffic), the shooting is much more sat outside a shop as the boy tells the story about the Candid conventional for the Paris scenes. Sometimes the change is Camera television show, the youths walking through the barely perceptible, but the Paris scenes are generally ‘flatter’ estate and passing the police officers walking the other way. than those on the estate. This last sequence ends with a very carefully composed image as Hubert separates from the other two to meet a dope dealer. Distortion As he conducts business in the foreground, Saïd and Vinz are One of the disadvantages of wide angle lenses is that objects clearly visible in the background. Focus here is switched not close to the camera can be distorted, appearing to expand by a change in the visual image, but by the mix of the voices to fill the screen. Faces in particular appear to loom into the on the soundtrack which switches between Hubert and the camera. This is noticeable first when at the beginning of the dealer and Vinz and Saïd. In the shots where the camera is film, Saïd enters Vinz’s room. The low angle shot shows a relatively static, it keeps its distance and simply records the wakening Vinz looming into the camera with Saïd clearly in moments of inconsequential life of the estate. A similar use focus in the background by the door. Towards the end of the of the long shot is evident in Ken Loach’s Raining Stones (UK film when Vinz fantasises about shooting the traffic cop, a 1993), another film set largely on a housing estate (this time rare wide angle in the second half of the film emphasise the in North Manchester). This unobtrusive camera is almost gun which fills the camera in a blurry outline. A distortion documentary in style and much less expressive than the effect is also evident in the ‘subjective’ shot from the security moving camera in La Haine. camera at Astérix’s apartment. This is a function of security cameras which must show as much as possible of the scene The final sequence begins with another carefully composed before them. depth shot. Vinz hands the gun to Hubert and we think the tension has come to an end. The camera stays on Hubert The moving camera and Vinz and Saïd walk away, with Saïd telling another of his Some of the scenes described above have used a relatively jokes. Although they walk right through to the next road we static camera. But the most striking visual feature of La Haine can still see them clearly in focus when the police car pulls is the tracking camera which follows the youths as they move up. Now we have to race with Hubert to find out what is through the estate. This is the fluid camera of Scorsese and happening. of the highly individual auteur of British youth-orientated film and television material, Alan Clarke (e.g. Rita, Sue and The switch Bob Too, UK, 1986 – a comedy set on the estates of Bradford). Precisely halfway through the film, the youths arrive in Paris Sometimes this camera follows at a discreet distance, and Kassovitz plays his party-piece to signal the switch of occasionally it is ‘in close’ or performing exaggerated turns location and the change of style. Hubert closes his eyes on and twists. the train and when he opens them the three youths are lined up like a holiday trio against a balcony wall overlooking A moving camera is usually found in conjunction with long the city. What happens next is a trick usually attributed to takes. Action is organised so that the camera can follow what Hitchcock who used it in Vertigo (US, 1958) when James happens in a continuous take without the need to ‘cover’ the Stewart looks down the tower and again in Marnie (US, 1964) shot from another angle. A long take might last 20 seconds when Tippi Hedren remembers her childhood trauma. The or more. The actors’ movements and the camera crews’ must effect is extremely unsettling as the characters appear to be be carefully marked out – almost choreographed like dance moving one way while the earth is moving the other way. It steps. It requires a brave director to shoot in long takes with is achieved by pulling the camera back on a track while at the no cover – there is only one shot for the editor (of course same time zooming in. A zoom lens is in effect two lenses in the shot can be repeated but that might lengthen the shoot a tube and the distance between them can be altered. At one considerably). So, although the fluid camera might look setting the focal length produces a wide angle effect and at the almost ad-libbed, it actually requires very careful preparation. other extreme is the telephoto. By pulling back and zooming in, the characters remain roughly the same size in the image, Cameras are generally moved on tracks using a small trolley but the the foreground and background are completely – thus ‘tracking’. The trolley is also sometimes called a ‘dolly’, 12
- 13. especially when it is being moved towards or away from the From this you can calculate an Average Shot Length or ASL. subject. Moving alongside actors as they walk is ‘tracking’ and In modern cinema this is often down to only 6 or 7 seconds. also a ‘travelling shot’. Moving in an arc in front of or behind Even in the Hollywood studio period of the 1940s it might the subject is ‘arcing’ or sometimes ‘crabbing’. Tracks have to have been as low as 10 or 12 seconds (Salt 1992). Mathieu be laid and they can get in the way. On smooth surfaces (like Kassovitz shares some ideas with both the long take school a studio floor) a dolly could run just on wheels. Increasingly and the MTV school (he has made music videos). It isn’t in contemporary cinema, directors use a Steadicam – a surprising then to find both very long and quite short takes stabilising harness allowing a camera operator to move with in La Haine (see the examples below). It is also noticeable a camera over uneven terrain and up and down stairs etc. that in moving from one long take sequence to another at the Critics have generally assumed Kassovitz and Diane were start of the film, Kassovitz uses an explosive cut. The standard using a Steadicam throughout, but in his interviews Kassovitz convention for cutting derived from Hollywood methods is to often talks about his love for tracks and the precision they cut between shots of different sizes or different content. The give. eye soon adjusts to a different image, but if the new image is too different, especially in shape or brightness, there will be The moving camera gives the fluidity to the footage of the a temporary disruption for the viewer. So, for instance, when estate. Kassovitz uses a wide range of shots, but never in a way Vinz does his Travis Bickle routine in front of the mirror, he that breaks up the overall style. Some shots are memorable ends with an imagined pistol shot into the mirror. We hear but not disruptive in proclaiming the cleverness of director an explosion on the soundtrack and the screen changes to and camera operator (this judgment is of course a matter a blinding white light, only for the camera to tilt down and of taste). Low angles from special tripods, high angles from reveal the next sequence of Vinz and Saïd walking through miniature cranes blend in, but the extraordinary helicopter the petrol station. shot which accompanies the live mix by Cut Killer is simply a moment of joy – something so beautiful as it soars above This technique is used several times and its effect is to the estate. This was a remote controlled device and actually punctuate the fluid movements of the camera with explosive malfunctioned at this point as it was supposed to hover above transitions. This broken rhythm helps to build the tension the youths as they walked through the estate. Kassovitz left in of the day. A rather different effect is achieved by breaking the mistake and created a talking point. the cutting convention in the opposite way with the so-called ‘jump cut’. This is when two shots are joined together but Editing they are very similar in subject and shot size. When one shot If the moving camera creates the fluidity, editing creates the is replaced by the other, the subject appears to jump across tension. There are several ideas about the function of editing. the screen. This effect is used at least twice in La Haine as an Most importantly it is the crucial stage of construction economical way of showing the passage of time. In the first of the narrative. The story doesn’t exist as a film until the instance, Hubert is in his room and we see a succession of editor begins to work. From this point there have been two shots from a static camera – he is wrapping up blocks of hash, strong arguments as to how to proceed. Montage theories he’s sleeping, he’s smoking a joint. These are technically jump propose that meaning is created through the juxtaposition cuts (the convention suggests that the editor should ‘cutaway’ of sounds and images. This is editing which works partly to a different angle between these shots) but they work well by shock as in the Soviet cinema of the 1920s. The credit together. In the second instance, at the looted shopping sequence of La Haine is a classical montage of different shots centre, there is a breakdancing display and again the camera of demonstrators, riot police and images of resistance cut is static and the shots jump from one dancer to the next, to music. A rather different idea was that editing should be all spinning on the same spot. Again, it works well with the relatively invisible. Shots should be selected and transitions music. organised so that audiences could follow the story without noticing the changing shots – so-called ‘continuity editing’. There is nothing unusual about these jump cuts, but what Of course, it was never as clear cut as this. Even within is striking is the confidence with which Kassovitz selects mainstream cinema, different genres have developed different shots for each scene. Occasionally he has to have a little traditions. We generally expect montage sequences in action joke (the Hitchcockian shot down the stairwell in Astérix’s films and more restrained cutting in dramas. Modern apartment), but most of the time he chooses the most Hollywood in the era of ‘post-MTV’ filmmaking has generally appropriate shot and transition. To choose a transition whilst moved to faster cutting to make a film feel more vital. Editing shooting is difficult. Some filmmakers would argue that the is very much about creating a rhythm and in youth orientated film is created in the edit suite, where the order of shots may action films the rhythm is very fast – it is also often cutting be altered. If this happens, planned transitions cannot be to music. Directors and editors who trained to make music guaranteed. ‘Shooting for editing’ implies that the director videos learned to cut to the beat. Conversely, European art already knows how the scene will be cut. In his interview with films are expected to work more often with long takes and by Positif Kassovitz states that the preparation work meant that definition less cutting. no more than four takes of any single shot were necessary and that the rough cut came to 110 minutes. This was not a If you want to get a sense of different rhythms, try counting film which will produce a ‘Director’s Cut with an extra half the shot transitions in a few minutes of a film on tape. Do an hour. There were structural problems with the scenes in this for a few minutes from different sections in the film. the Paris section in dealing with the separate adventures of 13
- 14. Vinz while Hubert and Saïd are in custody. In a sense it didn’t tries to make all the music ‘diegetic’, apart from the Bob matter in what order these sequences appeared: Marley song over the credits. Here is a listing of some of the other points at which music is used: “But I don’t really like to discover this during the edit because there are always stylistic considerations that • Jewish folk music as Vinz dreams about dancing in the govern the passage from one scene to the next. For basement instance, when they arrive at the police station, on the • Indecipherable music playing on a tape deck on the roof estate, Vinz is in the back seat. He turns and that cuts in during the sausage scene with him turning round inside the police station. Those • African music playing in the background when Hubert kind of things are fun to identify, but if you don’t know arrives home the order in which you are going to cut those scenes • American funk in Hubert’s room as he parcels up his hash together, you can’t use them.” (Bourguignon and Tobin • Cut Killer playing Supreme NTM and Edith Piaf 1999) • Hip-hop music as youths breakdance in the shopping area • Arab music playing at the boxing match Sound • Rap music playing in the car (Expression Direkt?) Kassovitz has stressed in interviews the importance of sound • A brief snatch of dance music coming from the door of in his films. Unfortunately, the main organising factor for the club the sound in La Haine is lost on mono VCRs. The film was • barely discernible music playing in the art gallery planned so that the first section on the estate has a stereo • Muzak playing in the deserted shopping centre where the track and the Paris section a mono track. The logic of this youths watch the news on a video wall is to validate the estate as a ‘real’ environment in which the characters stand out against the background – in this The overall effect is a documentary feel – the real ‘sound of case being placed within a broad sound stage. In Paris the the suburbs’ (although it has all been carefully chosen for background becomes less important and the sound is also effect). The music ‘represents’ the separate ethnicities and also less distinct. The soundtrack thus parallels the attempt to use mixes them to stress the developing hybrid culture. One of wide angle and telephoto lenses. the tracks on the first tie-in CD (which includes music from Métisse) is ‘La Peur du Métissage’ (Fear of racial mixing). Stereo means ‘solid’ and the use of stereo in the cinema allows a sound designer to compose a sound stage with real aural Two examples in detail depth to match the depth of focus of the images. There a The two sequences below are taken from different sections number of noticeable effects in the opening half of the film. of the film to illustrate the wide-angle/stereo and telephoto/ The atmosphere of the estate is built up by layers of ‘ambient’ mono styles. These are ‘Shot Analyses’, not extracts from the or ‘direct’ sound – car traffic, train horns, dogs barking, script (which was changed during shooting). They show the people shouting, motorbikes etc. The sound echoes around size of shot and the timing of transitions . the open spaces and the hard walls of the apartment blocks. This is particularly effective in the opening sequence when The first sequence from the estate footage begins with an Saïd is shouting up to Vinz’s sister high up in the block and ‘explosive’ edit – Vinz slaps the punchbag in the darkened is himself being shouted down by an angry resident from gym and the cut is to a long shot between two apartment the other side of the block. The voices echo across the open blocks: space, emphasising the lack of privacy and the disruption to everyone’s ‘quiet lives’. 12.42 LS through an alleyway between several tower blocks. In the foreground, back to us and walking away are three These layers of ambient sound have a contradictory effect CRS police officers. In the far background are V, H and S, in that they do suggest that the noise could be polluting coming round a corner and irritating, but they also suggest the possibility of real V V: We jeered at the cops and spat on them, but they community – wonderfully captured by the sounds of Cut didn’t budge. Killer floating over the estate (although the message is ‘Fuck Then the jerks stepped aside to make a path. the Police’, it is curiously soothing. All of these effects work (There is also the sound of voices on the police radio) because of the selection of camera shots. This is also evident The police officers have now reached the oncoming trio, in the two examples quoted above during the youths passage who turn screen right. The camera tracks with them. through the estate, when the sound focus can switch between Vinz is walking backwards, talking to the other two, figures in the foreground and the background. looking towards the camera. V V:They were plain clothes men with axes. They hit Paris is presented without any special sense of sound – there little JB really hard. is simply noise in the background and some snatches of The third time, we laid into them. I swear I smashed music. This is alien territory where the youths are lost. one of the bastards. They halt and all listen to the sound of a motor bike. The Music is used sparingly, which is perhaps surprising in a camera executes a 180° turn and settles on Saïd youth orientated film which has spawned two tie-in CDs. As S: That’s a Yamaha in the work of Martin Scorsese (see Part Three), Kassovitz Camera to Vinz 14
- 15. V V: Your mum on a bike, more like. V and H: No, we’re broke H Camera to Hubert Youth: Just 2 francs H H: No, its Mohamed with a new exhaust. V: (to H) The judge gave me a month in the nick or They start walking again stuff for the council S: No, Its Vinz’s mum on a Yamaha. H H: Community Service. That’s shite. V V: Which Mohamed? Farida’s brother? V V: You’ve done it? The nick’s bad enough S: The girl with the driving licence? H H: You’d rather do time? H H: No, the one from the market. 15:49 MLS of S, his brother (N) and sausage man. S and V: Ahh V Sausage man: He stole a sausage The camera is tracking them as they walk swiftly N N: I’ll pay through the estate. S to man: You’re a liar, your nose is growing V V: Anyway, you should have been there. It was Sausage man: Watch out or I’ll smash yours amazing. N N: (to S) Now scram! They wave to some other lads. Camera circles following S who moves to another group S: Tear gas and two days of being beaten up at the of youths. police station . . . then back home to face the music at home I don’t see the point. (the shot ends at 16:53 after Saïd has discussed guns with a V V: Get off my back. It was war against the pigs, live group of youths) and in colour. H H: I’d planned to get some dough and your stupid riot What is extraordinary about this sequence is that the camera screwed it up. moves to reframe relatively complex actions – characters Hubert comes on into the foreground where he meets moving and speaking. The conventional way to shoot this and shakes hands with another man. V and S stay in the would be with a series of tightly framed shots lasting only a background, but it is V and S we hear high in the mix. few seconds each. In this sequence there are just four shots V V: I’ll always fight for a brother in four minutes of screen time and the moving camera has S: A brother. Who is this guy? Why get hit for a wanker brought the action through the estate and onto the roof, you don’t know? whilst negotiating several meetings and exchanges. The H and the man exchange money and H walks back to camera is constantly reframing the action, but the relative the other two. wide angle and small aperture produces the depth of field H H: Let’s go which ensures sharp focus throughout. The shots are S: I mean it. Abdel’s a wanker. designated here as mostly MLS (Medium Long Shot). As a V V: OK but I’m not faster than a bullet. rough rule of thumb, a Long Shot will enable the whole body All three disappear into a building. of the subject to be seen. In a Medium Long Shot, the subject 14.30 High angle MLS of an opening to the roof, S emerges. is shown from roughly the knees upwards. Similar divides The camera follows him as he moves across the roof to cover the Medium Shot, Medium Close-up (MCU), Close-up where sausages are being grilled. Music plays on a tape and Big Close-up (only part of the face). The coverage of the deck? estate is mostly in LS and MLS. In Paris there are Close-ups Sausage man: Hands off the merguez. Who’s paying? (e.g. Hubert on the train). V V: Come off it. Man: Saïd, watch it, I’m warning you. It’s 5 francs for The second example is from the scene in the art gallery, which everyone, except Hubert – he lives in this block. in some ways is a direct echo of the scene on the roof – Saïd V V: 5 francs for one sausage? is again the catalyst for action in the social gathering and Man: No, for two Hubert is again the more experienced operator. This time, H takes a sausage however, the youths are in an alien environment. H H: Try one (to the others) V V: I’ve 5 francs for me 1.11.51 MCU of Saïd staring into the camera, Vinz and Hubert Camera ‘crabs’ round as H moves around S. in the background S: OK, I won’t forget this. S: It’s awful, awful, awful V V: Go ahead, don’t ever forget S turns away and V comes forward S: (to man): Don’t be a jerk, I’ll pay later V V: (Turning to H) Is that artist famous? Man: How? With your sister? 1.12.06 MCU of child’s toy attached to the wall S: Leave her out of this (spins round, clutching head) The Gallery Patron passes in front of the camera, looking Man: Stop acting the pseudo Arab at Vinz S grabs a sausage and runs. H H: He will be when he is 18 Man: Give it back you bastard 1.12.10 MCU of Vinz who moves in closer to the camera and S runs round a seated group, including his brother then backs away Nordine, chased by the man 1.12.24 MLS of the three youths at a long table with food and 15.28 MLS A youth approaches the seated V and H. drink Youth: Got 2 francs? S: Champagne, Martini, Brocardi Camera pans to two-shot of V and H. I don’t drink that stuff 15
- 16. H H: It’s Bacardi little. More seriously, the American subtitles translate most S: I want some peanuts of the youth’s dialogue into the ‘homeboy’ language lifted A waiter approaches with a tray of drinks, S takes a straight from American ‘hood’ films. There is certainly a need glass to indicate the kind of language used by the youths but the S: Merçi, Charles effect of these subtitles is overwhelming. The intention was H and V together: Hey Charles, Charles together clearly to make the film more accessible to American youth 1.12.43 MS Vinz and Saïd are sitting on the stairs audiences (although since the audience for a subtitled film is V V: Calm down, you’re such a pain already self-selecting, it seems a futile gesture). Two young women come down the stairs into the gallery, the camera pans right to reveal Hubert who is lounging The best contextual reading of the film will be available to on the bottom step French speakers, although even they will find some of the S: Get that – real women! The black one’s a real beauty slang difficult to penetrate (see below). The 2005 re-issue 1.13.00 LS of the three youths across the gallery. Other patrons DVD uses UK subtitles, but these have recently also attracted (slightly out of focus) are standing or moving across the criticism for not accurately catching the nuances of street foreground. language. S: (to H) Do me a favour, I want to talk to them. Social and political issues in France In the second half of the film, Kassovitz said he wanted to use a longer lens and to have simple set-ups using only a tripod Les banlieues and no tracks or dollies (although there is some hand-held There is no adequate direct English translation for les work). In this indoor scene, the use of the long lens is not so banlieues. To describe the housing estates as ‘suburbs’ suggests noticeable, although there is a slight blurring as characters relatively comfortable residential areas on the edges of cities, and objects get too close to the camera. The long take strategy characterised by private homes with gardens. Les banlieues has not been completely abandoned in this scene. The shots are indeed on the perimeter of the city, but resemble much detailed here range from four seconds to nineteen seconds, more the high rise estates of British cities or the ‘housing but they are achieved with a static camera and limited projects’ in America. These areas of poorer housing, usually movements by the characters. Where the moving camera in the public housing sector, are designated as ‘inner city’, could reframe and ‘follow’ the action, the static camera in the but les banlieues are further out (twenty miles or more) relatively confined space forces a cut. This also leads to more and as such more ‘removed’ from the centre – this distance use of MCUs to achieve a clear framing. being emphasised several times in La Haine. Distance here is a function of town planning and good transport, but it is There has not been time in this project to produce and also a comment on the desire of the Parisian ruling class to analyse a complete shot breakdown of the whole 95 minutes keep ‘undesirables’ as far away as possible – expressing the of La Haine, but Kassovitz’s proclaimed strategy does seem acceptance of anti-immigrant and racist views by the city to have been applied. As he states, (Bourguignon and Tobin authorities. Despite being outside the city, it is possible to 1999) the effect is sometimes imperceptible, There are long consider les banlieues (also referred to as cités) as a French shots, long takes and wide angles in the second half of the counterpart to the ghettos of North American cities. They film, but they are isolated cases – nothing matches the long would appear to share the worst attributes of British inner travelling shots and compositions in depth of the first half. city estates and ‘new towns’ (built as overflow or ‘dormitory’ Only through repeated viewings of specific scenes does the settlements) – i.e. lacking amenities and creating a sterile care and preparation in camerawork reveal itself. One of the environment. great virtues of the film is the coherence of its visual (and aural) style. The French estates are not necessarily ‘poor’ in terms of build quality or architectural design, but like estates in Britain they Part Three: Context have been perceived as such – i.e. as unsuitable or ‘unfit for purpose’ by the people who live in them rather than by those A note on sub-titling who planned and built them. The cultural objectives of the The reference print for these notes was screened by BBC2 planners are mocked at the end of La Haine when the shoot- in 1997 with subtitles written for a British audience. out takes place beneath murals of famous French poets such Specific French cultural references are largely left intact as Charles Baudelaire and Arthur Rimbaud – poetic ‘rebels’ and translations of dialogue sensitively handled. The initial from an earlier generation. 35mm cinema release prints used American subtitles that are markedly different. Specific references to French Les banlieues are large self-contained communities with few culture are Americanised so that the drug dealer Astérix is amenities or employment opportunities. The ‘new town’ renamed ‘Snoopy’ and references to money in French francs chosen for the shooting of La Haine has an official population are converted to US dollars. This is sometimes annoying of 10,000 (but is likely to be much higher if ‘undocumented’ but occasionally helpful as when the fence on the estate is residents are included) made up of sixty different renamed ‘Wal-Mart’. Most British audiences will know this nationalities or ethnicities (James 1997). The increase in overt refers to a supermarket chain, whereas the French chain racism in France in the 1980s saw les banlieues, where most ‘Darty’, the name referred to on the soundtrack, will mean of the immigrant and second generation families had been 16
- 17. housed, stereotyped as the site of urban deprivation, crime, the tension between youth and the authorities in les banlieues. drug use etc. The communities became stigmatised and (This issue was covered in a programme in the Planet Islam presented by the mainstream media as alien – the location series, broadcast on BBC2 prior to the screening of La Haine of the ‘other’, the hysterical definition of what is ‘not us’, in 1997.) ‘not French’. Stories about les banlieues became stories about negative definitions of ‘Frenchness’. Resistance through language Language is one of the traditional battlegrounds between Cultural Diversity and Assimilation the dominant and subordinate cultures in any society. In Like Britain, France was a major colonial power in the Britain this is evident in terms of class, region and ethnicity. nineteenth and twentieth century and the period since 1945 The authority of metropolitan government can be resisted has seen France mirror the British experience in relinquishing by refusing to use its language and instead claiming rights colonial power while accepting large scale immigration of for completely separate languages such as Welsh or Gaelic or former colonial subjects – often on the basis of satisfying through use of regional dialects. In America arguments over demand for labour during the period up to 1975. the use of Spanish create similar conflicts. On one level this resistance can take a ‘legitimate’ course of arguing for dual Although similar to the British experience, the history of language road signs and dual language teaching in schools. de-colonisation and immigration in France also reveals But it can also be developed in a more provocative way by differences. The most important areas for French settlement youths who use dialect or invented language (like Cockney abroad were in North Africa, particularly Algeria. The rhyming slang) to both confuse and annoy the agents of struggle for Algerian independence in the 1950s was long authority. Use of language in this way also helps to unite the and damaging for French social relations, producing both a users in a common bond against their oppressors. legacy of oppression remembered by Arabs and Berbers and an angry and hostile settler community who ‘returned’ to The development of creole languages in the colonial empires France after Algerian Independence in 1962. North Africa is of European powers in the Americas and elsewhere is a good relatively close to Mediterranean France and many Algerians, example of the oppressed people (the ‘colonised’) finding Moroccans and Tunisians went to France to work during the a way to live with the colonisers without losing a sense of 1960s and just as in the UK, second and third generations of identity. The colonised took the language of power – English, these immigrant families are now part of French society. French or Spanish – and transformed it into something else, a new language which showed its roots but now ‘belonged’ The French colonial empire in Africa, the Caribbean to a different group. ‘Creole’ refers to any combination of and Indo-China was not administered from Paris in the European and ‘native’ – the term also applies to food and same manner as British colonies from London and when to ethnicity. The process of ‘creolisation’ is now seen as a independence was gained the ex-colonies remained in much positive cultural force (see Shohat and Stam 1994). The closer contact with French culture. The French colonial colonisers fought back by insisting that education and system required all colonial subjects to go through the administration in their colonies used the ‘proper’ colonial same schooling system as metropolitan France. Many ex- language, thus creating class divisions between those who colonies eventually joined la francophonie, the international learned the colonisers’ language and the poorer people who organisation of French-speaking countries. French colonial spoke their native language or some form of creole. When policy had stressed assimilation – everyone becomes a French mass migration to Western Europe began, especially from citizen and part of French culture. This is contrary to the the Caribbean, the new immigrants found themselves in a American sense of ‘hyphenates’ such as ‘Italian-American’ much weaker position – having to use the language of the ex- which imply a combination of distinct cultures. The power colonial power to a greater extent. of the French approach is such that in Mauritius, a country which was until independence in the 1960s, a British colony The ‘second generation’ youth of these communities began taken from the French at the start of the nineteenth century, to resist the racism of the British authorities in the 1980s and the modern language is still predominantly French or Creole it is noticeable that one of the ways they did so was through (a language derived from French and local languages), food the use of Jamaican patois, which was further circulated is French and books and the cinema come directly from through the success of ‘roots reggae’ music – the ‘tougher’ and France. However, in contemporary France itself, the Muslim more authentic style of the then current popular Jamaican North and West African community has to a certain extent music – and ‘dub’ poetry, such as in the work of Linton Kwesi resisted ‘assimilation’ and this clash with the assimilationist Johnson. Although some of these performers, like Johnson, authorities underlies much of the tension in La Haine. A were from Jamaica, the patois was also used by young men potent example of the rigidity of the French official response and women who had been born in Britain. It was also taken is evident in school policy. French schools are by law secular up to a certain extent by white youths who wanted to identify – denominational schools are not allowed. Whether or not with the resistance and later also by British Asian youth. this is a good thing in terms of the harmony of society is arguable, but it is clear that one consequence of the policy This use of patois ran alongside another long-standing causes disruption because young Muslim women are not influence of African languages in Europe that came about allowed to wear traditional headgear in school. The protests via the development of new words and phrases associated against this kind of discrimination have helped to increase with jazz and other black music forms in the United States. 17
- 18. ‘Jive’ talk and ‘hip’ language developed from the 1920s successful commercial features had appeared. These films using African words that were modified to help create a have not been widely seen in Britain or the United States but special language for musicians and their followers. The in France they provided a very different view of the culture contemporary form of this language development is in of the ‘second generation’ to that offered by other sectors relation to rap and before that hip-hop. British popular of French-speaking cinema. Maghrebi cinema needs to be culture has a long history of being re-invigorated by the input considered alongside the representations of the ‘second of performers and styles associated with black culture which generation’ in films by mainstream French directors, ‘first can be traced back to African roots and the history of the generation’ Maghrebi filmmakers and films made in North slave trade. More recently it has become evident that the long Africa. The ‘first generation’ filmmakers produced “realist association with Arab and Indian cultures is having a similar films or melodramas which show Arabs as the wretched, influence. passive victims of French racism” (Tarr 1993). Where does La Haine fit in this spectrum? Mathieu Kassovitz must All of these developments in Britain are mirrored to a certain count as a mainstream French director in this context and extent in France, although it is noticeable that attitudes although there are some ways in which the depiction of towards the ‘colonial’ language were, and to a certain extent Maghrebi culture in La Haine may be more progressive than still are, rather different. English is by its very nature, an in mainstream cinema generally, Kassovitz has still been ‘open’ language, accepting words, phrases and even sentence criticised by Maghrebi filmmakers like Karim Dridi (Tarr structures from other languages and melding them into the 1997). main language. Arguably this gives the language a flexibility which enables it to respond to new challenges. But it also The race agenda in France means that ‘English’ in different parts of the world has Migration to France, mostly from North Africa, was curtailed developed separately. There is no ‘controlling body’ for in 1974 during the economic crisis which swept through English. By contrast, the teaching of French in the French Europe and North America following the actions of the oil colonial empire was pursued with greater vigour and much exporting countries. Thereafter a similar scenario to that more importance was given to maintaining the purity of the in Britain during the 1980s saw the immigrant community language of metropolitan France. There is less acceptance blamed for unemployment by right wing and openly of ‘other French’ than there is of the ‘other English’. This of racist politicians. Attempts to mobilise the large Maghrebi course means that the use of other forms of French, especially community to resist racism were eventually eclipsed by within France itself, has great power, as in La Haine. the formation of the more broadly-based SOS Racisme in 1984. But this was too late to halt the electoral successes of Verlan is a form of Parisian slang something like Cockney the Front National in the municipal elections of 1983. The in London. Some words are spoken backwards to confuse Front continued to capture local councils in the south and outsiders and it is from this ‘backslang’ that the term ‘beur’ south west of France (where many of the ex-settlers from is said to derive – as a version of ‘arabe’ (see Tarr 1993). The Algeria now live) throughout the 1990s and to gain a national first use seems to have been in the early 1980s to describe parliamentary presence. Since the legitimising of the Front the so-called ‘second generation’ of immigrant families from National, the race attacks on black people in France have the Maghreb (Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco). Since 1995 increased as well as antagonism towards Maghrebi culture the term beur has gradually been replaced by Maghrebi or and Islam (also the religion of former French colonies in sub- 'North African-French' or simply by 'Algerian', 'Tunisian' etc. Saharan Africa). Frequent references to all Maghreb peoples Beur was rejected by many in the community and also it was as ‘Arab’ is a good example of a dismissal of distinct Arab and inaccurate since not all those from the Maghreb are Arabs Berber cultures. – some are Berbers and some are Jewish. References in these notes to 'beur' have been replaced by 'Maghrebi'. From a British or American perspective, it is very dangerous to play down racism at home in analysing racism in France, Maghrebi youth, represented in La Haine by Saïd, see but there are significant differences as set out by the Guardian themselves as positioned between the culture of their columnist John Henley in December 1999: parents, who still identify themselves as Algerian, Tunisian or Moroccan, and the ‘host’ French community. In La Haine, “In a staggering recent survey, 20% of French people the use of verlan is extended to include some of the phrases confessed to racist and xenophobic views of one kind or developed within French hip-hop culture. The process by another – roughly twice the rate in comparable polls in which African-French rap artists can take language already Britain and Germany.” (Jon Henley 1999) worked up by African-Americans and re-invigorate it with both French and African words and then mix it with verlan Henley argues that racism in France is insidious because it is very marked in La Haine and has confused academics hides behind euphemisms such as those understood in La in French language departments (see the Criticism section Haine – quartier chaud (‘hot quarter’) for an area with a below). high immigrant population or banlieusards (‘suburbanites’) to describe youths like Hubert and Saïd. At the same time Maghrebi cinema black people in France are excluded from certain forms of Documentary films and shorts made by Maghrebi groups employment: emerged in the late 1970s and by the mid 1980s several 18
- 19. “… you could, for instance, count the number of black measures to try to solve the problem. The results, however, waiters in central Paris cafés on the finger of one well- are much the same, with youth unemployment representing a manicured hand. Nor is there a black or North African high percentage of overall unemployment. On the estates the newsreader to be seen on French television … despite situation is worse still. None of the youths in La Haine appear the more than 2.5 million people d’origine maghrebienne to be in work and the only example of support for education with voting rights in France, try finding a North African or training or even recreation is Hubert’s gym – now burnt MP in the National Assembly.” (Henley ibid.) out. Petty crime and drug dealing are the only means of earning money. There was clearly a decision not to include Although La Haine is not necessarily a film ‘about racism’, it the job centres etc. which feature in some of the Maghrebi is clearly important in making visible the lives of people who films. have to survive in a racist society and for this reason alone it stands as a political film. The police in France France has three different police forces. The gendarmerie In 2011/2 the massive success of the film Intouchables are national uniformed police responsible for security as (Untouchable) – the most successful French film of all time in an arm of the military. They don’t appear in La Haine. The the international market-place – seems to indicate a profound plainclothes police are the major problem in the film, in the change in French culture. The film is a comedy/drama/action form of ‘Notre Dame’, the officer in the American football film in which a young man from the West African community jacket who shoots Vinz. They and the other uniformed police in Paris becomes the carer of a rich man who is quadriplegic. who the youths meet are members of the Paris municipal However, despite its success the film has still provoked some force. The infamous ‘CRS’ are a separate force, the riot police controversy. There were rumours that the film's Black star in body armour with shields who chase the youths after Omar Sy might not have won his Best Actor award without Abdel’s brother attacks the local police with a shotgun. The the intensive lobbying required to achieve a nomination – notoriety of the CRS developed after the student unrest of there are relatively few Black, as distinct from Maghrebi, stars the late 1960s, but they are faceless figures of state power. in French film. The film was based on a true story and there Far more disturbing in the context of La Haine are the have also been discussions about why the central character neighbourhood plainclothes police who have the power to was changed from a Maghrebi to a West African man. make the youths' lives miserable on a daily basis. Anti-semitism The ‘mistakes’ by the neighbourhood police are such that Anti-semitism has a long history in France, famously brought police bavures (blunders) have become a generic feature to international attention with the Dreyfus trial at the end of French films, including comedies. There were over 300 of the nineteenth century. Many French Jews were sent to ‘mortal blunders’ – deaths in police custody/action in the German concentration camps with the collusion of the 1980s and 1990s (see Vincendeau 2000). Though many French Vichy administration between 1940 and 1944. Because of these involved police racism, this is also indicative of a of the ‘myth’ of resistance (i.e. the belief that most French wider problem. Racism has been a specific problem in the people had resisted the German Occupation), it has taken police forces and as in Britain and America, a problem not many years since the liberation of France for the truth to automatically solved by recruiting Black and Maghrebi emerge (i.e. most people were relatively passive towards the officers. occupation and a significant number were collaborators). Mathieu Kassovitz is very conscious of this history. His Representations in La Haine father, Peter Kassovitz, fled Hungary in 1956, the son of a Representation is a slippery concept to grasp in relation to concentration camp survivor. In 1996 Mathieu Kassovitz analysing a film, especially a film which appears to invite played the lead role in Un héros tres discrèt, a film which discrèt a direct reading of social conditions, as if it were indeed a satirises the myth of resistance and in 1999 he played a small window on a ‘real world’ of French youth in the mid 1990s. role in his father’s film, Jakob the Liar, based on concentration Like all films, La Haine is a construction – a text produced camp experiences. on the basis of a careful selection of certain visual and aural images, to the exclusion of others. Here we consider four One explanation of the scene in La Haine in which the representation issues; race, gender, the media and American v. old man tells the three youths the story about the train in French culture. Siberia and the trip to the labour camp for Polish Jews, is that Kassovitz was attempting to remind his audience that Race Jews had suffered too. He had considered and then rejected The choice of the three youths as ‘black-blanc-Maghrebi’ is playing the Vinz part himself, but he did play the skinhead arguably metaphorical about exclusion generally, rather than who attacks Saïd and Hubert, perhaps trying to ‘objectify’ his a reference to racial difference (there may be an attempt to representation of Jewishness. relate the triple ethnicity to the other two trios of French culture, the ‘tricolour’ of red, white and blue and the three Unemployment revolutionary champions of liberté, égalité and fraternité). Youth unemployment in Western Europe has been rife since the mid 1970s. France has tended to experience a different La Haine resists the assimilationist impulse of French culture business cycle than Britain and to adopt rather different in general by emphasising hybridity. It shares this approach 19
- 20. with French rap music and some of the other French youth Other critics are similarly split, although the balance comes pictures, including Maghrebi films. The references to down on Kassovitz’s side. What is unfortunate is that most ‘difference’ between the three youths are accepted as part of of the Maghrebi films, which might offer an alternative way friendly banter. Saïd makes jokes about Vinz being a ‘kike’ of representing the lives of youths on the estates are not and Hubert being ‘chocolate’. In return Saïd is teased about available for viewing in the UK. his sister and mocked as a ‘pseudo Arab’. These would be offensive comments made by anyone outside the accepted Gender group, but it is similar to the use of the term ‘nigger’ between If La Haine is not about race, it is also not ‘about’ gender as Black youths and it has been argued that this kind of friendly such. It does not, for instance explore how young men and insult strengthens the bonds between the youths and stresses young women react differently to conditions in les banlieues. the sense of unity through oppression. It is a masculine story about three young men. There is no interest in the female characters other than as foils for the The French estates do have more ethnic mixing than youths at particular moments. The sisters and mother/aunt/ American housing projects and perhaps the black-blanc- grandmother provide the sense of a family needed to root the Maghrebi trio is not so outlandish. But this mixing only goes youths in the community, but not to offer a close relationship. so far. The Vietnamese shopkeeper is identified as ‘not one of The young women they meet in the art gallery are there us’ and this could be read as another nod to American film only to emphasise the youth’s exclusion based on class and models (where the Korean store owner is often the victim education/cultural knowledge. of shoplifting and portrayed as the enemy of the African- American community). This may be an instance of class La Haine has been criticised by feminist writers, not so much solidarity – the shopkeeper is identified as an enemy because because of the concentration on the male characters – there of his ownership of the shop rather than his racial difference. will always be a place for films which concentrate on groups of men or groups of women – but because of the generic Racism is alluded to by Saïd when he says an Arab is never references to other French films about similar issues which safe in a police station and confirmed when he and Hubert also ignore women (i.e. most Maghrebi films deal with are arrested and Vinz is not automatically assumed to be young men – young Maghrebi women are excluded from with them. But despite this sequence, racism is much less the discourse). More problematic still is the level of violence evident in the film than might be expected from its setting. and the nihilism imported from American gang pictures. Indeed the most contentious issue – the Front National’s This is evident in so many ways; the violence of the language, definition of Islam as ‘alien’ – is not mentioned at all. Without the ‘tough’ clothes, the ‘extreme’ rap music, the aggressive some knowledge of the history of racist activity in France, gestures of Vinz, the sheer macho energy of the youths etc. British and American audiences could be forgiven for not (see Vincendeau 2000). totally understanding the sense of exclusion. There are coded references to specific instances of exclusion as in the refusal As David Styan points out, La Haine does not seem to be of entry to the nightclub and the lack of meeting places for about any of the ‘problem issues’, but about the realisation the youth on the estate. Black and Maghrebi youth are forced by the youths that their predicament is partly of their own onto the roof of an apartment block or into a basement. They making. When they riot they hurt themselves (burning down are not allowed adult recreation but must sit in the children’s the school, wrecking Hubert’s gym). The young men who play area, effectively kept as children by the authorities. join the police are also caught in the trap and are “every bit as insecure as the three protagonists; this is seen most clearly Kassovitz treads a fine line over racism in les banlieues. Some in the false bravado of the cop who has the final shot as La critics have come down on the film because of its failure to Haine itself crashes to the ground” (Styan 1995). adumbrate the specificities of the race agenda in France and concentrate too much on importing American images of A feminist reading points to a common theme in many films the ‘hood’ (see Alexander 1995). Carrie Tarr argues that too of the 1990s – the emasculation of male characters, shorn much status is given to the white character and not enough of any purpose, bewildered by what to do and resorting to to the black and Maghrebi characters – the white character sexist and violent behaviour and idle boasting of non-existent does take on a hybrid identity but this is “a one-way crossing deeds in the place of positive action. This argument can of racial boundaries, and the complex hybrid identities of certainly be sustained but the performances of the three leads the ethnic others in these two films [i.e. including Métisse] work against it. By the time we get to the final shoot-out it is are much less adequately explored” (Tarr 1997). Conversely, difficult to see the three youths as other than basically ‘good David Styan, writing a companion piece to Karen Alexander’s lads’ who could be redeemed. The real problem here is that is much more prepared to read the film as about the common our attention has been diverted to their behaviour – they identity of the three youths: “What is relevant is that they are could change – and away from the problems of society which all stuck on the edge, lacking jobs and purpose. If they’ve any have pushed them towards such behaviour. aim it is to resist categorisation and to forge a new French identity, both in spite and because of ‘those wearing leather The media jackets and voting Le Pen’ whom they deride in the Metro.” Running throughout La Haine is a discourse about ‘the (Styan 1995) media’ (but represented largely by television and video). The film directly blames the media for the representations 20
- 21. of les banlieues in the scene where the news crew approach Mean Streets (US, 1973) Hubert, Vinz and Saïd at the children’s play area. At other An important film in the establishment of the idea of times, television is the omnipresent purveyor of ‘news’ about ‘American Independent Cinema’, Mean Streets was Martin Abdel’s condition and reinforcer of views about the riot. In Scorsese’s second commercial feature, following several Hubert’s apartment, at Darty’s and on the video wall in the films made in conjunction with his period at New York shopping centre, the youths watch the drama unfold. They University film school, and Box Car Bertha (US, 1972), are seen through the viewfinder of the news camera and the made for maverick independent producer Roger Corman. surveillance camera at Astérix’s apartment. We see the police Although distributed by Warner Bros., Mean Streets was using video and the youths looking through the viewfinder of made independently with a low budget using Corman’s ‘fast a stolen camera. In his next film Assassins, Kassovitz attacked shooting’ crew. It tells the story of a young man in New York’s the media head-on (and they retaliated by savaging him and ‘Little Italy’ (Harvey Keitel) who is caught between pleasing the film). his uncle, a mafia boss, an affair with his cousin Theresa, and a friendship with a wild young man (Robert de Niro). The American v. French culture action takes place largely at night in bars, backrooms, cars, Throughout these notes there are numerous references to the church and the cinema. American cinema and American culture, but the emphasis in some of the critical writing on the importation of There are three obvious connections between Mean American youth culture is perhaps too great. No matter how Streets and La Haine – the camerawork, the music and the much Mathieu Kassovitz has been influenced by American relationship between the characters and their environment. directors, no matter how positive he may feel have been some With more control, slightly more money and much more of the imports in helping to open up and ‘hybridise’ French experience than in his previous films, Scorsese was able to culture, La Haine is still a French film set in a recognisable experiment with the camera. The results were memorable French location. A careful reading of the (British) subtitles scenes, especially in the local bar in which Harvey Keitel and the general mise en scène shows that the American makes an entrance to the Rolling Stones’ ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’ references are limited. The scenes in Paris at the art gallery with the camera tracking back. The footage is manipulated by and with the taxi and the attempted car theft might be an the use of slow motion and the bar is bathed in red. Scorsese hommage to Scorsese (After Hours, US, 1985) but they are himself refers back to Sam Fuller and his use of the tracking French scenes – imagine an American film about three camera: youths, none of whom was confident to drive! “Doing that one long take creates so much in emotional The cultural references are French cartoon characters, impact, giving you a sense of being swept up in the fury Smurfs (properly Belgian), Astérix and Obelix, and even two and the anger, that you begin to understand more why characters from Kassovitz’s own childhood, Hercule and Pif. it is happening. What Sam always says is that emotional The music includes an American act but is largely French. violence is much more terrifying than physical violence.” The movie references to the Lethal Weapon series and to (Scorsese quoted in Thompson and Christie 1989) Scarface (US, 1983) (the poster which announces ‘The World is Yours’) are indeed American, but Saïd changes the poster to Here, surely, is the the major influence on much of Kassovitz’s ‘The World is Ours’ and there are references to French films camerawork. He may not have known about Fuller’s work (possibly Un monde sans pitié, France, 1989 with the trick of directly, although Fuller’s camera style was noted by the the Eiffel tower lights). Cahiers du cinéma writers in the 1950s: Everything about the shooting of the film, the performances “For many ambitious film directors, movements of the and the overall approach to the narrative denies Hollywood camera are dependent on dramatic composition. Never whilst validating American Independents. The success of La so for Fuller, in whose work they are, fortunately, totally Haine is precisely in presenting American culture in a way gratuitous: it is in terms of the emotive power of the which enhances rather than overwhelms its contribution to movement that the scene is organised.” (Moullet 1959) French debates. It presents itself as entertainment and social comment to both French and international audiences. Whether it is from Scorsese or from his knowledge of American cinema gained via French criticism, Kassovitz was La Haine, Kassovitz and his influences Haine undoubtedly aware of the impact of his roving camera – to Mathieu Kassovitz has spoken extensively about his give a feeling of emotional attachment to the estate. influences. Like many other flmmakers, Kassovitz is not always a reliable source, but two comments which are The music in Mean Streets has already been suggested as a repeated seem likely to be reliable indications of how he model for La Haine (see Part Two) in terms of its mix of approached the film: Mean Streets is his favourite film and he different forms, but the comparison can be extended to the was not consciously trying to create the French equivalent of use of specific tracks to either comment on the action or to a ‘hood’ film. confirm the ‘authenticity’ of a scene in terms of local culture (or sub-culture). Mean Streets was one of the first films to be remembered for its music, not as one or two memorable 21
- 22. songs or melodies, but because the selection of different perhaps as cinematographer of Spike Lee’s early films. Juice tracks ‘fitted’ the narrative. It was as if the authorial stamp is closer to La Haine in its story of four youths involved in a of the director was evident in the choice of music as well as shop corner robbery that goes wrong. These are films based the direction of camera, lighting etc. All the music in Mean on northern cities. Menace II to Society (US 1993) from Streets is ‘diegetic’ – ‘source music’ as Scorsese calls it, playing Allen and Albert Hughes and South Central (1992) by Steve on juke boxes, car radios etc. This is also the case in La Haine. Anderson are Los Angeles films closer to the melodrama of Boyz ’N the Hood. A further film, Dennis Hopper’s Colors The setting and the characters in Mean Streets were close (US 1988) covers Los Angeles (Hispanic) gangs partly from to Scorsese’s own experience of growing up in Little Italy the perspective of two police officers. Finally there is Hangin’ and the actors, especially Harvey Keitel, were known to him With the Homeboys (US 1991) from Joseph Vasquez, which through his NYU experience. There is a strong sense that follows the adventures of a mixed group of African American these were not ‘actors’ playing roles, but local people being and Puerto Rican youths from the South Bronx in an alien themselves. Although Kassovitz was not a resident of les Manhatten. banlieues, his close relationship with Koundé and Cassel and through Cassel, Taghmaoui, gives La Haine a similar sense of Kassovitz’s comments reveal that he knew all about characters who ‘belong’ in their environment and direction these films and admired them when he perceived them which knows how to organise the narrative around them. as ‘independent’ and ‘committed’, but that he feared the commercial exploitation of the cycle with which he didn’t If Mean Streets is a clear model for La Haine and Scorsese want to be associated. an iconic auteur figure, it is perhaps inevitable that there are direct references to other Scorsese films in La Haine – Taxi American auteurs Driver, Raging Bull (US, 1980) (the camera roving around A name often mentioned by Kassovitz in relation to Hubert’s boxing moves) and also possibly After Hours (see American cinema is Jim Jarmusch, one of the first directors previous section). of the new ‘American Independent Cinema’ in the 1980s to gain international recognition. His first feature, Stranger than Gangsters and the ‘hood’ Paradise in 1984 won the ‘best first feature’ award at Cannes The relationship with Mean Streets is direct, but the overall and was commercially successful (i.e. as a low budget film its relationship between Mathieu Kassovitz and American profit to cost ratio was high) in North America and around cinema is more complex. In the interviews which helped the world, including France. to promote the film, Kassovitz made two strong points: he didn’t like Quentin Tarrantino’s work and didn’t want to be “One of Jarmusch’s crucial contributions to hundreds of identified as a French Tarrantino and he did not see La Haine future low-budget films was his casting concept … He as a ‘hood’ film. chose John Lurie, Richard Edson, and Eszter Balint to inhabit characters not unlike their everyday personalities The reluctance to be identified as a Gallic Tarrantino is … The three of them were the characters, and the understandable, both because he needed to assert his characters were them …” (Pierson 1995) individuality to promote the film, but also because the comparison does not stand up. Tarrantino has generally Jarmusch was another graduate of New York University Film been seen as more concerned with genre and narrative and School (like Martin Scorsese). His time in the school included less with any sense of ‘political’ purpose. The second issue working as an assistant to the great 1950s auteur Nicholas Ray is more interesting. The so called ‘hood’ films constitute a and then with Wim Wenders on a film about Ray. At NYU he generic hybrid drawing on youth pictures, and gang/gangster also met Spike Lee, who followed up the success of Stranger pictures made primarily by young African American directors than Paradise with his first film, She’s Gotta Have It. Jarmusch about life on the housing projects of major US cities. The went on to produce more successful independent films, often most successful in critical and commercial terms was Jon working closely with musicians or subjects associated with Singleton’s Boyz ’N the Hood (US 1991), more a family rock music as in films like Down by Law (US, 1986) with Tom melodrama set in South Central Los Angeles and detailing the Waits and another performance by John Lurie of New York struggle by separated parents to prevent their son becoming band the Lounge Lizards. yet another victim of the gun law which kills so many young African American males. Made by Singleton when he was If Kassovitz takes something from Jarmusch, it is perhaps just 23 and featuring an explicit political statement about the the sense of a basic narrative drive that underpins a story doleful future for young black men, the film created a major that otherwise seems to meander along: “Supposedly in impact. There are clear parallels with La Haine, although in Jarmusch’s movies nothing happens, but you still get people the latter it is the police rather than other youths who are the escaping (Down by Law)!” (Kassovitz quoted in Bourguignon ‘enemy’ and the circulation of firearms is much more limited. and Tobin 1999). He also gets something from Jarmusch’s contemporary, Spike Lee. Critics have pointed to the Other films recognised as part of this cycle include New Jack similarities in theme and storyline between She’s Gotta Have City, a gangster film directed by Mario Van Peebles with It (US, 1986)and Métisse and between La Haine and Do The a hero modelled on Al Pacino in Scarface (US, 1983) and Right Thing (US, 1989) and Clockers (US, 1995). Do The Right Juice (US, 1992) directed by Ernest Dickerson, better known Thing is set in Lee’s home territory of Bedford-Stuyvesant in 22
- 23. New York during one blazing hot summer day when tension “ After the mistakes of my first film, I learned two things on the street is sparked into conflagration by the refusal from watching the Coen brothers’ films – you have to of the Italian owner of a pizza parlour to put up images of write exactly what you want to film, and then you have heroes of African American culture on the walls above his to film with a strong point of view. When you look at dining tables. Clockers is a ‘hood’ style story about youths Orson Welles’ films – he was a genius anyway – the point on an estate and drug dealing, with a concerned cop played of view in his films is so strong that he can’t be wrong.” by Harvey Keitel. Kassovitz is no doubt well versed in the (Kassovitz quoted by Loewenstein 1995) sumptuous camerawork of Lee’s earlier films, photographed by Ernest Dickerson, but it may be that Lee’s attitude towards The context of production and distribution cinema has been more important than his aesthetics. Like The budget for La Haine was around 15-16 million French Kassovitz, Lee has a father involved in the ‘creative industries’ francs (about £1.5 million or US$2.4 million). This is about (as a composer-musician). Lee is producer, writer and the same as the budget for Trainspotting and slightly below director of his films and also acts in them. Ten years older the average for a French feature (considerably below the than Kassovitz, he made his first feature at 28 and from the budget for a ‘super production’ like The Horseman on the Roof beginning ran his own production company, 40 Acres and (France, 1995) which La Haine trounced at the box office.) a Mule (a name based on the (false) promise made to freed slaves after the Civil War). He quickly ‘got into bed’ with Mathieu Kassovitz was content with the budget, he had been the Hollywood studios to make his films after She’s Gotta used to much less on his previous films. It allowed him to Have It, whilst maintaining a high degree of control over It prepare carefully for shooting on the estate. An idea of the the projects. Kassovitz is still working in France and Lee’s nature of the shoot can be developed from the material in role in developing his ideas about a commercially viable, Parts 2 and 3. Kassovitz became involved in the editing, but artistically independent African-American cinema make sharing the work on Avid non-linear suites, a relative new him a special case. But he offers a model of how to work development in France at the time. successfully in the international film industry. The success of the film at Cannes a week before it opened in Ironically perhaps, the Spike Lee film that offers the most French cinemas signalled its great potential. The distributors, direct scene-by-scene comparison with La Haine is the assuming a ‘small’ auteur film initially made only 50 prints historical biopic Malcolm X (US 1992). The film begins with available, but this was quickly raised to 250, more like the contemporary footage of the police assault on Rodney King figure for a mainstream French or indeed American film in Los Angeles in 1991 as part of the credit sequence and release in France. La Haine played throughout the summer later in the film, Denzel Washington as a young Malcolm of 1995 and ended the year as Number 13 at the French box X in the 1950s leads a delegation to a police station when a office with nearly 2 million admissions. This translates to a man in Harlem is beaten by police. Leading his Black Muslim box office of around £8 million – puny by the standards of followers to the hospital where the wounded man is being successful American blockbusters, but very good for a small treated, he challenges the police to ensure that the man film (like Trainspotting and The Full Monty (UK, 1997) it receives the proper treatment – the collective power of the represents a very good profit to cost ratio). In Britain the film Black Muslims on the street is evident. was released in November 1995 and for a foreign language film it was remarkably successful entering the Top 15 in America or France? Screen International’s chart and grossing a total of nearly Mathieu Kassovitz rarely mentions French directors and £400,000. More significantly perhaps, La Haine has continued French films in the interviews which helped promote La to be a cult film screening on a regular basis at individual Haine. It is reasonable to assume that he has learned from the venues throughout the late 1990s. Its release in North directors with whom he has worked as an actor, in particular America (where French language films benefit from the his father, Peter, his business partner Luc Besson, and Jacques substantial audience in French speaking Canada), garnered Audiard who gave him a leading role. But it would seem that a total box office of around US$500,000. The relatively although the cultural references are French, the visual style disappointing American box office, behind several more owes much to those graduates of NYU, Scorsese, Jarmusch conventional (i.e. relatively conservative) French films could and Lee and others who have shown supreme control of the be used to argue either that a) the film was ‘too French’ for camera and the edit suite (e.g. Stephen Spielberg in the earlier the American market or b) that it was too American and not part of his career). “Unlike many young French directors who exotic enough. Either way, as in Britain, the film has gained are trained at FEMIS [a leading French film school], and who a cult reputation in North America and has been heavily only swear by Godard, Pialat or Truffaut, Kassovitz readily supported by users of the Internet Movie Database. quotes Scorsese and Spielberg” (a comment by Christophe D’Yvoire of Studio magazine, quoted by Vincendeau 2000). Reception La Haine has been termed a ‘film event’ in France (Jäckel Kassovitz gets his cinephilia – his obsessive interest in cinema 1997). Throughout the summer it stimulated news stories, and especially auteur cinema – from his experience of French not least because it attracted a youth audience to the film culture, but his models do seem to be American: multiplex to see an auteur picture. Kassovitz himself had a lot to do with the fuss the film created. He plunged into 23
- 24. the promotional round, but also initiated several unusual La Haine is an auteur film. It demands a different form of tie-ins. Gilles Favier, a documentary photographer who reading to that used for action-orientated films. The reference worked for the major news magazines, was commissioned to history and its importance by Kassovitz reflects a growing to take photographs of the estates and their residents which sense by (generally older) filmmakers and critics that young challenged the stereotypical view. These were published along audiences have little sense of past events whether ‘real’ with the scenario of the film. Some of these photographs were or cinematic. This is a charge often made, but difficult to exhibited, along with stills from the film, at selected venues. prove or to evaluate if true, but what it does highlight is the Audiences were invited to take away copies of some of the ambition of La Haine in reaching out to different audiences photographs. Writing and photography workshops for young and operating in both auteur and mainstream cinema people and youth workers were organised, some of which contexts. were run by Kassovitz and Favier. (Source: Elstob 1997) La Haine is dedicated to “friends and families who died These actions helped to create forums to discuss the issues during its making”. It was based on a real incident and these of the film. More discussion appeared on the internet with incidents didn’t stop after the film appeared. Press reports several fansites accompanying the official site for the film. pointed to at least one riot in which youths may have been The CD release of the original soundtrack was augmented by encouraged by the film to vent their anger after another a second CD of songs ‘inspired by the film’ from rap artists incident. Screenings were made for the youths on the La invited to appear by Kassovitz. Two more bizarre outcomes Noë estate that featured in the film and some youths visited of the film’s release were an unsuccessful attempt by a French a cinema complex for the first time. There were also reports supermarket chain to cash in on the film’s success by releasing of violence at screenings – a disturbing echo of the reports a range of ‘La Haine’ clothing (Kassovitz refused) and a which suggested violent disturbances at screenings of Boyz special screening of the film for the French Cabinet. This N the Hood in Los Angeles (see Reader 1995). Kassovitz latter was intended to introduce the government to life on maintained in all his interviews that he had no problems the estates. The right wing government of Alain Juppé were filming on the estate, but this was contradicted by several reportedly not impressed by the film, but this episode is quite press reports. La Haine is a film that made an impact. remarkable in the contemporary media world and almost appears like a throwback to the 1960s when politicians took Perhaps the most important observation about the ‘youth icons’ seriously as ‘spokespersons’. Such was the impact circulation and reception of La Haine is that interest in the of a film which prompted coverage by many newspapers film has been maintained. The failure of Kassovitz’s follow and started more discussion about the issue of les banlieues, up, Assassins dissipated the interest to a certain extent, but a fuelled no doubt by Kassovitz’s provocative statements about reasonable showing by his next feature which should appear the film being “against the cops”. Sheila Johnston reports in 2000 or 2001 will rekindle it. a nice rejoinder to this statement by a police official who refers to the film as “a beautiful work of cinematographic art La Haine and film criticism that can make us more aware of certain realities” (Johnston Overall, La Haine received strong support with the only 1995). As Johnston points out, it is difficult to imagine a negative comments in Britain and America coming from similar comment by a British police official. It does show the reviewers who tended to compare the film unfavourably potential for discussion of film culture in France and in that with Hollywood gangster or ‘hood’ films. For this very small context we need to ask what the target youth audience made minority the film was slow and its significance in terms of any of the film. form of political statement was either dismissed or ignored. The film certainly attracted some of the youths it purported (There were more dissenting voices in France, but again the to represent and some reports suggest that the strong majority view was very positive.) language surprised and shocked young people themselves (Vincendeau 2000). Significantly perhaps for some of the The most detailed responses came from writers with an analyses of the film, there were suggestions that youth understanding of both Hollywood and European cinema audiences recognised the major issue as class rather than and of French culture generally. French cinema benefits in race. However some comments from audiences suggested coverage by Anglo-American academic writers in that it is a that the character of Vinz was a problem. “The Frenchman major interest not just for film or media studies academics, who pretends to be an Arab. He does not know who he is, he but also for those in modern languages departments. The speaks verlan, he adopts the culture of the cité, but it does not centrality of film within French culture means that aspects ring true. It is not a problem of race but of culture.” (A youth of French cinema are studied, in French, as part of degree quoted by Jäckel 1997). This echoes comments made by courses in French language and culture. Academics concerned some of the critics and by Jean-Louis Richet, the director of with this area of study are also able as French speakers to L’états des lieux, one of the films made from within the estate access film journals and internet sites written in French – communities. often thus gaining access to materials denied to monolingual film studies academics and critics. In addition, because Anne Jäckel also reports that some audiences were confused so much of film theory derived originally from French by the film – they didn’t understand why Vinz gave up the philosophy and because the films of la nouvelle vague in the gun to Hubert and some were completely baffled by the 1960s so influenced the early development of film studies, Russian story told by the old man. This isn’t surprising, French cinema has remained an important subject for writing 24
- 25. about cinema and, crucially, French films are more likely to other Maghrebi films such as Malik Chibane’s Douce France gain a release in the UK and America than films from most (France 1995), Bye Bye has not received a release in the UK or other non-English speaking countries. America and audiences outside France must rely on special screenings or critics reports from festivals etc. Another film Approaches which has been reported back in this way is L’état des lieux Bérénice Reynaud offers a clear reading of La Haine and (France 1995), a low-budget feature made by a leftist banlieue its importance by stressing the history of the Parisian resident, François Richet – discussed in a comparison with authorities’ attempt to push the poor out of the centre of the La Haine by Keith Reader and by Anne Jäckel. Reynaud sees city (making Paris very different from London, for instance). La Haine as the most important of the films she discusses, She uses this to stress that the three youths in La Haine have picking out the scene in the public toilet and the youths an interracial friendship based on their common experience bewilderment at the old man’s Siberian story as evidence of of ‘social exclusion’ – a term used here to distinguish the La Haine’s understanding that the oppression of les banlieues idea of shared experience of oppression from any sense that is rooted in a history of oppression. She makes the telling ‘generational solidarity’ supersedes issues of ethnic identity point that this reference to Vinz’s ‘community history’ (as in a film like Kids (US, 1996)). Reynaud identifies La should be placed alongside colonial massacres in West Africa Haine as a film which helps to return French cinema to (graphically represented in Sembène Ousmane and Thierno looking at the working class, this time in les banlieues. She Faty Sow’s Camp de Thiaroye (Senegal 1987)) and the identifies previous attempts during the Popular Front period systematic liquidisation of Maghrebians during the Algerian in the 1930s and the more politicised films of the immediate War. Her major criticism, levelled also at the other banlieue post-1968 period. In particular, Reynaud refers to two of the films, is the absence of narratives about women. films of the highest profile ‘political’ director to be associated with the post-1968 period, Jean-Luc Godard. In Deux ou The only director from Reynaud’s discussion whose work trois choses que je sais d’elle (Two or three things I know about seems to be getting a release in the UK is Robert Gédiguian. her)(France, 1967), ‘elle’ is the Paris banlieues as well as Reynaud refers to his 1989 film Dieu vomit les tièdes. His the housewife/prostitute played by Marina Vlady. Godard 1997 film Marius et Jeannette was released in the UK and mounts a scathing attack on the commercialisation of life more recently À la place du coeur (France 1998), which dealt in Paris and the prostitution of its values (i.e. forgetting the with an inter-racial marriage between two teenagers who are working classes who made it great). In his 1975 film, Numéro persecuted by a racist police officer. Gédiguian makes films Deux, Godard returned to les banlieues as a location for an mostly about the working class communities in Marseilles examination of the life of Sandrine, a refugee from North and has sometimes been likened to Ken Loach. Why his films Africa, one of the working class settlers forced to relocate rather than others have got a release is part of the mystery of after 1962. distribution, but they do give British audiences some insight into a ‘different’ French cinema. “The banlieue started as a place where nobody was born. Now a generation later, the children of those who were Ginette Vincendeau (2000) refers to La Haine as “belonging forcibly pushed into these dormitory communities are to the new ‘genre’ of youth-orientated and violent telling their story with a vengeance.” (Reynaud 1996) international neo-noir movies”. She makes the link to Scorsese and Tarantino and also to John Woo, citing the ‘Mexican Reynaud’s argument is that La Haine was successful because stand-off ’ at the end of the film. Her detailed analysis is many people are worried about les banlieues – they expect mainly concerned with the representation of the social them to explode in the near future and La Haine gives space of les banlieues and the ‘authenticity’ of Kassovitz’s some insight into what is happening/might happen. The portrayal of its culture. She places La Haine in the context of remainder of Reynaud’s article is concerned with a discussion other French films with similar concerns and discusses the of La Haine in the context of the other ‘banlieue films’ and contradiction between the American style of La Haine, with television programmes which have finally brought into public its appeal to an international youth culture, and the roots of discourse the issues of life for young people in particular the story in real events, further emphasised by realist traits – ‘the second generation’. These are often stories of métissage such as documentary shooting. The rather chilling conclusion – “an untranslatable term that literally means ‘inbreeding’ is that La Haine presents three young men who are detached but is used to convey a racial melting pot, something like from the long French tradition of working-class resistance ‘multiculturalism’ with a more populist, sensualist, almost and who belong instead to the new, international, class of physical flavour” (see comments about Kassovitz’s first the excluded with its “self-destructive, consumer-hungry, feature, Métisse in Part One). apolitical behaviour typical of international ghetto youth culture”. One feature of the 1990s ‘working class films’ is that many are set in France’s second city Marseilles, including Karim Ginette Vincendau also appeared on a BBC radio programme Dridi’s Bye Bye (France 1995), which some critics have which discussed La Haine in conjunction with Trainspotting placed ahead of La Haine as a film about the experience of (UK, 1996) and Kids. Given the vagaries of distribution, ‘the second generation’. Marseilles is both closer to North these three films came out within six months of each other Africa and more working class in its profile. It is also closer in the UK, between November 1995 and May 1996. The to the areas of electoral success for the Front National. Like radio discussion took the three as examples of a new kind 25
- 26. of ‘harder’, ‘tougher’ and ‘more authentic’ kind of youth- Vol. 51 no. 2, Winter 1997-8 orientated cinema (although Kids was generally not well Hayward, Susan (1993) French National Cinema, London: received in the UK and the discussion suggested that the Routledge filmmaker had exploited his young actors). A totally separate Hayward, Susan and Vincendeau, Ginette (eds)(2000) French analysis of La Haine (Dixon 1995) also linked the film to Film: Texts and Contexts (2nd edition), London: Routledge Trainspotting Trainspotting, but this time on the basis that both films Henley, Jon (1999) ‘Clubland’s true colours’ in Guardian G2, concerned the culture of housing estates. A further link was 20 December 1999 then made to Small Faces (UK, 1995), Gilles McKinnon’s Jäckel, Anne (1997) Paris banlieue – tour détour des jeunes, film about a group of youths on a 1960s Glasgow housing Education Department, Watershed Media Centre, Bristol estate. Dixon’s conclusions were that La Haine was far more James, Barry (1997) ‘Assimilating in France’, New York Herald successful than the two British films, both in terms of its Tribune, 1st April cinematic style and its representation of lives on the estates. Johnson, Sheila (1995) Interview with Mathieu Kassovitz, Independent 19 October 1995 Like several other commentators, Kevin Elstob comments on Loewenstein, Lael (1995) ‘Exploring the Dark Side’, published the use of language in the film and for non-French speakers on the website of UCLA (University of California, Los he offers an alternative translation of one example of Saïd’s Angeles) tirade of invective: McCabe, Bob (1995) Interview with Mathieu Kassovitz, Empire, November 1995 “Ça t’arracherait les poils du cul de dire bonjour?” for McArthur, Colin (1995) Underworld USA, London: Secker example, is scatalogically lyrical. It means something and Warburg like, “Would it kill you to say hello?” However, such a flat McNeill, Tony (1998) ‘Les banlieues’ and ‘La Haine’, lectures translation undercuts a literal one: “Would it tear the posted on the University of Sunderland website hairs out of your ass to say hello?” (Elstob 1997) Moullet, Luc (1959) ‘Sam Fuller: In Marlowe’s Footsteps’ in Cahiers du Cinéma 93 reprinted in Jim Hillier (ed.) Cahiers Susan Morrison considers La Haine, along with Wong Kar- du Cinéma: The 1950s, Harvard University Press (1985) wai’s Fallen Angels (Hong Kong, 1995), as one of ‘Scorsese’s Morrison, Susan (1995) ‘La Haine, Fallen Angels, and Some children’. Writing after only a single viewing of La Haine, but Thoughts on Scorsese’s Children’ in CineAction no. 39, pp backed up by excellent research, she teases out the Scorsese 44-50, 1995 connection (see the Influences section earlier in Part Four). Pierson, John (1995) Spike, Mike, Slackers and Dykes, London: Writing with passion, Morrison conveys the excitement of Faber and Faber a festival audience in Toronto seeing La Haine for the first Propp, Vladimir (1968) Morphology of the Folktale, Autin: time and she represents very well the way in which the film University of Texas Press appeals, beyond the issues it covers, to the sheer joy of great Reader, Keith (1995) ‘After the Riot’ Sight & Sound Vol 5 No filmmaking: 12-14 November Romney, Jonathan (1995) ‘La Haine’, Guardian 17 November “… Kassovitz’s film shares with Scorsese’s early work 1995, collected in Short Orders, London: Serpent’s Tail a power of method and economy of means put to use Sarris, Andrew (1962/1971) ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in to tell an histoire moralisé. In these times when style 1962’ in P. Adams Sitney (ed), Film Culture Reader, London: and action seem to be all there is to most movies it’s Secker and Warburg refreshing to find a film that not only has something Shohat, Ella and Stam, Robert (1994) Unthinking meaningful to say, but says it in an innovative way.” Eurocentrism: Multiculturalism and the Media, London: (Morrison 1995) Routledge Styan, David (1995) ‘So Far… Everything is OK!’ in Vertigo 1 References no. 5, pp 46-47, 1995 Alexander, Karen(1995), ‘La Haine’ in Vertigo 1 no. 5, pp 45- Reynaud, Berenice (1996) ‘le ´hood: Hate and its neighbours’ 46, 1995 in Film Comment Vol 32, pp 54-8, Mar-April 1996 Astruc, Alexandre (1948/1968) ‘The Birth of a New Avant- Salt, Barry (1992) Film Style & Technology: History & Analysis, Garde: La Caméra-Stylo’ in Peter Graham (ed) The New London: Starword Wave, London: Secker and Warburg Tarr, Carrie (1993) ‘Questions of Identity in Maghrebi Bourguignon, Thomas and Tobin, Yann (1999) ‘Interview cinema: from Tea in the Harem to Cheb’ in ScreenVol 34 N0 4, with Mathieu Kassovitz’ in Projections 9, Michel Ciment and Winter 1993 Noël Herpe (eds), London: Faber and Faber Tarr, Carrie (1997) ‘Ethnicity and identity in Métisse and La Branston, Gill and Stafford, Roy (1999 and 4th edition 2006) Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz’ in Multicultural France, Working The Media Student’s Book, London: Routledge Papers on Contemporary France, Vol 7, Tony Chafer (ed), Crofts, Stephen (1998) ‘Authorship and Hollywood’ in The University of Portsmouth Oxford Guide to Film Studies, John Hill and Pamela Church Truffaut, François (1954) ‘Une certaine tendance du cinéma Gibson (eds), Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press français’, Cahiers du cinéma, 31 Dixon, Angus (1997) Review of La Haine posted on Glasgow Vincendeau, Ginette (ed) (1995) Encyclopedia of European University website Cinema, London: Cassell/British Film Institute Elstob, Kevin (1997) ‘Review: La Haine’ in Film Quarterly, Vincendeau, Ginette (2000) ‘Designs on the banlieue: 26
- 27. Mathieu Kassovitz’s La Haine (1995)’ in Hayward and French cartoon characters Cartoons and ‘graphic Vincendau (eds) op cit. novels’ have more status in France than in the UK and possibly a more high-brow status than in America. Astérix Internet sources and Obelix, characters from Ancient Gaul who resist the The material collected for the original version of these notes Roman Empire, are national icons and the stars of recent is not necessarily now online. I haven't yet explored new French blockbusters. Hercule and Pif (replaced on American online material – but I'm sure it exists. subtitles by Sylvester and Tweetie Pie) are cartoon characters in Communist comics going back to the 1950s (Vincendeau Recommended reading 2000) The two most accessible articles on La Haine in book form are Vincendeau (2000) and Bourguignon and Tobin (1999). front office The management of a large media For French cinema generally, Hayward (1993) is good on conglomerate which can make decisions affecting creative contexts and historical perspective. production without any direct contact with the filmmaking Guy Austin, An Introduction to Contemporary French Cinema, process. Manchester University Press (1996) is an accessible account of some major trends in French cinema since the late 1960s. hegemony The power of one group over another Branston and Stafford (2006, 4th ed) is a useful background achieved through a successful struggle to persuade the resource for ideas about narrative, genre, production subordinate group that the arrangements are in their interest techniques etc. – domination by consent. Glossary hybridity Originally a term from biology relating As far as possible, jargon words are explained in the text. to new organisms created by cross-breeding, now a concept Where this would be inappropriate they are briefly explained describing any kind of ‘mixed’ entity which combines below: qualities from different parents. In cultural studies a crucial aspect of the contemporary world American Independent Cinema A sector of American cinema formally recognised by the industry since the mid intertextuality The concept that media texts produce 1980s with smaller budgets and slightly less conventional meanings through their relationship to other media texts, narratives than mainstream Hollywood. The term is now rather than directly through their relationship to reality. something of a misnomer since many ‘Independent’ films are financed by specialist divisions of major Hollywood studios la nouvelle vague The ‘New Wave’ of filmmaking in France in the late 1950s, associated with the young ‘critics character functions Vladimir Propp suggested that turned directors’ of Cahiers du cinéma. The term New Wave all fairy tales were structured using combinations of 31 has since been applied to many groups of filmmakers who ‘character functions’, such as ‘the villain causes harm to a have challenged the prevailing modes of cinema. member of a family’ – the police shoot Abdel? MEDIA programme The major support programme cinematography The art and science of capturing to promote the audio-visual industry in Europe funded by moving images. The cinematographer, in conjunction with the European Union. Includes grants for training, script the director, will make decisions about filmstock, lens, filters development (EURIMAGES) etc. etc. This role is termed Director of Photography in the UK. mise en scène Originally a theatre term describing the discourse Taken from linguistics, this term suggests staging of a scene and including lighting, costume, set design a regulated system of visual and verbal language with etc. Promoted as the basis for textual analysis of cinema by assumptions about what can be discussed on a certain topic. Cahiers du cinéma critics in the 1950s the definition was later Thus a discourse on gender includes some ideas and excludes expanded to include camerawork. Some theorists believe the others. concept is less applicable to modern cinema. iconography Derived from art history, the concept of a montage Loosely used to refer to film editing, system of recurring signs (icons) across the films of a specific montage has two specific meanings: the principle of genre, such as the machine guns, cars and fashion items juxtaposing images to create new meanings, introduced in associated with gangster movies, Soviet cinema in the 1920s; the use of short sequences of related images, often ‘library’ stock, to give a quick impression identity In cultural studies the concept of how a of a particular event, industrial process etc. as used in sense of self is constructed (and which may be at odds with Hollywood genre pictures of the studio period (1930-50). assumptions about an individual held by others). Thus the development of a politics of identity. neo-noir ‘Noir’ refers to the group of films made mostly in the 1940s in America and Europe which were ‘dark’ both in theme and visual style. These films are now seen as a major influence on contemporary films with a similar dark 27
- 28. and ‘tough’ thematics and which, although usually shot in colour, have a similar visual style. other A concept taken from work on the psychology of racism and colonialism. In order to justify the domination of one group over another the subordinate group is seen as ‘different’ with qualities which are the negative of those of the dominant group. The dominant group needs to define ‘otherness’ to secure its own identity. post genre Although filmmakers and audiences still recognise the characteristics of specific film genres, very few ‘pure genre’ films are still made. Most modern films are generic hybrids (see above) which use a mix of different genre characteristics. This is a ‘post genre’ cinema. rough cut The first attempt to create a film with all the shots in sequence. The producers must decide at this stage if the original ideas about the narrative structure have worked out. signifier A term from semiotics – the study of signs. A signifier is an image or part of an image which is the code for a specific meaning (the ‘signified’). Cinematic images often carry many signifiers, aural as well as visual. © Roy Stafford, itp publications 2012 28