Specialist Study 1: Urban Stories - Power, Poverty and Conflict
The expectation is that candidates will choose two principal films representing life in difficult urban environments, and that these will be supplemented by two further films studied more briefly. The challenge of this topic is to compare and contrast films which may come from very different social and cultural contexts.
It is possible to consider historical examples such as Metropolis and Bicycle Thieves or largely contemporary examples such as Chungking Express, La Haine, Amores Perros, City of God and Tsotsi.
City of God
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Two boys growing up in a violent neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro take different paths: one becomes a photographer, the other a drug dealer.
Directors:
Writers:
Stars:
Budget
$3,300,000 (estimated)
Opening Weekend
$114,442 (USA) (19 January 2003) (5 Screens)
£307,177 (UK) (5 January 2003) (76 Screens)
€41,350 (Italy) (11 May 2003) (18 Screens)
€169,797 (Spain) (2 February 2003) (86 Screens)
£307,177 (UK) (5 January 2003) (76 Screens)
€41,350 (Italy) (11 May 2003) (18 Screens)
€169,797 (Spain) (2 February 2003) (86 Screens)
Defining Power Max Weber Power and Domination
Weber defined power as the chance that an individual in a social relationship can achieve his or her own will even against the resistance of others.
In order to make this definition more useful in the study of history and society, Weber suggests domination as an alternative, or more carefully defined concept. Weber defines domination "as the probability that certain specific commands (or all commands) will be obeyed by a given group of persons"
Examples of dominance could include parent-child relationships, employer-employee relationships, teacher-student, domination within the family, political rule that is generally accepted and obeyed, or the relation between a priest and church member.
Types of power
Economic - how does money equate to power
Status - how is power determined by who you are and how others percieve you
Intellectual - how does your knowledge base give you power
Coercion - you are forced to obey power
Rational - you agree to obey power as it is in your own interests (law)
Poverty
The poverty line – social constructed measure of poverty
Absolute and Relative Poverty
Absolute poverty is when you have nothing and exist completely hand to mouth.
Relative poverty is when you compare yourselves to those around you. In our context a household that didn’t have a washing machine or couldn’t afford a holiday would be relatively poor.
Material deprivation – existing with a lack of material things i.e. possessions
Cultural deprivation – you might be non-poor in terms of money but do you have access to ‘higher’ culture. At home are you encouraged to listen to classical music, read classic literature, eat fine food etc
Research paper on poverty in Rio
page 4
By discussing the encoder decoder model you can argue that sometimes the intended meaning is lost because between the encoder (director) and the decoder (audience) exists a cultural curtain. We as a British audience have no empathy (deep understanding) of the issues of Poverty and Power in the Brazilian slums. Any evaluation we make is from our own perspective ( what we might call an ethnocentric viewpoint)
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