The Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni once wrote that "cinema should be tied to truth rather than logic" and this statement is a useful heuristic when considering careful analysis of the evocative directing styles of Stanley Kubrick and Lynne Ramsay. In this essay we will compare and contrast key sequences from Full Metal Jacket (Kubrick, USA, 1987) and Ratcatcher (Ramsay, UK, 1999) and argue that, despite being seemingly unlikely bedfellows, these films are in some analogous ways with respect to their treatment of male development and the subtle suggestion of government as remote through innovative twists on cinematic conventions. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay At the time of its release, Full Metal Jacket was considered "part of the Vietnam War cycle that emerged in the wake of Platoon", but at the same time considered unique for its creative interpretation of narrative norms in cinema. Similarly, at the time of its 1999 release, Ratcatcher, Lynne Ramsay's Glasgow Bildungsroman was considered a development of the British neorealist aesthetic that extended from Tony Richardson's 1960 drama Saturday Night and Sunday Morning to the work directed by Ken Loach and Mike Leigh. , respectively (French et al., 2017). As Ramsay has since honed his craft with several films, Ratcatcher has been understood to be an altogether more sensitive and ethereal treatment of themes than any of its predecessors. Of course there are huge differences in these films. Where Kubrick's film doggedly observes how the desire for recognition among young people can lead to unceremonious institutionalization, Ramsay's vision quietly offers family and community as an antidote to marginalization that can protect and inoculate young boys from 'being devoured by the government apparatus. Despite these differences, upon closer examination, one can observe that both films break the conventions of POV shooting, both use social and graphic blocks that accentuate the relationship between the characters and their environment, and both set aside sequences in which concessions key to cinematic romance are made to evoke fairly common thematic subtexts. In the evolving language of cinema, POV is understood to be used to increase the audience's understanding of the subjective experience of a specific character. Usually the character in question would be a key character, a protagonist or an antagonist and about whom the audience already knows a lot (Chapman, 1986). Furthermore, it is widely considered to be part of the conventions of the POV shot that, when used, is accompanied by a reverse shot that informs the audience which POV we have just seen. In a key scene that concludes the sequence that opens Ratcatcher, Ramsay provocatively confounds expectations by denying the audience this reverse shot and leaving the owner of the POV anonymous. As Wilson (2003) notes, “it is never made explicit” who is watching and the impact is shocking. Charlotte O'Sullivan (2012) agrees: "we are already temporarily stunned, assuming that our hero, our narrative center is dead." Wilson (2003) acknowledges the influence of Krzysztof Kieślowski's ambiguous imagery on Ramsay and this would suggest that Ramsay's anonymous POV shot in the opening frames of Ratcatcher may have been inspired by Kieślowski's observer character in his Polish television series "Dekalog". Played by Artur Barciś, Kieślowski's observer appears in eight of the ten episodes, always depicted silently observing the momentskey to the narrative of Dekalog's protagonists without saying a word or acting on what he sees. Although this character remains mysterious, some believe his presence is Kieślowski's depiction of a non-interventionist God. As this idea develops, Ramsay places the camera where an observer might be but resists giving it to the audience inverted shot that usually accompanies a POV to reveal who the observer is and this inspired abuse of POV conventions actually serves as a warning to the audience that anything can happen, even something as unceremoniously as death, without spiritual, parental or administrative supervision, to the boy that society has forgotten. In a similar departure from the standard use of POV, Kubrick films key exchanges in the sniper scene in Full Metal Jacket with the camera embodying the perspective of the snipers, a character of whom we have no understanding and for whom this shot gives us little more. This shot has indeed been widely criticized in the literature on the film as "it does not invite viewers to share the sniper's thoughts and feelings", but if we consider the theory that Kubrick's camera personifies the all-seeing eye of the American government throughout In the film, then this point of view without reference to the subjectivity of the character takes on a very different meaning consistent with the subtextual theme of a detached and unassailable government. Consider the opening frames of Full Metal Jacket. We open with shots of several soldiers with shaved heads, but these are characters for whom we are given no backstory and the jumps between one soldier and another and the time gap between their episodic haircuts add to their unceremonious nature, telling us that they are interchangeable (Kempley, 1987). That is, in the eyes of Kubrick's camera. With this sequence, one could argue that Kubrick is inviting the curious viewer to ask who would consider these soldiers to be anonymous and interchangeable and one might answer, the government. As such, Kubrick is teaching viewers that the camera point of view will mimic multiple eyes for the remainder of the film. It doesn't matter who they are or where they come from, whether they volunteered or were drafted. In the eyes of the institution, they are equally useless. To return to our discussion of POV, in this context, Kubrick's unconventional use of anonymous POV in the sniper scene is consistent with the disrespect given to the enemy in war. Another interesting way to see how Ramsay and Kubrick deal with a common issue of subtext can be observed in their use of social and graphic blocks to pronounce the relationship between the characters and their respective environments. Full Metal Jacket is shot in 4:3, a ratio so commonly used in 1987 that it was known as "the universal video format of the 20th century." Kubrick described the film as his attempt to show war, merits and all, and as such, the choice to shoot in this television format may have been made for the sense of realism it would give to the action, especially if we consider that the Vietnam War had entered the consciousness of the United States through television coverage in the seventies. The most obvious reference to television in the film, of course, are the interviews in Hue City in which soldiers are interviewed in the field by a television crew and in this sequence it could be argued that there are further cues for Kubrick's camera adopting the of a government institution. That is, those soldiers who uphold the party line regarding the mission of their war and their glorious role in itspeak to a camera that is itself visible in Kubrick's frame while those soldiers who express dissatisfaction, concern and disgust at the situation they find themselves in by staring into the lens of Kubrick's camera, breaking the fourth wall and looking straight into the eyes of the government institution. The tension between obedience and defiance is subtly pronounced by the social block of these scenes and this tension is also reflected in the graphic block of the film. In the first half of Full Metal Jacket, symmetrical geometric shapes are created through the effective use of graphic blocking and framing, Kubrick effectively boxes the soldiers within both the proportions and their special relationship to the set. which accentuates the pressure to conform in detail in both narrative and framing, but it is notable that these beats stop when the soldiers arrive in Vietnam and enter the firefight in the city of Hue. This disintegration of order in the bloc mirrors the breakdown of central order and respect for the chain of command and mirrors the tension between individuality and conformity that characterizes the subtext of the film. Ramsay's use of framing also "enunciates a particular set of paradoxical tensions." These tensions are particularly evident in the scene in which the film's protagonist James explores a construction site where his family hopes to build a new home and is depicted peering around corners, obscured by the frame and hidden from view. This is a key example of Ramsay's use of the frame and the character's special relationship with it to create "tension at work" as the images appear as glimpses that simultaneously serve as an illustration of a developing boy, difficult to capture while moving through a fixed space. , suggesting "the ambiguity of childhood and its resistance to fixity" but consistent with Ramsay's unconventional use of POV camerawork, also suggests a boy out of sight and out of mind from any sense of governing, parental or social. This is especially interesting to note since many of the British films that preceded Ramsay were known for their psychological realism. Contrary to the principles of psychological realism, however, Paul Schrader defines what he refers to as "the transcendental style" as a more ethereal style, expressive approach achieved through ascetic and precise framing and staging, relaxed and frank central performance, and a that seeks to ask questions rather than provide answers (Schrader, 2018). It is this style that characterizes Ratcatcher and much of Ramsay's subsequent work. For example, in that same scene in Ratcatcher where the young boy, James, explores the construction site, he goes upstairs and through a window observes a field which in the context of both the film's mise-en-scène and the boy's worldview represents a romantic and impressionistic image of health, escape, space and promise. These images mark a notable break with the gray and oppressive mise en scene established in the rest of the film and this momentary concession to artistic romanticism represents the hope that still remains in every boy who is alive, awake, moving, gaining freedom of action and young. enough to grow even beyond the limits of its environment. As such, we can see the half-built housing estate that James explores as an indicator of his sketchy future, which is undetermined, and the window overlooking the cornfield as a visual representation of his potential that could be realized if his family succeeds. to move into this house before James's is crushed by life on the council estateand by the lack of protective supervision evoked in the less idyllic previous sequences. There is a striking similarity between this sequence and a much shorter but no less important image progression in Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket. In the film's first act, a series of marching sequences chart the progress of individual soldiers as they are brought together into a cohesive unit. In the first of these sequences, the camera moves in anticipation of the troops, giving the scene the feeling of being in the moment and the viewer the feeling of being with the troops as they march and sing. Kubrick is famous for his carefully staged frames which are believed to arise from his love of classical painting (Eberwein, 2010). His lens of choice was a 16mm lens which gives us that famous Kubrick wide shot, almost a fish eye lens masquerading as widescreen and although much has gone into the staging and framing of his iconic frames, Full Metal Jacket was not shot with this widescreen lens and Kubrick himself is convinced that it is the editing and not the framing that characterizes the film. Quoting Pudovkin when speaking to Rolling Stone in 1987, Kubrick said, "writing, of course, is writing, acting comes from theater and cinematography comes from photography, but editing is unique to film." You can see something from different points of view almost at the same time and this creates a new experience.' Considering this, later in the first act, the soldiers march again but Kubrick's camera, still on a dolly, now moves against the action of the soldiers as they march. This gives the scene a more balletic feel and suggests that, far from the disparate group we saw marching earlier, this is now a group that has progressed to move through the space as one. Where, in the previous scene, Kubrick's camera, the all-seeing eye, dragged them into this process, the eye of the government it represents now watches them, coolly and approvingly as they begin to comply. That said, there is a crucial tension here too that Kubrick does not ignore. That is to say, despite the inevitability of private characters falling from grace as individuals and becoming brainwashed core members, this balletic march scene is the first time in the course of the film's narrative causes the unit feel like a single entity which, at this point in the story, is actually satisfying for them, for Sargent drill and, Kubrick appreciates, to some extent, for the viewer. For a moment, the romantic idea of ​​being a Marine is realized and to highlight this moment, Kubrick cuts to an idyllic scene of soldiers scaling obstacles at sunset as we hear the sound of their marching feet and the singing continues as an audio insert. It's the relationship between these two shots, the way our mind associates the images, encouraged by the superimposed audio, that gives this sequence its momentary romantic power. As such, similar to the appearance of the cornfield in Ratcatcher, this sequence can be understood as a fleeting indulgence in cinematic impressionism in an otherwise cold and incarcerating space. Werner Herzog is said to have said "facts do not convey truth, that is a fallacy, facts create norms, but truth creates enlightenment" and this distinction between fact and truth is a useful heuristic when viewed as certain factual aspects they are used by both directors, not to detail reality but rather to evoke it. Both Ramsay and Kubrick's creative roots lie in photography and both are interested in a certain kind of realism, but the realism evoked rather something more obvious. Ramsay uses desaturated colors and.