Series one episode one: 25:02 – 27:30 / 32:24 – 35:00 / 48:35 – 50:43
| Camera use | Editing | Mise en scene | Sound |
Trinity is a posh university where only the very best students go. We immediately get an impression of a great divide between the privileged and the ordinary working class students.
We are soon made aware that Theo, the young black male, is ill-at ease, presented in an over the shoulder medium close up, as if we are watching him and waiting for him to fail, in the dining hall between two other students who look as if they belong there, and in a series of quick cuts between Theo and the glasses on the table and Charlotte’s face, he is shown not knowing which is his glass and being told by the server not to drink until after the grace has been said, zoom in close up on his embarrassed face.
Next they stand for the grace, a long shot shows us the ‘posh’ surroundings, the chandeliers, tall wood beamed ceilings, wooden tables, glassware and students and fellows in black gowns and mortar-boards, cue Theo’s next embarrassment. Here the non-diegetic music clues us in on his coming humiliation as it is light and mischievous in character. He doesn’t know the Latin grace and has to be fed it by Charlotte but mishears and his rendition is loudly laughed at by all as the camera closes in on his red face then zooms out to reveal the room full of people laughing and pointing at him.
In the next scene leaving the dining hall Theo encounters Dorien (Lord Gordayne); this scene is set in a busy outside corridor but the people passing are usually out of focus and in focus are Theo, Dorien and a friend of Dorien usually seen in a three shot behind but between the two having the conversation. Here again Theo is set up to fail, first of all seen in a long shot picking up Dorien’s dropped walking cane then seen tugging on Dorien’s yellow brocade waistcoat but calling him a member of the marigold club (a veiled jibe??)Theo is cast in the role of supplicant to the superior Dorien who appears to act friendly putting his arm around Theo’s neck and telling him the principles of the club to reject work, drink a lot and have a lot of sex, can he manage that. Upon Theo asking how he joins a slow zoom in on the pair shows Dorien deliberately blowing smoke in Theo’s face and telling him he can’t because his parents are poor. Close up on Theo’s face followed by a zoom out as we see him in context with the other students laughing at his humiliation.
The final scene begins with an establishing shot of a gothic style redbrick turreted building, the college, by night. A jump cut takes us into the fray of the party of the ‘Feast of Fools’ a series of mid shots, separated by jump cuts, show various party-goers drinking, dancing, two girls kissing but all dressed in very smart clothes with fashionable hair styles. The young men are all dressed in their yellow waistcoats to indicate their membership of this exclusive group, except for Theo who is dressed casually in a patterned shirt over a mid blue T-shirt, the only one not in a jacket and tie, and seen in mid shot standing isolated from the others in small groups around him indicating his separation and disapproval of the proceedings. The sound of this scene is almost entirely diegetic from the drunken party sounds and music to the drum roll, whistle blow and heckling laughter of the party-goers to the music that is played when the game involving the ‘fools’ begins ‘I Like the Way you move.’ This being an ironic jibe at the way the fools are having to behave. The Fools, Raj Puri and Angus … (previously seen smoking dope – showing their assumption that this is standard practice at university -and being late for dinner) are for the first time, apparently, ‘voluntary’ i.e. press-ganged into it as a way of being accepted in an environment to which they are strangers. They represent the uninvited, the poor working class who have got into the university on their brains not their purses. The mid shot of two of the ‘toffs’ betting on the outcome of the game ‘£20 on the brown one’ epitomises the social divide.
This is a privileged environment where the rules are not the same for everyone. The programme seems to reinforce certain stereotypical representations and beliefs about the upper classes as idle and debauched typified by Dorien and as seen through their behaviour, dress and attitudes to others while young people are portrayed differently depending on their class. Theo, seems to typify the hardworking working class who want to fit in but are scandalised by the arrogance and callous indifference of his socially advantaged peers, Charlotte the rather prudish Christian is searching for the answers to her father, a former fellow of the university’s, death and Raj and Angus though from vastly different backgrounds, one Asian the other Scottish have found common ground in their treatment by the ‘Daffodil Club.’
| Examples 20 |
Analysis and argument 20 |
Terminology 10 |