Wag the Dog

Analysis of script, cinematography and mise en scene

Mise en scene
Placement in the frame Comprised of seven key elements:
the frame space in the frame composition character placement lighting/colour costume setting

Creates the directors signature and intention

Film shots
ECU: Extreme close up
CU: Close up MCU: Medium close up CMS: Close mid-shot MS: Mid-shot MLS: Medium long shot LS: Long shot

Application of film analysis

Written Task One: How to stage the appearance of a war guide

Written Task Two: How and why is a social group represented in a particular way? The American public Politicians Further Oral Activity: Analysis of key scene(s) from Wag the Dog Compare and contrast the ideas of Wag the Dog with real presidential speeches or electoral campaign

Context

Premise

Presidential campaign

Presidential campaigns

Who is in control?

Who is in control?

Who is in control?

This place is even bigger than the Whitehouse!

Representations of the American public

Representations of the American public

The public as consumers

One image of one bomb. The American people bought that war. Thats show business (Brean about Gulf War) Youll have remembered the picture 50 years from now but forgotten the war.
(Brean)

The public as consumers

From Carol Ann Duffys War Photographer
A hundred agonies in black-and-white from which his editor will pick out five or six for Sunday's supplement. The reader's eyeballs prick with tears between bath and pre-lunch beers. From the aeroplane he stares impassively at where he earns a living and they do not care.

Not a war, its a pageant

Pageantry: give them what they want to see

Pageantry
We guard our American borders We guard the American dream We have the right to fight for democracy We fight for liberty

This is nothing. Try making The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse when three of your horsemen die, two weeks from the end of Principal Photography!

Pageantry

Pageantry

Conrad Brean: Mr Fix It

Resolution