HOW TARANTINO USES GENERIC CONVENTIONS IN

“JACKIE BROWN” (1997)

SHOT TYPES

The long shot helps to establish what kind of character Jackie Brown is because the shot enables the audience to see all of her formal and brightly coloured uniform, her confident walk and how this helps to convey her power compared to the other actors in the background.

The medium close up helps the audience to focus on the character. The low angle shot helps to show power and status.

SHOT TYPES

The close up allows the audience to identify with the character as her confidence is made clearer by her facial expressions.

The close up allows us to see that Jackie Brown is an older character. This connotes wisdom and therefore a sense of power.

TRACKING SHOT:

By having a having such a long tracking shot, Tarantino is making it clear to the audience that she isn’t self conscious or afraid of being noticed, instead he is making is clear that she is an important character that should be noticed.

LOCATION

The colour white typically connotes purity and innocence. Therefore by having the opening sequence in a lightly coloured public place like an airport, Tarantino challenges generic thriller conventions because the light busy airport makes people’s actions less secret. An example of a conventional thriller setting would be the garage in the opening of ‘Essex Boys’. This is due to it being a dark, dirty location where you would typically expect more crime to take place.

The lightly coloured location not only helps to make Jackie’s electric blue uniform more eye catching to the audience, but it also adds a sense of unrealism. This is due to the vivid colour being so bright that it looks false or enhanced in some way, which helps to add another layer to what actually takes place at the airport. By doing this, Tarantino breaks generic conventions of thrillers as dark colours are typically used in order to connote the idea of the characters and the world they ive in is dark, such as in ‘The Third Man’.

Tarantino uses generic conventions in this clip to create vulnerability on Beaumont’s part. He does this firstly by setting the scene at night time. This adds vulnerability because at night time you are not always aware of everything that is happening around you as you can’t see as much as in daylight.

Secondly, Tarantino has Beaumont in the boot of the car. This is a claustrophobic setting which makes the situation impossible to escape from.

When Ordell shoots Beaumont, Tarantino decided to have a long shot which is at a low angle. A long angle shot connotes vulnerability. A long shot is normally intended to establish the scene, not to focus on characters. Therefore the use of the long shot could help to show Ordell’s lack of feeling toward Beaumont and his detachment from relationships.

SHOOTING OF BEAUMONT LIVINGSTONE BY ORDELL ROBBIE

Melanie and Jackie are similar in the sense that they are both confident characters. Melanie can be classed as a generic character of the thriller genre, even a femme fatale, as she is a female with wit who relies heavily on the male characters for support, but ends up being shown to be weak when a leading male character, Louis, shoots her.

MELANIE

The close up of her feet immediately demonstrates to the audience what kind of character she is: lazy as her feet are up on the table, wild as there is a glass of alcohol next to her feet, and confident because of the jewellery.

Melanie is shot by Louis in broad daylight in a car park. By having Melanie shot in a car park, Tarantino is using a generic convention of the thriller genre. This is a convention because car parks are typically used to connote vulnerability. However, the shooting taking place in daylight isn’t a generic convention as daylight leads one’s actions being exposed.

SHOOTING OF MELANIE

The clips of Beaumont and Melanie’s shootings show that both Ordell and Louis have no emotional attachments to their victims. Ordell and Louis

The difference between Ordell and Louis is that Ordell carefully thinks about what he’s doing in the sense that he manipulated Beaumont and planned his murder. This is a generic convention of the thriller genre, particularly in noir thrillers, there tends to be a male character who is in control and knows what he is doing. For example, Harry Lime in ‘The Third Man’. Louis isn’t as cunning as this. This is shown through him shooting Melanie in a public car park during daylight. By him doing this, he is easily exposing himself and making it easy for him to get caught. By Louis murdering Melanie just because she was making fun of him, it makes it clear that he has no self control and doesn’t plan or think about what he does.

LOUIS AND ORDELL