The Skull Beneath the Skin Comparative Essay
English Extension HSC
The genre of crime fiction reflects shifting social, cultural and political conditions. Each composer is influenced by these shifting paradigms and thus incorporates them into their texts, pushing past the conventions and boundaries set in earlier eras to create new sub-genres. Daniel Chandler in An Introduction to Genre Theory, identifies this phenomenon: "genres change over time; conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are discontinued." Through my prescribed texts, Howard Hawks' hardboiled film The Big Sleep (1946) and P.D. James' Revenge Tragedy The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), and related texts, Agatha Christie's classic detective story Murder on the Orient Express (1933) and Ray Lawrence's psychological film Lantana (2001), I will explore the morphing and changing of the crime fiction genre and its conventions to ((QUESTION)). This transforming nature of the genre is exemplified by comparing and contrasting each composer's representation of, firstly, the detective and the art of detection and, secondly, the changing depiction of women.
((INTRODUCTION)) Hawks' reproduced the 'mean streets' of Los Angeles in Sleep to explore Philippe Marlowe's investigation in a Nihilistic post-war setting. Pushing aside the trappings of conventional crime, Hawks employs heightened music, low-key lighting and cuts between scenes laden with shadows to reflect the process of Marlowe's investigation. This style of film noir is heightened by the objective correlative and natural imagery, as the inclement weather forebodes an ominous mood and tells the audience something sinister is to occur, as Marlowe states: "Just started this afternoon and then the rain came in". His raw wit and laconic lines can be perceived as the language of the people, as he sees the world from the perspective of the average citizen and has come to expect violence: "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!" Gunplay is a motif that
The genre of crime fiction reflects shifting social, cultural and political conditions. Each composer is influenced by these shifting paradigms and thus incorporates them into their texts, pushing past the conventions and boundaries set in earlier eras to create new sub-genres. Daniel Chandler in An Introduction to Genre Theory, identifies this phenomenon: "genres change over time; conventions of each genre shift, new genres and sub-genres emerge and others are discontinued." Through my prescribed texts, Howard Hawks' hardboiled film The Big Sleep (1946) and P.D. James' Revenge Tragedy The Skull Beneath the Skin (1982), and related texts, Agatha Christie's classic detective story Murder on the Orient Express (1933) and Ray Lawrence's psychological film Lantana (2001), I will explore the morphing and changing of the crime fiction genre and its conventions to ((QUESTION)). This transforming nature of the genre is exemplified by comparing and contrasting each composer's representation of, firstly, the detective and the art of detection and, secondly, the changing depiction of women.
((INTRODUCTION)) Hawks' reproduced the 'mean streets' of Los Angeles in Sleep to explore Philippe Marlowe's investigation in a Nihilistic post-war setting. Pushing aside the trappings of conventional crime, Hawks employs heightened music, low-key lighting and cuts between scenes laden with shadows to reflect the process of Marlowe's investigation. This style of film noir is heightened by the objective correlative and natural imagery, as the inclement weather forebodes an ominous mood and tells the audience something sinister is to occur, as Marlowe states: "Just started this afternoon and then the rain came in". His raw wit and laconic lines can be perceived as the language of the people, as he sees the world from the perspective of the average citizen and has come to expect violence: "Such a lot of guns around town and so few brains!" Gunplay is a motif that