power and conflict in the class.

The class.

The class uses many different aspects of film to portray power and conflict. These include mise en scene, cinematography, performances and editing to name a few.

The aspect’s that portray these two themes the most effectively (in my opinion) is the mise en scene, performance and cinematography. One way in which it doses this is through the use of setting. The whole film takes place with in the school, and most of it is with in the same class. The class is a tiny room in which the students and teacher are cramped into. This feeling of crampedness is passed on to the viewer with the help of mid/close up shots.  This feeling helps in raise the tension in the student teacher relationship when ever one of the pupil’s answers back to the teacher.  This is easily noticble when you watch one of the conflicts that takes place outside the class room, the tension you feel is nowhere near there levels you feel in the class even when its during one of the smaller arguments about proper grammar use, let alone when one of the students get’s physically assaulted.

Because of the choice of setting the audience can get a clear picture of who it is who has the power, which is obviously the teacher for the most part. This is clear visually as the teacher is standing high above the students who are sat at there desks. There are times when the power can be said to have shifted to one of the students. During these shifts in power he teacher is the one who is sitting and the student standing. An example of this is when one of the teachers asks on of his students to apologise to him. The student apologizes and then gets up and walks out of the class and the teacher sits down, it is at this point when the student says she was lying and run’s away laughing, to which the teacher sits stunned and defeated.  Another example of this visual representation of power is when a student has hit another student with his bag and drawn blood, after an argument. The teacher shouts at him and he storms out of the room. During this both the teacher and the troublemaker are standing (both being of similar height) this could show how the teacher is still the main authority in the class but dose not have control over this student.

While in the class the teacher has the power (for the most part) when a scene ventures out into another area this is not always the case. In one scene François Marin (the teacher) ventures out into the play ground to continue an argument he had with to of his students in his class. Whilst in his class he managed to stay very level headed and in fairly in control of the situation. In the playground all the students circle around him trapping him in a group where he is vastly outnumbered. When arguing his voice is louder and it is clear that he is angered by the situation, where as the students are the ones who appear to be calm and collected.

While most of the film is set in the one classroom, there scenes that venture into other areas of the school. From what we see of these other areas the school in question has a similar look to the prison in “a prophet”, with its tall white walls, tiny classrooms and it’s overall grey dull feel. This gives the feeling that the students are prisoners and the teachers are the guards, which again effectively portrays power.