Les Revenants (2012)

LES REVENANTS EPISODE 1

As you watch the first episode, consider the following:

Cinematography
Editing
Soundtrack
Performance, character archetypes and characterisation
Setting
Representation
Hermeneutic codes and enigmas
Generic conventions and atypical features. Zombie? Drama? Mystery? Cult? Horror? 'New French extreme'???
Intertextuality
'Frenchness' 
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LES REVENANTS FACTS

Les Revenants is a hybrid genre

It is a French,Supernatural Drama

Hybrid Genres attract a wider audience

First broadcast in 2012 on Canal+
UK broadcasted in 2013 on Chanel 4 - Humans was also broadcasted on this channel

Les Revenants is internationally distributed

2 series, 8 episodes each 

Based on the French film "they come back"

Created by Fabrice Goberrt

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There is many different story arcs within Les Revenants 
Todarav - Theories of the Disruption of the Equilibrium 

Les Revenants has an unconventional narrative. This is potentially an issue for audiences as you never fully understand it or solve any mysteries. 

This makes the audience want to carry on watching the show as it is based on a series of hermeneutic codes.

This show also makes use of heavy intertextuality. References to the Omen (the little creepy boy)

Avant Garde is experimental. In many ways Les Revenants is experimental, through the use of its non linear narrative.

Cult TV - something that gets an intense audience/ passionate fan bases. Invites the audience to interact with it. They can make games and all this

Cult Tv Shows creates a different and new world and that is why so many people rate them.

What makes Les Revenants different from normal supernatural shows? - it looks at a middle classed family and more - like a soap opera .

Comparing Les Revenants to Night of The Living Dead

- The zombies look more alive and attractive in Les Revenants (iconography)

- The Night of the Living Dead - stereotypical representations of zombies

- We are supposed to feel scared by The Night of the Living Dead whereas in Les Revenants we feel confused.
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Exam Practise

"In the 21st century, it is essential for TV shows to offer multiple meanings" - evaluate this statement with reference to Les Revenants  

Introduction scenes, bus crash, costa having a snooze and Camille going home -

Establishing shot - mountains on the road - bus 
Alps - french settings
Camille- wearing coat, scarf, costume 
Black screen - present day 

Slow zoom from exterior to interior of house
slow zoom into the butterflies - one of them comes back top life as well.
Camera slowly tracks butterfly looking down on a high angle shot to an older character - binary opposition between young and old.

Use of music - as the camera zooms in on the butterfly the music crescendos- music getting louder-  key moment, key symbolic code - helping the audience to understand the whole concept of the show

Low key, desaturated colour gradient emphasises to the audience that something eery is going on - a potential hermeneutic code. Forces the audience to negotiate their own perspective on the narrative. This enforces a polysemic reading of the text

Camille on the bus - she has more screentime on the bus and is consistently framed in a montage of close up shots. Creates the idea that she is an important character to the story. Positions the audience with the young Camille. Camille's age allows teenage audiences to invest in the complicated narrative.

The sudden and mysterious dip to black following the long shot of the traumatic bus accident is symbolic of not only the audience's own confusion and the show's primary theme of death and finality.

The establishing shot and the subsequent long shot of the bus establishes an isolated and exotic setting (exotic for the secondary english audience). This emphasises the importance of Les Revenants adopting a polysemic narrative. It must mean different things to audiences of different nationalities.



The combination of these 3 scenes creates a lot of mystery.

Genre codes and conventions 
Genre theory 
Genre fluidity
Camera work - framing and composition shot types, angle, position, movement 
Lighting and colour
Editing – pace, type of edits, continuity
Narrative construction, related to narrative theory
Sound – dialogue, music
Mise-en-scene – setting and location, props, costume/dress, hair/make-up 

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REPRESENTATION - The re presentation of something

Representation is needed as it allows the audience to relate with characters, audience learns about the world, not real, CONSTRUCTION OF REALITY

REPRESENTATIONS CONSTRUCT REALITY - they change what we think of other people

Ideologies are always presented through representation. Representation confirms these ideologies or challenges them.

BIAS - having an inclination towards one thing - being in favour of one thing.

All of these images are staged for promotional shots. What ideological perspective is being presented?

Camille - young female teenagers. Midshot infront of yellow flowers. Supposed to be a bright and bubbly teenager so this creates a binary opposition as she frowns Pale Skin, Ginger hair, not a lot of makeup - in France minimal, natural makeup is the style. She was casted for this role as she is younger. Atypical and complex representation - smartly dressed - binary opposition. Her complicated character reflects the complicated storyline. Audience empathises with her, she seems well rounded.

Claire - representations of a middle class mother. stereotypical aspirational mum. Low Key chic costume.

Representations of rural French life - Atypical French setting for international audience, all white cast in image. France is more ethnically diverse than the UK. Ls Revenants is targeting a white middle class audience.  

Mme Costa - older women. Her costume is a brown jacket - reinforces a stereotypical representation of old people

Julie - early 30s, working class, she looks nerdy. The heavy eye/tired almost ill look is attractive in France. Messy hair - effortlessly pretty

Simon - Young man, mid 20s, dark features, long hair, curly, natural. stereotypically attractive for a French audience. Sharp jawline. He looks like a renaissance sculpture.Very stereotypically French.

John Berger - "Ways of Seeing" - book. In this book he was mainly studying painting but then he applied this to tv shows - argued that men act and women appear.

Themes and Allegorical Perspective:

It is important for Les Revenants to be allegorical so that a larger audience can relate to the themes within the media product. 

Les Revenants is about death and how people deal with it.

ABJECTION - to have something cut off

Les revenants deals with abjection. 


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LES REVENANTS SOUNDTRACK

Glasgow Megasnake - Mogwai


Mogwai - Scottish Post Rock. Instrumental Rock Band. No lyrics. This track is more like Metal rather than rock. Distorted guitars. Their songs tend to be very long timewise.

Mogwai lack a frontman. Their is no lead person.

Mogwai are renound for being fairly plain looking guys. Not exactly photogenic.

They own their own record label - 'Rock Action'

Why select Mogwai to create the soundtrack for Les Revenants?

By selecting Mogwai it attracts a preexisting audience - Mogwai Fan

Synergy - 2 media products coming together and working well.

By having Mogwai creating the soundtrack this allows Mogwai to target an international audience.

Both Les Revenants and Mogwai are very moody and freaky. They gain subcultural capital. Both Les Revenants and Mogwai share the same ideology.

The Soundtrack is contrapuntal - it goes against the show

Les Revenants Trailer:

How is this trailer targeting its audience?

Targets an International Audience as all of the writing is in English.

Including Quotes and Reviews from British newspapers such as the Sunday times which quotes " Must watch ... the best drama of the year."

This trailer uses montage to sell the tv show as a lot more exciting then it actually is. Face paced editing - from the whole first series. The trailer insinutes that Les Revenants is super exciting.

Les Revenants is an atypical horror show that is very hard to sell.

STURAT HALL theories

Les revenants encourages audiences to take an active reading

Les Revenants invites its target audiences to negotiate their reading

One of the key themes within this show is the binary opposition between the dead and the alive and a lot of the art/posters/covers advertising the posters  convey this idea too. 

The Title is split in the middle and distorted showing the different between dead and alive. Reflection of the image.

There is also a book of Les Revenants produced after the tv show - say you really like the tv show then it ends it gives you something else to do.

More merchandise - t-shirts soundtrack and more . Shows that you're a super fan. 

CANAL+ Research

Ideology: They are a Premium channel - you have to pay for it. Their ideology is based on this idea of quality.

Funding: Creative Europe - Allows European tvshows to be funded. Had to be payed for using grants.Also funded by the Alps tourism board - increases tourism in the Alps. 

Scheduling: 8:50pm in France, 9pm in England

Ownership: Vivendi SA - massive conglomerate

Notable Releases: all shows are made for a domestic audience

Ethos: 

Conglomeration

Imports: Tellytubbies, Vampire diaries and game of thrones
Exports

Canal +

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END OF WEEK EXAM PREP

"It is essential for a TV programme to simultaneously target both mass and specialised audiences"

Explore this statement with reference to Les Revenants

Thirty minutes

Knee jerk reaction: Yes! Les Revenants expertly targets both 'casual' and 'devoted' audiences, by providing the audience with a range of polysemic readings

Key theory: Stuart Hall's reception theory

MICHAEL'S TOP TIP - how useful is this theory really? Does Les Revenants even have a preferred reading? Surely it lacks one, instead focusing on confusing the audience as much as possible with a range of hermeneutic codes and complex use of intertextuality?

Do we think that shows really have mass audiences anymore?

There is now a diverse range of choices in Tv so No.
Initially there was only 1 channel when TV was first made a thing. 

1982 - Channel 4

Until fairly recently we have only had a few channels. Previously tv shows had to appeal to a mass audience as it had limited options/choices as there was less channels.

Moved from Broadcasting to Narrowcasting. 

Mass audiences do not exist anymore.

Stuart Hall

Preferred reading - the audience agrees with the ideology of the producer

Negotiated reading - every other possibly reading

Oppositional reading - the audience disagrees with the ideology of the producer

The whole point of Les Revenants is that we need to make up our own mind. It's polysemic Therefore we don't think that Les Revenants has a preferred reading.

Emotional Response, Intellectual Response, Loving it and Hating it.

Producers force the audience to think of their own responses so the audience becomes an active audience - which makes the audience talk about their opinions and all - gives the show more clout

Camille and Claire Reunion

Intellectual responses: a clear subversion of horror genre. The dark atmospheric music anchors this. 

Enjoyment at genre conventions exploded. Camille does not look like a typical zombie. Her costume looks very casual and normal.

Enjoyment of Claire's atypical response - a fully fleshed out character. Subverting character archetypes 

The tracking shot of Claire running up the stairs. Intertextuality to Phsyco and Halloween

Thinking it is clever use of foreshadowing - mother is in Camille's room then she comes home

Oppositional response: Dislike to reading subtitles. This scene is very quiet and boring. There's nothing much going on. The montage of Camille walking home is too long. 3 longshots in a row. Lack of definitive action and fast paced editing.

The foreshadowing is cliche 

This is nothing like the trailer.

Emotional Responses: Close up shots of Claire's upset facial expressions, far too uncomfortable.

Camille is a brat.

Excited at the many questions the show is asking. How did Camille survive?!

People might take pleasure in Camille's character. She is a gobby teenager. Relatable character.

Claire is attractive