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Tuesday, 26 October 2010

links to british-ness

This is a post explaining about how the opening sequence to the british film - 'Hot Fuzz' expresses its Britishness.

We begin the film with the universal logo appearing on screen, however along with the logo appearing we hear british sounds. We hear whistles of the british police force from the very early stages, the sounds then go on to progress to more recent sirens, and then finally we hear the modern day police sirens. This not only shows us immediately that the film is british, it also shows you that the british police force has moved on it terms of technology etc.

We then have Nicholas Angel walking through doors, until he reaches the camera, and we then have a close up shot of his police id badge - despite the fact that police officers have id badges universally, we can see that this particular officer is from the british police force, as it has the metropolitan police badge, with the crown at the very top of the badge, giving the reference to the Queen.


 The voiceover then goes onto speak about Nicholas' earlier life, and how he qualified dropping well know british places, such as Canterbury University and London. We then go on to see a lot of fast moving clips showing Nicholas' training etc and in one of the clips we see the police force, surrounded by old worn down houses, and in the backround we can see a massive factory. This will of all been put into place as a lot of different countries often imagine England to be this way.


We are then shown Nicholas in China town, this is to show to the foreign audiences that they are in britain by showing all the iconic places.



The picture behind Nicholas here is of a chav, with chavs being strongly associated with being part of the british public.

We are then shown many picures all relating to the  fact that we are are in Britain, here's a few examples...














One of the last shots we are shown in the opening sequence is when Nicholas is walking to his room, and if you watch closely, you will see down the corridor there's actually a swan, which is one of the most british things possible to include, with all its references to the Queen.

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