La Haine

Lesson Objectives:The Narrative Structure of La

Haine

La tension et une histoire aléatoire.• Le scénario suit une journée dans les vies

de 3 jeunes hommes, des origines ethniques très diverses, qui viennent d’une cité dehors de Paris.

• Le film commence le matin après des émeutes provoqués par un jeune beur qui était blessé par la police accidentellement.

• On voit la vie ennuyeuse et sans but des trois personnages principaux, qui sont ni au collège ni au travail, dans une série des rencontres plus ou moins violentes.

Le réalisateur

• Il a dit, quand le film est sorti que son film était sans structure, une série des scènes détachées dans lesquelles rien se passe.

• il a dit aussi que chaque scène constitue une petite histoire toute seule.

• A première vue, pour le spectateur c’est vrai et ce style de narration ressemble la vie des jeunes hommes.

• Mais la vérité est qu’en faite, il y a une structure classique et cohérente.

Un Cercle Vicieux

• The opening of the film shows televised documentary violence, mirroring the cycle of violence in the banlieue.

• Also sets the tone for the fictional violence that concludes the film the next morning, thus looping back to the beginning.

• The police bavure provokes the fictional riots that took place before the film opens, and another bavure –the shooting of Vinz concludes it suggesting a loop.

Un road movie• Although not geographically long, the 3 heroes

go on a journey as in a road movie.• They are constantly running, walking, on a train,

passing through diverse locations and having numerous encounters along the way.

• They clash with relatives, officials, policemen, journalists, shop keepers, neighbours, concierge, patrons at the art gallery, taxi driver, man on escalator, skin heads not to mention each other!

• Many of these encounters are dramatic/ violent.

Le cinéma américain.• A big difference between La Haine and other youth oriented

American films is that the narrative solves a problem that they have or offers them an opportunity of redemption.

• In Hangin With the Homeboys – one of the characters hesitates between improving himself by taking up a scholarship or continuing a life of fun with the Homeboys. He opts for the scholarship.

• This traditional American ending offers the character moral redemption.

• In La Haine there is no such personal redemption, learning or problem solving.

• The heroes have no personal goal and start and end in the same place.

• Hubert’s hopes of progress through boxing are shown to be already shattered in one of the first scenes of the film.

• Vinz gives up the gun but is still caught up in the violence.• The tragic ending has a collective social dimension rather than an

individual moral one.

Narrative devicesA clock, a gun, stories

Les appareils du récitUn horloge, un revolver, et

des histoires.

L’horloge• The clock doesn’t provide a realistic account of time

passing. • The counter appears arbitrarily and corresponds

neither to regular blocks of time nor to the film’s internal structure.

• Apparent randomness contributes to the realistic effect of the film e.g. 17:04 seems more improvised and therefore more real than 17:00.

• The loud ticking gives the film urgency, the impression of a countdown/ a ticking bomb.

• At the end, for the first and last time, we see the digits move from 6:00 to 6:01.

Le revolver• Lost by a police man during the riots. • Symbolic of the police bavures (Makome

M’Bowole, the trigger for this script, was shot in the head.)

• Whips up Vinz latent aggression as a symbol of the violent patriarchal power he feels oppressed by.

• Cinematic mystique – on the rooftop, the 3 discuss it in terms of Lethal Weapon series of films.

• Symbolic in terms of gender.

Le revolver• Also functions as motivation in the film• It is lost, so is found, then must be used.• Vinz says that he will “waste a cop” but

can’t, Hubert will then do it.• It appears at regular intervals:• In the tunnel, at Asterix’s, with the

Skinheads, in the fantasy of killing the traffic wardens, in the final shoot out.

• Reinforces Vinz’s centrality as well as iconic power of the gun: the image of Vinz brandishing it has become an emblem of the film.

Les Histoires• The stories that people tell are a structuring

device. They form part of the quiet/ crisis pattern of the film.

• S2 Said tells Vinz a joke about killing for nothing.

• S4 a young beur tells a story about candid camera

• S10 the old man in the toilets• S15 Hubert telling Vinz about society falling.

S15 Hubert telling Vinz about society falling.

• Most important to the narrative. It starts and ends the film.

• At the start Hubert says “C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui tombe d’un immeuble de 50 étages...”

• At the end he replaces un homme with une société.

« Jusqu’ici tout va bien. L’importance ce n’est pas la chute, c’est l’atterrissage. »

• la chute – the fall• L’atterrissage – the landing.

• Some say the film is about the landing.

• Some say the film is about the fall.

Opening scene.• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uz9vgtXq_Hs&feature=related