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1. PR3: How we respond to media products
We respond to media products in many ways, some of the approaches may be in the manner in
which we analyse
LEON
The film Leon, is of an action thriller genre which as an audience, we can automatically identify with
their being guns, violence, drugs, blood and sometimes even car chases, to which Leon includes just
a few of the named. The narrative of this film Is about an assassin Leon, taking care of Matilda, his
neighbour who is the sole survivor of her family’s massacre. Matilda is trained by Leon to be
stronger and how to handle a gun, she then vows revenge on the murderer of her family, Norman
Stansfield. It is a very linear film as the plot is easy to follow, with a few bumps down the road. The
semiotics of Leon could be suggested to be Leon’s house plant. In the film, he is seen caring for it
such as watering it, cleaning it and even carefully placing it in his apartment for direct sunlight. After
Leon’s death, Matilda keeps the plant and takes it with her to her safe place, which ends up being a
type of boarding place, to where she plants the plant, and names it Leon. By Matilda planting Leon’s
plant, she is keeping his spirit alive and keeping the memory of him going, also suggesting that Leon
was the only person besides her younger brother (who was killed)that Matilda ever cared for. This
theory could mean that both the characters of Matilda and Leon were both lonely and found trust in
each other, which could be why their relationship clicked so well. The plant could represent Leon’s
character and his life, as Leon states that the plant is his only friend and the only object that he has
ever really cared for before Matilda, therefore suggesting that he was a lonely character, who never
really trusted or believed in anyone.
Another semiotic of Leon would be Leon’s trench coat which is long, black and gives the impression
that he is shifty. This coat could also suggest that he wears a long dark coat to make himself fit in
and be sort of un-noticeable to the world, to keep himself to himself. It also suggests that he is
mysterious like he’s trying to hide something under his coat such as guns and weapons, to which is
his. During the time the filmed was made, trench coats were the fashion so it wouldn’t have been
questionable at the time to why he was wearing it. Leon was a 1994 film directed by Luc Besson. It
starred Jean Reno as Leon, Natalie Portman as Matilda and Gary Oldman as Norman Stansfield. The
idea of the film is about a hit man, who lives in the same building as 12yr old Matilda and her family.
Matilda’s family are the conventional loud Italian stereotype family, with her father, Mr Lando,
sporting a drug dealer habit of stashing cocaine in his apartment, but for a DEA agent, Norman
Stansfield. Stansfield arrives at Lando’s apartment (which Matilda shares with her father, step
mother little brother and older sister) and demands for the cocaine that Lando has been holding for
him, when Stansfield discovers that some of the stash is missing, and demands that Lando find out
who took it by the next day. The Inciting incident occurs the next day when Matilda goes to the shop

2. and offers to buy Leon some milk, on her return walking down the building’s hallway leading to her
family’s apartment, Matilda sees her family’s dead corpses lying in the hallway in her apartment, and
therefore stays calm, doesn’t flinch and carry’s on walking to Leon’s apartment, where starts to cry
uncontrollably.
At the end of the hallway, Leon then lets her in and vows to his self to take care of her. From then
on, Leon trains Matilda in his sneaky ways to become a stronger girl than what she already is, and
Matilda vows to get her own revenge on Stansfield. During the film, as the audience, we get an idea
that Matilda see’s her relationship with Leon as a serious, romantic one as she exclaims to a desk
clerk at a motel ‘He’s my lover’ when he asks her about him being her father. We ge t a sense that
Matilda has never really had a functioning relationship of any type, even within her family.The
climax occurs when Stansfield and Leon meet face to face near the ending of the film, and have their
final words between them, Leon’s being, ‘This is from Matilda’ And then handing him the pin from a
grenade which then explodes killing them both and injuring the people outside the building as this
scene took place in the entrance to the building. Due to Leon handing Stansfield the pin, it allowed
Matilda gets her own revenge without being involved. Leon is a linear film as it is story line is straight
forward and easy to follow upon, you can easily tell apart the good relationships to the bad. The
representation within the film is the complete opposite of what they are stereotyped to be, for
example, the character Matilda, is a 12 year old girl who is expected to be cute, innocent and see’s
the world as amazing and brand new, where as her real character is tough, undefeatable and only
see’s the evil in the world because of her family’s massacre. Another character representation is
Leon, he is stereotyped to be hard and emotionless because he is an assassin, but he is actually quite
pitiful to other people and has a growing loving and caring emotion for Matilda and his plant.
Norman Stansfield is another version of representation as he is the antagonist in this film, therefore
he is expected to be tough and unattached to any objects or humans, where as he is quite
emotional, either really angry or really sympathetic where death is involved, he also has a drug
addict which makes his mind work strangely therefore acting like a psychopath.
It is very conventional of Leon to be set in New York as it is quite typical as in films, New York is
portrayed as being the crime capital where drugs and guns and violence is concerned. New York is
also known in films as the mafia/gangsta’s place to be, therefore suggesting why Leon is there as he
is an assassin for a man who is similar to a mafia.
The camera techniques used are standard shots of an action thriller of Leon and the other
characters, typically using fast pace shots when the action is happening to keep the pace of the
scenario going, therefore keeping the audience hooked.

3. In Leon, everything within the mise en scenes has the same effect of a slight darkened edit,
suggesting that the film has darks sides and or characters.
The iconography within the film includes blood, violence, guns, bad relationships/good relationships
and a compromising decision. Leon includes all of these; therefore it becomes ab action thriller
genre. It also includes explosions which you could link to the same genre but amongst other same
genre films, it isn’t as common as guns and blood and violence/threats are.
All of the above factors help contribute to this film being an action thriller genre, such as the guns,
violence even down to the type of relationships between each character.
1.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers
The film Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, is of the musical genre which as an audience, we
automatically know there will be songs sung by the actors and actress’, to which Seven Brides for
Seven Brothers does. This film was directed by Stanley Donen and was produced in 1954, but it is set
in 1850, therefore has a theme of the old testament bible, such as the characters of the brothers as
they are named in alphabetical order of chronological age. The names of the seven Pontipee
brothers are Adam, Benjamin, Caleb, Daniel, Ephraim, Frank (short for Frankincense) and Gideon.
These seven brothers are all set in their ‘mountain’ ways and struggle to find wives, this where
Adam, the oldest Pontipee brother, his wife Milly comes into the story.
The narrative of this film is linear as the brothers leave their mountain house and go into the local
town down the mountain and kidnap six girls after Adam reads a story to his brothers called ‘The
Sobbin’ Women’, which has a similar storyline, to which the film Is loosely based on.
The synopsis of the plot starts with Adam visiting the local town to find a wife, where he meets Milly
who agrees to marry him despite only knowing him for a few hours. After meeting Milly, the
brothers become more encouraged to find there selves wives. Milly teaches the brothers manners
such as sitting at the dinner table, their actions round women and other slight improvement’s from
their mountain ways. The exposition occurs when the brothers then attend a barn raising in the local
down at the bottom of the mountain they live at, which is where they meet six other women,

4. Dorcas, Ruth, Martha, Liza, Sarah and Alice, who happen to be Milly’s friends. The brothers find out
that they women are already spoken for, therefore during the barn raising, things get psychical
between the brothers and the townsmen over the girls affection. The rising action occurs when a
couple days after the barn raising, the girls are still playing on the brothers minds, so they also get
encouragement from Adam who tells them that they should take any action necessary to get the
women back, which ends up in the brothers in visiting the town, kidnaping the women and causing
an avalanche on their way back up the mountain to stop all the townsmen getting up for a couple of
months. The townsmen are really annoyed by this kidnapping event as their girls had been taken,
they would be more hurt by their pride and how people would know they lost their girl to a
mountain man. They try to get their girls back after the passage where the avalanche happened,
cleared, and all travel up the mountain to attempt to get their girls back, to which by this point, the
girls have fell in love with the brothers who have been put in line by Milly and the six other girls.
The semiotics within this film include the snow outside, as during the time the kidnapped girls are at
the Pontipee house, they start to flirt with the brothers by throwing snowballs with rocks inside of
them at the brothers when they are working, as well as Milly kicking the brothers out of their rooms
and making them sleep in the barn. One cold night they individually come into the house while Milly
is reading the girls a story and each brother asks for a blanket, to which the girl they wish to marry,
cant keep their eyes off him and fetch him a blanket to which then Milly realises that the girls
actually like the brothers. Another semiotics would be near the ending with Milly’s new born baby.
This is symbolism to the girl characters as when the townsmen come to rescue the girls, they hear
the baby crying and this misinformation leads the men to asking whose baby it is, to which all 6 girls
reply, ‘Mine!’. This misinformation leads the girls and the 6 remaining brothers to call a shotgun
wedding there and then.
Another semiotic would be the bible, when Milly arrives at the Pontipee brothers farm, she has a
disagreement with the brothers over how they eat dinner, and goes up to her room and pulls her
Bible of the shelf, and reads a paragraph. Also when she is in the wagon on her way to the farm, she
pulls it out of her bag and shows Adam. Mil ly holds the Bible close to her as her father gave it to her
and she was raised on it, as well as when Milly gives birth, she chose a few names beginning with H
ad explains to Adam that she picked up where his mother left of with the names in alphabetical
order. Milly mentions the names of Hannah, Hagar, Hezekiah, all bible names, before Adam
repeating ‘Hannah, her names Hannah’.
The representation of the characters, mainly the brothers, are stereotyped to be sort of emotionless
mountain men, always the leader, when the actual characters are full of emotion and feelings and
aren’t the leaders. The representation of the women are expected to be the background character
behind the man, they are seen as the weaker characters because of the old testament bible. The
female characters in this film are actually the leaders and the confident ones, they are the strongest

5. characters. The characters of the brothers all listen to the oldest, Adam, as he is the first brother to
get a wife, therefore Adam’s wife, Milly realises the brothers want to get a wife and she offers to
teach them ways to get wives. Adam, the oldest brother, often refers to himself as ‘I’m the head of
this house’, therefore he applies this rule to all his decisions that he decides without consulting his
brothers and expects them to go along with his idea, despite Adam not thinking them through. With
Adam seeing himself as the hierarchy of the family, you expect to see his character be the strong
one and face everything head on as we get the idea that he is fearless, when his actual character has
no strength in decisions over his brothers once Milly teaches them how to stand up for themselves
without violence, he also doesn’t face problems head on, he disappears such as when Milly and
Adam have an argument, he leaves for the cabin up the mountain for the winter rather than spend it
with his new wife. The character of Milly is expected to be the Bible, which Milly holds a copy of
close to her, when her actual character is the strongest one, she stands up to Adam and his brothers
and even takes on the challenge of making them into better men.
The iconography within this film includes the typical violence such as fights between the brothers
there selves, and between the brothers and the townsmen. A factor also helping the violence would
be weapons, there are guns in the film but not used in violence. Hammers and long planks of wood
are used as violent weapons against the characters.
Seven brides for seven brothers was shot in a cinemascope technique due to It being a wide angle
film. The mise en scene has a vintage effect due to the film being dated to the 1850s era and it being
produced in 1954. It has fade effects from some scenes and other scenes just cut to the next one,
the fade effects usually occur after an event has happened, to set the tone.
Seven brides for seven brothers is very conventional to be set in a cowboy/farm living situation as
the boys represent the farm, hard working side and the townsmen represent the cowboy side, with
the hats and guns and horses to travel about in.
1. Pulp Fiction
Pulp Fiction is a 1994, black comedy crime genre film, directed by Quentin Tarantino. Its main cast
has superstar names such as John Travolta (Vincent Vega), Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace), Samuel L
Jackson (Jules Winnfield), Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge) and Quentin Tarantino himself as Jimmie
Dimmick. Pulp Fiction is of a non-linear narrative due to the way it has been edited, the stories of
each character isn’t in order, they’re mixed together which make s it harder for the audience to loose
focus on the story line. The scene I will be analysing will be the scene of the Jack Rabbit Slims dance
scene between Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace. The synopsis of this scene happens when Vincent is
asked by request of his boss, Marcellus Wallace, to take his wife (Mia), out for a night as he is out of
town and doesn’t want her to feel abandoned. Vincent takes Mia to a diner called ‘Jack Rabbit Slims’
since Mia had already made a reservation for them. At Jack Rabbit Sli ms, the waiter’s and waitress’
all are dressed to resemble famous Hollywood stars, such as Buddy Holly, Marilyn Monroe, James

6. Dean and Mamie Van Doren. Vincent refers to the diner’s staff as ‘its like a wax museum with a
pulse’.
1.
The exposition happens when Vincent and Mia arrive at the diner, and are escorted to their seat
which is a vintage 50’s car converted into a table and chairs. Their waiter comes over who is dressed
as Buddy Holly and is played by Steve Buscemi, who appears in Reservoir Dogs (Quentin Tarantino
film) as a character who refuses to tip waiter’s and waitress’. Buddy Holly asks for their orders to
which Vincent orders a vanilla coke and a streak while Mia orders a burger and a $5 shake, to which
Buddy Holly replies ‘Martin & Lewis or Amos & Andy?’, this references the past as Martin and Lewis
were two white males who were comedians together, which the milkshake reference means they
are vanilla and the Amos and Andy were two black actors who were on a sitcom together, which the
milkshake references them to be chocolate. During this part of the scene where they are sat at their
seats, they both light up cigarettes and start smoking. Mia then goes on to explain about her ‘Fox
Force Five’ piolet TV show that only made one episode as Vincent had asked her about it.
The rising action happens when Mia excuses herself to go to the bathroom to as she says ‘power my
nose’ to which she actually does with cocaine, which was a very 90’s thing to do during the time of
the film. As she arrives back at the table, she sees her food has arrived and is happy to see it and
makes conversation about it with Vincent. This is when the falling action appears when a dance
competition is announced by one of the look-a-likes at Jack Rabbit Slims who is portraying Ed
Sullivan. Mia then convinces Vincent to dance and aim to win as Mia wants the trophy. This scene
includes Mia and Vincent doing a ‘twist’ dance which was copied movement by movement from the
dance performed by Fellini’s 1963 classic ‘8½’ by Barbra Steele and Mario Pisu. This style of dancing
reflects the scene around them, a typical American 1950/60’s diner.
The semiotics within Pulp Fiction include the cigarettes as both characters in this scene have a habit
of using them, which could potentially give them nicotine rush which could add to one explanation
to as why Mia seems a little on edge before taking the drugs, which is another semiotic when Mia
takes drugs in the bathroom, while Vincent has a 100 grams of heroin in his coat pocket that he
purchased earlier.
The representation of the character of Mia is that she is stereotyped to be a background character, a
gangster’s wife therefore she should be portrayed a sex -appealing character who has fears of
everything, but the actual character is slightly awkward but confident about, she doesn’t appear to

7. listen to anyone’s opinions and quite fearless, maybe being a gangster’s wife taught her to harden
herself up around men. The character of Vincent is stereotyped to be emotionless, not very talkative
and fearless as he is the right hand man of a gangster, where as his actually has emotions but talks
very little about them, he also has a personality which appears to be very laidback. He also has fears
as later on in the film, he is badly freaking out about Mia over-dosing.
The iconography occurs everywhere in this mise en scene because of the setting, such as the bar, the
tables, the waiters and waitress’ and the music/band playing all referencing the 1950’s/60’s vintage
era.
Quentin Tarantino often likes to reference his or the actors previous works in his films which give
him a particular style. One of the post-modern features is intertextuality, this is where the film
would make a reference to other media texts, an example includes Mia and Vincent referencing John
Travolta’s (Vincent) previous work in 1978 such as the characters of Grease, Danny and Sandy sat in
the car at a drive in, as well as Mia and Vincent being sat opposite each other at a diner which Danny
and Sandy do. Another example of intertextuality, would be the waitress who is dressed to look like
Marilyn Monroe, re-enacts the blowing up of the dress in this scene, referencing the Seven Year Itch
which starred Marilyn Monroe, as well as the man who announces the dance competition is
referencing Ed Sullivan, who was a host back in the 60’s, therefore this was the fitting job for this
character. Another post-modern feature is parody, where this film copies another media text in a
humorous way, such as Vincent dancing as John Travolta is, again, referencing his younger self in
Grease and Saturday Night Fever. Pastiche is also a post-modern feature, and is where a media text
closely imitates another media text from a distinguished previous artist, usually celebrates the work
rather than mocking, this is also where the Marilyn Monroe dress moment happens and where
Vincent is dancing, both referencing past, but memorable, media moments. Post -modern reflexivity
is where the film maker (Quentin Tarantino), refers to the production part of the film, usually by
breaking the illusion of the mise en scene to show that the film and or TV show is not real, this
occurs when Mia and Vincent arrive at the diner in the car, and Mia says to Vincent, ‘Don’t be such
a…’ and draws a square in midair, which has been edited to appear as she draws it in midair,
shattering the illusion that there’s no camera there. Post-modern bricolage is where a media text
references to a mix of eras/genres within one shot or scene such as, again, The Marilyn dress
moment, the people surrounding her are very 90’s, such as their hairstyles and their clothes with
Marilyn in the middle representing the 50/60’s era. Also another example of bricolage is Mia doing
drugs in the toilet, the toilet is vintage themed, but Mia is surrounded by 90’s women and doing
drugs in a toilet was a 90’s thing. The last post-modern feature is self-referentiality. This is where a
producer of a media text or actor makes direct reference to previous work, again John Travolta
references his characters of Danny and Tony, being dancers sat in the car/diner. Uma Thurman (Mia)
also references the film, Kill Bill, which wasn’t made at the time of Pulp Fiction, but is another
Quentin Tarantino film from 2003, Mia mentions the ‘Fox Force Five’ gang, which consisted of ‘a
blonde one, a Japanese one, a black one, a French one and a brunette one’ , which are the characters
from Kill Bill.