Shaun of the Dead: Narrative structure and Genres

Within the beginning of the film it is presented to be a romantic comedy as the narrative revolves around Shaun's relationship with his girlfriend Liz and the disruption occurs when Liz dumps Shaun as she wants him to change and has stereotypical romcom character archetypes just like how Shaun is presented to be the immature one in the relationship and Liz is presented as the mature one in the relationship which is immediately shown in the intro of the film as Liz is talking about how she

wants Shaun to change which is  whilst Shaun's face is blank throughout most of the scene also as the scene usually stays at a mid shot switching between Shaun's and Liz's face to present their personalities  and build on the stereotypical characters within the romcom genre also creating a comedic tone.

 As the film continues to be a romcom the zombie horror genre themes begin to seep through the romcom in stages. We first see the beginning of this before the disruption in the romcom genre when Shaun is in the flower shop scene as Shaun sees a zombie but disappears before we see anything else and we see the zombie horror genre themes begin to seep in before this when we see the newspapers in the intro shop scene which shows headlines of a disease and we see the news multiple times showing people in hazmat suits and the army but as an audience we don't take much notice but Shaun is totally oblivious to what is happening around him as he is totally focused on his relationship and how he is trying to fix it as the world around him is drastically changing due to the zombie apocalypse. The shop scene is exactly mirrored when the film is in different genres as Shaun is both shown to be completely oblivious to the world around him as in the beginning Shaun trips on the curb in both scenes but he second time we see this scene zombies are scattered around the background.

 Whilst the zombie horror themes begin to take over early within the film as Shaun tries to fix the disruption within his relationship and the disruption within the narrative but the disruption within the narrative of the zombie horror is what helps the create the new equilibrium of the romcom as Todorov's equilibrium theory states that a disruption of the equilibrium has to happen for the narrative to progress and the realisation of the disruption ends with a new equilibrium being created by the main character as they fix the disruption and the new equilibrium is different to the original equilibrium which is shown in Shaun of the Dead as originally the house Shaun lives in is presented as a stereotypical male house as it is shown as messy with beer cans and rubbish scattered within the living room however within the new equilibrium shows the house becoming more feminine however being at a compromise as the living room has a mixture of femininity and the original state of the living room. T
his set design is to show the development of both Shaun and Liz as characters and a development in their relationship as their problems have been solved and have found a compromise through the new equilibrium in the narrative as the problem of their friends holding each other back has been solved as they were killed showing that the two genres intertwine as the romcom problem of their friends effecting the relationship was solved by the zombies and also the zombies are a big reason that the relationship is fixed.         

Trainspotting: Themes and Binary Opposites

The theme of the past vs future is prevalent throughout the film as the scene in which Renton is in a club later on in the film as he narrates how everything is changing like music, drugs, and people as techno plays in the background and also the soundtrack has a lot of techno reinforcing this idea of changing times. Also an earlier scene close to the beginning where Renton is in another club contrasts with the later scene to express the change which is occurring as the earlier scene shows people drinking alcohol whilst people dance to generic 80s rock whereas the later scene people are on ecstasy and are having a rave also the places in which these scenes take place are different as the earlier scene takes place in Leith and the later scene takes place in London also the change in drugs as Renton talks about ecstasy becoming a lot more popular as the popularity of heroin losing popularity as this change in the film shows the change of culture from the 80s to 90s within these two scenes.  

Renton develops as time progresses throughout the film as he was once stuck in the past with his other friends he has now changed which leads on to another theme which is present in the film which is Betrayal. As Renton develops as a character he begins to hate the friends he had in the beginning thus leading to the ending of the film where Renton steals the money from the drug deal and escapes with the money and escapes the friendship he despised. And within that friend group two friends Begby and Spud are on two opposite spectrums as Begby is the most aggressive person in the friend group as in one of the final scenes in he bar presents this and how Renton is in the middle of both of them as Spud is presented to be more childlike and scared which is shown in the betrayal scene as Spud sees Renton is leaving and even though Renton somewhat offers Spud to come with him he doesn't showing how Spud is more scared of Begby and Sick Boy.  

Throughout the film a major theme which is prevalent is heroin and how it effects the characters and the world around them as the main character Renton uses heroin and heroin is used as an opposite to may other themes within the film such as for example family as Renton's parents are presented as a force which tries to get him to quit which is shown in the withdrawal scene as they kept him locked in his room. The scenes which have the parents are usually very bland with dark and dull colours always present giving those scenes a depressing, boring tone whereas the scenes which include heroin or drugs are usually in brightly coloured rooms with multiple colours and lights present.

  

Trainspotting: Opening

The beginning of the film throws the audience into an action packed scene later on in the film making the narrative non-linear as someone begins to narrate as a close up of a character presents to the audience that he is the main character as we are aligned with him due to seeing him and hearing his voice first and the character . Renton's narration seems to be a somewhat satirical look on life as he lists off things like"choose life, choose a job and choose fixed-interest mortgage repayments" as it seems that Renton is criticising the way society wants us to live and the audience knows that Renton is the main character as we have a freeze frame with his name making it obvious to the audience that he is the main character after aligning us with Renton. during his narration he says "choose your friends" and it cuts to a shot showing all of the other characters and Renton's friends having a football match however this scene can be somewhat seen as foreshadowing to the ending scene where he betrays them as he no longer wants to be dragged down by them anymore. The clips we see of the characters their personality is quickly shown and the audience gets a good idea what they are like for example the next character we see is Sick Boy who is shown to be a sly character as he trips an opponent and pretends that he didn't do it, the next character shown is Begbie who is shown to be an aggressive character as he slide tackles someone without caring and laughing, the next character shown is Spud who we see is shown as the unreliable and dumb character as he fails to catch the ball and the freeze frame is at a point where his facial expression reinforces this, the final character we are shown is Tommy and when we see him Renton talks about "rotting away at the end of it all" which is foreshadowing Tommy's death later on in the film  and we see him get surrounded which could be foreshadowing the way he dies from aids and how he is surrounded by death and no one can help him.

after this we see two scenes spliced together as Renton falls to the ground in both scenes and they cut between the two scenes as he rejects life and we find out that he does heroin and there is no reason why he is like this he just because he wants to which is a breath of fresh air for films as a character which is takes drugs like heroin would have a tragic backstory and have an explanation for why he does this Renton narrates and says he has no reason why he just wanted to do it. The younger audience would enjoy this film as in the media drugs are always demonised and are overexaggerated to be shown as instantly life destroying but the film shows drugs in a realistic way as it shows the effects of drugs but doesn't romanticise it either for example Tommy's death shows the dark reality of drugs and his death was caused from using used needles and contracting the HIV virus and the baby being killed due to neglect.

'The Worst Toilet in Scotland' scene
The beginning of the scene shows Renton picking up suppositories from a drug dealer and the atmosphere within the scene somewhat shows the dark realities of drugs as the room is dirty and bare except for the mattress however the colours present in this room makes the scene less grim as the bright colours of yellow and green which is present and this is also shown in the next scene where Renton walks along the flats at the bottom of the scene and more focus is put into the flats as the set of bland flats has been changed to have various colours to make this scene more vibrant as each set of curtains are bright colours.

When Renton enters the bar the camera switches from close ups of Renton's face and a POV shot of people staring at him until he enters 'The Worst Toilet in Scotland' and this shows up in text to create a comedic tone before we are shown the ghastly state of the toilet as its entirely covered in dirt and faeces with non diegetic sounds of flies reinforces the state of the scene. Renton uses the toilet to defecate and loses the suppositories which he used in the beginning of the scene and begins to look in the toilet which is blocked and is filled with dirty water and as this occurs Renton begins to go inside the toilet and is dragged away from a dark reality for a surrealist scene where he is swimming in a sea and finds the suppositories and goes back up to the surface to climb out of the toilet and this is done to give the audience a break from the harsh reality which is thoroughly present through the film and these surrealist scenes occur during the darkest scenes in the film.
   

Read more: https://www.springfieldspringfield.co.uk/movie_script.php?movie=trainspotting