Learning Outcome

2. Learning Outcome • You MUST understand the setting of the film Billy Elliot. • You MUST understand that the setting reinforces the film’s themes. • You MUST understand what a motif and a symbol is and how they are used in the film. • You SHOULD be able to write a PEEL paragraph that how the setting helped you to understand a key idea in the text, using examples of visual and / or oral language features to support your ideas.

3. Setting • It is important for a film to establish itself in time, place and social group every quickly. Mood and atmosphere are important too. • As you answer the following questions, consider not just what you are told, but HOW it is made clear.

4. Questions to get started. Q1 Where is the movie set? How do we know? Q2 When is it set? How do we know this? Q3 What is the age group the story is centred on? How do we know this? A1 Everington, a mining village in County Durham, North East England. • Durham is mentioned; Billy tells the panel he is from Everington; it is on the door of the hall. • it is an enclosed community under extreme threat – the threat of the end of mining, if the disintegration of their community. • A2 During the miners’ strike in 1984-5. • The presence of the police, the strike posters, shots of the mine, the snippet of radio news. • Occasional seasonal indicators: blue skies, snow, Christmas etc • A3 Billy is 11; his brother old enough to have left school (at 15) but looks about 18 or 19; Dad in his 40s, Grandma in her 70s. • Tony tells us that Billy is only 11; he has already been seen in school uniform; he looks 11.

5. Q4 What is the socio-economic group? How do we know this? A4 Coal miners. Not badly paid normally – Billy’s mother has a piano, and her pawned jewellery earns enough to get them to London - but the strike has meant no wages coming in and this has hit the family hard. Most of the people are miners in their neighbourhood. Billy's circumstances are signalled with quiet economy. When his dad smashes his late mother's piano with an axe, we assume this is yet another act of aggression. But then we see the piano hammers burning as firewood. When we see Billy and his father at the Royal Ballet School it highlights how far their home life is from the wealth of most students.

6. Q5 What clues tell us Mrs Wilkinson comes from a different social background? Q6 How is the mine setting first shown? What is the effect of this? A5She has a car; Debbie speaks with a better accent; their home; they don’t swear. A6 Although we see the picket lines, the buses and the police presence, the first time we see the actual mine and the slag heaps is when Jacky goes to sign in. It is dreary and depressing – all grey, no green.

7. How does the director use techniques to show us the setting?

8. Motifs and symbols • A motifis an image/idea/word that is repeated several times in a particular work. It is a unifying device. • A symbol is an image/idea/word that represents something else, other than itself. Copy the following and list all the places where you can remember seeing them in the film. Police and Police vans Shoes & feet and gloves Cages The piano Swans Mirrors The little girl in blue