Comparison Between Kes and Billy Elliot

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Comparison Between Kes and Billy Elliot

SIMILARITIES:

Both films central ideas are based around the theme of hardship in the North during the late 20th century (1950-1990). Both directors have chosen to specifically highlight the lack of opportunity there is for someone to excel and have a job that matches their talents. Both boys find something that they are passionate about but it is extremely hard for them to break out from the norm of after finishing school (at a considerably much younger age than we would finish) was being sent off to the mines. It is interesting to note that even though the films span the gap between Yorkshire in the late 1960’s to around 1984-85, the way the people live their lives and their standards of living seem not to have changed very much at all. Apart from the addition of very few cars, the houses and livelihoods of the people appear almost exactly the same. British New Wave Cinema was concerned with the realism of the situation in the North and directors such as Ken Loach (Kes) tried to make this very obvious in his film. The work of directors working in the British New Wave era drew attention to the reality of life for the working classes, especially in the North of England, giving rise to the expression, "It's grim up north". This particular type of drama, centred around class and the nitty-gritty of day-to-day life, was also known as the kitchen sink drama. This kitchen-sink drama is especially obvious in Kes because the style and cinematography of the film is very natural and realistic. In fact, Ken Loach used hardly any professional actors but instead hired relatively unknown and sometimes just people from the surrounding area with no acting experience in the film. The style of the filming is also very real, containing relatively few obviously symbolistic sections and having minimal editing but instead long drawn out shots without cuts to a different perspective. This added to the sense of reality and made the film seem almost too simple as if you were seeing it through someone’s eyes and not through multiple cameras’.

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Both Billy Casper and Billy Elliot are similar characters. They both seem to wear virtually the same clothes everyday, consisting of a school uniform and their recreation clothes. These clothes get worn and worn again no matter what the boys have been doing in them. They also seem to only just fit both the Billy’s. This is probably to suggest that they cannot afford and new clothes. They do not wear any ‘brand names’ also implicating their poor financial status. Another similarity between the boys is their ‘broken household.’ Casper’s father is not talked about or featured at all, ...

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