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How are the ideological themes in your chosen films resolved?

 How are the ideological themes in your chosen films resolved?

Trainspotting

Shaun of the dead

Themes and issues to pick from in Shaun of the Dead...

- social background

Shaun lives with his best friend Ed and college friend Pete. Shaun's days usually end from him working to being in a pub called 'The Winchester'. He is usually there with his girlfriend Liz and her 2 close friends and flatmates, David and Dianne who he does not get along with. At the start of the film shaun's relationship with liz is on the ropes.

- friendship

Shaun is very close friends with Ed. Together they are both childish and still act like they were young adults. Although he lives with Ed, you can see that shaun sightly wants to move on and 'grow up' as he is under the influence of his other housemate, Pete. Pete brings the mature side out of shun as he reminds shaun the he is old enough to look after himself and keeps telling him that he should let go of ed as ed is 'holding him back'

-work

-relationships

-heroism

-responsibility

-age/maturity


Answer-

In this essay I will explain how the ideological themes are solved in shaun of the dead and trainspotting, these themes being age/maturity and friendships.

In Shaun Of the dead, friendship is a very important factor, as Shaun life is really revolved around his friends and aquantinces. Shaun is very close friends with Ed. Together they are both childish and still act like they were young adults. Although he lives with Ed, you can see that shaun sightly wants to move on and 'grow up' as he is under the influence of his other housemate, Pete. Pete brings the mature side out of shun as he reminds shaun the he is old enough to look after himself and keeps telling him that he should let go of ed as ed is 'holding him back'

The main problem that falls under friendship is the fact that Shaun is seemed to be trapped in a friendship where he is always looking out for and always defending his friend Ed, the phrase the is thrown about throught the whole film is that Ed is 'holding him back' The way this problem is solved is through time. As the film moves on and the movie turns in to a 'zombie horror' film, and the issues that the main protaginists have to encounter and cross over sort of help Shaun's friendship issue. For example, it allows Shaun to express his feelings toward Ed in the scene where they blending in with the zombies trying to get to the pub for safety and Ed answers his phone. Due to the shear frustation and shock that Shaun feels during this scene, he then goes onto yell at Ed basically the exact same thing he was protecting his best friend about at the start of the film when they had an altercation with Pete. The phrase "your holding me back" gets highlighted again. The film outlines that phrase as it is a key feature in their friendship problems, in the scene as soon as Shaun says this, the audience can see that Ed is taken back by it and it actually goes through. This is a key point as throughout the whole film the audience recognises that Ed usually does not take in things that Shaun tells him and he would usually turn it into a joke. However this key point shows that their problems of ed not listening is getting resolved as later on in the film, when Shaun Liz and Ed are all in the cellar and they find a way out, Shaun calls Ed to come with him, but Ed refuses as he states, "I'll only hold you back". This shows that due to everything they have been through, their issues in the friendship started to resolve as Ed shows that he finally listened to Shaun.

However in the other chosen film trainspotting, The main character; Renton's relationship with the gang underwent a transformation (Spud, Sick Boy, Begbie, Tommy). We are introduced to them in the first scene, and we can see that their relationship is generally good, with nothing particularly bad. This changes when Renton decides to flee with the money they made from selling £4,000 worth of heroin for £16,000; he leaves £4,000 for Spud to indicate that he still loves for him, but he realises that the others aren't good pals. These changes began after he returned from rehabilitation, when he discovered that Sick Boy was planning on stealing the money and fleeing, as well as Begbie's aggressiveness after he severely beaten up a man for spilling beer on his shirt. Renton realises that his friends are bad friends who do not deserve the money, so he decides to sell it.


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