Harry Brown - Key Theories

Adorno & Althusser

In the film Harry Brown, Adorno's theory of repetition of realism and sameness is represented throughout the film in many different ways. An example of this is the locations used; Regents Canal and Aylesbury Estate as they are real location in London, which makes the film feel real and recognisable to the audience. In reality the estate doesn't really have a good representation and is known for negative behaviour, youth crime and violence, and the behaviour found in the estates is mirrored in the film. This was also portrayed through the riot scene near the estate and it was reinforced through real life, as the riots coverage in London was the exact same incident. Even though these two incidents were nowhere near each other in terms of time and one is fictional and the other is real life, the two riots were practically the same in terms of the violent acts the young people were doing (setting cars and buildings on fire, throwing glass bottles and bombs at the police, and the police guarding themselves with their transparent shields). Also the camera angles that were used, as we were never on the side of the rioters and the audience was always on the side of the police; making it look like the young people are attacking us, again reinforcing the dominant ideology. The role of the producer is to ensure that the audience believes that the characters and situations represented are the same as those in our everyday life. This makes is harder for the audience to distinguish the representations of young people in the film to how individual young people behave in real life; especially because the representation appear to be like real life in the film in terms of the way they are dressed, look like and speak. The film tends to rely on certain stereotypes for the collective identity of young people such as antisocial behaviour and violence.

Althussers theory was also presented throughout the film as Harry Brown represents the dominant ideology as we see several sequences of violence through his eyes. For example when the young teenagers are beating up the girl and guy by the underpass; also when they are beating up the car owner. The audience are at a high angle with Harry, looking down onto the scene, which encourages us to side with Harry and take his viewpoint. We are never on the level of the young people when these acts are happening. However in turn, Harry's violent actions (killing teenagers and blowing up buildings) is justified within the film as the violence is contextualised as self defence. He doesn’t go to prison because if he did it would make the teenagers look like victims. Harry done the police a big favour by killing Plan B, and even at the press conference when the police knew the situation, they still took control and never said anything about Harry. The target audience for this film is adults, hence why we are always on Harry's side and the dominant ideology is constantly reinforced throughout the film.