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Viewing British Films CriticallyELTeCS Tambov Film Project: 

Viewing British Films Critically ELTeCS Tambov Film Project Study guide for: My Beautiful Laundrette

Slide2: 

Cross-cultural discussion The rationale behind the project’s discussion group……. Daniel Barenboim, the famous Jewish pianist and conductor, interviewed recently on German TV about his special orchestra in which Israeli and Palestinian young people play music together said:… “ Of course playing Beethoven together doesn’t mean they automatically stop hating each other. But by playing music together they learn something, and they learn something about each other. And I believe that ignorance is the basis of hate.”

Study notes for My Beautiful Laundrette: 

Study notes for My Beautiful Laundrette Aims of the course We hope you, get practice in understanding spoken English and find out something about modern Britain and modern British films, but the main aim of this course is: to encourage you to discuss issues arising from the films. Often these will be conflicts been cultures or generations. Other students will be posting to the list in the same period as you and you should either respond, or start off a discussion by making some kind of statement about the film. Some later slides will give some useful phrases for starting a discussion. The film-discussion list is at: http://www.film-viewing.yahoogroups.com

Slide4: 

My Beautiful Laundrette This guide will be divided into 6 parts: List of main characters Summary of story Pre-viewing activities While-viewing activities Post-viewing activities Supplementary, optional activities,

List of main characters: 

List of main characters Nasser Omar’s uncle Papa Omar’s father Johnny Omar’s friend Omar Salim Omar’s cousin Tania Uncle Nasser's daughter Cherry Salim’s wife Genghis Johnny’s fascist friend Rachel Omar’s uncle’s mistress ]

2. Summary of the story: 

2. Summary of the story My Beautiful Laundrette isn’t really a film with a story that has a neat beginning, middle and end. It shows some scenes from the lives of the characters it presents. Johnny is thrown out of a squat that he sharing with a friend, Genghis. As it happens, though Johnny doesn’t know it at the time, the person who is charge of the eviction is Omar's cousin, Salim. Omar, who is waiting to go to College, is looking after his alcoholic father (Papa). His mother has committed suicide. Omar's father is worried about him and ‘phones his brother, Omar’s uncle Nasser, to give him a temporary job in his garage. One night, driving his cousin and wife home Omar encounters Johnny and some of his right-wing, fascist friends. Omar and Johnny went to school together and were formerly friends. (continued)

Slide7: 

2.1 (continued) Omar asks his uncle to let him manage a run-down laundrette in a poor area of London. His uncle agrees. Omar and Johnny meet again and Omar employs Johnny to help transform the laundrette. At one point Omar, sent to collect “something” for his cousin, keeps the drugs (hidden inside a false beard) and Johnny sells them. They use the money for the laundrette. Omar’s uncle is quite keen for him to marry his daughter. Tania. But Johnny and Omar have already become lovers and don’t intend to part. Johnny’s ex-friends become increasingly angry with him for leaving them and when Omar’s cousin deliberately runs into Genghis with his car and breaks his leg they take revenge. They wreck much of the laundrette, they wreck Omar's cousin's car and they beat him up badly.

3. Pre-viewing activities: 

3. Pre-viewing activities See the next three slides……. (Continued)

Slide9: 

A reminder Screen images and good actors are very compelling. But don’t forget that the people you see on the screen are actors and the rooms in flats and houses you see are built in a film studio and probably don’t have four walls or a ceiling. The actors are real people, but the characters they play are not. Omar’s real name is Gordon Warnecke and Johnny’s real name is Daniel Day Lewis. Omar’s father, in the film, isn’t really his father, of course, and he certainly doesn’t live in a noisy flat next to several railway lines because he is a successful film actor, Roshan Seth, and can afford something better! The words Gordon and Daniel speak and their actions were invented for them by Hanif Kureishi, who wrote the script .

Slide10: 

Nevertheless….. Many critics think that one of the reasons why Kureishi’s film is so successful is that it does relate to real life, to life as experienced by Pakistanis like Omar, and young white men like Johnny who lived in London in the 1980s. And we’ve included this film in the Tambov Project Course in the belief that many features of life in London for people like Omar and Johnny haven’t changed totally and are similar in the year 2004. To find out a little more about life in Britain in the 1980s, Margaret Thatcher, Paki- bashing, skin-heads and the National Front, click on the links on the next slide.

Slide11: 

Skin-heads & Paki-bashing in the 1980s : http://www.meta-religion.com/Extremism/White_extremism/Skinheads/skinheads.htm Margaret Thatcher http://www.boycottliberalism.com/Thatcher.htm http://www.britain.tv/ukpolitics_prime_ministers_margaret_thatcher.shtml ]

4. While-viewing activities: 

4. While-viewing activities Watch the film as attentively as you can taking mental note of how characters look at each other and behave to each other as well as to what they say. I know what I am about to write will seem a bit strange, even silly, but try, in the semi-darkness, to scribble down very short written notes for yourself to remind you of points you want to make during the following discussion on the film-viewing list. ENJOY THE FILM!!!

5. Post-viewing activities: 

5. Post-viewing activities Read the next three slides…….

5.1 Starting off a discussion: 

5.1 Starting off a discussion These are not comprehension questions to be answered. One by one. They are points for you to think about to guide you towards articulating your own thoughts. IF YOU HAVE A POINT OF YOUR OWN TO MAKE YOU MAY NOT NEED WHAT FOLLOWS Do you think people should live in squats i.e. living for free – paying no rent - like Johnny was doing at the beginning of the film? Do you think the owner had the right to use force to get Johnny and his friends out of the house? Was the owner right to throw someone's possessions out of the window? What do you think of the way Omar treats his father? (cont)

5.2 Some further points to get you thinking: 

5.2 Some further points to get you thinking Which characters did you particularly like/dislike? Did you identify with one particular character? Which one? Can you say why? What do you think about Omar’s uncle having a mistress? Where would you rather live and why– in Omar’s flat, in Johnny’s room, in Omar’s cousin’s home, or in his uncle’s house?

5.3 Prompt questions continued: 

5.3 Prompt questions continued Were Omar and Johnny right to steal something from Omar's cousin to help finance the laundrette? Were Johnny's ex-friends right to beat up Omar's cousin so badly? Were you embarrassed to see pictures of Omar and Johnny kissing so intimately? Does it make you lose sympathy with Omar and Johnny that they obviously had sex together?

5.4 Post a message: 

5.4 Post a message Use your email program to post a message to: Film-viewing@yahoogroups.com

6. Supplementary activities: 

6. Supplementary activities For those of you with easy, fast access to the Internet there is a simple webquest. You use the web to answer the questions asked in the exercise. You will find the webquest at: http://www.dennisnewson.de/wq1.htm