Under the Skin

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Under the Skin

Under the Skin is an artistic science fiction film, which features Scarlett Johansson as an alien in human form. The alien strives to understand what it means to be a human and a woman in today's world, with tragic consequences. Through its art house symbolism and understated narrative, the film explores themes such as immigration, male sexual desire and female experiences of male violence. Under the Skin's aesthetic can be described as 'alien', 'eerie' and 'unsettling'. Director Jonathan Glazer wanted to direct a film that represented an alien view of the world by making the everyday seem otherworldly and strange. Under the Skin relies on atmosphere and style, rather than obvious scares or shocks, to create an unsettling viewing experience. Glazer holds onto images, allowing your eyes to wander around the frame and contemplate how the world appears to the alien. Your appreciation of Under the Skin's unique and memorable aesthetics increases the more times you watch it, as repeat viewings uncover its themes and layers.

Under the Skin is notable for its experimental use of sound and music, which adds to the overall unsettling effect of the film. Composer Mica Levy created a score that replicated the alien's alarming and strange experience of the world. It is difficult to distinguish between sound effects and musical track. Glazer explains his approach to the film's sound:

For the sound, it was about capturing everything we needed, that more conventionally in a film, you wouldn't bother with. All the sonic chaos of the world that we tune out. If we stop for a second and become aware of the air- conditioning unit [points to hotel room vent], there's clicking going on down there - we block all that out. The role of this was to use all those things and have those things somehow becoming symphonic, just bubbling away in the background. All of the things you would normally cut out of the soundtrack for being noisy would be the things we used and pushed to the foreground. (Tobias, 2014)

Artistic influences

Under the Skin's aesthetics are influenced by the films of three directors: Nicholas Roeg, Stanley Kubrick and Ken Loach.

Stanley Kubrick's bold, technical and precise visual style was a direct influence on Under the Skin's highly technical visual science fiction sequences. Under the Skin's unique soundtrack compares to the unsettling soundtracks in Kubrick's films The Shining (Kubrick, 1980) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (Kurick, 1968).

Nicolas Roeg directed a number of artistic and critically acclaimed films of the 1970s. Under the Skin's narrative is reminiscent of Roeg's cult science fiction film The Man Who Fell to Earth (Roeg, 1976). Both are British science fiction films about an alien who inhabits human form and both are notable for their surreal imagery. Scarlett Johansson's costume and hairstyle is a homage to Mick Jagger's character Turner in another if Roeg's cult films, Performance (Roeg, 1970).

The sequences in Under the Skin that were shot on the streets of Glasgow are in the style of British realist auteurs such as Ken Loach. Loach's films often feature working-class characters and are shot in real city locations in a documentary style. Loach uses natural light and characters are shot as though they are being observed. Sweet Sixteen (Loach, 2002), for instance, was shot in the working-class areas of Greenock and Port Glasgow in Scotland.

Key sequence analysis: The opening sequences

The first shot in Under the Skin is of a white light, evoking birth and creation, as the alien's eye is created. The development of the eye resembles an exploding planet or star. The opening is reminiscent of the 'star gate' sequence in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, where mission pilot Dr. Bowman races across space and encounters strange vortexes of light. Under the skin establishes the theme of 'watching' or 'witnessing' at the very start of the film, as we see eyes manufactured for the alien. Glazer explains how this theme of witnessing informs the film's style:

'Everything feels witnessed. There's a formalism to the way the film is shot so that w=everything is witnessed. Even the stuff we set up needed to feel like it was witnessed. Maybe, more traditionally, you might go in on a boat with a camera, or have a diver and shoot some underwater shots of [the woman] struggling. I wanted to shoot it all like a piece of news, like you were seeing it from a rock, and it was all happening over there. I hope there's a reality to it, as a result.' (Tobias, 2014)

The theme of voyeurism or 'witnessing' and the use of eye imagery is also evident in the memorable image from the film where the alien uses a compact mirror to put on her lipstick.

The strange musical soundscape of an odd buzzing sound merges with sounds of a human voice as the alien learns to form words. The disturbing soundscape continues over shots of the motorcycle driver riding through the rugged Scottish wilderness, making the Scottish environment seem otherworldly. For Glazer, Scotland was the ideal setting due to its sense of wilderness, as it is a less densely populated area of the British Isles. The close-up, eye-level shot of the driver in the centre of the frame as the traffic speeds by him on each side is again reminiscent of the star gate sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, where flashes of bright light emanate from the centre of the frame.

Much of the film was shot in the streets of Glasgow. The sequences where the alien wanders through a Glasgow shopping centre are shot in a documentary, realist style. The low camera and controlled long tracking shots give the film a realism, yet also a sense of how an alien would encounter this environment where the everyday is made to appear strange.

A montage of shots depicts streets of Glasgow as seen through the window of the alien's white van. This montage represents the alien's point of view, as she witnesses men walking on the city streets, unaware that they are being watched. The shots are anchored by the unsettling soundtrack, rendering the men unfamiliar and strange. When the alien is stuck in traffic after a football match, the sounds of the crowds are muffled to further distance us from them and enable us to see and hear how the alien encounters these men.

The scenes in Under the Skin where the alien drives around Glasgow and interacts with various local men were shot covertly with hidden cameras. Some of the men she encounters were actors and some were local people, unaware that they were taking part in a scene for a film. Eight cameras were implanted in the van to capture the alien interacting with her potential victims in real time. Some American audiences have commented that the thick Glaswegian accents make the world seem even more alien, as they unable to understand what the local characters were saying. The spontaneity of the part-improvised, covertly filmed sequences contrasts with the sequences where the alien takes the victims home. In those sequences controlled tracking shots and elaborate special effects are used.

Narrative structure

Much of the narrative is communicated purely visually in the film, there is a distinct lack of any dialogue…particularly expositional dialogue. We can see this in the opening sequence when we are given no backstory to establish the characters or their relationship to each other. The relationship between the motorcyclist and the alien remains mysterious throughout and we are often left to deduct character motivation from looks alone.

The characters in the film lack names which makes identification with them and delineation between them very difficult, and challenges mainstream narrative conventions. You could also argue that the characters lack much personality in that they seem to lack emotion or thought in their actions. It is left to the spectator to deduce what they can about the characters.

There is a lack of explicit causality which frustrates attempts by the spectator to develop a cause-effect chain in the narrative. Some events seem unmotivated, such as why the victims are being killed, whilst other events lack a clearly explained effect, such as why she leaves the man’s house towards the end of the film. This is unconventional in film narratives and can be very challenging (or rewarding?) for the spectator, who is required to work much harder in making meaning.

Notes on Structuralism

Structuralism assumes that narratives are structured in a binary way. ‘Binary oppositions’ are concepts that appear opposite but actually need each other to define their meaning. Binary oppositions are often used in film and other narratives to achieve a narrative (or aesthetic) tension. To analyse a narrative by drawing up binaries can help ‘map’ the key ideas and themes of the film, and indeed reveal its ideological work. However, there is a word of warning about binary analysis – the most interesting films often have a ‘space between’, a kind of grey zone in which the film seems to negotiate between left and right binary. These ‘spaces between’ can sometimes reveal contradictions at the heart of the film. For example in 'Under the Skin', there are many binary oppositions at work, the most obvious being Alien V Human. However, there is no clearly delineated Good V Evil trajectory, which one may commonly associate with a Sci-Fi film about humans and an alien serial killer (Scarlett Johansson). This leads to an interesting audience response as we are often left in the position of feeling more empathy towards the alien than her victims.

ASSESSMENT

The assessment objectives (what the examiner is looking for)

AO1 Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of elements of film.

AO2 Apply knowledge and understanding of elements of film:

analyse and compare films, including through the use of critical approaches
evaluate the significance of critical approaches

Section C: British film since 1995 (two-film study)

How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding the narrative resolution of your chosen films? [40]

Question 3(a): Indicative content If only one film is considered, allocate the band that qualitatively describes the response (which may be within any of the five bands). The mark must then be divided by two.

You may consider an ideological critical approach based on either a deductive analysis of ideological features contained in the films or an approach in which a particular ideological field, such as gender, race, class, is the basis for analysis. Either approach is acceptable.

You may include the following:

an understanding that narrative resolutions will have ideological implications – which may be discussed in terms of how conventional the narrative resolution of the film is.
a discussion of how the ideologies conveyed by the film inform the resolution (which may be expressed in terms of key representations or issues raised by the film)
some reference that ideologies are not always intended by filmmakers
a conclusion that ideological analysis has been significant in understanding the narrative resolutions of the two films.
Band 5 responses may recognise how far narrative resolutions either confirm or challenge dominant ideologies.

An alternative question might be:

How useful has an ideological critical approach been in understanding binary oppositions in the narratives of your chosen films? [40]

You may include the following:

a discussion of binary oppositions in whatever form they may appear in the chosen films (which could include opposing characters, ideas, representations, mise-en-scène)
an understanding that binary oppositions in whatever form are rooted in ideologies, which will be revealed through applying an ideological critical approach
a consideration of the way binary oppositions are developed and resolved, which will have ideological implications
a conclusion that an ideological critical approach provides understanding of the ideological nature of film.
Band 5 responses may show how the films' ideologies either reinforce or challenge dominant ideologies.

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