Nikki (Unit 26) - Task Four

Oldboy (2003) is a South Korean thriller mystery directed by Park Chan-Wook. The film is based upon a japanese Manga called Oldboy written by Nobuaki Minegishi and Garon Tsuchiya. The story follows Oh Dae-Su who appears to be a drunk and absent father, Dae-Su is kidnapped and locked away for 15 years. For the entire 15 years that Dae-Su is locked away he doesn’t know who his captor is or their motives for kidnapping him. Dae-Su swears that as soon as he is released he will get revenge on whoever it was that stole his life and family from him. However, this plan is derailed when a romance between Dae-Su and young sushi chef, Mi-Do, gets caught up in his web of vengeance. Things soon get more complicated when Dae-Su discovers that his captor is an old school friend.

Oldboy (2013) is a Hollywood remake of cult classic, Oldboy. This version is directed by Spike Lee and follows much of the same plot with a few minor differences. Joe Doucett is an alcoholic who has no respect for women, especially his wife, who he constantly belittles. He also doesn’t appear to care very much for his daughter, as he makes no effort to turn up to her birthday party. Joe is taken one day after being drunk in an alley and is locked up for 20 years. During these 20 years, Joe seeks redemption and makes a promise to find his daughter once he is released and make up for all of the wrong-doings he has done, instead of vowing to seek revenge like Dae-Su. However, on his journey to find out who his captor was in order to move on from his imprisonment, Joe meets a girl and they fall in love.

There are many ways that audiences can interact with films such as: active spectatorship, gratification, diversion, interpretation and reception. In this writing I will be exploring what these mean and the ways that audiences like to interact with the films they see.

When watching a film the audience can be one of two things: active spectators, or passive spectators. An active spectator can be defined as someone who watches a film and can take their own interpretation from what they’ve seen. Many active spectators will take their own meaning from a film, and interpret it in their own way, due to their personal experiences, age, gender and even where they may have grown up, instead of accepting what marketing has told them. Passive audiences are the opposite of this. They will usually watch a film and react to it how a mass audience would, and accept the meaning as it is shown to them, rather than trying to decipher a meaning for themselves. This could be an effect of what is called the Hypodermic Syringe Theory, which is the idea that whatever is said in mass media will feed into the ideas of the public, making for a passive audience who all feel the same things about a film. In the example of Oldboy, an active spectator would take the ending and change their experience of it. For example, they could say that they believe the hypnosis didn’t work on Dae-Su and that he could still remember everything that happened, shown in his wry smile at the end, instead of believing what the mass audience would think and going in the direction that the director intended which is that Dae-Su did forget and got rid of the ‘monster’ inside of himself.

The uses and gratifications theory by Blulmer and Zatz suggests the idea that audiences are made up of individuals who are able to make up their own mind and decide what films they watch based on their own, different pleasures and feelings. There are four different pleasures that audiences can gain from films as part of the theory: diversion, personal relationships, personal identity and surveillance. Diversion is the idea that audiences may choose to watch a film as a form of escapism and as a means to escape from their everyday routine for a while. An example of this could be western individuals watching Oldboy (2003) because they want to experience a different culture than the one that they live in everyday. Personal relationships is the idea that individuals may go to see a film in order to satiate the desire for their own personal relationships. The theory is that people who are single may go to see a romantic comedy because the romance trope is played out in a safe environment and may make the individual feel better. Personal identity refers to an audience member who watches a film to find themselves in it. Characters all have completely different personality types so that the audience can always find someone to relate to. People who watch films for matters of personal identity may want to find someone that they aspire to, or to get advice or guidance on how to express themselves. For example, someone who likes to help people who are in trouble might look to Oldboy and can find parts of themselves in the characters Mi-Do and Marie. Surveillance is the theory that an individual may watch a film because it could provide information that is useful in real life. For example, many people watch documentaries about nature in order to inform themselves on how certain aspects of it works. In terms of Oldboy, people may watch this and then learn something about what life is like in Korea, which would be useful information to them. Personally, I like watching films for escapism. My favourite films surround themselves around fantasy, superheroes and far-away places like New York, this is because I like to watch films that take me away from London and from the things that I see everyday.

The theory of active spectatorship surrounds itself with the idea that audiences are made up of individuals who will interpret films in the way that they see appropriate. Frameworks of interpretation refer to what it is that makes us individuals and how they can impact our viewing of a film. These demographics can be: ethnicity, class, personal background, age and gender. For example, I am a 19 year old, white woman who has grown up on a council estate in South London and I  would probably interpret and receive Oldboy differently to how an older, asian male would. Although a majority of films have a preferred reading (i.e. how the director intended the film to be interpreted) there will be many differences in the way that individuals perceive films due to their own personal frameworks of interpretation and demographics, this makes for an active audience as opposed to a passive spectatorship as a result of the hypodermic syringe theory. Another factor in the framework of interpretation theory would be the individuals media literacy. Usually, in terms of media literacy, this refers to having a knowledge of media to analyse, assess and evaluate messages that are shown in media products, including films. If someone has a background of media education then they will be aware of the construction of media texts and how they are distributed, they will also be aware of how a film is marketed as a franchise. This knowledge could have an impact on how they interpret, and how impressionable they are about the messages of the film, this is because they know how the text is positioned to impact an audience and the preferred reading is more obvious and someone who has no prior education in media would be less aware. An example of this would be when I saw the new Hunger Games film with my friend who has no media literacy. We had both read the books prior to seeing the film, however I enjoyed it less because I was more aware of how the producers had changed vital parts in order to appeal to the mass audience and attract more viewers and yet my friend didn’t feel this way about the changes because she isn’t well informed on how mass marketing is achieved. For me, the most memorable scene in Oldboy (2003) is the scene that shows Dae-Su cutting out his own tongue. This is the scene I remember the most because I felt that it was the most unexpected, and although it was included to shock the audience and to symbolise Dae-Su’s guilt, it still feels like the most shocking scene because there had been no mirroring to it throughout the film, whereas some other scenes had been alluded to that other viewers might find to be the most memorable, for example, the reveal that Mi-Do was Dae-Su’s daughter.

Intertextuality refers to the idea that nothing stands completely on it’s own, and that everything has been influenced by a media text before it. Some of these are directly interpreted with another media text in mind, for example, remakes like Oldboy. Oftentimes in media, intertextuality is shown through references of other media texts in adverts, tv shows or even films (Tarantino is known to do this) and the interpretation of these is down to the audience’s knowledge of the media.

The way that the audience experiences a film has a great impact on how the film will end up affecting or influencing them. For example, conditions of reception is a theory based around how spectators actually interact with the films that they see. For many people, they prefer to watch a film in a cinema with surround sound, dark lighting and the big screen to truly feel immersed, this is how directors intend for their films to be seen. People’s opinions may change depending on how they initially saw the film. For example, if Person A first saw Oldboy  as a pirate copy and Person B saw it at the IMAX then Person B may have a better overall impression because they had an entire experience with the film instead of watching a bad quality version that doesn’t capture all of the details and intensity of scenes such as the teeth pulling. However, some people prefer to watch films in the comfort of their own home and so wait for the DVD to come out. These factors that go into how a film is received really affect interpretation and enjoyment. Enjoyment of a film can also be impacted by pre and post-viewing experiences. These could be trailers, interviews and even reviews of a film. There have been many instances where audiences have high expectations for a film because of the trailer, but the movie ended up disappointing them because all of the highlights were already included in the trailer which didn’t leave much room for shock. Some people prefer to avoid any type of promotion of a film before seeing it in the cinema so that they can go in with a clean slate and make up their own opinions of what they see. For example, before viewing the Korean version of Oldboy the only thing I knew about it was that it was Korean, this affected my viewing before I had even seen the film because I don’t like watching films with subtitles as it distracts from what is happening on-screen. When it came to watching the Hollywood version of Oldboy I didn’t have high expectations because I hadn’t enjoyed the Korean version very much and I assumed that the films would be pretty much the same, so I was apprehensive going in which could have impacted my viewing in a negative way at the beginning but I ended up enjoying this version because I had already seen the original.

Despite it being the least popular option, I preferred Spike Lee’s version of Oldboy. This was due to me being able to understand and relate more to the culture that is shown in this version. The characters used the same language that I do which meant that I wasn’t focused on reading the subtitles to understand what is happening, however the film being set in America and it’s focus on asian culture still helped to provide a sense of escapism. I was expecting a lot of the gruesome scenes, due to seeing the original version, but once again this only served to make me enjoy the film more because I could focus on the shock and intensity of the film instead of being worried that something to make me flinch will happen in the next 30 seconds. Overall, I enjoyed the hollywood remake more because it provided me with everything that I watch a film for: shock, escapism, personal identity without being too distracting.

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