Click on the label 'Mod1 wk 5'
1. Read the 2 Articles on "Characters & Values" and "Key scenes & Values"
2. Prepare by looking over the clips - "Key scenes Mock Exam"
3. Look over "Mock exam" and learn the mark scheme - know what you are being tested on
Showing posts with label Mod 1 wk5. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mod 1 wk5. Show all posts
Friday, 5 October 2012
Themes in V for Vendetta - Mood Board
1. Mind map the Themes (topics eg: Totalitarianism, Vengence)
2. Create a Collage of Images that represent these words (select images from the films Mise-en-scene, get from Google images)
Link
2. Create a Collage of Images that represent these words (select images from the films Mise-en-scene, get from Google images)
Link
Wednesday, 3 October 2012
V for Vendetta - Mock Exam Mod 1: Key Scenes for Analysis of Messages & Values
Section A Question 1
How are the key messages and values communicated in the films you have studied? [40/100 marks]
For questions set on the area of messages and values, candidates may offer discussions centring on the types of messages and values that can be interpreted from the texts selected for response and also discuss the processes by which these messages and values may be communicated. This may include discussions of one or more of the following:
• Cinematography - the use of camera shots, angle, movement, composition, and lighting.
• Editing - the organisation of sequences to construct meaning. This should include transition of image and sound, continuity and non-continuity systems, cutting (shot/reverse shot, eyeline match, graphic match, action match, jump cut, crosscutting, parallel editing, cutaway, insert).
• Sound - diegetic and non-diegetic sound, synchronous/asynchronous sound, sound effects, sound motifs, sound bridge, dialogue, voiceover, mode of address/direct address, sound mixing, sound perspective, and soundtrack (score, incidental music, themes and stings, ambient sound).
• Mise-en-Scène - production design, location, studio, set design, costume and make-up, properties, colour design, casting.
Key Scenes
Evey's Torture (Guantanamo, Rendition)
Larkhill (GMO & Vaccines)
Larkhill (GMO & Vaccines)
Ending (Revolution)
V's Speech (Suicide Bomber, Media Network)
Diettrich's Secret Life
V for Vendetta Messages & Values - Key Scene & Values
V
for Vendetta
From the makers of The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta paints the story of a vengeful terrorist – or freedom fighter? – which, whether in Thatcherite Britain of the 1980s or Bush’s America after 9/11, has an eternal message.
Philip Coppens
“Remember
Remember the Fifth of November…” November 5 in Great
Britain is notorious for being Guy Fawkes’ night. Fawkes
was a “terrorist”, an English Roman Catholic who tried
to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the so-called Gunpowder
Plot in 1605. The now yearly fireworks that are held across the
country are a somewhat mocking “tribute” to his failed
attempts.
The plan called for Westminster Palace to be blown up during the formal opening session of the 1605 Parliament, in which the king addresses a joint assembly of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Fawkes’ activities were detected and following a severe interrogation involving torture and a trial, he and his conspirators were executed for treason and attempted murder. Fawkes became a national legend, whose actions continue to be remembered across Britain each year, and is thus on par with notorious Christian saints like St George or St Andrews and the Queen’s birthday. A man was transformed into a legend.
Guy Fawkes is central to “V for Vendetta”, which in origin was a comic book series that appeared in the 1980s, written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd. Though set in the future, it was meant to attack the then present premiership of Margaret Thatcher. The comic book series depicted the Norsefire, the archetypal “evil party” as Thatcher’s Conservative Party, based on fears of an extremist police state, which was notorious (e.g. the miners’ strikes). Norsefire obviously was also based on the Nazi Party, the example of a fascist regime par excellence. In both stories, thte Norsefire/Conservative Party actively participates in the systematic elimination of racial minorities, homosexuals and political dissidents from society.
The comic book was reworked into a film, with the film's original release scheduled for Friday, November 4, 2005 (a day before the 400th Guy Fawkes Night), but the release was delayed; it instead opened on March 17, 2006. Some believe it was postponed due to the July 7, 2005 London bombings, though producers denied this was the reason.
Apart from Portman and Weaving, there was also John Hurt in the role of High Chancellor Adam Sutler, a role virtually lifted from Orwell’s Big Brother. Playing Chancellor Sutler was a complete role reversal for John Hurt, as he had previously played the part of Winston Smith, the victim of the Big Brother state in the film adaptation of 1984.
Fawkes is V’s inspiration. “V” wants to change the course of history by blowing up the Houses of Parliament – he wants to succeed where Fawkes had failed, and the date for this attempt is of course November 5. As to why he wants to do so: he wants to destroy the authoritarian government. V is a freedom fighter who uses terrorist tactics in pursuit of a personal vendetta but, above all, he wants to force socio-political change in a dystopian Britain. In the 1980s, Moore had used the future to paint 1980s Britain, the film used the future to paint, as one reviewer, the paint a "world where politicians lied to get us into an unpopular war [Iraq], one where torture is no longer considered off-limits by people who are supposedly the good guys, and where public surveillance is all but ubiquitous.” The film thus become notorious for one of its plethora of catchphrases: “People shouldn’t fear their governments; governments should fear their people.”
So
the story is set in ca. 2038, when Britain is ruled by a totalitarian
regime called Norsefire. It follows Evey (pronounced “E-V”)
Hammond, a young woman who, at the start of the film, is rescued
from the state police by a masked vigilante, who introduces himself
as V and then sets out his “mission statement”: “Voilà!
In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both
victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no
mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant,
vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation
stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent
vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious
and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance;
a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity
of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let
me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you
may call me V.” To which Evey replies: “Are you like
a crazy person?” V: “They will say that.”
V takes Evey to a rooftop location to witness his spectacular first destruction: the Old Bailey, the “ouverture” to his year-long campaign. V has rigged the public address system, which is playing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. The Old Bailey symbolises Justice and V feels it has to be destroyed, as Justice has taken a holiday and an impostor is ruling Britain. Of course, the regime explains the incident as a planned emergency demolition, with experts lined up to speak about a failed structural integrity of the building. The government claims that it was also blown up as evidence of Britain’s decadent past.
But this is quickly shown to be a lie when V takes over the state-run television station (BTN) later that day. He walks into BTN as a suicide bomber, packed with explosives, and forces the station to play his prepared tape to the entire nation. V now informs the nation of his plan, urging the people of Britain to rise up and stand with him at the gates of Parliament on November 5, one year later. He implies that on that day he will destroy the Houses of Parliament. Though he is seen as a terrorist, V sees himself as a freedom fighter. He underlines that “the truth is that there is something terribly wrong with this country”. There is no freedom to object. The government is coercing your conformity. Who is to blame? Who is held accountable? Not the government, but the guilty, “us”. How did it get like this? “We were afraid. War. Terror. Disease, robbed us of common sense. Fear. And we turned to the Chancellor who promised peace, and to give us silent obedient consent.” Afraid of terror, we have allowed a terrific monster to be created: a totalitarian government, which hopes the nation will suffer from a collective form of amnesia. V wants to remind us of our past. “This country has forgotten something. Fairness. Justice. Freedom. They are more than words. They are perspectives. Stand beside me, one year from tonight, and together we will give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgotten.” He has laid down his challenge – and his agenda.
Within
V’s liberation agenda, Fate then throws Evey, who works
at the BTN and who the authorities believe is V’s comrade-in-arms,
in the role of his accomplice. As Fate would have it, her parents
were considered to be terrorists too. For the police, it is clear
why she is doing it; as to V, and who he is, that is a major mystery.
They are unable to comprehend that V is a human being; they depict
him as if he has no human emotions. Still, “part of him
is human”. It underlines how at the first, the police are
totally unable to comprehend what motivates V; they see a man
who breaks the law and nothing more. The police also search for
a connection between V and Evey, but there is none. As to why
V does what he does, this is only a slow realisation that the
police make as his campaign progresses, before finally discovering
that they should indeed be on his side. Meanwhile, BTN News makes
it look as if the terrorist V was killed in a “heroic”
raid that ended V’s siege of the BTN Tower – in reality,
V escapes, and takes Evey with him.
This episode also refers to one major difference between book and film: the computer system "Fate" is completely missing from the film. Fate was a Big-Brother-like computer which served as Norsefire's eyes and ears and also helped explain how V could see and hear the things he did. Of course, Fate’s presence would have made V for Vendetta very much into a Matrix clone. Instead, there are subtle references to the role of Fate (as in coincidence), with V indicating on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as coincidence, but merely the illusion of coincidence – suggesting an underlying plan – a greater scheme, hinting that V’s personal vendetta is not so much personal, but that perhaps he sees himself acting out a divine retribution, a notion not uncommon in terrorist – or government – propaganda.
The
year-long campaign that V has set out is a killing spree, a personal
vendetta, whereby each murder has to be explained away by the
authorities, but whereby each murder helps the police paint the
truth: that V is doing this spree as it is his personal vendetta.
One by one, leading social figures are killed; there is the murder of a paedophile bishop. There is Lewis Prothero, the “Voice of London”, who “died in his sleep”, rather than in the shower, where V kills him. As the killing spree continues, the trail becomes clear, and involves another V: Viadoxic Pharmaceuticals. It operated a site known as Larkhill, where fourteen years earlier, the company had made a discovery that “could be the dawn of a new age”. The facility is described as the end of atomic, but the start of biological warfare. What no-one knows, is that the agents are tested on humans, which the scientists involved describe as “weak and pathetic” people, “helping” their country. This is where V’s role comes to the forefront. One night, one November 5, the facility was hit by a series of explosions. It turns out that only one person survived: V. He stayed in room 5 – V – and not only is he the sole survivor, it also seems that he was the person who created the explosions, a skill he has also used on the Old Bailey and will use on the Houses of Parliament.
But that is not all: the leaders of Viadoxic were also the ones who created the totalitarian regime. The ultra-conservative Norsefire party played upon the deeply divided country, trying to gain in power, until a bioterrorist attack occurred, killing 80,000 people. The fear generated by the attack allowed Norsefire to silence all opposition and win the next election by a landslide. A cure for the virus was discovered soon afterwards. But rather than return to a state of peace and freedom, fear was used to turn Britain into a bigoted totalitarian order, with their leader Adam Sutler becoming the High Chancellor.
The entire nation, fourteen years onwards, still lives under the notion that it was a biological attack by a terrorist, but V knows better. The question he poses is what if the worst most horrific biological attack was not the work of religious extremists? (Who were, by the way, executed for it.) What if someone else unleashed the virus and someone else killed all of these people? He asks “Would you really want to know who it was? If it was someone working for this government? If our own government was responsible for the deaths of almost 100,000 people. Would you really want to know?”
The police figure out V’s motive just before the murder of a doctor who was involved in the Viadoxic experiments and who apologises for what they did to V, but V remarks that “I have not come for what you hoped to do, I have come for what you did.” Though the doctor wanted to do differently, she did it just the same.
Only the top echelon of the party, all guilty of the crimes committed against V and the loss of freedom in Britain, now survive. They are trying to stop the police’s Larkhill investigation, by questioning the loyalty of the investigating chief inspector: the contents of the documents are made subject to national security and at the same time put in doubt. They are described as a possible forgery created by the terrorist himself, or a delusion of the writer. Either way, it would be an act of treason if their contents were divulged. “You would do well, inspector, to put it out of your mind.”
A
key sequence is when Evey thinks that she is captured by the police,
incarcerated and tortured for days, finding solace only in the
notes left by another prisoner named Valerie, who was imprisoned
and persecuted for being a lesbian. Evey is told that she will
be executed unless she reveals V's whereabouts. An exhausted Evey
finally says she would rather die, and, surprisingly, is then
released. Evey discovers that she has been in V's lair all along,
and that her imprisonment was staged by V. By forcing Evey to
experience what he had gone through long ago, V hoped that Evey
would understand that our integrity, "the very last inch
of us", can be more important than our lives. She is now
rid of fear, not afraid of dying; she is truly liberated; she
has, like V, become “superhuman”. At this point, V
reveals that Valerie was the spark of his rebellion and hatred
of the government. V tells her that she hates him now for what
he has done to her, but “then something happened, it happened
to me, just like it happened to you.” V created a lie, but
because she believed it, she found something true about herself.
“This is the most important moment of your life. Commit
to it.” It is here that there is a graphic representation
of her rebirth: she receives a baptism of water (rain), interspersed
with flashbacks to V's rebirth, when a victim in a cruel pharmaceutical
experiment liberated himself, and via a baptism of fire, was reborn
as V, heralding a twenty year long vendetta, which is supposed
to lead to a new world.
From the makers of The Matrix Trilogy, V for Vendetta paints the story of a vengeful terrorist – or freedom fighter? – which, whether in Thatcherite Britain of the 1980s or Bush’s America after 9/11, has an eternal message.
Philip Coppens
“Remember
Remember the Fifth of November…” November 5 in Great
Britain is notorious for being Guy Fawkes’ night. Fawkes
was a “terrorist”, an English Roman Catholic who tried
to blow up the Houses of Parliament in the so-called Gunpowder
Plot in 1605. The now yearly fireworks that are held across the
country are a somewhat mocking “tribute” to his failed
attempts. The plan called for Westminster Palace to be blown up during the formal opening session of the 1605 Parliament, in which the king addresses a joint assembly of both the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Fawkes’ activities were detected and following a severe interrogation involving torture and a trial, he and his conspirators were executed for treason and attempted murder. Fawkes became a national legend, whose actions continue to be remembered across Britain each year, and is thus on par with notorious Christian saints like St George or St Andrews and the Queen’s birthday. A man was transformed into a legend.
Guy Fawkes is central to “V for Vendetta”, which in origin was a comic book series that appeared in the 1980s, written by Alan Moore and illustrated mostly by David Lloyd. Though set in the future, it was meant to attack the then present premiership of Margaret Thatcher. The comic book series depicted the Norsefire, the archetypal “evil party” as Thatcher’s Conservative Party, based on fears of an extremist police state, which was notorious (e.g. the miners’ strikes). Norsefire obviously was also based on the Nazi Party, the example of a fascist regime par excellence. In both stories, thte Norsefire/Conservative Party actively participates in the systematic elimination of racial minorities, homosexuals and political dissidents from society.
The comic book was reworked into a film, with the film's original release scheduled for Friday, November 4, 2005 (a day before the 400th Guy Fawkes Night), but the release was delayed; it instead opened on March 17, 2006. Some believe it was postponed due to the July 7, 2005 London bombings, though producers denied this was the reason.
Apart from Portman and Weaving, there was also John Hurt in the role of High Chancellor Adam Sutler, a role virtually lifted from Orwell’s Big Brother. Playing Chancellor Sutler was a complete role reversal for John Hurt, as he had previously played the part of Winston Smith, the victim of the Big Brother state in the film adaptation of 1984.
Fawkes is V’s inspiration. “V” wants to change the course of history by blowing up the Houses of Parliament – he wants to succeed where Fawkes had failed, and the date for this attempt is of course November 5. As to why he wants to do so: he wants to destroy the authoritarian government. V is a freedom fighter who uses terrorist tactics in pursuit of a personal vendetta but, above all, he wants to force socio-political change in a dystopian Britain. In the 1980s, Moore had used the future to paint 1980s Britain, the film used the future to paint, as one reviewer, the paint a "world where politicians lied to get us into an unpopular war [Iraq], one where torture is no longer considered off-limits by people who are supposedly the good guys, and where public surveillance is all but ubiquitous.” The film thus become notorious for one of its plethora of catchphrases: “People shouldn’t fear their governments; governments should fear their people.”
So
the story is set in ca. 2038, when Britain is ruled by a totalitarian
regime called Norsefire. It follows Evey (pronounced “E-V”)
Hammond, a young woman who, at the start of the film, is rescued
from the state police by a masked vigilante, who introduces himself
as V and then sets out his “mission statement”: “Voilà!
In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both
victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate. This visage, no
mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant,
vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a bygone vexation
stands vivified, and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent
vermin vanguarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious
and voracious violation of volition. The only verdict is vengeance;
a vendetta held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity
of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.
Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let
me simply add that it's my very good honour to meet you and you
may call me V.” To which Evey replies: “Are you like
a crazy person?” V: “They will say that.” V takes Evey to a rooftop location to witness his spectacular first destruction: the Old Bailey, the “ouverture” to his year-long campaign. V has rigged the public address system, which is playing Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture. The Old Bailey symbolises Justice and V feels it has to be destroyed, as Justice has taken a holiday and an impostor is ruling Britain. Of course, the regime explains the incident as a planned emergency demolition, with experts lined up to speak about a failed structural integrity of the building. The government claims that it was also blown up as evidence of Britain’s decadent past.
But this is quickly shown to be a lie when V takes over the state-run television station (BTN) later that day. He walks into BTN as a suicide bomber, packed with explosives, and forces the station to play his prepared tape to the entire nation. V now informs the nation of his plan, urging the people of Britain to rise up and stand with him at the gates of Parliament on November 5, one year later. He implies that on that day he will destroy the Houses of Parliament. Though he is seen as a terrorist, V sees himself as a freedom fighter. He underlines that “the truth is that there is something terribly wrong with this country”. There is no freedom to object. The government is coercing your conformity. Who is to blame? Who is held accountable? Not the government, but the guilty, “us”. How did it get like this? “We were afraid. War. Terror. Disease, robbed us of common sense. Fear. And we turned to the Chancellor who promised peace, and to give us silent obedient consent.” Afraid of terror, we have allowed a terrific monster to be created: a totalitarian government, which hopes the nation will suffer from a collective form of amnesia. V wants to remind us of our past. “This country has forgotten something. Fairness. Justice. Freedom. They are more than words. They are perspectives. Stand beside me, one year from tonight, and together we will give them a fifth of November that shall never, ever, be forgotten.” He has laid down his challenge – and his agenda.
Within
V’s liberation agenda, Fate then throws Evey, who works
at the BTN and who the authorities believe is V’s comrade-in-arms,
in the role of his accomplice. As Fate would have it, her parents
were considered to be terrorists too. For the police, it is clear
why she is doing it; as to V, and who he is, that is a major mystery.
They are unable to comprehend that V is a human being; they depict
him as if he has no human emotions. Still, “part of him
is human”. It underlines how at the first, the police are
totally unable to comprehend what motivates V; they see a man
who breaks the law and nothing more. The police also search for
a connection between V and Evey, but there is none. As to why
V does what he does, this is only a slow realisation that the
police make as his campaign progresses, before finally discovering
that they should indeed be on his side. Meanwhile, BTN News makes
it look as if the terrorist V was killed in a “heroic”
raid that ended V’s siege of the BTN Tower – in reality,
V escapes, and takes Evey with him. This episode also refers to one major difference between book and film: the computer system "Fate" is completely missing from the film. Fate was a Big-Brother-like computer which served as Norsefire's eyes and ears and also helped explain how V could see and hear the things he did. Of course, Fate’s presence would have made V for Vendetta very much into a Matrix clone. Instead, there are subtle references to the role of Fate (as in coincidence), with V indicating on numerous occasions that there is no such thing as coincidence, but merely the illusion of coincidence – suggesting an underlying plan – a greater scheme, hinting that V’s personal vendetta is not so much personal, but that perhaps he sees himself acting out a divine retribution, a notion not uncommon in terrorist – or government – propaganda.
Though
Evey becomes V’s comrade-in-arms by Fate, we also see how
V is not alone in wanting change. Evey finds rescue in the home
of one of her superiors from the BTN, Gordon Deitrich (Stephen
Fry), who reveals to her that he is a closet homosexual and a
collector of banned art and literature. He has a copy of the Koran.
He is not a Muslim (which, it is implied, has become outlawed),
but he finds the book moving and interesting. Homosexuals too
are outlawed. Though well-known and in the public eye, no-one
knows him really. “You wear a mask for so long, you forget
who you are beneath it.” This of course also applies to
V.
V is also a collector of art. Some of the works of art displayed in V’s gallery include "The Arnolfini Portrait" by Jan van Eyck, "Bacchus and Ariadne" by Titian, a Mildred Pierce poster, "St. Sebastian" by Andrea Mantegna and "The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse. V explains that “artists tell lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.” And it is clear that both the comic book and the film are artistic expressions. His personal motto is "VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI", "By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe", taken from Faust, another “dramatis persona” upon which V seems to have based himself. He explains that symbols are important, as they are given power by the people, whether it is the Houses of Parliament, the Old Bailey… or Guy Fawkes. Still, V hiding behind a symbolic mask is used by the government to make ridicule of him: “A man does not wear a mask. A man does not threaten innocent civilians. He is a coward.”
V is also a collector of art. Some of the works of art displayed in V’s gallery include "The Arnolfini Portrait" by Jan van Eyck, "Bacchus and Ariadne" by Titian, a Mildred Pierce poster, "St. Sebastian" by Andrea Mantegna and "The Lady of Shalott" by John William Waterhouse. V explains that “artists tell lies to tell the truth, while politicians use them to cover the truth up.” And it is clear that both the comic book and the film are artistic expressions. His personal motto is "VI VERI VENIVERSUM VIVUS VICI", "By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe", taken from Faust, another “dramatis persona” upon which V seems to have based himself. He explains that symbols are important, as they are given power by the people, whether it is the Houses of Parliament, the Old Bailey… or Guy Fawkes. Still, V hiding behind a symbolic mask is used by the government to make ridicule of him: “A man does not wear a mask. A man does not threaten innocent civilians. He is a coward.”
The
year-long campaign that V has set out is a killing spree, a personal
vendetta, whereby each murder has to be explained away by the
authorities, but whereby each murder helps the police paint the
truth: that V is doing this spree as it is his personal vendetta.
One by one, leading social figures are killed; there is the murder of a paedophile bishop. There is Lewis Prothero, the “Voice of London”, who “died in his sleep”, rather than in the shower, where V kills him. As the killing spree continues, the trail becomes clear, and involves another V: Viadoxic Pharmaceuticals. It operated a site known as Larkhill, where fourteen years earlier, the company had made a discovery that “could be the dawn of a new age”. The facility is described as the end of atomic, but the start of biological warfare. What no-one knows, is that the agents are tested on humans, which the scientists involved describe as “weak and pathetic” people, “helping” their country. This is where V’s role comes to the forefront. One night, one November 5, the facility was hit by a series of explosions. It turns out that only one person survived: V. He stayed in room 5 – V – and not only is he the sole survivor, it also seems that he was the person who created the explosions, a skill he has also used on the Old Bailey and will use on the Houses of Parliament.
But that is not all: the leaders of Viadoxic were also the ones who created the totalitarian regime. The ultra-conservative Norsefire party played upon the deeply divided country, trying to gain in power, until a bioterrorist attack occurred, killing 80,000 people. The fear generated by the attack allowed Norsefire to silence all opposition and win the next election by a landslide. A cure for the virus was discovered soon afterwards. But rather than return to a state of peace and freedom, fear was used to turn Britain into a bigoted totalitarian order, with their leader Adam Sutler becoming the High Chancellor.
The entire nation, fourteen years onwards, still lives under the notion that it was a biological attack by a terrorist, but V knows better. The question he poses is what if the worst most horrific biological attack was not the work of religious extremists? (Who were, by the way, executed for it.) What if someone else unleashed the virus and someone else killed all of these people? He asks “Would you really want to know who it was? If it was someone working for this government? If our own government was responsible for the deaths of almost 100,000 people. Would you really want to know?”
The police figure out V’s motive just before the murder of a doctor who was involved in the Viadoxic experiments and who apologises for what they did to V, but V remarks that “I have not come for what you hoped to do, I have come for what you did.” Though the doctor wanted to do differently, she did it just the same.
Only the top echelon of the party, all guilty of the crimes committed against V and the loss of freedom in Britain, now survive. They are trying to stop the police’s Larkhill investigation, by questioning the loyalty of the investigating chief inspector: the contents of the documents are made subject to national security and at the same time put in doubt. They are described as a possible forgery created by the terrorist himself, or a delusion of the writer. Either way, it would be an act of treason if their contents were divulged. “You would do well, inspector, to put it out of your mind.”
A
key sequence is when Evey thinks that she is captured by the police,
incarcerated and tortured for days, finding solace only in the
notes left by another prisoner named Valerie, who was imprisoned
and persecuted for being a lesbian. Evey is told that she will
be executed unless she reveals V's whereabouts. An exhausted Evey
finally says she would rather die, and, surprisingly, is then
released. Evey discovers that she has been in V's lair all along,
and that her imprisonment was staged by V. By forcing Evey to
experience what he had gone through long ago, V hoped that Evey
would understand that our integrity, "the very last inch
of us", can be more important than our lives. She is now
rid of fear, not afraid of dying; she is truly liberated; she
has, like V, become “superhuman”. At this point, V
reveals that Valerie was the spark of his rebellion and hatred
of the government. V tells her that she hates him now for what
he has done to her, but “then something happened, it happened
to me, just like it happened to you.” V created a lie, but
because she believed it, she found something true about herself.
“This is the most important moment of your life. Commit
to it.” It is here that there is a graphic representation
of her rebirth: she receives a baptism of water (rain), interspersed
with flashbacks to V's rebirth, when a victim in a cruel pharmaceutical
experiment liberated himself, and via a baptism of fire, was reborn
as V, heralding a twenty year long vendetta, which is supposed
to lead to a new world.
As
November 5 nears, V's various schemes cause chaos and the population
grows more and more intolerant and subversive towards the regime.
The TV pump up the ante and fear, to underline that obedience
is required against the danger that is everywhere. There are references
to civil war in the United States; water shortage and water coupons;
avian flu; quarantaine zones and airborne pathogen, while the
terrorist V is linked with an attack on London 14 years ago. The
government is trying to maintain the status quo of fear and showing
that revolt will lead to severe consequences.
On the eve of November 5, Evey is shown a train in an abandoned London Underground station which V has filled with explosives in order to destroy Parliament. He leaves the decision up to her and leaves to meet Party leader Creedy who, as part of an earlier agreement, has agreed to bring the Chancellor to V in exchange for V's surrender. Creedy kills the Chancellor in front of V, but rather than surrender, V also kills Creedy. During the fight, Creedy asks: “Why won’t you die?” “Beneath this mask is an idea. And ideas are bullet proof.”
V
the man, however, is mortally wounded in the fight, but returns
to Evey, thanks her, professes his love for her, and dies. His
body is placed upon the train with the explosives, his funeral
barge, which Evey, with the consent of the chief inspector, sends
towards the Houses of Parliament. Meanwhile, thousands of Londoners,
all wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks, march on Parliament to watch
the event. Because Creedy and the Chancellor are dead, the military
receives no orders from superiors and, as a result, stands down
in the face of these riots, preventing bloodshed.
Remarkably, the final scene, incorporating Westminster, the area from Trafalgar Square and Whitehall up to Parliament and Big Ben, was actually shot on location. The area had to be closed for three nights. This was the first time the security-sensitive area (home to 10 Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence) had ever been closed to accommodate filming. Furthermore, Prime Minister Tony Blair's son Euan worked on the film's production and is said (through an interview with Stephen Fry) to have helped the filmmakers obtain the unparalleled filming access. This drew criticism for Blair from Conservative MP David Davis due to the controversial content of the film. However, the makers of the film denied Euan Blair's involvement in the deal, stating that access was acquired through nine months of negotiations with 14 different government departments and agencies.
On the eve of November 5, Evey is shown a train in an abandoned London Underground station which V has filled with explosives in order to destroy Parliament. He leaves the decision up to her and leaves to meet Party leader Creedy who, as part of an earlier agreement, has agreed to bring the Chancellor to V in exchange for V's surrender. Creedy kills the Chancellor in front of V, but rather than surrender, V also kills Creedy. During the fight, Creedy asks: “Why won’t you die?” “Beneath this mask is an idea. And ideas are bullet proof.”
V
the man, however, is mortally wounded in the fight, but returns
to Evey, thanks her, professes his love for her, and dies. His
body is placed upon the train with the explosives, his funeral
barge, which Evey, with the consent of the chief inspector, sends
towards the Houses of Parliament. Meanwhile, thousands of Londoners,
all wearing Guy Fawkes’ masks, march on Parliament to watch
the event. Because Creedy and the Chancellor are dead, the military
receives no orders from superiors and, as a result, stands down
in the face of these riots, preventing bloodshed. Remarkably, the final scene, incorporating Westminster, the area from Trafalgar Square and Whitehall up to Parliament and Big Ben, was actually shot on location. The area had to be closed for three nights. This was the first time the security-sensitive area (home to 10 Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence) had ever been closed to accommodate filming. Furthermore, Prime Minister Tony Blair's son Euan worked on the film's production and is said (through an interview with Stephen Fry) to have helped the filmmakers obtain the unparalleled filming access. This drew criticism for Blair from Conservative MP David Davis due to the controversial content of the film. However, the makers of the film denied Euan Blair's involvement in the deal, stating that access was acquired through nine months of negotiations with 14 different government departments and agencies.
The
Houses of Parliament is destroyed by the explosion amid the 1812
Overture. On a nearby rooftop, Evey and chief inspector Finch
watch the scene together and hope for a better tomorrow –
a real hope, not like the one that would turn an atomic into a
biological war. Earlier, V illustrated that Victory was a perilous
event, for it would be a domino-effect, illustrated by V playing
with dominoes, in which one action leads to a next step, each
increasing the former, until a crescendo is reached and the final
domino does or does not fall… But in the end, the reVolution
was successful.
V is dead; his vendetta has wiped the slate clean; a new world will dawn tomorrow, a new Britain can be built. V is now no longer for Vendetta, but for Victory. But in the end, V is also for loVe; though V’s actions will have major political consequences, in the end, he was also a man, and his motives were not purely for the greater cause, but also because he had suffered as a man. “A man can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. […] Ideas do not bleed. They do not feel pain. They do not want love. But it is not an idea I miss. It is a man.” V.
V is dead; his vendetta has wiped the slate clean; a new world will dawn tomorrow, a new Britain can be built. V is now no longer for Vendetta, but for Victory. But in the end, V is also for loVe; though V’s actions will have major political consequences, in the end, he was also a man, and his motives were not purely for the greater cause, but also because he had suffered as a man. “A man can be killed and forgotten, but 400 years later, an idea can still change the world. […] Ideas do not bleed. They do not feel pain. They do not want love. But it is not an idea I miss. It is a man.” V.
V for Vendetta Messages & Values - Characters & Values
V for Vendetta
The Man
V, is, in even the loosest definition of the word a terrorist. Is one man's terrorist another's freedom fighter? I would normally say no. The two are different. A terrorist targets civilian targets to create un-rest in support of an idelogical goal. A freedom fighter has a specific greivance and often seeks to gain land or territory, some tangible, usually feasible, goal. So which is V? V is, in fact, both a terrorist and a freedom fighter.
We never see V's face. This is very important, as Evey realizes at the end. She can remove his mask, if she chooses. Indeed, part of her wants. But she chooses not to. Why? She realizes that to remove his mask would be to humanize him. V is not a human. He is an idea. This is key. As he states, "Ideas are bullet-proof." An idea cannot be killed, it can only be replaced by a better idea.
What idea is V? What does he stand for? He values culture, the arts, the films and the music. When Evey says that she is nobody, he corrects her. Everyone is somebody. So he values human life. Yet, he takes it so callously. How is this possible? Because V values certain things more than even human life. Namely, Freedom and Truth. These are his ideas.
The Vendetta
V, at first, appears to be on a personal vendetta against those that wronged him. The suffering he endured in the concentration camp. He escaped. He seeks vengenance on the principle of the thing, the idea. So, he sets out to kill those that wronged him. Then, he proceeds to dismantle their governemt. His vendetta is not against his personal villains, it is against them, their ideas, their symbols, and the institutions that supports them. It is a vendetta, a personal one, against an entire idea.
To complete his goals, he murders those that have wronged him. He blows up their buildings, their symbols. He destroys their institutions, and ultimately, he replaces their ideas with his. All of these must be completed, even after the leader is dead, he still destroys Downing Street, for example.
The Fascists
Our antagonists are un-abashed fascists. The are Nazis with a different symbol. The Nordic party, for god's sake. The Fascists value two things: Order and Survival. The Order of their society and the Survival of their society. They, unlike V, have no value of human life. They believe the ends justify the means. Thus, to ensure the survival of their society they wipe out all dissidents and all elements that might oppose them with concentration camps and secret police. Susan, the leader, has one love: Fate. We can assume then, that V might represent the opposite of Fate-Free Will.
The Death of an Idea
V must kill their idea with his own. How? This was perhaps the most startling part to re-discover upon a re-read. V captures Evey and tortures her and beats her and locks her up. Why? To set her free. Freedom has nothing to do with a physical body. She becomes free when she decides that she values her personal identity over her own life. When she refuses to betray V, she becomes free. The change happens only in her own head, to be free is entirely a state of mind. The people willingly put themselves in cages out of ignorance. The people are in charge, always. If the government can cow them into thinking that they are oppressed, then so shall they be. When V shuts down the cameras, when the people begin to riot and over-throw, V has simply shown them that they are free. Now, when the government tries to subdue them, it will likely fail. They are free now, or at least on the path to it.
Evey
Or as she is more commonly refered to as Eve, aka the first woman, the woman to give birth to the rest of society. The Mother of us all. When we first meet Eve, she is meek and childlike. She attempts prostitution, sleeping with her boss to maintain her job at the TV station. This tells us something, in the beginning her main concern is on survival and money, but mainly survival, as money is simply a means to that end. Similiar to the fascists, she believes the most important part of a person's life is to stay alive at all costs. V takes her under his wing. To be honest, Eve is a confused young woman, part of her wants him to be her father. She is looking for a male figure in her life. After V leads her out and lets her go, as one would an animal or a small child, she becomes attached to a middle aged man. A nice man who lets her stay at his place. Here, she finds something closer to what she thinks she needs. He is at first a father figure, someone to replace her father she lost when she was young. Before he dies, they two briefly ponder the police state they live in, if only life was better.... And then V captures her. And sets her free.
Now, Evey at the end of the novel is very different. When V dies, she is imagining the face under the mask. Her father? Her lover? No. Her face. She realizes she doesn't need the support or help of any male figures in her life. With V gone, she finally becomes a fully self-sufficient person, and assumes the creator portion of anarchy, as V intended all along. As this creator figure, she has no concerns for money or survival as she did at the beginning.
Or as she is more commonly refered to as Eve, aka the first woman, the woman to give birth to the rest of society. The Mother of us all. When we first meet Eve, she is meek and childlike. She attempts prostitution, sleeping with her boss to maintain her job at the TV station. This tells us something, in the beginning her main concern is on survival and money, but mainly survival, as money is simply a means to that end. Similiar to the fascists, she believes the most important part of a person's life is to stay alive at all costs. V takes her under his wing. To be honest, Eve is a confused young woman, part of her wants him to be her father. She is looking for a male figure in her life. After V leads her out and lets her go, as one would an animal or a small child, she becomes attached to a middle aged man. A nice man who lets her stay at his place. Here, she finds something closer to what she thinks she needs. He is at first a father figure, someone to replace her father she lost when she was young. Before he dies, they two briefly ponder the police state they live in, if only life was better.... And then V captures her. And sets her free.
Now, Evey at the end of the novel is very different. When V dies, she is imagining the face under the mask. Her father? Her lover? No. Her face. She realizes she doesn't need the support or help of any male figures in her life. With V gone, she finally becomes a fully self-sufficient person, and assumes the creator portion of anarchy, as V intended all along. As this creator figure, she has no concerns for money or survival as she did at the beginning.
"By the power of Truth, I, while living, have conquered the universe"As
V has this quote engraved on his hide-out, it is apparently extremely
important to him. This fits with his two ideas, Freedom and Truth. If
one were to believe in this saying, it would follow that with nothing
but Truth, one can conquer any obstacle. Remember V's destruction of the
fascist's ideas with his own.
The second part of this section is to whom he attributes the quote to. A certain Dr. Faust. Dr. Faust, who sold his soul for knowledge. As V seems to support this quote, he apparently believes that Truth is more important than even one's own soul.
And finally, we consider the allusion to Faust V makes to the deal Evey wanted to make with him. Is V comparing himself to the devil, and Evey to Faust? This would fit with V's earlier description of himself as the villian of the story.
The second part of this section is to whom he attributes the quote to. A certain Dr. Faust. Dr. Faust, who sold his soul for knowledge. As V seems to support this quote, he apparently believes that Truth is more important than even one's own soul.
And finally, we consider the allusion to Faust V makes to the deal Evey wanted to make with him. Is V comparing himself to the devil, and Evey to Faust? This would fit with V's earlier description of himself as the villian of the story.
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