An examination of the filmmaking methods of Kenneth Branagh in his directorial film work on Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and Cinderella with specific reference to his status as auteur
Abstract
This thesis examines the methods that director Sir Kenneth Branagh
employs in his approach to directing his films and questions whether the
consistency of methods adopted by Branagh across the scope of his films and their
recurring themes support the status of Branagh as an auteur. Much scholarly
attention has been given to Branagh’s Shakespeare films, yet there is a deficit of
such attention to his later work. Using personal and published interviews, empirical
evidence of the films, and text-to-text analysis, the thesis focuses upon analysis of
his later films Thor, Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, and Cinderella.
The thesis takes an approach based upon the criteria of Sarris (2008) and
Leitch (2008) to determine whether Branagh could be classified as auteur based
upon his directorial oeuvre. In doing so, the thesis identifies the key components
of Branagh’s methods and style and investigates his rehearsal techniques,
research into the history and intertextuality of his projects, relationships with actors,
and whether he uses elements of mise-en-scène as cues to reveal intertextuality.
The thesis discusses Branagh’s role in semiotic coding in his films, informed
by the concept of selective perception, wherein viewers tend to recognise elements
in media which align with their expectations (Klapper 1960). It argues that memory
of the hypotexts plays a key role in film adaptations (Ellis 1982), that their ability to
evoke recall is a means of communication (Grant 2002) which can be achieved
through the use of elements of mise-en-scène, (Geraghty 2008) and that the
viewer and director are collaborators in producing meaning in film (Wollen 1972).
This study contributes to the field of adaptation by adding scholarly literature
on the films of Branagh in his post-Shakespeare era and to the subjects of
auteurship and audience recall achieved through use of camera technique,
intertextuality and mise-en-scène.