Social setting Flashcards
What happened on the day that Kassovitz started writing the script for ‘La Haine’?
On the 6th of April 1993 Makome M’Bowole, a young man from Zaire, was shot whilst in police custody in a police station in Paris. He was killed at point blank range while in police custody and handcuffed to a radiator. The officer was reported to have been angered by Makome’s words, and had been threatening him when the gun went off accidentally.
Makome’s ‘accidental’ death was one of the many bavures that have plagued the french police in recent decades.
What films have mocked the many police blunders in France?
Inspecteur La Bavure (1980)
Les Ripoux (1984)
What other bavure (not the Makome case) inspired Kassovitz to write ‘La Haine’?
He was also inspired by the case of Malik Oussekine, a 22-year-old student protester who died after being badly beaten by the riot police after a mass demonstration in 1986, in which he did not take part. Oussekine’s death is also referred to in the opening montage of the film.
The fact that ‘La Haine’ is set in a deprived banlieue and that the main characters are banlieusards is absolutely central to the identity of the film
Le fait que La Haine se déroule dans une banlieue défavorisée et que les protagonistes sont des banlieusards est absolument central à l’identité du film.
Vincendeau, Ginette, La Haine the french film guide, New York, 2005
cité
city
estate
ghetto
project
banlieue
suburb
social divide
fracture sociale
shanty town
bidon ville
council housing
HLM (habitation à loyer modéré)
large housing projects/ developments
les grands ensembles
What nickname was given to the 1960s concrete giants the ‘grands ensembles’?
les cages à lapins
Vincendeau
What made the HLM’s (later referred to as cités) unpopular?
- -permanently broken lifts (les ascenseurs)
- -damp cellars (les caves humides)
- -few shops and cafés (peu du magasins et cafés)
In what cité was much of La Haine filmed?
In Chanteloup-les-Vignes
How ‘realistic’ is the films use of verlan?
The list of verlan words in the dialogue of ‘La Haine’ is restricted to fairly common words in order not to alienate viewers. Subtitles were rejected as patronizing.
What does Azouz Begag argue about the effect of verlan in the banlieues?
Beur writer Azouz Begag argues that is reinforces the exclusion of the banlieursards.
(Begag, Azouz, L’enfermement linguistique’ )
