Culloden Textual Analysis

Culloden (0.00-5.00) - A BBC Historical Documentary about the battle of Culloden
All representations in TV productions are mediated by the producer. As Stuart Hall (1980) suggests, the audience can be positioned to accept a dominant, preferred representation of many aspects about society. In the documentary Culloden it could be suggested that a certain amount of biased might be put upon the documentary to persuade the audience into believing the mediated view of the producers. In this clip the biased is quite clear; the British soldiers are the barbaric “butchers” whereas the clan fighters are just simple human beings being used as rent
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The documentary follows the battle of Culloden, in ancient times and shows reconstructions of the battle and the lives of some of the men who fought. The narrative at this point shows in detail the lives and the ranks of the men on one side of the battle who fought. For example naming Tax man, Subtenant of a Taxman, Subtenant of a Subtenant.. Etc Names and a list of possessions are narrated to give the audience an in-depth understanding of the characters on the screen. A great deal of empathy is then put on the audience as not only are the soldiers seen as fighters, but are now seen as human beings, just like the audience.

Human Rent is repeated to drill into the audience the harsh realities of slavery and debt towards other men. Human rent has connotations of men being dispensable and used as a form of currency. All denote the harsh times of the war. The voice of the narrative is a stereotypical pre-war voice which has the same feeling of past times on the documentary. Coupled with the black and white images it makes the diegisis believable. The whole aim of this narrative is to set the scene and to set the diegisis and the character profiles.

The battle and pre-battle plus after battle are portrayed with black and white wobbly film which makes the verisimilitude of the diegisis become more imaginable to the audience yet clearly the audience knows cameras were not invented in the time in question. The camera shots are used as follows, wide angle and panning shots to show the scene and used as establishing shots. Tracking shots to follow the people in the film while the narrator tells the audience about them, and along with extreme close up of emotion-telling features such as eyes and mouths this enforces the empathy onto the audience. Medium Close-ups are used also to show expressions and the wobbly movement of the camera along with the actors looking into the character give an overall feeling that the audience is soldier, like those on screen.

No shot reverse shot structures are used as none of the onscreen actors make any interaction with each other, unlike many documentaries where interviews would be common. The camera work overall is very basic to in keep with the time of the battle on which the documentary is on, for example having technical transitions such as dissolves and swipe across would ruin the diegesis onscreen. Zoom in’s to extreme close ups are used to put names to faces, for the audience.

Mise en scene is very important in this documentary as the producers have tried to recreate the battle to the highest of verisimilitude. Battle dress, costumes, and the background all is in keeping with the types of that time. Props such as the weapons are of the period which is important to create an accurate reconstruction, for example no modern weapons appear in this.
Sound is also used to create an atmosphere of battle and war, a lone bagpiper plays amongst the soldiers and also drums which would have been present during battles can also be heard. Battle cries and screaming is a constant background noise giving the audience a sense of action and unrest.

The mode of address in this clip is different to most documentaries as it appears that the audience is interviewing these men who are about to fight as actors address the camera with eye contact and respond to narrative questions. This make the audience feel involved and so a more interesting documentary is made.