‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ Guy Ritchie, 1998

Guy Ritchie’s ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’ has brought together everything the audience would expect with the British Gangster genre in the opening sequence itself. He manages to fulfil these generic expectations in a number of ways. Straight from the start we see the London based cockney accents with the playful rhyming slang which gives a sense of wit as Jason Statham’s character ‘Bacon’ plays with the audience using irony and sarcasm in the way he is trying to sell his stolen goods to a crowd. In this way the characteristics of the genre are conformed to by the text, however used in a playful manner, especially as the chase comes on as it shows excitement, and at the same time lets the audience get to know the characters who comply to the genre.
The stock location is critical to the mise-en-scene in the opening sequence as it represents the gritty side of London with pub in the background as they run away from the police, and the building work to the left of them along with the warehouse they run over the gate into. All of the components in the frame of the opening sequence immediately sum up the ideology that is believed in for the gritty side of cockney London. A great example is when ‘Bacon’ and ‘Ed’ come sliding across the stairway, and the brick wall is shot, with the graffiti. An alternative part of the mise-en-scene that conveys a different kind of meaning is the way the characters are positioned. To start with in the first shot, ‘Bacon’ is positioned in the very middle of an audience who crowd around him in a circle. This focuses the attention on the main speaker. Another way in which Guy Ritchie manages to construct peoples attention to him is the garage situated behind him. This garage has bars going across which act as a leading line towards ‘Bacon’. The other example of Guy Ritchie using leading lines towards the positioning of the characters is when he places the camera at the bottom of the steps as the hand rail shoots towards both ‘Bacon’ and ‘Ed’. Along with the characters positions, their location and their cockney language, the characters costumes play a great role in conveying meaning to gain the preferred meaning from the audience. The collared coat, and scarf worn with the collar up shows a trendy sense of style to ‘Bacon‘. Gangsters are forever concerned about their image and the way the collar is worn upwards shows he wants to look fashionable and that he cares about his image. The clothes gangsters wear normally represents how much money they have. The suit coat demonstrates that he wants to look expensive. These costumes has portrayed the non-verbal language to the audience, along with the lighting. Lighting and colour play a vital part in conveying meaning through mise-en-scene. We see the dull, yellow wash used by the production team in the first sequence which certainly with the slightly grainy, pixelated image enhances the idea of gritty London. This then changes to dark lighting when the voice over enters the sequence which is used to depict the gangster, rebellious side and also creates the enigma as the voice over introduces the story. Compared with the voice over to introduce the story the way the text comes up for the titles has to convey the enigma. What is the reasoning for ‘Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels’? This expresses the representation of guns to the audience.
Not only is it the mise-en-scene that is used to convey meaning to the audience, but the camera shot size, movement, and angle do also. I think it is particularly strong in the chase from the police as the steadicam is used to sweep through the actors which help make the audience feel as if they could be standing their or walking past watching it all happen. This technique with the steadicam is also used whilst the audience stands within the crowd at the first shot, allowing us to visualise Jason Statham’s method of portraying the character of ‘Bacon’. In these opening shots we as the audience are given shots from different angles, and sizes, which all help initiate the enigma of the characters, starting with short shots on both characters when they first enter the scene. In the very first camera movement of the film we see the camera move towards ‘Bacon’ as if we are walking in to the crowd to find out what is going on. These camera images are anchored by the effectiveness of sound. Whilst the camera is viewing ‘Bacons’ irony in his speech we occasionally hear a slight laugh or giggle in the background which anchors the humour and not only this but as the credits come up we know the chase is about to happen due to the track playing the enigmatic music in the background and this beat just kicks in as ‘Ed’ tells ‘Bacon’, “Bacon… Coppers!”. As well as this music the dialogue plays a huge part in adding to the enigma of the characters such as ‘Bacon’s’ cheeky attitude towards conning people but in a way letting them know that he is conning them. For example “We can’t get them again, they’ve changed the bloody locks”. An additional affect the director has used is the slow motion with the voice over. This completely introduces the film to the audience and also introduces the characters. This brings us into the narrative.
The narrative is structured as a story told by one of the big bosses of the British Gangster genre. The audience is being told the story as it goes along and this first sequences is the introduction…”It’s time to move on, and he knows it.” The director, Guy Ritchie, uses the typical themes throughout the film and these are introduced in the opening sequences. We know from the voice over that one of the initial themes is going to be violence as he is moving on to something bigger than just selling stolen goods. We also realise the theme is going to involve, these two what seem to be ‘best friends’ ‘Bacon and Ed’, getting their cheeky selves in to trouble or gaining big money. In this way the tension is gained and the voice over helps to maintain it by introducing that tension to the rest of the narrative for the entire film.
Throughout the opening sequence there are four typical gangster film social groups that are shown. We start of as part of the civilian crowd with the steadicam. We watch the main part of ‘Bacon’ who is clearly the show man of the group. He’s witty, and yet brings a sense of intimidation to the character as well which possibly enhances the ideology of the British gangster. He has the partner who could maybe be the brains behind the planning, ‘Ed’. We also have the ‘coppers’, the police. They are shown to be quite stupid in the opening sequence as they can’t keep up with the partnership of ‘Bacon’ and ‘Ed’, which definitely shows the ideology that gangsters could always get away with pretty much anything in those days. All these ideologies are represented by the semiotics used in the opening sequence such as the police hat that denotes a policeman and comes with connotations of good verses bad, and robbers verses coppers. We also have Jason Statham’s shaved head, which signifies a ‘hardness’ about the character and perhaps rebelliousness.
This connects with the target audience, as we would think that Guy Ritchie is probably aiming this film at young, sixteen to thirty year olds as they are the people that it most relates to. Especially those that live on that side of London. This also means they are the ones most likely to gain the preferred reading set out by Ritchie. This would be that Gangs are dangerous, yet can be shown to be fun and the people that are good at heart will probably be the ones that come out on top to rule, where as the horrible gangsters will always end up the worst off. Compared with the negotiated reading that could be gangs are too dangerous and this should not influence young minds. In contrast to this we have the aberrant reading which would be something like gangs are easy and fun to be in and you’ll never get hurt.
I as a British teenager would go with the preferred reading of the text, as it shows that the good hearted come out on top. This is in no way related to my age or gender, although I assume that older adults with children would take a completely different reading than me as they would look at it as dangerous and influential. I also feel this maybe influenced by my background as I am not from the gritty side of London and would not know what it would be like to be part of the gang underworld such as the one portrayed by Guy Ritchie’s film.
An ideological discourse within 'Lock Stock' is gambling. The character 'Ed' gambles alot of money in a very short space of time at the beginning of film, and the rest of the film involves them trying to pay back the debts to the big boss. This ties in with the the ideology of capatilism. It reinforces the idea, however challenges it in the way the men go against the law to gain this money through drugs and robbery. This however is good way to re-present reality of how this stuff goes on in the real world. It is an artificial version of reality in the gritty side of london in this time and can be viewed on a macro level like this.