The Circle 2017
Films portray political issues through their narrative components and genre conventions. The film The Circle (2017) written and directed by James Ponsoldt, follows lead character Mae as she lands a job with a powerful technology company, which is using its access to personal data of its users to control society and politics.
The film begins with Mae leaving her dull job for an entry level role with technology company The Circle at their campus style headquarters, complete with Steve Jobs style keynote speeches, which is obviously based on Apple’s headquarters building in Cupertino California. Early on, the audience make the association between The Circle offices and powerful tech companies such as Apple and Google clearly conveying the setting for the film and some of the likely characters such as, Bailey, The Circle’s CEO. Bordwell refers to this association and prior meaning brought by the audience as inferential elaboration, “Films rely centrally on just such garden-variety inferences; it’s one of the ways in which narratives trade on real world knowledge” (2007, p.9). The setting for The Circle is overtly based on Apple and Steve Jobs, that the audience does not need to stretch their imagination very far to see the references and links to personal data, it is through Mae’s experiences the setting is adjusted. This is an example of Marie-Laure Ryan’s principle of minimal departure explained in Bordwell “We will project upon these worlds everything we know about reality, and we will make only the adjustments dictated by the texts” (2007, p.29).
Bordwell expands on the idea of narrative as storytelling combined with the audience’s cultural intelligence, involving the relationship between the producer and consumer and describes film narrative as having three dimensions (2007, p.4). The first aspect of narrative is story world, made up of agents, circumstances and surroundings. Within film, agents refer to the characters and due to the visual nature, characterisation is strengthened by their physicality, expressions and the audiences cultural background. In the case of The Circle, the story world consists of Mae as the main protagonist, living between her previous life with her suburban parents and her new world at The Circle offices, with her colleagues Annie, Ty and CEO Bailey. These story worlds are often identified through the use of split screen techniques to imply video phone calls between Mae’s workplace and her family home for example. This technique symbolises the disconnect and isolation Mae experiences from her family when she joins The Circle and the audience assumes early on in the film that the organisation has a sinister side despite Mae’s excitement. This example of the primary effect, the psychology to form an immediate, fairly fixed judgement.
The second element of narrative is the plot structure, which is the arrangement of the parts of a film, often following common variations. Based on Thompson’s plot structure theory we can identify a four-part plotting structure consisting of set up, complicating action, development and climax (2007, p.22). In The Circle, the set up introduces us to Mae’s mother and father, whom suffers from MS, while she begins her new job at the exciting offices of The Circle and quickly progresses with the firm. Complicating action advances as Mae uncovers secrets about the organisation from Ty, one of the original developers, and as she hands over her personal information and privacy to help with her father’s medical costs. The plot moves into the development phase, when Mae is brought into the inner circle of the company and their plans for new technology and political influence, when she agrees to broadcast herself to the world through cameras twenty-four hours a day. The climax occurs
When Mae is forced to use tracking technology to hunt down her childhood friend Mercer, who dies in an accident as a result, causing Mae to turn the tables on the company’s executives and reveal all their secrets and lies.
The final dimension of film narrative as outlined by Bordwell is narration. The Circle is focused on Mae’s life; therefore, it can be considered as an agent (character) centered narrative. The reinforced as the viewer often watches Mae through her computer screens and cameras broadcasting her to the world.
Three important elements of the narration are the Fabula, Szyuzhet and stylistic patterning. Fabula is the story constructed through the inferential elaboration by the audience, such as The Circle Headquarters setting combined with the events and actions that Mae experiences in the film. For example, the audience brings their own knowledge and experiences sharing their personal information through technology, similar to Mae, however they may not be aware of the corporate interference, loss of privacy and influence on politics and economics that could result as shown through the story.
The Szyuzhet organises the actions within the story world according to a certain pattern of development to create a result (Bordwell 2007, p.18). We see this in the films climax, when Mercer is killed by the tracking technology Mae is tasked with rolling out to the firm while she is part or the executive team. This incident occurs while Mae is in a high level of the company and at the climax of the film, allowing her to shut down the program. If Mercer was killed at an earlier stage, for example when she arrived into the company, the consequences would not be the same due to the timing of the action and Mae’s character development.
Stylistic patterning is the films surface texture and audiovisual style consisting of elements such as sound and visual effects. A prominent visual feature of the film is graphics to represent technology and social media, such as looking through camera view finders and text message speech bubbles overlayed onto the film. This style may appeal to a younger tech savvy audience and reinforced the voyeuristic nature of social media. The audience watches Mae through screens, cameras or fish-eye lenses, particularly when she agrees to be filmed continuously by the organisation reminding the audience of constant surveillance, we are under even through our own technology devices. There is a strong reference to George Orwell’s 1984 (REF director), which uses the same fish-eye camera view when Big Brother is watching, therefore there are clear links between the narrative and stylistic patterns in both films. Sound is used to emphasise the plot structure, for example upbeat indie and electronic music is used in the when Mae begins working at The Circle, signifying the young workplace and her excitement in her new job. Another example of sound effect is during the keynote style meetings at The Circle auditorium, such as the artificial audience reactions to the presentations, a direct copy of Apple’s product launches. Fahlenbrach explains the importance of sound and images to create an emotional effect on the viewer which results from audio and visual merging together to assist in conveying the narrative (2008, p.85).
Films of the same genre can often share some stylistic patterning. Chandler describes genres as “… not simple features of texts, but are mediating frameworks between texts, makers and interpreters.” (1997, p.8). The Circle can be classified as drama, science fiction and thriller and could be compared to films that explore similar narratives and issues such as The Truman Show, The Social Network and 1984. The film exploits the thriller genre not only for entertainment, but to portray the extreme consequences of surrendering our personal information through technology to big corporations. Chandler states this use of genre in film to “offer an important way of framing text which assists comprehension.” (1997, p.8). These conventions of genres and components of narrative allow The Circle to explore issues of technology, privacy, personal data and large corporations and the possible consequences they could have on our society.
References:
Bordwell, D 2007, ‘Three Dimensions of Film Narrative’, Chapter 3 in Poetics of Cinema, Routledge, New York.
Chandler, D 1997, ‘An Introduction to Genre Theory’. <http://visual-memory.co.uk/daniel/Documents/intgenre/intgenre.html?LMCL=p5QUoP
viewed 1 August 2020.
Fahlenbrach, K 2008. ‘Emotions in Sound: Audiovisual Metaphors in the Sound Design of Narrative Films. Projections. 2. 85-103. 10.3167/proj.2008.020206.
