Success of Intertextuality

For my A-Level music video, I was aiming to make my vide intertextual to both Scott Kalvert’s 1995 American coming of age drama film ‘The Basketball Diaries’ and Stephen Frears’ 1985 British comedy-drama film ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’. My choice to pay homage to these two media texts resonated from my desire to create a challenging narrative which focused on the difficulties between the transition of childhood and adult and both the social and economic pressure that this has on many individuals within a postmodern society in Britain. My ideas to use ‘The Basketball Diaries’ as one of my leading intertextual references was owing to the strong narrative which the film is based on. The consumption of narcotics among teenagers and young adults is at a record level high since the records began in 1993. The NHS has reported that 8.5% of adults aged between 16-59 took illegal drugs in 2017 and the number of registered deaths related to drug miss use was over two and a half thousand an increased by 5% from the previous year. Owing to these striking statistics, it encouraged me to create a narrative in my music video which allowed me to include drug mis-use in order to create a realistic presentation of young adults in postmodern London. My second intertextual references was ‘My Beautiful Laundrette’ which explores how individuals who live in London united against prejudice and hardship despite their own certain positions. The theme of selflessness and self-expressionism is central to the narrative. The film inspired me to both, revolve my music video around the theme of self-expressionism and selflessness and include the location of a laundrette, which was the dominant setting of my second narrative. 

I believe I was successful in capturing and including aspects from both films. I Watched both films and used them as a guide when constructing both my narrative and storyboard. This is evident through the way I included the basketball scene, both drug taking scenes and Benedict, the main character in the first narrative being thrown out of his home by his mother whilst wrestling to try and gain entry to back into the home. This forces Jim Carroll, played by Leonardo DiCaprio to sleep rough on the streets of New York. This concept I also added into my narrative. This provided me with an opportunity to cross over both my first and second narrative which displayed, hat despite an individual suffering, some are decent enough to help others in equally desperate positions showing a high level of selflessness. 

If I was to improve any aspects of my intertextuality, It would be to include more precise references from ‘My Beautiful Launderette’ allowing me to create a more closely following narrative from the film, which I believe I was able to do for ‘The Basketball Diaries”. I would have liked to have included the iconic dancing scene from the film but was unable to find a suitable moment to included where it seeming suitable. However, I believe that my music video does pay homage to both of my intertextual references which allowed me to create a consistent and accurate representation of the transition from childhood to adulthood for young adults.