Textual Analysis - Kieran Brown (Phone Booth)

Film title: Phone booth


Directed by: Joel Schumacher


Writen by: larry Cohen


Date of release: April 4th, 2003


Budget: $10million


Genre: Action


Sub genre: Thriller

Film Duration: 81 minutesStarring:
Collin Farrell
Kiefer Sutherland
Forest Whitaker
Radar mitchell
Richard T. Jones
Katie Holmes



Phone Booth Trailer 

This movie is about a man who works as a publicist his character name is Stu Shepard. He is a very arrogant, ignorant man and does most of his business over the phone, he has very good pursuasive talking skills and can almost sweet talk anoyone into doing things he wants them to and he plans to cheat on his wife with a woman named pam, who he only itends to sleep with. After work he calls pam and is suddenly disturbed by a man who tries to deliver him pizza but he rudely dismisses him away by paying him. As stu goes to leave the phone booth a phonecall to the phone boooth is immidiately recieved after and stu decides to answer it. He is the greeted by a voice, who to him, is an unknown caller and the caller says to him "You should have accepted that pizza for what's coming up next". stu suspects the caller is a previous customer who he may have screwed over in the past. The caller then decides to show stu how serious he is and tells stu he has a sniper rifle and he then aims the lazer at stu in the phone booth and he then tells stu not to move from the phone box or else. The caller explain how he is tired or publicist like him who lie in the corporation and stu is now his most prioritised target. The caller seems to know alot of information about stu and tells stu aslong as he co-operates then everything should run smooth. Things start to heat up when the The caller (sniper) then shoots a pimp at the phone booth for complaining at stu for not letting his hookers use the phone booth.

The film then carries on until stu has to confess to his wife nthat he has been cheating on her with pam and is then put in a position where he has to choose between which ones to die. He then explain how much he loves his wife and begs for forgiveness. eventually, towards the end the sniper decides to let stu live as he told the honest truth and the SWAT team shoot stu when he comes out of the phone booth. but stu was only shot with a rubbet bullet and has a bruise on his chest where he was shot. he is then taken away in an ambulance a is treated with a shot injection. A man then walks up. it's the sniper and  the audience then see his face but as stu's vision is blurry it is hard to see it fully. The sniper then says, "stu you did very well". now be sure that you keep your good behaviour up or i'll come and visit. He is then seen walking away with a suitcase and then stu passes out.

The levi strauss' Theory of binary opposition can be applied to this film. Binary opposition is an important concept of structuralism and is a pair of terms or concepts that contrast between two equally selected terms. for example the Hero concepts which we understand in a film are always opossed by the villain concept which brings us Villain vs Hero. Phone booth has an interesting binary oposition as the postion of villain from the main character stu is turnt into Hero as he goes against his own ethics of lieing to save the lives of the ones he loves.

The film genre is apparent as Action/Thriller. The main conventions which suggest thius is the binary oposition villain vs hero. The sniper being the villain and stu being Hero eventhough stu did screw over the person who is the sniper at one point two wrongs don't make a right so the sniper would still be known as the villain in this binary oposition as he catches stu in a vunerable state and manipulates with stu's mind. The film is furthermore typical of it's genre because of the props and costumes. The costumes are parrallel to the character's personalities and stereotypes for example the police have typical cop uniform and try to defuse the situation in a calm but also threatening manner at the same time and stu's character's costume suggest his smugness and his way of life which he believe's he is more superior than everyone else.

The stroyline is typical of it's genre to an extent. Firstly, it is typical of it's genre because it fits many film convetions such as the parrallel action type music, The dialogue is also typical. The costumes fit the stereotypes and camera movement and fast pase camera editing easily fit into the conventions of a typical action/thriller film. Furthemore, the storyline has the typical equilibrium, disruption, new equilibirum based structure.

However, the film also shows more sub-genre's such as a romance genre film as alot of the storyline is based around how much he really loves his wife compared to the woman his cheating on her with called pam and also one of the main conventions of the action/thriller genre is huge special effects and phone booth doesn't have any main huge special effects.

In conclusion, Phone booth fits into the Action/thriller genre as most of the Action/thriller convetions are apprent throughout the film through the use of mis-en-scene and also the film structure and storyline help enthasise on that genre and subgenre.