Harlem Nights Deconstruction

Harlem Nights is a comedy take on the periodical drama and action genres. When beginning to consider what we would do for our A2 piece, we thought a lot about the current issues facing society. Harlem Nights focuses in on gang violence, police corruption and weaponry.
The trailer has a voice over with an almost comical tone to it, taking away from the serious violent tones of the shots being shown, the comparison of these two helps to achieve the seriousness needed in order to understand the danger that the lifestyle of these characters brings, whilst doing so in a funny and light hearted manner.

"The man to know, was Quick." This line tied in with the diegetic conversation we see two of the gangsters having creates a position of authority for the character named 'Quick', who we see is identified by a shot of Eddie Murphy as his name is mentioned. This helps the audience to be able to connect to who the characters are from the onset.

The subversion of character types by having a male lead 'Quick' who is knocked over by one of the burly female dancers takes away the traditional male view and makes his character appear as the 'new man', more comical and easy to watch. This enables the piece to present the drama that its attempting to, whilst still entertaining as large a population as possible, with some taking a simplistic view of the film as a comedy and some understanding the preferred reading of the piece that is a commentary on the violence and gang actions of Harlem.

The trailer also identifies with its time through the careful use of mise en scene and non-diegesis. The non-diegetic soundtrack played throughout the trailer is a jazz band melody that is easily linked to clubs and bars from the 30's and the mise en scene (smart suits for the males and burlesque style dresses for the female dancers) is what you would expect for the decade that the piece is representing. The males wearing suits with long trench coats and a trilby is also associated with gangster films such as The Godfather and Goodfellas.