Life on Mars analysis

‘Life on Mars’ is a two series police drama which follows Tyler, the protagonist who is from the present day but taken back in time to the 1970s after an accident. During this episode from series 2, an Irish man, O’Brien, is wrongly accused of planting a bomb.

The extract starts with non-diegetic rock music, as the camera zooms through a washing line of shirts. We are shown typical run-down, working class mise en scene and setting, with the washing hanging out in the street indicating that it we have entered a poor but close knit society. Suddenly Hunt and Tyler drive into the shot in their brown Ford Cortina, which has become famous for its popularity during the 1970s; emphasising the era to the audience. The car is driven quickly by Hunt, and is shown crashing into a bin on the pavement. The characters, however, do not appear to care which shows the arrogant attitude that policemen during the 1970s are represented as having.

The two policemen are shown, in a long shot, tilted to look up to the policemen, both literally and metaphorically, getting out of the Cortina. Tyler, the policeman who is used to modern day practises, lets O’Brien out of the car whilst Hunt walks, seemingly trying to ignore the situation. We view the following exchange in a series of 2 shots and 3 shots, as Tyler rouses Hunt into apologising to the innocent Irish man. The camera shot then changes to focus on O’Brien as he makes bold remarks about the racism that the Irish population were met with. Using a close up, we see his beaten face with the camera slowly zooming in as he gets angrier, intensifying his rage to the audience. This is followed by a focus pull to see him walking away to speak to others who presumably also live in the grotty area. We then return to a 2 shot of Tyler and Hunt, contrasting their facial expressions - Tyler looks guilty, whereas Hunt looks unimpressed and cynical. Tyler’s exasperation is again shown as we see an Asian man proudly taking a television to his new house, which he is only too happy to tell Hunt when he challenges him. This shows his representation of being racist, as not only has he wrongly accused an Irish man, but he is also shown not trusting the Asian man, probably due to his ethnicity. To reinforce this idea, the camera pans round to show the exterior of his house and his wife wearing a Sari. The camera returns to the 2 shot of the two policemen, followed by Hunt’s remark – “Bit parky to be out in just a nighty”, with Tyler’s expression of frustration, and embarrassment. The entire sequence is typically 1970s Manchester – the brown outfits of the characters, the Cortina, the terraced houses and the long hair. A sound bridge is used in order to move from this scene to the next.

Diegetic music from a juke box in a smoky pub is played, as the camera pans up from a close up of a glass filling up; setting the scene. The camera pans upwards to show Tyler walk in. He appears as a silhouette – backlit and bleached out to make him appear as a kind of superhero, and to reinforce the idea that he is from another time period. As the camera pans round to show the rest of the team clapping Tyler, we see a typical warm, cosy pub, with archetypal mise en scene and lighting. We are shown the police drinking and smoking through a series of long shots, over the shoulder shots, and 2 shots. We witness, through the means of a panning close up, the team united in raising their glasses to Tyler. This feeling of the team being united ends abruptly, as we see a focus pull to see a red telephone, and hear the diegetic sound of a telephone. We track Tyler approaching the phone and answer it, hearing sounds of a heart monitor and circling the character. This effect makes us feel as if we, as the 21st century, are trapping him as we presume this phone call is to do with his time travel. The sound of the heart monitor makes the audience believe that it is from the present, and we see this realisation dawn upon Tyler as we circle him.

Throughout the extract, we see several representations of the 1970s. Through Cartwright, we see the sexism that was rife in the police force at the time, as jokes are made about her underwear, and also her comment about having a female prime minister, which is met with a lot of perplexed expressions by her colleagues. At this macro level, we can also see how Hunt is presented as being arrogant, racist and sexist, a complete contrast to both Cartwright and Tyler, who act as police in our contemporary Britain are expected to behave. The piece relies on the audience having enough cultural knowledge to be able to distinguish between the two time periods, as we see the idea of a female prime minister being unheard of, jokes being made about Irish people bombing pubs (which of course did happen), exotic Asian clothing, and a very different style of policing.