Tracey Emin- Top spot film

Tracey Emin is a contemporary artist who created a fictional film called top spot in a documentary style. Top spot is fictional but it is based on real memories from Tracey Emin’s past. This film is part of her autobiography.

For the film Tracey Emin used a DV camera for all the shots in the film so it looked like it was an amateur film. Top Spot is about six teenage girls from Margate, England. This relates to Tracey Emin as she was brought up in Margate herself. At the start of the film Tracey Emin interviews the six teenage girls about experiences that they have had. When Tracey Emin interviews them she talks to them as if she is interrogating them so she is trying to force an answer out of them. The interviews give the audience a glimpse of what each of the teenage girls is like. Before she interviewed the six teenage girls Tracey showed loads of establishing shots of the beach and the sea at Margate to show us the location.

In Top Spot, Tracey Emin uses some scenes to try and convey a message. For instance, she uses a super 8 camera for a sepia effect and this is used in some of the shots so it looks old and the shots in sepia are used to show the six teenage girls past memories. Also in one of the scenes one of the six teenage girls are dancing and the shot seems distorted and the message being conveyed here is that the teenage girl has taken drugs even though Tracey Emin stated in an interview recently that she has never taken drugs. In one particular scene it shows one of the girls asleep and it cuts to her running around in a tunnel. This suggests that it is one of the girl’s dreams so showing her asleep is a visual signifier. It shows the dream in slow motion that makes the audience believe that it is very dramatic and I believe the message behind it is that the girl is trapped because we do not see her get out of the tunnel. At the start of the film Tracey shows establishing shots of the sea and usually in films the sea is used to show freedom. The film is telling us that the six teenage girls are trapped in their lives through the fact that they are always in their uniform and they also never leave Margate itself.

I did find some parts of the film difficult to understand but I do understand the message that Tracey Emin is trying to get across as she wants people to be aware that what happened to her when she was younger is still happening today and the victims of assaults are not telling anyone.

There are a few stereotypes that are used to represent different people. Such as the teenage girls are portrayed as people who drink, take drugs and go out with men all the time. Also the men in the film are portrayed as people who use women.