Analysis of The Basketball Diaries

The Basketball Diaries, released April 21st 1995 (Island Pictures), is a crime fiction, sports and biographical film,starring Leonardo DiCaprio, based on the life of writer Jim Carroll's life as a poetic and basketball player who found his way into a terrifying addiction with heroin,set in the 1960s. This film is produced by Liz Heller and John Bard Manulis an directed by Scott Kalvert. Scott Kalvert is mostly known for directing this film but he has directed a few video documentaries such as, 'Guns N Roses: Live at the Ritz' (1988), 'Cyndi Lauper: 12 Deadly Cyns...and then some' (1994) and Smilez and Southstar: Now That Your Gone' (2003). Other actors and actresses that star in The Basketball Diaries are, Bruno Kirby, Lorraine Bracco, Ernie Hudson, Patrick McGaw, James Madio, Michael Imperioli and Mark Wahlberg.


I have chosen to analyse this scene from the film, The Basketball Diaries, as this is my favourite part of the film and it clearly shows DiCaprio's and Bracco's academy award nominee performance. The codes and conventions of a crime fiction genre is stereotypically narrated by a male, the main character is usually a male protagonist, and the film is shown through the male's view. Female characters in a crime fiction are stereotypically the victim and they play quite a flat character in which is lacking realism. The rest of the characters are usually small time criminals and police. The themes most commonly seen in crime fictions are good vs evil, high class vs low class and power vs powerlessness. The setting of a crime fiction is usually seen in the inner city, run down areas such as abandoned buildings and cheap and temporary rooms. The codes and conventions of a biographical can vary due to them being an altered version of a trues story but they usually have some form of a narrator.

Some micro features that I felt was important was, performance, sound and cinematography, especially performance as the well delivered emotional and tense performance from DiCaprio ensures the audience is fully involved in the scene, and I personally felt quite attached to this clip and an intense amount of pain was passed from DiCaprio and Bracco. The sound is mostly diegetic sound, coming from the speaking, shouting, yelling and crying from the two actors. Therefore, strongly putting across the genre of the scene, through use of language such as, "They have a knife", "Give me some ******* money ma!" and other strong language. The final micro feature is cinematography, and the shots and angles I picked up on is close up shots of the Bracco and DiCaprio, showing there is much emotional intimacy between the character and the audience. A low angle, tracking shot is present when DiCaprio's Character is being carried out of the building and into the police car. Furthermore, pushing the genre crime fiction into the scene.