Composers expose both sides of the boundary between public and private life to give a layered and complex representation of political figures. In his play Henry IV Part 1 (1597), Shakespeare invokes an appreciation for Henry IV, whose private lamentations of his negative public image and the struggles of breaking the divine lineage of kings trouble him deeply whilst his son Hal is seen to mediate the burdens of expectation involved in political succession. Similarly, in The Killing Season (2015), producer Deb Masters takes the viewer into the private anguishes of past politicians Rudd and Gillard to represent the personal struggles that their position connotes. Conversely, Geoffrey Robertson’s article Why it is absurd to claim that justice …show more content…
In The Killing Season, Deb Masters, by way of interviews, takes the viewer deep into the private thoughts of a politician in a way that humanizes them. Initially, the keyhole shots of Rudd at the Copenhagen summit and elsewhere allow Masters to generate the sense that his position is being watched and almost ‘hunted’. By this, Masters immediately establishes Rudd’s public political predicament, representing him almost as prey. Later, the images of those wanting to remove him as party leader flick across the screen, each fading from colour to black and white. Through this, Masters is able to represent them as appearing ‘colourful’ and supportive but in fact having darker intentions. This contributes to her overall representation of Rudd as a victim in the political act of deposition. Masters is able to represent his personal pain through interviews in which the microphone is deliberately made very sensitive, the background is black and the camera is zoomed in on Kevin to create a tense and almost melancholic atmosphere. Kevin’s desperate question “Julia, why are you doing this?” upon being deposed, in this intense interview room allows Masters to represent the personal anguish that is involved in Rudd’s loss of power and present him as a human rather than just a politician. Thus, composers are able to position the reader to …show more content…
In Why it is absurd to claim that justice has been done, Robertson’s implied doubt surrounding president Obama’s motives at the time of Osama Bin Laden’s death use the public-private boundary to create a negative representation of him. Robertson’s heavily doubtful tone in “Why the hasty ‘burial at sea’…?” is generated through a rhetorical question. The inverted commas create an implication that Obama is masking a more sinister truth behind this doubt. Thus, Robertson establishes an aura of uncertainty and mistrust through this challenge to Obama’s public credibility. He proceeds to write of how Bill Clinton “secured his re-election by approving the execution of Ricky Roy Rector” and now “Obama has likely secured his re-election by approving the execution of Bin Laden.” This parallelism and historical analogy heavily imply that, Obama is linked to the past example of Clinton and his motivations are strongly personal. Thus, by shifting to his personal goals, Robertson is able to influence the reader to see Obama as a selfish political figure who allowed his motivations to impede on justice. Thus, by crossing the public-private boundary, writers may manipulate the reader to see a layered, negative image of the political figure as opposed to a sympathetic