Tsotsi Childhood

Tsotsi inflicts pain on his victims, notably Boston, but also suffers it himself as a street child and as a gangster. The beggar, Morris, angered and resentful because of his history of suffering and rejection, discovers finally that despite all the pain he experiences, he wants to live. Tsotsi is an African film that shows the contrasts between the rich and poor divide (Binary Opposition) and tells a story in the eyes of a thug and shows redemption and even a thug can change. Which is in the title. Tsotsi is translated into thug in english. Tsotsi, literally translated meaning 'thug' in his South African ghetto dialect, is a 19-year-old who was orphaned at an early age. He has repressed memories of this painful childhood to the point that he cannot remember even his own birth name.he is, by all accounts, a thug with no regard for human life. Tsotsi inflicts pain on his victims, notably Boston, but also suffers it himself as a street child and as a gangster. The beggar, Morris, angered and resentful because of his history of suffering and rejection, discovers finally that despite all the pain he experiences, he wants to live. Tsotsi traces six days in the life of a ruthless young gang leader. When we meet Tsotsi, he is a man without a name who has repressed his past and now exists only to stage and execute vicious crimes. When he inadvertently kidnaps a baby, Tsotsi is confronted with memories of his own painful childhood, and this angry young man begins to.

He leads a loose-knit gang that smashes and grabs, loots and shoots, sets out each morning to steal something. On a crowded train, they stab a man,- and he dies without anyone noticing; they hold his body up with their own, take his wallet, flee when the doors open. Another day's work. But when his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) asks Tsotsi how he really feels, whether decency comes into it, he fights with him and walks off into the night, and we sense how alone he is. Later, in a flashback, we will understand the cruelty of the home and father he fled from.

He goes from here to there. He has a strange meeting with a man in a wheelchair, and asks him why he bothers to go on living. The man tells him. Tsotsi finds himself in an upscale suburb. Such areas in Joburg are usually gated communities, each house surrounded by a security wall, every gate promising 'armed response.' An African professional woman gets out of her Mercedes to ring the buzzer on the gate, so her husband can let her in. Tsotsi shoots her and steals her car. Some time passes before he realizes he has a passenger: a baby boy.

Tsotsi is a killer, but he cannot kill a baby. He takes it home with him, to a room built on top of somebody else's shack. It might be wise for him to leave the baby at a church or an orphanage, but that doesn't occur to him. He has the baby, so the baby is his. We can guess that he will not abandon the boy because he has been abandoned himself, and projects upon the infant all of his own self-pity.

We realize the violence in the film has slowed. Tsotsi himself is slow to realize he has a new agenda. He uses newspapers as diapers, feeds the baby condensed milk, carries it around with him in a shopping bag. Finally, in desperation, at gunpoint, he forces a nursing mother (Terry Pheto) to feed the child. She lives in a nearby shack, a clean and cheerful one. As he watches her do what he demands, something shifts inside of him, and all of his hurt and grief are awakened.

Assessment Criteria

Today's essay, 26 August

Describean important change experienced by a character or individual in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features showed you that this change wasimportant to the character or individual.

THIS IS A GREAT QUESTION FOR TSOTSI

For a really good essay, you could describe three aspects ofTsotsi’s change from heartless thug to human being and for each aspect youcould explain how a verbal or visual feature showed the importance of thischange.

INTRODUCTION: ANSWER THE QUESTION IN BRIEF

EXAMPLE:

Tsotsi, the main character in Gavin Hood’s South Africandrama of the same name, changes from a hardened gangster to a human being inthe course of the film. Hood emphasises the changes in Tsotsi through camera work, dialogue and costume. This emphasis on change shows us that it isthe point of the film. Hood wants us to see how South Africa could change andhow the cycle of violent crime could be broken.

Throughout the film, Tsotsi’s change is conveyed visuallythrough camera work. A mid-shot at the start shows a bare-chested Tsotsistanding somewhat wistfully by the open door his hut in Soweto, isolated fromhis mainly rough associates who play dice on his worn table. Later a trackingshot of Tsotsi and his gang walking through the township cuts to a close-up ofTsotsi, finger raised in defiance at a rival gang. We see close ups of his facewhen Butcher kills one of their victims and can see that his almostexpressionless face registers some unease. Later close-ups and slow zoom-ins tohis face show his gradual humanization. He looks fondly at the baby he hasaccidentally kidnapped and his face softens when he looks at Miriambreastfeeding the child. Hood can’t afford to let the camera work show a suddenchange but he is able to show a gradual melting away of Tsotsi’s hard, defiantstare into something much kindlier. The final shot of the protagonist is from alow angle at a mid-shot, showing him actually surrendering to the police afterhaving given back the baby. The viewer gets the feeling that he has given up thecriminal way of life, a truly amazing transformation in such a scarred youngcharacter. All these shots show how the change in Tsotsi is paramount to themeaning of the whole film.

Through dialogue also, we see the significance of Tsotsi’s transformation.At the start the one “decent” member of his gang, Boston, tries to get a moralreaction from Tsotsi after the murder of the man in the train. He senses thereis some normal human emotion deep down within Tsotsi. Boston cuts his arm andasks, “Did anyone do this to you (figuratively speaking)… and you bled?” This leads onto otherdialogue where we gradually learn more about Tsotsi’s background as he toostarts to come to terms with it. While he had a brutal father, he remembers akind mother, who, dying of AIDS, said to the young Tsotsi, “Don’t be afraid;come and hold my hand.” Remembering the past and experiencing the humanizingeffect of looking after a baby and meeting Miriam, Tsotsi starts to change. Hetries to put the gang behind him – a first step on the road to redemption.“It’s finished,” he tells Aap. “Finished and done.” This simple stark dialogueis delivered in a Soweto dialect with English subtitles which merge perfectlywith the speech. Because it is so sparse the verbal element is more powerful.

Costume also indicated Tsotsi’s change. At the start of thefilm, during the crime scene in the train, he wears a black hoodie. An extremeclose-up shows his intent eyes looking for a victim. With his hood up, he lookslike a typical gangster as his name suggests he is. The darkness of hisclothing is matched by the dullness and gloom of his surroundings. When we meetMiriam, however, we see her dressed in traditional African clothing coloured inearthy, warm tones like orange and red. Her hut is decorated with broken glassmobiles which catch the light and she drapes her furniture with blankets madefrom coloured patchwork squares. This obviously symbolizes a person whocelebrates life and can find beauty even in poverty. Miriam’s influence softensTsotsi. She persuades him to take the baby back and when he does he dresses ina white shirt. The way the camera picks up this shirt in the final symbolicshot when he surrender to the police shows how important this idea ofredemption is. Viewers see the white shirt as more significant because it contrastswith the black hoodie of the murder scene.

Gavin Hood has successfully created a fable of hope. He hasshown how a person can change. If the seeds of “decency” are within him and hehas the right influences, even a thug can change his ways. This is a simplefilm but the techniques are very polished so that dialogue, camera and costumecan chart the protagonist’s journey from Tsotsi (thug) to David (his realname).

Today's essay question, 5 November

Describe an important idea in the text.

Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text help you understand this idea.

An important idea in the text is redemption. The film shows that even a hardened young gangster can change and start to make up for the violent crimes he has committed. Dialogue and camerawork in Gavin Hood's South African film, Tsotsi, show the main character taking the first step towards salvation at the very end of the film.

Tsotsi is a teenage thug in a gang of four in Soweto who eventually casts aside his criminal ways in favour of redemption. The film starts with his gang's violent icepick murder of an old man in a train just for the contents of his wallet. Soon afterwards a member of the gang called Boston or Teacher Boy starts to feel regret and wants to make Tsotsi feel something too. He says, 'DECENCY, Tsotsi. Do you know the meaning of the word?' Tsotsi refuses to feel anything and beats Boston up viciously. But soon after this his life changes when he steals a car with a baby in it after shooting the child's mother and crippling her. The baby changes his life. Not only does its helplessness bring out a gentler side in the young gangster, but it also causes him to get in touch with Miriam, a neighbor who has her own baby and is forced to breast-feed Tsotsi's stolen child at gunpoint. Miriam's decency and gentleness spark memories in Tsotsi of his own mother who died of AIDs and her positive life style makes him realise that there is more to life than crime and violence. He returns the baby to its parents and, surrounded by police, he raises his arms in surrender.

Dialogue helps us understand the meaning of Tsotsi's actions. He tells his closest friend in the gang, Aap, that gang life is over for him: 'It's over, finished and done with.' This is made more interesting by the fact that the film is all spoken in a Soweto dialect and there are English sub-titles. Hood keeps dialogue in the film to a minimum and and every word counts. Later Tsotsi looks at Miriam who quietly persuades him to give the baby back, 'If I take him back,' he asks, can I still come here?' This shows that he sees in Miriam a possibility of a better life and he knows that he can only earn the right to see her if he acts with human decency. Camera techniques also help us understand his redemption. The close ups of actor Presley's face show a hardened thug with no emotion - but after visiting Miriam a few times, Tsotsi's facial expression in close-ups shows a new humanity. The biggest symbol of redemption, however is when Tsotsi, at the end , wearing a white shirt instead of a black hoodie, raises his arms to surrender to the police. This is filmed from several different angles at the end, the last one from a low angle to stress his stance of surrender. His uplifted arms contain a sort of Christian symbolism too and we can see that Tsotsi is not going to fight any more but take whatever consequences his crimes have led to.

This film shows hope not only for Tsoti's soul and conscience but for the country of South Africa too, where the crime on the streets might one day be replaced by 'decency'.

Here are some practice NCEA questions from a few years ago.

1. Describe an interesting character in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text make him or herinteresting.

2. Describe an important idea in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text help you understand this idea.

3. Describe a significant event in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text make this event important.

4. Describe at least TWO production techniques used in the text.
Explain how EACH technique makes it worthwhile to view or listen to the text.

5. Describe a strong relationship or conflict in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text help you understand this relationship or
conflict.

6. Describe what you liked most (or least) about the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features made you react this way.

Verbal features include music, sound effects, dialogue, etc

Visual features include cameratechniques, lighting, props, costumes, colour, etc

This comes from the actual achievement standard on the web!

Note well: Presley Chweneyagae is the name of the actor who plays Tsotsi. Gavin Hood the director chose him instead of Zola (who plays the car dealer) because Presley has a baby-face and looks more capable of redemption. It is certainly true that the 'camera loves him'. His close-ups are full of emotion and his soft face makes him look vulnerable. Part of the success of the film is the emotional effect of Presley's acting. He doesn't have to say much - you can see in his eyes that he is searching for meaning in life!

Look at the first question. Describe an interesting character in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text make him or herinteresting.
You could answer it on Tsotsi.

Here's an example

An interesting character in Gavin Hoods Tsotsi is the title character. Tsotsi is interesting because of the extreme journey he goes on and the great acting by Presley Chweneyagae.

Tsotsi is a thug from Soweto who operates in a gang of four, killing other black people for money in the most brutal manner. At the start of the film we see Tsotsi help kill an old man on a train with an ice pick in order to steal his wallet. Soon after he shoots the mother of a young baby, crippling her for life. He steals her car with the baby in it and does not return the child until he has undergone a big change of heart. This change in Tsotsi comes about because of the softening effect of the helpless child whom he carries around in a large paper shopping bag . Because of the baby he makes contact with the gentle young mother of another baby miriam whose postive example of making the best of life, makes him actually rsik arrext by retunging the babyu to his parents.

Visual and verval features make this character much more interesting. Casting Preseluy as the scharacter

Tsotsi

This image shows the gang of four at the railway station just before they kill the elderly man in the train. From left to right we see Boston (or Teach), Butcher, Aap and Tsotsi himself on the right.

Notice how their costume sends a message about their characters. Contrast Tsotsi's gloomy looking hoodie here with the neat white shirt he wears when he takes the baby back.

This extreme close-up from the stabbing scene gives us important information about Tsotsi's state of mind before he found the baby and met Miriam. He is eying up the victim for the gang and is eyes are empty of emotion, cold and hard. However, unlike Butcher, he does not seem happy with what he is doing. what do you think?

Look at question 3

Describe a significant event in the text.
Explain how verbal and/or visual features of the text make this event important.

An event we watched today is the stabbing of the man in the train

It is important because it introduces us to Tsotsi's violent and crime ridden lifestyle. Boston's disgust at this killing and Tsotsi's depression after it make Tsotsi more likely to change after he found the baby.

The scene starts with the gang looking around for someone to rob. A swish pan from Tsotsi's point of view takes us to the markets in the station where a young woman is selling colorful scarves and ties. The film cuts from Tsotsi's intent eyes to the stall where an elderly man pulls out a fat pay packet and pays for a bright tie. A close up of Tsotsi's eyes, above, shows his evil intent. In one similar shot, behind him are out of focus bright lights from the station and indeed the colours of the scarf stall are significant too. They contrast with Tsotsi's dark hoodie and dark attitude and foreshadow the colour symbolism that goes with Miriam. The image at the top of the page probably comes from this scene. It shows the two sides of Tsotsi: the light and the dark, the evil and the redemption.

Tsotsi Childhood