Saturday, December 31, 2005
Critical Film Analysis
In your 4-page papers, you are expected to demonstrate an ability to analyze and interpret a film critically; this means that you should address issues of aesthetic style, narrative, and historical tradition of the film that are relevant to your particular topic. You can choose which film you would like to work on and you should focus on a particular topic in each paper. Formulate your topic in the form of one or more questions. In your introduction, explain briefly why you chose to address the theme you chose (i.e., explain how it is relevant to your understanding of the film).
To illustrate your point, pick out one or two 3-10-minute sequence/s for detailed analysis. Your interpretations must include examinations of two or more areas of film analysis (narration, mis-en-scene, cinematography, sound, or editing). Before you begin writing, you will need to do research and read at least one critical article on the film, its director, or the tradition/genre into which it fits. (This does NOT include internet user comments.) If you use any ideas from outside resources, cite properly, in accordance with the MLA Manual of Style. Presenting other people's ideas as one's own is considered plagiarism.
NOTE: If you choose to work on a film that we discussed in class, you are expected to go beyond the points made during the class discussion and conduct a close, textual reading of the film's sequence.
When analyzing the sequence/s, let your question/s be your guide. Be careful not to retell plot when analysis is required. When talking about story/plot, discuss the shape, range, depth, closure of the narrative. When pointing out stylistic features, describe what effect they have on the overall design of the sequence and how they effect the viewer. Do not simply point out film style without talking about its meanings!
Wrap up your paper by summarizing what you have learned in your detailed sequence analysis and reflect on the connections between it and the film as a whole. State how this affects/changes your overall reading of the film.
Sequence Analysis Worksheet:
A sequence is a series of shots somehow connected logically in terms of a) their common locale or setting; and/or b) their relation to one dramatic moment in the plot (i.e. a "scene"); and/or c) their common function in terms of furthering plot development or creating "atmosphere"; and/or d) their relation to some common theme or issue.
Such a sequence may be worth choosing less for its relation to setting, plot, or theme, than for the fact that it contains a typical or extraordinary stylistic feature you would like to examine, in the context of your guiding question/s. Defining a sequence can be somewhat arbitrary, but it will be significant what precedes and what follows it. Once you have selected your sequence/s, watch it again and again to note details of interest in the main areas of cinematic style (see below based on Bordwell/Thompson Film Art: An Introduction). Note if there are changes or not in the use of a particular stylistic feature over the course of the sequence. Change, or the absent of change, can be very significant, just as the presence of absence of a particular stylistic feature may be.
A. Mis-en-scene: That which is selected, arranged and/or constructed in front of the camera to be filmed: sets, locales, their composition and design; lighting, movement of other objects in the frame including animals and people. Includes the appearance and movement of people: acting, gesture, costume, make-up, etc. Print: both 'diegetic' (billboards, magazines, signs within the story) and 'non-diegetic' (titles over the image or in between images: inter-titles, as in silent film).
B. Cinematography: Film stock; color, black/white, or tinting; lenses and changes in focus (deep focus, shallow); camera angles (high/low/ straight-on); camera movement (panning, tracking, zooms), framing; shot duration; distance of camera to objects (close-ups, medium and long shots).
C. Editing: Frequency, smoothness, jumpiness, rhythm, logic of shot-to-shot relations; classical continuity editing (psychological or dramatic linking of the various elements of the plot to provide a maximum amount of logical or chronological continuity; montage (the thematic linking of various seemingly unrelated scenes/shots within a sequence to create a particular political or intellectual association).
D. Sound: Music, speech, noise, (music, dialogue, sound effects); diegetic vs. non-diegetic (including voice-overs); use of silence.
To illustrate your point, pick out one or two 3-10-minute sequence/s for detailed analysis. Your interpretations must include examinations of two or more areas of film analysis (narration, mis-en-scene, cinematography, sound, or editing). Before you begin writing, you will need to do research and read at least one critical article on the film, its director, or the tradition/genre into which it fits. (This does NOT include internet user comments.) If you use any ideas from outside resources, cite properly, in accordance with the MLA Manual of Style. Presenting other people's ideas as one's own is considered plagiarism.
NOTE: If you choose to work on a film that we discussed in class, you are expected to go beyond the points made during the class discussion and conduct a close, textual reading of the film's sequence.
When analyzing the sequence/s, let your question/s be your guide. Be careful not to retell plot when analysis is required. When talking about story/plot, discuss the shape, range, depth, closure of the narrative. When pointing out stylistic features, describe what effect they have on the overall design of the sequence and how they effect the viewer. Do not simply point out film style without talking about its meanings!
Wrap up your paper by summarizing what you have learned in your detailed sequence analysis and reflect on the connections between it and the film as a whole. State how this affects/changes your overall reading of the film.
Sequence Analysis Worksheet:
A sequence is a series of shots somehow connected logically in terms of a) their common locale or setting; and/or b) their relation to one dramatic moment in the plot (i.e. a "scene"); and/or c) their common function in terms of furthering plot development or creating "atmosphere"; and/or d) their relation to some common theme or issue.
Such a sequence may be worth choosing less for its relation to setting, plot, or theme, than for the fact that it contains a typical or extraordinary stylistic feature you would like to examine, in the context of your guiding question/s. Defining a sequence can be somewhat arbitrary, but it will be significant what precedes and what follows it. Once you have selected your sequence/s, watch it again and again to note details of interest in the main areas of cinematic style (see below based on Bordwell/Thompson Film Art: An Introduction). Note if there are changes or not in the use of a particular stylistic feature over the course of the sequence. Change, or the absent of change, can be very significant, just as the presence of absence of a particular stylistic feature may be.
A. Mis-en-scene: That which is selected, arranged and/or constructed in front of the camera to be filmed: sets, locales, their composition and design; lighting, movement of other objects in the frame including animals and people. Includes the appearance and movement of people: acting, gesture, costume, make-up, etc. Print: both 'diegetic' (billboards, magazines, signs within the story) and 'non-diegetic' (titles over the image or in between images: inter-titles, as in silent film).
B. Cinematography: Film stock; color, black/white, or tinting; lenses and changes in focus (deep focus, shallow); camera angles (high/low/ straight-on); camera movement (panning, tracking, zooms), framing; shot duration; distance of camera to objects (close-ups, medium and long shots).
C. Editing: Frequency, smoothness, jumpiness, rhythm, logic of shot-to-shot relations; classical continuity editing (psychological or dramatic linking of the various elements of the plot to provide a maximum amount of logical or chronological continuity; montage (the thematic linking of various seemingly unrelated scenes/shots within a sequence to create a particular political or intellectual association).
D. Sound: Music, speech, noise, (music, dialogue, sound effects); diegetic vs. non-diegetic (including voice-overs); use of silence.
