film essay questions
FTV Examining the Auteur: Contemporary Directors
Midterm
While you may respond to these questions using paragraphs, there is no need to have thesis
statements. （ex. Truffaut said bulabulabula in page 40）Make sure you answer all of the prompts within the question.
Try to answer it more like your own thought, your understanding and your ideas, how your thought connected with these authors, not just quotes and don’t write like a research paper.
2. Andrew Sarris brought auteur theory to the United States. List his three premises of auteur theory and then mention how his explanations are lacking. In your critique of Sarris, use at least two authors – Pauline Kael, Graham Petrie, and Angela Martin.
3. S. V. Hartman and Farah Jasmine Griffin analyze Julie Dash’s Illusions (1982) and they consider the projection scene a significant part of the film. Describe why the authors feel that Esther Getter’s voice was violently appropriated and the reason they feel that Esther’s
relationship with Mignon Dupree is a farce.
4. Patricia Mellencamp argues that Illusions shows how Hollywood erased Black women
historically and in representation. Discuss how Mellencamp views on Illusions are different than
Hartman and Griffin. Also note the ways Mellencamp exposes how whiteness in film was not
neutral and used as a type of continuity of style along with the Production Code.