Midterm - essay

American Film History I Take-Home Midterm Exam, Fall 2017 (MW Section)

The exam should be typed, double-spaced, in Times New Roman 12-point. The exam is due October 4.

Your responses should demonstrate three things:

• That you have viewed each film carefully, and can produce specific examples from the films to anchor your analysis. You may want to go back and review specific scenes from the films; most of the films are available at the library.

• That you have carefully studied and understood class readings, lectures and discussion, and can apply ideas from the course to individual films. When questions refer to specific authors, you should clearly address the ideas of those authors, demonstrating your understanding of their arguments.

• That you have critically engaged the ideas of the class, and can develop your own analysis to support or refute specific ideas.

Part 1 (2-3 pages each, 20 points each) Answer 2 of the following 3 questions. For each of the questions you answer, discuss one film screened for class and a second film of your choice. Use different films for each of your answers.

1. Pick one film screened for class and any second film in the same genre. Drawing on Thomas Schatz’s model of generic evolution in Hollywood Genres and either Robert Warshow’s “The Gangster as Tragic Hero” or Tina Olsin Lent’s “Romantic Love and Friendship,” discuss the two films in relation to their genres.

2. Pick one film screened for class and any second film. Drawing on at least two of the assigned readings on the representation of race in American culture, discuss the representation of race and ethnicity, including whiteness, in the two films.

3. Pick one film screened for class and any second film. Contrasting the perspectives of Robert Ray’s “A Certain Tendency of the Hollywood Cinema” and Larry May’s The Big Tomorrow, discuss the politics of each film. Does each film critique or reinforce American ideologies? How?

Films screened for class Steamboat Bill, Jr. Gone With the Wind It His Girl Friday Scarface The Big Sleep

Part 2 (1-2 pages, 10 points) Answer 1 of the following 2 questions:

1. Pick one blockbuster Hollywood film released since 2000. Drawing on Tom Gunning’s “An Aesthetic of Astonishment” and/or Donald Crafton’s “Pie and Chase,” compare the aesthetic of early film’s “cinema of attractions” to contemporary Hollywood style as reflected in the film. Is the film primarily about spectacle or narrative?

2. Compare the experiences of the collegiate filmgoers discussed in Kathy Fuller-Seeley’s “Coming of Age at the Picture Show” with your own experience. What’s changed? What hasn’t? Why?