Extra Credit #1 completed, extra credit #2 instructions added below

Extra Credit Opportunity: The Close Reading of a Film

As artists, it is vital to your future artmaking practice to understand what makes for a successful, enduring work. This extra credit opportunity is intended to hone your sensitivity for locating the theme of a story, and to train your eye for effective visual storytelling techniques.

You will exercise these skills in written form, in a paper that does two things: Reveals what a movie is about (its theme), and shows how you know that to be so (its techniques). In your opening paragraph, you will make a claim about what you believe the theme to be, and how the theme is expressed in several parts of the story. The body of your paper will be a discussion of how the filmmakers use techniques—production design, camera placement and movement, dialogue, costume,

lighting, performance, music, etc.—to create impactful scenes that connect to this theme. As part of your discussion, you will refer to at least three specific shots in the film—one from the opening part of the story, one from the middle, and one from the final section—and you will discuss specifically how those shots are designed (i.e., what is in them, how they are executed) to contribute to the film’s meaning. What is theme? The theme is the clear and simple idea at the heart of a story, which holds the plot together and, in Hollywood movies, usually reflects the transformation of the main character. Without a theme, a movie would be just a bunch of stuff that happens. You could think of theme as the “lesson” the writer hopes to communicate to the audience. A theme is not a single word, like violence or family or sports. Instead, a theme is a fully-formed idea, expressed as a sentence. Some examples of the difference between plot and theme: Rocky (1976) is about how self-respect is earned through hard work. If you think the movie’s theme is boxing, then you aren’t paying attention. At the start of the movie, Rocky is a leg- breaker for a low-rent loan shark; he lives alone in a filthy apartment, and has wasted his athletic talent. He is, to use his own word, a bum. His shot at the heavyweight title—a fluke, nearly random—gives him the reason to put in extraordinary effort, to earn his self-respect. Avatar (2009), at the level of its theme, is about learning to see through new eyes. The movie shows us this, over and over again, from its first shot to its last.

MLA format, 3-5 full pages of text, with a separate MLA Works Cited page at the end. You may write about any film in the presentation folder, other than the one you are presenting on.

You will take screen captures of these three (or more)

shots, and include them at the end of your paper, after the text and just before the

Works Cited page.

The Asphalt Jungle (1950) has a plot about a bank robbery, but its theme is nothing so basic as crime or robbery. Instead, its theme is that each of us is prisoner to our personal obsession. Elmer Gantry (1960) concerns the rise of a preacher, but if you said its theme was religion, you would be wrong. Instead, the movie’s theme is that true love can redeem even the worst sinner. The Avengers (2012) has a plot about superheroes battling an alien invasion, but its theme is about people of various backgrounds and dispositions overcoming their differences to face a common threat. (Dozens of war movies share this same theme.) The Road Warrior (1982) has a plot about Mad Max facing Lord Humungus in the desert wasteland of the future. But you would not say its theme is dystopia, or conflict, or violence. Instead, its theme is about how a person finds a larger purpose through community. How you can find a movie’s theme: Often, you can locate the theme by asking yourself what the main character needs—as opposed to what she says that she wants. In The Road Warrior, for example, Max wants to be left alone. He wants to find gasoline for his car, and return to the open road. He says this in the dialogue. But what Max needs is a new family, since his own was murdered. He needs something larger than himself to live for. This need propels his transformation—from selfish at the start of the movie, to self-sacrificing at the end. Sometimes, a movie will include a single line of dialogue that encapsulates its theme. In The Asphalt Jungle (1950), the criminal mastermind Doc says, “One way or another, we all work for our vice.” The action of the story bears this out, as each character joins the robbery as a way to achieve his most urgent need, and each is ultimately undone by that desire. With just a couple of keystrokes and clicks, can your Google search reveal the theme of most successful movies? Probably. But I want you to wrestle with this question yourself—to put in the mental effort—and figure out what your chosen movie is really about. Spend time with it; watch it more than once, if needed; study how the scenes fit together. A film that you read closely is going to reward you with a rich artistic experience that will pay dividends in your own projects years—even decades—from now. If you just Google for the answer, and click on the top search results to have someone else tell you what a movie means, you’ll get much less out of this process. The amount of extra credit you earn with this paper depends upon how clear and convincing you make your discussion of meaning and technique, and how closely you follow the conventions of standard written English for a college paper. The better your work, the greater the reward.

Up to seven points of extra credit toward your final semester grade are

available to you, for an excellent paper. That’s enough to lift a B minus

(83) to an A minus (90). This paper can have real value, if you do it well.

If you plagiarize, you will get nothing.

To find the theme, look for the hero’s need. One usually grows out of the other.