Film analysis essay

ENG 117/AAH 136/FMS 132: Introduction to the Art of Film

Film Analysis Paper #2

900-1000 words, due F 10/16, 5pm, uploaded to Blackboard

For this film analysis paper, you may use parts or the entirety of any posts you have made on Yellowdig. Your Yellowdig discussion activity should be considered preparation and material for the paper. (To see only your own posts and comments on Yellowdig, select Filter—By Member, then enter your name). Yellowdig discussion questions are available on Blackboard by film in the content area, “Discussion Board Questions.”

Choose one of these two topics. Be sure to analyze at least two specific scenes with attention to formal qualities of camera position and perspective, lighting, sound, etc. The first time you mention the title of a film, follow it with the director and release year in parentheses. For example: Rear Window (Alfred Hitchcock, 1954).

1. Film narratives commonly include a main plot with a conflict or obstacle the protagonist needs to overcome, and a secondary plot which is frequently a love story. In the readings from Benshoff and Griffin and in lectures, we examined the significant role that gender plays in the construction of the cinematic gaze, how this is linked to intended viewer identification with characters, and how gender determines which characters most frequently act as causal agent in the narrative (especially in the Classical Hollywood period). There are (at least) two important plots in Rear Window: the investigation of the Thorwald mystery, and the plot involving Jeff and Lisa’s relationship troubles. Discuss how Hitchcock uses devices and conventions including subjective and objective camera, point of view shots and shot/reverse shot editing, and characters as causal agents to develop both of these plots and to encourage viewer identification with a character or characters. How would you describe the relationship between the two plots—as separate or as interconnected? In advancing these two plots, does the film uphold or subvert gender conventions of Classical Hollywood film as discussed by Benshoff and Griffin (or both uphold and subvert)? Feel free to discuss any elements of the film that you find relevant to your answer, including the sub-plots involving the characters in the other apartments.

2. In the readings and lectures related to The Searchers and Get Out, we have seen that film genres are often based upon central thematic oppositions, such as civilization and wilderness in the Western, and normality and the monster in the horror film. These thematic oppositions are expressed through further contrasts among other elements including characters and settings. Othering frequently determines these distinctions, as in the opposition between white settlers and Native Americans in the Western, and “normality” figured as the white heterosexual family versus a monster often constructed as Other in terms of race, class, or gender in the horror film. Discuss the role of race and Othering in relation to genre conventions in The Searchers, Get Out, or a film of your choosing. Relevant readings to cite could include Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 9; Benshoff and Griffin; Pye; Gaines.