Film Assignment

Film: The Color Purple

Select a film (or group of films) and film genre from a specific decade and write a 3 page analytical paper detailing that film’s and that genre's influence on American and global culture — both then and now — and how culture, in turn, influenced and shaped the cinema. While you should feel free to use both primary and secondary source citations, in these papers I am interested more in your critical thinking and the use you make of your research than in your prowess with footnoting (which I hope you have already developed in your English classes).  

Tech specs: minimum 3 pages (you will not improve your grade by writing more, but by writing as well as you are capable, and by improving your writing skills as the class progresses); 1-inch margins all around; 12 pt. font; double-spaced; name, title and page number in footer or header on every page; title your paper, centered, in bold font (you can use either the title of the film[s] or, better yet, create an essay title (that could include the name[s] of the film[s]).

These Film Papers may consider, comment on, and interconnect the aesthetic and technical aspects of the films, such as:

    •       editing, montage, filmic structure

    •       cinematography, camerawork, lighting

    •       directing

    •       screenwriting

    •       acting

    •       production design, sets, costumes, special effects, style

    •       music and sound

Equally (if not more) important will be to consider and write about the following:

    •       what (and how) do movies mean?

    •       theme, content, genre, intention, audience

    •       social dimension and function: what the film says and means about the world, and particularly today's multi-cultures (in all their broad meanings and permutations)

    •       personal dimension: how the film affects you personally (identification, engagement, pleasure, excitement, alienation, boredom, etc. — how and why?)