analysis film

Raab English 100

NOTE-TAKING/DISCUSSION WORKSHEET: The Social Network

Part I: As you watch and reflect on The Social Network, pay attention to the characters/topics and their rhetorical significance in the film. How are they portrayed? How are we, as viewers, supposed to perceive each character or idea? What choices do the filmmakers make to invite that response?

COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION

MEDIA

CALIFORNIA

LEGAL SYSTEM

CONTEMPORARY COLLEGE STUDENTS

GENDER

SOCIAL CLASS

RELIGION

Part II: As you watch and reflect on the film, pay attention to the deliberate choices of the filmmakers and the impact of those choices on viewers. It may be helpful to organize your thinking around four key elements of film, listed below.

CINEMATOGRAPHY (Camera Angle, Camera Distance, Camera Movement, etc)

EDITING (linking/cutting together of different shots, added effects, arrangement)

SOUND (emerging from within the scene AND sound that was added later, like musical score)

MISE-EN-SCENE (means literally “put into the scene” and can include: props, costuming, makeup, staged body language, lighting—any element that makes the scene)

Part III. Analyze the rhetorical situation and intended purpose of the film. You can now reflect on a specific aspect of the film’s context and purpose. to write your essay.

EXIGENCE (Is there a problem that can be solved through discourse (language/conversation)? To what extent can this film be read as a fitting response to that problem? :

AUDIENCE (who is the intended audience of the film? How can you tell? What moves does the film make that signal awareness of that audience, their values, their anxieties, their desires, etc?):

CONSTRAINTS (what constraints shape the message? Remember that these can be constraints imposed by the medium or genre, as well as ideological or social constraints)

INTENDED PURPOSE/SOCIAL FUNCTION (be specific here—if, for example, do you feel that the film “tests ideas”? What ideas are being tested within the film, and why? You may discuss more than one intended purpose/function)

CENTRAL ARGUMENT/CLAIM (S) (given the rhetorical situation and your impressions of the film’s purpose, what seems to be the central argument of the film? What claims are embedded within that argument?)