All assignment instructions are on the attached PDF.
Individuals of ‘Film Studies’ majors and/or film studies experience preferred.
It’s much preferred if you’ve personally already seen and been well-familiar with the specified film yourself.
This essay must be PERSONALIZED!! This means that it has to look and sound as if it were based off of YOUR own personal experience and judgement of the film and its qualities!
There are a couple links or platforms that have the film available to watch. Here is one provided : https://tubitv.com/movies/505794/train-to-busan
Please bring concerns, questions, and updates, in our chat log!
Category: Film studies
Discuss the role of music in a single film. You can choose any film that you like, even if it is discussed in the text. You are not limited to Hollywood films, as international films are acceptable.
You should choose a film that you enjoy and can watch multiple times. Films are available at the CSULB library media center if you do not have access.
In your paper, do not simply summarize the plot. It should NOT look like the Viewer Guides. Please focus
on the music. Here are some possible approaches:
• A narrative approach allows you to talk about the film as it unfolds and analyze the music as it appears in the film. This is the easiest approach and also the least interesting. Still, a good paper that focuses on music can achieve an A grade.
• You can choose some of the basic qualities of film music (see Chapter 4) and treat one or more separately. This places the emphasis on music more than in the narrative approach.
• Taking a point of view is the most challenging, thoughtful approach. It is especially recommended as a practice for those going to graduate schools.
Decide on a point of view about the music in the film and support your view in a logical manner that does not depend on the narrative or the mechanical listing of musical characteristics. Possible subjects: the role of source music in a film; how does music reflect changes in a character or situation; how does music support the theme or message of a film.
3 pages, doubled space
Our feature this week is Paris Is Burning, an extraordinary documentary about the drag ball and voguing subculture of the late 1980’s (right before Madonna’s 1990 hit single Vogue created a certain degree of mainstream exposure for this scene).
Director Jennie Livingston shot the film as her NYU film school thesis project, choosing a style that is way more impressionistic, immersive and personal than we find in many traditional documentary films. (For instance, there is no omniscient voiceover narration, and the subjects get to tell their own story very directly.)
Even though Paris Is Burning was not conceived or meant as a historical documentary, it captures a moment in New York City history that is now long bygone – the time before Mayor Giuliani ‘cleaned up’ the city, when gay culture was less assimilated, existed more on the fringes of society and was beset by the spectral cloud of AIDS, especially for the disenfranchised gay people of color whose lives the film documents. Your homework is to answer these questions about the film, which you can view via this link:
1. Which one of the various prominently featured individuals in the film did you personally find the most interesting (or relatable) in terms of the experience they talked about or the perspective they offered, and why? (AT LEAST 150 WORDS)
2. This is the link to Madonna’s famous live performance of Vogue at the 1990 MTV Music Awards: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTaXtWWR16A. What are the notable similarities and/or differences between the way in which she and Livingston – both white women – represent the Black and Latino performers in vogue and drag ball culture?
Compare and Contrast these two films. Please go into depth about how these films relate, but also how they are different. I believe the 1961 film is on Amazon prime for free, and the 2021 film is on Disney+. They should also be on Tubi for free. This essay will be scanned for plagiarism so please do NOT use ChatGPT or any kind of AI to write this.
Create a documentary on how African dance is healing to the body for an instructor who taught it for twenty-five years and. a new student who is trying It for the first time.
Logline (up to 40 words)
Synopsis/treatment (up tp 450 words)
Topic Summary (up to 111 words)
Artistic Approach (up to 270 words)
Filmmaker Statment (up to 400 words)
Choose one (1) film and write an essay of approximately 1,700 words or seven doubled-spaced pages. The films are available at the film Library or possibly online.
Hello,
I am enclosing essay topics for the major paper. If possible, I would like a double-spaced hard copy of your paper submitted in class next Monday, May 6. You can refer to an article(s) found in the course kit. Please note the usage.
The essay should be approximately 1,7000 words.
1) Discuss Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul as a critique of the American success story and, by implication, its dependence on capitalist enterprise. Consider the relevance of the film’s opening scene, in which Charlie Davis/John Garfield calls out to Ben/Canada Lee. Discuss the function of the film’s principle female characters. Is the film’s ‘happy ending’ justified?
2) Using Andre Bazin’s “The Evolution of Film Language” (course Kit) discuss Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets as an example of ‘realist’ filmmaking. Focusing on Dr. Clinton Reed/Richard Widmark, discuss the the film’s portrait of American life in both its pubic and private sectors. Can Dr. Reed be considered a hero figure in the traditional sense of the classical cinema? 3) Consider Robin Wood’s auteurist reading and Margaret Tarratt’s genre reading of Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World (1951) (course Kit). Are the two articles compatible when constructing a critical reading of the film? The Thing is a product of the Cold War. Does that make it a reactionary film?
4) Discuss Leo McCarey’s My Son use of the nuclear family as a means to address American values. How coherent is the film in what it’s saying?
5) Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, a film about Hollywood and the studio system, was released at a time during which the industry was struggling financially and as a cultural institution. What do you consider to be the film’s attitude towards its subject matter? CHOOSE ONE PLZ
Hello,
I am enclosing essay topics for the major paper. If possible, I would like a double-spaced hard copy of your paper submitted in class next Monday, May 6. You can refer to an article(s) found in the course kit. Please note the usage.
The essay should be approximately 1,7000 words.
1) Discuss Robert Rossen’s Body and Soul as a critique of the American success story and, by implication, its dependence on capitalist enterprise. Consider the relevance of the film’s opening scene, in which Charlie Davis/John Garfield calls out to Ben/Canada Lee. Discuss the function of the film’s principle female characters. Is the film’s ‘happy ending’ justified?
2) Using Andre Bazin’s “The Evolution of Film Language” (course Kit) discuss Elia Kazan’s Panic in the Streets as an example of ‘realist’ filmmaking. Focusing on Dr. Clinton Reed/Richard Widmark, discuss the the film’s portrait of American life in both its pubic and private sectors. Can Dr. Reed be considered a hero figure in the traditional sense of the classical cinema? 3) Consider Robin Wood’s auteurist reading and Margaret Tarratt’s genre reading of Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks’ The Thing from Another World (1951) (course Kit). Are the two articles compatible when constructing a critical reading of the film? The Thing is a product of the Cold War. Does that make it a reactionary film?
4) Discuss Leo McCarey’s My Son use of the nuclear family as a means to address American values. How coherent is the film in what it’s saying?
5) Vincente Minnelli’s The Bad and the Beautiful, a film about Hollywood and the studio system, was released at a time during which the industry was struggling financially and as a cultural institution. What do you consider to be the film’s attitude towards its subject matter?
Analysis of two films that focus on overcoming adversity. I will attach further detail and instructions.
To assess film influence, this assessment will consist of the following components:
Film Analysis: will be required to analyze a popular film that has had a significant influence on society. Identify and analyze the themes and messages conveyed in the film and the techniques used to convey them.
Poster Project: Create a poster that explores the influence of the film you analyzed. Identify the main message of the film and explain how it has impacted society. Use images and text to convey your message effectively.
Introduction to film studies:
Answer TWO questions. Word limit 1000 words per question.
Total 2000 words (excluding bibliography). 10% over or under the work limit is
acceptable.
Harvard style is also
permitted; all quotations and paraphrasing must include page numbers of the
original text. eg. (Schatz 2004, p. 691). Marks will be determined according to
the extent to which your essays adhere to or depart from the guidelines. NOTE:
You cannot write on the same films in both essays.
Submit both your essays in a single document. Make sure that
the document you submit is the correct version. Do not contact your tutor with
an updated or corrected file. This will not be marked. Include the question
number on the first page of each essay. SELECT TWO OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS
Word Limit: 1000 words each question (total 2000 words)
1. Mise-en-scène Film openings are thresholds: they mark a
passage from an everyday world to a world constructed in cinematic terms.
Traditionally, the mechanics of this process are hidden; this is to create the
impression that the world that forms the basis of the story has always been
there. Analyse two films screened in the course where the operations of
mise-en-scène render this process of world-building explicit, rather than
implicit. How does this shift our experience of the film? Your answer needs to
include detailed and accurate analysis of specific scenes and the formal
elements that comprise mise-en-scène.
2. Auteurism In its most progressive guise, the auteur is an
effect of style, rather than simply a biographical person. With reference to
the films of two auteurs studied in the course, explain what is of value in
this reconceptualization. How does it shift the assumptions and practices of
filmic analysis that underpin an auteurist approach to cinema? Your answer
needs to include detailed and accurate analysis of specific scenes and the
formal elements that comprise an ‘authorial signature.’
3. Narrative & Narration ‘A film’s narration not only
manipulates degrees of knowledge but also manipulates the depth of our
knowledge. . . Just as there is a spectrum between restricted and unrestricted
narration, there is a continuum between objectivity and subjectivity.’
(Bordwell, 85) Discuss how this relationship between restricted and
unrestricted narration as well as objectivity and subjectivity operate in two
films screened during the course. Your answer needs to include detailed and
accurate analysis of specific scenes and formal elements.
4. Editing & Montage David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson
cite Eisenstein as the basis for their claim that discontinuity editing, in
contrast to classical continuity editing, invites the viewer to make emotional
and conceptual connections between shots (Film Art, 12th edition, p.259).
Explore this claim via Eisenstein’s various forms of montage, explaining how
they produce effects that are different from continuity editing style. Your
answer needs to include detailed and accurate analysis of specific scenes and
formal elements related to both Soviet montage and continuity editing in two
films studied in the course.
5. Sound In a good
film, the heard space is, at the very least, as dynamic as the visual space.
This is to say that with all films we need to look closely at the construction
of not only the optical, but also the auditory point of view or, better, the
‘point of audition.’ The idea of a point of audition is concerned with the
matter of where a sound comes from and whose auditory capacities a film invites
us to share. Analyse two films screened in the course where the possibility of
identifying a point of audition is questioned. In what ways does this occur?
Your answer must provide an accurate and detailed analysis of specific filmic
moments and evidence a close engagement with the ideas and concepts presented
in the lecture.