ART2010: Film Analysis Essay
As noted in your textbook, excellent film analysis will explain how a film has been made: which filmmaking techniques have been chosen and why, how the visual storytelling supports the narrative, and the effect that filmmaking elements have on the viewer. It brings together the explicit facts of the film – mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, sound – with the implicit or subliminal effects of the film on its audience.
We often can immediately describe a film's plot and how the film made us feel. These are easy qualities to identify that do not require analysis to understand. But what is much harder to explain is how filmmaking choices support the film's narrative and how the film creates the feelings that the audience experience. Film analysis aims to make visible the qualities of film that usually remain invisible.
Assignment: For this assignment, you have several essay options. Choose the one that feels right for you, the one that you are excited to explore.
Option 1: Identify a unique central idea (a theme or pair of themes) found in a one of the selected films on this list and trace the theme's development through the director’s use of some of the film elements that we have examined this term (camera shot, lighting, sound, set design, costume design, and editing). You should examine how these elements either compliment one another or are at odds with the theme(s) at various points in the film and argue why this relationship is important. This requires that you QUESTION what you see, not simply describe it. Keep in mind that you are arguing how these VISUAL AND SOUND elements allow the director to construct MEANING, a visual meaning that compliments the narrative of the written script.
While there are many ways to approach this option, perhaps the best is to choose what you see as two or three important moments in the film and argue their importance to one another and the film as a whole in the director's approach to the theme(s) and argue what you see as particularly effective (or ineffective) about the director's choices. In other words, you are making value judgments about the director's visual choices.
What you should not do is analyze PLOT in anyway.
It is important to reduce a theme to one word idea (i.e, loss, hope, forgiveness, etc.)
At its very basic definition, your analysis is a written evaluation of a work of art (in this case film) that attempts to enlighten/communicate a message to a reader about the underlying meaning of the scene.
Option 2
Choose two films and examine each director's approach to visual storytelling in each. For this, you will focus on a comparison of only two scenes (one scene from each film), and you will argue which director's approach was more effective and why (or which director's approach was more unique and why that matters).
There are two was to approach this: 1) Examine how each director visually communicates the same theme in each film/scene or 2) Examine how each director approaches a presentation of identity (i.e., their presentation of women, their presentation of race or ethnicity, their presentation of sexual identity, or their presentation of class).
Like option 1, you are to examine each director's use of some of the film elements that we have examined this term (camera shot, lighting, sound, set design, costume design, and editing) and are to argue why you think the director made specific visual choices to support the narrative and what is particularly effective or ineffective about these.
Purpose
In this type of paper a writer is forming an academic argument. As the writer you are arguing that your interpretation of a film is a valid argument - not the only interpretation - in an attempt to aid the viewer in “seeing” the film in a new light or from a different perspective that perhaps may be different from their own. Your argument should point out which filmmaking techniques have been chosen and why, how the visual storytelling supports the narrative, and the effect that filmmaking elements have on the viewer.
Again, keep in mind that you are arguing HOW the director shapes their central message through the use of VISUAL and Sound tools (set design, costume design, camera shot, lighting, sound, editing, etc.). You are NOT TO ANALYZE ELEMENTS OF PLOT (such as characterization, for instance).
Audience
Your audience is made up of academics, scholars, film critics, professors, and students (who are academics, scholars, and film critics in training much like yourselves). You should assume that they have seen the film and are familiar with its contents. Because of this you would never merely summarize the plot of the narrative because your audience is already familiar with it. This would also conflict with the purpose of this type of paper. You are to argue and discuss underlying meaning (or potential impact), not retell the events of the story.
Because your audience is a scholarly one, your paper must be presented in a formal manner. You should use high diction and avoid first person, personal pronouns, and contractions.
NOTE: When relating events of the film, always use present tense verbs such as, "Lee use of lighting in the scene draws attention to the racial tension of the scenes events by..." Notice the use of the active verb "draws" Try to stick with using active verbs as you analyze the scene and sequence of events within it.
Format
. Your essay should be a minimum of 4 FULL pages and no more than 6 for other questions about format. http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/•Your essay should have a title. It should also be typed, double-spaced, with one inch margins all around, Times New Roman Font, & 12 pt. See
NOTE: THE IDEAS FOUND IN THIS PAPER MUST BE YOUR OWN. YOU MAY NOT USE OUTSIDE SOURCES OR AI ASSISTANCE!
Your grade for this assignment will be determined as follows:
Total Possible Points: 80/
Final Draft, evaluated on the following criteria:
Focus (22 points): Does essay have a clear purpose? Overall claim stated in intro and restated in conclusion? Focus on a single idea or aspect of the literature? Is it clear how examples in body are related to the overall claim? Does the writer explain the broader implications of this claim to the text as a whole? Are the subclaims clearly related to the claim? When read together, do the intro and conclusion form one idea?
Development (22 points): Does writer support interpretation with evidence from text? Avoid giving a plot summary? Does writer explain for the reader how the evidence supports interpretation (and as a result the claim)?
Organization (22 points): Do first few sentences arouse the reader’s interest and focus their attention on the subject? Are readers expectations set and clearly met? Do paragraphs have clear focus, unity and coherence? Effective transitions? Does the writer guide the reader from beginning to end?
Style (7 points): Is language clear direct and readable? Are sentences clear, concise, and easily read by intended audience? Is word choice appropriate for audience? Do sentences reveal and sustain appropriate voice and tone? Does writer use the literary present tense to describe events in the story?
Mechanics (7 points): Are there obvious errors in spelling, punctuation, and grammar? Are there patterns of error?
NO REFLECTION (-7 POINTS)
Grading scale:
A 72-80
B 64-71
C 56-63
D 48-55
F 0-47
