HUMANITIES 1103: APPRECIATION OF THE FILM AS ART
ANOKA-RAMSEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE
FILM EXERCISES
CHAPTER 4: VISUAL DESIGN II
AND
CHAPTER 12: ANALYIS OF THE WHOLE FILM II
Sense of Time and Place
Casablanca (Curtiz 1942)
Watch the first 10 minutes of Casablanca, looking for both the visual and non-visual
ways that Curtiz establishes a sense of time and place:
1. What are the important visual details (costumes, colors, images)
that help establish a sense of time and place in the film’s opening
sequence?
2. How do basic film elements other than the visual image (narrative,
music, sound, dialect, etc.) help contribute to a sense of time and
place?
Citizen Kane (Welles 1941)
1. Watch the Thatcher Library scene from Citizen Kane without sound,
so that you can concentrate on how the visual design contributes to
the meaning of the scene.
2. Next, watch the living room scene from Citizen Kane.
a. What clues does the visual design of this scene give us
about the following elements of the rest of the film?
1. Emotional content and tone
2. Social structures
3. Customs
4. Moral attitudes
5. Codes of behavior