Introduction to Film Hollywood: FI1001
Essay Questions
For this course you have to produce three pieces of written work: 2 x
2000 word essays and 1 x 4000 word essay. The essay questions and due
dates are listed below. For the first essay choose from questions 1- 4. The
second 2000 word essay must respond to question 6 only and the 4000
word essays choose from questions 7 - 20. Your response should discuss
only Hollywood films within the period 1930-1960: In the second and
third essays the choice of films within this period is up to you, but you are
advised to focus partly on course films for at least one of these, as it is
likely that you will have a more detailed knowledge through having
discussed them in class. Whatever you choose, you must always be
prepared to analyse the film(s) of your choice in detail.
For 1st 2000 word essay: (due Monday, 8 November)
The Postman Always Rings Twice (MGM, Dir. Tay Garnett, 1946)
Now Voyager, (Warner Brothers, dir. Irving Rapper, US 1942)
Casablanca (Warner Bros., dir. Michael Curtiz, US, 1943)
Rebecca (Selznick International Pictures, dir. Alfred Hitchcock,
US, 1940)
Written on the Wind (Universal, dir. Douglas Sirk, US 1956)
Rear Window (Universal, dir. Alfred Hitchcock, US, 1954)
Singin’ in the Rain (MGM., dir. Stanley Donen, US, 1952)
Footlight Parade (Warner Bros., dir. Lloyd Bacon, 1933)
On The Town, (MGM, dir. Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly, 1949)
1) Consider the relationship of the mise-en-scène to the narrative
structure of one of the films listed above by using one short scene (not
used in the lecture). Show how the mise-en-scène in that scene functions
within the overall form of the film identifying any patterns of parallelism,
progression or development. In short how do the elements of the mise-enscène work together to contribute to the film’s narration. (In Film Art
Bordwell and Thompson suggest that you follow an element of the miseen- scène throughout the film and chart any changes it may undergo.)
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2) Discuss the cinematography of one of the films listed above. Consider
the film in its entirety and demonstrate your understanding and awareness
of cinematographic qualities such as framing, shot-size, duration,
movement, texture of the image, colour. Show how the cinematography
functions in the telling of the story and its effect.
3) Construct a shot-by-shot analysis of one scene (not discussed in the
lectures) from one of the films listed above. Discuss in detail the
significance of the relationship of shot to shot both in graphic continuity,
rhythm, spatial and temporal continuity and in how these contribute to the
overall form of the film.
4) With reference to one scene from the films listed above show how the
soundtrack works with the image to form the film’s narration. You will
want identify the different types of sound (Music, Noise, Speech), their
sources (diegetic, non-diegetic) in your analysis of how they work
alongside the image to create or reinforce patterns in the overall narrative
system.
For 2nd 2000 word essay: (due Monday 13 December)
5) In this essay we are asking you to demonstrate your reading and
thinking about the links between the technical and formal aspects of film
production and the Film Studies critical debates that we are examining
during the semester.
There are two parts to the assignment. You may write up your essay
in two parts if you wish or respond to the two parts and present a unified
essay. The key thing is that you respond to both halves of the question.
First : Undertake a detailed study and analysis of the cinematic
expression of the narrative of ONE or TWO films making specific
reference to narrative structure, mise en scène, cinematography, editing
and the sound track.
Then : Use this study to construct a critical analysis of ONE of the
following in relation to the film(s) you have chosen to concentrate on :
The star and/or the star system
The Musical
Film Noir
Issues of Authorship
The Gangster Film
The ‘Woman’s Film’
The representation of gender
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The representation of race and/or ethnicity
Keep in mind the following:
i) You will want to indicate the critical issues that are raised by your
analysis. (for example: what does your text analysis suggest about the
representation of gender, ethnicity, or any of the critical issues we have
looked at and that you now want to focus on ?)
ii) How does your analysis respond to the critical debates that have gone
on in Film Studies about the particular issue you have chosen to focus
on? (i.e. debates about the star, spectatorship, genre, reception, etc.)
3rd Essay (4,000 words, due Monday, 24 January):
6) In his BFI Classic The Searchers Edward Buscombe states: “The
contradictions of Ethan’s character, his compelling strength matched only
by his repellent bigotry, cannot easily be resolved, forcing us to a more
painful awareness than the pieties of more obviously liberal films.” Using
specific reference to the cinematography and the mise-en-scène in The
Searchers (Warner Brothers, dir. John Ford, 1954) and to other westerns
of the classical period show why you agree or disagree with this
statement.
7) Analyse how one or two films work with the narrative and stylistic
conventions of a specific genre (e.g., science fiction, the western, horror,
the musical, film noir)
8) Analyse the ways in which one key ‘issue of difference’ (e.g. sexual,
racial, self/other) is set up in the narrative or by the visual style of two
films of your choice.
9) EITHER: Discuss how femininity functions as a source of visual
fascination (focusing particularly on mise en scéne, narrative,
cinematography) in two films of your choice. OR: How does either
masculinity or femininity figure as the central spectacle in two films?
10) Compare the function and ideological significance of either;
continuity/discontinuity editing, lighting, or sound, through the detailed
analysis of two films.
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11) ‘The best way to understand Citizen Kane is to stop worshipping it as
a triumph of technique’ (David Bordwell). Discuss.
12) Comparing at least two films by the same director, discuss the
implications of viewing the director as ‘author’ of the cinematic text.
13) ‘We must look for the essence of cinema not in the shots but in the
relationship between the shots’ (Eisenstein).
‘ ...montage, which they so often tell us is the essence of the cinema,
is the literary and anti-cinematic process par excellence: the unique
quality of film, captured for once in its pure state, depends upon the
simple photographic respect for the unity of space.’ (André Bazin).
Discuss one or two films of your choice in the light of either or both of
these statements.
14) ‘The sound cinema will come into its own only when it is able to
achieve a union at that narrow point between visual and musical
expression in such a way that these aspects explain and complete each
other to the same degree. This synthesis will be the birth of a singular art,
addressing itself at the same time and with equal force to two senses ...’
(Arthur Honegger in 1931).
Discuss the inter-relationship of music and image in Hollywood film.
15) Analyse in detail the role of the flashback in one or two films of your
choice.
16) Discuss Stephen Neale’s assertion that the musical is ‘the only genre
in which the male body has been unashamedly put on display in
mainstream cinema in any consistent way’.
17) ‘The camera shows us what happens - it tells the truth against which
we can measure the discourse [of characters]’. (Colin MacCabe in
‘Realism and the Cinema’).
Discuss, with reference to no more than two films, whether the camera
can be usefully compared to the omniscient narrator of realist fiction.
18) Discuss how the image of a star of your choice is established through
the combination of cinematography and mise en scène in to films.
19) ‘...contexts of social formations and constructed identities of the self
in relation to historical conditions explain the interpretation strategies and
affective responses of readers. Thus receptions need to be related to
specific historical conditions as events.’ (Janet Staiger)
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Use a case study of the reception of a particular film to demonstrate the
effectiveness of this statement.
20) Discuss the importance of either the audience or the spectator,
making detailed reference to how these terms have been defined in film
theory and criticism, applying your analysis to one or two films.
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