Introduction to Studying Films
This study guide is designed to help you produce a
written response to popular or classic feature films. It
is not a blueprint which you have to follow exactly. You
should draft and revise your work, and discuss it with
your teacher at appropriate points. Do not forget to
present your work neatly and attractively.
You may find it helpful to study works which are highlyregarded by critics, or which have achieved classic
status. Some titles are suggested here, arranged by theme
or genre (type or category of film).
Films depicting outsiders: Midnight Cowboy (John
Schlesinger); E.T., the Extra Terrestrial (Steven
Spielberg); The Elephant Man (David Lynch); Edward
Scissorhands (Tim Burton); Of Mice and Men (Gary Sinise);
Babe (Chris Noonan)
Teen movies/rites of passage: American Graffiti (George
Lucas); The Last Picture Show (Peter Bogdanovich);
Hairspray (John Waters); The Breakfast Club (John
Hughes); Dead Poets' Society (Peter Weir); St. Elmo's
Fire (Joel Schumacher); Gas, Food, Lodging (Allison
Anders)
Science-fiction/fantasy: Star Wars (George Lucas); The
Empire Strikes Back (Irwin Kershner); The Return of the
Jedi (Richard Marquand); Close Encounters of the Third
Kind; E.T. (Steven Spielberg), Alien; Bladerunner (Ridley
Scott); Aliens; Terminator (James Cameron;Independence
Day (Roland Emmerich); Mars Attacks (Tim Burton)
Epic drama: Gone with the Wind (Victor Fleming); Citizen
Kane (Orson Welles); Casablanca (Michael Curtiz); Brief
Encounter; Lawrence of Arabia; Doctor Zhivago (David
Lean); Cabaret (Bob Fosse); The Deer Hunter (Michael
Cimino); Chariots of Fire (Hugh Hudson); Jean de
Florette; Manon des Sources (Claude Berri); Au Revoir les
Enfants (Louis Malle); The Last Emperor (Bernardo
Bertolucci); The Piano (Jane Campion); Schindler's List
(Steven Spielberg); Apollo 13 (Ron Howard); The English
Patient (Anthony Minghella)
Psychological thrillers/films noirs: The Third Man (Carol
Reed); North by Northwest; Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock);
Walkabout; Don't Look Now (Nick Roeg); Chinatown (Roman
Polanski); Days of Heaven (Terence Malick); The Silence
of the Lambs (Jonathan Demme)
Crime/gangster movies: The Maltese Falcon (John Huston);
The Godfather, Parts I, II, III (Francis Ford Coppola);
The French Connection (William Friedkin); Badlands
(Terence Malick); Mean Streets; Taxi Driver; Goodfellas
(Martin Scorsese); The Usual Suspects (Brian Singer);
Trainspotting (Danny Boyle); Fargo (Ethan and Joel Coen)
Road movies: Easy Rider (Peter Fonda); Rain Man (Barry
Levinson); Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott)
Westerns: High Noon (Fred Zinneman); The Searchers (John
Ford); Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (George Roy
Hill); The Wild Bunch (Sam Peckinpah); Once Upon a Time
in the West; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Sergio
Leone); Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood)
These are only suggestions; there are many other films
which are suitable for study - discuss your choice with
your teacher. Many of the best feature films do not fit
easily into genres - like the multi-Oscar winning
American Beauty (Sam Mendes). A good way to find which
films are regarded as classics, is to use a reference
book like Halliwell's Film and Video Guide.
Writing about cinema
As with studying written texts, there are conventions
(rules of thumb) for doing this. One simple way of
finding out what these are is to look at published
commentaries. Newspaper and magazine reviews may be
helpful, as may broadcast (radio and television) cinema
review programmes. Well worth watching is François
Truffaut's 1973 film La Nuit Américaine (Day for Night)
which tells the (fictitious) story of the making of
another film, showing the workings of the studio fairly
accurately. In your writing, what you should not do is
simply retell narrative ("what happens/the story"). Below
are some things you may or should wish to consider. If
you discuss your films in terms of most or all of these,
and finish with a personal judgement (did you like it,
and why?) you will not go far wrong.
Who is the "author"?
In the case of a novel you can see from the cover who
wrote it, and you probably know the names of authors such
as Charles Dickens, Enid Blyton, Roald Dahl or Judy
Blume. In the case of a film the person who gets the
credit is chiefly the director. This person has overall
artistic control (or is supposed to). The person who coordinates the business aspects (ensuring the film meets
its budget, representing the studio) is the producer. The
film will have a writer (or writers) who create the
screenplay. In writing about a film, you are not expected
to refer to the producer, but may wish to mention the
writer (of the screenplay). You should refer to the
director; finding out who he or she is should be one of
your first tasks.
Sometimes a writer adapts an existing work: Kenneth
Branagh has adapted Shakespeare's Hamlet, Henry V and
Much Ado About Nothing while John Hodge has adapted
Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting. Ian Fleming's (James Bond
story) You Only Live Twice was adapted by Roald Dahl.
Some directors you may have heard of are Alfred
Hitchcock, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, Tim Burton and
Ridley Scott. Until recently directing was an all-male
preserve, but women directors are becoming more
prominent: some you may have heard of are Jane Campion
(The Piano), Katherine Bigelow (Point Break, Strange
Days), Amy Heckerling (Clueless) and Nora Ephron
(Sleepless in Seattle).
What is the film "about"?
This question presupposes (assumes) that the film will be
some kind of fictional narrative (as virtually all
mainstream commercial cinema in the USA and UK is). If
your chosen film is not a narrative work, try to explain
what it is. You should summarize story but not retell it
in detail; more than 300 words is excessive: if you find
yourself writing "then" or "next" you are probably
writing too much. The saying "more is less" applies here.
Characters and characterization
The (fictitious) people in the story are the characters,
whom you should identify by their names in the film. When
you first mention them (but not again) you should give
the name of the actor/actress who plays the part, in
brackets, after the character's name, in this way: Mrs.
Doubtfire (Robin Williams). You should write about the
principal characters, commenting on such things as their
circumstances and situation, their personality and
anything else which engages our sympathy (liking) or
disapproval. Characterization refers to what the
actor/actress or writer does to establish what the
character is like: this means such things as physical
actions or gestures, habits of speech or favourite
sayings.
Setting
As important as the human characters in many cases, and
often more so, are places where the action occurs both as
identifiable locations and for what they represent or the
feelings associated with them. In some kinds of film (the
road movie, the Western) the setting is grand and
panoramic while in others (like horror films) it may be
narrow and claustrophobic.
In Edward Scissorhands Tim Burton depicts a caricature of
small-town America, with elements from the 1950s to the
1980s, with identikit manicured lawns and suburban
tidiness; but at the end of the town is a Gothic castle,
complete with manic inventor - the effect of this
juxtaposition (mixing) of details is surreal and
unsettling. At the start of the film an Avon lady, doing
her rounds, calls at the castle - and this is presented
as perfectly normal.
In Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho the motel where the mad
killer, Norman Bates, lives is almost a character. Other
settings which are vital to the films in which they are
found are Rick's café in Casablanca (originally to be
titled Everybody Comes to Rick's), the Australian outback
in Walkabout, "Elm Street" of the many nightmares, Gotham
City (Tim Burton again) in Batman and Batman Returns or
horrific imagined future worlds in the Mad Max and
Terminator films, or Blade Runner.
Sometimes the setting is a spacecraft, train, ship or
aeroplane: this has the effect of bringing together
unlikely combinations of people, often in dangerous or
romantic circumstances. Good examples worth discussing
are the spacecraft in Alien or Star Wars or the bus in
Speed.
Cinematography and artistic design
This refers to the "look" of the film and the way this
contributes to its total artistic effect. Look at the
lighting of particular scenes; look at use of colour;
consider camera technique - steadicam or hand-held, long
tracking shots, reaction shots and cutaways. Modern
directors sometimes deliberately make films in black and
white (e.g. Peter Brooke, Lord of the Flies; Peter
Bogdanovich, Paper Moon and The Last Picture Show; David
Lynch, The Elephant Man; Francis Ford Coppola, Rumble
Fish; Steven Spielberg, Schindler's List; Tim Burton, Ed
Wood). Can you think why they do this? Among many films
remarkable for their artistic design or cinematography
are Fritz Lang's 1926 Metropolis; most of the films of
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger; Hitchcock's North
by Northwest; Terence Malick's Badlands and Days of
Heaven; Ridley Scott's Alien, Bladerunner and Thelma and
Louise; Tim Burton's Edward Scissorhands, Batman and
Sleepy Hollow, and Sam Mendes's American Beauty.
Music and soundtrack
Accompanying music is important for the mood of a film.
This may be achieved by playing well-chosen "classic"
popular music, to establish a sense of place and time or
evoke nostalgia; or it may be done by original
composition. Try to comment on the effect of any musical
accompaniment in films you watch.
Special effects
SFX is the conventional abbreviation for special effects.
These may be techniques of animation or computer
graphics. Companies such as Industrial Light and Magic or
animators such as Jim Henson (inventor of the Muppets),
Terry Gilliam (Monty Python's Flying Circus, Brazil, The
Fisher King, Twelve Monkeys) or Nick Park (Creature
Comforts, The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave) produce
visual effects which may contribute much to our
appreciation of a film: make sure you explain what
effects are used in any film you are discussing.
Genre
This refers to the kind or category of film you are
discussing. Most directors choose to work within a
recognizable convention (horror, road movie, teen
romance, western, romantic comedy, costume drama, "chickflick" and so on). Does the film you are studying belong
to any such recognizable category? If so, how can you
tell? Refer to any details which belong to this
convention or genre.
Now all you need to do is choose your film and discuss it
in some of these ways. You may wish to study several
films and compare their treatment of a common theme or
approach to genre. Draft your work and let your teacher
see it, to ensure you are working in an appropriate
manner.
Web links for studying film
www.academicinfo.net/film.html Mike Madin's excellent
portal site for film and media.
www.cinema-sites.com Portal site for film and media.
www.indiewire.com Portal for independent filmmakers.
www.imdb.com The Internet Movie Database.
www.filmworld.co.uk UK-based site for film lovers.
www.mrqe.com Movie Review Query Engine - launch site for
film reviews.
www.filmreview.co.uk UK film review site.
www.teleport.com/~cdeemer/Software.html Screenwriting
software.