Contents:
- Glossary and Questionnaires of the following
movies:
- Pleasantville
- Personal Velocity
- Birdman
- The Joker
- Readings: Theory of Film
- Pronunciation material
- Evaluation Sheets
- Self-Assessment handout sample
Glossary for Andy Cadiff’s Pleasantville:
1. chock full—slang for filled up with.
2. put your thinking caps on—slang for thinking, hard.
3. pumpkin—an old endearing term for the person you love.
4. meatloaf—a type of meat dish.
5. custody—parental control over a child after a divorce.
6. swell/swellest—slang for great.
7. slutty—a slut is a sexist term for a "loose" woman; slutty means that the
dress might pertain to such a woman.
8. measles—a childhood disease.
9. attire—clothes.
10. quit stressing—slang for stressed out.
11. busted—broken.
12. holy cow—an old expression of surprise.
13. oompf—slang for power.
14. Muffin—nickname for Mary Sue.
15. pasty—white.
16. ham steak—a slice of ham.
17. play along—pretend to cooperate.
18. school pin—a brooch or pin with your school insignia and name on it. It is
often given when one goes "steady" with someone. Hence, it symbolizes
that you are the boyfriend/girlfriend of the person who gives you their school
pin.
19. throw something out of whack—not working well or not in good condition
20. kinky stuff—kinky refers to strange and unusual sex acts.
21. go with the program—slang, for going along with things without causing
problems.
22. wipe down the counter—to clean the counter.
23. keenest—50s slang for nicest, prettiest, the best.
24. haven't been steady with anyone—to go steady, in the 50s and 60s, was to
be the boyfriend or girlfriend of someone.
25. lover's lane—a 50s/early 60s word for where lovers go, generally a
secluded area.
26. [are] you up for it—are you capable, ready, or willing to do it.
27. dorky—slang for a nerd or something nerdy.
28. geeks—slang for nerds.
29. flagpole—a pole that holds up the flag. Often at meeting places in high
schools.
30. get out of hand—out of control
31. mighty Mississippi—the river, of course, on which Huck Finn travels.
32. Huckleberry Finn—Mark Twain's famous 19th American novel.
33. hors d’oeuvres—a small savory dish, typically one served as an appetizer
at the beginning of a meal.
34. Holden Caulfield—a character out of J.D. Salinger's novel Catcher in the
Rye.
35. Titian—Italian Renaissance painter from Venice. Note that his name is
mispronounced by Bill. It is correctly pronounced /tishen/ not /titian/.
36. reruns—old shows that are repeated on television.
37. cruddy reception—slang for bad. In this case, a bad reception.
38. D.H. Lawrence—20th-century British novelist whose novels deal with love
and passion. His most celebrated novels are Lady Chatterley's Lover and
The Rainbow.
39. technicolor—in color.
40. T.V. dinner—a prefabricated dinner that you pop into the oven and can
heat quickly.
41. deluge—a severe flook
42. rave on—an invitation to continue to party, to be rebellious.
43. cock-eyed—slang for crazy, turned upside-down.
44. bridge—a card game.
45. desecration—to damage (a holy place or object): to treat (a holy place or
object) with disrespect
46. making out—slang for kissing.
47. admission letter—a letter admitting you into college in the United States.
Discussion Questions for Pleasantville:
1. Mystery and unpredictability seem to be concepts absent from the world of
Pleasantville. Discuss how these two concepts fit into the ideological
nature of the movie. What role do they play in life in general?
2. Discuss the concept of change as reflected in Pleasantville. How is change,
as part of the life process, perceived by this movie? Positively? Do you
agree?
3. Discuss the ideological structure of Pleasantville. What does the movie tell
us about modernity versus the past? On what side does the movie come down
on? Do you agree? 4. Music plays an important role in the movie as a means
to mirror people’s emotions, evolution, and ideas. Can you think of specific
examples where music stands out? Why?
5. At one point in Pleasantville, Bill says that "It is always the same. It never
changes. It never gets any better or worse." What do these comments tell
us about the nature of life in Pleasantville? About modernity? About the
ideological structure of the movie?
6. Discuss the concept of tradition in Pleasantville. Do you agree with this
perception of traditional values? Is life, as the movie suggests, hopelessly
doomed to a never-ending present that is irrevocably cut off from the past?
7. Discuss the concept of round and flat characters in Pleasantville. Give
examples. Are there any changes in this regard throughout the movie?
8. Discuss the use of "flat" characters in Pleasantville. Who are the flat
characters? What is their role?
9. Discuss the concept of the maturation of the self in Pleasantville. How does
this concept apply to David/Bud, Jennifer/Mary Sue, Bill, Betty, and
George?
10. In Pleasantville's code of conduct, rule #8 states that "all elementary and
high school curriculum shall teach the nonchangeist view of history
emphasizing continuity over alteration." Discuss this rule in the context of
the movie as a whole.
11. Discuss the concept of cultural freedom in Pleasantville.
12. Discuss the symbolic importance of weather in Pleasantville. Refer to the
rain, the rainbow, and the lighting.
13. Discuss the scene where the men of Pleasantville meet in the bowling
alley. What is the significance of this scene?
14. Discuss the townsmen of Pleasantville. What is their role in the movie?
15. Discuss the use of color in the context of Pleasantville as a whole. What is
the significance of the switches from black and white to color? How do they fit
into the movie as a whole?
16. Discuss the scene of Bud and Margaret by the lake. What's the significance
of this scene? How does it fit in with the movie as a whole?
17. Discuss the concept of the fear of not conforming to society's rules and
regulations as presented in Pleasantville.
18. Discuss the concept of cultural conformity in Pleasantville.
19. Discuss one of the early scenes in Pleasantville—where we see three
different teachers talking to students. What is the significance of these three
sequential scenes? What do these three scenes tell us about the movie’s
vision of modern life versus the past?
20. Discuss the concept of feminism as manifested in Pleasantville.
21. From the point of view of feminism, discuss Betty's, Mary Sue’s, and
George’s(Bud’s father) role in Pleasantville.
22. Discuss the concept of traditional versus contemporary values in
Pleasantville.
23. At one point in Pleasantville, Mary Sue asks Bud why she is still in black
and white given the fact that she has had more sex than most of the girls in
town. Bud responds by saying that "maybe it is not just the sex." What do you
think he means by this statement? Is he right? Why is Mary Sue still in black
and white?
24. Why do you think the books were originally blank in Pleasantville? What is
the importance of books in the movie as a whole? Why are they such a threat
to the townspeople?
25. Discuss the topography of Pleasantville.
26. Discuss the concept of chaos and anarchy versus perfection and utopia as
presented in Pleasantville.
27. Discuss the concept of cultural relativity as manifested in Pleasantville.
How, if at all, are values determined by our historical time periods?
28. Do you believe Pleasantville is a cultural reality or merely an idyllic myth
created by television? Justify your answer.
29. Discuss the symbolic nature of fire in Pleasantville.
30. Discuss the use of language in both Pleasantville and the modern town.
How is the language used differently in both towns? What does this mean?
31. Many people constantly and nostalgically complain that life was always
better in the past, that, in other words, contemporary life is inferior to the
past. How does this theme work its way out in Pleasantville? What
ideological position does this movie take on this issue? Do you agree?
32. Discuss the concept of rebellion in Pleasantville as experienced by the
town’s youngsters, Jennifer/Mary Sue, David/Bud, Bill, and Betty.
33. What do you perceive to be the symbolic nature of Pleasantville? What, in
other words, does this town symbolize in the movie as a whole? How does this
allusion work in this movie?
34. Discuss the Biblical allusion to the garden of Eden in Pleasantville.
Compare Bud's two mothers in Pleasantville. How are the two similar?
Different?
35. Discuss the concept of art in Pleasantville. What is the importance of art in
this movie? Be specific.
36. The movie begins with the words, "Once upon a time . . ." What is the
significance of these words? How do they fit in with the movie as a whole?
37. Discuss the opening scenes of "T.V. Time" in Pleasantville. What feeling
does it evoke? How does this beginning set the tone for the rest of the
movie?
38. Discuss the role of the television repairman in Pleasantville. How would you
characterize what he does? What role does he play in the movie as a
whole?
39. Discuss the juxtaposition of historical times in Pleasantville. Why does the
director do this? What elements are highlighted through this comparison?
40. Discuss the values of Pleasantville versus those of modern life. How are
they different or similar?
41. Discuss the concept of perfection as reflected in Pleasantville.
42. Discuss Bud's and Mary Sue’s role in Pleasantville. How would you
characterize what they do? What role do they play in regard to the town as
a whole?
43. During the trial in Pleasantville, Bud says that there are sometimes
emotions in us that are "silly" or "sexy" or "dangerous." What is the
significance of this assertion? How does it fit in with the movie as a whole?
44. What vision, do you think, does Pleasantville give us of life? What, do you
think, are, according to the movie, the basic ingredients of what one might call
the human experience?
45. Discuss the final scene of Pleasantville, where Betty and George sit on the
park bench and then Betty and Bill are sitting on the same bench. What's the
significance of this scene? How does it fit in with the movie as a whole?
46. At one point in Pleasantville, Bud tells his father that "people change."
Discuss this concept in the context of the movie as a whole.
47. At one point in Pleasantville, George (Bud's father) asks him "if people can
change back," and Bud responds, "I don't know. I think it is harder." What
does he mean by this statement? How does it fit in with the movie as a
whole?
48. Why do you think Mary Sue chooses to stay in Pleasantville and not return
to her modern life? What has she learned or not learned?
49. At the end of Pleasantville, Bud tells his mother, "There is no right house,
there is no right car" and that life "is not supposed to be anything." What is
the significance of these comments? How do they fit in with the movie as a
whole?
50. Discuss the final scene with Bud and his mother in his modern life. What is
the significance of this scene in the context of the movie as a whole?
Glossary for Personal Velocity:
1. to rap with someone—to talk or speak
2. beige separates—separates is defined as an article of dress designed to be worn
interchangeably with others to form various costume combinations—usually used in the
plural form.
3. cunt— an obscene word for the female genitalia.
4. school slut—slut is a derogatory, sexist term for a “loose woman.”
5. perk up—to become lively, cheerful, or vigorous, as after depression or sickness
6. get soppy—soppy means excessively sentimental, emotional, mawkish.
7. vortex—vortex is defined as something that resembles a whirlpool.
8. outcast—a person who has been rejected by society or a social group.
9. crash out—crash out is slang for staying over at someone’s house.
10. Saab—a Saab is a type of car made in Sweden.
11. wariness if they were women—wariness means caution.
12. a scrub—to scrub is to clean.
13. whittling away—to whittle is defined as to reduce, remove, or destroy gradually as if
by cutting off bits with a knife: hence 2: to wear oneself or another out with fretting.
14. more than you bargained for/not what you bargained for—something different from
what you expected, especially something worse.
15. Laos—one of the world's few remaining communist states, is one of east Asia's
poorest countries.
16. Harvard Law Review—the legal magazine of Harvard Law School.
17. trimming fat—to remove (excess or unwanted parts).
18. elation—a feeling of great happiness and excitement.
19. Auschwitz—a concentration camp where, during World War II, Jews were
exterminated by the Nazis.
20. ash heap—a pile of rubble.
21. charming voraciousness—voracious is defined as 1: having a huge appetite:
RAVENOUS
2: excessively eager: INSATIABLE<a voracious reader
22. wistful sweetness—wistful means to be melancholically yearning for something or
musingly sad.
23. rabbi—a Jewish religious leader
24. a personal affront—something insulting that makes you shocked and angry
25. like pus from a lanced boil—a boil is defined as localized swelling and inflammation
of the skin resulting from infection in a skin gland, having a hard central core, and
forming pus; to lance a boil is cut it open to extract the pus.
26. groping—groping here refers to sexual touching.
27. balk—to be unwilling to do something or let something happen, because you
believe it is wrong or that it will cause problems
28. play dead—to act as though defeated while awaiting a chance to attack
29. a lusty little troll—a troll is essentially a monster, either a giant or dwarf, found in
Northern European mythology.
30. loan sharks—a loan shark is a person who lends money (without any institutional
backing) to others unscrupulously at exorbitantly high-interest rates.
31. scattered ambitions—scattered refers to spread and varied ambitions; numerous
Questions for Personal Velocity:
1. Discuss the title of Personal Velocity. Where did you hear it for the first time in the
movie? What do you think it means?
2. Discuss the overarching structure of Personal Velocity. Why do you think the director
of Personal Velocity divided the movie into three sections? How does this division
make for a complete whole?
3. Discuss the opening scene of Personal Velocity. What is its significance and
importance?
4. All three sections in Personal Velocity are about women: Delia, Greta, Paula. What
are the common features of their lives?
5. Discuss the representation of contemporary women in Personal Velocity.
6. Choose one of the sections of Personal Velocity and discuss its representation of
women. Connect your answer to the other women in the movie.
DELIA
7. In the first section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia,” the main character at one
point says that she came to understand that her husband “despises her.” What do you
think she means by this statement? What do you make of this characterization of their
relationship and marriage?
8. In the first section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia,” there are two different
incidents of domestic violence involving two different men. Discuss these two incidents
and their repercussions on Delia’s character and development.
9. Discuss Delia’s character in the first section of Personal Velocity. How would you
characterize this woman? What are her problems?
10. In the first section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia,” the main character says,
“Honey, I love, I love you” after having been brutally beaten by her husband. Why does
she say this? What can you tell us about the psychology of domestic violence and its
depiction in Personal Velocity?
11. The director of Personal Velocity says that Delia’s character is a mixture of
“meanness and vulnerability.” Discuss this description as reflected in the section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia.”
12. Discuss the use of the camera in the section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia.”
What did you notice was different about the way the director shot this section from,
say, the other sections?
13. Discuss Delia’s relationship to Fay in the first section of Personal Velocity. How
would you describe and characterize this relationship?
14. Discuss Delia s stay at the Battered Woman’s Shelter. What was this place like?
́
How did Delia feel about it?
15. Discuss the concept of “love” as reflected in the section of Personal Velocity,
entitled “Delia.”
16. In the first section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia,” the narrator tells us, in
regard to her sexual conquests, that the young Delia comes “to love her [sexual]
power. . . it was her vocation.” What do you make of this statement?
17. Discuss how the young Delia viewed sex and sexual conquests in the section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia.”
18. Discuss the last two scenes of the first section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Delia.”
What do you make of this ending to this section of the movie?
19. Share your vision of maturation of the self in Delia. How does she change through
this first section of the movie?
20. Compare and contrast the two husbands in the first two sections, “Delia” and
“Greta,” in Personal Velocity.
GRETA
21. Describe Greta’s husband and explain the differences between Greta and her
companion. Why did she marry Lee? What does this tell the spectator about her?
22. In the second section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta,” the main character
says that she “wanted to be just like her father.” Is she like him? Does she want to be
like him? What do you make of this relationship between daughter and father?
23. Discuss the concepts of work, love, and life in the second section of Personal
Velocity, entitled “Greta.”
24. Discuss the representation of female sexuality in the second section of Personal
Velocity, entitled “Greta.”
25. Discuss the concept of maturation of the self in the second section entitled “Greta”
of Personal Velocity. How does this happen? How does Greta change?
26. In the second section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta,” the main character
doesn’t have sex with the writer she is working with. Why do you think she doesn’t do
this?
27. In the section of Personal Velocity entitled “Greta,” the main character describes
herself at one point as “rotten with ambition . . . a lusty little troll . . . a kind of demon
you would find at the bottom floor of hell pulling fingernails off of loan sharks.” Why
does she characterize herself as such? Is she correct?
28. In the second section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta,” the main character
seems to think that she has to choose between her career and her husband. What do
you think about this choice? What do you think about how this woman deals with this
choice?
29. In the second section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta,” the main character
decides to leave her husband. Why do you think that she decides, as the narrator says,
to “dump her beautiful husband like a redundant paragraph?” What issues are at stake
here?
30. In the second section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta,” the main character
says that her husband loves her because he doesn’t know her. What do you make of
this statement? What does this statement say about the nature of many marriages and
most relationships?
31. Discuss the concept of honesty as reflected in the second section of Personal
Velocity, entitled “Greta.”
32. Discuss the concept of ambition and success as reflected in the second section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta.”
33. Discuss the concept of female infidelity as manifested in the second section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta.”
34. Discuss the concept of sex and power as reflected in both the second section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Greta” and the first section, title “Delia.”
PAULA
35. Discuss the concept of guilt and redemption as reflected in the third section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Paula.”
36. Discuss the interrelationship of the man who gets hit by a car, the hitchhiker, and
Paula’s pregnancy in the third section of Personal Velocity. What do these three
scenes have in common? How are they connected?
37. Discuss the title of the third section of Personal Velocity. What do you think the title
means, if anything?
38. Discuss Paula’s relationship to her pregnancy as reflected in the third section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Paula.” How does her pregnancy work its way out through
the course of this section?
39. Discuss the concept of religion as reflected in the third section of Personal Velocity,
entitled “Paula.”
40. Discuss the concept of fate as reflected in the third section of Personal Velocity,
entitled “Paula.”
41. Discuss the main character in the third section of Personal Velocity entitled “Paula.”
How would you describe her character? Her motivation? Her life?
42. In the third section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Paula,” the main character
encounters a man from Norway who then is struck and killed by a car. What do make
of this incident and its effect on Paula’s character and her development?
43. At the beginning of the third section of Personal Velocity, entitled “Paula,” the
narrator says that Paula felt about her pregnancy as “an ache without pain. She
imagined it as sucking the seconds out of her life, as it built itself up, cell by cell,
devouring.” What do you make of this description and how does it fit in with this section
of the movie as a whole?
44. Discuss Paula’s relationship with the hitchhiker that she picks up. What is going on
here?
45. Discuss the hitchhiker in the third section of Personal Velocity. What do you make
of this character? What symbolic role, if any, does he play in this section? What is his
connection to the main character both literally and symbolically?
46. Discuss the concept of maturation of the self as reflected in the third section of
Personal Velocity, entitled “Paula.”
47. Discuss the three individual final scenes in all three sections of Personal Velocity.
48. Discuss the main themes that run through the three sections of Personal Velocity.
What do these stories have in common? How are they different?
49. Personal Velocity was directed, filmed, and written by women. What, if anything, do
you think this movie explores the female experience that men might not have easy
access to? What makes, in other words, this movie a particularly female movie? Are
there insights into the female experience that only a woman director or writer could
understand?
50. The narrator of all three sections of Personal Velocity is a man and yet these
stories are about women. Why do you think this selection of a man, not a woman, as
the narrator of Personal Velocity was made by the director?
51. Discuss the representation of female sexuality in Personal Velocity.
52. Discuss the concept of round and flat characters in Personal Velocity. Who are the
round characters? Who are the flat characters?
53. Discuss the concept of motherhood in the movie. What are all three mothers in all
three sections in Personal Velocity like?
54. Choose any two women in Personal Velocity and compare and contrast their
characters and lives.
55. Discuss the concepts of “infidelity” and “fidelity” as reflected in Personal Velocity.
56. Discuss the concept of “moving on,” of continuing on with one’s life, as reflected in
Personal Velocity.
57. Discuss the concept of mercy and compassion in Personal Velocity.
58. Discuss the use of time in the first two sections of Personal Velocity. How is time
used? To what effect?
Glossary for Birdman:
1. makeshift: a temporary expedient or substitute
2. to go viral: to spread quickly and widely
among internet users via social networking sites, e-mail, etc.
3. prequel: a literary, dramatic, or filmic work that prefigures a later work, as by
portraying the same characters at a younger age.
4. talky: having or containing superfluous or purposeless talk, conversation, or
dialogue, especially so as to impede action or progress.
5. break a leg: theatrical slang used for wishing someone good luck, especially before
a performance.
6. lackluster: lacking brilliance, radiance, liveliness, vitality, spirit, or enthusiasm; dull
7. douchebag: Slang: Vulgar: a contemptible or despicable person.
8. make a comeback: achieve success after retirement or failure
9. goatee: a man's beard trimmed to a tuft or point on the chin.
10. screech: to utter or make a harsh, shrill cry or sound
11. blockbuster: a motion picture, novel, etc., especially one lavishly produced that has
or is expected to have wide popular appeal or financial success.
12. Icarus (also Ikaros): classical mythology. A youth who attempted to escape from
Crete with wings of wax and feathers but flew so high that his wings melted from the
heat of the sun, and he plunged to his death in the sea.
13. gin: an alcoholic liquor obtained by distilling grain mash with juniper berries.
14. booze: informal. any alcoholic beverage; whiskey.
15. Farrah Fawcett (February 2, 1947 – June 25, 2009) was an American actress and
artist. A four-time Emmy Award nominee and six-time Golden Globe Award nominee,
Fawcett rose to international fame when she posed for her iconic red swimsuit poster –
which became the best selling pin-up poster in history – and starred as private
investigator Jill Munroe in the first season of the television series Charlie's
Angels (1976–1977).
16. Trivial Pursuit: it is a board game in which winning is determined by a player's
ability to answer general knowledge and popular culture questions.
17. washed-up: Informal. done for; having failed completely.
18. trainwreck: Slang. a disastrous situation, occurrence, or process.
19. shitload: Slang, vulgar. a lot of something; a large amount.
20. spooge: Slang, vulgar. to ejaculate.
21. lame: weak; inadequate; unsatisfactory; clumsy.
22. shithole: Slang. A disgusting place.
23. Thank the Lord, and pass the biscuits. An idiomatic expression derived from the
phrase “Praise the Lord, and pass the ammunition.”
The phrase is widely believed to have been said by a Navy chaplain during the
attack on Pearl Harbor. Meaning: Keep going, despite trouble or stress.
24. kimchi: Korean Cookery. A spicy pickled or fermented mixture containing cabbage,
onions, and sometimes fish, variously seasoned, as with
garlic, horseradish, red peppers, and ginger.
25. understudy: a performer who learns the role of another in order to serve as a
replacement if necessary.
26. dressing room: a room for use in getting dressed, especially one for performers
backstage in a theater, television studio, etc.
27. feed me (someone) a line: cue an actor with his or her next line (or lines), or tell
someone what to say
28. spit it out: informal. used to urge someone to say or confess something quickly.
29. fitting: an act or instance of trying on clothes that are being made or altered to
determine proper fit, mainly for acting, modeling or photography purposes
30. Geffen: (Geffen Playhouse) a theater in Los Angeles, California.
31. self-conscious: excessively aware of being observed by others.
32. hanky: a handkerchief.
33. masseuse: a person who provides massage as a profession or occupation, the
term is usually used for a woman (masseur: for a man)
34. Cue: anything said or done, on or off stage, that is followed by a specific
line or action.
35. O.R abbr. operating room.
36. Raymond Carver, (May 25, 1938 – August 2, 1988) was an
American short-story writer and poet. Carver contributed to the revitalization of the
American short story in literature during the 1980s.
Discussion Questions for Birdman
1. The movie is entitled “Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance)”. What
does this virtue refer to? How is this present in the movie?
2. Discuss the scene where Riggan shoots his nose. What is its significance and
importance?
3. Is there a specific reason for the extensive usage of drums in the soundtrack of
Birdman? Explain.
4. Discuss the use of the camera in Birdman. What does the continuous take help
accomplish in the movie?
5. Discuss the concept of “success” as reflected in the movie.
6. Share your vision of maturation of the self in Birdman. How does this concept
apply to Riggan?
7. Discuss the concept of round and flat characters in Birdman. Who are the
round characters? Who are the flat characters?
8. At some point Sam says: “Who the fuck are you? You hate bloggers. You make
fun of Twitter. You don't even have a Facebook page. You're the one who doesn't
exist.” What do these comments reflect?
9. Discuss the following quote: “Popularity is the slutty little cousin of prestige.”
How does this reflect the theme of the movie?
10. What role does “the voice” play in the movie? Why is it important?
11. Discuss the final scene of Birdman. What's the significance of this scene?
How does it fit in with the movie as a whole?
12. What do you make of Riggan’s “superpowers”? What do they imply about the
character?
13. At one point Sam says “truth is boring.” What does she mean? How does this
convey the theme of the movie?
14. How is the concept of “guilt” explored in the movie?
15. What's the importance and significance of the title of the movie?
16. What do you make of the first scenes of the movie Birdman? Do they help set
the tone of the movie? Yes/no? How?
17. The movie Birdman invites us to reflect upon the bliss of ignorance, of not
acknowledging that there is anything greater to pursue in life than what is right
before us. How is this theme conveyed? Explain and provide examples from the
movie.
18. Through Riggan Thomson’s struggles, we are invited to reflect upon the value
of a meaningful life. How is this developed? Explain and give examples from the
movie.
19. Riggan Thomson channels his regrets and frustrations into a stage adaptation
of the Raymond Carver’s short story “What We Talk About When We Talk About
Love.” What do you make of the name of the play and its importance within the
movie as a whole?
20. Discuss the following quote: “And did you get what you wanted from this life,
even so? I did. And what did you want? To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.”
(Raymond Carver, Late Fragment)
21. What do you make of the final scene of the movie? How is this scene related to
one or more themes presented in the movie?
22. In one scene we see Riggan taking off his bandages. What do you make of that
scene? What’s its importance within the movie as a whole?
23. At the beginning of the movie, we see Riggan in front of a mirror and a poster
that reads “Birdman 3” in the background. What do you make of that scene and
what’s its significance within the movie as a whole?
24. In one scene Riggan takes the poster off the wall, how is that symbolic? Explain
25. The director of Birdman decided to make an open-ended finale. What do you
make of that and does it fit with the movie as a whole?
26. Discuss the use of mirrors and glass as symbolic props in Birdman. When are
they used in the movie? What do you think they symbolize?
27. At one point in the movie, Mike says “stop looking at the world from your
cellphone screen, have a real experience.” What do you make of that statement?
How does it relate to the movie as a whole?
28. What do you make of the scene where Riggan walks through a crowd just
wearing his underpants? What does it reveal about his character?
29. Discuss the interior of Riggan’s dressing room. What, if anything, is symbolic
about this interior?
30. Discuss the use of language in Birdman. How is language used in the movie?
What does the use of language tell us about these characters?
31. Discuss the father/daughter relationship in Birdman. What can you say about
these two characters and how they interact with one another?
32. Discuss the concept of maturation of the self as reflected in Birdman.
33. In Birdman, Sam seems to be consistently searching for something. What do
you think she is searching for? Does she find it?
34. Discuss the use of color in the movie Birdman.
35. Discuss the concept of love as reflected in the movie Birdman.
36. Discuss the symbolic meaning of the scene where Riggan interacts with his
daughter Sam. Sam shows him what she is doing with the toilet paper. What’s the
significance of this scene?
37. Discuss the scene where Riggan walks in a store full of bright lights while a man
screams some lines out loud. What do you make of this scene and what’s its
significance within the movie as a whole?
38. What do you make of the fact that we get to see the actual Birdman character
towards the end of the movie? What is the symbolic meaning of that scene and how
does it fit within the movie as a whole?
39. What do you make of the scene where Riggan jumps from a rooftop and flies?
What’s the symbolic meaning of that scene and how does it fit within the movie as a
whole?
40. Discuss the quote “A thing is a thing, not what’s said about that thing.” that’s
posted on Riggan’s mirror. What’s the symbolic meaning of that phrase and how
does it fit within the movie as a whole?
41. Discuss the concept of morality in Birdman. How is this portrayed in the movie?
42. Refer to the dilemmas that human beings have had, according to Sam. How do
these dilemmas reflect the theme of the movie?
43. What’s the symbolic meaning of Icarus In Birdman?
Glossary for Joker:
● to piss off: (tr; often passive) to irritate, annoy, or disappoint; make very angry.
● Because I got jumped: Slang To spring upon in sudden attack; assault or
ambush: Muggers jumped him in the park.
● Groundswell: a strong public feeling or opinion that is detectable even though
not openly expressed: a groundswell of discontent.
● Brethrens: plural noun. Fellow members. Archaic for brothers.
● Coldblooded: adj. Without emotion or feeling, dispassionate; cruel: a
cold-blooded murder.
● Peekaboo: a game played by or with very young children, typically in which one
covers the face or hides and then suddenly uncovers the face or reappears,
calling “Peekaboo!”
● In a heartbeat: in a second.
● To cut funding across the board: to stop providing financial assistance for all
public programs.
● Creeps: informal, a feeling of fear, repulsion, disgust, etc.
● It’s a prop, for my act now: a person or thing giving support, as of a moral or
spiritual nature.
● to punch out: to mark or record one´s time of departure from work.
● Delusional: adj. Having false or unrealistic beliefs or opinions. In psychiatry,
maintaining fixed false beliefs even when confronted with facts, usually as a
result of mental illness.
● running for mayor: To participate in an election to be the mayor of a city.
● committed to Arkham State Hospital: bound or obligated to Arkham State
Hospital.
● the show booker: the person who engages the services of (a performer, driver,
etc.) in advance, in this case for Murray´s TV show.
● windup: verb, to bring to or reach a conclusion; noun, the act of concluding, the
finish, end.
● delusional psychosis: see delusional above.
● narcissistic personality disorder: (NPD) is a personality disorder characterized
by a long-term pattern of exaggerated feelings of self-importance, an excessive
craving for admiration, and struggles with empathy.
● stood by: past tense of stand by, to be available and ready to act if needed or
called upon, to be faithful to: to stand by one´s principles.
● battered: adjective, subjected to persistent physical violence, esp. By a close
relative living in the same house.
● Malnourished: poorly or improperly nourished; suffering from malnutrition.
● off-color material: adj. A joke or remark that is rude or offensive.
Songs:
“That's Life" by Frank Sinatra
That's life
(That's life)
That's what all the people say
You're riding high in April, shot down in May
But I know I'm gonna change that tune
When I'm back on top, back on top in June
I said that's life
(That's life)
And as funny as it may seem
Some people get their kicks
Stomping on a dream
But I don't let it, let it get me down
Cause this fine old world, it keeps spinnin' around
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself
Flat on my face
I pick myself up and get
Back in the race
That's life
(That's life)
I tell you, I can't deny it
I thought of quitting, baby
But my heart just ain't gonna buy it
And if I didn't think it was worth one single try
I'd jump right on a big bird and then I'd fly
I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, a poet
A pawn and a king
I've been up and down and over and out
And I know one thing
Each time I find myself layin'
Flat on my face
I just pick myself up and get
Back in the race
That's life
(That's life)
That's life and I can't deny it
Many times I thought of cutting out but my heart won't buy it
But if there's nothing shaking come this here July
I'm gonna roll myself up
In a big ball and die
My, my
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Gordon Kelly L / Thompson Dean K
That's Life lyrics © Bibo Music Publishing, Inc.
"Send in the Clowns" by Frank Sinatra
[Verse 1]
Isn't it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground
You in mid-air
Send in the clowns
[Verse 2]
Isn't it bliss?
Don't you approve?
One who keeps tearing around
One who can't move
Where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
[Verse 3]
Just when I stopped
Opening doors
Finally knowing
The one that I wanted was yours
Making my entrance again
With my usual flair
Sure of my lines
No one is there
[Verse 4]
Don't you love a farce?
My fault, I fear
I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear
But where are the clowns?
Send in the clowns
Don't bother
They're here
[Verse 5]
Isn't it rich?
Isn't it queer?
Losing my timing this late
In my career
Where are the clowns
There ought to be clowns
Well, maybe next year
Joker Analysis Questions :
1. What can you say about the following phrase which appears at the beginning
and at the end of the movie? Explain in detail. “I just hope my death makes
more cents than my life.”
2. In relation to the concept of lighting, what can you say elaborate based on the
use of light at the beginning of the movie, when Arthur talks to his psychologist.?
Explain in detail.
3. Discuss the concept of change as reflected in Joker. How is change, as part of
Arthur´s life process, perceived by this movie? Positively or negatively?
4. Discuss the concept of ambiguity as it is presented in Joker. Is Arthur Fleck an
ambiguous individual? Why? Who else, if any, is ambiguous in the movie?
5. Discuss the ideological structure of Gotham City. What does the movie tell us
about the way of life in that city? On what side does the movie come down on?
Do you agree?
6. Music plays an important role in the movie as a means to mirror Arthur’s
emotions, evolution, and ideas. Can you think of specific examples where music
stands out? Why?
7. Music plays an important role in the movie as a means to mirror the movie´s
development. Can you think of specific examples where music stands out?
Why?
8. Discuss the concept of round and flat characters in Joker. Give examples. Are
there any changes in this regard throughout the movie?
9. Throughout the movie, Arthur's Mom calls him "Happy"; however, in the
following quote from the movie, her mother seems to contradict herself. why
does it happen? Explain in detail.
“Arthur Fleck: I don’t want you to worry about money, mom. I mean, everybody’s
telling me that my standup’s ready for the big clubs.
Penny Fleck: But what makes you think you could do that?
Arthur Fleck: What do you mean?
Penny Fleck: I mean, don’t you have to be funny to be a comedian?”
10.Early in the movie, a black woman aggressively reacts towards Arthur when he
is playing with her little kid. Why do you think she reacts in this way? Explain in
detail.
11.The setting is usually a very important element in a movie. In the case of Joker,
How does it reflect Arthur´s life or mood? Is it a barrier or an obstacle for him? If
so, why?
12.Refer to the stairs as an element of the setting in the movie. Can the stairs be
seen as a character in the story? If so, what type of character and why?
13.How does the setting help to the development of Arthur´s personality? Use
references from the movie to state your answer.
14.Symbols are very important elements in a movie. What symbols do you find in
the movie and what do they represent? Explain in detail.
15.Throughout the movie, Arthur uses two different voice tones or pitches. Why is it
so? What does it say about his personality? Explain in detail.
16.Refer to the TV set as a symbol within the movie. What role or function does it
play in Arthur´s life? Explain in detail.
17.Reality is not so clear in Joker. Refer to the different imaginary situations that
take place in the movie? What can you say about Arthur´s personality through
them? Explain in detail.
18.Refer to the gun Randall gives Arthur as a symbol. What does it symbolize?
How does this gun relate to Arthur´s life and to the development of his
personality? Explain in detail.
19.What can you say about Arthur´s hysterical laughter? Is it a symbol? If so, what
does it stand for? What does it say about his personality? Explain in detail.
20.Irony is a key element in the development of a movie, what can you say about
the presence of irony in Joker? What instances of irony do you see in the
movie? What can you make of the presence of irony in the film? Explain in
detail.
21.Refer to Arthur and his mother´s relationship throughout the movie? How is it?
How and why does it change? Who is the responsible one for that change?
Explain in detail.
22.Can Arthur´s diary be considered a symbol? If so, what does it represent? What
does the diary mean to Arthur? Does it have the same meaning for other
characters (Murray and the psychologist, for instance)? Explain in detail.
23.Do you consider Arthur a victim or a victimizer? Why? Explain in detail.
24.Trains are present throughout the movie. Can they be considered a symbol? If
so, what do they stand for? Explain in detail and provide examples taken from
the movie.
25.Early in the movie, when Arthur is fired from his job as a clown, he crosses the
word “forget” out of the sign “Don´t forget to smile”. Why do you think he did it?
What does it mean? How is this act related to the development of the movie?
Explain in detail.
26.Refer to the idea of the clown as it presented in the movie. Is it positive or
negative? Why? Explain in detail.
27.The concept of reality is very relevant within the movie´s development. How
much of the movie is real and how much of it is a product of Arthur´s
imagination? Can it be said that the whole movie is the product of Arthur´s
imagination? Explain in detail.
28. Discuss the use of "flat" characters in Joker. Who are the flat characters? What
is their role?
29.Discuss the concept of the maturation of the self in Joker. How does this
concept apply to Arthur, Penny Fleck, Murray?
30.Refer to the use of color in Joker as a whole. What colors are the most
predominant in the movie? What do these colors represent or suggest within the
context of the movie?
31. Discuss the scene when Arthur is dancing on the street stairs down his
apartment and the two cops come in chasing him. What does it mean within the
context of the movie? Explain in detail.
32.After Arthur talks to Bruce Wayne at the theater and is hit by him, he goes back
to his apartment and gets inside the refrigerator? What can you make out of this
scene? What does it suggest?
33.When Arthur kills his mom, he says “my life was a tragedy, but now I know it is a
comedy.” What does he mean by this? How does Arthur use the concepts of
tragedy and comedy, which come from classic theater, in relation to what he just
did and his life?
34.When Arthur kills his mom, the room they are in turns green. Why do you think
is meaning implied behind the use of that color in specific?
35.What can you say about Arthur´s final clown make-up? Not the mask, but the
final make-up design he comes up with. Do you think it resembles his
personality at that moment or not? Why? How does it differentiate him from the
rest of the protesters in Gotham city?
36.Refer to the concept of wearing a mask (or make-up) as it is shown in the
movie. How does this notion fit into the development of the movie? How does it
benefit or negatively affect Arthur in the film?
37.What can you make of the movie´s ending in relation to Arthur? Is it positive or
negative for him? How do people see him? How does he see himself?
38.Refer to the notion of freedom as it is presented in the movie. Do you think
Arthur is free at the beginning or at the end of the movie? Why? Are people in
Gotham city free or not? Explain.
39.Discuss the concept of violence as it emerges and erupts in the movie? Why
does it happen? What type(s) of violence is presented in the movie? Do
characters in the film show violence as victims of that society? Explain.
40.Refer to the type of society presented in Gotham City in relation to today´s
Costa Rican society. Are they alike? If so, in what ways? Explain.
41.In relation to character development, is it justified the change Arthur goes
through? Why?
42.Refer to Murray Franklin´s role in the movie. What type of character is he? How
does he relate to Arthur´s development? Is it common to have people like
Murray Franklin in today´s society?
43.How does the song “Send in the Clowns” connect to the movie itself? Explain.
44.How does the song “That´s Life” connect to the movie itself? Explain.
45.Do you think Arthur Fleck, as a character, achieves fulfillment by the end of the
movie? If so, how? Explain.
46.Early in the movie, after Arthur is beaten by the kids, the camera, coming from
behind, has a closeup to his back while he is tying his shoelaces. We, then, can
see his back with certain features and characteristics. What do you think of this
scene in particular? What do we know about his life from it? Explain.
47.Discuss the notions of loneliness and alienation as they are presented in the
movie. How are these two concepts interrelated? How similar or different is it
from our society? Explain.
48.Do you think that Arthur´s outcome could have been prevented? Or was it
imminent? Who is responsible for that result? Explain.
49.Do you consider Joker, as a movie and art manifestation, to have a message? If
so, what is it trying to say? Do you think it succeeds in doing it? Explain.
50.Explain the movie´s beginning in relation to the rest of the movie? How does it
establish the mood and atmosphere for what happens later in the movie?
1 AnAlyzing Movies
MGM/THE KOBAL COLLECTION
The Cameraman (Edward Sedgwick, Jr., 1928)
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AnAlyzing Movies
LEARNING
OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter, you should
be able to do the following:
1-1 Identify the basic
human desires and
hat do we talk about when we talk about
movies? As with all first impressions, the drives that cinema
conversation begins with likes and dis- seems to satisfy and
likes, subjective responses that reflect our understand how various
W experience, knowledge, and temperament. mental processes
What we say and how strongly we say it—we often talk about produce the illusion of
movies in terms of love and hate—rather raise the stakes. If you motion pictures.
love a certain film and recommend it to a friend, how do you feel 1-2 Recognize the art in
when they like it, too? How bad do you feel when they hate it? entertaining films and
Many of the subjective reactions we have to a movie are the entertainment
the consequence of careful creative design, the result of choices value in films that are
about story structure, visual design, camerawork, editing, and complex or challenging.
sound made to prompt us to react in certain ways, to get us
thinking about things from a particular point of view, to make us 1-3 Understand what
see and hear things in a specific order and manner. Film analysis it means to analyze
enables us to recognize how the filmmakers have worked their films and recognize
magic on us, how all the constituent elements of the film have what makes the
combined to create that magic. Rather than rob us of the plea- scholarly practice of
sures of watching films, this approach affords us the even greater film criticism different
pleasure of deep engagement. This first chapter begins with the from more subjective
question of why we are drawn to the movies and then introduces and impressionistic
and models a scholarly approach to the cinema. reactions to and
readings of movies.
PLAY VIDEO ICON: This icon
signals that a corresponding video clip
is available in the eBook. The eBook
can be accessed at cengagebrain.com.
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 3 10/17/12 3:00 PM
1-1 THE MAGIC OF MOVIES
As we ponder our attraction to motion pictures, it is
worth thinking about the basic human desires and
drives that cinema seems to satisfy, about what made
cinema possible, even inevitable. Such a project takes
us back as much as 30,000 years to the earliest picto-
rial expressions carved into and painted on cave walls
at Chauvet and Lascaux, images viewed communally
by our predecessors by torchlight, anticipating the phe-
nomenon of going to the movies (fig. 1.1).
What motivated the cave painters was perhaps not so
different from what motivated early filmmakers: the fun-
damental human desire to express oneself, to preserve for
posterity images drawn from everyday life, to render tan-
gible and real a particular and peculiar take on the world.
And the undeniable presence of an aesthetic, their atten-
tion to design and detail, suggests that these artists cared
what their audience thought about what they produced.
The artist’s urge to create an experience for an audience,
and the audience’s ability to be engaged by that creation,
are still at work in the contemporary medium of film.
1-1a The Moving Image © Bettmann/CORBIS
Although the experience of viewing an image illumi-
nated in the darkness extends back into prehistory, the 1.2 Emile Reynaud’s Praxinoscope moving image viewer
projection of images for public entertainment is a some- (ca. 1887).
what more recent phenomenon, dating to the eighteenth
century and the “magic lantern.” This device employed a etched images from glass slides onto a white wall in the
lens, a shutter, and a persistent light source that projected dark. Audiences were fascinated by the power of the
lantern operator (usually a magician)
to conjure ghostlike images out of the
shadows. Over time inventors improved
on the quality of the light source, and by
the early to mid-nineteenth century the
magic lantern was used in conjunction
with motion toys. Motion toys like the
Thaumatrope (a round card with multi-
ple images held on a string), the Phena-
kistoscope (a platelike slotted disc spun
to simulate moving images), the Zoe-
trope (a bowl-like apparatus with slots
for viewers to peer through), and the
Praxinoscope (fig. 1.2) gave audiences
their first glance at multiple, continu-
1.1 In his 2010 documentary Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Werner Herzog ous, moving images, their first glance
explored the caves at Chauvet, France, where in the mid-1990s archaeolo- at what would someday be transformed
gists discovered paintings dating back more than 30,000 years. into a new mass medium.
4 AnAlyzing Movies
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
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1-1b Modern Moviegoing
Over time, the moviegoing experience
has become more seamless. There is no
flicker to ignore anymore; 35mm exhibi-
tion provides beautiful, gigantic moving
images; and the advent of digital formats
for production and exhibition have elim-
inated many of the the medium’s techni-
cal glitches. At the movies today we bear
witness not only to the stories told in a
given film but to the astounding technol-
ogy that has made that work of art and
entertainment possible.
© Bettmann/CORBIS advanced technologies, movies con-
But even with the advent of
tinue to appeal to our most primitive
1.3 A screening of a Keystone short in 1913. Silent film exhibition fea- desires and anxieties: love, happiness,
fear, despair. Moviegoing can be sim-
tured noticeable flickering light due to its relatively slow speed through the ply diverting, or it can be provocative
gate of the projector. and unsettling. Sometimes it’s both.
The film reviewer Pauline Kael once
The content of these early moving images was rudi-
mentary and largely irrelevant: hand-drawn horses gallop- quipped that she “lost it at the movies,” a wry joke
ing, two children playing leapfrog. The star attraction was about losing her innocence there in the dark. But it is
the technology itself; the audience was asked merely to fair to ponder the opposite effect, that more often than
bear witness to the phenomenon of seeing pictures move. not we find things at the movies . . . about ourselves
That phenomenon hinged upon a fundamental trick or lie, and about our world, things we have otherwise never
what film historians and theorists call persistence of vision considered, never thought about deeply.
or positive afterimages, and what many physicists under- We study movies because our reactions to them
stand as the phi phenomenon or apparent motion. Per- are so powerful, because their role in modern life is
sistence of vision refers to the tendency for one image to so significant, because understanding them informs the
persist or linger on our retina as the next image enters our way we experience the world. Moviegoing is a unique
perception, which explains why we do not perceive the communal experience, a form of organized leisure that
black frames that separate the still images as motion pic- formalizes the expression of shared emotions (laugh-
ture film passes through the projector. Apparent motion, ter, for example, at a screening of the Coen brothers’
or the phi phenomenon, describes an optical illusion that The Big Lebowski [fig. 1.4]). This book introduces an
allows us to perceive constant movement instead of a objective study of such a familiar subjective and com-
sequence of images. Together these phenomena create the munal experience, offering a critical vocabulary for
impression or perception of a single continuous moving discussing, analyzing, and reflecting upon the movies
image despite the reality of a series of individual frames. in our lives.
Another trick, or misperception, involves critical persistence of vision The tendency for one image to persist
flicker fusion, a phenomenon in which the light of a film or linger on our retina as the next image enters our perception, con-
projector flashes so rapidly with each new frame that we tributing to the illusion of motion pictures.
do not see it pulse but instead see a continuous beam of phi phenomenon The optical illusion that accounts for the impres-
light. Motion toys and silent movies (which were shot and sion of movement when one image follows another at the proper speed.
projected at the relatively slow speed of 16 frames per sec-
ond) did display a distinct flicker (fig. 1.3), hence the slang frame The smallest compositional unit of a reel of film: a single
photographic image; also, the boundaries of the image.
term for silent movies, “flickers,” and the occasionally
used synonym for movies today, “flicks.” Sound films do critical flicker fusion A phenomenon in which the light of a
not display such a flicker because they are shot and pro- film projector flashes so rapidly with each new frame that we do not
see it pulse but instead see a continuous beam of light.
jected at the significantly faster 24 frames per second (fps).
1-1 THe MAgiC oF Movies 5
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 5 10/17/12 3:00 PM
© Gideon Mendel/Corbis
1.4 Cinema as communal experience and organized leisure. Two thousand filmgoers endure the rain to share the
experience of watching Joel and Ethan Coen’s The Big Lebowski (1998), a film most of them have already seen. The
unlikely setting for this outdoor show was London’s eighteenth-century Somerset House courtyard.
1-2 MOVIES AS ENTERTAINMENT AND ART
By the time we reach our teens, we may have seen hun- dark, quiet, and temperature-controlled. When we enter
dreds, even thousands of films in movie theaters, on televi- this space, we are asked only to sit back and relax. Yet
sion, laptops, tablets, iPods, and even cell phones. We are, while such an environment seems to set the stage for
as George Orwell predicted we would be, surrounded by escapism, the passive consumption of movie fantasies,
screens in public and private spaces. This ubiquity of the it also narrows our focus onto one object: the movie we
moving image seems hardly a cause for alarm, as it was in are watching. In our hyper-stimulated world, the movie
Orwell’s 1984. Such access has made moviegoing simpler, theater is a rare secular site designed to eliminate dis-
easier, even cheaper, as more films are now available in traction and allow for serious reflection.
more formats and in more venues than ever before. As critical filmgoers, we can begin to discover the
The medium’s continued popularity is a testament art in entertaining films as well as an entertainment
to its entertainment value. And this entertainment value value in films that are challenging. We can bring a
has fueled the notion that going to the movies is primar- sophisticated analysis to movies that define themselves
ily a means of escape. Escapism is certainly built into as escapist fun. And for films that are challenging or
certain forms or genres of movies, and it is a design fea- unusual, there is a pleasure to be had in figuring out
ture of the movie theater, the site of the so-called first run a complexly structured plot, and in appreciating and
of the vast majority of motion pictures. Movie theaters understanding the filmmakers’ unusual choices in
have fashioned a built environment that is comfortable, design, form, and style.
6 AnAlyzing Movies
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Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 6 10/17/12 3:00 PM
1.5 Buster Keaton as a projectionist dreaming about 1.6 In the film within the film, Sherlock Jr. wins the
an exciting life like those lived on screen. Sherlock Jr. heart of the object of his desire.
(Keaton, 1924).
1-2a Appreciating and not in real life: confident, remarkably agile, an adept
Understanding Entertainment deductive thinker. And most important (to this point in
the film), unlike the projectionist, Sherlock Jr. “gets the
To see how we might move past our first impressions girl” (fig. 1.6).
and introduce a critical analysis, we begin with a popular For the hapless projectionist, movies are the site of
film comedy from the silent era: Buster Keaton’s Sher- dreams and aspirations. At this particularly low point
lock Jr. The film is entertaining; it’s funny, and Keaton’s in his personal life, he imagines what it might be like
stunts are original and exciting. Our initial reaction to to be the hero of a movie instead of the man paid to
the film as it unspools is likely one of appreciation—of project it. For the critical filmgoer it is important not to
Keaton’s skill as a performer, of the cleverness of the miss the parallels between the projectionist’s imagined
gags—and that reaction is characterized by laughter, an participation in the fiction on screen and our own expe-
involuntary response that signals the film’s success as rience at the movies.
entertainment. When the projectionist wakes from his dream, we
Sherlock Jr. is particularly useful for us here at the return to the “real world.” The dream—structured as a
start of this study because it cleverly displays—in fact, film within the film—has ended with his triumph over
it incorporates into its closing sequence—two key pro- adversity. Waking up in the projection booth is at first
cesses that characterize our reception of films: identi- a bit of a disappointment; he is no longer the hero in
fication (something in the film reminds us of our own a miraculous rescue. But this disappointment is short-
experience) and idealization (we think: if only our lives lived; his girlfriend has arrived, and she reveals that
were quite like this!). As we begin to read the film criti- while he’s slept she has solved the case of the stolen
cally—much as we would closely read a novel or poem, watch. Her discovery clears the way for romance.
for example—we recognize these two processes not But the film does not end there. In what silent come-
only in the context of this film but with regard to our dians called a “kick-in-the-pants ending,” the film’s brief
general filmgoing as well. coda reflects explicitly on the processes of identification
The film tells the story of a shy and bumbling film
projectionist who is falsely accused of stealing a watch, identification A mode of engagement with film content; some-
an accusation that promises to nix a budding romantic thing in the film reminds us of our own experience, and we tend to
relationship. Forlorn, he returns to work and as the film identify with the relevant character and his or her situation.
he projects unspools, he falls asleep and dreams (fig. idealization A mode of engagement with film content; some-
1.5). In his dream he jumps into the movie screen and thing in the film resonates with our dreams and aspirations: if only our
takes control of the story underway there. On screen he lives were quite like this!
is the crack detective Sherlock Jr. He is everything he is
1-2 Movies As enTeRTAinMenT AnD ART 7
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1.7–1.17 Life imitating art. The
hapless projectionist learns a thing
or two about romance at the movies.
and idealization. Still groggy and still unsure of himself, film set.) By contrasting the “real” world of the projec-
the projectionist is alone with his girlfriend in the pro- tionist with the contrived world of Sherlock Jr., Keaton
jection booth, and all suspicion has abated. He won- both satirizes the movie melodramas that were popular
ders what to do. Then he looks to the screen for help. with 1920s American audiences and also underscores
And there he finds some useful instruction. The film how important they had become in the collective imagi-
ends with a series of alternating shots of the projection nation. The ending produces not only a laugh but also
booth and the film playing on screen (figs. 1.7–1.17). (A an invitation to wake up to how we have identified with
shot is an image produced from a single “take” on the and idealized life as it is depicted in the movies.
A film released three-quarters of a century later, The
Matrix, poses a similar set of challenges as it asks us as
shot A continuously exposed, uninterrupted, or unedited piece of
film of any length; a basic unit of film structure with discernible start critical filmgoers to see past its screen fantasy to find a
and end points. more complex, more global, more philosophical work.
The Matrix is an entertaining film in the way, or more
8 AnAlyzing Movies
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 8 10/17/12 3:00 PM
sensation of watching the film, of
being pinned to our seats by the imag-
ery and sound. Indeed, thinking about
these meanings helps us situate the
film and the sensation it produces in
terms of our own lives and intellectual
experience.
1-2b Appreciating and
Understanding Complex
1.18 Even the most implausible of films can get us thinking about the
world in which we live now and the world in which we may live someday. Films
The Matrix (Andy and Larry/Lana Wachowski, 1999).
Some films are more difficult to “get
into” than others. They are deliberately
accurately, at a scale that only blockbusters can be. It is designed to challenge our belief systems and our expec-
big, fast, and loud—a Hollywood spectacle par excel- tations about movies, life, and the world at large. When
lence. It is designed to transport us, excite us, and even watching such films, we need to be a bit more patient.
thrill us. But it is also a deceptively complex work: a The pleasure is less immediate and the processes of
unique amalgam of stop- and slow-motion photography identification and idealization are less easily engaged.
(fig. 1.18), a clever adaptation of cyberpunk science- These films require critical analysis for engagement,
fiction literature, and an evocation of Asian action film even entertainment, which makes them well suited to
and comic-book graphics and visuals. It may be good the task ahead in this book.
escapist fun, but it engages complex ideas in complex The modern Japanese film Vengeance Is Mine is for
ways. Careful and close reading prompts an analysis many viewers an example of difficult entertainment. The
that reflects upon our growing dependence on and fasci- film tells the fact-based story of Akira Nishiguchi (he is
nation with immersive technologies—technologies that called Iwao Enokizu in the film), who went on a killing
may well affect our humanity in profound ways. spree in the early 1960s. Shohei Imamura’s film gives us
Examining what we sometimes call a film’s deeper plenty of access to the killer, but it makes little effort to
meanings in no way detracts from the euphoric help us understand him. The performance of Ken Ogata,
the actor who portrays Iwao, magnifies
the character’s intent to keep others—
including the viewer—at a distance.
Vengeance Is Mine opens with the
killer in a police car. As the plot works
backward from his capture, we expect
to find an explanation for Iwao’s actions
in the film’s flashbacks (fig. 1.19). But
Imamura resists such an easy sociology.
The killer’s life is eventful but paradoxi-
cally empty.
The film’s title also frustrates our
attempts to understand what has moti-
vated the crime. It offers a familiar
New Testament allusion (to Romans
12:19) and more specifically suggests
1.19 The banality of evil. Shohei Imamura’s Vengeance Is Mine (Fuku- that the killings are meant as retribu-
shû suru wa ware ni ari, 1979) endeavors to challenge our expectations tion. But Iwao hardly leaves the task
about crime dramas and the nature of crime itself. The film frustrates our of vengeance to the Lord, as the Bibli-
attempts to understand why Iwao (shown here daydreaming during a police cal quotation requires, and nothing in
interrogation) committed murder. the story supports the notion that he is
1-2 Movies As enTeRTAinMenT AnD ART 9
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 9 10/17/12 3:00 PM
killing because he has read or misread
the Biblical passage or that he is seeking
vengeance. Indeed he feels no discern-
ible euphoria in dispatching his victims.
Vengeance Is Mine is hard work,
but the payoff is considerable. Most
crime films are satisfying because
they reduce evil to narrative formulas.
When Imamura’s film forces us out of
this comfort zone, so to speak, we have
to look for another reason why we’re
witnessing this story, another reason
why the evil we see in the film exists. 1.20 “The Dawn of Man” in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
As we analyze the film, we come to (1968) asks us to ponder the nature of humankind.
reconsider the nature of evil in modern
society and arrive at the chilling notion
that sometimes people do bad things
and even they don’t know why.
In his popular 1968 feature 2001:
A Space Odyssey, Stanley Kubrick
takes up a familiar sci-fi story: in deep
space a computer malfunctions and
the crew is put in grave danger. But
despite this familiar hook, he seems
up to something else in the film, some-
thing more.
As we look at the film’s narrative 1.21 The film’s climax portrays the nature of modern humanity in a struggle
structure and pacing, for example, against the machines we’ve made. But what does this have to do with the
we find the first of many challenges film’s opening gambit, “The Dawn of Man”?
posed by the filmmaker. Kubrick takes
us slowly into the narrative. The film
begins not in deep space but with a long section titled to be doing with all the painstaking detail in the design
“The Dawn of Man” in which a series of connected of the sets and, with regard to 2001, in the re-creations of
scenes track the evolution of human ancestors, shown objects and machines floating in space. We are shown a
first walking on all fours, then upright; first truly primi- space toilet, for example, complete with warnings about
tive, then capable of transforming found objects into its use in a weightless environment. The camera stays
tools and weapons (fig. 1.20). on the instructions long enough to give us time to read
As with many such complex and challenging films, them so that we can imagine ourselves in the world of
we need to be patient. We need to find pleasure in the the film, having to use that bathroom, thinking about
director’s resistance to formula and his thwarting of the travails of space travel in a way we likely never had
audience expectation. Certainly Kubrick is using these before.
early scenes to comment upon human nature, but it is In the film’s climactic confrontation, which hinges
fair to wonder even late in the film what the “Dawn on the struggle between human beings and the tech-
of Man” opening has to do with the rest of the story. nology they have made (fig. 1.21), Kubrick refuses to
Filmgoers for over a generation have pondered these play the scene straight. To defy our expectations, the
questions, which is evidence of the pleasure that can tone is that of an absurd comedy. The goal here is not
be had through the hard work of making sense of this really science fiction but instead a familiarity that fuels
difficult film. identification. Anyone who has struggled with a piece
One of the pleasures of critical analysis is experi- of technology or with some mindless operative on the
enced when we finally feel like we are in on the joke, so to other end of a phone line has a sense of how the astro-
speak, when we begin to “get” what the filmmakers seem naut Dave feels when he asks the supercomputer HAL
10 AnAlyzing Movies
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 10 10/17/12 3:00 PM
1.22 The neighborhood matriarch, “Mother Sister,” 1.24 The nonworking poor. ML, Sweet Dick Willie, and
looks out on another hot sunny day. Note how details Coconut Sid hold their daily vigil across the street from
like the peeling paint on the windowsill and the broken the Korean convenience store they so despise.
concrete on the step suggest not only a setting but a
certain social-class milieu. Do the Right Thing (Spike
Lee, 1989).
1.25 Radio Raheem captured in low-angle close-up, his
size and his African features exaggerated as he looms
above the camera.
1.23 The working poor: the oft-abused Korean store-
owners in Do the Right Thing. dramas that emerge from the incipient racism, white
paternalism, and abject poverty that impact life there.
to open the pod-bay doors, and HAL rather blankly The two successful businesses we see in the film—
and calmly remarks that he’d prefer not to. the mini-mart and Sal’s Pizzeria—are owned by neigh-
Some films, like Spike Lee’s Do the Right Thing, borhood outsiders, Korean Americans and Italian
deliberately refuse to deliver escapist entertainment and Americans, respectively. Their success seems at odds
instead challenge audiences to engage with complex with and perhaps at the expense of the African Ameri-
questions of morality and social justice. Lee’s film is set can denizens of the neighborhood. In play then are
in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, matters of class and race that complexly come into
New York, in the late 1980s during a heat wave (fig. contest. While no one in the film is wealthy, a sepa-
1.22). The milieu is atypical for a commercial Ameri- rate set of distinctions among the working class, the
can film; most of the setting’s inhabitants are people of working poor, and the out-of-work are first drawn
color, and there are few images of wealth or privilege and then complicated by exaggerated racial stereo-
in sight. The setting is not used as a means of compari- types: the hard-working Korean store-owners (fig.
son (to life as it is lived in “better” parts of town); we 1.23), the patronizing Italian-American restaurateur,
never leave the neighborhood. Here, again, identifica- and the shiftless African Americans who sit in lawn
tion plays a part. For an hour or two we are asked to chairs drinking all day or hold menial jobs they half-
experience imaginatively and intellectually the everyday heartedly perform (fig. 1.24). The film so obviously
1-2 Movies As enTeRTAinMenT AnD ART 11
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 11 10/17/12 3:00 PM
panders to cultural stereotypes that it asks us to (played by the director himself), the politicized but
examine them. mostly uninformed Buggin’ Out, and the boom-box-
It is important when accounting for the social impli- toting, ever-angry Radio Raheem.
cations of a film to focus on its formal elements and Cultural studies scholars use the term “identity poli-
its formal system. For example, it is well worth noting tics” to discuss the relationship between the artist and
that to highlight racial differences, Lee uses exaggerated the artist’s message about race, class, and gender. This is
close-ups, often featuring characters looming over and very much at issue here. The producer-writer-director of
talking directly into the camera (fig. 1.25). Like the film, Do the Right Thing is Spike Lee, an African American
this stylistic choice is unsubtle but effective. who grew up in Brooklyn. It is relevant then that the
The film explores gender issues in the African- film is not the work of an outsider looking in but that of
American community, and again Lee exploits familiar an insider looking closely at social problems and issues
stereotypes: the benevolent but weary neighborhood in his own community. Lee’s well-suitedness for such
matriarch Mother Sister, the young unwed mother Tina, a social critique is essential to appreciating the film’s
the shiftless delivery boy and absentee father Mookie authentic commentary and larger cultural significance.
1-3 HOW TO “READ” A FILM
The goal of this book is to help you develop the vocabu- films and/or in its larger historical, cultural, and indus-
lary and tools for critical thinking and to facilitate the trial contexts (chapters 7 and 9). As we put these ideas
critical analysis of any film that you see, whether it aims together, we construct an interpretation of the film’s
to be a work of entertainment, a work of art, or both. As meaning(s) and significance.
a first step in that process, let’s consider the bigger pic-
ture. What does it mean to analyze films? What makes 1-3a Form and Style
the scholarly practice of film criticism different from the
subjective process of reviewing movies for a thumbs- In its most basic sense, form is the visual and aural shape
up or a thumbs-down assessment? How do we move of a film. Form embraces all aspects of a film’s construc-
beyond the basics of whether or not we like a film? tion that can be isolated and discussed: the elements of
We begin with close observation, of the sort sug- narrative, mise-en-scène (the “look of the scene”), cam-
gested by the questions that are provided at the end of erawork, sound, and editing. Film style refers to the par-
each chapter. We might focus our attention on the dis- ticular or characteristic use of these elements. Film style
tinct formal elements of a film (the subjects of chapters may be associated with a time and place (e.g., classical
2 through 5) and how those elements interact. We might Hollywood), with a type of film (e.g., a western), with a
also think about the film in the context of other similar director’s body of work (Hitchcock-ian; Fellini-esque),
or it may be unique to an individual film. We might
characterize a film’s style as realistic (fig. 1.26) or we
form The visual and aural shape of a film. Form embraces all might recognize it as highly stylized (fig. 1.27).
aspects of a film’s construction that can be isolated and discussed: To illustrate what it means to examine form and
the elements of narrative, mise-en-scène (the “look of the scene”),
camerawork, sound, and editing. style in a film, let’s take a close look at a key scene from
the French New Wave director François Truffaut’s first
style The particular or characteristic use of formal elements.
feature film, The 400 Blows. In this scene, the film’s
classical Hollywood The so-called “studio era,” roughly from the adolescent hero, Antoine, has been detained at a police
advent of sound through World War II. Distinguished by an approach station after stealing (and attempting to return) a type-
to filmmaking that strove for an “invisible style” that allowed viewers to writer from his father’s office.
become absorbed by the world of the film.
In terms of story structure, we are at the film’s turn-
French New Wave A group of post–World War II French directors ing point. Antoine has been at odds with his parents and
including François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude teachers, and his attempts to escape punishment have
Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais, and Agnes Varda, all of whom strove
to create a more spontaneous and personal style of filmmaking. Many of gotten him into deeper and deeper trouble. Now he faces
these directors began as film critics for the magazine Cahiers du Cinéma. truly serious consequences. So far the film has alter-
nated between episodes of freewheeling youthful hijinks,
12 AnAlyzing Movies
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 12 10/17/12 3:00 PM
this point (his anti-authoritarian nature?
his parents’ neglect? his oppressive
school?), whether he deserves to be here
(does the punishment fit the crime?),
and what will happen to him next.
Antoine is taken down a tight cor-
ridor into a holding area, where he is
placed into a cell with an adult. Time
passes. The camera scans the room, tak-
ing in the scene: the dingy windowless
space, the police officers killing time
playing chess and reading the paper
(fig 1.28), the adult prisoner asleep (fig.
1.29), and finally Antoine, asleep as well,
1.26 Natural light, real locales and interiors, and improvisational acting are oddly at peace with his unfortunate
aspects of the realistic style of John Cassavetes’s The Killing of a Chinese circumstances (fig. 1.30). This is not a
Bookie (1976). So, too, is the inclusion of shots that “break the rules” of melodramatic jailhouse scene but rather
Hollywood filmmaking, such as this one, where the woman’s arm obscures one that seems true to the reality of con-
our view of the film’s principal character in mid-sentence. This “mistake” finement: it is dull and impersonal.
gives the impression that the story is captured “on the fly.” Another moving camera shot fol-
lows (fig. 1.31). It chronicles the arrival
of three female prisoners (presumably
prostitutes), followed by one police offi-
cer’s decision to move Antoine to a much
smaller cell of his own. All of this is
done without a single line of expository
dialogue (dialogue meant to advance
the story or reveal something impor-
tant about the characters). Indeed the
dialogue in the scene is often drowned
out by sound effects (footsteps, the
jailers’ keys jingling, the jail cell doors
opening and shutting), another aspect
of the film’s realist style. In addition to
these effects, we eventually hear some
childlike music (a simple scale that sug-
gests a child playing the piano) on the
soundtrack. This background music,
or underscoring, adds a lighter, almost
1.27 In Joseph Lewis’s gangster drama The Big Combo (1955), the highly comic mood to the scene.
stylized lighting, sets, costuming, dialogue, and line delivery place us in The next moving camera shot pauses
the hard-boiled urban jungle. This style, known as film noir and associated twice to offer two beautifully framed
with crime films from the 1940s and 1950s, creates a distinct milieu shots from Antoine’s point of view, look-
(a time and place) that evokes feelings of suspense, decadence, and dread. ing out through the fence-like cell door
truancy, and moviegoing and episodes where Antoine is
under scrutiny, disapproval, and control. While the police
station scene is part of that larger pattern, it signals the film noir A French term for a style originating with American
crime films of the 1940s and 1950s, characterized by deep shadows,
beginning of a new phase in Antoine’s life, one of greater night scenes, shady characters, and plots involving elaborate schemes
confinement and harsher penalties. Watching this scene, and betrayals.
we might begin to wonder what has brought Antoine to
1-3 How To “ReAD” A FilM 13
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 13 10/17/12 3:00 PM
(figs. 1.32 and 1.33). The camera shot
through bars becomes a visual motif,
or repeated element, from this point on
and we are prompted to think about its
significance in the larger scheme of the
movie (which deals with other such con-
fined spaces like the tiny apartment and
the school where Antoine feels similarly
imprisoned).
The camera returns to Antoine as
the subject of our gaze (fig. 1.34). His
placement within the frame (the bound-
aries of the image) is significant. He has
been backed into the corner, both liter-
ally and figuratively, and he is trapped.
Through a close study of this
scene, then, we can see how it operates
to create a moving portrait of Antoine
as he is branded a criminal and herded
into the penal system. When develop-
ing an interpretation of this scene, we
might think about how these elements
contribute to the film’s themes, to the
insights on human experience that the
film offers. Some of the themes that
critics have seen in this film include the
unjust treatment of juvenile offenders,
the roots of adolescent rebellion, the
stifling of creativity and freedom by
rule-bound institutions, and the impor-
tance of truth in both human relation-
ships and film techniques.
1-3b Text and Context
1.28–1.30 A single moving camera shot surveys the scene in The 400
Information culled from research Blows (Les quatre cents coups, François Truffaut, 1959).
about a film’s historical or critical
context can deepen our analysis. Con-
tinuing to use The 400 Blows as our
sample text, let’s explore what such
a contextual reading might involve.
First, the film is semi-autobiographi-
cal; it is largely composed of the direc-
tor’s reflections on his own fraught
relationship with his family and insti-
tutional authority at public school, at
motif Repeated images, lines of dialogue, or
musical themes that are significant to a film’s 1.31 “I saw a police station in a movie once, and it was a lot cleaner.”
meaning. One of the female prisoners makes a wisecrack that highlights Truffaut’s
departure from film artifice.
14 AnAlyzing Movies
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 14 10/17/12 3:00 PM
the fragmentary nature of the author’s
childhood memories. And we can more
fully appreciate the events in the story
because they are likely true and speak
directly of the author’s experience.
Another context would be Truf-
faut’s œuvre—his collected work as a
director. Especially relevant here are
the four other Truffaut films that depict
the protagonist introduced in The 400
Blows, Antoine, at different stages of
his life: the short subject Antoine and
Colette (1962) and the features Stolen
Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970),
and Love on the Run (1979). Each film
is autobiographical and we can observe
subtle changes in the tone and content
meant to match the maturity of the
protagonist (Antoine and, by exten-
sion, Truffaut).
We might also consider the film in
the context of the French New Wave,
a group of post–World War II French
directors that includes Truffaut, Jean-
1.32 and 1.33 Bars upon bars. We see through Antoine’s eyes and feel Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette, Claude
his confinement.
Chabrol, Eric Rohmer, Alain Resnais,
and Agnes Varda. Many of these direc-
tors began as film critics for the maga-
zine Cahiers du Cinéma and made
the transition from writing about to
making movies to practice what they
preached, to usher in a new, more
modern French cinema.
Much as The 400 Blows chroni-
cles the painful transition from child-
hood to adulthood, the New Wave
movement in general concerned itself
with a painful transition from pre-war
fascism and wartime collaboration,
from a rural, Catholic, and conserva-
1.34 As we closely examine this image, we begin to appreciate tive nation into a more modern, urban-
Antoine’s deepening alienation and hopelessness. ized, youth-oriented society untainted
by the war and more in tune with the
popular consumer culture of swing-
church, and in prison. It also depicts Truffaut’s instinc- ing London and the United States. Such a transition
tive, early love of cinema; much as in the film, the required a new, more immediate and realistic visual
movie theater became the site of Truffaut’s escape as style, one that abandoned the moribund storytelling of
a youngster and foregrounded his career as an adult.
When we consider this biographical information, we
can understand the narrative’s loose structure; we can protagonist The film’s hero.
put in context how such a narrative style resembles
1-3 How To “ReAD” A FilM 15
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83680_ch01_ptg01_hires_002-019.indd 15 10/17/12 3:00 PM
the established French cinema. The 400 Blows is argu- general and the institutions (family, school) and agen-
ably the first important New Wave feature. It is a film cies (police) charged with maintaining the older genera-
that exemplifies this dual effort to better chronicle the tion’s control.
realities of post-war France and to revitalize a national The industrial context is meaningful too: The 400
cinema that had become dull and passé. Blows was produced on a tight budget. It is quite likely
The film foreshadows the social and political that some of the filmmaker’s choices were economic as
upheaval in France that came to a head a full decade well as aesthetic, which is to say that Truffaut’s use of a
after the film’s release. It does so by revealing a genera- realist style may well have also been a budgetary matter.
tion gap already in evidence between Antoine’s war-era All of these contexts can be elaborated upon, and any
parents and the post-war youth Truffaut’s hero comes one of them might provide an avenue for thinking criti-
to represent. The film ably critiques adult authority in cally and writing about the film.
16 AnAlyzing Movies
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CHAPTeR sUMMARy
Movies are a product of careful creative design, the result of choices about story structure, visual design, camerawork,
editing, and sound. A film analysis that takes a close look at these constituent elements enables us to understand and
appreciate movies.
1-1 THe MAgiC oF Movies • Examining films on a deeper level in no way detracts
from the euphoric sensation of watching the film, of
Learning Outcome: Identify the basic human desires and
drives that cinema seems to satisfy and understand how being pinned to our seats by the imagery and sound.
various mental processes produce the illusion of motion Indeed, thinking about these meanings helps us situ-
pictures. ate the film and the sensation it produces in terms of
our own lives and intellectual experience.
• The basic human desires and drives that cinema seems
to satisfy can be traced back as much as 30,000 years • Some films are more difficult to “get into” than others.
to the earliest pictorial expressions on cave walls at These films require critical analysis for engagement,
Chauvet and Lascaux, images viewed communally by even entertainment.
our predecessors by torchlight. 1-3 HoW To “ReAD” A FilM
• The projection of images for public entertainment dates
to the eighteenth century and the “magic lantern.” Com- Learning Outcome: Understand what it means
bining magic lantern and motion toy technologies in to analyze films and recognize what makes the
the nineteenth century gave audiences their first glance scholarly practice of film criticism different from
at multiple, continuous, moving images. more subjective and impressionistic reactions to
and readings of movies.
• Various mental processes—such as persistence
of vision, the phi phenomenon, and critical flicker • Close reading, or textual analysis, involves a focus on
fusion—create the illusion of motion pictures. The the distinct formal elements of a film and the interac-
movie theater is that rare public site built and used tion of those elements.
for an egalitarian, communal ritual during which we • Form is the visual and aural shape of a film. Form
express nakedly emotions we elsewhere repress. embraces all aspects of a film’s construction that can
be isolated and discussed: the elements of narrative,
1-2 Movies As enTeRTAinMenT AnD ART mise-en-scène (the “look of the scene”), camerawork,
sound, and editing.
Learning Outcome: Recognize the art in entertaining
films and the entertainment value in films that are • Film style refers to the particular or characteristic use
complex or challenging. of the elements of form and can include consideration
of a time and place (e.g., classical Hollywood), a type of
• As we begin to look at films analytically, we discover film (e.g., a western), or a director’s larger body of work
the art in entertaining films and an entertainment value (Hitchcock-ian or Fellini-esque). Style may also, instead,
in films that are difficult or challenging. be unique to an individual film.
• Two key processes characterize our reception of films: • Information culled from research about a film’s histori-
identification (something in the film reminds us of our cal or industrial contexts can deepen our analysis.
own experience) and idealization (we think: if only our
lives were quite like this!).
CHApTeR suMMARy 17
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
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FOCUS on Analyzing Films: Citizen Kane
orson welles’s 1941 film Citizen Kane is known for its deep focus photography, its multiple narrators, and its
defiance of the strictures of classical Hollywood. in the shot below, from a turning point in the story, Kane is
addressing a crowd at a political rally in his bid for governor. His political opponent and personal enemy, Jim
gettys, looks on. gettys’s presence at the rally likely means he’s sizing up the opposition, or he’s got something
up his sleeve. Both, it turns out, fit the bill here. As we will discover in a subsequent scene, gettys has proof of
Kane’s infidelity that will effectively kill Kane’s chances at the polls. The formal elements of the image hint at a
change in the power relations between the two men.
The full range of this shot is in Kane has appeared larger The space that Gettys
focus so that we can see Gettys, than life throughout occupies fills almost half of
Kane, Kane’s associates, and much of the film. Now, the frame. He stands high
the audience clearly. We are suddenly he is small and above the rally. His size and
meant to take in the relation- insignificant. position suggest that he is in
ships among these three control of the situation.
groups.
The “people” look Kane’s speech (which can be heard in this scene) attacks Gettys and
like tiny pawns in this his political machine as corrupt forces that have betrayed the trust of
scene. hardworking people. He promises to give power to the people. This
image, however, undercuts his words. It suggests the futility of the kind of
populism espoused by Kane and popular at the time the movie was made.
18 AnAlyzing Movies
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FOCUS on Analyzing Films: Citizen Kane ANALYZE MOvIES
Use these questions to begin practicing the skills of film analysis, focusing especially on aspects
of content and context. If you are not assigned a particular film, choose a scene from a film you
are especially familiar with and fond of (much as I have chosen the jailhouse scene in The 400
Blows). Watch it again a few times. Then answer the following questions.
• What is your initial, subjective reaction to this scene and why?
• Do the processes of identification and idealization apply to your reading of this scene?
• Is the film in which you find this scene by design a work of entertainment or art? If it
is a work of entertainment, what aspects of film art can you find? If it is more an art
film, what makes it entertaining?
• See if you can isolate the various aspects of form in the scene. What can you identify
in the narrative, mise-en-scène, camerawork, sound, and editing?
• Do some research into the biography and filmography of the film’s director. How
might his or her biography and filmography inform your reading of the film?
AnAlyze Movies 19
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2 Narrative
WARNER BROS/THE KOBAL COLLECTION/ VAUGHAN, STEPHEN
The Fugitive (Andrew Davis, 1993), screenplay by Jeb Stuart and Jeff Twohy
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aNd GeNre
LEARNING
OUTCOMES
After reading this chapter, you should
be able to do the following:
2-1 Recognize and analyze
the narrative structure
e begin our examination of the elements of
cinema with a study of narrative, the art of a film.
of constructing a story from a sequence of 2-2 Understand and
fictional or nonfictional events. The vast appreciate the narrative
W majority of films, even nonfiction films, function of movie
endeavor to tell a story. And our reaction to and reading of these characters and movie
movies routinely begins at the level of narrative, focusing on the stars.
content of the story and the mode of its telling.
The telling of stories—aloud, in writing, on screen—is at the 2-3 Distinguish and discuss
heart of human culture. Stories have long been a means of trans- the concept of genre
lating shared anxieties, hopes, and mysteries into a medium that with regard to the
can be communally experienced. Narrative cinema offers stories structure and effect of
not as something we hear, or something we read, but as some- film narrative.
thing we witness.
Most of the fiction films we see start with a story idea that
is then developed into a screenplay, which in turn is interpreted PLAY VIDEO ICON: This icon
and given form by the director, actors, designers, editors, and other signals that a corresponding video clip
members of the film’s creative team. In other words, the practical is available in the eBook. The eBook
development of a movie from idea through production and postpro- can be accessed at cengagebrain.com.
duction routinely begins with a story someone wants or even needs
to tell. And the challenge for the filmmakers is to figure out a way
to tell that story in an artful, entertaining, and/or compelling way.
In this chapter, we will take a close look at how narratives
are constructed—the different ways that events are sequenced and
connected, how narrative time operates at various levels, and how
characters function and are developed through dialogue as well
as action. We will also examine the concept of film genre, a way
of categorizing films according to narrative patterns and/or emo-
tional effects. Focusing on two popular, enduring genres (westerns
and horror movies), we will see how these familiar types of stories
can tap into current social trends as well as universal themes.
film genre A category of film
based on its narrative pattern and/or
emotional effect.
Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
83680_ch02_ptg01_hires_020-053.indd 21 10/17/12 3:01 PM
Making Movies
Jeb StUart ON ScreeNWritiNG
Jeb Stuart is a screenwriter who specializes in writing action films.
© 2014 Cengage Learning, All Rights Reserved Another 48 Hours (Walter Hill, 1990), The Fugitive (Andrew Davis,
His script credits include Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988),
1993), and Blood Done Sign My Name (Stuart, 2010). In 1994
Stuart was nominated for a Writers Guild of America award (with
David Twohy) for Best Screenplay Based on Material Previously
Produced or Published for The Fugitive.
Q1: Could you describe what a Q3: John Sayles famously Q4: Movie dialogue is of course
screenwriter does? advises screenwriters to “write meant to be read—delivered
a: A screenwriter is responsible it and forget it”—suggesting that dramatically by actors. How does
for creating a blueprint for what a screenplays are seldom followed this change what’s on the page?
movie is going to be. This blueprint very closely in the development a: Collaboration can be a
has to be easy to read because the and then production of a film. tremendously empowering and
filmmakers have to know what the a: Filmmaking is a collaborative creative thing. I’ll never forget the
movie is about, who is going to be in process. You may set sail with the very first time I sat in on a read-
it, how much it’s going to cost, is the boat but then other people get on through of one of my scripts. It
movie worth making? board the boat. . .and sometimes had before that been my baby
the writer gets forced off the and suddenly we had professional
Q2: How important is the three-act boat. So, even then, you go away actors who were excited about the
structure? thinking, well, there wouldn’t be project and had thought a lot about
a: It’s a very well-accepted tradition a boat without me. But if you’re their characters. . .when they were
that a screenplay has three acts. fortunate enough to stay with that reading, the words just exploded
In a three-act structure, the first boat until it docks, you still may off the page. Only then did I realize
thirty pages is the first act—the not recognize the movie you were how powerful what I wrote could be.
set-up. The next sixty pages is involved with every day. The actors
the second act where everything and the director may change lines
is developed, the conflict is built. of dialogue. . .the cinematographer
Then there are the last thirty pages, may decide to shoot it at night-time
which become the third act, and instead of in the day. . .the editor
that’s the denouement, that’s where may decide to pick up the pace in
everything that’s unraveled comes the second act. . .one of the things
together in the end. You can find it I was told when I first took up
in just about every movie and just screenwriting was: “If you don’t like
about every screenplay. collaboration, then go write poetry.”
LiNK tO tHe FULL iNtervieW
http://cengagebrain.com
22 NArrATIve AND GeNre
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2-1 NARRATIVE STRUCTURE
A typical narrative film follows a character or char-
acters through a chain of events that has a beginning,
middle, and end. Film theorists who focus on narrative
structure make a useful distinction between the full set
of events that we piece together as viewers (the story)
and the events that are presented in the film (the plot).
The plot, then, is a particular selection and arrange-
ment of events from the full story. The challenge for
the screenwriter and for the filmmakers is not only
to invent a compelling and coherent story but also to
decide how to structure that story for audiences. In this
section, we will consider some of the strategies that
filmmakers employ and develop a vocabulary for talk-
ing about narrative structure.
Though we won’t focus on nonnarrative films until
chapter 8 (in the experimental film section), it is worth
noting here that not all films are organized around story
and plot. Nonnarrative films are instead structured
around, for example, visual or aural motifs, abstract
forms, and patterns. The images and sounds in these
films tend to be more metaphorical or allusive. Many
of these films are fundamentally disorderly, “organiz-
ing” images and sounds to match the illogic of dreams
or altered states of consciousness.
2-1a Plot and Story Order
The narrative of Billy Wilder’s 1950 Hollywood melo-
drama Sunset Boulevard illustrates the distinction
between plot order, the sequence of events adopted in 2.1 and 2.2 Two sequential story events in Billy Wild-
the telling of the tale, and story order, the chronological er’s Sunset Boulevard (1950) are shown in the begin-
sequence of narrative events. The film begins with the ning and ending of the plot. The rest of the film serves
aftermath of a murder as we see an unidentified man mostly to explain how he and we got here and why.
floating face down in a swimming pool (fig. 2.1). One
hundred minutes later, immediately preceding the film’s
final scene, we find ourselves at the same swimming it shows us how yet another Hollywood dreamer has
pool looking at the same dead body (fig. 2.2). The film been corrupted by the Hollywood dream.
story is about a down-on-his-luck screenwriter and his This same basic plot structure—end, beginning,
relationship with a former silent screen star. The story middle, end—is used to a different effect in the French
has an arc, a trajectory from their first encounter to melodrama Leaving (Catherine Corsini, 2009). The
his eventual seduction to his death face down in the film opens with a middle-aged couple in bed; she is
pool. But unlike the linear story order, the plot order is
evocatively circular. The impact of the cautionary tale plot Story events presented on screen.
the film tells is held not, or not only, in its basic story plot order The sequence of events adopted in the telling of
line but also in its telling. The circular shape to the plot a story.
LiNK tO tHe FULL iNtervieW (end, beginning, middle, and end) renders the hero’s story order The chronological sequence of narrative events.
http://cengagebrain.com
fate inevitable. The rest of the film is an explanation;
2-1 NArrATIve STrUCTUre 23
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awake, he is asleep, snoring. She gets
up and exits the room. And then we
hear a gunshot; though we don’t see
the grisly act itself, we gather she has
killed herself. A simple title follows,
setting the story some months earlier.
The title keys a flashback, a scene or
in this case a sequence of scenes that
recapitulate the past (in the world of
the film’s story).
This flashback structure is com-
mon in film storytelling, and as film- 2.3 When Tom and Summer reconnect after breaking up, we are shown two
goers we instinctively recognize its versions of events: one reflecting his expectation that they will get back
function. We assume as we watch together and the other reflecting the reality that she just wants to be friends.
Leaving that the flashback will 500 Days of Summer (Marc Webb, 2009).
explain what has driven this woman
to this act. When, some 80 minutes
later, we find ourselves in that same bedroom on that forth from there), and it certainly does not match the
same morning, we know better why she is upset; her story order (which starts with day 1 and ends with day
affair has ended and she has reluctantly returned to her 500). The point the film makes is that the breakup was
husband, the man sleeping beside her. But as we see this not a simple matter of cause and effect, or the fallout
scene for the second time, we discover that she does not from some single significant argument, but was instead
shoot herself but instead she shoots him. Despite a plot the consequence of a number of little things. When the
order that begins with the ending, we are still surprised romance just sort of fizzles out, we (along with the male
when we see the ending a second time. protagonist, Tom) are left with the task of figuring out
Flash-forward, a shot or scene or sequence of scenes why. This task involves finding clues by revisiting mem-
that projects future events in the world of the film’s ories of better days (fig. 2.3).
story, is not nearly as common as flashback. There are Story order and plot order can be—and often are—
basic, logical reasons for this. The storyteller knows the the same, since chronological order is a traditional way
past, but how can he or she know the future? And while to structure a screenplay. When story order and plot
flashbacks can suggest such commonplace activities as order differ, it is useful to think about why the filmmak-
reflection and remembrance, flash-forwards suggest ers chose to plot the events as they did and how that
paranormal prescience. Most often flash-forwards are structure relates to meaning.
less a mode of storytelling than a momentary interrup-
tion in the logical flow of the narrative, as in Easy Rider 2-1b Stories in Three Acts
(Dennis Hopper, 1969) when we get a glimpse at the
bloody climax (a shot of the apparent aftermath of a Lecturers at screenwriting seminars inevitably tout the
motorcycle accident) before it happens “live” on screen. three-act structure as a way to build a narrative arc. And
A plot that scrambles or withholds story events can most screenwriting software follows suit. The three-act
engage us in trying to piece together the story order and structure plays out as follows: In act 1 expectations are
make sense of its logic. Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Sum- raised. In act 2 expectations are confounded. And in the
mer (2009) plays provocatively with sequencing, telling final act expectations are resolved (requited, dismissed,
its story with vignettes taken from seemingly random found to be silly), ideally in a mildly surprising fashion.
days in a 500-day romance. The plot order may seem Though we may resist thinking about creative work as
arbitrary (it begins with day 488 and moves back and the product of such a simple formula, it is interesting to
see how many films fit this pattern and how well this
flashback A scene that interrupts the chronological flow of story pattern facilitates the telling of a story.
events by referring to an earlier time. The three-act structure is evident in the frothy con-
temporary romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wed-
flash-forward A scene that interrupts the chronological flow of
story events by skipping ahead to a later time. ding. Act 1 establishes the relationships among the
principal characters and elaborates their expectations
24 NArrATIve AND GeNre
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