Avant Garde/Experimental Film

Choose 3 of the films we watched in class and answer the following questions. Answer all questions for each film to create at least 3 hearty paragraphs.

Le Retour a la Raison
Entr'acte
Le Ballet Mecanique
Un Chien Andalou
Meshes of the Afternoon

What do you notice about the film's presentation of cinematic space? What do you see onscreen? For example, lots of landscapes or closeups? Moving or static camera?

How does the director's use of lighting help to create meaning?

Do you identify with the camera's lens? What does the director compel you to see? What is left to your imagination? What does the director leave out altogether? Describe the mise-en-scene and how it helps to create meaning in the film.

What implicit meaning do you find in the film?

Due: Monday, 9/24

Independent Study 2013

This summer you are required to come up with your overarching theme and your 4 films that you'll use in your independent study next year. I have a great starting off point to help you narrow down your theme and films. Strictly Film School is a great resource for this. They classify films by genre, theme, and imagery.

Be ready when you come back to school to share this with the class in the first week on the blog.

Spirited Away and Persepolis

Think cinematically about both films and their female characters. Using cinematic evidence, write two paragraphs about how females are portrayed in each film. You will look at the films through a feminist lens. Additionally, write one paragraph on how the main female character's strength is portrayed cinematically.

For anyone interested, there is a good film guide to Persepolis here.

Due: Friday, June 8.

White Heat

In at least 3 hearty paragraphs, discuss White Heat, as well as the characteristics of the gangster genre and its role as an art form. In your discussion, bring in another gangster film you've seen on your own (The Godfather, Goodfellas, etc.). Your discussion should be in relation to the Warshow article I handed out on Wednesday and the idea of the gangster as an individual. I want to see at least 2 quotes from the article in your discussion. Don't forget, your film textbook has a great section on gangster genre.


Due: Monday May 21.

Bonnie and Clyde

Think about the following two excerpts from the Kael article. Choose one and explain if you agree or disagree with the quote and why. Choose a scene from the film to back up your statements and discuss the quote and the scene cinematically. Be sure to use the cinematic vocabulary you have learned thus far. Also, choose one scene and in one paragraph discuss any influence you see from any scene in The 400 Blows.


Quote #1:
"[It's]because the young French directors discovered the poetry of crime in American life (from our movies) and showed the Americans how to put it on the screen in a new, "existential" way. Melodramas and gangster movies and comedies were always more our speed than 'prestigious,' 'distinguished' pictures; the French directors who grew up on American pictures found poetry in our fast action, laconic speech, plain gestures. And because they understood that you don't express your love of life by denying the comedy or the horror of it, they brought out the poetry in our tawdry subjects. Now Arthur Penn, working with a script heavily influenced--one might almost say inspired--by Truffaut's Shoot the Piano Player, unfortunately imitates Truffaut's artistry instead of going back to its tough American sources. The French may tenderize their American material, but we shouldn't. That turns into another way of making 'prestigious,' 'distinguished' pictures."

Quote #2
"Suddenly, in the last few years, our view of the world has gone beyond 'good taste.' Tasteful suggestions of violence would at this point be a more grotesque form of comedy than Bonnie and Clyde attempts. Bonnie and Clyde needs violence; violence is its meaning. When, during a comically botched-up getaway, a man is shot in the face, the image is obviously based on one of the most famous sequences in Eisenstein's Potemkin, and the startled face is used the same way it was in Potemkin--to convey in an instant how someone who just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, the irrelevant 'innocent' bystander, can get it full in the face. And at that instant the meaning of Clyde Barrow's character changes; he's still a clown, but we've become the butt of the joke.

The 400 Blows

I hope you all have read the Marilyn Fabe essay I gave you. If you haven't yet, go away from your computer right now and take 15 minutes to read the essay.

OK. Now, take a look at this quote from Truffaut in a 1966 interview:

"Before I met Rossellini, I wanted to make films of course, but it seemed impossible. A dream. He made it all seem easy. He has a powerful gift for simplification. He told me, it isn't hard to write a screenplay, you only have to look at the reality around you...The 400 Blows owes a great deal to Rossellini...[H]e showed me that things must be close to life."

Think about this quote and respond to it, using at least one scene from The 400 Blows. Feel free to include evidence from Rome Open City to back up any statements you make regarding Rossellini's filmmaking style. Write at least 3 meaty paragraphs (be sure to write cinematically) and use at least one quote from the Marilyn Fabe essay. Also, tell me your favorite scene and why (cinematically).

Due Wednesday, May 2.

The Awful Truth

Think about the film's mise-en-scene. Choose a scene in the film and discuss the mise-en-scene (costumes, set, properties, etc.) and its relation to the scene and the film as a whole. Use at least 2 hearty paragraphs for your discussion.

Also, please post your favorite line from the film.