Questions+for+Response

//Chinatown// (Roman Polanski, 1974)
[|IMDB entry] What is the most important scene or event in the movie? What is the most important non-narrative detail (visual or sound)? How does the movie bring this detail to your attention?

//The 400 Blows// (Francois Truffaut, 1959)
[|IMDB entry] The title of the film is a direct translation of a French expression that means "to raise hell." What non-narrative details seem significant? (Pay attention to images of confinement and liberation.) As a narrative, how is this movie like or unlike Hollywood movies about growing up? What scenes represent key points in Antoine's story?

Written on the Wind (Douglas Sirk, 1956)
[|IMDB entry] Like //Chinatown//, //Written on the Wind// is a genre film, though in this case a melodrama instead of a detective film. What characteristics do we associate with [|melodrama] (Films: //Steel Magnolias, Forrest Gump, The Notebook, The Fault in Our Stars//; //TV: Dallas, Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, One Tree Hill, Gilmore Girls, Gossip Girl//)? How does this film meet or contradict those expectations?

How would you describe the overall design plan (the look and feel) of the movie? Does the design seem "real" or artificial, excessive or restrained? Why?

(The questions below were written by James Tweedie at the University of Washington.)

Are the characters and performances in the film "realistic"? What elements of the plot and acting styles distinguish these characters from their counterparts in the real world? Is the acting designed to invite identification with the characters? Or do you think it distances or alienates us from them? Why?

Melodrama is often associated with and criticized for its excess: the characters are too emotional, the plot too convoluted, etc. Think about all of the kinds of excess that manifest themselves in this film. Where in the plot and in the images we see on screen does the film become excessive, immoderate, operatic?


 * Think about the relationshaip between the inner lives of the characters and the outer expression of those lives through mise-en-scene (especially color and set design). How do these elements of the image help visualize the psychological world of these characters?**

//Road to Perdition// (Sam Mendes, 2002)
[|IMDB entry] Another genre film, this time a gangster film, though you might call it a gangster drama. Continuing from our discussions this week, we should pay attention to mise-en-scene. How would you describe the overall look and feel of the movie? How would you compare it to the artificiality of Written on the Wind, the naturalism of The 400 Blows, or the period look of Chinatown? How does mise-en-scene function in Road to Perdition, overall or in a particular scene?

We are going to use this movie to begin analyzing the effects of cinematography, so you should note any moments that stand out to you visually. Do you notice any moments in which images convey information that is not reflected the characters' actions or dialogue? Does the cinematography ever call attention to itself (through unusual camera angles, dramatic lighting or color effects, or striking composition)?

Some trivia: Road to Perdition was directed by Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Skyfall) and shot by Conrad Hall, who won the Academy Award for best cinematography three times: for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, American Beauty, and Road to Perdition. American Cinematographer magazine ranked this film number 8 in its list of the 50 best shot films of the last decade. The film is based on a graphic novel by Max Alan Collins and Richard Piers Rayner.

//His Girl Friday// (Howard Hawks, 1940)
[|IMDB entry] Genre: screwball comedy or romantic comedy. How would you compare the style of comedy in His Girl Friday with that found in contemporary romantic comedies? This movie was adapted from a play called The Front Page. In what ways does it seem theatrical, like it takes place on a stage? In what ways is it cinematic?

Classical Hollywood: How does the movie meet or vary the conventions of classical narrative (clarity, unity, active characters to identify with, closure, a visual style that doesn't call attention to itself or distract from the story)? What are the main conflicts in the film (both personal conflicts and thematic conflicts)? What does the film suggest about the changing social roles of men and women?

Editing: Do you ever notice editing? When?

//Psycho// (1960)
[|IMDB entry] Restricted vs. unrestricted narration: When do you notice shifts in perspective? When are we limited in our information to what a single character knows? When do we know more than some characters?

With whom do you identify or sympathize at the beginning of the movie? Does this change? How does Psycho encourage viewers to identify with particular characters?

Do you notice any examples of subjective narration? What are there effects?

Listen to the movie. Hitchcock said that "a third" of the movie's impact is due to the music. When do you think music (or sound in general) contributes strongly to the movie's impact?

// Psycho // is an interesting film to study for parallels, because there are a lot doublings and reflections. (As Sirk did in // Written on the Wind //, Hitchcock uses a lot of mirrors.) What doubles, repetitions, substitutions, and contrasts do you notice in the film?

//Chungking Express// (1994)
Open response.

We will be focusing on the use of sound in the film, in particular use of voiceover and music. Try to notice when music is diegetic (coming from some source in the story world; characters can hear it) or nondiegetice (score or mood music that characters can't hear).

Documentary Films
Think about how these documentaries establish their connection to the real world, their sincerity, and their value as representations of the truth. What strategies do the films use to establish their authority? What rhetorical strategies are used to convince the viewer that the world appearing in the documentary is somehow different from the world of fiction films, that it is not “unreal,” “insincere,” or “untruthful”? What role does non-diegetic material (title, intertitles, voice-over narration, etc.) play in distinguishing the film from fiction?

Do either of the documentaries seem like propaganda? At what point in the film and why? What causes a film to tip from “realistic,” “sincere,” and “truthful” to manipulative and propagandistic? If propaganda is usually produced for a wide audience in order to advance a particular agenda, can you identify the agenda of the filmmakers of the documentaries screened in class? Would it be possible to make either of the films without including some moments of propaganda?

//**The Plow that Broke the Plains (1937)**// [|Watch online at Internet Archive]; [|Encyclopedia of the Great Plains]; [|Wikpedia] Pare Lorentz, who wrote and directed The Plow that Broke the Plains, described the movie as a “melodrama of nature.” What elements that we usually associate with fiction and genre films also appear in this documentary (and in The Thin Blue Line)? Do moments of melodrama appear in these otherwise realistic accounts?

//**The Thin Blue Line (1988)**// [|IMDB entry]; [|Wikipedia] Films like The Thin Blue Line are aware of the sometimes troubled history of documentary filmmaking and avoid many of the conventions of the documentary. What elements of traditional documentary practice does this film reject? How does it anticipate and manipulate our beliefs in the reality, sincerity, and truthfulness of documentary films?