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CHAPTER 11
READING ABOUT FILM: CRITICAL THEORIES AND METHODS
MULTIPLE-CHOICE QUESTIONS
1. The “imaginary”
A. is one of three domains of psychic experience.
B. deals in images.
C. is rooted in the mirror stage.
2. In her essay, “Is the Gaze Male?,” E. Ann Kaplan notes that
A. women enjoy being looked at by men.
B. vision is associated with submission.
3. Which of the following is a hallmark of classical film theory?
A. Classicalism
B. Constructivism
4. In “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism,” Jean–Luc Comolli and Jean Narboni use category “e” to designate films that
D. reject the status quo.
5. In his essay “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema,” André Bazin
A. saw the image not only as a reference to reality but also as a record of it.
B. argued that montage interfered, by altering spatial and temporal relationships.
6. Which of the following statements about star studies is NOT correct?
A. Star studies theorists are interested in how an audience’s reception shapes a star’s cultural m eaning.
B. It is a revealing and useful critical approach because it taps into our everyday experience as fans.
7. Gilles Deleuze describes the “movement image” as
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D. best demonstrated in the films of Roberto Rossellini.
E. the dominance of digital media in our lives.
8. For Jean Baudrillard, an example of a simulacrum is
D. pastiche.
E. None of the options is correct.
9. In the 1950s, Cahiers du cinéma published the writings of which of the following?
A. Jean-Luc Godard
B. François Truffaut
10. David Bordwell, one of the most prolific and well-respected film scholars, advocates
D. the analogy of film to dreams.
E. None of the options is correct.
FILL–IN-THE-BLANK QUESTIONS
1. In the 1950s _____________, which asserts that a film bears the creative imprint of one individual (typically the
3.
_____________looked to unique properties of cinema such as camera movement and distance, shot duration and
4. A
_____________ is composed of a signifier, the spoken or written word, picture, or gesture, and a signified, the
5.
_____________ focuses on how a film is received by audiences, rather than on who made a film or on its formal
SHORT-ANSWER QUESTIONS
(3-4 SENTENCES)
1. What is star studies? In what ways can it present a particularly revealing and useful critical approach to cinema?
2. What is cinephilia, and how does it inform the politique des auteurs?
3. Explain two possible ways that reception theorists see multiple ways of interacting with a text as confirmation that
individuals actively make meaning even in response to otherwise homogenous mass media.
4. How have recent theories of exile and homeland, cultural hybridity and diaspora, and the global and the
intercultural added to the store of explanatory frames we have for looking at race and representation in cinema?
5. How has an ideological critique of film and mass culture exerted a profound influence on shaping film theory?