CHAPTER 11 FILM CRITICISM: SAMPLE ANALYSES
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CHAPTER 11
FILM CRITICISM: SAMPLE ANALYSES
Chapter Outline
The Classical Narrative Cinema
His Girl Friday
North by Northwest
Do The Right Thing
Moonrise Kingdom
Narrative Alternatives to Classical Filmmaking
Breathless (À Bout de souffle)
Tokyo Story (Tokyo Monogatari)
Chungking Express (Chung Hing sam lam)
Documentary Form and Style
Man with a Movie Camera (Chelovek s kinoapparatom)
The Thin Blue Line
Form, Style, and Ideology
Meet Me in St. Louis
Raging Bull
Teaching “Film Criticism: Sample Analyses”
Hospitality (Chapter 4). Now, at the end of the chapter that examines the individual
elements of film as an art form, we present a series of longer extended examples. Here
not just a single technique but all techniques are analyzed across whole films.
Lecturing On and Discussing Sample Analyses
You can use this chapter on analysis in a variety of ways. For example, you might teach
the book’s chapters in order, reserving some time toward the end of your class to show
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one or more of the films analyzed in Chapter 11, having the students read the relevant
analyses. This would be a way of reviewing the material from the previous chapters,
giving the students more practice in watching for camera movement, editing, and other
techniques, as well as practicing how to recognize how these techniques function
across a film.
If you want to challenge your students a bit more, you could have them read a sample
analysis, watch the film on their own, show another film by the same director, and have
them discuss it or write papers on it. Thus for example, they might read the analysis of
Tokyo Story and then watch Yasujiro Ozu’s Late Spring or An Autumn Afternoon,
picking out the director’s distinctive approach to narrative and film style for themselves.
Similarly, a screening of Martin Scorsese’s GoodFellas could lead to a discussion of the
extent to which Film Art’s analysis of the ideology of Raging Bull applies to GoodFellas
as well.
If you do assign a paper, it is a good idea to limit the students’ choice of a film by giving
them a short list of possible titles. For one thing, this guarantees that you will have seen
all the films they analyze and will not end up having to watch a batch of new films in
order to do your grading. For another, it reduces the prospect of bought papers or
plagiarism from published sources. In addition, assigning a limited set of films prevents
students from choosing the latest teenage-oriented hit. Assuming that the paper
assignment comes late in the course, the students should be capable of dealing with
classics and foreign films alike.
CHAPTER 11 FILM CRITICISM: SAMPLE ANALYSES
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Copyright © 2017 McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved.
No reproduction or distribution without the prior written consent of McGraw-Hill Education.
As we mentioned in our general comments at the beginning, it is a good idea to keep
photocopies or scans of the best papers on file. If students want to improve their
grades, reading excellent work by their peers often gives them concrete help.