2. Consider the voice-over in this sequence: “What’s the war in the heart of nature…. Is there an avenging power in
nature?” What stands out as significant in the tone, accent, and volume of this voice? How does it relate to the
disparate montage of images?
NEW VIEWING CUE: Guardians of the Galaxy
Guardians of the Galaxy (2014, James Gunn) is an entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, a series of films based
on Marvel comic books. It stars Chris Pratt as the leader of a group of reluctant heroes in an irreverent space opera.
1. How does the musical choice shape audience expectations regarding setting, tone character, and genre?
Students, especially those familiar with other space operas and/or comic book movies, may point out that it’s
2. How do images and music interact in diegetic and nondiegetic ways in this sequence?
The music the audience hears is diegetic in that it is being heard by the character onscreen, but nondiegetic in
FILM IN FOCUS: Singin’ in the Rain
At the ending of Stanley Donen and Gene Kelley’s Singin’ in the Rain (1942) the proper match of sound and image
confirms the proper match between the characters played by Gene Kelley and Debbie Reynolds.
1. A source of the film’s humor, and of its version of Hollywood history, is that Lina’s speaking and singing voices
are not in harmony. Discuss how the sequence uses voice, music, and sound effects sometimes to reinforce, and
sometimes to contrast with each other.
Lina Lamont has been made out as a grasping villain, so we are all primed for her comeuppance. How do
2. How does the scene mark its sound as diegetic? How does this emphasis on the fact that this sound is “real” fit
into the film’s themes?
FILM IN FOCUS: The Conversation
Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation (1974) is about a surveillance expert who comes to doubt about the ethics
of his profession. The filmmakers act as surveillance experts in the film’s famous 3-minute opening shot, as our
attention comes to focus on the behavior of a man in a rumpled raincoat (Gene Hackman).
1. How are sound perspective and image perspective used to create tension in this shot?
Students might find the presence of the mime to be a little too much here, but they will have a lot to say about
2. Count all the sounds you hear. How does the shot call attention to technology?
Discrepancies among the students’ counts should lead to lively debate. What’s the effect of the offscreen brass
FORM IN ACTION: Saturday Night Fever
The first example of soundtrack music driving film promotion, Saturday Night Fever (1977, John Badham) and its
songs by the Bee Gees launched the global disco phenomenon. Working class Brooklyn kid Tony Manero (John
Travolta) transcends the monotony of his life every weekend at the discotheque.
1. How is the song used here for character development?
2. How would the scene unfold if the sound were mixed so that background noise was more audible?
Students may be able to tease out markers of class and ethnicity in the crowd sounds that are audible. Suggest
CHAPTER 7 NARRATIVE FILMS: TELLING STORIES
VIEWING CUE: The Royal Tenenbaums
The Royal Tenebaums tells the tale of an oddly dysfunctional family, parented by an estranged mother and father
and three prodigy children.
1. For this opening sequence, how would you describe the different layers of its narration, including the tone of the
narrative voice over and the insertion of a visual text as “Prologue? ”
2. How does the narration interact with the characters and events—the house, the divorce of the father and mother,
the children—that are introduced? What expectations does it establish for the kind of story that will follow? Does it
imply a tragedy or comedy? Or something else?
Again. Students may have a difficult time separating the sarcasm characteristic of Baldwin’s character Jack
Donaghey from the work he is doing here as a “Voice of God.” How much does he sound like Hackman here?
1. In this disturbing sequence from Shutter Island, there are three different “time zones.” Describe them. How and
why might the ordering of these events intentionally confuse the temporal relation between them?
2. Can this sequence be described as a narrative dream sequence? If so what are the visual clues of that? Or, on the
other hand, are there indications that its is a flashback or flashfoward? Might the answer be somewhere in between?
94
FILM IN FOCUS: Apocalypse Now
Apocalypse Now reframes its perspective on the Vietnam War as an adaptation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness, largely restricted to the point of view of US soldier Captain Willard.
1. Analyze these opening images from Apocalypse Now: a jungle wall exploding into flames, helicopters moving
across the image, an inverted close up of Captain Willard who determines the narrative perspective. How does this
sequence establish an important narrative perspective?
2. How does sound—the overlapping the sound of helicopters and the room fan, the song “The End” by the Doors—
contribute to this narrative perspective?
Ask students to count how many times a helicopter crosses the frame. What do they make of how the sound of
its rotors the first two times gets subsumed by the Doors on its third crossing? Could they consider the
helicopter a percussive instrument like drums or tambourines?
NEW VIEWING CUE: Midnight Cowboy
Midnight Cowboy is a 1969 drama about the friendship between a young street hustler (Jon Voight) and a low-level
criminal (Dustin Hoffman). This scene from Midnight Cowboy comes from the opening of the film, where Voight’s
character sets out for New York City.
1. This is the opening of the film that introduces the lead character. How does the editing challenge classical
constructions of place, time, and character?
It may take students a little while to realize that the interactions between the main character, Joe Buck
(Voight), and the other characters in this pre-credits scene (hollering “Where is that Joe Buck?” among other
2. How does the clip invoke westerns, a more narratively traditional genre at the time of its release?
Joe’s dress and the song he sings to himself comprise a kind of cowboy get-upcowboy hat, fringe jacket,
country-western tune (“get along, little doggies”)that serves to contrast with Joe’s shabbier surroundings
(and former surroundings).
NEW FILM IN FOCUS: Gone Girl
Gone Girl (2014) is David Fincher’s adaptation of the bestselling novel by Gillian Flynn, who also wrote the
screenplay for the film. This clip is from the very beginning of the film, narrated by Ben Affleck’s character, the
husband of a woman who mysteriously disappears.
1. What is the function of first-person narration in this clip? How do voice and image interact?
2. In what ways does the narrator’s gender determine the story he is telling and the way it is told? How does the
narrator’s gender interact with the central image from this clip?
95
FILM IN FOCUS: Mildred Pierce and Daughters of the Dust
Mildred Pierce (Michael Curtiz, 1945) opens with a framing narrative—a man is shot in a deserted beach house and
the protagonist (Joan Crawford) behaves suspiciously. Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust (1991) tells the story of a
family about to migrate from their Sea Island home to the mainland, but this story is part of a much greater narrative
of African diasporic cultural survival.
1. Film noir often separates plot order from story order. How do the opening minutes of Mildred Pierce engage us
by withholding key information?
The one constant in these opening images is the sound of the sea crashing on the shore, but even it changes
meaning in this sequence Ask students how it moves from elemental backdrop, indifferent to the doings of
even murderous humans, to the foreground once Mildred starts walking across the bridge and looking into
the ocean’s churn below, seems to consider suicide.
The title and the fact that the star of the film is Joan Crawford lead the audience to expect a straightforward
story about a woman, yet the film opens with a murder. How will a crime investigation be connected to the
story of a woman’s life and struggles? The whispered name “Mildred” engages the audience by asking us to
2. How does the film’s opening layer mythic and individual narratives? How does the nonlinear form work
differently than the nonlinear form of film noir?
Students expecting a straightforward narrative about an individual protagonist may find the explanatory title
and use of narration suggestive of documentary. Ask them how the opening upends expectations about story
and documentary? How does the way the voiceover speaks about time connect to the pattern of images?
FORM IN ACTION: Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (John Hughes, 1986) opens with the main character sick in bed.
1. How is the viewer positioned by Ferris’s direct address to the camera? How might the device work differently in a
film of a different genre?
2. How does the use of onscreen text establish Ferris’s character?
Where else do films use onscreen text? Is Ferris mocking the conventions of educational films, perhaps? Or
does the text further underscore his position as a character we root for, even though he reveals himself as
duplicitous from the very beginning?
CHAPTER 8 DOCUMENTARY FILMS: REPRESENTING THE REAL
VIEWING CUE: The Cove
The Cove is a contemporary documentary about a group of activists who overtly and covertly investigate a secret
cove in Taijii, Japan where they discover gruesome methods used to capture and kill dolphins.
1. Would you describe the structural organization of this sequence from The Cove as cumulative, contrastive, or
developmental? Or perhaps as a combination of more than one of those structures?
2. To what extent does the sequence emphasize showing or telling? And in the movement between the two, what
seem to be its rhetorical aim? To explore, to interrogate or, to persuade? Do you find it successful? Why or why not?
Students may find it difficult to tease out the persuasive rhetorical elements because the film knowingly
traffics in the sorts of nature documentary tropes with which they are very familiar. Does this approach
ultimately make the sequence more persuasive?
NEW VIEWING CUE: He Named Me Malala
He Named Me Malala is a 2015 documentary about a young Pakistani woman and her inspiring life as an activist.
1. Describe the presiding voice or attitude with as much detail as possible. How does the dominant rhetorical
argument position the subject it addresses? Can you imagine another way of filming this subject? Explain.
2. How does this clip construct Malala as the main subject of the documentary? What aspects of the Malala’s life are
emphasized here and why?
This clip focuses on her family life, and based on this scene students may infer that the documentary wants to
emphasize, at least in part, how “normal” she isthat she is a teenage girl who fights with her brother, rather
than a remote, unknowable hero. The interview with her brother even touches upon that directly, as he half-
jokingly points out that she’s “violent” at home (in their sibling feuds) despite her reputation. The clip ends
with her claiming her rights as a girl, setting the stage for her story.
NEW VIEWING CUE: What Happened, Miss Simone?
What Happened, Miss Simone? is a 2015 documentary about the famed singer Nina Simone that weaves together
interviews, performance footage, and historical context.
1. In this sequence from the film, scenes of violent struggle from the Civil Rights movement are intercut with
footage of a Nina Simone performance. How do the two types of footage, and the juxtaposition of Simone’s song,
tell a greater story than video or audio or just one or the other would? Are the ideas from this sequence spoken in the
clip, implied, or both?
2. How does the interview footage with Simone affect this clip? Does it make the sequence more or less powerful
for you, and why?
1. This sequence depicts the common tasks needed to harvest seaweed. What about it could be described as
nonfiction and/or non-narrative? Or there moments in the sequence which seem more fictional or narrative?
2. How does the cinematography in this sequence create a specific relationship between nature and the men and
women on the islands? How would you describe that relationship?
You may want to ask students to answer these questions by focusing on the horse. It is an animal, and thus
part of the natural world. But it is also domesticated, and thus shares in the labor with the men and women.
FORM IN ACTION: Exit Through the Gift Shop
One of the more inventive contemporary documentaries, Exit through the Gift Shop begins as a film about street
artists, such as Banksy, but strangely drifts into a film about the filmmaker himself, Thierry Guetta.
1. How would you describe the style of this film? Does it align with any other documentary traditions or styles?
2. Would you describe this as a personal documentary or a mockumentary? Why?
In a talking head interview, Thierry admits that because he could not stop, he kept on going. The film walks a
tightrope between personal documentary and mockumentary by presenting footage and testimony as though
they are important while leaving room to doubt. Students may decide how to characterize this film based on
how much they like its subject/narrator, Thierry. Should that matter?
FILM IN FOCUS: Stories We Tell
At this point in Stories We Tell, Sarah Polley has connected Harry Gulkin, the man she thinks might be her
biological father. The clip begins with Harry’s voice reading a letter, and ends with Sarah’s father Michael Polley
reading his own version of the story.
1. Notice the different kinds of footage and the different uses of the voice in the documentary. Does your attention
shift among them? Does your attitude toward the material shift as well?
2. How does the filmmaker’s presence in the film color our perception of the two men’s words?
What do they think about seeing Sarah ask Michael to do another take? Ask students to talk about Polley as
crafter, as well as subject of the narrative. Remind students who is orchestrating these sounds and images of
family.
CHAPTER 9 EXPERIMENTAL FILM AND NEW MEDIA: CHALLENGING FORM
VIEWING CUE: Gently Down the Stream
Su Friedrich’s films are both formally rigorous and intimate. In the fourteen-minute, 16mm film Gently Down the
Stream (1981) she uses fragmentary words and images to render dreams recorded in her journals.
1. Describe each kind of image and sound used in the film and consider how they work together or in counterpoint.
Are there any elements that bring to mind influences outside of film?
2. How do the themes of the film relate to the images and sounds?
98
Encourage students to talk about the idea of mothers. We see Mary, Mother Teresa, and read the words “my
mother.” Why do they think Friedrich is conflating these ideas?
1. What patterns do you see in the editing or composition of the film?
2. How do recognizable images—especially human ones—interact with mechanical and abstract ones?
Ask about how the rhythms and the repetitions of the clip encourage them to create patterns and connections.
What are their theories about the relationship between the man blossoming out of the flower blossom and the
more geometric shapes they see?
1. How do techniques of editing and camera movement convey the subjective experience of the woman?
2. How does the sequence engage narrative expectations? Do those expectations then change?
1. Follow a graphic pattern throughout the clip. How is dynamism created through juxtaposition of lines and shapes?
2. How is color used as part of the film’s transformative power?
Ask students whether an argument can be made for one color being more important that the rest, and why?
Red may have the longest uninterrupted run, but there is also a lot of blue. And how do they account for the
green and yellow? Is it simply primary versus secondary colors?
CHAPTER 10 MOVIE GENRES: CONVENTIONS, FORMULAS, AND AUDIENCE EXPECTATIONS
VIEWING CUE: The Searchers
In John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), Ethan Edwards (John Wayne) searches for years for his niece, who was
kidnapped as a child by Comanche. In this scene, he and his nephew Martin Pawley (Jeffrey Hunter) finally find
Debbie (Natalie Wood), but she sends them away, fearful of the response of Chief Scar (Henry Brandon).
1. What iconographic elements identify this film by genre? How does this sequence use these generic elements in its
own way?
2. How are central themes of the western enacted in the struggle between Ethan and Martin? Between Ethan and
Scar?
1. How does this scene reflect values of a classical western? How might it also reflect values of a revisionist
western?
2. What might be an audience’s expectations of this scene, based on its genre? Are those expectations met, or
changed in some way by the scene?
An audience familiar with the genre might expect a greater sense of right and wrong or good and evil in the
scene. Instead, the bounty hunter comes across as a bit full of himself, toting around a biographer to
mythologize him, while the sheriff, as mentioned above, seems a little cruel in his interactions with the
visitors.
NEW VIEWING CUE: La La Land
La La Land is a 2016 musical chronicling the relationship between a struggling musician and a struggling actor as
they both try to make it in contemporary Los Angeles.
1. How does this opening sequence move from the ordinary into the world of the musical?
2. In what ways is this a modern take on musical conventions?
1. In this early sequence from the film, private-eye Jake Gittis interviews a potential client. Examine the scene
carefully and identify the signs, conventions and formulas that are part of a specific subgenre of the crime film.
Challenge students to approach this clip as they might one of those “what are the differences between these
two pictures” challenges. There are shadows and light, but the whole thing is in color. “Mrs. Mulwray” might
be a little too much, with her featured hat, gloves, and cigarette holder. Is she the damsel in distress or the
femme fatale?
2. How does Jack Nicholson’s performance align Gittes with other protagonists in this genre? How does it
distinguish him from other protagonists in this genre?
Students should have a lot of fun with this early iteration of Jack Nicholson’s star persona. He’s the hero, but
he’s not conventionally handsome and a bit of a smart-ass. And does Jake’s cream-colored suit taint his role
as the hero because it and thus he is not quite white?
1. In this clip, how does Mona’s movement and attitude suggest that she is both part of and a variation on the road
movie protagonists?
2. Unlike more traditional road movies, here the main character is a woman and a hitchhiker. How do these two
facts seem to confront and subvert some of the common expectations and themes of the road movie genre? In this
regard, how and why is her encounter with a truck driver and his truck both thematically and visually important?
Students will probably mention the dangers inherent in a woman hitchhiking and accepting a ride with a
male truck driver. Nothing bad happens, and Mona gets out of the cab safely, but the menace inherent in the
situation will remind students of how a female protagonist in a road movie follows a different trajectory than
a male would.
FORM IN ACTION: True Grit
In these climactic clips from the two versions of True Grit, Rooster Cogburn races to find help for the severely
injured Mattie.
1. What in the first clip identifies this as a classic western?
2. Compare the lighting, cinematography, and sound in the two versions. In which ways does the Coens’ version
transform the original? How and to what effect does it displace the original western formulas?
The Coens operate from a place of self-awareness the students will no doubt recognize. There is a grandeur
but also a knowingness in the way the landscape and the score are deployed that students will likely notice.
Ask them especially about the difference between the two scores.
CHAPTER 11 READING ABOUT FILM: CRITICAL THEORIES AND METHODS
VIEWING CUE: The Wizard of Oz
In the beloved film The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1989), Dorothy (Judy Garland) and companions have
reached the end of their journey, only to be asked to perform an additional task.
1. How are the origins of the film’s story and characters in fairy tales illustrated in this sequence?
2. How does the film use cinematically specific and even self-referential elements in this scene that distinguish it
from other forms of narrative?
1. How is the autobiographical voice established in this brief scene? Does the anecdote relate to the experience of
exile?
2. How does the departure from “realism” work in this clip? Do other formal elements become visible because of
this departure?
This clip is delightful for how it exploits the exaggeration and grotesqueness that animation and adolescence
share. Ask students what their own puberty clips might emphasize.
CHAPTER 12 WRITING A FILM ESSAY: OBSERVATIONS, ARGUMENTS, RESEARCH, AND ANALYSIS
VIEWING CUE: Birdman
Birdman, which won the Oscar for Best Picture of 2014, is a comedy-drama about Riggan Thomson (Michael
Keaton) an actor who used to play a superhero (just as Keaton played Batman earlier in this career), attempting to
jumpstart a serious theatrical career. In this clip, the actor sees visions of his superhero alter ego, Birdman, who
gives him a lecture about what audiences want to see in movies.
1. What subjective claims might a writer make about this section of the film? What objective claims might a writer
make?
2. How much background knowledge would readers of an analysis of this scene need? Should a writer assume the
reader has seen the whole film? What factors affect your answer?
102
VIEWING CUE: Moonrise Kingdom
Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom (2012) tells, at first glance, a simple tale of young love in a small New England
town, yet its uniquely off beat characters and unconventional style create a charmingly unpredictable world.
1. Try to simply describe the different characters and actions in this sequence. Which are your subjective
impressions and which are objective facts? How is that description already an act of interpretation?
2. How does the visual style—the circular pan, the point-of-view shot through the binoculars, etc.,—add to the
complexity and meaning of a sequence with the little action and little dialogue? How would you explain this
sequence to a friend who hadn’t seen it?
How would the circle provide a good model for answering these questions? There are the panning shots and
the binocular views, but what about the circle of the record that is playing?
FILM IN FOCUS: Rashomon
Through four different perspectives, Akira Kurosawa’s complex film explores the difficulty of discovering the truth
about a heinous rape and murder.
1. This sequence represents a portion of the wife’s testimony in the film. Beyond what she says, what details in the
sequence make her claims convincing or unconvincing? What does the sequence reveal about her character?
2. There are four different shots in the sequence. Describe and analyze how they compositionally develop and work
together.
Encourage students to consider the roles of the two onlookers in the first shot. They may not want to identify
with the wife’s assailant at the end, but is there an appeal inn joining the onlookers?
FILM IN FOCUS: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
The well-known film from the German Expressionist period describes the diabolic plotting of Dr. Caligari, the
strange figure who enters and dominates the second half of this sequence.
1. Examine this sequence in detail. How does the framing, sets, blocking, and movement of characters support the
contention that the film is about unrest and foreboding violence?
2. What kind of research might illuminate certain details or actions in this sequence? Which details seem foreign?
Here the students might focus on costume or even the idea that the presence of children and ordinary citizens
first mitigates and then underscores the menace of the arrival of Dr. Caligari.
FILM IN FOCUS: Minority Report
Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report is a futuristic look at how new technologies might anticipate and prevent
crimes—and how their flaws might allow terrible injustices.
1. In this sequence, John Anderton (Tom Cruise) orchestrates the elaborate technological pursuit of a crime about to
happen. How does the editing make the activity and Anderton appear fascinating and powerful?
2. Imagine writing a short critical essay on this sequence alone. What would your thesis be?