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Project #3: Length: aprx. 4-5 pages |
Instructions
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For this wholly verbal project, you have your choice of two options:
Option #1: Culturalist AnalysisSelect any film we've viewed this semester (or any film that you've seen on your own) and write an essay in which you analyze it in terms of discourse and ideology.
- What discourses are prevalent in the film?
- What ideological position does the film take in regard to those discourses? Does it promote them? Subvert them? (Another way of saying this is: what "cultural work" is the film doing? What is its political agenda?)
- How might your readings in PL contribue to your understanding of the film's cultural work?
Develop and support a clear main point about what ideologies the film appears to support or not support. Integrate into your discussion some meaningful connections to your readings in PL.
Your purpose is to illuminate the film for an audience of college readers and instructors. This is an educated, critical, and inquiring audience interested in how movies are inevitably "freighted" with ideology and political agendas. This audience also wants to understand movies better in general.
Option #2: Formalist Analysis
- What are the film's most important formal elements and how do they contribute to its themes? Elements include: plot, setting (mise en scene), character development, image and symbol, cinematography, etc.
- What are the work's formal tensions and how are they resolved or not resolved?
- How might your readings in PL or other sources contribue to your understanding of the film's formal art?
Select any film we've viewed this semester (or any film that you've seen on your own) and write an essay in which you analyze the work in terms of its formal elements, themes, and tensions.
Develop and support a clear main point about how one or more elements of the work contribute to its primary theme. Or develop and support a clear main point about the formal tensions in the text and how they are (or aren't) resolved. Integrate into your discussion some meaningful connections to your readings in PL or other sources.
Your purpose is to illuminate the film for an audience of college readers and instructors. This is an educated, critical, and inquiring audience interested in the "vocabulary" of film, its formal art and craft. This audience also wants to understand movies better in general.
Project Aims
The aim of this project is to make you a more informed viewer of film—one of the dominant visual media of our time. The aim is also to give you upper-level undergraduate practice with critical analysis and essay writing. This kind of writing includes effective communication in a variety of contexts and modes, and the ability to integrate ideas in a coherent and meaningful manner.
Evaluation Criteria
Your finished work should provide me with evidence that you've achieved the aims described above.
Your finished work should show (explicitly or implicitly) attention to class readings.
Your essay must heed the instructions for your chosen option.
Your essay's thesis must be clear early on and throughout the piece. The thesis must also be convincing; i.e., well-supported with clear claims, which in turn are supported by plenty of specific details, examples, reasons, sources. Paragraphs should be focused, with logical and helpful transitions. The essay must have a clear beginning, middle, and end as well as overall coherence. All writing must be edited for readability: elegance, concision, and clarity. All writing must be proofread for mechanical errors of all kinds: grammar, punctuation, documentation.