English 416/516: Film Criticism, Fall 2001
MW 12:00-1:45, AH 306

Journal Prompt 1 (due Sept. 5)

You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

1. Obviously, when we watch movies, we are looking at images recorded on photographic film or transcribed electronically on tape or discs. But what do you think is the relationship of the film image to the "reality" that it is supposed to represent? Is film (and other art, for that matter) best when it seeks to imitate or represent that reality? It is best when it reminds us that we are watching and listening to something that has been crafted and put together, that reminds us of the materials and machinery that film is created from? Why do you think that?

2. All of the different components of film (cinematography, editing, lighting, sound effects, etc.) are part of film’s "language." Do you think that any one component is more important than the other? Is there any specific technique that defines the unique qualities of cinema, as opposed to theater, novels, or even TV and video? Is there any aspect of filmmaking that threatens to detract from that "essence" of film? Why do you think that?

1. The scenes that we saw on TV of the Pentagon burning and of the World Trade Center being hit by the airplane and then collapsing—as well as the aftermath of these disasters—bring home the issue of what it means to say that film (and now video) reproduces "reality." Do you see a particular connection between the things we have seen on TV and the way these issues have been addressed by Pudovkin, Eisenstein, Belazs, Munsterberg, and/or Arnheim?

You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

Note: If you do not have already have three journal entries before writing this one, please use these prompts (or previous ones) to spark 2 entries (just to bring us all up to speed).

1. Maya Deren differs from theorists like Eisenstein and Arnheim by advancing an ideal of film that is not directly tied to narrative, a form that is still favored by the other two. What’s your take on this issue? Is film "ideally" suited to telling stories, to expressing psychological states, or to something else?

2. If you’ve had a chance to see The Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari, do you agree with Kracauer’s analysis of it? Why or why not?

3. Kracauer claims that it is the nature of film to reproduce reality, and that film works best when it conforms to that nature. Do you agree with that view?

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You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

1. Andre Bazin claims that film is part of a continual evolution in art to come to higher and higher degrees of realism. Do you agree with his suggestion? Do you believe that art forms evolve toward some ideal final point, or is Bazin mistaken about this? Why?

2. The auteur theory is out of academic fashion now, but it has had a profound impact on the way that many people think and talk about movies, including many filmmakers. Thomas Schatz suggests that this is not necessarily a good thing. What do you find to be valuable or misleading about auteurism?

You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

1. Thomas Schatz suggests that the "classic" studio system that lasted into the 1950s was not the artistically repressive kind of institution that some auteur critics portray it as. Instead, Schatz tends to see the "genius of the system" as its ability to produce films of high quality within an industrial setting and through the interactions and collaborations of different individuals. What do you think is the role of individual artistic expression in film, no matter who—if any individual—is responsible?

You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

1. Later film criticism (as well as literary criticism) is often criticized itself for its use of abstruse and esoteric terminology. In any of the readings we have discussed in the last two weeks, do you find anything useful in the concepts covered by semiotic jargon? What terms or concepts, if any, do you find most intriguing or useful in thinking about movies in general or specific films?

2. As I’ve mentioned, Mulvey’s short article is probably the single most influential critical article written in the last quarter-century. Why do you think it was so influential? (Notice that I’m asking you to engage with the issues Mulvey raises and not just to dismiss it as "faddish" or appealing because of its very difficulty!) Another way of putting this is to ask what the value might be of a psychoanalytic approach that turns its attention to how spectator and film interact.

3. Tom Gunning and Seymour Chatman both discuss the function of the cinematic "narrator" as a concept that does not require an actual person speaking in a voice-over. What is the usefulness of this concept in understanding how we understand movies? How do you think someone like Mulvey would criticize such definitions of "narration"?

 return to top

You are free to write your Reaction Journal entry each week on any aspect of class reading, viewing and/or discussion, as long as you meet the 200-word limit. However, to give you a start each week, I’ll give you a question or two to think about. You are not required to respond to these specific questions and topics, but you may choose one if you wish. Here are this week’s prompts:

1. How useful for you as a viewer and/or critic are concepts of film narrative that we’ve discussed when you are viewing films? Do distinctions like those between "story" and "plot" or questions about whether a film "narrator" or "implied author" actually exists have any application for you?

2. Kristin Thompson suggests that we can watch films in terms of their "excessive" qualities and that some filmmakers (such as Eisenstein in Ivan the Terrible) actually create their films to highlight or foreground these "excessive" elements. Is there a film or filmmaker that comes to your mind that seems to be another example of that systematic use of excess? How do those excessive elements work in those films?