Presentation for Film Critique

Presentation for Film Critique

Seminar

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　Satoshi Tsukamoto
The purpose of your presentation is to portray or perform an argument about the film’s construction of social power. The following questions provide access to some of the dimensions of power: What society does the film/documentary envision? What inequalities exist? Which is justified? Which is critiqued? How is the norm (what is the norm) constructed? How does the film/documentary map power, particularly along lines of gender, race, and class? How do these makers intersect? You task is to unpack the construction for which you are arguing through your addressing the following issues:

1. 
   Narrative and narrative structure (who speaks, who acts, whose story it is, which characters’ talk and actions are privileged and rewarded)
   
2. 
   Relationships of the characters to each other
   
3. 
   The film’s mode of address (who are imagined audience?)
   
4. 
   The reception of the film (how has the film been received?)
   
5. 
   The technology of the film (camera angle, focus, editing, etc.)
   
6. 
   Your reading position
   

Tasks:

1. 
   Examine at least two reviews of your film, including those that appear in The New Yorker (available in the library), The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com) , The Nation (available in the library), Film Scouts (http://www.filmscouts.com), The Internet Film Database (http://us.imdb.com, especially “literary listings section”), The Entertainment Weekly (http://www.ew.com ), Syracuse New Times Film Review (http://newtimes.rway.com/films/),
   

University of Maryland Women’s Studies Film Review Database (http://www.inform.umd.edu/EdRes/Topic/WomensStudies/FilmReviews/ ), and

ProQuest Academic Research Library (http://plato.aichi-u.ac.jp/index.html)

2. 
   Understand the perspective of the reviewers and take a stance in relation to it.
   
3. 
   Present your analysis of the film/documentary by answering the afore-mentioned questions　for about 20 minutes in English as an individual or a group, taking the reviewers’ opinions into consideration.
   
4. 
   Send a bibliography of the reviews to the instructor by email. (MLA style:
   

(http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos/idx_basic.html)

Advice:

• 
  Watch the film/documentary more than once
  
• 
  Use Questions for Film Screenings to help deepen your analysis
  
• 
  Make your presentation interesting by showing a section of the film for illustration, being specific, and infusing energy.
  
• 
  Make a hand-out that explains your main points about your film.
  

Questions for Film Screenings

How does the film construct a good or bad person?

How is gender constructed? With and against what?

How do different markers (e.g. gender, race, class) intersect?

What pleasure do you find in the film?

When are you drawn into the actions on the screen?

When are you distanced from the actions on the screen?

How are you as the audience positioned by the camera?

How does the technology of the film shape your reading of it?

How does the telling of the story encourage you to identify with some of the characters and their points of view, desire, experiences, relations with other characters, and objects of scrutiny – but not with others?

What knowledges are seen as valid and which invalid?

What is the narrative structure of the film?

What journeys do significant characters make in the film?

What contexts (political, historical, social, etc.) influence the story?

Which characters are complexly rendered?

Which characters are more cardboard figures?

Which characters occupy the cultural center?

Which characters occupy the margins?

Is there any movement from center to margin or from margin to center?

With which characters are you encouraged to identify?

What does the film/documentary ignore?

What does the film/documentary assume?

What does the opening of the film suggest?

How does the film end?