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 Last Updated:
12/01/10


Introduction to Theory and Criticism
Comparative Literature 400
Fall 2010

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Home

First Midterm Review

Second Midterm Review


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 Last Updated:
10/28/10

Home

First Midterm Review

Second Midterm Review


BACK TO TOP

 Last Updated:
10/28/10

 


First Midterm Review


Benjamin and Hansen


Both Benjamin and Hansen are interested in the relationship between cinema and modernity, and both attempt to describe and understand the precise nature of that relationship.

 

Benjamin, the “aura” of art, and mechanical reproduction


According to Benjamin, what changes when traditional art is replaced by mechanically reproducible images? What is the “aura” of art? What causes it to “wither” in the age of mechanical reproduction?

 

Does Benjamin seem enthusiastic about the decline of traditional, auratic art in this modern era? What political and cultural factors would cause him to welcome the decline of auratic art?

 

Which film or films screened this quarter seem to share Benjamin’s belief in the revolutionary potential of cinema?

 

Hansen and vernacular modernism

What does Hansen mean by “vernacular modernism”? Why does she need to modify the term “modernism” with “vernacular”? Is all modernism vernacular? Are all popular films modernist? Which films belong in this particular category, and how are they different from the films more commonly characterized as modernist?

 

Cinema can be considered an art like painting or sculpture, or a business like auto manufacturing, or a form of technology like computers or MRI machines. In what category does Hansen put film? What other cultural products is cinema related to? If cinema is primarily a phenomenon of urban areas in Hansen’s writing, what is the relationship between cinema and cities?

 

What film most closely embodies the kind of vernacular modernism discussed in the Hansen reading? Why?

 

Eisenstein and Bazin

Both Eisenstein and Bazin address the most fundamental questions about film in their writing, and those questions can be summed up in the title of a collection of Bazin’s essays: “What is cinema?” Midterm questions on Eisenstein and Bazin will ask you to outline their answers to that question and discuss those theories in relation to films we’ve seen in class this quarter.

 

Eisenstein and montage

What does Eisenstein consider the basic unit of a film, and what is the fundamental act of filmmaking? What are the various kinds of montage identified by Eisentein? If montage occurs through the collision of two shots and the production of a third meaning in the process, is it possible for a similar kind of conflict or collision to occur within a single shot? How?

 

Outside of film history and theory, what analogies does Eisenstein use for the process of montage? What theory of history underlies and supports Eisenstein’s theory of montage?

 

Which theorists does Eisenstein argue against? What is the Kuleshov effect? Although they worked in different eras, how would the Eisenstein who wrote the essays in our course reader have responded to Bazin’s writing and Italian neorealism?

 

Which films or film clips screened this quarter best exemplify his theory of montage?

 

Bazin and Realist Cinema
How does Bazin define “realism”? What does he believe to be the fundamental characteristic of the photographic image? How does Bazinian realism differ from other modes of realism (e.g., socialist realism, or the realism of classical Hollywood cinema and continuity editing, or the documentary aesthetic of The Battle of Algiers)? Which filmmaking techniques does Bazin advocate? What is his basic attitude toward montage?

 

Which theorists does he argue against? Or if he doesn’t argue with them specifically, which theorists seem like the most natural antagonists for Bazin? Why?

 

Which filmmaking styles are consistent with his philosophy of film? Which approaches to filmmaking does he criticize? Why?

 

Which films screened this quarter are most “Bazinian”? Which aspects of their narratives or formal styles would seem most “realist,” according to his definition of the term? Which specific scenes from those films would cause Bazin to leap out of his seat?

 

Does the digital revolution pose a challenge to a Bazinian definition of realism? How? What other theorists on the syllabus explicitly or implicitly challenge Bazin’s understanding of cinema?

 

Deleuze and the Time-Image

What are the main differences between the movement-image and the time-image in Deleuze’s theory? Why would filmmakers in the early years of cinema be so fascinated with movement captured on film?

 

What historical moment marks the break between these two conceptions of the image? What is an “any-space-whatever”? Why would the habits of perception and action from the first half century of cinema no longer apply? Why are so many post-WWII European art films so difficult to watch, and how does Deleuze help us understand that difficulty?

 

Which film or films seem to exemplify Deleuze’s idea of either the movement-image or the time-image?




Second Midterm Review


Spectators, Audiences, Genres

 

Think about the categories used in film studies to differentiate among different spectators and audiences (e.g., the ideal or generic spectator, audiences divided by various sociological or demographic categories, individual spectators). How do the authors from the reading in this unit and the material from lecture approach the difficult problem of audiences and their diversity? Focus especially on Mulvey, Baudry, Stewart, and Gunning.


What are the characteristics of the spectator of classical Hollywood cinema in Mulvey’s model? Who has the power of the gaze? Who is the object of the gaze? How does gender figure into this equation? What kinds of interaction does the spectator have with the object on the screen? What pleasure does the audience derive from watching films? What are the psychological foundations of that pleasure? Which films best exemplify Mulvey’s model of the cinematic gaze?

 

Why would the destruction of visual pleasure be a political act, according to Mulvey? If Mulvey is critical of the kind of filmmaking associated with Hollywood, what alternative modes of cinema would she support? What are the limitations of Mulvey’s conception of spectatorship?

 

What other ways of approaching spectatorship do the other readings introduce? How does Stewart distinguish between different categories of spectator in her essay, and what do those categories allow her to discover and understand? What does Tom Gunning mean by the “cinema of attractions”? In what era did this kind of film and spectatorship thrive? In what forms of entertainment and film genres does it survive?

 

 

Authors, Studios, Stars

 

What are the basic principles of “auteur theory” as described by Truffaut or Sarris? How should a critic or viewer approach and analyze a film according to the tenets of auteur theory? How would you perform an auteurist reading of a film or group of films? Which films or directors would be the clearest examples for this kind of analysis?

 

What challenges to auteur theory have been raised since the 1950s and 1960s, when auteur theory was in its heyday? What other models of authorship have been proposed, either by film or literary critics? How do those models undermine or at least offer an alternative to auteur theory?

 

What are the basic principles of star discourse in film studies? How does a star differ from an actor or a character? In addition to the films themselves, where is a star persona produced? What are the social and cultural functions of the movie star? Which films or stars best exemplify this star-based approach to film studies?

 

Who in your opinion is the true author of a film? Is there a true author? If not, how would suggest that audiences and critics think about this issue of authorship in film?

 

 

New Directions in Film Studies

 

Does the digital revolution pose a challenge to a Bazinian definition of realism? How?

 

What do Bolter and Grusin mean by the term “remediation”? What is the relationship between the various old and new media the late 20th and early 21st centuries? What is the role of the author in the process of “remediation”? Does their model imply a different definition of the artist and the act of creation? How is their model of hybrid media different from the idea that artistic media have an essence and a nature (e.g., Bazin’s assertion that cinema is a fundamentally realist medium or Eisenstein’s position that cinema is montage)?

 

What does Anne Friedberg mean by the “end of cinema”? What forces are bringing about its demise?

 

What challenges do newer media like television and new screen cultures like the cell phone present for approaches to cinema studies based on traditional conceptions of film (e.g., on the photographic properties of film stock, on the gathering of audiences in a theater, etc.)?

 

 



jtweedie@u.washington.edu