 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
 |
Discussion Questions Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | 1 REDISCOVERING FILM STUDIES: SOME FRESH STARTING POINTS History and historiography 1. Consider your own collections of films – or those of someone you know. What kinds of story/history can be constructed from the inter-connections between them? 2. Take three still images from different films that are important to you. Explore in each case some of the ways in which the image has a resonance for you. 3. Take all three images and put them side by side. Explore some of the ways they begin to ‘talk’ to each other. In doing each of the above, what do you discover about single film images? The document in time 1. Compare the two images Plate 1.1 (a) from The Grapes of Wrath on p. 000 of the fourth edition of Introduction to Film Studies with Plate 1.1 (b) from the FSA collection. 2. Account for how similar/different is your response to each. In relation to these responses, what do you understand by the ‘poetics of presence’? 3. Consider a film you know well which plays on the sense of time which escapes that of chronological ‘clock’ time. How does the film communicate this? 4. Consider a film from the past as you respond to it in the present. How do reflections on time alter the way you respond to the images on the screen? 5. Is it useful to make a distinction between films that are rooted in the ‘movement image’ and others that are rooted in the ‘time image’? Performance: 1. Consider these statements: Film cannot be defined precisely as a ‘told’ medium and neither can it be defined entirely as an ‘enacted’ medium. Film is not past tense, but neither is it present tense. How do we experience film? 2. What are some of the differences between watching people in a documentary as opposed to in a fiction film? Are there any similarities? 3. Think of a film that stimulates the effect of a ‘live’ performance. Do you react in a particular way to this film? 4. When we watch the moving image work which has no obvious narrative purpose, such as the Bill Viola work described in chapter 1 (p. 15-16), or the work of Gustav Deutsch described earlier in chapter 1 (pp. 4-5), what do we do as spectators? 2 THE INDUSTRIAL CONTEXTS OF FILM PRODUCTION 1. Does film censorship reflect or impose standards? 2. Taking the studio era blockbuster Gone with the Wind (1939) as a case study, would you consider the film entirely in keeping with the spirit of the Production Code? [PREFER QUESTION ON CASE STUDY GLADIATOR OR NEW MATERIAL PLEASE] 3. Does the BBFC underestimate the maturity of young audiences in the UK? 1. Compare and contrast any film that you feel is ‘mainstream’ and an ‘alternative’ text. Why do you think these films differ? Look carefully at the ways in which the ‘story’ is told. How far does each text use ‘classical narrative’, and how far, and in what ways, does it reject it? 2. Contemporary cinema is constantly changing. Try and define what now might be meant by ‘counter-cinema’ or ‘art cinema’. How does this differ from your understanding of ‘mainstream’ Hollywood cinema? How might these terms have changed in meaning – try and look at some aspects of the history of cinema to make your evaluation. 4 APPROACHES TO CINEMATIC AUTHORSHIP 1. Choose a director and watch a sample of his or her films. Note any consistencies of style and/or theme that occur across more than one film. Can you detect a ‘personal statement’ or ‘worldview’ in the films? 2. Having completed ( 1), list who else involved in the production of those films has contributed to their look, feel and meaning? In what ways is it meaningful or useful to describe the director as the author of those films? Are they authored by multiple people, or do you think that it is not worthwhile pursuing the question of authorship in relation to those films? 3. Increasinly films are being re-released as ‘Director’s Cut’ versions. How does the notion of the director’s cut relate to the idea of film authorship in terms of both art and commerce? 4. Explore the notion of ‘corporate authorship’ in relation to Disney or PIXAR. To what extent do their corporate brand names also mark out distinctive stylistic practices? Does the same apply for, say, Universal or Dreamworks? 5. When released on DVD an increasing number of films contain a ‘Director’s Commentary’ as part of their ‘Special Features’. After initially watching the film, watch it again while listening to the Director’s Commentary and explore the extent to which his or her explanation of the film’s thematic and stylistic features: (a) reinforces your own reading of the film (b) alters your opinion about the significance and meaning of the film. 5 GENRE THEORY AND HOLLYWOOD CINEMA 1. Read the section on ‘Genre as taxonomy’ on pp 112-117. In what ways does a consideration of animation problematise the notion of film genre? Is animation a genre in itself, or is it possible to draw generic distinctions between different animated films? 2. Likewise, try and list some of the difficulties and problems associated with grouping all non-fiction films together under the singular generic label, ‘documentary’. 3. Look at the Table 5.1 on p. 114. Video stores routinely employ categories such as ‘Family’, ‘Romance’. ‘Drama’ and ‘Kids’ to organise their titles. Is it possible to place these categories alongside those listed in Table 5.1? Table 5.1 doesn’t list the ‘Biopic’. Where would you place it? Can you fit it into more than one category? 4. Read the section on ‘Genre as economic strategy’ on pp 117-119. If you were to invest in a movie, which genre of filmmaking would you choose in order to offset the financial risk and hopefully make a profit? Who would you want to star in it? List five things that would have to occur in the movie in order for you to sign the cheque. Also, what other merchandising products or tie-ins would you sanction in order to promote your film? 5. After reading the section on ‘Rethinking genre’ on pp. 124-6: Choose a film to see at the cinema and before watching it: (a) Describe why you chose the film that you did and consider the way your own taste in movies might relate to particular genres. (b) Describe what you expect to happen in the film; where you expect the action to be set; what props are likely to be present; and how you think the film will end? (c) Investigate how notions of genre are used in the promotion and marketing of the film. These can range from the film poster, trailers, TV spots, product tie-ins, soundtrack CDs, and so forth. How do these strategies use generic codes to pre-sell the movie to you? 6. After watching the film: (a) Explore how closely your answer to (b) relates to what actually happened in the film. To what extent does the movie’s genre foreclose narrative possibilities and guarantee certain pleasures? (b) Make a list of all the films, TV programmes, pop videos, etc. that the film prompted you to think of while watching it. Did it quote, copy, resemble or allude to any other films and texts? (c) Consider the range of genres present in the film and how they were manifested. How did the film ‘play’ with generic conventions? 6 STARDOM AND HOLLYWOOD CINEMA 1. Choose one male and female contemporary film star and compare: (a) the frequency with which, and the ways in which, they are represented in celebrity magazines and the press (b) their status within the marketing of their movies (c) the ways in which knowledge of their private lives overlaps with or informs their on-screen roles. 2. To what extent do pop stars, star footballers or stars from other areas of the media fit, or resist the models of film stardom discussed in this chapter? 3. Which categories of stardom do animated stars such as Woody and Buzz Lightyear fit into, and how might we modify those categories in order to describe this phenomenon? 4. In what ways is it possible to analyse and understand a special effect such as a twister, a volcano, a tidal wave or a computer-generated dinosaue as a star? 7 SPECTATOR, AUDIENCE AND RESPONSE 1. Discuss the ‘film event’ with a group of friends. Consider: What is said about the specific experience of watching a film in a movie auditorium ... and 2. How much the experience is enhanced by the ways we engage with the film through the media, with friends etc. before and after the screening. 3. Although ‘home cinema’ is essentially a marketing concept, there is the possibility that the audio/visual quality of the film experience could be replicated in the home. Do you think that this will mean that the film experience – as spectator and audience – will also be replicated in the home? 4. Do you agree that film studies is better off avoiding large generalisations about ‘spectators’ or ‘audiences’ and is likely to produce more useful kinds of knowledge by focusing on small-scale studies of particular groups of people? 5. If everyone responds from within their unique ‘formation’, both as a social self and as an interior self, is there any point in trying to generalise about how we respond to a film? 1. How does the documentary filmmaker use mise-en-scène, editing, sound, cinematography, and narrative devices to create a point of view/argument? Consider who says what to whom, when, how, and why, and with what effect. 2. The documentary filmmaker in dealing with ‘actuality’ and real social issues may encounter certain problems in the making of the text. What might these problems be and how can the documentarist resolve them? 3. In a number of the case studies in this chapter, the political and ethical stance of the filmmaker is crucial to the way we understand and perhaps support or oppose the implied or explicit argument of the documentary. When watching future documentaries consider and evaluate the behaviour, attitude or position of the filmmakers. Do you believe that they are correct in the ways that they pursue ‘documentary truth’? 4. For further study, consider the implications of ‘hybridisation’ in documentary. For example, what aspects of ‘soap opera’ and ‘documentary’ combine in a ‘docu-soap’ and to what effect? 1. In what ways, and to what advantage does animation have a greater potential for expression than live-action film-making? 2. In what ways does animation offer different perspectives on issues of representation. i.e. How does animation address gender, race, ethnicity, age, ‘the body’, etc.? 3. How might traditional notions of ‘narrative’, ‘genre’, ‘authorship’. etc. in live-action film-making be revised when defined in relation to animation? 1. Do mainstream films still represent women in a narrow range of predictable and stereotyped ways? 2. How useful a contribution has feminist film theory made to the study of film? 3. Compare and contrast the star images and their representation on film of either Bruce Willis or Russell Crowe with Hugh Grant or Kevin Spacey. Re ‘Lesbian looking’ 1. In the light of Weiss’s comments on viewing strategies, analyse the love-making scenes from Desert Hearts, Go Fish and any other film of your choice. 2. Critically analyse the director’s use of social and physical location of the characters in Desert Hearts and Salmanberries. 3. Consider ways in which either the genre or the star systems may mediate the reception of one or more of the following films for queer audiences: I Married a Monster from Outer Space Re Looking for Langston 1. Compare and contrast Isaac Julien’s docudrama Looking for Langston with the same director’s fictional feature, Young Soul Rebels, in terms of representations of race, sexuality and narrative structure. 2. How ‘queer’ is Looking for Langston? Re Go Fish: 1. Compare and contrast the lesbian worlds portrayed in Go Fish with those in Desert Hearts, When Night is Falling and/or She Must be Seeing Things in terms of audience positioning. 2. Desert Hearts is a romance, Bound is a film noir and Better Than Chocolate is a comedy. Compare and contrast the portrayal of the lesbian lovers in each of these three films in terms of genre. Re Boys Don’t Cry: 1. Bearing in mind the portrayal of Brandon in Boys Don’t Cry, analyse the contrasting ways in which the transgendered main character is presented in one or two of the following: The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert 2. Critically analyse the following films by John Greyson in terms of the formal qualities that they have in common. Can these films be classified according to traditional genres? The Making of Monsters 3. Critically analyse Monica Treut’s Virgin Machine to address the portrayal of the changing character of Dorothee as she explores the San Francisco lesbian scene. Read ‘The Queer Nationhood of Monica Treut et al’ (Kuzniar: 157) 4. Watch and analyse Gohatto and East Palace, West Palace as examples of recent queer cinema from Japan and China. 5. Consider the homoerotic subtext of The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. 12 ETHNICITY, RACE, AND CINEMA – AFRICAN AMERICAN FILM Choose any film mentioned in this chapter between pp. 282-98: 1. Are there any African American characters in this film? What seems to be their role relative to the other characters? If it is a majority black cast film, are there any other figures of different races? How is difference handled? 2. H ow is race/ethnicity marked? How important is it to the story or particular plot points? 3. Does the black character seem to be an essential character? How so? Or why not? 4. To what extent does the black character seem to adhere to or depart from stereotypes about a particular racial or ethnic group? 5. Does the black character seem to have a private, interior self? Does he or she have a network of family or friends, apart from the white character to whom he or she is attached? 6. Who has the camera’s point of view? 1. What differences of interest can be identified between producers, distributors and exhibitors, and how does government intervention address these. 2. Consider a variety of strategies employed in the production of British films which seek to attract American investment and American audiences – for instance, personnel, subject matter, locations. Check your local papers for theatres showing Indian films in your town or city and invite a friend to go with you on an opening night. Describe in detail the entire visit including standing in the queue for a ticket, the trailers, audience reaction to stars and songs, the conversation during the interval and so on. As a comparative project, visit your local theatre for a showing of a popular British or American film Discussion questions on Monsoon Wedding (pp. 339-40) 1. Describe the different signs of globalisation in Monsoon Wedding . As you proceed to identify the various objects in the mise-en-scene, decribe how the film’s narrative advances differences between globalization and modernization. 2. In a similar vein, note the different ways in which India and Indianness are signalled in this film. For instance, how does the film present and resolve Aditi’s choice in the film? 3. Viewing the different intercutting sequences describe the differences between the two couples: Aditi and Hemant, and Dube and Alice. Why does the film feel the need to elaborate the romance between Dube and Alice? Pay close attention to Alice’s identity. Where would you place Dube’s class identity? 4. How does the film employ the song and dance sequences and to what end? 5. The official web site for the film points out that besides the various matchmaking attempts in the narrative, the film is an adoring tribute to Delhi. How does the film achieve this? 6. As in Festen (1998), here too the narration of sexual abuse of children breaks the familial revelry. How does the film choose to resolve the question of incest. In other words, describe the film’s ideology in terms of maintaining familial relationship Discussion questions on Sholay (pp. 343-5) 1. Describe and analyse the function of the various interruptions in Sholay, paying close attention to the comedy tracks and their relationship to masculine friendship Discussion questions on Bombay (pp.347-8) 1. How does the interval structure the narrative? Attend closely to the shift in formal strategies. 2. Decribe and analyse the relationship between the song and dance sequences and narrative time while paying close attention to the mise-en-scène. 3. Compare Bombay and Gadar (2001) by choosing a couple of cinematic elements – for example, the song and dance sequences or the interval. Discussion questions on Dil Chata Hai (pp. 348-9) 1. Describe and analyse the relationship between the song and dance sequences and the narrative in the film. Do they serve as distractions, delaying devices, or are they totally dispensable? 2. Choose at least two song and dance sequences – ‘Woh ladki hai kahan?’ and ‘Dil Chahta Hai’ for instance – to discuss the meaning of the mise-enscène and editing. Do supplement your readings with interviews culled from the official DVD with the music directors and choreographers, as ways of understanding the discourse of production. 3. How does the film describe Siddharth’s relationship with Tara? Why do you think it casts her as an alcoholic and finally kills her? 4. Re-watch the closing sequence of the film and frame your analysis in terms of Sedgwick’s formulation of compulsory heterosexuality. Discussion questions on Mr. and Mrs. 55 (p. 350) 1. Describe the spaces of the first song between Pritam and Johnny. By attending to the lyrics explore how the film juggles homosocial bonds and heterosexual romance. 2. The song set at the pool re-emerges in Kabir’s documentary. Describe the rhythm and speculate on Dutt’s use of the pool as a setting in a film, which seems enamored with sports. For instance, Anita is introduced as a tennis player’s fan. 3. The film reserves the first duet between Pritam’s friend Johnny and his girlfriend by setting it among the tables and chairs of an office space. Analyze the film’s investment in doubling couples and the relationship between the two love stories. 4. Johnny’s presence in the film is clearly marked as a comedy track and he serves as Pritam’s doppelganger but how do we read his early success in love? 5. A gypsy in a park sings song 5, and six by a nightclub singer seem to be worlds apart in terms of their spaces yet, their narrative function seems very similar with the warring couple in shouting distance. Describe the relationship between the progression of narrative and the songs. 6. Song number 8 evokes the convention of using Qawali singers in Hindi cinema in a clearly marked space that resembles a backstage musical. Yet, here we view street musicians performing at night. What is the narrative purpose of this song? 7. Describe in detail the various aspects of the mise-en-scène and soundtrack in song number 7 and 9. Note that 7 is a duet set in the countryside and 9 at the airport. Why do you think that the film chooses a single woman’s voice as its final number? Discussion questions on Satya (p. 353) 1. Analyse how the interval punctuates the film, inflecting its formal properties as well its narrative preoccupations. 2. Ram Gopal Varma did not wish to use song and dance sequences in this film but his producer Bharat Shah insisted on their marketability. Defend the use of these attractions. What kind of a film would we have seen without these sequences? 3. After seeing films such as Dil Par mat le yaar / Don’t Take it to Heart (Hansal Mehta, 2000) and Vastaav (1999), attempt to sketch out the ideological underpinnings of the urban iconography in these films. Discussion questions on Bandit Queen (pp. 355-6) 1. How does the film privilege a referential reading of its narrative? 2. Bandit Queen is sometimes taught in a course on westerns because of the film’s iconography and its narrative preoccupation with outlaws. Ghosh suggests that the film partakes of certain conventions from popular cinema. Attempt to describe and analyse the film’s proximity and distance from popular cinema. 3. How does the film juggle inter-caste antagonisms and the rape–revenge narrative? 4. Read Mala Sen’s (1991) India’s Bandit Queen: The True Story of Phoolan Devi as a way of understanding the public response to the film. Imagine a different visual construction to the biography. Discussion questions on Fire (p. 356) 1. Describe and analyse how the film links the friendship between Radha and Sita to Mundu’s desire. 2. Using Chris Straayer’s (1995) essay ‘Hypothetical Lesbian Heroine in Narrative Feature Film’, evaluate to what extent Fire is beholden to patriarchal representations of women and to what degree it recasts the debates on identity. Does the film prepare us for the closing moments of the film or does it place them outside the representational circuits we have been privy to? Discussion questions on Lagaan (p. 359) 1. In his review of the film, David Chute (2002) quotes cultural critic Ashish Nandy’s pithy comment that cricket is ‘an Indian game that happens to have been invented by the British’. If familiar with cricket, point out the various extra-textual references to games and players in the film. 2. If read allegorically, the construction of the village team recalls the utopian visions of a secular India, a vision that seems more fragile these days with the rise of Hindu nationalism and sectarian violence. Elaborate the film’s investment in a secular vision, however rife with contradictions this may be. 3. The love triangle is the other driving force in the narrative. Describe how the film uses the song and dance sequences to exacerbate the tensions of this erotic triangle and explain its desire to form an Indian couple. 4. Critics have noted that the star Aamir Khan is a crucial ingredient in the film’s success. Construct an archive of fandom using internet sites, star magazines and visits to Aamir Khan fan clubs, both virtual and real, so as to plot the ways in which his star presence marks the narrative – the opening sequence would be a good place to begin – and then proceed to the song and dance sequences. 1. Examine the relationship between Soviet cinema, theatre and the visual arts. 2. How successful do you think Soviet filmmakers were in combining mass entertainment and revolutionary politics? 3. For many Soviet filmmakers editing was the source of cinematic energy and impact. Did this mean that they neglected the impact of mise-en-scène and music? 4. Trace the influence of Soviet cinema of the 1920s on subsequent filmmakers and film movements. 1. How does Godard use cinematic references in A bout de souffle? Is your understanding of the film illuminated by being able to understand such references? 2. Consider Les Quatre cents coups in the following terms: (a) How is filmic style used to convey the themes of freedom and confinement? (b) How does the film represent Antoine Doinel’s progress through its use of settings and locations? 3. In Cléo de 5 à 7, how is the film’s story and plot conveyed through the use of a ‘real time’ temporal structure? 4. Examine a New Wave film’s depiction of the city of Paris. 5. In La Jetée, how are the themes of memory and time explored? |
 |
||
|
||||