ARTS1060 2022 Final Essay Questions (Value: 50%). Due Date: Friday 29th April 11 pm (Sydney time). Word Length: 2000 words. Answer TWO of the following questions in essay form (1000 words each). Before commencing, make sure that you have read the Assessment Criteria and Essay Guidelines and Requirements available on Moodle. Please ensure that the referencing style and presentation of your work adheres to the course Referencing and Style Guide, also available on Moodle. Marks will be determined according to the extent to which your essays adhere to or depart from the guidelines and criteria in this guide. NB You cannot write on the same films in both essays. Nor can you write on a topic or a film that corresponds to your tutorial presentation. Submit both your essays as a single document. Make sure that the document you submit is the correct version. Do not contact your tutor with an updated or corrected file. This will not be marked. Include the question number on the first page of each essay. Mise-en-scène 1. Understood as the framing and positioning of the actors in screen space, staging is more than just one part of the process of mise-en-scène. It encompasses all its related components and gives these components a spatial and temporal rendering. Analysing in detail scenes drawn from two films screened in the course, discuss how the spatial and temporal operations of staging construct cinematic meanings. How are these meanings altered over the course of the films Auteurism 2. The limitations of auteurism lie not just in its occlusion of the industrial dimensions of filmmaking, but also in its incapacity to understand film history other than through the lens of ‘individual genius.’ On what basis can this critique be justified What might be salvaged from auteurism’s legacy Your answer needs to draw on an analysis of films screened during the course as well as the arguments and concepts developed in the lecture and course readings. Narrative and Narration 3. ‘A film’s narration not only manipulates degrees of knowledge but also manipulates the depth of our knowledge.’ (Bordwell, 85). Discuss the narrative strategies used in two films in the course to manipulate our range and depth of knowledge by utilising the spectrum between restricted and unrestricted narration. Your answer needs to include detailed and accurate analysis of specific scenes and formal elements of the films. Editing and Montage 4. Eisenstein’s conception of dialectical montage is designed as a direct challenge to the operations and principles of continuity editing. Drawing on a detailed analysis of scenes in Battleship Potemkin, how does dialectical montage operate at the level of the individual shot How does this operation relate to the other categories of montage discussed by Eisenstein Sound 5. Like other male characters in films screened in this course, Harry Caul can be described as a ‘cipher in torment.’ (Pauline Kael) The distinctive element of Coppola’s film is the way in which the drama of interpretation shifts from being a matter of what is there to see to being one of what is it that I’m listening to Referring explicitly to the categories of sound discussed in the lecture and course reading, how does The Conversation render an experience of cognitive dissonance How might we link Harry’s dilemma to that of other male characters encountered in the course Genre 6. ‘Because it is essentially a narrative system, a film genre can be examined in terms of its fundamental structural components: plot, character, setting, thematics, style and so on. We should be careful though to maintain a distinction between the film genre and the genre film. Whereas the genre exists as a sort of tacit contract between filmmakers and audience, the genre film is an actual event that honours such a contract. To discuss the Western genre is to address neither a single Western film nor even all Westerns, but rather that system of conventions which identify Western film as such.’ (Schatz, 691) How does Eastwood’s Unforgiven both maintain and renegotiate the tacit contract that, for Schatz, binds filmmakers, audiences and the genre film How is this renegotiation evident in the structural components identified in Schatz’s quote Documentary 7. ‘And there’s another woman gleaning,’ Varda tells us near the start of The Gleaners and I. ‘That’s me.’ How does Varda’s statement embody the aesthetic principles and ethical standpoints that characterize the two modes of documentary practice that Bill Nichols describes as the ‘participatory’ and the ‘performative’ Your answer must provide an accurate and detailed analysis of specific scenes and filmic moments from The Gleaners and I as well as debates on the ethics of documentary filmmaking discussed in the readings and lecture. Film Style and Narrative Complexity in Contemporary Television 8. Brett Mills claims that scholars are yet to agree on what it means to call particular forms of television ‘cinematic.’ Taking into account the debates outlined in Mill’s chapter and the discussion of narrative complexity from the lecture, consider the ways in which Mad Men functions as an example of ‘cinematic’ television. Your answer must include a detailed analysis of specific scenes, techniques and narrative devices used in at least two episodes of Season 1 of Mad Men.
