A scene from the movie Stella Dallas

Movie: stella Dallas
your assignment is to analyze critically any movie we have watched or discussed in class. If you select one the films made by a male director, be sure that your analysis focuses on a topic related to the course (gender, sexuality, class, race, etc.). If you wish to select another film, it must either be directed by a woman, have a central and significant female protagonist, and/or focus on a course-related topic.

Remember that papers should NOT be reviews, biographies, or reports, and therefore should not examine or explain whether you liked or would recommend the film or not nor should it simply describe the director’s life .In addition, papers should not contain a lengthy plot synopsis or character and scene descriptions; assume that the reader is familiar with the film. Give only enough background information to clarify your argument. You need not tell or repeat the entire plot.
Papers must be typed or word-processed, and follow the proper paper formatting guidelines. Paper bodies must be at least five (5) complete pages in length for full credit, and contain an additional Works Cited page which uses MLA documentation to list at least four (4) related, reliable sources from the library databases consulted for this paper. A cover page is not required nor will it or the works cited page count toward the required page total.

Investigate background information on the film you are writing about, such as the film’s historical, cultural, and stylistic contexts, or production history. This kind of background material can prove to be useful in your written analysis, critique, evaluation, and general understanding of the film because even if your assignment does not ask you, for example, to explicitly write about the film in relation to the era in which it was made, knowing that history will deepen your critical awareness of other aspects of the film, such as the iconography of propagandistic imagery in the films made during World War II. Examining the film as a process that has been shaped by different types of events—historical, contemporary, and individual—can guide you to ideas of your own about the film.
Explore the individual and collaborative factors that affected the film’s final form so you can better understand the aesthetic and cinematic decisions the director made. The conclusive images you view on screen come from an extended creative process, involving such factors as directors’, screenwriters’, and cinematographers’ notable influences, as well as the relevant existing conditions during the making of the film (these could include financing, casting, weather, illness, etc.).
Find out who the film’s director is and what other films s/he has made. By viewing some of the director’s other films, you will have a better understanding of the film you are writing about because you are developing a larger picture of the themes that inspired the director, the genres and techniques s/he preferred, the consistency or change in cinematic storytelling and method over the course of her/his career.
Be selective in your approach to elements of film composition, as production includes everything from lighting, to sound, to wardrobe, to editing, to special 2 effects. The more specific the focus, the closer you can analyze and examine your chosen area of investigation and relate your analysis to a thesis about that aspect of the film or your opinion of the work as a whole.
Think comprehensively about the film’s story and characters. Cinematic images do not merely represent a single dimension of a subject, such as just the story or just the characters. All feature films tell stories, but the way the narratives and their protagonists are presented to us vary greatly in style, tone, technique, etc., from film to film, filmmaker to filmmaker. Film analysis is concerned with how these elements help tell the story and create the characters.
Watch films with critical awareness as you would actively read and annotate a book you were preparing to write about; make note of the striking features and ask questions. After an initial viewing, if possible, watch the film a second time, taking notes, letting your general preliminary questions evolve into more specific ones. If you are writing about a film that you can only view once, this groundwork will be essential to the success of your paper. Note, too, that doing research beforehand can play a significant role in freeing you to experience the film with purposeful observation and informed note taking.
Select a method of analysis through which to view or interpret your film (some possibilities are listed on Canvas in the “Overview of Film Analysis” link. For example, you might elect to analyze the film through a particular theoretical lens such as feminist theory or psychoanalysis or through a cinematic framework of semiotic or narrative structural analysis.
Guide yourself to a focused topic through your questions, and continue to narrow your approach as you decide which questions can be grouped together under a shared idea, perhaps involving the theme of the film, the characters, or its technical and formal features.

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