For this response, you should focus on one of the films you have watched for class.
Film Analysis Essay Assignment
Write an essay of about 3 pages on the following topic.
Topic:
Your goal for this essay is to isolate a particular aspect of one of the films we’ve watched this semester (a character, a scene, a literary/cinematic device) and then write an essay in which you analyze and interpret this element. You want to be sure to limit yourself to a very focused topic as this essay is rather short (see below).
As you analyze and write about film, remember that you aren’t writing a review. Reviews are generally subjective: they explore an individual’s response to a film and so do not require research, analysis, and so on. As a result, reviews are often both simplistic (thumbs up, thumbs down) and “clever” (employing the pun-driven or sensational turns of phrase of popular magazines). While reviews can be useful and even entertaining pieces of prose, they generally don’t qualify as “academic writing.”
How do the specific cinematic techniques or elements of a film support the message or point it is making? As much as possible, choose the films and point out techniques in such a way as to make some general point about the way(s) in which a film exposes its themes.
Tips for Writing an Essay on Film
Mechanics
For any formal essay, you should follow the formatting guidelines of the professional style in the
field – in this case, MLA style. That means you should have
a heading (your name, the course, &c.),
a “header” (your last name & the page number, which you can add using functions under the Insert tab in your word‐processing program), and
an original, relevant title.
Avoid references to yourself or your thoughts/opinions – just state them directly.
Avoid references to your writing (“I’m going to discuss…”) or your essay (“This essay is
about…”).
Avoid references to your reader; avoid the 2nd‐person pronoun (you, your) altogether.
Minimize references to the artists involved in the creation of specific techniques. It’s fine to name someone once (e.g., the director, the cinematographer, or the scriptwriter) if you happen to know who that person is. But don’t constantly say things like, “In this scene the director uses lighting to show….”
Avoid references to the intentions of the film or its makers, like “The movie is trying to make the point that….” Again, just state those points directly, e.g., “The high‐contrast lighting supports the theme of the dark side of human nature.”
Avoid references to the film’s audience, e.g., “The viewer notices that….”
In all the above cases, just state your points directly – e.g., “The high‐contrast lighting in this scene symbolizes…” or “The expressionist style underscores the liberal message that…”
Content
Don’t just make broad generalizations about how great, how ineffective, how confusing, &c. the techniques are in the films that you’re using as examples. Instead, discuss in detail (while of course writing concisely) how the technique delivers its effect.
Finally and probably most importantly: You should have a central idea, a thesis, for the whole essay – an argument that is original, complex, relevant, specific, and debatable. Thus, instead of just sort of parroting my question and saying something obvious like, “The films we’ve watched in this class use a variety of cinematic techniques to create meaning,” you should try to narrow the focus to something specific – perhaps some pattern that you noticed from week to week, or some aspect of film that you found yourself particularly interested in as we went along.
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