CLIT 7014 Film and Popular Culture
Term Paper Instructions
Your paper should be around 2,500 words or 8 typewritten, double-spaced pages long. The deadline is 5 p.m. on May 3 (Fri). You should email a soft copy of your paper to2007journals@gmail.comand also upload a copy via Turnitinto check for plagiarism (Class ID of CLIT7014: 29942265; pw: clit7014). Extensions are only granted in exceptional cases with legitimate reasons for late submission.
First choose the film from the course that interests you the most and that you would like to write about. Under that film is one or more suggested titles from outside of class - choose only one to write about in relation to our in-class text that we covered. Do some research on the internet to help make your decision. Pick the film that interests you the most to write about for your paper. Most of these titles should be available at the library, on the internet, or at video stores.
Bear in mind that each film that we looked at in the course is framed in terms of a particular topic and is part of a thematic unit. Each week we looked at cinema as a form of popular entertainment or in relation to popular culture from a specific angle. You should review the ideas and concepts we covered in class related to the film you choose to see how they can help with structuring your argument - your reading should focus on the film from outside of class, but compare and contrast it with our in-class text in order to bring out similarities and differences.
Some suggested titles are other films by the same directors we looked at in the course; others involve treatment of similar subject matter by different cinematic sensibilities. Review the way your chosen in-class text was contextualized in the course. Your argument should focus on both form. and content, text and context -- it should involve a close reading of the chosen text that is supported with analyses of specific scenes as well as informed by secondary sources that give a sense of its broader context.
As you brainstorm and work on an argument for your paper, here are some questions that you might find helpful to ask about your chosen text:
• Is it a genre film or an art film?
• If it’sa genre film, what are the conventions or traditions of the genre?
• How does the film fit into the history of the genre? What makes it standout from other films in the genre?
• If it’san art film, does it belong to a movement (e.g., French New Wave) or is it influenced by the aesthetics of a movement (like neorealism, for example)?
• Who is the director of the film? As an auteur, what is he known for? What is his artistic signature in terms of content (recurring themes, motifs) & form (preferred stylistic touches)?
• How would you characterize the aesthetic of the film? Is it broadly speaking realistic or
stylized in terms of its visual representation? Is it shot on location or in the studio? Are the actors glamorous stars or non-professionals (i.e., regular people)?
• Does it make you forget you’re watching a film, or is itself-reflexive in reminding you of the cinematic apparatus (e.g., breaking the fourth wall, showing the camera or boom mike) and that this is a movie?
• What are the dominant stylistic characteristics of the film?
• How is the story told?
• What is the relationship of the film to society? Does it address public, social issues, or is it concerned with private, personal emotions? Does it confront reality, or seek to escape it?
• Is the film more representative of pop culture or high art? What are its cultural references, if any?
• How does the film relate to the zeitgeist of the time and place that produced it?
Topics (choose one)
(Also note that you do not have to answer the questions exactly as outlined, but regard how the questions areworded as guidelines to help you form your argument.)
1) Write about Dancer in the Dark or LaLa Land (choose one) in relation to Moulin Rouge!
Address how the film functions as a musical in relation to escapism, the distinction between reality and fantasy, the genre’s self-reflexivity, and the context of the genre’s development at a late stage in its history.
2) How does AshIs Purest White, Aristocrats, or Floating Clouds (choose one) function as a melodrama or woman’s film? Discuss how it embodies the characteristics of the genre in terms of both the individual’s narrative and the commentary that it provides on society.
Relate it to our analysis of Naruse’s film, its emotional expression, appearance vs. reality, etc..
3) Discuss how the myth of America’s historical pastas presented in the form of the Western in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is revised and/or challenged in Heaven’s Gate or
Exterminate All the Brutes (choose one: note that Exterminate All the Brutes is a mini-series & you will only be required to cover episodes 2 & 4). How do idealized myths/legends function in relation to historical truth & reality?
4) The Assassin is an ambitious attempt at something more than just a martial arts film. What vision does it create of dynastic China? In what ways does it conform to the traditions of the genre while bringing something new? As an auteuristart film made when martial arts movies are not enjoying great popularity, how does it compare to King Hu’sA Touch of Zen?
5) Like Pierrot lefou, Masculin Feminin or Breathless (choose one) is a work by Godard from the French New Wave that testifies to that movement’s interest in both European high art and American pop culture. Discuss the film’s hybridityin embodying characteristics of both high art and pop culture, but also the critical, dialectical tension that is created.
6) Aspects of popular culture and pop art were employed in some examples of political cinema from the various cinematic new waves of the 1960s that engaged with countercultural trends like Macunaima. How can W. R. Mysteries of the Organism be related to the Brazilian film as a comparable work albeit emerging from a different societal context?
7) In many ways Nomad might be considered as a companion piece to Love Unto Waste as a
critical look at Eighties Hong Kong and its consumer society in relation to youth. Both were written by screenwriter Chiu Kang-chien. What are some modernist art cinema strategies that Chiu and director Patrick Tam employ in Nomad, and what is the film’svision?
8) The crisis cinema of John Woo was transformed into something even darker as Hong Kong neared the 1997 handover, and filmmakers associated with Johnnie To’s Milkyway Image produced works such as The Longest Nite or Too Many Ways To Be Number One (choose one). How are genre traditions approached differently here than in The Killer?
9) The interrelatedness explored by Todd Haynes in Velvet Goldmine of stardom/fandom, sexuality, musical subcultures, and the societal zeitgeist were taken even further in I’m Not There. Discuss the tension between conservative mainstream acceptance/conformity and the subcultural potential to subvert or rebel through iconoclasm explored in both films.
10) The real estate horror provided by Dream Home may also be found in the recent films
Parasite or Coffin Homes (choose one). How do such notions as the “monstrous” and the “return of the repressed” manifest themselves in your chosen text? Discuss how problems in societal reality arepresented through cinematic fantasy as disreputable lowbrow fare.