For your final essay, you will write a 4-6-page in-depth analysis of a film that recalls your knowledge of formal film elements, historical movements or genres, as well as the numerous theoretical frameworks you encountered throughout this course. You must showcase what you’ve learned in this class for this essay. What theoretical frameworks play a role in your understanding of the film? How can you use what you’ve learned to write about a particular film and to formulate a theoretical stance about the ideologies at play? Focusing on a detail, incident, character, scene, shot, or directorial signature from the film, you must examine formal, institutional and ideological questions pertaining to the film’s historical context, the conditions under which it was made, general questions about audience and reception, OR how some of these elements intersect. Use this essay to raise ideological questions about both film and film analysis.

You may decide to make an argument about the propagation of cultural ideologies in a film, investigate the critical implications of the particular kind of pleasure we receive from a film, or utilize a particular theoretical approach to help you discern “meaning” from a filmic text.

You will use at least 3 outside sources, which means I expect you to use at least three QUOTES (one from each source) in your essay. As for what film you want to write about, I leave this up to you, but you must search out ACADEMIC SOURCES. That is to say that you need to use the library databases to look up academic journal articles and not rely on Wikipedia, IMDB, or websites found by a quick Google search as your sources. I will allow one website as long as it is affiliated with cinema (maybe an essay from the Criterion DVD inlay that you found online, for instance).