Film Analysis: Choose one film about dating (courtship) or significant emotional relationships from before the 1960s and one film from the 1980s to present. It is acceptable if the love relationship is between a heterosexual or a homosexual couple.
Purpose of this assignment is to analyze cultural representations and societal assumptions of gender roles and gender relationships in film. This paper doesn’t require any research beyond the movies. However, chapters 3, 7 and 8 should be helpful to you in your analysis, as well as my lectures on sexuality and cohabitation/marriage. Each claim that you make must be backed up with a specific example from the movies.
Film # 1 ___________________________________
Film # 2 _____________________________________
When was it produced? Film #1 ___________
Film #2 _______________
Summarize the plot of each of the story being told. What is the main point of the film. That is, the information that the audience needs to know to understand the story. What is the conflict? How is it resolved?
Why do you think I asked you to compare and contrast two films on male and female relationships from two different decades?
What is the genre of each movie? (comedy, drama, musical, etc)
Describe the setting (i.e., the time and place in which the film takes place) Pay attention to any economic and political factors evident in each of the films.
How are the titles of the film significant?
Who is (are) the main female character(s) in each of the films?
How are the main female character portrayed? Consider what role women play in each of these films. How are they presented within their individual and particular contexts? Compare and contrast the films
Who are the main male characters in each of the films?
How are men presented with their individual and particular contexts in each of the films?
Did your opinion of a character change as you watched the films?
For each film compare and contrast how the main female and main male character interact in their relationship.
What effect does the environment have on the characters? How significant is the role of place for the development of special characters? Compare and contrast the films.
What role if any does social and economic class play in the films? Compare and contrast the films.
Do the character symbolize particular ideas or social forces? For example, Luke Skywalker stands for everything that is good and Darth Vader for everything that is evil. Do the characters in your film symbolize anything? How so, pay attention to how they are clothed, lit, the music that accompanies them, the angle that they are filmed, the places in which we see them.
What images or symbols are employed in the films? What do they stand for?
How does music contribute to the mood of the films?
Which theoretical perspective is useful in analyzing these films? Conflict perspective? Feminist perspective? Symbolic interactionist perspective? Structural Functionalism?
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