Midterm Review

CFV 123:01 Fall 2011

Exam Structure & General Directions

CFV 123 Fall 2011

Exam Structure
1. Matching: 10 questions/ 1 pt. each 2. Multiple Choice: 10 questions/ 1 pt. each 3. Definitions: 20 questions/ 2 pts. each 4. Short Answers: 5 questions/ 4pts each 5. Sequence Analysis: 1 question/ 10 pts. 6. Short Essay: 1 question/ 10 pts. 100pts. total *PLUS 5 1pt. BONUS QUESTIONS*

Exam Structure
1. Matching: 10 questions/ 1 pt. each
You will be asked to match modes/film movements and production scales with films screened in class. Some modes will apply to more than one film: list them all. Asks you to select the answer that does NOT apply to the question. Covers concepts and categories from readings and presentations

2. Multiple Choice: 10 questions/ 1 pt. each

Exam Structure
3. Definitions: 20 questions/ 2 pts. each
Covers editing, cinematography, mise-enscene, and narrative techniques You will be asked to match terms from an answer bank to their definitions, AND Give one example for each technique from films shown in class. Make sure to answer both parts. Each term will be used only once.

Exam Structure
4. Short Answers: 5 questions/ 4pts each
Three ask you to distinguish different categories of meaning in films screened in class.
Express each type of meaning in ONE sentence. The meanings should be clearly suggested by the film, but of course there are several correct answers.

Two ask you to give an example of a specific narrative device in a film screened in class, and describe how it creates meaning in the scene and/or film as a whole.
Just a few sentences are fine, but make sure to address all parts of the questions.

Exam Structure
5. Sequence Analysis: 1 question/ 10 pts.
You will be shown a clip from a film screened in class. The question will indicate what aspect(s) of film form you should pay attention to. You will be asked to both describe AND analyze how the clip uses specific techniques to create meaning. Make sure you relate these techniques to the film as a whole. Make sure to read the question carefully and answer ALL parts of the question. One or two concise, well thought-out paragraphs is sufficient. More does not equal better. Keep focused, and DO NOT write about techniques that fall outside the area you are asked to write about.

Exam Structure
6. Short Essay: 1 question/ 10 pts.
You will be asked to relate a specific film (NOT your choice) to a specific mode or modes. You will need to be familiar both with the primary film, and the narrative and stylistic norms of the mode(s). You will also need to draw from other films screened in class to illustrate your examples. Be specific. Be prepared to make connections to the meaning and structure of the primary film as a whole. You need to do more than just give examples- use these to support a thesis statement about how the primary film relates to the mode or modes. You will need to write 3-5 well written, organized paragraphs that flow together and work to develop your argument. Be concise and focused, and make sure you back up your statements throughout.

Breakdown
100 points total on midterm + 20% of semester grade = 5 missed points on exam = 1 point off final course grade DONT FORGET: YOU ALSO HAVE 5 ONE POINT EXTRA CREDIT BONUS QUESTIONS!

General Directions
BRING 2 OR MORE BLUEBOOKS!
Available at University Bookstore If you forget, you will have to run and get some, taking away from your exam time

Write ALL Answers in your bluebook!

You can take notes on your exam sheet, and it must be handed in, but I will be recycling them before grading

General Directions
CLEARLY LABEL YOUR ANSWERS!
Include question #. If you do the test sections out of order, clearly indicate this in your bluebook.

Be legible!
If I cant read it, I cant grade it! Include letter for matching, definition, and multiple choice questions.

General Directions
BUDGET YOUR TIME WISELY!
Just the letter is ok for matching / multiple choice. For definition questions, no need to write a complete sentence for your examples. Be concise in your short answer questions: use complete sentences, but focus on the content. Make sure your essay is well structured and concise: pay more attention to grammar, transitions, and organizing an argument, but remember content is still most important. Make every paragraph count. Dont pad your answers- it doesnt help your matching, definition, and multiple choice grading, and will hurt your short answer, analysis, and essay questions, as well as taking up valuable time.

General Directions
REFER TO FILMS IN THE PROPER FORMAT

Film Name (Directors Name, Year)

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939) Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai,1994) The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973) If (Lindsay Anderson, 1968) The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Review Topic:

SCALES OF PRODUCTION & FILM MODES/ MOVEMENTS

SCALES OF PRODUCTION

Large-scale Production
Firm division of labor across units Detailed production stages Studio system:
Centralized in Hollywood Golden Age (pre-1960s) Talent and crew on contract ALL resources provided by studio Now combination of studio resources (stages, distribution) and independent contractors brought in to produce a single film package

Independent Production
Made for theatrical market, but without major distributor financing (personal investment, TV stations, grants) General division of labor along studio lines, less rigid

Small-scale Production
Little or no division of labor Personal, collaborative, or collective

MODES / FILM MOVEMENTS

Films we can group together because they share:

A definite historical existence
Time period and/or production methods and scale Manifesto or shared goals/ impulses Stylistic Narrative

A set of formal conventions

Implicit viewing procedures

A given film may belong to several of these groupings and sub-groupings The production methods, formal conventions, and audiences of one group (mode/movement) may be influenced by or draw from another group while still remaining distinct

MODES / FILM MOVEMENTS

Classical Hollywood Cinema Post-classical Hollywood Cinema

Hollywood Art Cinema New Hollywood Cinema/ The Blockbuster

International Art Cinema

Italian Neorealism New Cinemas
French New Wave
British New Wave Japanese New Wave Other New Cinemas

Oppositional Cinema

Classical Hollywood Cinema (1908- early 1950s)

Stylistic Norms
Invisible style
Continuity editing 180 degree system Sequences anticipated viewer attention Sequences worked to orient viewer in time and space Worked to keep viewers in the world of the film

Narrative Norms
Plot-driven, economical Active main character with clearly defined goals Often had romantic sub-plot Strong closure Unusual stylistic shifts always clearly motivated from within story world, or according to genre conventions

Production
LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTION Studio system, vertical integration
Fine-tuned division of labor across units, crew on contract

Classical Hollywood Cinema

The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Post-Classical Hollywood Cinema (post WWII- present)

Hollywood Art Cinema (late 1950s to about 1975)

Stylistic & Narrative Norms

A new generation of film brats drew on both Classical Hollywood and Art Cinema themes and techniques Aimed at post-war youth market and traditional CHC market Encouraged lower budgets and innovation LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTION Partial Studio System
Fine-tuned division of labor across units, independent contractors signed up for specific projects

Production

New Hollywood: Blockbuster Era (Mid 1970s- present)

Stylistic & Narrative Norms
High Concept; Style over meaning; renewed B genres; plot-driven Targeted widest possible audience, large budgets, effects/spectacle

Production
LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTION Partial Studio System
Fine-tuned division of labor across units, independent contractors signed up for specific projects

Post-classical Hollywood Cinema

The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Hollywood Art Cinema

International Art Cinema (Post WWII- present)

Stylistic Norms

Frequently departs from classical invisible style Motivated by realism

Social Realism (real problems, locations, etc.) Psychological Realism (this is how life is/ feels) Author as overriding intelligence organizing film We are made aware that the story is being TOLD TO US Technique draws attention to status as film and/or other films

AND Authorial Expressivity

Narrative Norms
Loose cause-effect linkage of events Passive characters w/out defined desires & goals Less concerned with action than reaction Deliberate Ambiguity Lack of closure

Production
Most often INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION Occasionally LARGE- or SMALL-SCALE PRODUCTION Made for international markets

International Art Cinema

Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai,1994) The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966) The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973) If (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)

ART CINEMA: Italian Neorealism (1942-1951)

Stylistic Norms
Made use of non-actors (Typage) Shot on real locations Often used natural/ available light Documentary-like aesthetic

Narrative Norms
Looser plots, noncausally motivated details Passive main character reacts to stimuli Ambiguous or open-ended conclusions

Key Themes
Social realism
working class or disenfranchised characters

Life as it really is Critical of contemporary society

Connections
Reaction against dominant cinema White Telephone Dramas Influenced by Jean Renoir, French Popular Front films, Italian melodramas with social-realist themes Influenced French New Wave, future filmmakers

Production
INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION

ART CINEMA: French New Wave (1959-1964)

Stylistic Norms
Casual style
Shot on real locations, often with natural/ available light Extremely mobile camera, often handheld

Play with medium of film

Non-diegetic inserts, Freeze frames, Jump cuts Stylized mise-en-scene and composition Loose or nonlinear plots, noncausally motivated details Passive main character reacts to stimuli Ambiguous or open-ended conclusions References to status as film, other films Breaking of story world

Narrative Norms

Key Themes
Young and disenfranchised characters Critical of contemporary society

Connections
Key filmmakers start out as critics. Reaction against FRENCH dominant cinema, embraced and played with norms of Hollywood Cinema. Influenced by Neorealism, Hollywood auteurs. Influenced other New cinemas, some techniques incorporated back into dominant cinema

Production
INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION

ART CINEMA: Other New Cinemas

(late 1950s- present)
Refers to several national cinema movements that developed as an alternative to the dominant mode of cinema
Stylistically and/or structurally innovative Depart from classical narrative norms Influenced by the French New Wave Frequently geared towards a youth or alternative sub-culture Often work with political or sexual themes New German Cinema, Japanese New Wave, British New Wave, etc. Each specific movement has own timeline of development Usually INDEPENDENT PRODUCTIONS, but can be any production scale.

British New Wave

If (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)

Oppositional Cinemas
(Occupied Cinema, etc.)

Any film made under harsh institutional censorship (either codified in law or enforced through implied threat) that incorporates forbidden themes or critiques in such a way as to pass the censor while making such themes or critiques obvious to attuned audiences.
Frequently use symbolism or satire to couch critique Frequently demonstrate deliberate ambiguity, open for multiple interpretations Usually LARGE-SCALE PRODUCTIONS or INDEPENDENT
PRODUCTIONS but can be any production scale.

Oppositional Cinema
The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)

 The Wizard of Oz (Victor Fleming, 1939)

Classical Hollywood Cinema Large Scale Production

Chungking Express (Wong Kar-wai,1994)

International Art Cinema Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema Independent Production

The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, 1966)

International Art Cinema Independent Production

The Spirit of the Beehive (Victor Erice, 1973)

International Art Cinema Oppositional Cinema Independent Production

If (Lindsay Anderson, 1968)

International Art Cinema British New Wave Independent Production

The Conversation (Francis Ford Coppola, 1974)

Post-classical Hollywood Cinema Hollywood Art Cinema Large Scale Production

Review Topic:

DEFINITIONS AND TERMINOLOGY & SCREENING EXAMPLES

Motif
An element in a film that is repeated in a significant way. EXAMPLES: California Dreaming is a sound motif and the stuffed animals are a visual motif in Chungking Express, the beehive in The Spirit of the Beehive is a visual AND sound motif.

Flashback
Narrative technique in which a past story event is revealed onscreen after the present point in an otherwise linear plot progression. EXAMPLES: When the police officer remembers his love affair with the flight attendant, we see them together in a flashback in Chungking Express. When Harry realizes his misinterpretation of the tapes, we may see the real conversation as a flashback in The Conversation (ambiguous).

Montage Sequence
A segment of a film that summarizes a topic or compresses a passage of time into brief symbolic or typical images. EXAMPLES: The redecorating of the second police officers apartment in Chungking Express is condensed into a time montage.

Elliptical Editing
Condensing time through editing. EXAMPLES: When Dorothy follows the yellow brick road in The Wizard of Oz, we cut from Munchkin land to an abandoned field without showing the full journey in real time.

Eyeline Match
Two shots, where the first is a glance, and the second reveals what is being looked at.
EXAMPLES: The close-up of the fathers face near the beginning of The Spirit of the Beehive is followed by what he is looking at, from approximately the same angle: a beehive. In If the shot of Travis glancing at The Girls bum, followed by the bum, is an eyeline match (and ALSO a P.O.V. shot).

Graphic Match
Match of shape or volume between two consecutive shots.
EXAMPLES: The cut from the beehive to the stain glass window in The Spirit of the Beehive.

Match on Action
An editing technique in which an action begun in one shot is continued, seemingly without break, in the subsequent shot.
EXAMPLES: The movement of the boys swordfight across the cut to B&W in If

Sound Advance
Transition in which the sound from the second shot overlaps the image from the first shot.
EXAMPLES: The sound of the tapes rewinding in Harrys shop is heard over the previous elevator shot in The Conversation. The cut to the shop reveals the source of the sound.

On-screen/ Off-screen Sound

Sound where the source is visible to the audience in the current shot framing. / Sound where the source is NOT visible to the audience in the current shot framing, but where the audience can infer that the source exists within the story world.
EXAMPLES: We simultaneously see and hear Dorothy clicking her shoes in The Wizard of Oz. / We hear cows moo at Dorothys farm, but never see them, we hear the witch cackle before we see her swoop into frame in the tornado scene in The Wizard of Oz.

Non-diegetic/ Diegetic Sound

Sound from outside the story world. / Sound from within the story world.
EXAMPLES: The music in the massacre scenes in The Battle of Algiers. / The children crying in the massacre scenes in The Battle of Algiers.

Internal / External Diegetic sound

Sound from within the story world, with a source outside a characters subjectivity. / Sound from within the story world, with a source from inside a characters head.
EXAMPLES: Harrys conversation with the Directors Assistant in The Conversation. / Harry telling the priest he feels guilty about the murder (internal monologue), the distortion of the phrase Hed kill us if he got the chance (ambiguous- can be read as filtered through Harrys subjectivity) in The Conversation.

Tracking Shot
The camera moves in or out on the z axis and/or x axis.
EXAMPLES: After Alis arrest and imprisonment in The Battle of Algiers, he is revealed on the floor of his cell by a long tracking shot over the bodies of fellow inmates.

Zoom
Focal length changes, resulting in a change of shot scale, but camera does not move.
EXAMPLES: In the opening shot of The Conversation, we zoom in from an extreme long shot of Union Square to a medium long-shot of Harry on the park bench.

Extreme Long Shot

A shot in which the subject appears extremely far away, dwarfed by surroundings.
EXAMPLES: The opening shot of the crowd in Union Square in The Conversation.

High-Angle Shot
A shot in which the camera is positioned higher than, but not directly above, the subject.
EXAMPLES: In If the reaction to the Crusaders attack on Founders day is shot from a high-angle (as if from the roof-top).

Slow Motion
Film shot at more frames/ second than the standard 24 FPS sound speed, resulting in the appearance of slower than normal motion when projected.
EXAMPLES: The gymnastics demonstration in If

High-Key Lighting
Low contrast between light and dark areas of the shot, soft-edged shadows.
EXAMPLES: The Off to see the Wizard musical numbers in The Wizard of Oz.

Low-Key Lighting
Strong contrast between light and dark areas of the shot, sharp shadows.
EXAMPLES: The shot of the three fugitives hiding in the wall in The Battle of Algiers.

Deep-Space Composition
A shot in which there is a great deal of in-focus depth in the frame.
EXAMPLES: The scene in which the two sisters approach the deserted building in which Frankenstein is said to live in The Spirit of the Beehive.

Review Topic:

TYPES OF MEANING & GENERAL REVIEW

Referential Meaning
Concrete, tangible meaning dependent on spectators ability to identify specific items already invested with significance outside the film world.
EXAMPLE FOR WIZARD OF OZ: During the Depression, a tornado takes a girl from her Kansas farm to the mythical world of Oz. After a series of adventures, she returns home. EXAMPLE FOR IF: In late 1960s England, a group of disaffected youth, obsessed with images of sex and violence, including magazine photographs depicting the Vietnam Conflict, rebel. They find surplus guns and ammunition left over from WWII in storage, and shoot at the students, parents, and teachers gathered for Founders Day at their expensive public school.

Explicit Meaning
Openly asserted, concrete meaning. The obviouspoint of the film.
EXAMPLE FOR WIZARD OF OZ: A girl dreams of leaving home to escape her troubles. Only after she leaves does she realize how much she loves her family and friends. EXAMPLE FOR THE CONVERSATION: A man whose business it is to spy on others realizes that his own life is not private after getting emotionally involved in a confusing assignment.

Implicit Meaning
More abstract, broad meanings implied by the film. General themes. Interpretation.
EXAMPLE FOR WIZARD OF OZ: An adolescent who must soon face the adult world yearns for a return to childhood, but she eventually accepts the demands of growing up. EXAMPLE FOR CHUNKING EXPRESS: In a crowded, hectic, but ultimately lonely modern world, love stories are not determined by fate, but by chance.

Symptomatic Meaning
Situates film as a function of wider values characteristic of the society in which the film was made. Do not have to be intentional.
EXAMPLE FOR WIZARD OF OZ: In a society where human worth is measured by money, the home and the family might seem like the last refuge of human values. This belief is especially strong in times of economic crisis, such as the Great Depression. EXAMPLE FOR THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS: The use of documentary-like style and appeals to objectivity in presenting the events leading to Algerian independence is indicative of the cinemas base as a middle-class institution; even a politically liberal member of this class is ultimately trapped between capital and labor, and as such places value on the ability to see both sides of what is essentially a class conflict.