Saturday, January 21, 2006
STUDY GUIDE
FILM STUDIES (1st Semester)
FINAL EXAM NOTES
STUDY GUIDE
Genres
·Studios relied on genres because they reduced financial risk
·Category, type, and kind are all words that best define film genres.
·Comedy, crime, disaster, and horror are just a few types of film genres.
·Musicals, Science Fiction, Comedy, Westerns, etc are all film genres.
·Montages are used in many film genres to show the passing of time,or the process by which something is done
·A batch of genre films that enjoys intense popularityand influence over a distinct period is called a cycle.
·Recurring symbolic images that carry meaning from film to film are called iconography of a genre
·The rudimentary conventions of the genre film are characters, conflict, setting and values reaffirmed
·A basic difference between science fiction and horror films is that Sci-Fi appeals to the consciousness, horror to the unconscious
·An argument for remaking a film is to update it to reflect social change, to take advantage of new potential in art form and that there are new paranoias.
Film History
· In the era of classical Hollywood cinema, the factory system was where studio films could be mass-produced; where several films could be made at the same time by combining the studio resources.
Mutotrope was not an early film projector, however, Black Maria, Lumiere Cameras and Kinetoscope were.
·Movie houses and nickelodeons were responsible for influencing production, marketing, exhibition, and distribution in the film industry.
Film Movements and Trends
· The expressionist movement was an avant-garde movement that found a niche in several art forms, including film, upon which the movement disappeared. The following represents the correct evolution of the movement between the art forms: Painting, theater, literature, architecture, and film.
·French surrealists were attracted to the cinema from the beginning of their movement because films allowed dreams to be tangibly presented.
·The purpose of Soviet montage films was to spread Communist propaganda.
·For a few years, the initial effect the invention of sound in film created a setback in the Hollywood studios.
· Independent films, labeled as such because they are produced without the help of any major studios, gained followings and audiences by entering film festivals, such as the Sundance Film Festival.
·Film in Hong Kong has found a niche with American audiences. Chinese-made comic kung-fu that mixes martial arts with action-adventure movies are popular in the United States.
Melodrama
·The literal meaning of melodrama is drama accompanied by music.
· Films like Batman and Spiderman fit the melodramatic mode because they use conventional character types.
·Melodramas are different from westerns because they are set within the domestic space of family.
·Melodrama originated in France
·A sad ending in a drama is not considered a conventional plot element
·The melodrama “Birth of a Nation” where the Ku Klux Klan areportrayed as heroes, still continues to stir controversy today.
·The common term for a character whose identity, goals and desires are given to him by others is everyman.
·The introduction of sound in melodramas helped “melodrama” to become its own specific genre
·The film element of sound was the LEAST likely to adopt a melodramatic style in early sound films.
·A sad ending in a drama is not considered a conventional plot element
Comedy
·The relationship between romantic comedy and social class is that classes (rich, poor, etc.) are ultimately united by the end of a romantic comedy.
·In films like “Big” and “American Pie” boys try to make a leap into manhood . This is called rites of passage.
·An example of disintegration and disorder in film is when the elite class is brought down by chaos. This humorous device can often be seen in “Marx Brothers,” and “Three Stooges” comedies.
·Comedy is usually targeted to the working class.
·Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton both used Slapstick comedy in their films.
· Screwball comedy is different from romantic comedy because it combines high and low humor in a single film.
Westerns
·Film Westerns had a great influence on American culture and were able to shape Americans’ views of the old frontier by replacing actual history with myth.
·The first film genre (Western) was defined in 1903 with films such as “The Great Train Robbery”
·The Great Train Robbery was revolutionary because of state-of-the-art editing and cutting technique, unique camera angles, and close ups of characters expressions.
·Westerns films got their start because Dime Novels about the Wild West were extremely popular.
·Culture is the opposite of nature in the western.
·Class is the opposite of equality in the western.
·Young males (tenderfoots) characters get educated in westerns with shooting lessons.
·The roles of women in westerns are conventional and secondary to men.
·Cowboys vs. Indians was a sub-genre that dominated westerns throughout their box office reign.
·Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are actors who are most associated with western films.
·The love triangle between the shy woman, the rough-hewn hero,and the clean-cut villain is not a standardized convention of the early western.
Musicals
·Most musicals have a fantasy setting.
·8 mile (Eminem) is a movie with music but it is not considered a musical becausemusical films contain numbers that rupture the narrative just for the song.
·Chicago is a modern film that meets the classic definition of a musical.
·Dialogue in a musical operates within the dramatic register of the Narrative.
·A book musical is a sub-genre that eliminates most of all narrative by stringing together unrelated musical numbers.
·Show People can be found in films such as the “Coal Miner’s Daughter, which depicts the lives of famous musical performers.
·Films like 42nd Street that show casting, rehearsal and stagedproduction numbers of a show are known as Backstage Musicals.
·Both techniques of changing from color to black-and-white and changing from noise to music were commonly used to transition from narrative to musical numbers.
·Moulin Rouge, The Love Parade, and The Merry Widow are all Operettas.
·Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Musicals’ also resemble the genre of Screwball Comedy.
·Arthur Freed is best known for producing musicals.
·The transition between narrative and spectacle is not always clear to the audience.
·Just like Classic Hollywood Style Films, props in musicals weren’t just limited to set design, they also used props in their musical performances.
·Minor performers on stage during a musical number often function as an “audience,” reacting to the other signers.
Film Noir
·Film Noir means “Dark Film.”
·American Pulp Fiction was the source for most film noirs
·The Maltese Falcon is usually credited to being the first film noir.
· Low-key Lighting, High Contrast Photography, and Deep Focus Cinematography are all characteristics of film noir.
·The meaningless of Life, the futility of individual action, and the arbitrariness of social justice are all common themes of film noir.
·L.A. Confidential and Fatal Attraction are both pseudo noirs.( False or counterfeit)
·Aside from the look, noirs were different from earlier American films because they abandoned narrative linearity.
·Nudity, homosexuality, and profanity were all prohibited in noir.
·The psychological darkness of noir coincided with post-war America becauseit reflected the cynicism of the innocence lost at war.
·Screwball comedy and Noirs films both use share, witty dialogue.
·In film noir, women posed a threat to traditional values by working in offices.
·The intent of the femme fatale was to destroy the male hero.
·Film noir borrows from German Expressionism by seeking to express internal psychological states externally through set design, lighting and camera angle.
·Although it is not a noir, many noirs emulate the visual style of the film Citizen Kane.
·The destabilization of sexual relationships in film noir was not atypical of the experiences of the viewing audience.
·The gangster film usually takes place in the concrete jungle of the city in a closed system.
Film in the 60's
·The influence of film schools emerged in the 1960s.
·The anti-war movement, civil rights movement, students’ movement, and women’s liberation did not contribute to the 60’s counter-culture films.
·Voting rights were not a youth issue in the 1960s
·Hollywood of the 1960s portrayed the women’s movement by emphasizing the sexual revolution.
·In 1960s cinema, racial problems were solved by focusing on individual cases of prejudice.
·Midnight Cowboy, a counter-culture 1960’s film both mademoney and won the Oscar for best picture.
·The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf are two films that gambled with curse words and sexual themes
·“Blaxploitation Films” were cheaply made films directed at black audiences
·MacGuffin is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock. for documents, plans, secrets or whatever sets events in motion
War Films
·War Films break some of the moral codes that dominate other genres
·The platoon is more likely to be the hero of a war film
·The fact that American Soldiers in the film “Saving Private Ryan” repeatedly shoot surrendering German troops makes the movie unlike other WWII motion pictures, but more typical of post-Vietnam films.
·The introduction of a woman in a combat film (GI Jane, Courage Under Fire) usually represents “male vulnerability.”
·In war films, soldiers often find it difficult and are unsuccessful at re-integrating into normal life when they return home from war.
·In Post -Vietnam War films, soldiers usually become anti-war activists. The same cannot be said about WWII films, because most Americans supported the Second World War.
·After Vietnam, the war film changed and dealt with such themes as war is hell, the government can’t be trusted, and war creates flawed and corrupted heroes
Film Makers
·The Auteur Theory (a director that leaves their stamp on a film) gives primary creative credit to the director.
·Easy Rider is credited with opening Hollywood’s doors to young directors.
·Steven Spielberg didn’t attend film school and dropped out of CSULB
·Roger Corman’s main role in “the film school generation” was that he gave “generation” directors their first jobs.
·Film school generation directors borrowed from anything they had seen and enjoyed.
·“The French New Wave” was a group of film critics.
·Brian DePalma (Director of Dressed to Kill) was accused of constantly emulating Hitchcock.
· The imitation of unique earlier films that lacks any trace of satire or parody is called pastiche.
·Martin Scorsese, a “generation” member directed the film Taxi Driver.
·Directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Samuel Fuller were considered Hollywood’s hacks before they were hailed by French film critics
·The marketing strategy for Jaws remains the dominant model for current distribution practices for potential blockbusters.
FINAL EXAM NOTES
STUDY GUIDE
Genres
·Studios relied on genres because they reduced financial risk
·Category, type, and kind are all words that best define film genres.
·Comedy, crime, disaster, and horror are just a few types of film genres.
·Musicals, Science Fiction, Comedy, Westerns, etc are all film genres.
·Montages are used in many film genres to show the passing of time,or the process by which something is done
·A batch of genre films that enjoys intense popularityand influence over a distinct period is called a cycle.
·Recurring symbolic images that carry meaning from film to film are called iconography of a genre
·The rudimentary conventions of the genre film are characters, conflict, setting and values reaffirmed
·A basic difference between science fiction and horror films is that Sci-Fi appeals to the consciousness, horror to the unconscious
·An argument for remaking a film is to update it to reflect social change, to take advantage of new potential in art form and that there are new paranoias.
Film History
· In the era of classical Hollywood cinema, the factory system was where studio films could be mass-produced; where several films could be made at the same time by combining the studio resources.
Mutotrope was not an early film projector, however, Black Maria, Lumiere Cameras and Kinetoscope were.
·Movie houses and nickelodeons were responsible for influencing production, marketing, exhibition, and distribution in the film industry.
Film Movements and Trends
· The expressionist movement was an avant-garde movement that found a niche in several art forms, including film, upon which the movement disappeared. The following represents the correct evolution of the movement between the art forms: Painting, theater, literature, architecture, and film.
·French surrealists were attracted to the cinema from the beginning of their movement because films allowed dreams to be tangibly presented.
·The purpose of Soviet montage films was to spread Communist propaganda.
·For a few years, the initial effect the invention of sound in film created a setback in the Hollywood studios.
· Independent films, labeled as such because they are produced without the help of any major studios, gained followings and audiences by entering film festivals, such as the Sundance Film Festival.
·Film in Hong Kong has found a niche with American audiences. Chinese-made comic kung-fu that mixes martial arts with action-adventure movies are popular in the United States.
Melodrama
·The literal meaning of melodrama is drama accompanied by music.
· Films like Batman and Spiderman fit the melodramatic mode because they use conventional character types.
·Melodramas are different from westerns because they are set within the domestic space of family.
·Melodrama originated in France
·A sad ending in a drama is not considered a conventional plot element
·The melodrama “Birth of a Nation” where the Ku Klux Klan areportrayed as heroes, still continues to stir controversy today.
·The common term for a character whose identity, goals and desires are given to him by others is everyman.
·The introduction of sound in melodramas helped “melodrama” to become its own specific genre
·The film element of sound was the LEAST likely to adopt a melodramatic style in early sound films.
·A sad ending in a drama is not considered a conventional plot element
Comedy
·The relationship between romantic comedy and social class is that classes (rich, poor, etc.) are ultimately united by the end of a romantic comedy.
·In films like “Big” and “American Pie” boys try to make a leap into manhood . This is called rites of passage.
·An example of disintegration and disorder in film is when the elite class is brought down by chaos. This humorous device can often be seen in “Marx Brothers,” and “Three Stooges” comedies.
·Comedy is usually targeted to the working class.
·Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton both used Slapstick comedy in their films.
· Screwball comedy is different from romantic comedy because it combines high and low humor in a single film.
Westerns
·Film Westerns had a great influence on American culture and were able to shape Americans’ views of the old frontier by replacing actual history with myth.
·The first film genre (Western) was defined in 1903 with films such as “The Great Train Robbery”
·The Great Train Robbery was revolutionary because of state-of-the-art editing and cutting technique, unique camera angles, and close ups of characters expressions.
·Westerns films got their start because Dime Novels about the Wild West were extremely popular.
·Culture is the opposite of nature in the western.
·Class is the opposite of equality in the western.
·Young males (tenderfoots) characters get educated in westerns with shooting lessons.
·The roles of women in westerns are conventional and secondary to men.
·Cowboys vs. Indians was a sub-genre that dominated westerns throughout their box office reign.
·Clint Eastwood and John Wayne are actors who are most associated with western films.
·The love triangle between the shy woman, the rough-hewn hero,and the clean-cut villain is not a standardized convention of the early western.
Musicals
·Most musicals have a fantasy setting.
·8 mile (Eminem) is a movie with music but it is not considered a musical becausemusical films contain numbers that rupture the narrative just for the song.
·Chicago is a modern film that meets the classic definition of a musical.
·Dialogue in a musical operates within the dramatic register of the Narrative.
·A book musical is a sub-genre that eliminates most of all narrative by stringing together unrelated musical numbers.
·Show People can be found in films such as the “Coal Miner’s Daughter, which depicts the lives of famous musical performers.
·Films like 42nd Street that show casting, rehearsal and stagedproduction numbers of a show are known as Backstage Musicals.
·Both techniques of changing from color to black-and-white and changing from noise to music were commonly used to transition from narrative to musical numbers.
·Moulin Rouge, The Love Parade, and The Merry Widow are all Operettas.
·Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers Musicals’ also resemble the genre of Screwball Comedy.
·Arthur Freed is best known for producing musicals.
·The transition between narrative and spectacle is not always clear to the audience.
·Just like Classic Hollywood Style Films, props in musicals weren’t just limited to set design, they also used props in their musical performances.
·Minor performers on stage during a musical number often function as an “audience,” reacting to the other signers.
Film Noir
·Film Noir means “Dark Film.”
·American Pulp Fiction was the source for most film noirs
·The Maltese Falcon is usually credited to being the first film noir.
· Low-key Lighting, High Contrast Photography, and Deep Focus Cinematography are all characteristics of film noir.
·The meaningless of Life, the futility of individual action, and the arbitrariness of social justice are all common themes of film noir.
·L.A. Confidential and Fatal Attraction are both pseudo noirs.( False or counterfeit)
·Aside from the look, noirs were different from earlier American films because they abandoned narrative linearity.
·Nudity, homosexuality, and profanity were all prohibited in noir.
·The psychological darkness of noir coincided with post-war America becauseit reflected the cynicism of the innocence lost at war.
·Screwball comedy and Noirs films both use share, witty dialogue.
·In film noir, women posed a threat to traditional values by working in offices.
·The intent of the femme fatale was to destroy the male hero.
·Film noir borrows from German Expressionism by seeking to express internal psychological states externally through set design, lighting and camera angle.
·Although it is not a noir, many noirs emulate the visual style of the film Citizen Kane.
·The destabilization of sexual relationships in film noir was not atypical of the experiences of the viewing audience.
·The gangster film usually takes place in the concrete jungle of the city in a closed system.
Film in the 60's
·The influence of film schools emerged in the 1960s.
·The anti-war movement, civil rights movement, students’ movement, and women’s liberation did not contribute to the 60’s counter-culture films.
·Voting rights were not a youth issue in the 1960s
·Hollywood of the 1960s portrayed the women’s movement by emphasizing the sexual revolution.
·In 1960s cinema, racial problems were solved by focusing on individual cases of prejudice.
·Midnight Cowboy, a counter-culture 1960’s film both mademoney and won the Oscar for best picture.
·The Graduate and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf are two films that gambled with curse words and sexual themes
·“Blaxploitation Films” were cheaply made films directed at black audiences
·MacGuffin is a term coined by Alfred Hitchcock. for documents, plans, secrets or whatever sets events in motion
War Films
·War Films break some of the moral codes that dominate other genres
·The platoon is more likely to be the hero of a war film
·The fact that American Soldiers in the film “Saving Private Ryan” repeatedly shoot surrendering German troops makes the movie unlike other WWII motion pictures, but more typical of post-Vietnam films.
·The introduction of a woman in a combat film (GI Jane, Courage Under Fire) usually represents “male vulnerability.”
·In war films, soldiers often find it difficult and are unsuccessful at re-integrating into normal life when they return home from war.
·In Post -Vietnam War films, soldiers usually become anti-war activists. The same cannot be said about WWII films, because most Americans supported the Second World War.
·After Vietnam, the war film changed and dealt with such themes as war is hell, the government can’t be trusted, and war creates flawed and corrupted heroes
Film Makers
·The Auteur Theory (a director that leaves their stamp on a film) gives primary creative credit to the director.
·Easy Rider is credited with opening Hollywood’s doors to young directors.
·Steven Spielberg didn’t attend film school and dropped out of CSULB
·Roger Corman’s main role in “the film school generation” was that he gave “generation” directors their first jobs.
·Film school generation directors borrowed from anything they had seen and enjoyed.
·“The French New Wave” was a group of film critics.
·Brian DePalma (Director of Dressed to Kill) was accused of constantly emulating Hitchcock.
· The imitation of unique earlier films that lacks any trace of satire or parody is called pastiche.
·Martin Scorsese, a “generation” member directed the film Taxi Driver.
·Directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Samuel Fuller were considered Hollywood’s hacks before they were hailed by French film critics
·The marketing strategy for Jaws remains the dominant model for current distribution practices for potential blockbusters.
