How to Analyze Film

Matt Morello Mrs. Avery American Film Survey 00 Month 2014 Unit 4 – The Epic Question 1: In what ways does the film illustrate the epic genre? USE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES from the film to support your analysis.

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Soundtrack – Does the music clearly represent the genre? Characters – Do the characters behave in accordance with the genre? Setting – Is the location and environment generally associated with the genre? Costumes – Do they suggest a certain period? Script – Is the language indicative of a certain genre? Differences - In what ways, if any, does it depart from the genre?

Question 2: Who is the director? The featured actors? Do you know anything about their other work that is RELEVANT to your analysis?

Question 3: Review the week one reading on writing about film. Did you take into consideration those aspects the reading details as being important elements in film writing?

● Frame and Camera Frame: The camera frame changes frequently in relationship to what is being filmed. The camera frame controls what you see and how you see it. Mood, emotion, and tension can all be controlled by the camera frame. ● Theme: What is the film about? What is the main idea and what, if any, is the message it is trying to impart? There is not always a moral or message in a film, but there is always a theme. Some questions to ask when trying to identify theme are: ○ Who are the main characters? What is their relationship to each other and what larger ideas do they represent? What do the characters endure and how do they change? ○ In what way does their story encompass meaning, either individual or in relation to society? ○ What is the film asking you to value or criticize? How does the film make you feel at the end? ● Narrative: Plot and story are the main components of narrative. While story comprises everything that happens in a movie, the plot refers to the arrangement and structure of events. A classical narrative involves a plot where events bare a logical connection to each other. There is a resolution at the end of a classical narrative, a happy or tragic ending. The stories focus on characters. Not all movies employ classical narratives. Some are non-narrative. They do not tell stories at all. They are experimental in nature

and focus on situations or questions rather than characters. Some films liberate the narrative from any logical relationship between events. Memento and 21 Grams are two examples of this popular technique. ● Character: The individuals that appear in a film, whether they are people, animals, robots, monsters, or superheroes are characters. Many of the questions necessary for analyzing character may be found in the above discussion of theme. What the character says, does, thinks (if we are privy to this information), and what others say about him or her are also ways of informing character analysis. ● Point of View: The position from which a story is told, seen, and implied informs its point of view. The camera frame itself often helps to create a point of view. The narrative plays a part in point of view as it relates a story either from a purely objective perspective or from the subjective perspective of a single person.