Spring 2012Writing 140
Ms. K. Zimolzak Section 64110
Assignment 3: The Cinematic Eye
Due: By noon via email, Friday March 9
(Yes, the day after your Amst 274 midterm: this is fair warning; plan accordingly)
Purpose:
In assignments one and two, we have focused on rhetorical skills of inventing your own claim and evaluating others’ arguments, respectively. For your third essay, you will turn your view to synthesis: the successful incorporation of both invention and analysis. In other words, not only will you make an original claim about a primary source, but you will also provide assessments of at leastfive other scholars’ opinions. Ultimately, this unit is designed to help you learn how to effectively include research and citation skills in your writing process.
Reading:
Mulvey, Laura. “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema.” Screen 16.3 (Autumn 1975): 6-18.
Movie List:
Aladdin (1992), American History X (1998), Blazing Saddles (1974), Bread and Roses (2000), Breakfast at Tiffany’s (1961), Bulworth (1998), Chinatown (1974),Duck Soup (1933), Gremlins (1984), The Jerk (1979), The Karate Kid (1984), The Lady from Shanghai (1947), South Pacific (1958), Three Kings (1999), Touch of Evil (1958)
Topic Overview:
Cinematic theorists have long contended that a great part of movies’ appeal is that we as viewers don’t have to do much conscious work. In other words, although we have to follow the storyline of a movie, chances are we don’t pay much attention to techniques* such as shot composition, camera angles and movements, lighting, sound mixing, and continuity editing.
Of course, filmmakers must consciously decide how to implement each of these techniques. How do filmmakers decide where to direct our focus? Barring a point of view shot, in which we see the events of the movie through the eyes of a character, who decides what we get to see? Why are certain images included, but others are not? How subjective is the cinematic camera? Is the cinematic medium formally constructed in such a way that enhances our knowledge of narrative, or does the medium limit our ability to interpret for ourselves?
Writing Task:
In this essay, we will locate, read, and analyze works that propose different possibilities regarding the perspective of the cinematic eye. You will watch one of the fifteen movies listed above, select a scene* that you find particularly relevant to the task at hand, complete a shot list*, and analyze the cinematic perspective based on your findings and your research.
Your task is to address the construction of a film scene, and the ways in which cinema does or does notsuccessfully deploy formaltechniques to define, complicate, or otherwise shape our perspectives as viewers. In 5-7 pages, please address any of the above questions that you deem pertinent or provocative. Primarily, your essay should answer the following question:
When we watch a movie, whose perspective are we seeing?
Assignment Calendar:
Week One
2-21:Goals of 140 & A2 unit review; process reports & professional reminder; intro to A3
HW:Read Mulvey article CAREFULLY (i.e. with a dictionary nearby)
2-23:Discussion of Laura Mulvey’s “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema”; Film 101
HW: Review Mulvey to Develop preliminary thesis
SelectWatch film
Write one page response reflecting on which scene you might choose and why
Week Two
2-28:Shot Lists and how we use them; group conference sign-up
HW: Complete shot list of your chosen scene (over the weekend: you WILL need the time)
3-1: Library Information Session
HW: Identify additional sources; Email citations to Ms. Z.
Write & Bring two adjacent paragraphs to workshop on Tuesday
Week Three
3-6:Paragraph Workshop & Quote Incorporation
HW: Complete drafts; bring TWO HARD COPIES to class Thursday
Bring folder of prewriting you’ve done (to this point) for Thursday
3-8:Peer Review Session
HW: Complete revisions of A3
3-9:Assignment 3 Due by noon via email to Ms. Z.
HW:Upload A3 to Blackboard by 5 p.m. Saturday (March 10)
* We will spend a class period defining terms and techniques such as “scene” and “shot list.”