Critical Perspectives - Week 2 Dissertation Proposal

Introduction

• Points need to be clear to follow
• Establishing themes
• points must be clearly linked
• Introduce your themes and ideas

Conclusion

• Summarise your findings
• Needs to draw together main arguments made, using the title
• Return to summarising the key findings

Structure

• Avoid mixing points
• Signposting, transitions. Explain why you are where you are in the essay
• Avoid getting paragraphs too long
• Logically guide the reader

Formatting and Layout

• Harvard
• Pages numbered and indented and line spacing
• Spelling errors
• Check origins of case studies
• Avoid bullet points
• Make sure you format it correctly

Analysis, Evidence and Argument

• Rely on relevant theoretical text
• depth and breadth of sources
• Avoid being descriptive or too going on for long
• Avoid using your own viewpoints and use proper theories
• Avoid describing differences between films and concepts, without the use of theories. 
• Avoid reliance on online texts
• Avoid hard-to-follow arguments
• Avoid vague and unclear statements
• Avoid generalised assumptions
• Evidence-based arguments are KEY

Genre Theory

• Is superhero movies a subgenre of action-adventure? Or a Hybrid?
• Thomas Schatz - Treats genre as an intellectual concept rather than just as an industry term alone
• Genre: Types of film which filmmakers and audiences recognise through their type. Iconography, Style, Narrative and Narrative Structure 

Formalism - Is Soviet Montage still relevant today?

• Film aesthetics can have political effects
• Can have effects on people wanting social change
• Montage is a word for meaning
• Eisenstein -  About the collision of Jux, trigger a new way of thinking. Not building a linear story.

Montage in Hollywood vs Soviet?

• Establishing Shot/ re-establishing Shot
• Eye Level Shot
• Reframing
• Eyeline-matching
• Shot/Reverse Shot
• Axis of Action

Run Lola Run - Extended Montage Scene to the Thumping Beat

Breaking many rules.... 180 Degree Rule, Jump cuts, whip pans, animation, film stock, the action is sped up and slowed down. 

Social realism

To what extent is social realism a call to action or exploitative entertainment 

Realism

Minimal human interaction

Formalist Tendency

Placing things where they should be


My Essay

Summarise and state as clearly as you can: What is the author's main argument, i.e. the point that the author is trying to get across?

"I mean, we were certainly looking for shots that told the story without a lot of cutting. Again, going back to Jean-Pierre Melville. His action scenes were not really action scenes in the sense of a modern film where you cover a scene from a lot of objective angles and cut it together very fast. That’s kind of a device, really. I think the way, for instance, Denis had portrayed the action both in this film and in Prisoners was much more realistic in the sense that things happen very brutally fast — not always on screen, but when it happens, it’s there and gone"

This an interview with a director about the pacing of his film. He is arguing that his action scenes are not action scenes like most movies. He is holding the shots for a longer amount of time to build tension, which could be seen as more realistic but not as exciting to some people.