FILM/ENG 2606A/2600
The History of World Cinema
Textual Analysis Paper (30%)
Due: Tuesday December 1st 2015
Length of the Assignment: 8 pages (double-spaced)
Method of Submission: Hard Copies in Class (do not leave your work in the
assignment dropbox unless you have cleared it with me)
*Ensure that you write your t.a.�s name on a separate cover page or on the corner of the first
page of your assignment
Instructions:
This assignment requires you to write a short paper that performs a close analysis of several
scenes from a film not screened in class that corresponds to one of the film movements
and/or periods studied this term. These include: �The cinema of attractions�, the �single-reel
era, German Expressionism, Soviet Montage, Early Sound Cinema and French Poetic
Realism.
*A number of the films that I will list below can be found in the Audio-Visual Resource
Centre (460 St. Patrick�s Building) and I will put them on reserve closer to the date this
assignment is due.
As noted above, you are not expected to provide an analysis of the entire film. Rather, you
will choose a small number of sequences and narrative events that correspond to the
characteristics of these movements or periods, as explored in the textbook, in class lectures
and seminars. The challenge of this essay lies in choosing your examples very carefully. You
are also free to make comparisons or contrasts with the films screened in class when
completing this assignment.
You are to draw on course materials (i.e. course readings, lectures, seminars) when
completing this assignment. Please use the MLA style of citation for this assignment:
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Note that you will be evaluated on style and grammar, in addition to your analysis of
the films.
*If there is film that you want to write about that I haven�t listed here, please let me
know as soon as you are able and we can discuss it.
*If there are any questions or concerns regarding film terminology, please see me
about it and/or consult the link posted on the course�s culearn page titled �Film
Studies: Basic Terminology�, located in the �News Forum� section of the page.
Questions:
1. How does French filmmaker Ren� Clair integrate �attractions� with narrative in his film
Paris qui dort (1925)?
2. What elements of �attraction� can be discerned in Episode 3 (The Red CodeBook) or
Episode 4 (The Spectre) of Les Vampires (Louis Feuillade, 1915-1916)?
3. On pg. 22 of �Systematizing the Electric Message: Narrative Form, Gender and
Modernity in The Lonedale Operator�, Tom Gunning states, �I would claim that this
impression of a strong formal system subtending the narrative operates as a key feature of
the single-reel era, albeit developed most fully by Griffith at Biograph�. Explore the
relevance of this statement through an analysis of several sequences in Griffith�s The
Musketeers of Pig Alley (1913).
4. Identify and note the significance of the expressionistic elements of Fritz Lang�s Metreopolis
(1926) or Dr. Mabuse, The Gambler (1922).
5. Compare and/or contrast elements of Nosferatu with Carl Dreyer�s Vampyr (1932) in terms
of the use of expressionistic technique.
*This question requires you to think about the influence of expressionism as a style on films
made after the movement came to an end.
6. Drawing upon Eisenstein�s �A Dialectical Approach to Film Form�, chose a number of
scenes from Old and New/The General Line (1929) or Battleship Potemkin (1925) that are
emblematic of the methods of montage he outlines in this piece of reading (feel free to draw
upon Bordwell and Thompson in addition to Eisenstein, when answering this question).
*Note that if you write about Battleship Potemkin, you must use a sequence other than the
�Odessa steps sequence� for your analysis.
7. Ren� Clair�s once said that �sound is the death of cinema� by which he meant synchronized
sound. Eventually, he abandoned this position and opted to use sound as creatively as
possible in his early sound films. Identify the more experimental usages of sound in Ren�
Clair�s Le million (1931). Or you can choose to identify the more innovative usages of sound
in Alfred Hitchcock�s Blackmail (1929).
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8. Illustrate the ways in which Buster Keaton�s Sherlock Jr. (1924) offers a parody of some of
the conventions of silent filmmaking, including the �cinema of attractions� as well as
elements of the continuity system.
9. Discuss what makes either Le jour se l�ve (Marcel Carn�, 1939) or Les quai des brumes (Marcel
Carn�, 1938) a good example of French Poetic Realism.
I want to chose the topic of soviet cinema
and the reading material is “Sergei Eisenstein, ‘A Dialectic Approach to Film Form’. Film form and the Film Sense, ed. and trans. Jay Leyda. Cleveland and New York: Meridian, 1957”
The second one is the chapter 6 of bordwell and Thompson, I can send a pdf form to you.
And there are a movie is “strike(Sergei Eisenstein)” which is very helpful for the paper.
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