Overview
- Select one scene from a film (either assigned or a relevant alternative) that exemplifies the genre of your unit. Show it as part of your project presentation and answer these questions about the scene:
a) Plot and Theme. What does the scene contribute to the ongoing story? What important information do we learn from it, how does it drive the plot forward, and which of the film’s central ideas or messages does it support? What patterns do you notice?
b) Point of View. Does the scene present an objective view of events or does it represent someone’s subjective account? How is the camera used to emphasize this point of view?
c) Character. What does the scene tell you about the major character or characters? Refer to the actors’ movements, words, and dress as revealed by the camera.
d) Tone. Describe the overall mood of this scene. Is it mysterious, funny, sad? How do the lighting, camera work, sound, and editing help to create this mood?
e) Technique. What kind of editing is involved? Transitions (cut, dissolve, fade)? Camera movements (pan, tilt, dolly, boom) and angles (high, low, aerial)? Framing (close-up, long shot)? Lighting (notable use of high-key, low-key, backlighting)? Sound (important dialogue, music, sound effects, voice-over)?
For a good model of scene analysis applied to kung fu films, see David Bordwell’s Planet Hong Kong: Popular cinema and the art of entertainment (Harvard University Press, 2000) or “Aesthetics in Action: Kungfu, Gunplay, and Cinematic Expressivity” (in At Full Speed: Hong Kong Cinema in a Borderless World, ed. Esther Yau, University of Minnesota Press, 2001, 73–93).
Debate
The field of transnational cinema is animated by lively disagreements. For example, some critics belittle Hong Kong kung fu films or Indian wedding movies as crass commercialism while others champion them as vibrant instances of popular culture. Some film historians point to concepts like mono no aware and Daoism in Asian movies as instances of cultural diversity worthy of our close attention. Others dismiss such concepts as exoticism, arguing that Western viewers should not impose their own views on foreign films. Then there are those who worry that globalism threatens the uniqueness of national cinemas, turning the world’s movies into one homogeneous product. Choose a controversy related to world cinema that interests you and stage a debate that makes an informed case both for and against the central argument.