Last Minute MLA Format Reminders

Make sure your papers or film project analyses are formatted according to MLA style guides:

 MLA Formatting from Purdue OWL





MLA Work(s) Cited from Purdue OWL





Complete MLA Format Guide from Purdue OWL

Final Exam Essay Question:

The online portion of the exam has been opened. You have been given PLENTY of hints on how to do well on this exam, but the one open-ended portion of the exam is the written response. Please be familiar with the following BEFORE beginning the exam:

Taking any one of the nine "narrative" films that we watched over the course of the semester, write an essay in which you discuss how the key element that we focused on for that particular film functions in the film--and focus on how viewer expectations were met (you can also watch Lost in La Mancha to discuss production).

I am looking for comprehensive scope here rather than individual detail, but one in which you make a connection between the particular element of the film and how it manipulates or guides the viewer to certain outcome or perspective.

As a reminder, here are the feature films we watched for class:

• Purple Rose of Cairo: Any element can apply to this film, since it’s primary focus was viewer expectation
• Man with the Movie Camera: Form/Genre
• The Player: Production
• Lost in La Mancha: Production
• Adaptation: Narrative
• Barton Fink: Mise-en-scene
• Ed Wood: Cinematography
• The Five Obstructions: Editing
• Irma Vep: Acting

Singin' in the Rain: Sound

This essay may be pre-written, but you cannot copy and paste into the window. You must re-type you answer, but this will help you revise your argument and avoid typos.

The Graduate for Wednesday Analysis: Focus on LAST Scene in Sequence

For Cinematography Analysis in Mid-term Exam:




Scene following soon after in hotel where he calls Mrs. Robinson:




Following scene in the hotel room with a cut to black:




Scene for full analysis following hotel room scene:

Actors as Elements of Film

Early Film Reflects the Stage

Griffith Learns to Edit w/ Lilian Gish (beginning the director/actor relationship)

Power of the Closeup for Actors on Screen

Humphrey Bogart is the epitome of the studio-generated Star, who went from being typecast as a gangster and became instead the cynical film-noir hero who reveals his noble side at the end of the film.

 Tom Cruise @ IMDB - A perfect PERSONA actor. His catalog is basically a rewriting of the same character for different narratives: the likeable bad boy gone good routine.  He is always confident, arrogant, and self-serving at a movie's start, but life or circumstances teach him a valuable lesson that makes him a better person.  He is as close to the studio actor as it used to exist within the old studio system. If you watch any interview with him, he maintains that persona continuously, just as a studio would require.
 

Johnny Depp @ IMDB