The Rules of the Game
in Scholarly Film Analysis
While you may have analyzed films or literature in the past,
doing so with a model is probably new to you.
Analyzing any work of art through the lens of a critical approach
requires that you accept a few basic ideas; writing about your analysis for a
scholarly audience requires that you follow a few guidelines.
Premises
1: All works of art make some kind of comment
about the world (era, culture, etc.) in which their creators live.
2: All films are works of art (you could add a
“more-or-less” qualifier to this).
3: Every aspect of a
work of art is the result of purposeful decisions by its creator (i.e., there
are no accidents). Therefore, you must
always ask why the creator has done a particular thing and what it might
mean. In the case of film analysis, we
refer to the creator in the plural, as “filmmakers.”
Definitions
1:
A critical approach or paradigm (from which you will develop a critical
or theoretical model) is a body of ideas contained in or implied by a theory. This will be your main topic for secondary
research, NOT the film itself.
2:
A theory is simply an explanation of some phenomenon.
3:
A good theory is an explanation that a.) covers all the
known facts and b.) can be used to predict future occurrences of a phenomenon.
4: The literary
present tense is a convention of academic writing, where a scholar writes
about a work of art as if it is happening at the present moment, as shown in
the following sentence: “The filmmakers
of Spider-Man make a distinction between the daylight New York
City of Peter Parker and the nighttime world of Spider-Man.”
Guidelines for
Writing
1: The audience for
your essay is a scholarly one, which means that they are already very familiar with the film you are
discussing. Therefore, there is no need
to summarize the plot of the film at any length beyond a single sentence.
2: The body of your essay should begin with a
thorough discussion of the critical model you have developed and why it is
useful in analyzing this particular film.
Essentially, you will be revising your literature review here to
establish your authority on the model.
3: You will need to
focus on two or three scenes in the film in order to produce an analysis that
has depth, so question everything in the scenes and apply the model to it
all.
4: Although you are
working on two or three scenes, it is perfectly acceptable and appropriate to
refer – briefly – to other parts of the film, as needed, to contextualize your
discussion. For example, if you were to
analyze the scene in Finding Nemo where Marlin is obstructing Nemo’s
efforts to prepare for his first day of school, it would be useful to consider
the later scene in the dentist’s aquarium in which Gill talks Nemo through
sabotaging the pump, since it is a mirror scene (i.e., one that basically
repeats an earlier sequence with a few alterations that change the way the earlier
scene should be viewed). In this case,
you might prefer to use the later scene as your second scene.
5: As this is not an
evaluation or a review, your audience DOES NOT CARE whether you think the film
is good or bad, nor do they care about the actors who are playing the
roles. It is rare to need to make any reference
to an actor; we usually only care about the character. Refer to characters by their names,
not by the names of the actors playing them, and never succumb to the
temptation to talk about them as if they are real people.
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Myth Criticism (Archetypes & the Monomyth)
"a hero ventures forth from the
world of the common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous
forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero
comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his
fellow man" (30).
-Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a
Thousand Faces
Characters
in a Quest
The people in quests tend to be archetypal; i.e., they exemplify
or are variations on archetypes, which have “universal” symbolic meaning.
The Hero Archetype
The hero may be male or female, but in most quests (alas), he is
male. The symbolic value that attaches
to the hero is one of transformation resulting in redemption. The hero stands out as being different from
other people, although this may not be obvious to those other people. The monomyth is the hero’s journey, a quest
that will change him or her forever.
The Villain
If heroes often find themselves alone unwillingly, villains
generally choose to cut themselves off from others. They are self-absorbed and more or less evil;
some may be consumed by one of the Seven Sins (envy, lust, anger, gluttony,
greed, sloth, or vanity), while others may simply be weak, and possibly even
likeable. Their journey is a perversion
of the monomyth.
The Mentor
There may be one or more mentors who
teach or train the hero; some may fit the Sage/Wise Old Man archetype (Yoda,
Gandalf), but there are many exceptions (e.g., Neytiri in Avatar). Mentors are sometimes obvious, as in the case
of Luke and Obi Wan, and sometimes obscured, often by the nature of the mentor,
as with Hagrid and Harry Potter, and Mr. Beefy and Little Nicky. The mentor may give the hero a talisman (this can be
a thing, like a weapon, or something more abstract, like an idea) to help
him. Examples here are Mr. Beefy and the
Popeye’s Chicken, or Uncle Ben’s telling Peter Parker that “with great power
comes great responsibility.” Many fully
adult heroes (usually those who have been on previous quests) will not have a
mentor in their current quest.
Companions
Once the quest is on, one or more companions may join the
hero. A companion can be just a
sidekick, there for comic relief, but they generally help the hero to pass his
tests and achieve the ultimate goal of the quest. Less often, the companion may be on a quest
of his or her own. Some examples of the
former are Ron and Hermione (to Harry Potter), Sam Gamgee (to Frodo), or Jay
and Silent Bob (to Bethany, in Dogma). Leia and Han Solo (who has his own companion
in Chewbacca), Aragorn and Boromir (to Frodo) are the second type.
Guides
Guides are the third type of people who help the hero on his
journey. They may have an ongoing role
in the quest, like C3PO and R2D2, or just appear when needed, as does the
unicorn in Harry Potter. Typically, they provide information or a
service, then disappear from the story.
The Quest or Monomyth Structure
Birth
Often the hero or heroine has a mysterious or exotic birth and/or
early childhood. Think of Achilles,
Jesus, King Arthur (and Merlin, for that matter). Modern quests usually overlook this element, but
it occasionally turns up, as in the Arnold Schwartzenegger/Danny DeVito film, Twins, or the Adam Sandler film, Little Nicky, where the truth is revealed late in the film.
Isolation
The hero is isolated before the quest begins, either literally or
figuratively. This can be as extreme a
case as Robinson Crusoe, stranded on an island, or Neo of The Matrix, who is socially isolated at the beginning of that film.
Warning/Intervention
There is usually some hint or suggestion that an adventure may be
coming, for example, the scene in Star
Wars: A New Hope, where Luke takes the droids to the man he knows as Ben
Kenobi, who then gives him his father’s lightsaber and tells him that he should
leave his home. The goal of the quest may or may not be established at this point.
Call to Adventure
This is the first point at which the hero is given the choice of
going on the adventure or refusing. He
or she may accept against his or her own wants and needs. It can be a literal call from a person or
persons, as in LOTR, when Gandalf
tells Frodo to leave the Shire, or a more figurative call in the form of an
event: Luke Skywalker’s family is killed
and the farm burned, Peter Parker has the opportunity to stop an armed robber,
and so on. Important: refusing to accept
the call, as Parker does, usually results in tragedy (his uncle is killed by
the man he could have captured earlier.
Crossing the Threshold/The
Jumping-Off Place
After the quest is accepted, the hero
must venture “into a region of supernatural wonder,” and of course, there is a
“threshold” between the ordinary world and this region of adventure. There is a test that must be passed before
the threshold may be crossed; it may be as simple as getting away, like Luke in
the Mos Eisely cantina, or it might be a puzzle of some sorts, as with Harry
Potter being unable to get to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. In any event, the new world where the quest
is to take place is different both from the hero’s world and the jumping-off
place itself.
The Road of Trials/Tests and Training
As he moves toward his ultimate goal in the world of adventure,
the hero may be trained by the mentor (think Rocky’s training sequence, or Neo
learning martial arts), or he may just begin undergoing a series of
challenges. The result is that the hero
has new skills and/or confidence. These
trials may be fights with strange creatures (Frodo and the Ringwraiths, for
instance), rescuing a companion (Luke and Princess Leia—Star Wars is full of rescues), or some more or less dangerous test
for the hero.
The Final Battle/Final Test
The final test is the climax of the quest. The hero must face the most difficult
challenge, against overwhelming odds, to achieve his goal. If the hero is a warrior, he will usually
face an actual battle or fight, but if not, it may be some other kind of test,
as with Harry Potter in Sorcerer’s Stone.
The Flight
In a successful quest, the hero will have achieved his
goal as part of the final test and will need to leave the scene of the
“battle,” which may take some preparation.
Again, this may be a literal or figurative flight. If enemies remain, he may have to flee (think
of Spider-man, in an unsuccessful quest, who is observed –by Harry – leaving
the dead body of Norman Osborne), if not, it’s a more leisurely passage—such as
that of Dorothy, who makes her tearful farewells to her companions as she gets
ready to leave Oz. The point of the
flight is to get back to the threshold between the worlds.
The Return
Back at the threshold, the hero crosses into his own world, one
way or another (this can be relatively gentle or pretty violent), in a new condition. By that I mean that he or she may be radically
different now, as with the resurrection of Jesus, or Frodo, who is so changed
that he can no longer live in the Shire, or he may simply be more confident,
etc.
The Boons (aka
“the elixir”)
Whatever the goal of the quest, there is almost always some
product, concrete or intangible, that the hero carries back with him and that becomes
a part of his public identity. Harry
Potter brings back the Sorcerer’s Stone, Indiana Jones gets the Ark, Jesus
brings the good news.
The structure of the monomyth and the concept of archetypes are
critical models that you can apply to various stories to tease out their hidden
facets and explain relationships between people, events, and things. You can also use it to track quests of other
characters—following Aragorn or Boromir in LOTR, for instance, gives you
an entirely different experience of the story.
Keep in mind, however, that using the entire monomyth model would require you to write a booklength
analysis!
Search terms include: Heroes-mythology, Mythology in Literature,
Mythology in film, Archetypes in Literature.
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A Brief Guide to Gender Studies Analysis
Gender studies is both an umbrella term for all criticism
having to do with any kind of gender issues and a term for a single approach
that looks at all kinds of gender in one text (meaning any work of art or setting). It includes the feminist, masculinist, and
queer theory approaches, which each have their own particular issues, although
all are concerned with stereotypes, both negative and positive. Analysis from these angles begins with
examining how a gender is depicted, usually through several characters, as to
power dynamics, agency, ability, and psychology, and gender roles are dictated
by the culture they are found in, so your analysis will always consider why the
culture dictates a particular role.
Typically, a film will show either a. what the current gender role is
presumed to be, or b. a negative stereotype, while at the same time it proposes
competing models, at least one of which is presented as better than the current
model.
Women’s Studies
Feminist criticism developed from the issues brought forth
by the women’s rights movement, so you should not be surprised to find that it
looks at women’s roles to determine how they compare to men’s (equal treatment,
rights, opportunities, etc.). For example,
you might ask if the women in your scene are depicted as individuals rather
than just interchangeable bodies or objects.
Objectification is an important feminist concept that refers to an
attitude that regards women as property or somehow less that fully human. Another important concept is infantilization,
where a woman is treated or spoken to as if she were a child, suggesting that
the person doing this believes that women are not capable of adult (meaning
male) reasoning and judgment. Negative
stereotypes include the bimbo, the old maid, and the “dumb blonde” (just to
mention a very few), while the more positive stereotypes tend to be things like
the cookie-baking grandmother, saintly nuns (as opposed to scary nuns), and the
society princess, none of which are wholly positive roles, and the one thing
they have in common is that these women don’t seem to do anything
important. In order to analyze this way,
you have to ask yourself, what can and should a woman be? and, what does this
film say a woman should be? The next
step is trying to reconcile the answers.
Search terms
include: objectification,
infantilization, exploitation, stereotyping, and self-stereotyping.
Men’s Studies
Masculinist criticism deals with the same ideas, if not the
same issues, as feminist criticism, but as they pertain to men. One concept that is prevalent in most of the
masculinist scholarly literature is that of “masculinities”: the different ways
of being a man. In examining a text,
scholars may ask what can and should a man be (according to this text)? or look
at relationships between men. Films and
literature are often motivated by these issues.
For one example, take 300, where the opening scene describes how
a Spartan boy becomes a Spartan man, listing all the qualities the adult male
should have, which provides a model for analysis of the rest of the film. Male stereotypes fall into categories that
seem to be based on physical strength and/or virility (or the lack thereof), as
with jocks, nerds, the “man’s man,” and the “ladies’ man.” Search
terms include: masculinity,
hegemonic masculinity, warrior code, stereotyping, and self-stereotyping.
In both of these models, films
may ignore the marginalization and discrimination faced by real people in
similar situations, or else the characters may be shown suffering profoundly
because of them.
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Disability Studies: It’s Not What You Think
There are two primary ways to
look at disability (or, if you prefer, physical or mental difference):
a. The
medical model, which means viewing disability as a thing that needs to be
treated, or
b. The social
model, which looks at how a culture constructs the identity of persons with disabilities
(this is the preferred term – never say “the handicapped”), i.e., who a person
with a disability is or can be.
Disability studies is mainly concerned with the
social model and thus has virtually no interest in medical conditions per
se. What it is interested in is the lived experience of disability, which is
generally dictated by whatever society the person in question lives in. Historically, people with disabilities have
been regarded with fear and loathing and have been treated accordingly, subject
to prejudice and discrimination. They
are also, even now, subjected to the objectification and infantilization
mentioned when we discussed gender.
Nowadays, these are minor obstacles to full participation in life; the
major obstacles have to do with the built environment and the attitudes of
“normate culture,” which is that of the non-disabled who have little experience
with the disabled. Currently, normate culture
sees the disabled as victims, some of whom would be better off dead (as in Million
Dollar Baby, or, in the case of Avatar, in a non-human body). You can almost judge how the overall culture
stands on disability issues by watching popular films, where the number of
films with the medical model overwhelms those that explore the social
model. Here are a couple of the latter,
with workable theses:
Finding Nemo.
Thesis: The scene depicting
Nemo’s first day of school presents Marlin’s parenting and caregiver anxieties
in a humorous context in order to set up a later scene that shows a more
effective approach to raising a disabled child.
Discussion:
The paper would therefore analyze this scene with a focus on Marlin’s
anxieties, how they are revealed to the audience, what causes them, and what
effects they have on Nemo.
Finding Nemo.
Thesis: In the film Finding
Nemo, the relationship between Nemo, a juvenile clownfish with a withered
fin, and his father Marlin, who is ridden with guilt and fear since the death
of his wife and other eggs, provides examples of many disability issues.
Discussion: The paper would go through the disability
issues presented in the scene one by one, looking at the two perspectives of
the characters involved.
The Fantastic Four.
Thesis: This film repeatedly
draws attention to the way the societal reaction to physical difference, not
the difference itself, is what makes a person disabled.
Discussion:
The scene to analyze for this thesis is Ben going home to break the news
to his girlfriend Debbie. It introduces
the two main issues he is going to have to face because of his changed
condition: people’s fear and revulsion
at his appearance, and the obstacles he will encounter trying to live in a
world geared to people who fit a rigidly limited physical description.
The Fantastic Four.
Thesis: Although the entire film
depicts Ben Grimm’s process of adjusting to being disabled, there is only one
scene focusing on the adjustments that the other main characters must make to
his changed status.
Discussion: This thesis is not as strongly argumentative
as it could be (see second option below).
Using the scene where the four main characters adjust to living together,
beginning with the breakfast meeting and ending with the shaving cream in the
face, analyze all the characters’ actions and reactions, dialogue, etc.
Second thesis option for this scene: Surprisingly, the only character who treats
Ben without pity or fear is the immature and irresponsible Johnny.
Discussion:
Using that same sequence, just shifting to a different point (which will
also require more evidence). The
important idea here is that Johnny treats Ben no differently after the accident
than he did before. He is uniformly obnoxious.
Search Terms
include: objectification,
infantilization, exploitation, stereotyping, stigma
Shame Theory- The Short Version
Ø
Shame is the head
of a family of emotions, including guilt, humiliation, embarrassment,
mortification, and so on. It’s called a
master emotion because it affects all other emotional responses when it is
present.
Ø
Shame is also a
survival trait, used by a community (even one as small as a family) to enforce
social conformity.
Ø
Unlike some other
emotions (love, for example), shame is “hardwired” into the human brain. It causes a number of physiological
phenomena, including blushing, weeping, and even fainting in some individuals.
Ø
Also unlike most
emotions, the memory of shame can cause the same physical responses by itself.
Ø
A major shame event
will almost always involve exposure, that is, there will be at least one
witness to the person’s shame or the possibility of later exposure.
Ø
The causes of
many shame events are culturally based, although the responses seem to be
universal.
Ø
Because there is
a surge in the impact of shame when a child becomes an adolescent, many films
feature shame as a primary motivator for teenagers.
Shame and Pride
When people
experience shame, in what is called a shame event, they will typically behave
in ways that they began using in early childhood. This is called “following a script” because
people “rehearse and perform” this same pattern until they achieve full
emotional maturity (and even then, they will occasionally relapse). The purpose of this behavior is to regain
pride, which is the emotion opposite to shame.
The four scripts are:
Ø
Attack
other. A person who uses this script
will throw the shame he or she is experiencing onto a nearby person. You might be familiar with this from people
who say “Look what you made me do!” every time they are embarrassed over their
own clumsiness.
Ø
Attack self. Individuals in attack-self mode do just
that: they berate themselves for
whatever it was that caused the shame, as in “Why do I always say the wrong
thing? I’m so stupid. I hate myself!”
Ø
Withdrawal. People who follow the withdrawal script are
easy to identify. They will be unable to
meet anyone’s eyes, they may hunch over, and, if the shame is severe enough, they
may run away (fainters fall into this category).
Ø
Avoidance. Rather than meaning avoiding shame, this is
avoiding the admission of shame. People
who use the avoidance script simply refuse to acknowledge that a shame event
has occurred. In more extreme cases
their denial is so complete that they may actually forget what it was they did
that was shameful.
A sample preliminary
thesis:
In an early scene
in the film Tombstone, the filmmakers set up Wyatt Earp’s understanding
of shame by having him manipulate Johnny Tyler’s attack-other script reaction
in order to take over his gambling operation.
Discussion: The scene also shows that Doc Holiday has a
similar knowledge of shame, based on the way he treats Johnny Tyler. The
depiction of the attack-other script in this scene is crucial foreshadowing of
a climactic scene, the gunfight at the O.K. corral, where Wyatt Earp recognizes
that the man Doc Holiday has deliberately winked at is going to have an
attack-other response like Tyler’s, and, according to the film, that response
is the cause of the gunfight.
Note: People experiencing a shame event will ALWAYS
react in one of the above scripts or the emotionally mature manner. If they don’t seem to be doing so, there is
always an explanation that you can turn into a thesis, as in the following:
In Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, Pippin appears
not to experience shame, but his reaction to his triumphs reveals that he is
simply not a prideful character.
Search terms:
shame, affect, guilt, humiliation,
embarrassment, mortification, script theory, shame-rage spiral.
Genre Criticism
If you are going to use genre criticism for a research
project, you have to find authoritative scholarly sources that define and describe
the genre you want to analyze. However,
you have to arrive at your own definition in the end. You will consult outside sources, but you will
need to make your own determinations as to what characteristics define the
genre you are claiming for your film.
Oddly enough, this is one of the easiest approaches for analysis for
people who have no previous experience in applying a critical model, perhaps
because we are accustomed to thinking of films in terms of genre already.
Traditionally, the primary film genres are drama, comedy,
horror, action, science fiction and fantasy, western, mystery/suspense
thriller, musical, and family. Some
films may combine genres, as with an action comedy, for example (please, don’t
use the word “dramedy” or any other such term!). All of the genres have subgenres, like
romantic comedies, slasher films, political thrillers, sports films—which can
be a subgenre of action, drama, or comedy, etc.
All of these have characteristics that constitute a definition of the
genre, and all of them are wide open to debate.
As an example of a potential basis for an essay, consider
this question: although there are vampires
in the film Twilight, does it fit the horror subgenre of vampire films
in a significant way? I’d say no, and
I’d even go so far as to say that it doesn’t belong to what might be called the
sub-subgenre of vampire romance either.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a teenage relationship drama that just
happens to have vampires in it, and that would be my thesis.
If this approach is your choice, you will need to define the
genre or subgenre (or subsubgenre) AND you will need to examine how the film,
through the scenes you have chosen, shows a break from the definition. This break will usually do one of the
following things: represent a new development
in the genre, combine with another genre that it has not previously been combined
with (how about a musical spy thriller?
That has probably already been done, but I can’t think of one offhand),
or it could be a break from the genre that adds nothing meaningful (as with the
vampires in Twilight).
Your analysis of the scene will look for both adherence to
and divergence from the model you have set up, and your thesis should concern
what this means to the genre as a whole.
So, in the case of my Twilight example, I would have
to define several genres and subgenres:
horror, vampire, relationship dramas, and teenage relationship
dramas. I wouldn’t bother defining
drama, since that’s fairly obvious. I’d
use the scene with the baseball game for my analysis; it has both “good” and
“bad” vampires, elements of horror and the vampire subgenre, but the teenage
relationship elements (boy showing off for the girl, hanging out with his
friends/family, confrontation with kids from a bad crowd) predominate. The bad vampires could just as easily be
gangbangers instead of vampires. In
fact, it’s very reminiscent of the school dance scene in West Side Story
(which is, of course, an adaptation of the über-teenage relationship drama, Romeo
and Juliet).
Search terms are the names of the various
genres.
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