Select one of the following ten questions and write a response of approximately
5 pages. Feel free to modify the topic, but please discuss any modification
with me in person before you start writing. Submissions should be typed
and double-spaced. Please return the essay by October 29, 4pm.
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Compare the image of the city in Fritz Lang's M and Roberto
Rossellini's Open City. Why do we tend to consider one more
"realistic" than the other?
-
How did the coming of synchronized sound affect German cinema around
1930 in both aesthetic and industrial terms? How did Fritz Lang's
M,
in particular the opening sequence, respond to the new possibilities
of film sound?
-
How would Fritz Lang have shot this sequence of Grand
Illusion? Why?
-
How would Jean Renoir have shot this sequence of M?
Why?
-
Could Roberto Rossellini have shot this sequence of Grand
Illusion? How would a neo-realist version have looked like?
Explain!
-
Discuss this clip from Open
City in terms of Andre Bazin's article, "An Aesthetics
of Reality."
-
What is "realist" about "poetic realism"? What
is "poetic" about it?
-
Compare the composition of natural spaces, as well as the positioning
of human bodies in nature, in the final sequences of Grand
Illusion and Sansho
the Bailiff. How do they differ? What does this say about
different cinematic styles and projects?
-
Compare the construction of space in the opening sequence of Lang's
M
with the articulation of space in this sequence of Sansho
the Bailiff. To what extent can we call the style of both
films "closed"?
-
Discuss some of the cultural traditions important to understand Japanese
films such as Sansho the Bailiff. In what way do these traditions
affect the look of the film or its narrative organization?
