FINAL EXAM

Select three of the following eight questions and write a response of approximately 2 pages each. Please do not modify the topics. You may not spend more than two hours on writing all of your responses, but you may spend more time thinking about them! Submissions should be typed and double-spaced. Please submit your essays by December 11, 12 noon, to Lutz Koepnick's box (Ridgley 319).

  1. Hollywood has become an ever-more dominant force in world film culture. Pick three of our films this semester and discuss how they negotiate the impact of Hollywood conventions on different national film cultures and traditions.
  2. In Tom Gunning's understanding, films can either rely on what he calls the logic of "narrative integration" or on an "aesthetics of attraction." Pick three of our films this semester and discuss how they incorporate or challenge either of the two principles mentioned by Gunning.
  3. Discuss the aesthetic shape and ideological function of "realism" in two of the films discussed throughout the semester. What makes these films realistic? And what function does realism serve here?
  4. Hong Kong action cinema is often understood as a cinema of transnational appeal and globalized identity. What does this mean? And how do films such as The Killer differ from other films and film movements we discussed throughout the semester?
  5. How does the representation of history and locality in the British heritage film differ from the image and use of history in at least two other films we watched and discussed during the semester?
  6. Choose three films we watched this semester and discuss them as important contributions to World Cinema.
  7. Asked about the work of Indian filmmaker S. Ray, French filmmaker and film critic Francois Truffaut once responded polemically: I really don't know why I should care about the representation of peasant life in India. Why, do you think, should we care about the films made somewhere else? Why do other film cultures matter? What can we learn from them? Please use examples from our screenings in order to answer this question.
  8. Do national cinemas today have a future? What can they do and what should they do in order to respond to Hollywood pressures?