When we have film discussions, you'll find it useful to take into account the guidelines on this page. A bonus is that discussing films for our class may sharpen your insights as you view first-run films, too, and help you to get more out of them.

Artist at Work. Do films and does art of all
kinds help us better understand reality?


Film analysis involves a great deal more than expressing positive or negative opinions about movles or documentary films. In film analysis, the viewer observes patterns in films and interprets them with reference to aspects of actual life.1

There are several different approaches to film analysis. Textual approaches emphasize the story itself -- what it is about. At a more analytical level, approaches that focus on the story also ask what the story tells us about human experience and how it helps us understand life's complexities and ambiguities. Other approaches to analysis examine one film in relation to other films of its type, while still others focus on the filmmaker and the evolution of the artist's work through time.

The questions in the box below are directed toward textual analysis of films. Several are adapted from Bywater and Sobchack's An Introduction to Film Criticism.1 Most of them can be applied both to either movies or film documentaries. Your film analysis may benefit by thinking about these questions as you view a afilm and addressing two or three of them in your discussion.

1. What was the film's overall theme? Were there secondary themes as well? How was the theme (themes) made clear to the viewer?

2. Was the main theme presented in a complex or a simple fashion? Was the presentation straightforward or indirect? Paradoxical? Ambiguous?

3. Did the film elicit a powerful emotional response? If so, how was that effect achieved?

4. Did the film's technical aspects (e.g., cinematography, lighting, costuming, editing) enhance the film's impact? How did these aspects contribute to the film's overall effectiveness?

5. What about the film suggests that it was made by an artist (or artists)?

And why would it matter? The idea here is that artists often have special insight. Do you agree with this perspective? Are there elements of this film that would underscore the possible merit of this view?

6. What did you learn from this film that you didn't know earlier? Did it show you something important about human relationships and social life? What? And what was it about the film that made it an especially effective vehicle for increasing your understanding?

7. How did the film make you see something about the world in a different way than before?

8. Did the film change any of your ideas, perspectives, beliefs…?

9. Did the film lead your thoughts down new paths -- help you see connections that you hadn't seen before, or stimulate new ideas that you hadn't considered before?

10. Were there points in the film with which you disagreed? Why did you disagree?

11. What was left unsaid in the film that you would like to have seen highlighted? What was skimmed over more briefly than you would have liked?

12. Where could the filmmaker go from here - in a next film, perhaps, on a related theme that somehow extends the ideas in this film?

Now for some practical details:

You should post two messages in the discussion about each film.

Your first posting should be a new message -- not a reply -- in which you analyze aspects of the film. It should be two or three paragraphs. Your second posting, in which you reply to someone else, can be shorter, but it should say more than "I agree," "I disagree, or "Fine job." Your reply should extend what the first discussant said, or give reasons for disagreeing with the other person. It should move the discussion forward. A simple endorsement won't earn you any points.

All messages must be posted within a week of the film showing.

I hope you find the films intriguing and useful!
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1See Tim Bywater and Thomas Sobchack, An Introduction to Film Criticism : Major Critical Approaches to Narrative Film (New York : Longman, 1989).