The document outlines 8 critical approaches that can be used for a small scale research project on film: star/performer, genre, auteur, social and political contexts, gender issues, ethnicity, institution, and technology. For each approach, it provides examples of potential research areas that could be investigated, focusing films that could be analyzed, and related films.

1. Small Scale Research Project
The 8 Critical Approaches
Possible Questions
1

2. The 8 Critical ApproachesThe 8 Critical Approaches
• Star / Performer
• Genre
• Auteur
• Social and political contexts
• Gender issues
• Ethnicity
• Institution
• Technology

3. Star / Performer
• You can research an individual or group of
individuals, which could lead to something
such as a ‘star-study’, historical
developments in star status, cultural
relationships the notion of star / performer,
fandom, issues of performance.

4. Star / Performer
• Area of investigation:
The characteristics of
Rhys Ifans’
performance across
different directors and
production contexts
• Focus film: Enduring
Love
• Related films: Twin
Town and Notting Hill

5. Star / Performer
• Area of investigation:
The meaning brought
to a film by Juliette
Binoche
• Focus film: The
Unbearable Lightness
of Being
• Related films: Les
Amants du Pont Neuf
and The English
Patient

6. Genre
• You could focus your research on a single
genre or a range of genres. This area is
designed for you to develop investigations
that consider film as a structured product
that is designed to relate to other similar
films. You might investigate the evolution
of a genre, consider the idea of national
cinema or look at genre as a cultural
product.

7. Genre
• Area of investigation:
The shaping of the
gangster genre by the
films of Martin
Scorcese
• Focus film: Mean
Streets
• Related films:
Goodfellas and Casino

8. Genre
• Area of investigation:
The perceived
communist threat and
the rise of the
American science
fiction film
• Focus film: The Day
the Earth Stood Still
• Related films: Plan 9
from Outer Space and
On the Beach

9. The Auteur
• allows a film or body of films to be seen in the context of
an authorial voice. It is intended that this context be as
broadly interpreted as possible, and so the traditional
view of an auteur as a single person (usually the
director) is extended to include any individual who
leaves a 'signature' of control (over the production
and/or over meaning) on a film, be they the screenwriter,
the cinematographer, the composer, or even an actor.
Indeed, this is taken further still by considering the
collaborative auteur (two or more individuals who when
they come together on a project leave an unmistakable
signature - Scorsese and DeNiro, for example), and the
institutional auteur (where an institution, be it a studio, a
government agency or a collective, leaves a signature
on a film irrespective of who actually worked on it - the
comedies produced at Ealing demonstrate this well).

10. The Auteur
• Area of investigation:
Luc Besson's move
from French film to
Americanised movies
and the impact on his
cinematic style
• Focus film: Leon
• Related films: Subway
and Nikita

11. The Auteur
• Area of investigation:
Ealing Studios'
'signature'
• Focus film: Kind
Hearts and Coronets
• Related films: The
Man in the White Suit
and The Lavender Hill
Mob

12. Social and political contexts
• This could focus on the contexts of the
production of the film, or on the
commentary offered by films on a
particular social or political context (E.G
Iraq War – Farenheit 9-11)

13. Social and political contexts
• Area of investigation:
German film's
reflection of Germany
before and after
reunification
• Focus film: Kings of
the Road
• Related films: Run
Lola Run and Downfall

14. Social and political contexts
• Area of investigation:
Films dealing with the
Vietnam War as a
symptom of modern
America
• Focus film: Platoon
• Related films: Forrest
Gump and Hamburger
Hill

15. Gender
• encourages an approach that allows the
study of gendered films or gendered
filmmaking, but also one that allows the
study of gendered spectatorship. Issues of
sexuality, of gender, of representation,
and of other related contexts can be
explored either singly or through a
comparative approach (such as
comparing male and female directorial
approaches to the crime movie genre).

16. Gender
• Area of investigation:
Kathryn Bigelow's
approach to the
contemporary horror
film
• Focus film: Near Dark
• Related films: From
Dusk Till Dawn and
The Forsaken

17. Ethnicity
• may be explored through diverse
approaches including analysing the
representations within a film, and issues
around those making a film. It should be
viewed as a broad approach that can
include more traditional topics (such as
Sexploitation movies, or the
representation of the American Indian in
the Western genre),

18. Ethnicity
• Area of investigation:
British-Indian cinema
coming of age
• Focus film: Bend it
Like Beckham
• Related films: My Son
the Fanatic and Bhaji
on the Beach

19. Ethnicity
• Area of investigation:
the changing
representation of
young black men in
British film
• Focus film: Bullet Boy
• Related films:
Pressure and Babylon

20. Institution
• engages with issues of industry that may have
been stimulated from concepts engaged with in
FM2 British and American film. Most obvious will
be the industrialised production contexts for film
production (the studios ,the production
companies, and even the established methods
of production), but issues around film finance,
producing, law, regulation, distribution,
exhibition and governmental influence over
filmmaking are all valuable areas through which
to contextualise a research project.

21. Institution
• Area of investigation:
the impact of the Hays
Code
• Focus film: Ecstasy
• Related films: Tarzan
and His Mate and The
Outlaw

22. Institution
• Area of investigation:
American Cinema -
independence and
success
• Focus film:
Apocalypse Now
• Related films: The
Good Shepherd and
Sleepy Hollow

23. Technology
• this context is one that encompasses all the
constructional devices in cinema, from
production through to distribution and exhibition
methods. A wide range of investigations can be
contextualised by technology from an historic
approach dealing with a production
development such as the introduction of
surround sound, through to the impact of video
on the industry, or the implication of digital
exhibition (most importantly with the broader
areas of investigation is the need to anchor
them to a particular focus film).

24. Technology
• Area of investigation:
development of CGI in
animation and its
impact on audiences
• Focus film: Toy Story
• Related films: Toy
Story 2 and Shrek

25. Technology
• Area of investigation:
the development of
colour film techniques
• Focus film: Gone with
the Wind
• Related films: The
Black Pirate and The
Sheltering Sky

26. Other Examples

27. • Critical Approach: Auteur
• Area of investigation: a close study
into Tim Burton exploring the
extent to which his childhood
experiences are significant in
defining his auteur signature

28. • Critical Approach:
Institution/Technology
• Area of investigation: a study into
what makes Pixar films so
distinctive from other animation
studio films

29. • Critical Approach: Social & Political and Genre
• Area of investigation: how musicals present
utopian ideologies to provide escape from social
thoughts of the time (Zeitgeist)

30. • Critical Approach: Social & Political
• Area of investigation: how cinema has
represented an interpreted fashion as a
cultural form

31. • Critical Approach: Star/Auteur
• Area of investigation: a study into the
extent to which Tom Hanks solo
performances have established him
as an auteur

32. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Representations of
corruption in Africa
and its social and
political effects on
Western perceptions
of Africa

33. • Critical Approach:
Institution/
Technology
• Area of investigation:
The impact of Pixar
on the development
and reception of
contemporary
animation feature
films

34. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
A comparison of
American mainstream
and independent
films and the social
and political
commentary these
films make pertaining
to adolescence

35. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
How 1970’s musicals
rebelled against the
societal norms on
gender and sexuality

36. • Critical Approach:
Auteur Study
• Area of investigation:
The collaboration of
Tim Burton and
Johnny Depp and
their construction of
protagonists as a
defining feature of
their auteur signature

37. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
The social and
political implications
of the civil rights
movement as
represented across a
body of film

38. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
How films represent
American ideologies
and societal views of
homosexuality within
the period that they
were set

39. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
The social and
political commentary
offered on 9/11
across a body of films
and the effect they
have hand on
perceptions of
America

40. • Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Ideologies of the Iraq
war as depicted
across a body films