This document provides an introduction to film analysis. It discusses what movies are, how to analyze them actively rather than passively, and some key concepts. Movies tell stories using techniques like camera work, editing, and sound to shape the viewer's experience. Analyzing the relationship between a film's form and content can provide layers of meaning and understanding. The document also outlines genres, narrative structures, and other elements of cinematic language that film analysts seek to identify and understand.

1. Introduction to Film Analysis

2. What is a movie?
The most
popular art
form today

3. What is a movie?
It is a complex form of artistic representation and
Communication

4. What is a movie?
• For most of us most
of the time, movies
are a break from
our daily
obligations-a form
of escape,
entertainment and
pleasure
• But underneath their surfaces, all movies, even the
most blatantly commercial ones, contain layers of
complexity and meaning that can be studied, analyzed
and appreciated

5. Looking at Movies vs. Watching Movies
In this class you will
learn to be active
and not passive
• You will learn to LOOK at a movie not simply
WATCH a movie
• You will learn to Analyze-understanding the
language of movies
• By breaking it up into parts

6. Analysis- the act of taking something
complicated apart to figure out what it is made
of and how it all fits together
• Usually we are lulled into PASSIVE viewing
• In analysis we are looking for the “invisible
aspects:
• Camera work, composition, editing, lighting,
sound, acting, narrative structure
• Always look for the why.
• WHY did that section scare you? Make you cry?
Have you in suspense? Bore you?
• WHYwere these specific choices made by the
director?

7. • You will learn that films have multiple layers,
each with a multitude of meanings.
• As we move forward in this class, you will be
expected to apply what you learn to your analysis.
Each film will focus on a different element(s).
• Before you begin analysis, however you must
understand a few key concepts

8. Content
• The subject of an artwork
Form
• The means through which that subject is expressed
The Relationship between form and content is a
central concern in ALL art
Let’s look for example at the human body as the
content

9. Same content, different forms:
The forms are
different and shape
The content of all our emotional and
intellectual responses
three of these is the human body
to the subject

10. Same content, different forms:
•Less about recording a
particular man and more about
describing an ideal form
•It’s an idealization and
therefore no more real than
the other two-it is just as much
an interpretation!
Hermes Carrying the
Infant Dionysus by
Praxiteles

11. Same content, different forms:
Seems to
Because of its
reach for
exaggerated
something
form, conveys
that lies
a sense of
beneath the
isolation,
surface of
even anguish
human life
and the
human form
Walking Man by Alb erto
Giacometti

12. Same content, different forms:
Relies on stylized and almost
cartoonlike form. Seems
more playful and
mischievous than the other
two
Appears to celebrate a sense
of joy Self Portrait by Keith
Haring

13. Form and Content in film
• Heist (2001) is a great movie to explore form and
content: In one scene a bank robbery (the content)
• is seen in two different forms-
• the surveillance footage of the
• rob robbery and the robbery itself
If we were to watch the roberry
just from the surveillance
footage, we would miss a lot.
Because surveillance footage
only shows us what is happening

14. Form and Content in film
The careful choices of the
director however, which
includes 81 shots (editing),
juxtaposition of points of
view, close-ups, camera
angles, set, acting, music do
more than just tell us what is
happening, they shape our
experience with film form:
develop character, establish
dramatic tension, give
explicit information and give
implicit meaning

15. Form and Content in film
• The three shot sequence that reveals that the employees have
been drugged with coffee implies a great deal of preparation
on the part of the criminals and let’s us know these are not
your run-of-the-mill crooks
• The next five shots establish Joe (Gene Hackman) as the
ring leader
• The next shots establish Joe’s character and show’s his
thought process when he spares a woman’s life all while
forgetting to put his mask back on
• The rest of the shots establish relationships,
communicate Joe’s agony at realizing the surveillance
camera’s caught his face, and establish urgency (by
panning to the clock several times)

16. Form and Expectations
• Our decision to see a movie is almost always
based on expectations:
• director’s previous work
• actors
• publicity
• friends or reviews
• Even if there were no expectations (which
there almost alwaysare) as soon as the
opening credits roll, we immediately form
expectations and begin to create questions

17. Form and Expectations
• As the movie continues, we experience a more
complex web of expectations
• Very often a movie starts with a “normal”
world, which is altered by a particular incident
or catalyst, that forces the characters to
pursue a goal.
• Once the narrative begins, we ask questions
about the story’s outcome

18. • At the
beginning of
Jaws, we ask
ourselves:
“Will they
catch the
shark?”

19. • American Beauty:
– In the first scene Janie’s boyfriend volunteers to kill her
father
– Then her father’s voice says he will be dead in less than a
year
• As we learn more about Ricky’s
rebellious nature, we wonder if
he would use a deadly weapon
• Our suspense is heightened
when we see his relationship
with his abusive father
• This shapes our expectations
for the rest of the movie

20. Narrative
• The last two examples show narrative creating
an expectation
• Narrative- the events in a movie and how they
connect to each other
• Other qualities that affect our expectations: color
schemes, sounds, length of shots, movement of
the camera (To be discussed later)
• Our expectations are heightened or confused
by the establishment patterns

21. Patterns ABCABCABCABC
In film, a pattern can create a connection
In Way down East (1920) we
In reality however, these actors were never close to
see the following shots: of the scene, established by
Niagra Falls. The form a
woman on the ice (A) Aediting has created an illusion
the pattern of parallel man
jumping from one ice to
of connections among these various shots, leaving us
another trying to catch her a continuous, anxiety
with an impression of
(B) and Niagra Falls (C)
producing drama
Because of the pattern of the
shots, we assume the river
that they are on flows over
Niagra falls

22. Patterns
What happens when something breaks a pattern?
ABCABCABCABCACB
When a pattern is broken on screen it can catch us
unaware or create a surprise (or twist)

23. Patterns
The Silence of the Lambs (1991)
This pattern and then break of pattern
creates twice the suspense. First because we
Paying attention will finally be caught and the in
think the FBI surrounding a house important
the killer to patterns will be
(A)-shots of
your victim willWe saved and then because we
analysis. be will later talk about nonnarrative
(B)-shots of the killer in the basement of a house arguing
patterns as well (repetition of images at the
know that Clarice (Jodie Foster) is or sound)
with his victim
killer’s house with no backup
We see the patterns ABABABAB and again we make the
connection that they are connected
However, the filmmaker has deceived us! Watch how this
sequence concludes here (watch the first 20 sec)

24. General Principles of film form
• Movies manipulate space and time in unique ways
• They can move seamlessly from one space to
another
• They can fragment time as in slow motion or
montages
• Your relationship to space as a viewer: close-ups
and landscape shots
• Space outside the “lens”-we see a shot of the
corner of the bar but we know that the space
extends past what we can see

25. General Principles of film form
• Movies depend on light
• It enhances the texture, depth, emotions and mood
of a shot
• It can make a character’s face look attractive or
unattractive, manipulating the way we feel about
them
• Movies provide an illusion of movement
• There is no actual movement in film. It is only a
series of photographs
• Filmmakers can manipulate this to create special
effects. (Like in The Matrix)

26. Realism & Antirealism
When he is in control, he’s the
• smartest kid in class, whenbe “realistic”
Not every film strives to he
• looses however a listensmovies mix the real and
Today control he lot of to a
huge demonicespecially those in the science
the fantastic, imaginary rabbit
fiction, action and thriller genres
The movie asks more questions than it answers and
leaves the viewer with a provocative vision of how close
the line between the real and the fantastic can be
Donnie Darko shifts back and forth between
showing a realistic depiction of the life of Donnie
Darko and his fantastic take on it.

27. Verisimilitude
• A convincing appearance of truth
• But this is not the same as realism
• Even when events or people in a movie are not
realistic, if the filmmakers’ vision is consistent it
gives us the sense that in THAT world these things
COULD HAPPEN

28. Cinematic Language
• The systems, methods or conventions by
which films communicate with the viewer
• Examples:
• We know that a dissolve between two
shots usually means the passage of time
• Characters shot from below usually indicate
that they are superior or threatening
• We know that color can create meaning
or importance This class will teach you
how to identify and
analyze cinematic
language

29. Types of Movies
• Narrative Films (or fiction films)
• Non Fiction Films (or documentaries)
• Animated Films
• Experimental Films

30. Genres of Narrative Films
The six major American Genres
• Action • Musical
• Biography • Mystery
• Comedy • Coming of Age
• Fantasy • Road Movie
• Film Noir • Thriller
• Gangster • War
• Horror • Western
• Melodrama • Buddy Movie
• Romance • Genres are often mixed or evolve
and adapt to meet the
• Science Fiction expectations of a changing society

31. Knowing the genre
• Can help you because each genre has it’s
own set of conventions. If you know these,
you will be able to analyze more quickly and
more deeply

32. Types of Non-Fiction Films
• Instructional Films
• Documentary
• Propaganda

33. Introduction to Film Analysis