7.2: Reading the Movies - Classroom Activity

Reading the Movies | Classroom Activity | Cinematic Language Scene-a-palooza

How To Use This Material [Instructor Note]

• This activity is meant to help students take what they've learned from the Sharman text, and put it into action. The first eleven clips compiled here are exemplary scenes from across film history, which will allow students the opportunity to ‘spot’ cinematic language at work. The particular selections, and the order in which they are presented, are meant to help scaffold student learning.
• Each of these clips are accompanied by guiding questions and frameworks for class discussion, which can be found below each embedded video.
• There is a Google Slide version of this activity, which contains an addition 16 clips that you may want to swap in with others depending on class interest, themes, etc. A link to the Slides presentation can be found here, and at the bottom of this chapter section.
• The opening is a recap of Russell Sharman’s ‘How To Watch A Movie,’ from the OER text Moving Pictures, which I recommend students read for homework prior to this activity.
• You are welcome to make a copy of this material and edit it as you wish; please be sure to follow the CC license mandates if/when doing so.

Recap: Sharman's "How to Watch a Movie"

• As Sharman notes, “the way the cinema communicates is the product of many different tools and techniques, from production design to narrative structure to lighting, camera movement, sound design, performance, and editing… employed to manipulate the viewer without us ever noticing” (47)
  • Our task today is to notice these tools and techniques, to better understand how cinema communicates with audience
• For Sharman, we can think of cinema like a language; his chapter (and this activity) is all about “how cinematic language works”
  • Like “breaking down the grammar and rules of spoken language,” the hope is to “train our interpretive skills to see how filmmakers use various tools and techniques” to achieve their desired effect (47)
  • Over time, filmmakers and audiences have together developed a visual lexicon, a “shared set of meaningful units in any language… [a] shared set of meaningful units in our collective cinematic language: images, angles, transitions and camera moves that we all understand mean something when employed in a motion picture” (49)

Scene One - "Veal Cutlets" | Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles | dir. Chantal Akerman (1975)

• Discussion Questions:
  • Acting as a commentary on patriarchy and the oppression of women, Jeanne Dielman dives headfirst into the monotony of the titular character’s day-to-day (as evidenced by this scene), before things start to unravel and she murders a client. How does the mise-en-scene speak to Jeanne’s interior world? What is the effect of the use of grid-like structures, textures, and patterns, the singular camera placement, the lack of dialogue, the blocking (or lack thereof), the lighting? While we’re only watching a segment, imagine the effect of building up this careful, rigid structure, before completely bulldozing it as Jeanne’s anger and disillusionment grows?
  • Remember that, in film, nothing is there ‘just because’—this is a great scene to start with, as every detail in this scene can be analyzed, and is used in service of a larger theme, idea, and/or effect.

Scene Two - "Opening Sequence" | Rear Window | dir. Alfred Hitchcock (1954)

• Discussion Questions:
  • Opening scenes are often tasked with introducing the key themes, ideas, and characters of the film, and Rear Window offers a great example. Through the camera alone, what are we able to ‘tell’ about the movie; what expectations, plot-points, and character developments are communicated through cinematic language? (we learn that Jefferies, for instance, is a photographer, and in a cast due to an accident on the job)
  • This clip provides a great example of the male gaze, too: how is Miss Torso (the name in the script of the woman dancing) captured differently than her other, less traditionally ‘desirable’ neighbors (Miss Lonelyhearts, the musician, the newlyweds, etc.)? What kinds of social, cultural, and political messages might be communicated through such depictions?

Scene Three - "Three-Way Standoff" | The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly | dir. Sergio Leone (1966)

• Discussion Questions:
  • How do all the close-up shots serve to build tension and intrigue within the scene? What is the dramatic effect when we’re finally given a wide-shot?
  • How does the music serve to elevate the tension and intrigue of the scene?

Scene Four - Video Store Meet | The Watermelon Woman | dir. Cheryl Dunye (1996)

• Discussion Questions:
  • How does Dunye use blocking—where/how characters are placed and moved through the frame—to communicate with the audience? How do these decisions affect our understanding of the character’s internal thoughts and feelings? Their external actions? How do they affect our ability to connect with them?
  • What is the significance of the ‘normality’ of the scene: it’s shot pretty straight-forwardly, all things considered, and the kind of conversation the coworkers are having is a common one, one not all too dissimilar from conversations you might’ve had with your own friends and coworkers—why might Dunye have wanted to present the content of this scene (Black queer romance) in such a manner?

Scene Five - "Eva!" | World on a Wire | dir. Rainer Werner Fassbinder (1973)

• Discussion Question:
  • What does the dynamic camera work contribute to one’s understanding of both the interior and exterior conflicts of our character? How does the 360 effect introduce tension, fear, and confusion into the audience?

Scene Six - "Swimming Scene" | Moonlight | dir. Barry Jenkins (2016)

• Discussion Questions:
  • How does the handheld nature of the camerawork lend to the intimacy of the scene?
  • What is the effect of having the water push against the frame?
  • What is achieved through the way in which the scene is edited together? What is accomplished by placing the swimming scene before Chiron’s and Juan’s conversation? How do the camerawork changes after the swim elevate the themes and messages of the scene overall?

Scene Seven - "Ark of Arts" | Children of Men | dir. Alfonso Cuarón (2005)

• Discussion Questions:
  • In a science fiction text, the author must flex and stretch our shared language to communicate sights, sounds, and ideas that may lie beyond our Earthly imaginations. In what ways is cinema uniquely able to depict the non-human, the futuristic, the off-planet?
  • Cuarón is playing quite a bit with color, sound, and set decoration here; what sticks out to you? Why? Why do you think the filmmaking team chose to include this detail?
  • How is camera placement contributing meaning to the scene? What does placing the camera in/at different positions bring to our understanding of the scene's implicit and explicit messages?

Scene Eight - "The Hills are Alive" | The Sound of Music | dir. Robert Wise (1965)

• Discussion Question:
  • This is a movie adapted from a stage musical; what is lost and gained by the adaptation to film—the grandeur of the location, the use of color, the ability to zoom in and out while capturing the performance vs. the rawness of a live show, the stylization of a theater adaptation, etc.

Scene Nine - "Leap of Faith" | Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse | dir. Persichetti, Ramsey, & Rothman (2018)

• Discussion Questions:
  • Outside the set-up dialogue, this scene is communicated entirely through moving image, and yet the emotions one feels at the end are likely much different than those at the start: how does the animation team use cinematic language to achieve this effect?
  • In what ways are the themes, messages, and a/effects of the scene elevated by the use of the animated form? What would be the difference if this was shot in live action?

Scene Ten - "Animal Fight Scene" | RRR | dir. S. S. Rajamouli (2022)

• Discussion Questions:
  • This is a scene that quite simply couldn’t exist without CGI technologies. What is gained through the deployment of such tools? Is anything lost? Do we want more CGI films in the future, or less?
  • How is tension, excitement, and intrigue built into the scene through not just what is being shown, but how it’s being shown. Sure, this scene is cool because a bunch of animals leap out from nowhere, but it is because of cinematic language that we read this as ‘bad-ass’ and not ‘cheugy’

Scene Eleven - 'Duck Amuck' | Looney Tunes | dir. Chuck Jones (1953)

• Discussion Questions:
  • How does Jones play with cinematic language within the piece? What ‘rules’ of cinematic language does he break, and what is achieved in doing so?
  • In what ways does our understanding and enjoyment of this short piece rely on our understanding of cinematic language (a language, prior to today, you may not have realized you spoke!)

A link to a Google Slides presentation of this material, which includes an additional 16 scenes, can be found here.

 

© J. F. Lindsay, CC BY-NC-SA