Study Unit C : Single Critical Study

Well, as the Specification says, it is expected that the student will bring their
“cumulative knowledge” gained during their film studies to bear on a single
close study. In practice, this means that macro and micro features of film
form will be studied, as will questions of representation. Students will be able
to place a film within its institutional and cultural contexts and apply other
historical knowledge as appropriate. Overall, the study will be mediated by
the application of one or more critical approaches – from the list supplied for
the FM3 Small-Scale Research Project.


This section is described as a “critical study”. The primary energy for this will
come from the student’s own application of learning – as outlined in (a)
above. However, reading, reflecting upon and debating a variety of critical
writing on the chosen film is also invited. This may be regarded as a new and
additional skill being introduced at the very end of the course.
It is expected that students will go into the examination aware of the major
debates (and sometime controversies) surrounding their chosen film and will
have established their own critical views in the context of this knowledge. It is
assumed that this knowledge will have come from writing that has some
critical status – and is not all taken from the Rotten Tomatoes website.


Fight Club
- Jack /Tyler Durden – the meaning and significance of this split person
- A progressive film or a deeply reactionary one?
- The representation of modern urban and corporate life
- The representation of masculinity and its threats
- Marla: women as object of scorn? Misogynistic?
- Managing the spectator’s identification and sympathies
- Distinctive stylistic features and the look of the film
- Motifs and their function44
- The social and cultural context of production
- Critical and popular responses to the film

Study Unit B : Film And Emotional Response

In choosing a popular film designed to give pleasure to an audience, the first
criterion should be – does it raise interesting questions for a study of
spectatorship?
Let us take a specific film – Benigni’s Life is Beautiful. (which, by the way, is a
‘popular film’, an Oscar winner and a film clearly designed for the mainstream
market in its country of orgin, and which has gone on to be a global best
seller in the dvd market.) Life is Beautiful tells an emotive story – designed to
play on the cusp between comedy and tragedy. It is somewhat (!) fantastic in
its premise but has a coherence within its own fictional terms. We may ask
the following questions:
- How does the film work to generate emotion, and here the emphasis may
be on relatively straight forward issues like the use of mise-en-scene,
staging and music or more complex issues of identification and spectator
alignment with particular characters?
- How far does the spectator feel consciously manipulated by the film and,
by contrast, how far does the emotional power of the film derive from a
combination of elements which are difficult to pin down?
- How far does the emotional affect of the film derive from contextual
knowledge, - in this case, our ability to respond to the film in the gap
between fictional representation and historical fact?
Studying this film alongside Schindler’s List opens up some important
broader debates about ‘good news’ Holocaust movies.
The above is a complex example – chosen to illustrate how rich and
challenging this topic can be, depending on the level of ambition.
Some steer has already been provided in (l) above for how you might choose
films for this topic. You may take a genre approach – or identify auteurs
whose cinematic approach lends itself particularly well to the study of emotion
and spectatorship. As a completely serendipitous way of identifying possible
films, here are the Oscar winners, 1988 - 2008:
Rain Man
Shakespeare in Love
Driving Miss Daisy
American Beauty
Dances with Wolves
Gladiator
The Silence of the Lambs
A Beautiful Mind
Unforgiven
Chicago
Schindler’s List
The Lord of the Rings: the Return of the King
Forrest Gump 
Billion Dollar Baby
Braveheart
Crash
The English Patient 
The Departed
Titanic
No Country for Old Men
Slumdog Millionaire
And keeping to the Oscar theme, here are some foreign language films that
have been nominated or have won “best foreign picture” during the same
period:
Cinema Paradiso
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Life is Beautiful
Tsotsi
All About My Mother
 The Lives of Others
As none of the above films represent animation, it is worth saying that some
of the most affecting of films are animations. But perhaps it is time to move
beyond the death of Bambi’s mother.
Another powerful body of work is propaganda, with the interesting appeal to
patriotism and the national.
Another rich vein may be sports movies – from Chariots of Fire to Breaking
Away or from Fever Pitch to, yes, of course, Rocky …

Study Unit A : Urban Stories

An urban story can be any film in which the city is a defining presence – in
which characters’ lives are defined by existence within the urban
environment. The words “power”, “poverty” and “conflict” all appear in the title
of this option.


Here are some thematic suggestions:
- films focusing on the struggle within communites
- films focusing on the struggle between a community and the ruling power
structures
- films concerned with with ‘living with crime’ (extending the FM2
British Cinema option)
- films dealing with alienation produced by technology and social
organisation, including films set in the future
The films may also be linked by stylistic approach:
- films working from a neo-realist / documentary aesthetic
- films working with new wave / experimental techniques
- films based on genre cinema (for example, melodrama or comedy)

FM3: FILM RESEARCH AND CREATIVE PROJECTS

Focus of the unit


This unit contributes to synoptic assessment and focuses on two projects related to
the production of meaning: one is research-based and the other is creative.  
Understanding will be fostered through:

• completing a small-scale research project designed to develop research skills
within the framework of one or more critical approaches used in film studies
• developing creative skills and a deepened understanding of the medium
chosen for the creative project.

Content 
(a) Small-Scale Research Project 
Candidates will be required to carry out a  small-scale research project.  
The project is designed to develop research skills.   It will be based on one
focus film, making appropriate reference to at least two other related films.  
Candidates will establish an area of investigation that relates the chosen
focus film to one of the following frameworks:
• star/performer
• genre
• auteur (in its broadest sense)
• social, political and cultural studies
• gender issues
• ethnicity
• institution
• technology
Candidates may not choose as a focus film any film they have specialised in
elsewhere in the specification.  
The research project is completed in two parts:
• an annotated catalogue (approximately 10-15 items) and
• a presentation script (approximately 1500 words)

(b) Creative Project
 The creative project should demonstrate candidates' active engagement with
issues  raised during their studies at AS and/or A2.  It comprises  three
elements:
• aims and context
• a creative product (short film or film extract, screenplay or extended
step outline for a documentary film) and
• a reflective analysis