7/9 07. Major Approaches to Film Analysis Free Online FlashCards

What does film analysis study?

Film analysis systematically examines how a movie creates meaning, what it communicates, and why its formal and contextual choices matter.

What does formalist analysis examine?

Formalist analysis focuses on a film’s internal organization and expressive techniques, including mise-en-scène, cinematography, editing, sound, narrative, and recurring patterns.

What makes a formalist claim strong?

A formalist claim identifies a specific formal pattern and explains its effect, rather than merely describing a character or scene.

What is the focus of auteur criticism?

Auteur criticism studies recurring themes, visual styles, character types, settings, or narrative patterns across a director’s body of work.

Why must auteur criticism acknowledge collaboration?

Because filmmaking is collaborative, auteur criticism should not treat the director as the sole creator; patterns are also shaped by collaborators, institutions, genres, and production conditions.

What does genre criticism investigate?

Genre criticism examines a film’s conventions, audience expectations, variations, and relationship to categories such as horror, western, comedy, or science fiction.

How do film genres change over time?

Genres change historically: conventions may become standard over time, while older conventions can lose their significance.

What does historical and cultural analysis connect?

Historical and cultural analysis relates a film to the social, political, technological, industrial, and institutional conditions of its production and reception.

How do contextual and representational historical questions differ?

A contextual question asks what events, institutions, or cultural debates influenced production; a representational question asks how the film portrays its historical world and what it omits.

What are the four stages of close textual analysis?

Close textual analysis examines a short sequence in detail, moving from description to formal identification, interpretation of effects and patterns, and connection to a larger argument.

What does the description stage record?

Description records what appears and sounds on screen without interpreting too quickly, including framing, positions, changes between shots, dialogue, music, noise, and silence.

How does close analysis differ from plot summary?

Close analysis explains how a film presents events and why that presentation matters; plot summary only recounts what happens.