English 4950: American Film in the 1930s

Spring 2012

Grady

First Essay Assignment

This assignment is designed to help you practice writing about the film image itself: about mise-en-scène, which can include the composition of the frame, the role of blocking, color, lighting, camera angles, shot scale, etc. To that end, you may choose either to write about one particular frame or shot or sequence, or to compare and contrast two related shots or sequences, in an essay of 1500-2000 words (4-5 pages). Your goal will be to demonstrate how the images you analyze contribute to some effect in the movie from which they are drawn: how the placement of characters or things helps to establish the relationship between them, or how a repeated visual motif reinforces a theme, or how a particular color or lighting scheme evokes a particular mood or emotional state—how, in other words, space is used expressively. There is considerable freedom in this assignment—the thematic or dramatic or structural emphasis is yours to choose—but a successful essay will succeed in part by paying close attention to the image, and to describing it accurately and thoroughly. (It would be most useful to me if you include an image or two with your essay, either integrated into the prose or in an appendix.)

Essays should be submitted via email by 5PM on Friday, March 2; extensions will not be granted unless requested before 5PM Thursday, March 1.

Below are some possible topics to get you started thinking about potential scenes:

· Jonas Wilkerson’s first and last appearances in Gone with the Wind

· The use of staircases as settings in GWTW

· The use of offscreen space in GWTW (e.g., the amputation scene)

· The role of the famous crane-shot of the wounded in GWTW (particularly its place in a sequence, i.e., what comes before and after it)

· Various color & lighting schemes in GWTW

· Frames within frames in GWTW (e.g., characters looking through windows or at framed pictures)

· Framing/staging of Tom Destry’s “I once knew a fella” moments in Destry Rides Again

· Framing of particular characters in Stagecoach (e.g. Dallas, Gatewood)

· Locomotives (in Dodge City, or comparing shots from Dodge City and Jesse James)

· Saloons or saloon brawls (how they are staged, what they look like)

· Domestic interiors in Jesse James (Home Sweet Home!)

· The Western newspaper office

· The “lawlessness” montage in westerns