Assignment 2
|
·
Somewhere in the neighborhood of
six pages (it’s a nice neighborhood), double spaced, single sided, formatted
according to the guidelines on the syllabus. ·
First draft due Friday,
October 17 (leave one copy in the box outside my office by ·
Second draft due Tuesday,
October 28 (bring a copy of the second draft, a copy of the first draft
with my comments, and the reviews you’ve received from your peers.) |
OK – here
are some prompts I’ve been thinking about, based on what we’ve read and the
films we’ve seen since the last papers.
As always, consider these as starting points: the paper you write should grow from these questions, but
ultimately should take the shape that you want it to take. Again, as always, if another approach
suggests itself to you, feel free to follow it.
·
All
right, the obvious one: write an essay
in which you discuss the roles available to women in films noirs, using one or two classic films noirs as examples. You
might use the article by
·
A
variation on the obvious one: ask the
same questions about newer films noirs,
like The Hot Spot and The Last Seduction. How have the roles of women changed in film noir since the classic period? How have they stayed the same? Are “neo-noirs”
simply an extension of the classic themes in this sense, or are they new films
for a new era?
·
If
you’re into visual analysis, write an essay in which you compare the visual
style of classic noirs with that of neo-noirs.
Use one neo-noir film as your
central example, but consider the ways that film borrows from and departs from
the visual style of the earlier films.
At the bottom of this one, you’ll be asking a single question,
probably: are films noirs that are not shot in black and white and not affected
by the Hays Code really films noirs? If so, how?
If not, how not?
·
You
might simply extend your response about The
Last Seduction into a full-scale paper:
take a look at some reviews of the film to get a sense of how it was
treated by audiences and critics. Then,
discuss the relationship between Bridget in The
Last Seduction and the femme fatale. Is she a new thing, or is she just the same
old thing in a new wrapper? Or is she a
little of both?
That
ought to get you started. There are, of
course, other ways of approaching this.
With a little research, for instance, you might write an essay about the
way the Hays Code affected films noirs
– but that, of course, would take a little research. Keep thinking, and
start writing as soon as you can.
Onward!