Cinematic Spectacle and the Genre Film

Final Paper Handout

The 6-8 page final paper is due on Monday, December 7 by 3 pm in my mailbox (4114 Dwinelle). I will gladly give comments to drafts, outlines, or first paragraphs that you give me in office hours or through e-mail.

Because the final grades are due shortly after the end of the semester, extensions will be granted only for VERY special cases. If you imagine you may have a conflict, work on your paper early, and hand it in earlier than the deadline.

You should give me a large envelope, with your address and enough postage on it so that I can mail your paper back to you after the grades are done.

About the Writing Process: Focus on Topic Selection

This paper is similar to the midterm in terms of style. It has an academic, analytical and expository writing emphasis.

For the final paper you can again select your own topic, or consult with me and we will figure it out together. You can also give me a two-page topic "preview" (similar to the close reading we did before the midterm) and I will give you comments and guidelines.

What is new about the final paper

- you can write about more than one film
- you can use a lot more critical and theoretical materials
- you can use questions of genre to elucidate your topic
- you can make historically specific connections

What is still the same as the midterm paper

- you have to use visual information and visual close readings
- you have to emphasize filmic elements (not plot)
- you have to construct an argument, and use evidence from the films to prove your thesis
- you have to ask ambitious and interesting questions and try to answer them from the films

Things to Consider

1. The biggest trap for a comparative paper is the idea of "contrast": "this film is similar/ different from that film here and here and here." This is NOT an analytical premise.

2. Instead, you can imagine a topic that asks a theoretical question and uses two or more films to make the question clearer. Our class discussions on how differently the "spectacular body" is treated in horror and in action films is an example of this approach.

3. In any case, your task as critics is NOT to answer a question. If you can answer the question it was too simple of an issue to begin with. You task is to make our understanding of the issue or the films more complicated: to explore the implications of things, to imagine their effects on genre conventions, to approach the question from many different points of view and see what happens.

4. For example: if you wanted to write about some aspect of the body in certain films, first you would have to really expand your own imagined horizon of what "bodies" mean. Does the film focus on representing the male or the female body, body parts, imaginary body parts, mechanical bodies, ironic bodies, body integrity, or bodily pain? Are there moments in the film that are disembodied? If bodies are usually visible, and film depends on visual representation, how does film imagine new ways to represent visible or invisible bodies? What role do clothes play in the film?

5. These kinds of questions will help you understand what you want to focus on, and will move your initial idea into more theoretical issues.

As before, allow yourself enough time to do this well, and to write a paper that represents your intelligence and your understanding of the films.