1. Annotated bibliography Write an annotated bibliography for Hooks-appositional- gaze (the reading is attached). Be sure to start with a full citation of the reading and use bold for this header to distinguish the text from your annotation.An annotated bibliography is a three paragraph, 350-400 word assessment of an article you read. You may take a look at an example attached below, on the full version of Robin Wood’s article “Ideology, Genre, Auteur” (1977).
- The first paragraph (usually the longest) summarizes the author’s argument and the conversation or research question with which it is engaged. Do your best here to present the author’s argument on their own terms. Quote a key phrase or two that help communicate the main idea.
- The second paragraph offers thoughts about what from this article could be useful for you, given your subject or area of interest. For instance, all of you will be writing about Star Wars in relation to ideas about genre. When you read a theory about what genre is or how genres change, are there ideas that do and don’t make sense for the way you’re thinking about Star Wars?
- The third paragraph discusses the limitations you see in the author’s argument given the scope, method, or subject matter used to make it.
2.
Write short essay responses to two of the following five essay questions. Each response should discuss at least two films from our syllabus (you can discuss more if you like, but two would be sufficient). You should not use the same film more than once in your exam. In other words, your exam should discuss at least four films total. Each response should be at least 600 words.
Since this is an exam and not a formal essay, it is not necessary to provide formal citations or a Works Cited list, but your responses should include reference to specific formal techniques, images, timestamped moments, etc. You may include screenshots if you like. Feel free to cite any of the readings from the syllabus if it helps you develop your response.
You are welcome to build upon ideas explored in your discussion posts, but your exam should not replicate any writing from those posts.
1. Choose at least two films from our syllabus, and discuss the way in which nature is represented. How do new or experimental techniques invite us to see or hear nature in new ways? How would you characterize the films’ stances toward nature—celebratory, mournful, alienated, etc.?
2. Compare and/or contrast the way in which at least two films from our syllabus represent technology, technical media, and/or urban environments. In developing your responses, you might consider the following questions: How would you characterize the films’ stances toward the technological and the urban? How do humans interact with technology in your films? How is the technological medium of film itself involved? And, perhaps dovetailing with the last question, what position does nature occupy, or what counts as “nature” in an increasingly technological world?
3. One of the hallmarks of experimental film is its rejection or reinvention of traditional Hollywood film conventions. Compare and/or contrast at least two films from our syllabus in terms of how this rejection or response to Hollywood is enacted, in terms of character, narrative, formal techniques, or more immediate manipulations of familiar films. How is conventional film reimagined or rejected, and to what end?
4. Compare and/or contrast the manipulation of time and/or space in at least two films from our syllabus. How do experimental formal techniques distort, constrain, reconstruct, or otherwise reimagine time/space, and for what purpose?
5. Several of our films experiment with disjunctions between voice and image. You might consider, for example, Saute Ma Ville, Pull My Daisy, (nostalgia), and Sink or Swim (among others). Compare and/or contrast the effect of this disjunction. How does the separation of voice from image contribute to the film’s meaning?
The films from our syllabus
People Like Us, Clean Your Room, (Links to an external site.)3 min. (2011)People Like Us, The Sound of the End of Music (Links to an external site.), 4 min. (2010)Gregg Biermann,Spherical Coordinates (Links to an external site.)????, 8 min. (2005)For reference, you can watch the original scene from Psychohere (Links to an external site.)????Peter Tscherkassky, Outer Space (Links to an external site.), 10 min. (2009)Kevin B. Lee, Transformers: The Premake (Links to an external site.), 25 min. (2014)Georges Melies,Le Voyage dans la Lune (Links to an external site.)????, 13 min. (1902)Paul Strand, Manhatta (Links to an external site.), 11 min. (1921)Ralph Steiner, H2O (Links to an external site.), 12 min. (1929)Man Ray,Emak-Bakia (Links to an external site.)????, 16 min. (1926)Hans Richter,Rhythmus 21 (Links to an external site.)????, 3 min. (1924)Hans Richter, Ghosts Before Breakfast (Links to an external site.), 9 min. (1928)Luis Bunuel, Un Chien Andalou (Links to an external site.), 16 min. (1929)Dwinell Grant, Composition I (Themis) (Links to an external site.), 4 min. (1940)Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey, The (Links to an external site.)Life and Death of 9413 a Hollywood Extra, (Links to an external site.) 14 min. (1928)Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, Meshes of the Afternoon (Links to an external site.), 14 min. (silent version) (1943)Maya Deren, Ritual in Transfigured Time (Links to an external site.), 14 min. (1946)Chantal Akerman, Saute Ma Ville (Links to an external site.), 12 min. (1968)Suzan Pitt, Asparagus (Links to an external site.), 18 min. (1979) Jonas Mekas, “Cinema is Not 100 Years Old,” (Links to an external site.) 4 min. (1996)Jonas Mekas, “Bed-In: John Lennon and Yoko Ono,” (Links to an external site.) 4 min. (1969)Stan Brakhage, Mothlight (Links to an external site.)????, 3 min. (1963)Stan Brakhage,The Dante Quartet, (Links to an external site.)????6 min. (1987)Stan Brakhage,“Stellar,” (Links to an external site.)????2 min. (1993)Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, Pull (Links to an external site.) My Daisy, (Links to an external site.) 26 min. (1959)Andy Warhol, Screen Test 3 Edie Sedgwick (Links to an external site.), 3 min. (1965)Andy Warhol, Screen Test, Ann Buchanan (Links to an external site.), 4 1/2 min. (music not original)Andy Warhol, compilation of several screen tests (Links to an external site.) (music not original) (Links to an external site.)????Andy Warhol, Empire (Links to an external site.), 8 hours (1964) (Note: Empire is an eight-hour film! You are not required to watch the entire film, but do watch enough to have a durational experience)Jonas Mekas, The Making of Andy’s Warhol’s EmpireStan Brakhage, “Water for Maya,” (Links to an external site.)2.30 min. (2000)Shirley Clarke,“Bridges-Go-Round,” (Links to an external site.)????8 min. (1958)Marie Menken,Go! Go! Go! (Links to an external site.)????11 min. (1962-64)Stan VanDerBeek and Ken Knowlton,“Poem Field No. 1,” (Links to an external site.)????5 min. (1967)Hollis Frampton,(nostalgia (Links to an external site.)????),(nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton 2/4 (Links to an external site.)????(nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton 3/4 (Links to an external site.)????38.(nostalgia) by Hollis Frampton 4/4 (Links to an external site.)????min. (1971)Su Friedrich, Sink or Swim (Links to an external site.), 48 min. (1990)
