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 naturecelebratory, 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, 3 min. (2011)People Like Us, , 4 min. (2010)Gregg Biermann,????, 8 min. (2005)For reference, you can watch the original scene from Psycho????Peter Tscherkassky, , 10 min. (2009)Kevin B. Lee, , 25 min. (2014)Georges Melies,????, 13 min. (1902)Paul Strand, , 11 min. (1921)Ralph Steiner, , 12 min. (1929)Man Ray,????, 16 min. (1926)Hans Richter,????, 3 min. (1924)Hans Richter, , 9 min. (1928)Luis Bunuel, , 16 min. (1929)Dwinell Grant, , 4 min. (1940)Slavko Vorkapich and Robert Florey, 14 min. (1928)Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, , 14 min. (silent version) (1943)Maya Deren, , 14 min. (1946)Chantal Akerman, , 12 min. (1968)Suzan Pitt, , 18 min. (1979) Jonas Mekas, 4 min. (1996)Jonas Mekas, 4 min. (1969)Stan Brakhage, ????, 3 min. (1963)Stan Brakhage,????6 min. (1987)Stan Brakhage,????2 min. (1993)Robert Frank, Alfred Leslie, 26 min. (1959)Andy Warhol, , 3 min. (1965)Andy Warhol, , 4 1/2 min. (music not original)Andy Warhol, c (music not original)????Andy Warhol, , 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)Stan Brakhage, 2.30 min. (2000)Shirley Clarke,????8 min. (1958)Marie Menken,????11 min. (1962-64)Stan VanDerBeek and Ken Knowlton,????5 min. (1967)Hollis Frampton,????),????????38.????min. (1971)Su Friedrich, , 48 min. (1990)
