motifs in chinatown

Introduction to Film Analysis

Course Goal = Film Analysis

Course Goal = Film Analysis

• Identify major elements of film art• Recognize how those elements work

together• Examine a film’s organization and visual

style• Recognize historical, cultural, and

aesthetic contexts• Understand how films are made

• Write about film• Make and argue for interpretive claims

about films

Course Goal = Film Analysis

ideas for film analysis

1. Expectations influence filmmakers’ choices and viewers’ experiences of films

2. Filmmakers present information, elicit emotions, and suggest ideas by orchestrating details in a systematic way.

1. Expectations

2. The Orchestration of Detail

• Motifs• Parallels• Details and Structure

Motif

Any detail that takes on significance through repetition.

ParallelA similarity established between two characters or situations that invites the viewer to compare the two.

Motifs and Parallels in Chinatown

Motif: Photographs

Motif: Eyes, Sight, Spying

Motif: Water

Motif: Chinatown

Parallels

• Jake gets shot at in his car; Evelyn gets shot at in her car

• Jake has broken sunglasses; Noah Cross has broken bifocals

• Jake loses shoe; Mulrawy’s body found missing one shoe

• Curly’s wife has black eye; Evelyn gets eye shot out

Are these the only ways that films can create meaning?

The World Beyond the Film

The World Beyond the Film

Intertextual References: Genre