motifs in chinatown
TRANSCRIPT
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