Test on Monday, 4/4

The test will focus on Gus Van Sant's Elephant, Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run, Stephen Walker’s Young @ Heart, European style in the short film The Mozart of Pickpockets, and the key terms and concepts from chapter 8 of our textbook, Understanding Movies. Also, review everything from the beginning of the course, such as literary, dramatic, and cinematic elements, etc. Be sure to look over your notes, your homework assignments, and all Viewing Guides and handouts.

Along with the general plot and character developments of our four films, be sure to focus on these areas in your review:

• In Run Lola Run: 5 visual aesthetics, epigraph, birds-eye view shot, split screen, pastiche, arc shot, crane or boom shot, steadicam, chaos theory, motifs (spirals, etc.), snorkel camera, montage, red filter, freeze frame, web of life plot, Lola as hero. Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point.
• In Young @ Heart: the documentary style spectrum (characteristics of realism and formalism in nonfiction films), inter-title, cinema verite, reaction shot, episodic structure. Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point.
• In Elephant: What's realistic and what's formalistic about the film? In your opinion, does Van Sant offer clear-cut motivations for the killers? Where would you place the film on the general  'style spectrum'? Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point. Finally, read Elvis Mitchell's review of Elephant in the New York Times online.
• In Chapter 8 - Understanding Movies: mimesis, diegesis, avant-garde, plot, story, conventions, genre, classical paradigm (including exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, resolution and closure), linear vs. non linear narratives, realism as style, rites of passage, cinema verite

This is only a general guide and not a complete list of everything we learned and everything you should study!

Extra help will be offered after school on Thursday, 3/31 in room 452 at 2:45.

The approximate test breakdown: 40% multiple choice / 20% mini-essay / 40% short answers

Good luck!

Blog Topic #3 - Comment by 9:00 p.m. on Tues., 3/22

Visit Tom Tyker's director's statement about Run Lola Run.

Then, respond to the following questions by leaving your thoughts as a COMMENT on this posting below.

1) According to Tykwer, what does he always start with when building a story into a film?

2) Tykwer says that he wants viewers to feel as if Lola has lived through all "the various possibilities we show in the film," meaning all three timelines! What was the emotional effect he was hoping this would create?

3) Tykwer says that the film's story "functions according to the structural principles used...in classical drama. We have a great and passionate love, we have a clear action principle, and we have a mission that goes right through the film." Okay, but give three specific examples of non-classical (formalistic) aspects to Run Lola Run.

For full credit, your responses must be in complete, well-written sentences. Be sure to proofread and to put any quotes you use from Tykwer's statement in quotation marks.