Test on Friday, 5/22

The test will focus on Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, Charlie Chaplin's Modern Times, the Student Choice film for your period, and the key terms and concepts from chapter 2 from our textbook, Understanding Movies. Be sure to look over your notes, your homework assignments, and all Viewing Guides and handouts (especially regarding the Classical Paradigm and narrative structure). Also, know how to define "rhetoric" and be able to give an example of "rhetoric of the moving image. Along with the general plot, key quotes, and character developments of our films, be sure to focus on these areas in your review:

• In Modern Times: silent film, inter-title, characterization of “The Tramp,” episodic structure, motifs, sight gags and slapstick, final shot. DVD Special Features: deleted scene, original ending, talkies, all voices filtered through technology and 24 frames per second (fps). Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point.

• In Some Like It Hot: Comic structure (beginning with social upheaval and ending in harmony), comedy as "serious fun," Sugar's songs' lyrics, Screwball Comedy, curtain line, swish pan and its effect as visual rhetoric, filmed in black and white for a reason, parallel editing (crosscutting), using proxemic patterns to create humor, parody, sight gags, slapstick, repartee, situational comedy, sexual innuendo, phallic symbol, running gag, dramatic irony, meta-filmic moments. Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point. 

• In Chapter 2 - Understanding Movies: Mise en scene ("placing on stage"); aspect ratio (standard vs. widescreen); iris shot; the dominant; subsidiary contrasts; intrinsic interest; tight vs. loose framing; character placement; composition; proxemic patterns; open vs. closed form.

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

Extra help will be offered after school at 2:35 p.m. on Thursday, 5/21 in room 452.

The approximate test breakdown: 60% multiple choice / 40% short answers

Good luck!