Test on Wednesday, December 13

The test will focus on Billy Wilder's Some Like It Hot, Spike Lee's Do The Right Thing, and the key terms and concepts from Chapter 2 of our textbook, Understanding Movies. Be sure to look over your notes, your homework assignments, and all Viewing Guides and handouts. 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 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; Kinds of Comedy: parody, sight gags, slapstick, repartee, situational comedy, sexual innuendo, phallic symbols, running gag, dramatic irony, and meta-filmic moments. Be able to cite specific examples of these concepts from the film to prove your point.
• In Do The Right Thing: title credits; match cut; breaking the fourth wall; litany; episodic story structure vs. the classical paradigm; montage; racial tensions in NYC; and Spike Lee's DVD Special Features. 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 not necessarily 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 Tuesday, 12/12 in room 452.

The approximate test breakdown: 60% multiple choice / 20% mini essay on mise en scene / 20% short answers

Good luck!