A National Style After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss a film as both the work of an individual artist and the product of the world in which it was created.
describe the ways in which the classical Hollywood narrative style works to present itself as invisible and natural.
Equilibrium and Disruption After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss film narrative as a process of disruption and restoration of equilibrium, giving examples from several films.
Characters and Goals After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss film narrative as a process of characters pursuing and achieving goals.
discuss film narrative as a process of characters moving spatially towards destinations or temporally towards deadlines, giving examples from several films.
discuss the ways in which audiences identify with the "journey" quality of classical Hollywood narrative.
High Artifice, Invisible Art After reading this section, you should be able to:
describe the process of "willing suspension of disbelief" on the part of film audiences in relation to the artificiality of cinema.
discuss Alfred Hitchcock's approach to the issue of cinematic storytelling.
identify the ways in which principles of economy, regularity, symmetry, and order support the narrative structure of films.
Analyzing Film Narratives: Segmentation After reading this section, you should be able to:
define and describe "segmentation" as a method of film analysis.
name the three classical dramatic unities, and identify the ways in which these unities can be used to break films down into segments.
A Circular Pattern: Chaplin's The Gold Rush After reading this section, you should be able to:
segment a film with regards to its spaces.
discuss the way in which segmenting The Gold Rush by locations and settings aids in analyzing the film's narrative structure.
identify the way in which The Gold Rush, as an example of classical Hollywood narrative, structures itself around a central character moving through locations and towards goals.
Journey to a New Place: Some Like It Hot After reading this section, you should be able to:
contrast the "circular" style of narrative exemplified by The Gold Rush to the "journey to a new place" style of narrative exemplified by Some Like It Hot, both in regards to their locations and the goals of their characters.
discuss the ways in which the format of a journey through space is used to explore other kinds of journeys in film, using the example of sexuality in Some Like It Hot.
discuss the way in which resolution of narrative tension need not necessarily resolve all the issues raised by the film.
Incoherence: Mulholland Drive After reading this section, you should be able to:
discuss the way in which segmentation offers a structural understanding of Mulholland Drive.
describe the difference between interpreting the structure of a film and interpreting the meaning of a film.
discuss the process of watching Mulholland Drive as an "endless process of sense-making."
Modernist Narration: Citizen Kane After reading this section, you should be able to:
name several features of Modernist art, with reference to the films Mulholland Drive and Citizen Kane.
discuss the way in which fragmented narrative structures make visible the invisible "machinery" of the classical Hollywood narrative technique.
