Prompt

Using either The Celebration or Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, analyze the use of cinematography in order to establish the mood of the character(s) and to communicate story information at that point in the film. You may select one scene or a series of related scenes to discuss the character or plot development.

Your analysis should engage at least two of the following elements of cinematography that we covered in class for each scene, as appropriate:

You may wish to answer the question: “how do these elements of cinematography work in the service of the narration and contribute to the plot of the film?”

Review the Cinematography outline for an overview of these concepts and Spadoni, chapter four, for more detailed descriptions.

Rubric

I will evaluate your paper on the following criteria:

Outside sources are not required for this assignment, but please cite the page number when referencing any passages from the textbook. For example:

According to Spadoni, referential meaning is “everything that the film visibly and audibly presents to us” (19).

or

Although I didn’t like the film, I will resist evaluating the film in favor of analysis. Instead I will focus on “looking at film as a system of relationships and try to develop persuasive arguments about what that system is doing” (Spadoni 32).

Your paper should be about four-to-five pages in length and must be submitted as a hard copy in class on the date specified on the syllabus.