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History of Film: Review Questions

Final Exam Format

The in-class final exam covers the material covered in second half of the course, after the midterm exam. Use the review questions and the key terms below to study for the exam.

As this exam is subjective, your score will be based on how well you explain your response and demonstrate your understanding of the course material, more than providing the “correct answer.”

The exam consists of the following types of questions:

Identification

Identify the term and describe its significance for the film history in question. Eight questions, five points each.

For example:

Cinecitta
Cinecitta is a large Italian film studio built during the Fascist era to revive the production of Italian film under Mussolini. Cinecitta included not just a studio but also a film school and a film journal. The studio would figure prominently in post–World War II filmmaking.

Short Answer

Answer the question with a one-paragraph response, about four-to-five sentences in length. Three questions, twenty points each.

How did the concept of the Third World emerge in the post–World War II years?
After World War II, two superpowers emerged. The first world was represented the US and Western Europe that featured a capitalist economy and liberal society. The second world was led by the Soviet Union and consisted of a state-run, socialist economy and society. Both were nuclear powers, and as the Cold War escalated between the two, a “third world” emerged of nations not aligned with the First and Second worlds. These nations were mostly located in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and were often former colonial subjects. Filmmaking in the third world often emerged as a politically motivated, revolutionary counterpart to commercial and avant-garde filmmaking.

Italian Neorealism

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. What approach did Mussolini take to the cinema after the Fascists rose to power? What kinds of films were made under his regime?
  2. How did the realists’s approach to filmmaking after World War II differ from those who made films in the prewar years?
  3. What were some of the distinctive stylistic features of Italian Neorealism?
  4. When did the death of Pina in Open City unsettle audiences in 1945?
  5. What is the legacy of Italian Neorealism? Where can its influence be felt in other national and new wave cinemas?

Key Terms

French New Wave

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. Aside from France, where did new wave cinemas emerge in the 1960s?
  2. What were some ways that new technologies enabled young new wave filmmakers do innovate in the 1960s?
  3. What measures did the French government take to encourage French filmmaking in the 1950s and 1960s?
  4. What techniques did French New Wave filmmakers borrow from Italian Neorealism?
  5. Contrast the philosophies of the Nouvelle Vague filmmakers and the Rive Gauche group.

Key Terms

American Avant-Garde

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. Describe the collage style of Rose Hobart.
  2. How did Maya Deren challenge and undermine the practices of Hollywood filmmaking in Meshes of the Afternoon?
  3. How did the commercial introduction of lightweight 16mm camera nurture American experimental filmmaking in the post–World War II years?
  4. Describe the critique of mass culture and subcultures in Scorpio Rising.
  5. How did Paul Shartis’s flicker film, T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G, comment on the material properties of film and film viewing?
  6. In what way was Carolee Schneeman’s Fuses a response to Brakhage’s Window Baby Water Moving?

Key Terms

Latin America and Third Cinema

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. How did the concept of the Third World emerge in the post–World War II years?
  2. What steps did Cuba take to encourage film production after the 1959 revolution? What nation did they model their use of film for the revolution?
  3. Why did Solanas and Gettino advocate for a “third cinema?” What did they refer to as the “first” and “second” cinemas?
  4. How does La Hora de los Hornos espouse the characteristics of Third Cinema, as defined by Solanas and Gettino?
  5. In Memories of Underdevelopment, how is the protagonist portrayed as a counter-revolutionary figure?
  6. What techniques did politicized Latin American directors use in their filmmaking?

Key Terms

Eastern European New Waves

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. How was Europe divided after World War II and the Yalta Conference?
  2. Why did many Eastern European filmmakers produce films based on literary classics, historical figures, and escapist fare?
  3. Why were some Eastern European New Wave films, such as Daisies and W.R.: Mysteries of the Organism banned by their governments?
  4. Why did political filmmakers use the Brecht’s concept of “alienation?”

Key Terms

New Hollywood

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. What were some reasons for the decline of the studio system in the post–World War II years?
  2. How did Hollywood seek to address the box office decline in the 1950s and 1960s?
  3. What problems did the Production Code present to the American film industry in the 1960s? How did the industry attempt resolve it?
  4. How did conglomerates’ acquisition help usher in a new wave of auteurist filmmaking in the 1970s?
  5. What genres did New Hollywood directors revive in the 1970s?
  6. How did Jaws usher in a new era of Hollywood filmmaking and marketing?

Testable Terms

East-Asian Cinema

Review the Lecture Outline

  1. Contrast the style and themes of the fourth, fifth, and sixth generation of filmmakers in China.
  2. What cinematic traditions did the filmmakers of the First Taiwanese New Wave use as the basis of their own style?
  3. How did Taiwan support film culture in their nation beginning in the 1970s?
  4. Why did Hong Kong cinema enjoy a much earlier start to their own film industry, compared to other East Asian countries?
  5. What are some reasons for Hong Kong cinema’s international

Key Terms