2.  How did photography and the motion picture institutionalize a new, modern conception of time?

3.  After roughly 1908, why does the American cinema move generally from becoming a cinema of spectacle to a cinema of storytelling?

1. Summarize the elements of classical Hollywood narrative, especially in terms of equilibrium and disruption, characters and goals, and the invisibility of its  great craft.

1.   Summarize how "three-point" lighting works.

2.   What is the difference between high and low-key lighting?

3.   What is star lighting?

4.   What is classical continuity editing?

5.   Define: graphic matching; matching on action;  eye-line matches;  point of view editing.

6.   What is the 180-degree rule?

1.   In what ways did the Hollywood studio system, as it was developed in the 1910s and 1920s, reflect the industrial models developed by Henry Ford ("Fordism") and others.

2.   Define:  vertical integration;  block booking; blind bidding.

3.   What was the effect of seven-year contracts on studio stars?

4.   Summarize the characteristics and name a couple of representative films of the following studios:
M-G-M;  Paramount;  Warner Bros.;  20th Century-Fox;  RKO;  Columbia Pictures;  Universal Pictures.

5. What were the circumstances that led to the dismantling of the studio system?

1.  What is the difference between a star and an actor?

2.  What are the characteristics of most stars of the 1930s?

3.  What are the characteristics of post-1945 stardom?

1.   Briefly summarize the origins of melodrama.

2.   In what way is melodrama a "modal" genre?

3.   Briefly discuss the differences between tragedy and melodrama.

4.   In what ways does film melodrama of the early 20th century reflect the political concerns of turn-of-the century America?

5.   In films of the 1920s, how does melodrama treat the issue of domestic space, "the home."  [We see this continued through the 1930s--THE WIZARD OF OZ]

1.  What are some ways in which American comedy traditionally has dealt with the issue of social integration?

2.  What does Belton mean when he says that American film comedy is "the genre of the people"?

3.  Summarize briefly the comic personas created in the silent era by Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, and Harold Lloyd.

4.  How did the Production Code of 1934 affect the evolution of sound comedy in the 1930s?

5.  What was the relationship of politics and screwball comedy during the 1930s?

1.   Define and/or identify the following terms, film, and people:  a) the Office of War Information;  b) the "ideal platoon";
c) newsreel;  d) APOCALYPSE NOW;  e) Samuel Fuller;  f) Oliver Stone

2.   In what ways does the combat film NOT CONFORM to standard Hollywood filmmaking practice.  Consider stylisticas well as questions of content.

3.   Why were newsreels important during World War II, and how did they influence the fictional combat films?

4.   How are the sexual dynamics normally different in a war film than they are in conventional Hollywood film plots?

5.   How do films about Vietnam reverse the traditional trends of the "classic" war film in American culture?

  1.   Summarize both the European and American literary antecedents to film noir.

  2.   Summarize the contributions of French film critics in helping articulate the concept of film noir.

  3.   What are the arguments for considering film noir as either 1) a "genre,"  or 2) a "style," or 3) a "mode"?

  4.   Summarize film noir aesthetics, themes, and character types.

  5.   What are the major ways in which film noir challenges the assumptions of classical Hollywood cinema?

  6.   In what ways did the Production Code contribute to the creation of film noir?

  7.   In what ways are women a central component to film noir?

  8.   In what ways can film noir be considered a critique of populism?

1.   The Western as a film genre arose out of what specific cultural conditions in late 19th century America? [obviously a big topic; you need summarize only a few major points here]

2.   What's the cultural significance of woman in most Westerns?

3.   In what ways does the Western attempt to articulate an American national identity?

4.   What's the function of landscape in the Western?

5.   Give the significance of the following items:

1) Frederick Jackson Turner's thesis;  2)  Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show;  3) dime novel;  4) Daniel Boone and Natty Bumppo

7. What is the relationship of the Western to Science Fiction?

1.   What was Hollywood's general portrayal of "Red" characters and themes during the 1930s?

2.   Identify and give the significance of the following:

John Howard Lawson and BLOCKADE (1938); Martin Dies;  HUAC;  Senator Joseph McCarthy;  Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals;  "friendly" witnesses; "unfriendly" witnesses; the Hollywood Ten; the Waldorf statement and "blacklisting"; SONG OF RUSSIA (1943) and MISSION TO MOSCOW (1943);  THE RED MENACE (1949) and MY SON JOHN (1952);  ON THE WATERFRONT (1954)

4.   In what ways did some biblical epics and westerns manage to present a subversive voice against the Red Scare?

5.   In what ways do we see the tensions of Cold War Hollywood reflected in films after the 1950s?

1.   What has been the pattern of film attendance from the 1920s to the present?

2.   What was the relationship of the number of television sets to film attendance during the 1940s and 1950s?

3.   What were some of the changes in social conditions in post-war America that led to a decline in movie-going habits?

4.   What led to the development of the drive-in?

5.   Give the significance of THIS IS CINERAMA;  3-D films;  Cinemascope;  Todd A-O Process;  panning and scanning;  letterbox format;  a blockbuster film.

1.   How would you characterize Hollywood's image of "Woman" in 1960s cinema?

2.   What were some of the cultural issues that helped to shape the explosion of "activist" youth films of the 1960s?

3.   What were the trends in Hollywood's treatment of racein the 1960s?

4.   What was the significance of films such as WHO'S AFRAID OF VIRGINIA WOOLF? (1966) and THE GRADUATE (1967) and BONNIE AND CLYDE (1967)?

5.   What is the significance of EASY RIDER (1969)?

6.   In what ways can blaxploitation films such as SWEET SWEETBACK'S.... (1971) be considered culturally subversive films?

1.   What is the relationship of the American film critic Andrew Sarris to the French New Wave and the CAHIERS DU CINÉMA?

2.   In what ways did the rise of film schools affect the kinds of films being made in Hollywood during the 1970s?

3.   What was Roger Corman's influence on the Hollywood industry?

4.   In what ways can you talk about such films as Terence Malick's BADLANDS (1973) reflecting a postmodern sensibility?

5.   In what ways did Hollywood in the 1980s "use" the 1950s as a site for restoring certain "American" hopes and dreams?

6.   How do both Stallone and Schwarzenegger reflect in their films the idea that "biology is destiny"?

1.   In what ways is "Reaganite" cinema an apt description of many films of the 1980s and early 1990s?

2.   What is the attitude toward "the system" in Reaganite cinema?

3.   What is the attitude toward the military in Reaganite cinema?

4.   What is the significance of the family as theme in Reaganite cinema?

5.   How is Martin Scorsese a countercurrent to most 80s cinema?

6.   Briefly indicate the significance of the following:  "The Gay New Wave" [aka "The New Queer Cinema"];  Spike Lee;  Jim Jarmusch;  Julie Dash; the VCR.