Course Introduction
American Film History
Textbook Exam Questions
American Film History explores the evolution of cinema in the United States from its inception in the late nineteenth century to the present. The course examines major periods, genres, and movements within American film, as well as the social, technological, and artistic developments that have shaped the industry. Students analyze influential directors, landmark films, and the broader cultural and political contexts that have influenced American cinema. The course also encourages critical engagement with the ways film reflects and shapes national identity, social values, and historical events.
Recommended Textbook
Flashback A Brief Film History 6th Edition by Louis Giannetti
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21 Chapters
928 Verified Questions
928 Flashcards
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Page 2
Chapter 1: Beginnings
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many of George Méliès' special effect techniques were the result of careful study and design,not fortunate accidents.___
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q2) Edison decided to make a projection machine called a "kinetoscope" which
A)allowed only one person at a time to watch a brief loop of film.
B)he copyrighted for an additional $15.
C)William Dickson actually invented.
D)became his primary engineering focus over such things as the electric storage battery and talking doll.
Answer: A
Q3) The Arrival of a Train from 1895 wowed views with its changing camera angles and multiple scenes.___
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Griffith and His Contemporaries: 19081920
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Q1) Lillian Gish ___
A)Griffith one-reeler containing 68 scenes
B)Our Lady of Constant Sorrows to a generation of filmgoers
C)hailed as the director who made the breakthrough with mise en scene
D)purposely photographed action and characters at a faster-than-life speed
E)after Lillian Gish,Griffith's most expressive actor
F)film technique altering frame size used in Orphans of the Storm
G)Griffith used this device for ironic contrast between hungry workers and a bountiful banquet
H)Griffith's artistically first-rate films,but a political/sociological embarrassment
I)powerbroker/kingmaker
J)four stories linked by titles,a symbolic mother image,and cross cutting
Answer: B
Q2) Griffith's strengths included all of the following except
A)creating clinical documentation.
B)creating emotional reactions.
C)creating lost worlds.
D)creating poetry and drama.
Answer: A
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Page 4
Chapter 3: American Cinema in the 1920s
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Q1) King Vidor's first talkie,Halleluja,employed which one of the following now-common recording techniques?
A)voice-over
B)dubbing
C)sound montage
D)none of the above
Answer: B
Q2) Harry Langdon ___ two of his best works
A)first European woman director
B)satirized sex,fidelity,and bad faith in intimate relations
C)a star who also teamed with Fairbanks and Chaplin to form United Artists
D)The Navigator
E)stellar career basically ended as a film comedian after two years
F)City Lights
G)Underworld and The Last Command two of his best works
H)made The Last Laugh,stylized mise en scene helped to wean audiences from rural romances
I)made The Crowd which deals with something approaching real life
J)produced The Jazz Singer which included sound
Answer: E
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Chapter 4: European Cinema in the 1920s
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Sample Questions
Q1) The German director who served as the inspiration for other German directors such as F.W.Murnau and Robert Wiene was
A)G.W.Pabst
B)Carl Mayer
C)Ernst Lubitsch
D)Max Reinhardt
Q2) Luis Buñuel ___
A)The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari
B)Le Million
C)The Last Laugh
D)editing is the essence of cinema
E)L'Age d'Or
F)The Lodger
G)Lulu in Hollywood
H)Storm over Asia
I)Spies
J)Napoleon
Q3) What is/ are the difference(s)between expressionism and naturalism?
Q4) How did Sergei Eisenstein use reverse angles in his filmmaking?
Q5) Do Fritz Lang's symbols in his films keep his films from being realistic?
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Chapter 5: The Hollywood Studio System: 1925-1955
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Sample Questions
Q1) Major studios often viewed their stars as valuable investments,"properties." ___
A)True
B)False
Q2) John Wayne ___
A)specialized in lavish spectacles
B)major studio especially receptive to comedy
C)top male star of the 1930s
D)Twentieth Century-Fox production head
E)inaugurated the era of screwball comedy
F)shaped writing the script,had say in casting,etc.
G)most popular film star in film history
H)concerns goal-oriented characters
I)over half of majors' movies were these
J)devised the studio system
Q3) Good looks and sex appeal have seldom been conspicuous features of most film stars. ___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Why was the development of the classical narrative script form in Hollywood inevitable?
Page 7
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Chapter 6: American Cinema in the 1930s
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Q1) Who was "a musical Eisenstein"?
A)Howard Hawks
B)Ernst Lubitsch
C)Fred Astaire
D)Busby Berkeley
Q2) The gangster movie cycle began with which film?
A)Scarface
B)Underworld
C)Little Cesar
D)Public Enemy
Q3) Who worked as a successful independently produced director?
A)Howard Hawks
B)George Cukor
C)Sam Wood
D)Mervyn LeRoy
96
Q4) With what character type was John Ford preoccupied in his movies?
Q5) What was it that Fred Astaire managed to achieve through his dance musicals in the 30s?
Q6) What things did the Production Code prohibit in movies?
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Chapter 7: European Cinema in the 1930s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Children of Paradise ___
A)Jean Renoir classic of study of French classes
B)angels wore black leather Orpheus
C)German actress turned director
D)star of Port of Shadows
E)The Blue Angel star
F)Liebelei
G)Fritz Lang's first talkie
H)Marcel Carné masterpiece
I)The Lady Vanishes
J)Alexander Korda
Q2) The Blue Angel is characterized by which of the following:
A)woman as devourer
B)man as avenger
C)love as redemption
D)all of the above
Q3) British drama was not hampered at all departures of artists like Charlie Chaplin.___
A)True
B)False
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Page 9
Chapter 8: American Cinema in the 1940s
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Q1) John Huston early in his directing career showed a gift for multi-layered filmmaking.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Billy Wilder ___
A)Orson Welles' film
B)Katharine Hepburn
C)Disney classic animated feature
D)Humphrey Bogart
E)Double Indemnity showed his expressionistic leanings
F)like neorealism in technique
G)The Asphalt Jungle,a world of shadows
H)The Palm Beach Story
I)Sturges' film badly recut by Howard Hughes
J)William Wyler WWII documentary
Q3) All of the following are true about Orson Welles' Citizen Kane except
A)it combines a number of films techniques for the first time.
B)it uses flashbacks for its narrative.
C)it was budgeted for $650,000.
D)it was shot in flat focus.
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Chapter 9: European Cinema in the 1940s
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Q1) The few French directors who remained in France during the war concentrated on making period and fantasy films.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) By what means did British filmmakers finally and successfully crash the American film market during the war?
Q3) Nazi propaganda films were efforts to depict conditions in Germany truthfully.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Vittorio De Sica's idol was Charlie Chaplin,traces of which can be seen in De Sica's The Bicycle Thief.___
A)True
B)False
Q5) What happened to Germany's film industry before,during,and after (until the 1960s)World War II?
Q6) What happened to the movies in oppressive political regimes like in Germany and/or the Soviet Union/Russia?
Q7) Why did neorealism emerge in Italy after World War II?
Page 11
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Chapter 10: American Cinema in the 1950s
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Q1) James Dean was a popular symbol of misunderstood youth,struggling to define his identity.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Moon Is Blue ___
A)starred that muscular dancer,Gene Kelly
B)early 3D movie
C)filmmakers assume reformist perspective on story
D)revisionist western
E)made the Production Code blue
F)made for television movie won Oscars
G)director who relied heavily on storyboarding
H)Marilyn Monroe stars,Billy Wilder directs
I)writer blacklisted as a result of refusing HUAC
J)musical spoof on "hard boiled" fiction
Q3) Each of the following is from MGM's golden age of musicals except?
A)On the Town
B)Bells Are Ringing
C)Pennies from Heaven
D)The Band Wagon
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Chapter 11: International Cinema in the 1950s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following is largest movie-producing countries in the world?
A)America
B)Japan
C)Mexico
D)India
Q2) The English produced some fine films in which one of the following genres during the 50s?
A)comedies
B)mysteries
C)war movies
D)none of the above
Q3) Federico Fellini began his career in Italian movies by helping to write scripts like Open City.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Why would Akira Kurosawa be considered a most untraditional Japanese filmmaker?
Q5) Kenji Mizoguchi made movies reinforcing the traditional roles of women,no matter their class,in Japanese society.___
A)True
B)False
Page 13
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Chapter 12: American Cinema in the 1960s
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Q1) Because they came from a different background,new directors had no sense of movie-making style.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) The Wild Bunch ___
A)George Roy Hill western
B)music and lyrics by Rogers and Hammerstein
C)Lumet NY City drama using radical editing
D)Mike Nichols film of sterile,middle-class materialism
E)won Best Picture Oscar with an x rating
F)more than a biker film by Dennis Hopper
G)John Cassevetes,urban horror movie
H)in the final shootout,virtually a whole Mexican village is destroyed
I)English film financed with American money
J)John Frankenheimer imprisonment movie
Q3) New movie directors in the 1960s often got their training in television.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Why is Bonnie and Clyde,directed by Arthur Penn,considered the turning point from the old filmmaking sensibility to the new?
Page 14
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Chapter 13: International Cinema in the 1960s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Francois Truffaut ___
A)Hiroshima,Mon Amour
B)Le Voleur (The Thief)
C)The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner
D)Shoot the Piano Player
E)A Hard Day's Night
F)Cleo from 5 to 7
G)Ashes and Diamonds
H)L'Avventura
I)Breathless
J)If
Q2) Unlike most American directors,where did most French New Wave film directors begin their careers?
Q3) The most prolific film-producing Eastern European country in the post-Stalin era was A)Hungary.
B)Poland.
C)Czechoslovakia.
D)Yugoslavia.
Q4) What were the effects of the de-Stalinization of films in Eastern Europe?
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Chapter 14: American Cinema in the 1970s
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Sample Questions
Q1) By definition the revisionist stage of the genre development cycle is ironic.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) Were foreign directors working in America successful at portraying American life?
Explain briefly.
Q3) Woody Allen's sensibility is defined by his being
A)Jewish.
B)New Yorker.
C)both a and b
D)neither a nor b
Q4) What happened to the conventions of classical cinema in the early 70s?
Q5) What was the source of new American film directors in the 1970s?
A)universities with film programs
B)actors themselves
C)Europe,especially England
D)all of the above
Q6) How was sex portrayed in movies of the 70s?
Q7) Studios began to produce off-beat movies,entirely avoiding big-budget movies.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 15: International Cinema in the 1970s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Werner Herzog ___
A)The Tin Drum
B)Every Man for Himself and God Against All
C)Peppermint Soda
D)Swept Away
E)My Brilliant Career
F)Xala
G)Solaris
H)Tommy
I)The Marriage of Maria Braun
J)The Man Who Fell to Earth
Q2) True equality in a Lena Wertmuller films is usually associated with true love between equal partners.___
A)True
B)False
Q3) Wim Wender's protagonists are usually men who are weirded out and drifting purposelessly.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) How would French director Diane Kurys' female characters best be described?
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Chapter 16: American Cinema in the 1980s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Oliver Stone ___
A)Do the Right Thing
B)Salvador
C)The Fly
D)Commando
E)Eraserhead
F)Rain Man
G)Something Wild
H)Brazil
I)Romancing the Stone
J)The Big Chill
Q2) Which of the following is true about the resurgence of studios in the 1980s?
A)practiced vertical integration
B)established a genre of story
C)refused to make movies with older directors
D)all of the above
Q3) How did home-video tape players (VHS)influence movie making in the 80s?
Q4) What are the principal traits of Spike Lee's cinematic world?
Q5) Why was the Disney studio successful in the 80s?
Q6) What generally became of women actors and women's pictures in the 80s?
Page 18
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Chapter 17: International Cinema in the 1980s
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Q1) Hugh Hudson ___
A)My Beautiful Laundrette
B)Manon of the Spring
C)Yol
D)Pixote
E)The Fourth Man
F)Tampopo
G)Mephisto
H)The Gods Must Be Crazy
I)Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown
J)Chariots of Fire
Q2) The Cannes award-winning move "that demonstrates that all people [especially women] in the story are prisoners,as much of their own minds and values as of the state" Is
A)Pixote
B)The Gods Must Be Crazy
C)Yol
D)The Hour of the Star
Q3) What is the character of the work of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar ?
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Page 19
Chapter 18: American Cinema in the 1990s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Martin Scorsese makes movies which avoid A)use of cursing.
B)use of violence.
C)use of striking images.
D)none of the above
Q2) Why were Woody Allen movies in the 90s usually unpopular with American audiences,but popular with European and Japanese audiences?
Q3) Hollywood responded to losing money on movies in the 1990s by improving the number and quality of the movies being produced there.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) What was the essential quality,according to Steven Spielberg,that was lacking in his movies prior to Schindler's List and what did that lack mean for those movies?
Q5) How were gays and lesbians depicted in movies like The Birdcage in the 90s?
Q6) Part of the appeal of movies has always been movement for movement's sake,the principal domain of action films.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 19: International Cinema in the 1990s
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Q1) One of the problems that foreign-born directors experienced in the 1990s was
A)language barriers.
B)constant union strikes.
C)growing censorship.
D)none of the above
Q2) What are the qualities of Irish movies that made them "Irish" in the 90s?
Q3) Which of the following is true of Irish movies in the 1990s?
A)written by Irish screenwriters
B)often produced by British television
C)often anti-authoritarian
D)all of the above
Q4) Conflict in an Irish film from the 90s was often centered on A)class.
B)religion.
C)neither a nor b
D)both a and b
Q5) What qualities did British filmmakers possess which helped make British movie making diverse and resurgent in the 90s?
Q6) What contributed to the basic health of French cinema in the 90s?
Q7) Why don't Indian movies fare well outside of India?
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Chapter 20: American Cinema Since 2000
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Q1) Alexander Payne's film career could best be described with the term
A)humane
B)prolific
C)sardonic
D)serious
Q2) A David Cronenberg movie typically focuses on
A)sex and violence.
B)sex and money.
C)sex and technology.
D)sex and politics.
Q3) Many critics regard Mike Leigh,who works in the Kitchen Sink-style,as England's greatest living director.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) How is it possible that a state-of-the-art home-entertainment system can very nearly equal the film-watching experience of a movie theater?
Q5) What medium and in what ways do movies often seem to ape in the 2000s?
Q6) Are the directors of the 2000s realists,classicists,or formalists generally?
Q7) What has happened to the rules for genre storytelling in movies in the 2000s?
Page 22
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Chapter 21: International Cinema Since 2000
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Q1) What has been Islamic filmmakers' response to their harassment for making movies sympathetic to women?
Q2) The Spanish director known for his insights into the female psyche is
A)Penelope Cruz
B)Guillermo del Toro
C)Pedro Almodóvar
D)none of the above
Q3) All of the following are true of Zhang Yimou's Curse of the Golden Flower except A)made in the tradition of Hong Kong action movies
B)created voluptuous visual lyricism
C)box office champ in China
D)set in contemporary China
Q4) How does Yuen Wo Ping,choreographer of The Matrix Trilogy,achieve his "action as dance" effect?
Q5) The best Japanese movie of the 2000s,set in World War II,was directed by
A)John Woo
B)Clint Eastwood
C)Ang Lee
D)Ken Watanabe
Q6) Why is the journey motif an effective story-telling device in movies?
Page 23
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