Film Criticism and Analysis
Final Exam
Course Introduction
Film Criticism and Analysis explores the foundations and methods of critically engaging with cinema. This course examines diverse theoretical perspectives, historical contexts, and contemporary debates within film criticism. Students learn to analyze narrative structures, visual styles, genre conventions, and thematic content, developing the skills to craft rigorous critical essays and assessments. Emphasis is placed on understanding how films communicate meaning, evoke emotional responses, and reflect or challenge societal values, preparing students to thoughtfully interpret and critique both classic and contemporary works of cinema.
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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44 Verified Questions
44 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/76099
Sample Questions
Q1) George Méliès ___
A)a machine that passed a continuous loop of film of a series of rollers and in front of a prefocused lens
B)uses images on cardboard which are mounted consecutively on a wheel: a flip-card device
C)shot and edited him movies as he did because it seemed the best way to tell a story
D)kept movies alive and evolving,but enslaved and cheapened them: movies were then called "chasers"
E)developed a machine that worked visually with Edison's phonograph
F)used fade outs,dissolves,double exposures,etc.in his tableaux fantastiques
G)solved the problem of film breaking by leaving slack in the film at the top and bottom of the film gate
H)a surreal production from the Edison studio using hand-held shots and double exposures,etc.
I)Armat's and Raff's prototype for the modern movie projector
J)desired a painting to be a living thing
Answer: F
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Page 3
Chapter 2: Griffith and His Contemporaries: 19081920
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45 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) All of the following major comedic talents worked for Max Sennett except A)Buster Keaton.
B)Fatty Arbuckle.
C)Charlie Chaplin.
D)Harold Lloyd.
Answer: A
Q2) The movies first important comedienne was
A)Marie Dressler.
B)Lucille Ball.
C)Mabel Normand .
D)Mary Pickford.
Answer: C
Q3) Which of the following is true about Griffith's early camera work?
A)He filmed so that the projected image would move faster than normal.
B)He filmed human subjects up close to intensify emotion.
C)He shot in artificial lighting nearly exclusively.
D)He shot scenes in a completely spontaneous,unrehearsed manner.
Answer: B
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4
Chapter 3: American Cinema in the 1920s
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44 Verified Questions
44 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Alice Guy-Blache ___
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: A
Q2) The qualities which prohibit Erich Von Stroheim from being the Marquis de Sade of cinema are
A)precision and clarity.
B)sex and doomed love.
C)fascinating and likeability.
D)humor and humanity.
Answer: D
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Chapter 4: European Cinema in the 1920s
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45 Verified Questions
45 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The "Griffith of Europe" was the German director
A)Ernst Lubitsch
B)Fritz Lang
C)Emil Jennings
D)Walter Ruttman
Q2) What is the definition of the German term kammerspiel? Give an example of a movie embodying this quality.
Q3) Potemkin's Odessa steps sequence is a powerful recreation of what it's like to be caught in an explosion of random violence.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Do Fritz Lang's symbols in his films keep his films from being realistic?
Q5) The French director who had an anarchist spirit but produced a light tone was
A)René Clair
B)Jean Renoir
C)Marcel Proust
D)Jean Vigo
Q6) Murnau was the first to make camera movement a style sufficient unto itself.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 5: The Hollywood Studio System: 1925-1955
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Sample Questions
Q1) All the following were responsible for the practice of "vertical integration" except A)Thomas Ince.
B)William Fox.
C)Adolph Zukor.
D)Marcus Loew.
Q2) All of the following are true about the use of genre to develop movie stories except:
A)Its use automatically synthesizes a vast amount of iconographic data.
B)Its use provides a very tight set of ready-made expectations.
C)Its use helps to organize and focus story materials.
D)Its conventions are mere clichés unless united with significant innovations.
Q3) What percent of the seating capacity of theatres did the Big Five studios control?
A)25%
B)50%
C)75%
D)100%
Q4) What were the benefits of the studio system to the film industry itself as well as movie goers? What were the limitations of the studio system?
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Chapter 6: American Cinema in the 1930s
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Sample Questions
Q1) In American movies,which is the more powerful thematic impulse: idealism or pragmatism?
Q2) What replaced the sight gag in comedies when sound was introduced?
A)wisecrack
B)fast talk
C)double entendre
D)non sequitur
Q3) Camille ___
A)Busby Berkeley's musical in which pianos move
B)Mae West puts Cary Grant in his place
C)William Wyler films starring Bette Davis
D)Marx Bothers' surrealistic assault on order and reason
E)starred James Cagney,bruised,without illusions
F)George Cukor film starring Greta Garbo and Robert Taylor
G)Frank Capra film starring James Stewart
H)director John Ford's first critical hit
I)gangster film written by Ben Hecht,directed by Howard Hawks
J)starred Fred Astaire,the musical's inventor.
Q4) What was impossible for director Frank Capra in movies? What was his core message?
Page 8
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Chapter 7: European Cinema in the 1930s
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45 Verified Questions
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Sample Questions
Q1) Alfred Hitchcock regretted that sound entered movies as is clear in Blackmail.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) Who financed his early movies himself using art works?
A)Marcel Carné
B)Jean Renoir
C)Jean Cocteau
D)Carl Theodore Dreyer
Q3) The New Wave film movement of France most admired which French film director?
A)Jean Cocteau
B)Jean Renoir
C)Marcel Carné
D)Jacques Prévert
Q4) In Grand Illusion,Jean Renoir made good use of the talents of
A)Charlie Chaplin
B)G.W.Pabst
C)Erich von Stroheim
D)Alfred Hitchcock
Q5) Did Marcel Carné make "film noir" movies?
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Chapter 8: American Cinema in the 1940s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many consider which of the following to be Billy Wilder's masterpiece?
A)Sunset Boulevard
B)Double Indemnity
C)The Lost Weekend
D)Ace in the Hole
Q2) Which of the following is true of a Disney-produced animated feature film?
A)sentimental
B)sugary
C)supported stability and family
D)all of the above
Q3) Which of the following did not persuade filmmakers and audiences that there was more to life than they previously had thought?
A)World War II
B)Surrealism
C)Freudian psychology
D)the Holocaust
Q4) What makes film noir run counter to the American tradition of optimism?
Q5) Why did a darker,more pessimistic kind of story (noir)come to popularity after the war?
Q6) In what ways did Hollywood do "itself proud during World War II"?
Page 10
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Chapter 9: European Cinema in the 1940s
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Sample Questions
Q1) Nazi propaganda films were efforts to depict conditions in Germany truthfully.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) Laurence Olivier used all of the following movie making techniques while directing Hamlet except
A)voice-over interior monologues
B)crane and dolly shots
C)deep-focus photography
D)short takes
Q3) What types of films were brought to production immediately in postwar Russia?
A)boy-loves- tractor
B)historic heroes of the people
C)science fiction
D)crime thrillers
Q4) British actors of the 1940s were trained in all the following except
A)direction
B)diction
C)dancing
D)dialects
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Chapter 10: American Cinema in the 1950s
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Production Code finally began to allow all of the following except:
A)sexual deviance
B)drug addiction
C)kidnapping
D)words like "virgin"
Q2) Fred Zinneman is noted for which of the following revisionist westerns
A)High Noon
B)The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence
C)The Searchers
D)High Plains Drifter
Q3) What were some of the short comings of Cinerama?
Q4) The Production Code's censorship standards slowly gave way to new ideas and language before the onslaught of such directors as Otto Preminger.___
A)True
B)False
Q5) Alfred Hitchcock precut his scripts,meaning he
A)bought scripts that were already edited
B)used storyboarding
C)minimized camera setups
D)hooked studio financing in advance
Page 12
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Chapter 11: International Cinema in the 1950s
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44 Verified Questions
44 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) A Robert Bresson film usually exemplifies which of the following film characteristics?
A)stylistically austere with non-professional actors
B)themes of spiritual transcendence
C)shot on location
D)all of the above
Q2) Ingmar Bergman made movies which
A)were always realistic.
B)were sometimes realistic,and sometimes allegorical.
C)were comedic views of Swedish life.
D)only b and c
Q3) Who of the following is considered the most Western of Japanese filmmakers?
A)Akira Kurosawa
B)Kenji Mizoguchi
C)Yasuiru Ozu
D)none of the above
Q4) The West "discovered" Japanese cinema when Pather Panchali won the Jury Prize at Cannes.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: American Cinema in the 1960s
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45 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) The top male box office star of the 60s was
A)John Wayne
B)Burt Lancaster
C)Dustin Hoffman
D)Paul Newman
Q2) Which of the following tended to be true of Vietnam era movies?
A)big-budget films ruled
B)the protagonist(s)often died
C)westerns disappeared
D)non-political positions were taken in the movies
Q3) Martin Ritt once said,"It is possible to survive making films that basically represent who you are and what you are about." ___
A)True
B)False
Q4) Each of the following is true about John Frankenheimer's films except A)worked in several genres
B)used the motif of imprisonment often
C)vision tends to be optimistic
D)had no single theme
Q5) What characteristics of Sam Peckinpah's westerns made them revisionist?
Page 14
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Chapter 13: International Cinema in the 1960s
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43 Verified Questions
43 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Louis Malle ___
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) Free Cinema in Britain emphasized
A)democratic values
B)significance of the everyday C)respect for the individual
D)all of the above
Q3) New Wave directors had a deep affection for American movies.___
A)True
B)False
Q4) What characterized the films of the Prague Spring movement in Czechoslovakia?
Page 15
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Chapter 14: American Cinema in the 1970s
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Sample Questions
Q1) May's wry,witty movie ___
A)Nashville
B)The Heartbreak Kid
C)Blume in Love
D)Raging Bull
E)Apocalypse Now
F)Manhattan
G)Sugarland Express
H)Rocky
I)The French Connection
J)One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Q2) All of the following are true of a Robert Altman film except
A)overlapping dialogue
B)optimistic view of the human condition
C)de-emphasis of plot
D)subversion of genre expectations
Q3) Where did the new directors come from and what advantages or strengths did they bring with them?
Q4) What happened to the conventions of classical cinema in the early 70s?
Q5) How was sex portrayed in movies of the 70s?
Page 16
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Chapter 15: International Cinema in the 1970s
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Sample Questions
Q1) What thematic traits did Italian directors Bernardo Bertolucci and Lena Wertmuller share?
Q2) What Marxist qualities can be seen in the Italian films of the 70s?
Q3) The Russian/Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky,an avant-garde artist,could make his movies and get them seen gave some indication that the Soviet Union in the 70s was Developing
A)interest in profitable movies.
B)more tolerance.
C)sensitivity to foreign film criticism.
D)none of the above
Q4) Unlike many national cinemas,Australian cinema in the 1970s was?
A)unpopular in Australia
B)unprofitable
C)government supported
D)very nationalistic
Q5) In a film by French director Bertrand Blier,a woman is usually a A)femme fatale.
B)catalyst of action.
C)mother figure.
D)intruder/outsider .
Page 17
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Chapter 16: American Cinema in the 1980s
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Sample Questions
Q1) 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
Q2) Unlike their predecessors,young director emerging in the 1980s often
A)knew more about movies than life
B)worked off cultural grants
C)starred/acted in their movies
D)all of the above
Q3) Terry Gilliam began animating short films on television with A)Second City
B)Saturday Night Live
C)HeeHaw
D)Monty Python
Q4) What was the influence of President Reagan and the conservative cultural climate he called for?
Q5) Television had virtually no influence on movies or movie making.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 17: International Cinema in the 1980s
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Sample Questions
Q1) One of the most popular forms of Japanese movies in the 1980s was
A)yakuza
B)buriko
C)animation
D)all of the above
Q2) Paul Verhoeven has restricted his films to issues concerning life in the Netherlands (i.e.Holland).___
A)True
B)False
Q3) Japanese audiences became increasingly internationalized in the 80s especially enjoying films made in
A)Germany
B)Australia
C)China
D)America
Q4) The interesting fact about the British filmmaking tandem Merchant-Ivory is that neither is British - nor is their principal screenwriter.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 18: American Cinema in the 1990s
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Sample Questions
Q1) At the century's end,the only free-standing independent studio was
A)Tri-Star
B)American International
C)Universal
D)Disney
Q2) Nora Ephron ___
A)Rambling Rose
B)Menace II Society
C)Ulee's Gold
D)Happiness
E)The Lion King
F)Unforgiven
G)Titanic
H)Barcelona
I)Sleepless in Seattle
J)Deconstructing Harry
Q3) Arguably the most important development for artistic significance in 90s movie making was the establishment of independent films.___
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 19: International Cinema in the 1990s
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Sample Questions
Q1) To what extent was American film dominance worldwide a positive and/ or negative force in the 90s?
Q2) 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
Q3) How did America come to dominate the European film landscape in the 90s?
Q4) Irish films focus exclusively on "the Troubles" that have long existed between Northern Ireland and the IRA.___
A)True
B)False
Q5) Since Bill Forsyth's Gregory's Girl in 1981,more than 40 movies have been made in Scotland.___
A)True
B)False
Q6) What qualities did British filmmakers possess which helped make British movie making diverse and resurgent 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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Sample Questions
Q1) In the United States,Hollywood is in the midst of a great rebirth of film-making having learned how to manufacture (rather than create)and franchise movies.___
A)True
B)False
Q2) Ang Lee's movies stand out because of his attention to
A)setting details
B)narrative details
C)psychological details
D)period details
Q3) What skill has never seemed less important in movie storytelling?
A)costuming
B)Irony
C)composition
D)lighting
Q4) Alexander Payne's film career could best be described with the term
A)humane
B)prolific
C)sardonic
D)serious
Q5) What medium and in what ways do movies often seem to ape in the 2000s?
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Chapter 21: International Cinema Since 2000
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Sample Questions
Q1) The Lives of Others ___
A)won the Golden Globe as Best Foreign film
B)a pregnant teen decides to become a drug mule
C)action as dance
D)two friends from childhood become suicide bombers
E)Helen Mirren won the Academy Award for her performance
F)portrayal of "the devastated,hopeless,soul of a nation"
G)political black comedy from Bosnia
H)raising the American flag is but a dot in the distance
I)political thriller about "big brother" surveillance
J)in a childless dystopian world,a single female miraculously becomes pregnant
Q2) Martial-arts movies,popular with young males,often are comprised of improbable events and cardboard stereotypes.___
A)True
B)False
Q3) The British school of filmmaking that has thrived since 2000 is
A)kitchen sink
B)Masterpiece Theatre
C)neither of the above
D)both of the above
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