Film Criticism
Exam Solutions
Course Introduction
Film Criticism explores the art, theory, and practice of analyzing and interpreting films. The course introduces students to major critical frameworks, including formalism, auteur theory, genre analysis, psychoanalysis, and socio-political critique. Students learn to write insightful reviews and academic essays, engage with diverse cinematic traditions, and articulate informed perspectives about film style, narrative, and cultural context. Through screenings, readings, and discussions, participants develop skills to appreciate film as both an artistic medium and a vehicle for societal discourse.
Recommended Textbook
Film Art An Introduction 10th Edition by David Bordwell
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11 Chapters
525 Verified Questions
525 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/study-set/537
Page 2
Chapter 1: Film as art: creativity, technology, and business
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55 Verified Questions
55 Flashcards
Source URL: https://quizplus.com/quiz/181548
Sample Questions
Q1) A preliminary synopsis of a film's action is called a A) blueprint.
B) brief.
C) treatment.
D) try-out.
Answer: C
Q2) "Critical flicker fusion" is
A) the final stage in the manufacture of raw film stock.
B) the flashing of film frames on a screen quickly enough to create an illusion of movement.
C) the ideal length of time each frame should be exposed during filming.
D) the moment when the exposed image appears on the film during the developing process.
Answer: B
Q3) Explain why the director is the person most commonly viewed as the "author" of a film.
Answer: Answers will vary
Q4) In what ways has the development of higher-volume broadband on the Internet and digital video revolutionized distribution?
Answer: Answers will vary
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Chapter 2: The significance of film form
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45 Verified Questions
45 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) "Meaning" refers to what a film says or suggests.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) Curiosity is a pattern of expectation that results when artistic cues cause spectators to think about events that came before a certain point in the film.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q3) In the judgment of a film's quality, a "criterion" is
A) an expectation experienced by spectators before the film begins.
B) a standard that can be applied to many different films.
C) a critique of the overall artistic value of the film.
D) an objective evaluation by an experienced film critic.
Answer: B
Q4) Comedy often depends on creating surprise or cheating spectators' expectations.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
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Chapter 3: Narrative form
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60 Verified Questions
60 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Non-character narrators are common in documentaries.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q2) An "omniscient" narrator usually has very little information about plot and characters.
A)True
B)False
Answer: False
Q3) A common pattern of plot development involves a character gaining knowledge as the film progresses.
A)True
B)False
Answer: True
Q4) As defined by Film Art, a film's "plot" is
A) everything visually and audibly present in the film.
B) the most important causal line of action.
C) the events as viewers mentally reconstruct them.
D) a brief summary of the film's action.
Answer: A
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Chapter 4: The shot: mise-en-scene
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56 Verified Questions
56 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) In a film, a "highlight" refers to
A) a significant scene that may become part of a movie trailer.
B) acting that exceeds the director's expectations.
C) the climax of the story developed in the film.
D) lighting that produces a patch of brightness on a surface.
Q2) "Hard" lighting reveals well-defined shadows and crisp textures.
A)True
B)False
Q3) German Expressionist films, such as The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari, are characterized by realistic mise-en-scene and subtle, psychologically based acting.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following is NOT considered part of a shot's mise-en-scene?
A) the actors' movements
B) the camera's angle on the action
C) objects visible in the distance
D) the shadows
Q5) Select a moment from relatively recent film, such as Silence of the Lambs or Jerry Maguire, and discuss how meaning is conveyed purely through the actor's physical self.
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Chapter 5: The shot: cinematography
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54 Verified Questions
54 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Rear projection seldom creates convincing depth cues in the frame.
A)True
B)False
Q2) An anamorphic process
A) has a built-in filter that permits "day-for-night" shooting.
B) is used to squeeze a widescreen image onto a strip of film.
C) is specifically designed for use on a Steadicam.
D) gives greater depth of field than any other type of lens.
Q3) A zoom lens allows filmmakers to magnify or minimize objects without changing perspective relationships in the shot.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The projection speed for sound films was first standardized at A) 24 frames per second.
B) 50 feet per minute.
C) 36 frames per second.
D) 30 minutes per reel.
Q5) In an extreme long shot, a human figure appears tiny or is lost to view.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 6: The relation of shot to shot: editing
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51 Verified Questions
51 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Film editing may be thought of as the coordination of one shot with the next.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Elliptical editing expands story time.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The opening scene of The Maltese Falcon contains examples of what type of editing?
A) crosscutting
B) montage sequence
C) rhythmic cutting
D) shot/reverse shot
Q4) Discuss how the number of shots in a film has evolved since 1930 and how this has affected the continuity editing system.
Q5) The "intensified continuity" that characterizes contemporary filmmaking is well adapted for viewing on small screens.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 7: Sound in the cinema
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50 Verified Questions
50 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe what off-screen sound is and two major ways it can be used.Illustrate your answer with specific examples from Film Art, the lectures, and any film seen for this class.
Q2) The Prestige uses the sound of iron and rasping metal to suggest an age of lumbering mechanical objects.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The use of subjective sound can parallel that of optical point-of-view.
A)True
B)False
Q4) The Prestige employs dialogue hooks, the technique of
A) ending a scene with a line that prepares for the next scene.
B) offering music cues to indicate that certain lines of dialogue are very important for the plot.
C) using only one line of dialogue in an entire scene to give it added depth.
D) overlapping lines of dialogue by two different characters to emphasize conflict.
Q5) Film sound can include any mixture of noise, music, and speech.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 8: Summary: style as a formal system
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) If a character speaks, the viewer expects to hear diegetic sound that is faithful to the source.
A)True
B)False
Q2) Independent films have less opportunity to make extreme stylistic choices.
A)True
B)False
Q3) Welles makes the important newsreel sequence distinctive by using a number of techniques that do not appear anywhere else in Citizen Kane.
A)True
B)False
Q4) In Citizen Kane, Welles makes the narrator, Thompson, almost unidentifiable through the use of low-key lighting and staging choices.
A)True
B)False
Q5) What does it mean for style to function perceptually? What are some aspects of this quality? Give an example from Citizen Kane.
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Chapter 9: Film genres
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27 Verified Questions
27 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Many scholars believe that the emergence of the subgenre of family horror films in the 1970s indicated viewers'
A) concern about Watergate and Richard Nixon's crimes.
B) uncertainty about their fundamental beliefs.
C) lessening interest in television.
D) anxiety about their suburban lifestyle.
Q2) Select any film genre that has been discussed in this course.Provide two examples of conventions that are significant to the genre.Now cite two specific scenes from films that provide examples of innovative handling of those conventions.
Q3) Drawing on class readings and screenings, describe the typical narrative patterns used to integrate song-and-dance numbers into musicals, commenting especially on the importance of romance.
Q4) The Western is one of the youngest film genres.
A)True
B)False
Q5) The periods of time during which a given genre is popular are called "cycles."
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 10: Documentary, experimental, and animated films
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Sample Questions
Q1) Describe how animation differs from live-action filming.What are some of the common types of animation? Give examples of each.How did the technique used to make Duck Amuck differ from that used to make Fuji?
Q2) Ballet mécanique is an example of a(n) ______ film.
A) rhetorical documentary
B) associational experimental
C) abstract experimental
D) categorical documentary
Q3) Ballet mécanique can be divided into segments either by tracing its arguments or tracing its narrative shifts.
A)True
B)False
Q4) A film is a documentary if it
A) is labeled as such.
B) records events as they occur.
C) contains no staged re-creations.
D) consists only of verifiable truths.
Q5) Bruce Conner's compilation A Movie is a vivid example of abstract form.
A)True
B)False
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Chapter 12: Historical changes in film art: conventions and choices, tradition and trends
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51 Verified Questions
51 Flashcards
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Sample Questions
Q1) Which of the following was NOT one of the earliest feature films?
A) A Trip to the Moon by Georges Méliès
B) The Great Train Robbery by Edwin S. Porter
C) Rescued by Rover by Lewin Fitzhamon
D) The Black Maria by Thomas Edison
Q2) The greater levels of light needed for Technicolor, introduced in the 1930s, permitted filmmakers to experiment with deep-focus shots in black and white.
A)True
B)False
Q3) The Cabinet of Caligari was a commercial success that helped popularize German Expressionism in the early 1920s.
A)True
B)False
Q4) Which of the following was a serious problem faced by the Soviet film industry after the 1917 Revolution?
A) shortages of film equipment and raw stock
B) the shutdown of the State School of Cinema Art
C) the New Economic Policy, which caused the economy to stagnate
D) Lenin's view that cinema was the least important of the arts
Page 13
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