3. 8 Critical Approaches
• Star / Performer
• Genre
• Auteur
• Social and political contexts
• Gender issues
• Ethnicity
• Institution
• Technology
4. Star / Performer
• You can research an individual or group of
individuals, which could lead to something
such as a ‘star-study’, historical developments
in star status, cultural relationships the notion
of star / performer, fandom, issues of
performance.
5. Star / Performer
• Area of investigation:
The characteristics of
Rhys Ifans’ performance
across different
directors and
production contexts
• Focus film: Enduring
Love
• Related films: Twin
Town and Notting Hill
6. Star / Performer
• Area of investigation:
The meaning brought to
a film by Juliette
Binoche
• Focus film: The
Unbearable Lightness of
Being
• Related films: Les
Amants du Pont Neuf
and The English Patient
7. Ross Wood
• Area of investigation: a
study into the extent to
which Tom Hanks solo
performances have
established him as an
auteur
8. Genre
• You could focus your research on a single
genre or a range of genres. This area is
designed for you to develop investigations
that consider film as a structured product that
is designed to relate to other similar films.
You might investigate the evolution of a genre,
consider the idea of national cinema or look at
genre as a cultural product.
9. Genre
• Area of investigation:
The shaping of the
gangster genre by the
films of Martin Scorcese
• Focus film: Mean
Streets
• Related films:
Goodfellas and Casino
10. Genre
• Area of investigation:
The perceived
communist threat and
the rise of the American
science fiction film
• Focus film: The Day the
Earth Stood Still
• Related films: Plan 9
from Outer Space and
On the Beach
11. Hannah Moore
• Area of investigation:
how musicals present
utopian ideologies to
provide escape from
social zeitgeist
12. Taylor Bragoli
• Critical Approach:
Genre
• Area of investigation:
The Evolution of The Final
Girl and the Horror Genre
13. The Auteur
• allows a film or body of films to be seen in the context of an
authorial voice. It is intended that this context be as broadly
interpreted as possible, and so the traditional view of an
auteur as a single person (usually the director) is extended to
include any individual who leaves a 'signature' of control (over
the production and/or over meaning) on a film, be they the
screenwriter, the cinematographer, the composer, or even an
actor. Indeed, this is taken further still by considering the
collaborative auteur (two or more individuals who when they
come together on a project leave an unmistakable signature -
Scorsese and DeNiro, for example), and the institutional
auteur (where an institution, be it a studio, a government
agency or a collective, leaves a signature on a film irrespective
of who actually worked on it - the comedies produced at
Ealing demonstrate this well).
14. The Auteur
• Area of investigation:
Luc Besson's move from
French film to
Americanised movies
and the impact on his
cinematic style
• Focus film: Leon
• Related films: Subway
and Nikita
15. Tara Costello
• Area of investigation: a
close study into John
Waters influences and
how this is translated in
his construction of
female characters
16. Chelsea Fullbrook
• Area of investigation: a
close study into Tim
Burton exploring the
extent to which his
childhood experiences
are significant in
defining his auteur
signature
17. Caroline Gittins
• Critical Approach:
Auteur Study
• Area of investigation:
The collaboration of
Tim Burton and Johnny
Depp and their
construction of
protagonists as a
defining feature of their
auteur signature
18. Charlie Hopwood
• Critical Approach:
Auteur Study
• Area of investigation:
Shane Meadows films
and the revival of ‘The
Kitchen Sink Drama’
19. Michael Selby
• Critical Approach:
Auteur Study
• Area of investigation:
Quentin Tarantino’s
Auteur Signature
20. Social and political contexts
• This could focus on the contexts of the
production of the film, or on the commentary
offered by films on a particular social or
political context (E.G Iraq War – Farenheit 9-
11)
21. Social and political contexts
• Area of investigation:
Films dealing with the
Vietnam War as a
symptom of modern
America
• Focus film: Platoon
• Related films: Forrest
Gump and Hamburger
Hill
22. Callum Jackson
• Area of investigation: to
what extent does
Korea’s censorship
effect the
social, cultural and
political representations
in Korean cinema
23. Ross Lusted
• Area of investigation: a
close analytical study of
Chicano cinema
between 2000-2009; it’s
self reflexive
representations and the
impact of these
perception on national
identity
24. Ruby Purcell
• Area of investigation:
how cinema has
represented an
interpreted fashion as a
cultural form
25. Jake Saunders
• Area of investigation: a
comparative analytical
study of the representations
of homosexuality in British
and Hollywood
cinema, exploring the
different ways in which
these are constructed and
presented, as well as their
social, cultural and political
significance
26. Nancy Campopiano
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Representations of
corruption in Africa and
its social and political
effects on Western
perceptions of Africa
27. Harry Mills
• Critical Approach: Social
& Political
• Area of investigation: A
comparison of American
mainstream and
independent films and
the social and political
commentary these films
make pertaining to
adolescence
28. Hayley Morris
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
How 1970’s musicals
rebelled against the
societal norms on
gender and sexuality
29. Deborah Obeski
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
The social and political
implications of the civil
rights movement as
represented across a
body of film
30. Lawrence Salisbury
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
How films represent
American ideologies
and societal views of
homosexuality within
the period that they
were set
31. Lauren Scotcher
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
The social and political
commentary offered on
9/11 across a body of
films and the effect they
have hand on
perceptions of America
32. Nick Storey
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Ideologies of the Iraq
war as depicted across
a body films
33. Charlotte Beaird
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Representations of
women in post 1990s
Iranian films
34. Emily Neil
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Film construction and
the representation of
mental illness
35. Gender
• encourages an approach that allows the study
of gendered films or gendered filmmaking, but
also one that allows the study of gendered
spectatorship. Issues of sexuality, of gender, of
representation, and of other related contexts
can be explored either singly or through a
comparative approach (such as comparing
male and female directorial approaches to the
crime movie genre).
36. Gender
• Area of investigation:
American New Queer
Cinema and identity
• Focus film: Go Fish
• Related films: Paris is
Burning and All Over
Me
37. Gender
• Area of investigation:
Kathryn Bigelow's
approach to the
contemporary horror
film
• Focus film: Near Dark
• Related films: From
Dusk Till Dawn and The
Forsaken
38. Libby Rowe
• Critical Approach:
Social & Political
• Area of investigation:
Feminism and Film from
1950s-1980s
39. Ethnicity
• may be explored through diverse approaches
including analysing the representations within
a film, and issues around those making a film.
It should be viewed as a broad approach that
can include more traditional topics (such as
Sexploitation movies, or the representation of
the American Indian in the Western genre),
40. Ethnicity
• Area of investigation:
British-Indian cinema
coming of age
• Focus film: Bend it Like
Beckham
• Related films: My Son
the Fanatic and Bhaji on
the Beach
41. Ethnicity
• Area of investigation:
the changing
representation of young
black men in British film
• Focus film: Bullet Boy
• Related films: Pressure
and Babylon
42. Institution
• engages with issues of industry that may have been
stimulated from concepts engaged with in FM2
British and American film. Most obvious will be the
industrialised production contexts for film
production (the studios ,the production
companies, and even the established methods of
production), but issues around film
finance, producing, law, regulation, distribution, exhi
bition and governmental influence over filmmaking
are all valuable areas through which to contextualise
a research project.
43. Institution
• Area of investigation:
the impact of the Hays
Code
• Focus film: Ecstasy
• Related films: Tarzan
and His Mate and The
Outlaw
44. Institution
• Area of investigation:
American Zoetrope -
independence and
success
• Focus film: Apocalypse
Now
• Related films: The Good
Shepherd and Sleepy
Hollow
45. Rebecca Hammond
• Area of investigation: a
study into what makes
Pixar films so distinctive
from other animation
studio films
46. Technology
• this context is one that encompasses all the
constructional devices in cinema, from production
through to distribution and exhibition methods. A
wide range of investigations can be contextualised by
technology from an historic approach dealing with a
production development such as the introduction of
surround sound, through to the impact of video on
the industry, or the implication of digital exhibition
(most importantly with the broader areas of
investigation is the need to anchor them to a
particular focus film).
47. Technology
• Area of investigation:
development of CGI in
animation and its
impact on audiences
• Focus film: Toy Story
• Related films: Toy Story
2 and Shrek
48. Technology
• Area of investigation:
the development of
colour film techniques
• Focus film: Gone with
the Wind
• Related films: The Black
Pirate and The
Sheltering Sky
49. Alex Flynn
• Critical Approach:
Institution/ Technology
• Area of investigation:
The impact of Pixar on
the development and
reception of
contemporary
animation feature films
50. What’s the point?
• The primary objective of this component is to develop your research skills
and make you aware of the challenges, difficulties and pleasures involved
in sifting through a variety of sources for material that will allow you to
present an answer to a question that you have posed.
• Research skills are widely valued both in higher education and in the world
of employment, and the Small Scale Research Project is designed to
encourage the development of these skills and of an understanding of
how differing research tools may be used to investigate or analyse o topic
area.
• The Small Scale Research project uses the area of investigation as a means
of developing research skills, and as such the research should be to the
fore. The approaches to, and techniques, research, the research
material, and the application of this research material are of far more
significance than any ‘answer’ that ma be offered
• It is intended that the research begins with one key film and broadens out
from there, taking in at least two other related films, and a variety of
sources of material.
51. What am I expected to produce?
• An organised folder full of research
• An annotated catalogue (15 marks)
• A 1500 word presentation script (25 marks)
• Give a 12-18min presentation on research
findings
• (FM3) Small Scale + Creative Project = 25%
• (FM4) Exam Paper – 3 sections = 25%
52. Should the Research project be quite
tightly focused?
• It cannot be emphasised too strongly that the
Research Project is meant to be small scale and
focused. You should resist any temptation toward
very generalist encyclopaedia-like surveys.
• The focus on a particular film as a starting point
should guarantee this. In most cases it will be
unnecessary for you to extend beyond the required
reference to two further related films
• The other focus is on the critical question being
posed - which motivates and makes specific the kind
of research conducted.
54. 1st Presentation
• Possible options of what to research study across the 8
Critical Approaches
• What you have decided to do
• Focus film and additional films – and why you have
chosen them
• Initial research – explaining what you have found out,
what’s interesting about what you have found out, and
how it has helped you (reference sources)
• Possible research statements/ questions
• A break down of your research statement/ question
• Start a blog
