Fm4 Intro

FM4: VARIETIES OF FILM EXPERIENCE – ISSUES AND DEBATES Learning Objective: To know the requirements of the unit To discuss the possible issues and debates in the films we have viewed

Success Criteria • To make notes on FM4 outline • To discuss ideas of the films viewed so far • To list some of the issues and debates in the films

Assessment • Candidates will take a two and three quarter hour examination. • Section A: World Cinema (35 marks) One question to be answered from a choice of two for each of the four topics. • Section B: Spectatorship Topics (35 marks) One question to be answered from a choice of two for each of the four topics. • Section C: Single Film – Critical Study (30 marks) One question to be answered from a choice of two questions general to all films and a specific question set for each film prescribed.

This unit contributes to ‘synoptic’ assessment • Understanding will be fostered through: • Studying complex films from different contexts, extending knowledge of the diversity of film and its effects • exploring spectatorship issues in relation to a particular type of film • applying key concepts and critical approaches gained throughout the course to explore one film in a synoptic manner.

• AO1: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of film as an audio-visual form of creative expression together with its contexts of production and reception and of the diversity in filmmaking across different historical periods and locations. • AO2: Apply knowledge and understanding, including some of the common critical approaches that characterise the subject, when exploring and analysing films and when evaluating their own creative projects to show how meanings and responses are generated.

Section A: World Cinema • • • • • •

(a) Aspects of a National Cinema Bollywood, 1990 – present Iranian Cinema, 1990 – present Japanese Cinema, 1950 – 1970 Mexican Cinema, 1990 – present This section requires a specific engagement with a World Cinema topic, including contextual knowledge. There are prescribed topics but no prescribed films and questions will be broadly-based.

World Cinema • We will study two films by different directors in detail • We will look at 1 or 2 other films from the same country but only briefly to supplement the main focus films

Second area of study for Section A • Specialist Study 1: Urban Stories - Power, Poverty and Conflict • Candidates will choose two principal films representing life in difficult urban environments, and that these will be supplemented by two further films studied more briefly. The challenge of this topic is to compare and contrast films which may come from very different social and cultural contexts.

What films have we watched so far regarding Urban Stories? • • • •

City of God Chungking Express Bitter Sweet Life Oldboy

Brainstorm • Use each film to create brainstorms of the issues and debates within each film relating to Power, Poverty or Conflict • Consider micro and macro elements