LITERARY ANALYSIS OF FILM

COURSE PROFICIENCIES
Grade Level: 12 Minutes/Day: 40 minutes / 5 days per week
Course Credits: 5.0 Days/Year: 180 days / Full Year
Prerequisites:

I. PURPOSE
The New Jersey Core Curriculum Content Standards identify Viewing and Media Literacy as one of the five
essential strands of Language Arts Literacy. the Film Study course will encourage critical viewing in students
through an introduction to the vocabulary and concepts specific to film and the applications of film analysis to
selected films. This course will enrich students through exposure to a variety of film narrative of various
genres and time periods with which the students may not otherwise become familiar. Additionally, this course
will provide opportunities to strengthen the ties between visual and linguistic intelligences Students will be
able to integrate skills learned in this course to many other classes which also include viewing segments as
part of their curriculum. Finally, this course will meet students’ needs because it addresses in specific and
unique ways multiple intelligences.

II. STUDENT OUTCOMES

Students will be able to:
A. Define vocabulary of critical viewing.
B. Apply critical viewing terms to films.
C. Develop viewing strategies.
D. Identify and explore visual metaphor.
E. Identify and explore visual symbolism.
F. Present critical analysis of films.
G. Compare and contrast literary devices which are used in films.
H. Identify and explore the formal and stylistic components of various genres of film.
I. Trace the evolution of various film techniques.
J. Develop an understanding of the history of film.
K. Create film-based projects.
L. Explore the relationship between film and culture.
M. Explore the uses of the documentary.
N. Analyze the process by which literature if transformed into film.
O. Analyze directors’ choices and decisions over the course of several films.
P. Create an 8 to 10 page research project based on analysis of a director’s films.

III. STATEMENT OF PROFICIENCY

All students will be considered to have attained mastery of the subject matter by maintaining an 80% or higher
average class grade.

IV. EVALUATION
Marking Period Grade Final Grade
30% Writing 90% Each of the four marking periods will be
25% Tests 22.5% of the final grade.
20% Projects 10% Final Exam
15% Quizzes
10% Classwork / Homework

V. TEXTBOOKS AND MATERIALS

A. TEXTBOOK: Movies and Meaning: An Introduction to Film
B. Segments and scenes of films will be viewed as demonstration of the aspects of film and its vocabulary.
C. Full-length films for study:
Citizen Kane
Casablanca
Rear Window
Bonnie and Clyde
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Do the Right Things
Memento

UPDATED 1341 September 2014