For this film critique, you will be asked to do a close reading of a film releas

For this film critique, you will be asked to do a close reading of a film released after 1944. The paper will be 1,300 words. Your paper should not be plot summary (you may include no more than 3 sentences about the plot). Instead, you must advance a thesis and support it with evidence from the film.
The film critique should be similar to an analysis of a literary text. Literary analysis involves making an argument about a novel, story, poem or play. Good literary analysis will usually closely observe how literary technique or techniques help the literary work to communicate a theme or a set of feelings. A literary analysis can, though it need not, address or critique the cultural significance of a piece of literary art.
Films usually contain many of the same elements as traditional pieces of literature such as plot, characters, setting, symbolism, and tone. Yet whereas the literary techniques for these elements are verbal, film techniques are either exclusively visual or combine the visual with the aural (which includes words, sound, and music.) Therefore, in focusing on how filmic techniques help a movie to communicate a theme or set of feelings, you will want to consider elements of mise-en-scene, cinematography, and editing. Costumes, physical acting, blocking (and movement generally), camera angles, lighting, cuts–all these techniques are important to the work a film does, to its “how.”
The best papers will have a clear thesis that focuses on a specific central idea–how a Chaplin movie expresses the aspirations of the working class, or how a Tarantino film is about the experience of watching film, or how a Hitchcock movie uses the camera to create the experience of a masculine gaze that objectifies women. A full thesis will expand these kinds of central ideas and explain how some of the movie’s the filmic techniques themselves communicate working-class aspirations, or develop meta-cinematic experience, or produce the male gaze.
The best papers will also refer to specific scenes or sequences in the film to make the argument clear and credible. Make sure they are relevant to your argument and that you discuss the scene and relevant characteristics of the images in your essay.
Your paper should follow either APA or MLA format, double-spaced, Times New Roman and 12-point font. External sources are not required for this paper, but if you do consult any, make certain to properly cite them! (see policy about plagiarism). A cover page is not necessary. Every word in your paper should add and contribute to your argument. Avoid fluff, excessive quotation, and ideas that are not relevant to your thesis.
The film critique will be on a post-1944 feature-length film (no shorts).