Monday, 8 February 2021

Experimental Film : exam question


 
EXAM QUESTION : TO WHAT EXTENT AND IN WHAT WAYS CAN YOUR CHOSEN FILM BE DESCRIBED AS AN EXPERIMENTAL FILM   ( 20 marks )



Consider the following questions  and  techniques and include at least some of the following content .

You should be discussing  how and why the film uses some experimental or postmodern techniques and 

decide in a personal response how "experimental" the film actually is. 


 

EXPERIMENTAL TECHNIQUES


Is Pulp Fiction an experimental film ?  


Is it non-narrative cinema ( like some purely experimental films ) or does it feature narratives and more traditional cinematic storytelling ?


 Does the film contain any experiments or subversions of the rules of film form, narrative structure or  enigmas ?  Did any previous films or film  movements inspire these ? e.g  French New Wave . or postmodernism ?



POSTMODERNIST TECHNIQUES


Is it a postmodernist film ? Which postmodernist techniques does it use ?

What do these techniques add in terms of content or meaning ?


 

Intertextuality : For example, intertextuality.  Pulp Fiction has a huge variety of explicit and more subtle intertextual references. Does it make the film more realistic or change the meaning of the text in any way ? What doe these references add ?


Does it have a classic postmodern dark and ironic mood , with a casual attitude to violence ? Does the film have a single and clear meaning and resolution or a more ambiguous and fractured resolution ?


Eclecticism : Does the film have a range of influences from both high  culture ( e.g literature, European art film ) and low culture ( e.g comic books, American TV , action films ) ?


Are any whole scenes or stories complete pastiches or parodies of other films or genres or does Tarantino just use  intertextual references and occasionally steal plot ideas  ?  For example


Reflexivity : Does the film ( or any scenes ) draw attention to itself as a media text in a self-concsious way  e.g breaking the fourth wall ? I couldn't think of anything apart from some of the more extreme uses of framing and camera movement that feel "self-concsious"


Is Tarantino's Jack Rabbit Slims an example of  bricologe ( a collage of intertextual references to other films and actors or even a  a comment on hyperreality , where the media is more real to use than reality?)



GENRE

Does the film just follow or does it play with or subvert any audience expectations or conventions of the crime genre ?

Consider ideas of stereotypical or familiar characters in crime movies, familiar stories and iconography  narrative structure and resolutions in crime movies  and how enigmas are usually resolved in the crime genre






FURTHER HELP

exemplar answer  : not same question and a bit brief but good points about cinematography, postmodernism and French New Wave

excellent examplar on how experimental the narrative is



video on some more "intertextual references" Tarantino makes in his films and general discussion of postmodernist originality









Jack Rabbit Slims : 
 a place made of intertextual references


Ending ( ?)















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