Genre: Mockumentary
Director: Rob Reiner
Stars: Michael McKean, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer
Objective Analysis: (give a few examples and provide text to support your examples)
1. Visual component (such as the art direction, camera angles and movement, cinematography, lighting, visual style, etc.):
Filmed like a documentary, Spinal Tap uses handheld camera and talking head interviews to make the documentary part feel real. The filmmaking is straightforward to let the actors improvise.
2. Editing component (like the pacing, rhythm, transitions, etc.):
The film is fast-paced, and uses flashbacks and “archival footage” to flash back to the band’s earlier forms when they talk about it.
3. Audio component (like the soundtrack, ambient sound, dialogue, etc.):
The movie’s dialogue is all improvised, so the film focuses mostly on that, as well as the rock songs that the band performs on stage.
4. Narrative component (such as the plot, characters, acting, setting, pace, symbolism, etc.):
Even within the documentary format, the movie still tells a straightforward story about the band falling apart and back together again. The actors create the story and dialogue through heavy improvising, which the director just sits back and captures.
Subjective analysis: (this is for you to state your point of view)
1. Discuss your favorite visual component or scene and WHY?
I think my favorite scene has to be the Stonehenge performance, as Reiner films it like a hardcore rock concert, which sells the comedy of the little Stonehenge model dropping down onto the stage.
2. Discuss your favorite sound component or line of dialogue and WHY?
Strangely enough, I like the Spinal Tap songs the most – they function well as legitimate rock songs to make the mockumentary seem almost real, while also having the kind of ridiculous lyrics that are funny themselves.
3. Discuss your shortcoming of the film and WHY ?
If there is any failure of this film, it is that the humor falls down a bit when the main story (of David’s girlfriend splitting up the band) takes focus near the end of the movie.
Online Course: Film Critique Sheet #2
Genre: 70s cinema
Director: Ted Demme
Stars:
Objective Analysis: (give examples and provide text that supports these examples)
1. What visual components (contributions) do you feel this genre has added to the world of art, if any? What was new visually about this genre?
70s films were very interesting and experimental, using things like zooms, fast cutting, and documentary handheld camera work in narrative films to create grittier, more realistic movies.
2. What is the social/political context of this genre? What events or societal trends brought this genre into existence?
70s cinema came about as a result of the stale nature of 60s big-studio movies, where audiences jaded by Vietnam wanted more gritty, violent and deeply personal works by visionary directors.
3. What are the significant audio elements of this genre, if any (such as the soundtrack, ambient sound, dialogue, etc.)?
Pop and rock, as well as disco, started to come into play more often in the soundtrack of the 70s, and dialogue was more naturalistic and adult.
4. What are the significant narrative components (story telling, plot, characters, acting, setting, pace, symbolism) to this genre if any?
70s filmmakers took a lot from foreign film and started to create movies that were more formal in their filmmaking (less seamless), creating more visual artistic statements than just telling a story.
Subjective analysis: (this is for you to give your point of view)
1. Discuss your favorite visual component or scene and WHY?
I liked the montage where the different 70s filmmakers went around talking about what foreign filmmakers influenced them the most, with posters of the films flashing by the screen – it gave a sense that all of these filmmakers were being influenced at the same time by the same people.
2. Discuss your favorite sound component or line of dialogue and WHY?
In that same scene, one of the directors says he never learned the names of the directors who influenced him, because he would walk out of a movie he hated, and he told himself, “I gotta remember never to do anything like that again!”
3. Discuss your shortcoming of the film and WHY ?
I think the documentary could have stood to be a bit longer, and talked more from a historical point of view about why people chose the movies they did in the 1970s.
4. How did this documentary expand your knowledge of this genre in particular and the world of film in general (give examples and why)?
I learned quite a bit about how film history changed from the studio movies of the 60s to the independent and artistic filmmaking of the 1970s. I also learned to realize just what it was about these movies that resonate so well with me; they were made by people who had artistic visions, and studios who were willing to let them put their vision on screen.
