Unit

5
LENGUA INGLESA III

Book and Film Reviews

 Book and Film Review

LINGUISTIC CONTENT:
AIMS: Review of Macro-markers employed in the
structure of reviews. Review of prepositions and
To Read Book Reviews. adjectives. Persuasive language.
To Read Film Reviews.

To write Book Reviews.

TIMING:
To write Film Reviews. 6 sessions approximately.

To watch films.
To organize a debate.
PROJECT:
METHODOLOGY: 1. Watch an American or British film of
your choice in their original version.
Choose an English book from your
Task-based approach. Lectures, practical readings.
workshops, and laboratory practice. 2. Write a book and a film review and
include them in the Newspaper Final
Project.
3. Prepare a TV Programme based on
MATERIALS: one of the films you have watched.

1. Newspapers.
2. Internet
3. Books and films.
4. OHP and transparencies.
5. Video-camera.

i
 Unit

5
Lesson 10: Reading the English
Press. Book and Film reviews
Evaluation, Exposition, Argumentation and Persuasiveness in Review-type
texts.

R
eviews are special types of texts which answer, in theory, readers’ specific informative
needs . But information is not the only communicative purpose of reviews. Sometimes, the
key point when composing reviews is to reach a balance between many different aims. The
writer has to take into account the newspaper aim (or the company’s), his/her own
purpose, and also the potential reader’s intentions. Then, the writer tries to create a coherent and
cohesive text that can fulfil all the expectations in spite of the fact that they there could be opposing
ideas.

Preliminary Activity:

Discussion:
In groups of four or five look at these questions and discuss the possible answers,
when finished, report to the class:

1. What kind of expectations do the different participants in the text have?

EXPECTATIONS:

CONTENT: STRUCTURE: TEXT:

What type of text is it likely to be used?

What’s what we How do we like
want to say/read? it to be
Informative
Our purpose? said/read? Descriptive Narrative Persuasive
/expository

Writer

Newspaper

Reader

2
 Lesson 10: Reading 1

 A Film review: Read the text and answer the questions.

The following review by Stephanie Zacharek presents a commentary about the film
entitled “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring”. The film was directed by
Peter Jackson , starring Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Cate
Blanchett, Liv Tyler and Ian Holm. The film was rated PG-13 for violence and definitely
scary scenes. Two hours and 58 minutes.

The movie of the year:

The heroic and epic film version of "The Lord of the Rings" brings beauty, awe and
excitement back to the big screen.

By Stephanie Zacharek

Dec. 17, 2001 | The most heartbreaking thing about faithful moviegoing is that awe, beauty and
excitement, three of the things we go to the movies for, are the very things we're cheated of the
most. The great wonder of "The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" is that it bathes us
in all three, to the point where we remember -- in a vague, pleasurably hallucinatory sensation from
another lifetime -- why we go to the movies in the first place. It would be an insult to say the picture
merely lives up to its hype; it crashes the meaning of hype, exposing it as the graven image it is.
Advertising is dead: Long live moviemaking.

The first 10 minutes of "The Fellowship of the Ring" renders all hype -- whether it's the kind that's
bought and paid for or the kind generated by eager fans -- inconsequential. In adapting the story of
hobbit Frodo Baggins and his mission to guard and ultimately destroy a ring that has the power to
bring cursed evil upon the world, director Peter Jackson has given us an epic in the true sense, with
none of the pretentious fakery that the word "epic" has come to imply

Jackson's approach is refreshingly egalitarian: I had feared that "The Fellowship of the Rings"
would be a ferociously clubby movie, one that would, with a snobbish sniff, shut out people
unfamiliar with Tolkien's books. My guess, though, is that most fans of the books will warm to
Jackson's version (even if the story has been streamlined a bit, with some characters' roles enhanced
and other figures sliced out altogether). And as for everyone else, Jackson makes all the right moves
in reaching out to them.

He explains the essential back story in a fleet, graceful expository passage at the beginning: In
ancient times, in an undefined place, a set of powerful golden rings were forged and dispersed to
various kingdoms across the land. The dark lord Sauron himself made the One Ring, the ring that
would complete and intensify the power of all the others. But the ring was taken from him, and ages
later, it accidentally found its way into the hands of a humble Hobbit by the name of Bilbo Baggins
(here played by Ian Holm). Sauron will stop at nothing to get the ring back, but he needs to find it
first. That's the tale told in "The Hobbit," the prequel to Tolkien's trilogy.

3
As the movie opens, the aged Bilbo has decided to bequeath the ring to his favorite cousin, Frodo
(Elijah Wood), who is unaware of its significance. A great wizard, Gandalf the Grey (Ian
McKellen), clues Frodo in to its dangerous powers, and urges him to transport the ring to the one
place where it can be destroyed forever. Frodo sets out, along the way assembling a ragtag crew of
colleagues. Some of them, like Frodo's faithful friend Sam (Sean Astin), come from the hobbits'
home, the grassy, idyllic Shire. Gimli (John Rhys-Davis) is a gruff, rough dwarf. Strider (Viggo
Mortensen) is a mysterious human who understands how crucial it is to keep the ring out of Sauron's
hands. And Legolas (Orlando Bloom) is a golden-handsome Elf warrior.

Jackson unfurls the action so that it drifts into graceful peaks and valleys; Vocabulary:
the picture is a marvel of pacing, built on the premise that the proper flow Awe
of tension and suspense is the most powerful special effect of all, not to Bequeath
mention the cheapest. "The Fellowship of the Ring" looks lavish but never Billowing
wasteful, miraculous given the way everything in Hollywood these days Cheat
costs big money, and yet nothing looks like it. (Compared with
Clubby
"Fellowship," the gaudy and lifeless "Harry Potter and the Sorceror's Stone"
Clumsy
looks like a play mounted at a school for rich kids, where no expense was
spared in the attempt to cover up clumsy amateurishness.) Daunting
Dumb luck
Jackson doesn't scrimp on staging, and the images and scenery have a Enhance
grand, burnished richness. His battle sequences are magnificently plotted, Fakery
and shot so that every angle of the action is clear. (They're thrilling, but Fleet
they also invoke the peril of warfare. There's always the sense that people -- Gaudy
in other words, characters you've come to care about -- could die.) Gazebo
Hazy
He shows us immense landscapes of snow or forest or rolling greenery that Hype
make us feel incredibly small and inescapably human. And his special Lavish
effects are so seamless, so organic to the scenes in which they appear, that Marshal
you often spot them, dreamlike, first out of the corner of your eye. (I gasped Scope
in disbelief as I watched a tidal wave, conjured by an Elf princess, swiftly
but subtly transform into a herd of galloping horses, their heads and manes Shire
defined by dancing crystals of water.) Snobbish sniff
Streamline
This is moviemaking on a grand scale, which is not to say that it's merely a Swoop
big, impressive movie. (Any old goat can make one of those.) The crucial Thrilling
distinction is that Jackson's sense of scale is impeccable. The vistas are Trellises
huge and wondrous, the special effects sparkling: But Jackson also trains Unfurl
the eye on details that, more than anything else, define the movie's rich,
dreamy look.

Its gorgeous pre-Raphaelite look have references everywhere. Rivendell is filled with architectural
details (trellises, gazebos) that echo the graceful swoops and swirls of nature (As it is, production
designer Grant Major is the one who deserves the credit.) Cate Blanchett plays Galadriel, a
bewitching but foreboding Elf queen, and the movie makes perfect use of the actress's floating
carriage and luminescent porcelain skin: Her Galadriel is an enchantress who's floated out of an
Edward Burne-Jones painting.

Visual cues like that one give "The Fellowship of the Ring" a glow that's both ancient and redolent
of the turn of the last century. They also establish it as a love letter of sorts to England, specifically
to the beauty of the English countryside, which Tolkien so loved. Cinematographer Andrew Lesnie
("Babe," "Babe: Pig in the City") shoots the billowing, grassy hills so that they sing out with love
for that countryside -- no matter that it wasn't filmed there: Through Lesnie's lens New Zealand is its
spiritual twin.

4
And yet the secret to the great wonder of "The Fellowship of the Ring" lies not just in Jackson's
ability to marshal detail and action and panorama to do his bidding. It's in the way he opens his
camera to the faces of his performers. Most "big" movies make a human sacrifice of their actors;
that's become so common it's almost an accepted practice. (You had to paw through the rubble of
"The Phantom Menace" to get any sense of its star, Ewan McGregor.) "The Fellowship of the Ring"
is a big movie in its scope and vision. But Jackson makes it work on a much more intimate level as
well, by allowing the faces of the characters to tell the story in its most emotional terms.

"The Fellowship of the Ring" could have gone wrong in so many ways. As it is, though, I see it as nearly
perfect: It's one of the best fantasy pictures ever made. And it's a lovely example of how, with care and
thought and not all that much money (Jackson will have made all three "Rings" movies for less than $300
million), a director can successfully capture the mood and feel of a book on the big screen. (I read and
enjoyed the books more than 25 years ago, but the details of them had gone hazy. Jackson brought them
back more vividly than I could have hoped.)

"The Fellowship of the Ring" throws down a daunting challenge to filmmakers everywhere, and even
more so to the studios that back them. Audiences deserve the greatest you have in you. If you've made
money off giving them anything less, it was just dumb luck. From now on, they'll know they have a right
to magic.

1. Analyse the Vocabulary:

Types Specialized Evaluative
Cinema Art Related to content. Other Positive Negative Neutral
(Tolkien World)
Examples

2. What kind of vocabulary should we expect to find in a review?

5
 3. Topic progression: Taking for granted that the main topic of the review in this case is the
film, analyse the topic and subtopic progression. Remember that in order to do so, it is a good
idea to look for “textual synonyms”.

The Lord of the Rings Review

SUBTOPICS Ideas and information included Situation in the text Connection Type Of Text

Story

Technical
Aspects

The
Reviewer’s
Opinion

The Director

The Actors

Other

6


Lesson 10: Reading 2
Theatre Review: read the following text and answer the following questions.
The following American text reviews one of the latest plays written by Tom Stoppard:
Arcadia. The play first opened at the Lyttelton Theatre, Royal National Theatre, on 13th
April 1993 in Great Britain.

Stoppard's Coolly Clever 'Arcadia'

By Lloyd Rose
Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 20, 1996; Page D01

The early scenes of Tom Stoppard's "Arcadia," which opened last night at Arena Stage, are
civilized and delightful, but not very lively. Though the characters -- some from the present,
some from 1809 -- talk, and talk well, on such varied subjects as mathematics, scholarship,
poetry, chaos theory and landscape design, there's not much dramatic force to their
conversations. But the play deepens emotionally as the evening goes on, and Douglas C.
Wager's affectionate direction brings out all its poignancy.

Thirteen-year-old Lady Thomasina Coverly (Wendy Hoopes), Stoppard's heroine in the

19th-century part of the play, is a mathematical prodigy who discovers both the Second
Law of Thermodynamics -- which decrees the eventual death of the universe through loss of
heat -- and the roots of chaos theory -- which suggests there may be an alternative to the
doomed-to-freeze script of the scientific determinists. It is the former, sadder discovery
from which Wager takes his tone. In his hands, the play is a bittersweet poem about futility,
missed chances, loss and the ultimate unknowability of anything or anyone.

Though put together in a rather complicated manner, "Arcadia" is easy enough to follow
when you're watching it. In 1809, Thomasina, her tutor, Septimus Hodge (J. Paul Boehmer),
the very, very minor poet Ezra Chater (David Marks), Thomasina's mother, Lady Croom
(Tana Hicken), and an offstage Lord Byron interact on various intellectual and physical
levels.

In the present, the Coverly descendant Valentine (Alex Draper) struggles to work out a
formula to predict grouse populations, while his ancestral home is poked into by a couple of
scholars: Hannah Jarvis (Christina Haag), who is researching the mysterious hermit who
once lived on the Coverly estate, and Bernard Nightingale (Terrence Caza), who is intent on
proving Byron's connection with the Coverly family and the apparent dueling death of
Chater.

Zack Brown has designed a simple, beautiful set consisting almost entirely of an exquisitely
inlaid floor and a mass of blown-down spring leaves, and Paul Tazewell's costumes are, as
usual, lovely. The cast is excellent, with Hoopes bringing freshness and charm to
Thomasina, Michael Barry affecting in two roles as a past and present Coverly son, and
solid comic performances from Marks and Hicken.

Wager seems determined not to compete with the script's manic cleverness, preferring to
ground it in emotion. Still, he may have respected the play too much. Stoppard's wit and

7
erudition are as impressive as ever. He links chaos theory with sexual desire. He uses the
two time frames to make ironic jokes about historical interpretation. And his optimism is
invigorating: He seems to regard curiosity as one of the virtues. But his facility undermines
him here. He does too much too well, and the result is that he does nothing wonderfully.

For all its surface brilliance, "Arcadia" lacks passion and urgency. There's nothing in it like
the physicist Kenner's ecstatic, semi-mystical speech on quantum theory in "Hapgood". In
"Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead," the two main characters batted intellectual
conceits back and forth like Ping-Pong balls, but they were also struggling to get out of an
existential predicament: Who were they anyway, and why was this terrible thing happening
to them? But there are scenes in "Arcadia" that you could get just as much out of from
reading as from seeing acted, no matter how well. Unlike the characters in Shaw, no one in
this play needs to get his or her ideas out; nothing is at stake. Despite the sorrowful sting of
its last scenes, the evening is not quite a full theatrical experience. It's more like
eavesdropping on a dinner party full of smart, glib, shallow, charming people.

Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard.

Directed by Douglas C. Wager. Lights, Kenneth Posner. Sound, Timothy Thompson.
Original music, Jeffrey Lunden. Additional music, Dean Shostak.
At Arena Stage through Jan. 19. Call 202-488-3300.

© Copyright 1996 The Washington Post Company

1. Do you find a different use of the vocabulary in this case when compared to the film
review? Analyse the positive and negative reference:

Types Specialized Evaluative

Cinema Art Related to content. Other Positive Negative Neutral
(Arcadia)
Examples

8
 2. What about the Topic Progression? What kind of sub-topics do we find in this case?
Does this review present a similar way of structuring information when compared to
the previous text?

Lesson 10: Reading 3

Book Review: read the following text and answer the following questions.
This review is a short account of the main characteristics of Helen Fielding’s Book Bridget
Jones’s Diary. This is the kind of review that appears in the Book sections of newspapers,
magazines and Web pages.

Bridget Jones's Diary

Helen Fielding
"Saturday 12 August
9st 3 (still in very good cause), alcohol units 23 (v.g.), cigarettes 32 (v.v. bad,
particularly since first day of giving up), calories 1800 (g.), Instants 4 (fair), ...1471
calls 22 (OK)..."

A woman whose daily success and failure rate is documented by counts of calories consumed,
alcohol units imbibed, cigarettes smoked, Lottery Instants bought and times dialled 1471, Bridget
Jones is the thirty something we are all frightened of becoming. Or know that we have already
become.

Written by Helen Fielding, based on her columns in The Independent newspaper, this is a novel
based on a year in Bridget's diary life. January starts Exceptionally Badly with the over-drinking,
eating, and chain smoking necessitated by the annual visit to her parents and their neighbours'
Turkey Curry Buffet. Bridget is subjected to the usual quiz as to why she is still single at thirty
something and is set up with the divorced son who sports the unfortunate combination of diamond
patterned sweater and white socks with bumblebee motif.

February finds Bridget stumbling through a catalogue of disasters centred around a painful crush on
her boss, who turns out to be into 'emotional fuckwittage'. Swinging from true love to utter
devastation at the state of her imperfect relationship, Bridget has to run the gauntlet at 'Smug
Marrieds' dinner parties. Fortunately she is supported wholeheartedly in her quest to be a proud
singleton (in between boyfriends). Ever-present best friends Jude, Shazzer and fag-hag Tom are
always happy to oblige for crisis meetings in the nearest wine bar to sink a couple of bottles of wine
and shout 'BASTARD!' at the appropriate moment.

Coupled with relationships, pregnancy scares, Severe Birthday-Related Thirties panic and new job
problems is the dealing-with-Parents'-mid-life crisis. Bridget's mother becomes an ongoing
embarrassment when she takes on a new career to become a TV celebrity and attempts to transform
Bridget from her lowly job in publishing to the glamorous world of TV.

The self doubts, disgraces, highs, victories and disasters of Bridget Jones's life provide a hilarious
catalogue which is over the top but close to the bone. Our laughter is fuelled by our own painful
memories. We've all been there. We just wish that we could be half as funny when we recount it to
our diaries.

Reviewed by Lara Burns at http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/bridget.html

9
1. What differences and similarities can you find in comparison with the former
texts?

2. What type of information is not included in this case?

3. Can we consider this review a literary review?

Lesson 10: Summary

 Macrostructure: Fill in the boxes with the appropriate headings and state their functions.

The set of communicative purposes of reviews shape the internal organization of

the texts. Re-read the former samples and try to schematise a common
macrostructure.

FROM
PLOT

HEADLINE

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

GENERAL COMMENT

APPRAISAL

TO

1. What similarities and differences are there between a review and an opinion essay?

10
 Unit

4
Lesson 11: Film Reviews and
Interviews.
Making Reviews and Interviews on TV or Radio programmes

C
inema programmes are very common in Television and Radio. Those programmes are
organized following a debate structure in which the presenter acts as a moderator and
interviewer. The typical guests of these programmes are the actual director, producer of the
film together with the actors and actresses. For them, these programmes are part of their
agendas in the promotion of the movie. A part from the people involved directly in the film, some
famous reviewers or film critics are also invited to give comments on the film.

AIMS: METHODOLOGY:
To Listen to Cinema Programmes. Use of Internet and real programmes as sources for Film and
Book Reviews.
To analyse the vocabulary and content of Film Reviews.
Analysis of the texts by means of successive approaches.
To analyse the syntax of Film Reviews.
Lectures and practical workshops.
To analyse the structure of Film Reviews.
MATERIALS:
To look at different types of Film Reviews. 1. Radio and TV recordings
2. Internet
To review Debate and Interview Strategies. 3. OHP transparencies and filter pens.

Lesson 11: Reading excerpts from Film

 Interviews
ACTIVITY 1: INTRODUCTIONS
Read carefully these excerpts from three different interviews and underline useful
vocabulary and expressions. Afterwards, try to answer the following questions.

1. What is the main topic of the fragments?

2. What qualities of the people interviewed are remarked?

3. What kind of adjectives are used?

4. What level of formality is employed in these fragments?

5. What literary devices have the interviewer employed?

11
Presenter: “Australian actress Nicole Kidman has stepped out
of Tom Cruise's shadow in recent years. First with Baz
Luhrmann's 2001 hit
"Moulin Rouge", and now with another
Oscar-nominated performance, as
Virginia Woolf in "The Hours".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/02/12/nicole_kidman_the_hours_interview.shtml

Presenter: “She's made a dynamic leap from European actress to

Hollywood superstar- but for Penelope Cruz the sudden rise to
fame and fortune hasn't come without a price. The exquisitely
beautiful Spanish star has been at the centre of rumours linking
her to most of her leading men and was even accused of breaking
up Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman's marriage.”
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/interviews/penelope_cruz.html

Presenter:
“It's not often that an author sells millions of
copies of a first novel and becomes a household
name. But J.K. Rowling has done just that. The
author of the insanely-popular series of books
about Harry Potter, is here this morning.”
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-cbc-rogers.htm

Lesson 11: Analysing the Structure of an Interview.

1.
ACTIVITY 2: Read the following Interview and analyse its macrostructure and the language
employed.

Take a look at the interview and correct the mistakes

2. What are the main topics of the interview?
3. What are the subtopics that are mentioned?
4. How does the presenter structure the interview?
5. Do you think it is a good interview?
6. Does the text have coherence, cohesion, progressivity, introduction and conclusion?

12
 Pedro Almodovar:
Pedro Almodovar is without doubt the most influential Film director to come out of Spain
since the fall of Franco.

What was the inspiration for "Talk to Her"?

I wanted to tell the story of this highly sentimental man who is moved to crying by all sorts
of different things. And the relationships that formed between these two men, and these two
women who are lying in bed in a coma in our story. I was interested in making the character
of these women be as alive and expressive as if they were standing up and talking. I was also
attracted by telling the story of this psychopath, but telling from a different perspective in a
way that the audience could almost not figure out that he was a psychopath initially.

But do you ever make a concession to the fact that your films are going to be
seen far beyond domestic Spanish borders?

I always naively trust that international audiences will understand me as much as Spanish
audiences, even if they don't share my language. I think of myself watching the films of
Kurosawa and felt completely that I understood and identified with them. I think if you tell
the story with your heart, sincerely and honestly, then everyone should be able to understand
it.

The bullfight is one key aspect of your story. Are you a fan, and indeed do you
ever identify with the notion of being a bullfighter yourself?

I identify myself very much with the bullfighter, in the sense that my work is something I do
surrounded by other people, but completely alone. You get the impression that you are in
the middle of an arena and everybody is watching you.

Sometimes they are applauding, but there is a mystery and a secret between you and the story
you are telling. Then again sometimes I identify with the bull as well.

You have been making feature films for over 20 years now and it seems that
each film you make is even more popular than the previous one. You started
with Law of Desire. It seems that there has been a change since The Flower
of My Secret ...

I think it's a change that I did not intend at the time but it is clear that, from The Flower of
My Secret on, there is a change in my films. A lot of the journalists have very generously
attributed this to my growing maturity. But, although these films express many similar ideas
from my previous films, I think they express these ideas in a different way. The 1980s really
ended for me in 1992 with the film Kika. I think that I had become very saturated by
everything that I had done in the 80s.

Pedro Almodovar, thank you very much.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/08/13/pedro_almodovar_talk_to_her_interview.shtml

13
 Lesson 11: Prepare a TV Cinema Programme

 ACTIVITY 3: Prepare your own Film Programme

Imagine that you have to prepare a film programme for a specific TV channel.
Decide the movie you are going to discuss and the actors, actresses you are going
to invite as guests. Think about inviting the Director or any other members of the
Film Crew such as the producer, the photography director, the editor, etc. As well you will have the
assistance of two professional film critics: one who is going to defend and praise the movie and
another who is going to criticise aspects of the moviemaking process. Divide the roles between the
members of the group and prepare individually the programme

The Presenter

Prepare the Presentations of the guests

Think about the topics and subtopics of the Interview

Prepare questions for all the guests

The Actors and Actresses

Think about the challenges this role has supposed

Describe the preparation you have needed for the role

Highlight the main characteristic of your character

Define the difficulties you have encounter in the moviemaking.

The Director, editor , screenwriter, etc.

DIRECTOR
The author of the film. The director has the responsibility (and creative pleasure) of interpreting the
screenplay through all the imagination deployed by her or his art, by that of the crews in the production,
and through the virtually limitless combinations of mise-en-scene, cinematography, editing and sound. It is,
in other words, the director's vision which illuminates the film text.
DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY
More than simply the head of the camera crew, the director of photography is responsible for all aspects
of cinematography during a production. This would include, primarily but by no means exclusively, lighting
the scene, (In Great Britain the position is knows as "Lighting Cameraman"), deciding on which film stock
to use, at what f-stop to film the scene, how to deal with problems of focus, and so on. Working in the
closest possible collaboration with the director, and having the crews of electricians and grips under his or
her control, the DOP ensures that the deployment of the cinematographic apparatus for each shot will
render exactly what the director desires. Any director, therefore, must have absolute faith in the director of
photography.

14
 SCREENWRITER
In spite of the unearned notoriety of people such as Joe Esterhaz, the screenwriter remains the much-
maligned individual who is responsible for the creation of the screenplay, whether as original work or as an
adaptation of some other text. http://www.ibiblio.org/stabley/terms.html

TASKS:
Describe the origin of the idea for the film.

Define the main influences of your work

Relate your present work with previous films or stories

Define the work of your collaborators and actors and actresses in the film

The Film Critics:

The individuals who write about a film, shortly after its release, and review the content, character,
and details of the film in totality. Film critics not only review the film but give a film a thorough analysis
regarding writing, directing, performances by the actresses and actors, camera nuances, editing, and
production.
(http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/glossary.asp?LTR=F&TRM=1006608)

TASKS:

Define the genre of the film

Describe the main achievements and drawbacks of the film

Describe the narrative style (linear, non-linear, point of view, rhythm)

Define the work of actors, directors, etc. and the relation of this work with previous films.

Think about your final appraisal

Lesson 11: Cinema Programme

ACTIVITY 3: Perform in front of the class a Cinema Programme based on a specific movie.
Once each member of the group has a clear idea of what they are going to talk
about, perform the role-play in front of the class without any previous agreement
of what is going to take place. The debate should be fresh and as spontaneous as
it may be. Remember that the presenter is going to act as a moderator and that every guest must ask
for the floor before making his/her comments.

15
 Lesson 11: Useful Vocabulary for Film Reviews

 http://www.ibiblio.org/stabley/terms.html

ACTOR PLACEMENT: The placing of actors in relation to the camera, other

actors, objects, landscape and so on within the three dimensional space of the set in
order to achieve a relational effect upon the two-dimensional space of the screen.

AUDIENCE EXPECTATION : A concept which describes the a priori suppositions which an

audience will have upon encountering a film text. For example, an audience which goes to see a
Western will have a set of expectations as to what comprises the genre. They will expect, among other
things, to see people riding horses, and the elaboration of a thoroughly familiar mythology about the
American West. Though "mixed genres" are becoming more and more prevalent (cf. Star Wars and
Back to the Future), an audience will not generally expect the Western to concern itself primarily with
space travel, nor, to pick another example, an action- adventure film to have a conflicted love triangle as
its principal narative device.
Audience expectation is to a large--but not exclusive-- degree culture-specific: a contemporary American
audience will have a different set of expectations when encountering a Western than, say, an Iranian audience,
or an American audience in 1935. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that an audience of 14 year old boys will be
indulging the imperatives of their testosterone rush when watching an action-adventure film irrespective of
which cultural optic they watch the material through.

CUT: The simplest and most basic joining of two shots; the abrupt transition between one shot and another
without any intervening device or effect; generally considered the most direct possible transition, either
between scenes, or between angles within a scene; sometimes called an edit.

Straight cut: An edit which is designed to maintain either temporal or spatial continuity, or both; the
backbone of continuity editing.

Jump cut : An edit in which, contrary to the straight cut, either temporal or spatial continuity, or
both, are not respected. Once thought to be an egregious editing error, the jump cut has become
thoroughly conventionalized and commonplace. The title sequence on the clip is in fact a series of
jump cuts. (See "French New Wave").

DIEGESIS: A term used in film criticism and theory, it designates the totality of the physical
world experienced by the characters in a film. For example, if a character slams a door on screen and
the sound of the door is heard on the sound track, the sound would be called a diegetic because we
would have seen the justification for the sound on the screen as would a character in the film. On the
other hand, a sudden upsurge of violins under a tender love-scene would be called a non-diegetic sound
unless the love-birds were seen sitting by the fiddlers who were making the music. Diegesis is not,
however, limited to sounds. The credits of a film, for instance, obviously not perceived by the
characters but clearly so by the spectator, would be another example of non-diegetic material.

ESTABLISHING SHOT : A shot, frequently the first in a series comprising a scene, which
establishes place, spatial relationships and scale. Usually but not exclusively used in films which are
structured according to the mode of classical narrative; may also serve simply to locate the action of the
film in a given setting.

EXTERIOR: The designation of a scenic location as being out of doors. This does not mean,
however, that the scene must be shot either on an actual location or even outside. Though the practice
has faded somewhat, perfectly credible exteriors can be constructed inside a sound stage.

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FILM GENRES: Adventure, Biographical, Children's, Comedy, Crime, Dance, Disaster,
Documentary, Erotic, Espionage, Feminist, Gay/lesbian, Family, Fantasy, Film noir, Gangster,
Historical, Horror, Martial Arts (chopsocky), Melodrama, Musical, Mystery, Parody, Religious, Road,
Romance, Science fiction, War, Western.

FLASHBACK : The narrative device which enables the temporal order of a narrative to be non-linear;
the moving backwards in narrative time; much overused.

INTERIOR: Not only the obvious diametric opposite of "Exterior", interior designates an indoor
setting. It is much more commonplace to film interiors on sound stages than it is exteriors

INTERTEXTUALITY : The rich propensity of film texts to quote other film texts, conventions,
genres, and/or components thereof. Intertextuality has significant implications for audience expectation
and the definition of genre.

SCREENPLAY : A document text in a specific format which contains the dramatic elements of the
film, as well as indications of other elements such as setting, light values, action, and, in general,
everything which it is essential to see on the screen from the point of view of the whole narrative; in its
relationship to the completed film, a screenplay is sometimes described as being analogous to a blue
print of a structure. The analogy is true up to a point, but in fact there is no other kind of text which
has the specific characteristics and constraints of a screenplay. And no other text which, when
successful at attaining its goal--i.e., the finished film--effectively ceases to exist except as a historical and
critical curiosity.

SET : Though the word is commonly used to indicate a fabricated setting, in fact the set is anywhere a
shot is being filmed, whether real or constructed; the site or location where a film is being shot.

SHOT : A single piece of film of any length or duration which is exposed by the camera being turned
on, then off, a single time only. Neither the type of action which a shot may cover, nor the nature of the
camera movement which may be executed during the shot (if any), alter the definition.

Bibliography:
BBC NEWS “ Interview with Pedro Almodovar:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2002/08/13/pedro_almodovar_talk_to_her_interview.shtml (Last
check 30th January 2008)

BBC NEWS “ Interview with Nicole Kidman:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2003/02/12/nicole_kidman_the_hours_interview.shtml (Last check
30th January 2008)

Rogers, Shelagh. "INTERVIEW: J.K. Rowling," Canadian Broadcasting Co., October 23, 2000
http://www.accio-quote.org/articles/2000/1000-cbc-rogers.htm (Last check 30th January 2008)

BURNS, LARA (1996): “Bridget Jones” at http://www.richmondreview.co.uk/books/bridget.html

(Last check 30th January 2008)

ROSE , LLOYD (1996): “Stoppard's Coolly Clever 'Arcadia' “ at THE WASHINGTON POST. Friday,
December 20, 1996.

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TISCALI (?):”CRUZ-ING INTO HOLLYWOOD BIG TIME”. Interview with Penelope Cruz at
http://www.tiscali.co.uk/entertainment/film/interviews/penelope_cruz.html (Last check 30th
January 2008)

ZACHAREK, Stephanie (Dec. 17, 2001): “The Lord of the Rings” at

http://archive.salon.com/ent/movies/review/2001/12/18/lord_of_the_rings/print.html (Last check
30th January 2008)

Cinema Glossary:

http://www.ibiblio.org/stabley/terms.html/
http://video.barnesandnoble.com/search/glossary.asp?LTR=F&TRM=1006608

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