As a form of writing, the film review began its life humbly, as a brief description and evaluation of a film published in a newspaper. Film reviews aimed to give readers advice about which films currently playing in theaters they should spend their time and money to see. Film reviews of this sort continue to be published by newspapers and electronically, and continue to be useful to movie fans. But as viewers now have access to a full century of films from all over the world, made in many styles and for many audiences, film reviewers have also taken on the role of public curators of cinematic history, guiding fans toward the best of what the film industry has produced, and using their knowledge of film to give viewers insights into the meaning and significance of the best films. These are the sort of review that I will challenge you to write for this class. There are at least three different purposes that you might try to achieve with your reviews for this class:
1) You can write a film review that gives a unique interpretation of the political meaning of a film that is not overtly political. This can be tricky. It can be a fine line between offering new insight into a film’s meaning and forcing a meaning on a film that isn’t there. But I am usually willing to give a creative interpretation of the benefit of the doubt. Here is an example of a just-plausible-enough-to-be-compelling review that sees I Am Legend (2007), where Will Smith fights zombies in an otherwise depopulated Manhattan, as a metaphor for the fear of terrorism: https://www.npr.org/transcripts/17260869 (Listen to the audio, it’s better than just the transcript.)
2) You can write a film review that offers a new interpretation of the political meaning of a well-known film with obvious political content. This is a kind of review that it is especially important to write about older films. The best films are still compelling many decades later, but the world has changed since they were made, and a good review can help viewers to understand what they might say to us now. For example, click here for a 2016 review of The Candidate (1972) that tried to suss out both why it is still compelling and how 2016 views might see it differently than 1972 viewers. I imagine a 2020 review of the same film might find some new things to add because of all that has happened since 2016.
3) You can write a film review that recommends a relatively obscure film that you believe has an important political meaning. This is pretty straight-forward. Tell us about a film with a political edge that you think is really worth seeing but most people don’t know about it. My entry in the genre of the review will come in my comments on Beasts of the Southern Wild (2012) at the end of the class. Although it got a lot of critical acclaims and also kick up a bit of controversy when it was released, this dystopian meditation on what rising sea-levels look like from the wrong side of the wall that keeps the water out, filmed in areas of Louisiana devastated by Katrina and released in the year of Sandy, is not much remember now. But it should be.
If you can think of a useful political film review that doesn’t happen to fit into any of the above categories, please do write it. I offered the above as suggestions, not limitations. Each of your three review can attempt any option: they can all be of the same type, or all of different types.
Your review should be approximately 700 to 1200 words long and should cite the title and release date of the film reviewed, make some reference to one or more other reviews, and use proper citation where necessary in an acceptable format. I look forward to have a great collection of reviews by the end of the class.
All reviews should be posted on the class posts page by the due date.