film class essay

How to Write a Film Analysis Essay: Examples, Outline, & Tips

A film analysis essay might be the most exciting assignment you have ever had! After all, who doesn’t love watching movies? You have your favorite movies, maybe something you watched years ago, perhaps a classic, or a documentary. Or your professor might assign a film for you to make a critical review. Regardless, you are totally up for watching a movie for a film analysis essay.

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However, once you have watched the movie, facing the act of writing might knock the wind out of your sails because you might be wondering how to write a film analysis essay. In summary, writing movie analysis is not as difficult as it might seem, and Custom-writing.org experts will prove this. This guide will help you choose a topic for your movie analysis, make an outline, and write the text.️ Film analysis examples are added as a bonus! Just keep reading our advice on how to get started.

❓ What Is a Film Analysis Essay?

• 🚦 Film Analysis Types

📽️ Movie Analysis Format

✍️ how to write a film analysis, 🎦 film analysis template, 🎬 film analysis essay topics.

• 📄 Essay Examples

🔗 References

To put it simply, film analysis implies watching a movie and then considering its characteristics : genre, structure, contextual context, etc. Film analysis is usually considered to be a form of rhetorical analysis . The key to success here is to formulate a clear and logical argument, supporting it with examples.

🚦 Film Analysis Essay Types

Since a film analysis essay resembles literature analysis, it makes sense that there are several ways to do it. Its types are not limited to the ones described here. Moreover, you are free to combine the approaches in your essay as well. Since your writing reflects your own opinion, there is no universal way to do it.

• Semiotic analysis . If you’re using this approach, you are expected to interpret the film’s symbolism. You should look for any signs that may have a hidden meaning. Often, they reveal some character’s features. To make the task more manageable, you can try to find the objects or concepts that appear on the screen multiple times. What is the context they appear in? It might lead you to the hidden meaning of the symbols.
• Narrative structure analysis . This type is quite similar to a typical literature guide. It includes looking into the film’s themes, plot, and motives. The analysis aims to identify three main elements: setup, confrontation, and resolution. You should find out whether the film follows this structure and what effect it creates. It will make the narrative structure analysis essay if you write about the theme and characters’ motivations as well.
• Contextual analysis . Here, you would need to expand your perspective. Instead of focusing on inner elements, the contextual analysis looks at the time and place of the film’s creation. Therefore, you should work on studying the cultural context a lot. It can also be a good idea to mention the main socio-political issues of the time. You can even relate the film’s success to the director or producer and their career.
• Mise-en-scene analysis . This type of analysis works with the most distinctive feature of the movies, audiovisual elements. However, don’t forget that your task is not only to identify them but also to explain their importance. There are so many interconnected pieces of this puzzle: the light to create the mood, the props to show off characters’ personalities, messages hidden in the song lyrics.

To write an effective film analysis essay, it is important to follow specific format requirements that include the following:

• Standard essay structure. Just as with any essay, your analysis should consist of an introduction with a strong thesis statement, body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The main body usually includes a summary and an analysis of the movie’s elements.
• Present tense for events in the film. Use the present tense when describing everything that happens in the movie. This way, you can make smooth transitions between describing action and dialogue. It will also improve the overall narrative flow.
• Proper formatting of the film’s title. Don’t enclose the movie’s title in quotation marks; instead, italicize it. In addition, use the title case : that is, capitalize all major words.
• Proper use of the characters’ names. When you mention a film character for the first time, name the actor portraying them. After that, it is enough to write only the character’s name.
• In-text citations. Use in-text citations when describing certain scenes or shots from the movie. Format them according to your chosen citation style. If you use direct quotes, include the time-stamp range instead of page numbers. Here’s how it looks in the MLA format: (Smith 0:11:24–0:12:35).

Even though film analysis is similar to the literary one, you might still feel confused with where to begin. No need to worry; there are only a few additional steps you need to consider during the writing process.

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Starting Your Film Analysis Essay

There are several things you need to do before you start writing your film analysis paper. First and foremost, you have to watch the movie. Even if you have seen it a hundred times, you need to watch it again to make a good film analysis essay.

Note that you might be given an essay topic or have to think of it by yourself. If you are free to choose a topic for your film analysis essay, reading some critical reviews before you watch the film might be a good idea. By doing this in advance, you will already know what to look for when watching the movie.

In the process of watching, keep the following tips in mind:

• Consider your impression of the movie
• Enumerate memorable details
• Try to interpret the movie message in your way
• Search for the proof of your ideas (quotes from the film)
• Make comments on the plot, settings, and characters
• Draw parallels between the movie you are reviewing and some other movies

Making a Film Analysis Essay Outline

Once you have watched and possibly re-watched your assigned or chosen movie from an analytical point of view, you will need to create a movie analysis essay outline . The task is pretty straightforward: the outline can look just as if you were working on a literary analysis or an article analysis.

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• Introduction : This includes the basics of the movie, including the title, director, and the date of release. You should also present the central theme or ideas in the movie and your thesis statement .
• Summary : This is where you take the time to present an overview of the primary concepts in the movie, including the five Ws (who, what, when, where, and why)—don’t forget how!—as well as anything you wish to discuss that relates to the point of view, style, and structure.
• Analysis : This is the body of the essay and includes your critical analysis of the movie, why you did or did not like it, and any supporting material from the film to support your views. It would help if you also discussed whether the director and writer of the movie achieved the goal they set out to achieve.
• Conclusion: This is where you can state your thesis again and provide a summary of the primary concepts in a new and more convincing manner, making a case for your analysis. You can also include a call-to-action that will invite the reader to watch the movie or avoid it entirely.

You can find a great critical analysis template at Thompson Rivers University website. In case you need more guidance on how to write an analytical paper, check out our article .

Writing & Editing Your Film Analysis Essay

We have already mentioned that there are differences between literary analysis and film analysis. They become especially important when one starts writing their film analysis essay.

First of all, the evidence you include to support the arguments is not the same. Instead of quoting the text, you might need to describe the audiovisual elements.

However, the practice of describing the events is similar in both types. You should always introduce a particular sequence in the present tense. If you want to use a piece of a dialogue between more than two film characters, you can use block quotes. However, since there are different ways to do it, confirm with your supervisor.

For your convenience, you might as well use the format of the script, for which you don’t have to use quotation marks:

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ELSA: But she won’t remember I have powers?

KING: It’s for the best.

Finally, to show off your proficiency in the subject, look at the big picture. Instead of just presenting the main elements in your analysis, point out their significance. Describe the effect they make on the overall impression form the film. Moreover, you can dig deeper and suggest the reasons why such elements were used in a particular scene to show your expertise.

Stuck writing a film analysis essay? Worry not! Use our template to structure your movie analysis properly.

Introduction

• The title of the film is… [title]
• The director is… [director’s name] He/she is known for… [movies, style, etc.]
• The movie was released on… [release date]
• The themes of the movie are… [state the film’s central ideas]
• The film was made because… [state the reasons]
• The movie is… because… [your thesis statement].
• The main characters are… [characters’ names]
• The events take place in… [location]
• The movie is set in… [time period]
• The movie is about… [state what happens in the film and why]
• The movie left a… [bad, unforgettable, lasting, etc.] impression in me.
• The script has… [a logical sequence of events, interesting scenes, strong dialogues, character development, etc.]
• The actors portray their characters… [convincingly, with intensity, with varying degree of success, in a manner that feels unnatural, etc.]
• The soundtrack is [distracting, fitting, memorable, etc.]
• Visual elements such as… [costumes, special effects, etc.] make the film [impressive, more authentic, atmospheric, etc.]
• The film succeeds/doesn’t succeed in engaging the target audience because it… [tells a compelling story, features strong performances, is relevant, lacks focus, is unauthentic, etc.]
• Cultural and societal aspects make the film… [thought-provoking, relevant, insightful, problematic, polarizing, etc.]
• The director and writer achieved their goal because… [state the reasons]
• Overall, the film is… [state your opinion]
• I would/wouldn’t recommend watching the movie because… [state the reasons]
• Analysis of the film Inception by Christopher Nolan .
• Examine the rhetoric in the film The Red Balloon .
• Analyze the visual effects of Zhang Yimou’s movie Hero .
• Basic concepts of the film Interstellar by Christopher Nolan.
• The characteristic features of Federico Fellini’s movies.
• Analysis of the movie The Joker .
• The depiction of ethical issues in Damaged Care .
• Analyze the plot of the film Moneyball .
• Explore the persuasive techniques used in Henry V .
• Analyze the movie Killing Kennedy .
• Discuss the themes of the film Secret Window .
• Describe the role of audio and video effects in conveying the message of the documentary Life in Renaissance .
• Compare and analyze the films Midnight Cowboy and McCabe and Mrs. Miller .
• Analysis of the movie Rear Window .
• The message behind the film Split .
• Analyze the techniques used by Tim Burton in his movie Sleepy Hollow .
• The topic of children’s abuse and importance of trust in Joseph Sargent’s Sybil .
• Examine the themes and motives of the film Return to Paradise by Joseph Ruben .
• The issues of gender and traditions in the drama The Whale Rider.
• Analysis of the film Not Easily Broken by Duke Bill.
• The symbolism in R. Scott’s movie Thelma and Louise .
• The meaning of audiovisual effects in Citizen Kane .
• Analyze the main characters of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo .
• Discuss the historical accuracy of the documentary The Civil War .
• Analysis of the movie Through a Glass Darkly .
• Explore the core idea of the comedy Get Out .
• The problem of artificial intelligence and human nature in Ex Machina .
• Three principles of suspense used in the drama The Fugitive .
• Examine the ideas Michael Bay promotes in Armageddon .
• Analyze the visual techniques used in Tenet by Christopher Nolan.
• Analysis of the movie The Green Mile .
• Discrimination and exclusion in the film The Higher Learning .
• The hidden meaning of the scenes in Blade Runner .
• Compare the social messages of the films West Side Story and Romeo + Juliet .
• Highlighting the problem of children’s mental health in the documentary Kids in Crisis .
• Discuss the ways Paul Haggis establishes the issue of racial biases in his movie Crash .
• Analyze the problem of moral choice in the film Gone Baby Gone .
• Analysis of the historical film Hacksaw Ridge .
• Explore the main themes of the film Mean Girls by Mark Walters .
• The importance of communication in the movie Juno .
• Describe the techniques the authors use to highlight the problems of society in Queen and Slim .
• Examine the significance of visual scenes in My Family/ Mi Familia .
• Analysis of the thriller Salt by Phillip Noyce.
• Analyze the message of Greg Berlanti’s film Love, Simon .
• Interpret the symbols of the film The Wizard of Oz (1939).
• Discuss the modern issues depicted in the film The Corporation .
• Moral lessons of Edward Zwick’s Blood Diamond .
• Analysis of the documentary Solitary Nation .
• Describe the audiovisual elements of the film Pride and Prejudice (2005) .
• The problem of toxic relationships in Malcolm and Marie .

📄 Film Analysis Examples

Below you’ll find two film analysis essay examples. Note that the full versions are downloadable for free!

Film Analysis Example #1: The Intouchables

Raising acute social problems in modern cinema is a common approach to draw the public’s attention to the specific issues and challenges of people facing crucial obstacles. As a film for review, The Intouchables by Oliver Nakache and Éric Toledano will be analyzed, and one of the themes raised in this movie is the daily struggle of the person with severe disabilities. This movie is a biographical drama with comedy elements. The Intouchables describes the routine life of a French millionaire who is confined to a wheelchair and forced to receive help from his servants. The acquaintance of the disabled person with a young and daring man from Parisian slums changes the lives of both radically. The film shows that for a person with disabilities, recognition as a full member of society is more important than sympathy and compassion, and this message expressed comically raises an essential problem of human loneliness.

Movie Analysis Example #2: Parasite

Parasite is a 2019 South Korean black comedy thriller movie directed by Bong Joon-ho and is the first film with a non-English script to win Best Picture at the Oscars in 2020. With its overwhelming plot and acting, this motion picture retains a long-lasting effect and some kind of shock. The class serves as a backbone and a primary objective of social commentary within the South Korean comedy/thriller (Kench, 2020). Every single element and detail in the movie, including the student’s stone, the contrasting architecture, family names, and characters’ behavior, contribute to the central topic of the universal problem of classism and wealth disparity. The 2020 Oscar-winning movie Parasite (2019) is a phenomenal cinematic portrayal and a critical message to modern society regarding the severe outcomes of the long-established inequalities within capitalism.

Want more examples? Check out this bonus list of 10 film analysis samples. They will help you gain even more inspiration.

• “Miss Representation” Documentary Film Analysis
• “The Patriot”: Historical Film Analysis
• “The Morning Guy” Film Analysis
• 2012′ by Roland Emmerich Film Analysis
• “The Crucible” (1996) Film Analysis
• The Aviator’ by Martin Scorsese Film Analysis
• The “Lions for Lambs” Film Analysis
• Bill Monroe – Father of Bluegrass Music Film Analysis
• Lord of the Rings’ and ‘Harry Potter’ Film Analysis
• Red Tails by George Lucas Film Analysis

Film Analysis Essay FAQ

• Watch the movie or read a detailed plot summary.
• Read others’ film reviews paying attention to details like key characters, movie scenes, background facts.
• Compose a list of ideas about what you’ve learned.
• Organize the selected ideas to create a body of the essay.
• Write an appropriate introduction and conclusion.

The benefits of analyzing a movie are numerous . You get a deeper understanding of the plot and its subtle aspects. You can also get emotional and aesthetic satisfaction. Film analysis enables one to feel like a movie connoisseur.

Here is a possible step by step scenario:

• Think about the general idea that the author probably wanted to convey.
• Consider how the idea was put across: what characters, movie scenes, and details helped in it.
• Study the broader context: the author’s other works, genre essentials, etc.

The definition might be: the process of interpreting a movie’s aspects. The movie is reviewed in terms of details creating the artistic value. A film analysis essay is a paper presenting such a review in a logically structured way.

• Film Analysis – UNC Writing Center
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis // Purdue Writing Lab
• Yale Film Analysis – Yale University
• Film Terms And Topics For Film Analysis And Writing
• Questions for Film Analysis (Washington University)
• Resources on Film Analysis – Cinema Studies (University of Toronto)
• Does Film Analysis Take the Magic out of Movies?
• Film Analysis Research Papers – Academia.edu
• What’s In a Film Analysis Essay? Medium
• Analysis of Film – SAGE Research Methods
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It’s an interesting point of view. Thank you for your opinion, Sourav!

EXCELENT COVERAGE!

Thank you, Mike!

Hi Rebecca,

Glad you liked the post. Sure thing, feel free to share the link with your audience!

All the best.

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Film Writing: Sample Analysis

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Introductory Note

The analysis below discusses the opening moments of the science fiction movie  Ex Machina  in order to make an argument about the film's underlying purpose. The text of the analysis is formatted normally. Editor's commentary, which will occasionally interrupt the piece to discuss the author's rhetorical strategies, is written in brackets in an italic font with a bold "Ed.:" identifier. See the examples below:

The text of the analysis looks like this.

[ Ed.:  The editor's commentary looks like this. ]

Frustrated Communication in Ex Machina ’s Opening Sequence

Alex Garland’s 2015 science fiction film Ex Machina follows a young programmer’s attempts to determine whether or not an android possesses a consciousness complicated enough to pass as human. The film is celebrated for its thought-provoking depiction of the anxiety over whether a nonhuman entity could mimic or exceed human abilities, but analyzing the early sections of the film, before artificial intelligence is even introduced, reveals a compelling examination of humans’ inability to articulate their thoughts and feelings. In its opening sequence, Ex Machina establishes that it’s not only about the difficulty of creating a machine that can effectively talk to humans, but about human beings who struggle to find ways to communicate with each other in an increasingly digital world.

[ Ed.:  The piece's opening introduces the film with a plot summary that doesn't give away too much and a brief summary of the critical conversation that has centered around the film. Then, however, it deviates from this conversation by suggesting that Ex Machina has things to say about humanity before non-human characters even appear. Off to a great start. ]

The film’s first establishing shots set the action in a busy modern office. A woman sits at a computer, absorbed in her screen. The camera looks at her through a glass wall, one of many in the shot. The reflections of passersby reflected in the glass and the workspace’s dim blue light make it difficult to determine how many rooms are depicted. The camera cuts to a few different young men typing on their phones, their bodies partially concealed both by people walking between them and the camera and by the stylized modern furniture that surrounds them. The fourth shot peeks over a computer monitor at a blonde man working with headphones in. A slight zoom toward his face suggests that this is an important character, and the cut to a point-of-view shot looking at his computer screen confirms this. We later learn that this is Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson), a young programmer whose perspective the film follows.

The rest of the sequence cuts between shots from Caleb’s P.O.V. and reaction shots of his face, as he receives and processes the news that he has won first prize in a staff competition. Shocked, Caleb dives for his cellphone and texts several people the news. Several people immediately respond with congratulatory messages, and after a moment the woman from the opening shot runs in to give him a hug. At this point, the other people in the room look up, smile, and start clapping, while Caleb smiles disbelievingly—perhaps even anxiously—and the camera subtly zooms in a bit closer. Throughout the entire sequence, there is no sound other than ambient electronic music that gets slightly louder and more textured as the sequence progresses. A jump cut to an aerial view of a glacial landscape ends the sequence and indicates that Caleb is very quickly transported into a very unfamiliar setting, implying that he will have difficulty adjusting to this sudden change in circumstances.

[ Ed.:  These paragraphs are mostly descriptive. They give readers the information they will need to understand the argument the piece is about to offer. While passages like this can risk becoming boring if they dwell on unimportant details, the author wisely limits herself to two paragraphs and maintains a driving pace through her prose style choices (like an almost exclusive reliance on active verbs). ]

Without any audible dialogue or traditional expository setup of the main characters, this opening sequence sets viewers up to make sense of Ex Machina ’s visual style and its exploration of the ways that technology can both enhance and limit human communication. The choice to make the dialogue inaudible suggests that in-person conversations have no significance. Human-to-human conversations are most productive in this sequence when they are mediated by technology. Caleb’s first response when he hears his good news is to text his friends rather than tell the people sitting around him, and he makes no move to take his headphones out when the in-person celebration finally breaks out. Everyone in the building is on their phones, looking at screens, or has headphones in, and the camera is looking at screens through Caleb’s viewpoint for at least half of the sequence.  

Rather than simply muting the specific conversations that Caleb has with his coworkers, the ambient soundtrack replaces all the noise that a crowded building in the middle of a workday would ordinarily have. This silence sets the uneasy tone that characterizes the rest of the film, which is as much a horror-thriller as a piece of science fiction. Viewers get the sense that all the sounds that humans make as they walk around and talk to each other are being intentionally filtered out by some presence, replaced with a quiet electronic beat that marks the pacing of the sequence, slowly building to a faster tempo. Perhaps the sound of people is irrelevant: only the visual data matters here. Silence is frequently used in the rest of the film as a source of tension, with viewers acutely aware that it could be broken at any moment. Part of the horror of the research bunker, which will soon become the film’s primary setting, is its silence, particularly during sequences of Caleb sneaking into restricted areas and being startled by a sudden noise.

The visual style of this opening sequence reinforces the eeriness of the muted humans and electronic soundtrack. Prominent use of shallow focus to depict a workspace that is constructed out of glass doors and walls makes it difficult to discern how large the space really is. The viewer is thus spatially disoriented in each new setting. This layering of glass and mirrors, doubling some images and obscuring others, is used later in the film when Caleb meets the artificial being Ava (Alicia Vikander), who is not allowed to leave her glass-walled living quarters in the research bunker. The similarity of these spaces visually reinforces the film’s late revelation that Caleb has been manipulated by Nathan Bates (Oscar Isaac), the troubled genius who creates Ava.

[ Ed.:  In these paragraphs, the author cites the information about the scene she's provided to make her argument. Because she's already teased the argument in the introduction and provided an account of her evidence, it doesn't strike us as unreasonable or far-fetched here. Instead, it appears that we've naturally arrived at the same incisive, fascinating points that she has. ]

A few other shots in the opening sequence more explicitly hint that Caleb is already under Nathan’s control before he ever arrives at the bunker. Shortly after the P.O.V shot of Caleb reading the email notification that he won the prize, we cut to a few other P.O.V. shots, this time from the perspective of cameras in Caleb’s phone and desktop computer. These cameras are not just looking at Caleb, but appear to be scanning him, as the screen flashes in different color lenses and small points appear around Caleb’s mouth, eyes, and nostrils, tracking the smallest expressions that cross his face. These small details indicate that Caleb is more a part of this digital space than he realizes, and also foreshadow the later revelation that Nathan is actively using data collected by computers and webcams to manipulate Caleb and others. The shots from the cameras’ perspectives also make use of a subtle fisheye lens, suggesting both the wide scope of Nathan’s surveillance capacities and the slightly distorted worldview that motivates this unethical activity.

[ Ed.: This paragraph uses additional details to reinforce the piece's main argument. While this move may not be as essential as the one in the preceding paragraphs, it does help create the impression that the author is noticing deliberate patterns in the film's cinematography, rather than picking out isolated coincidences to make her points. ]

Taken together, the details of Ex Machina ’s stylized opening sequence lay the groundwork for the film’s long exploration of the relationship between human communication and technology. The sequence, and the film, ultimately suggests that we need to develop and use new technologies thoughtfully, or else the thing that makes us most human—our ability to connect through language—might be destroyed by our innovations. All of the aural and visual cues in the opening sequence establish a world in which humans are utterly reliant on technology and yet totally unaware of the nefarious uses to which a brilliant but unethical person could put it.

Author's Note:  Thanks to my literature students whose in-class contributions sharpened my thinking on this scene .

[ Ed.: The piece concludes by tying the main themes of the opening sequence to those of the entire film. In doing this, the conclusion makes an argument for the essay's own relevance: we need to pay attention to the essay's points so that we can achieve a rich understanding of the movie. The piece's final sentence makes a chilling final impression by alluding to the danger that might loom if we do not understand the movie. This is the only the place in the piece where the author explicitly references how badly we might be hurt by ignorance, and it's all the more powerful for this solitary quality. A pithy, charming note follows, acknowledging that the author's work was informed by others' input (as most good writing is). Beautifully done. ]

Film Analysis

What this handout is about.

This handout introduces film analysis and and offers strategies and resources for approaching film analysis assignments.

Writing the film analysis essay

Writing a film analysis requires you to consider the composition of the film—the individual parts and choices made that come together to create the finished piece. Film analysis goes beyond the analysis of the film as literature to include camera angles, lighting, set design, sound elements, costume choices, editing, etc. in making an argument. The first step to analyzing the film is to watch it with a plan.

Watching the film

First it’s important to watch the film carefully with a critical eye. Consider why you’ve been assigned to watch a film and write an analysis. How does this activity fit into the course? Why have you been assigned this particular film? What are you looking for in connection to the course content? Let’s practice with this clip from Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958). Here are some tips on how to watch the clip critically, just as you would an entire film:

• Give the clip your undivided attention at least once. Pay close attention to details and make observations that might start leading to bigger questions.
• Watch the clip a second time. For this viewing, you will want to focus specifically on those elements of film analysis that your class has focused on, so review your course notes. For example, from whose perspective is this clip shot? What choices help convey that perspective? What is the overall tone, theme, or effect of this clip?
• Take notes while you watch for the second time. Notes will help you keep track of what you noticed and when, if you include timestamps in your notes. Timestamps are vital for citing scenes from a film!

For more information on watching a film, check out the Learning Center’s handout on watching film analytically . For more resources on researching film, including glossaries of film terms, see UNC Library’s research guide on film & cinema .

Brainstorming ideas

Once you’ve watched the film twice, it’s time to brainstorm some ideas based on your notes. Brainstorming is a major step that helps develop and explore ideas. As you brainstorm, you may want to cluster your ideas around central topics or themes that emerge as you review your notes. Did you ask several questions about color? Were you curious about repeated images? Perhaps these are directions you can pursue.

If you’re writing an argumentative essay, you can use the connections that you develop while brainstorming to draft a thesis statement . Consider the assignment and prompt when formulating a thesis, as well as what kind of evidence you will present to support your claims. Your evidence could be dialogue, sound edits, cinematography decisions, etc. Much of how you make these decisions will depend on the type of film analysis you are conducting, an important decision covered in the next section.

After brainstorming, you can draft an outline of your film analysis using the same strategies that you would for other writing assignments. Here are a few more tips to keep in mind as you prepare for this stage of the assignment:

• Make sure you understand the prompt and what you are being asked to do. Remember that this is ultimately an assignment, so your thesis should answer what the prompt asks. Check with your professor if you are unsure.
• In most cases, the director’s name is used to talk about the film as a whole, for instance, “Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo .” However, some writers may want to include the names of other persons who helped to create the film, including the actors, the cinematographer, and the sound editor, among others.
• When describing a sequence in a film, use the literary present. An example could be, “In Vertigo , Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection.”
• Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save you time when compiling citations. But keep in mind that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual product (and these differences might be a topic of discussion!).
• Go beyond describing basic film elements by articulating the significance of these elements in support of your particular position. For example, you may have an interpretation of the striking color green in Vertigo , but you would only mention this if it was relevant to your argument. For more help on using evidence effectively, see the section on “using evidence” in our evidence handout .

Also be sure to avoid confusing the terms shot, scene, and sequence. Remember, a shot ends every time the camera cuts; a scene can be composed of several related shots; and a sequence is a set of related scenes.

Different types of film analysis

As you consider your notes, outline, and general thesis about a film, the majority of your assignment will depend on what type of film analysis you are conducting. This section explores some of the different types of film analyses you may have been assigned to write.

Semiotic analysis

Semiotic analysis is the interpretation of signs and symbols, typically involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters within a film. Because symbols have several meanings, writers often need to determine what a particular symbol means in the film and in a broader cultural or historical context.

For instance, a writer could explore the symbolism of the flowers in Vertigo by connecting the images of them falling apart to the vulnerability of the heroine.

Here are a few other questions to consider for this type of analysis:

• What objects or images are repeated throughout the film?
• How does the director associate a character with small signs, such as certain colors, clothing, food, or language use?
• How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects, that is, what is the relationship between the film’s signs?

Many films are rich with symbolism, and it can be easy to get lost in the details. Remember to bring a semiotic analysis back around to answering the question “So what?” in your thesis.

Narrative analysis

Narrative analysis is an examination of the story elements, including narrative structure, character, and plot. This type of analysis considers the entirety of the film and the story it seeks to tell.

For example, you could take the same object from the previous example—the flowers—which meant one thing in a semiotic analysis, and ask instead about their narrative role. That is, you might analyze how Hitchcock introduces the flowers at the beginning of the film in order to return to them later to draw out the completion of the heroine’s character arc.

To create this type of analysis, you could consider questions like:

• How does the film correspond to the Three-Act Structure: Act One: Setup; Act Two: Confrontation; and Act Three: Resolution?
• What is the plot of the film? How does this plot differ from the narrative, that is, how the story is told? For example, are events presented out of order and to what effect?
• Does the plot revolve around one character? Does the plot revolve around multiple characters? How do these characters develop across the film?

When writing a narrative analysis, take care not to spend too time on summarizing at the expense of your argument. See our handout on summarizing for more tips on making summary serve analysis.

Cultural/historical analysis

One of the most common types of analysis is the examination of a film’s relationship to its broader cultural, historical, or theoretical contexts. Whether films intentionally comment on their context or not, they are always a product of the culture or period in which they were created. By placing the film in a particular context, this type of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts different types of relations, whether historical, social, or even theoretical.

For example, the clip from Vertigo depicts a man observing a woman without her knowing it. You could examine how this aspect of the film addresses a midcentury social concern about observation, such as the sexual policing of women, or a political one, such as Cold War-era McCarthyism.

A few of the many questions you could ask in this vein include:

• How does the film comment on, reinforce, or even critique social and political issues at the time it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
• How might a biographical understanding of the film’s creators and their historical moment affect the way you view the film?
• How might a specific film theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist Theory, or Marxist Film Theory, provide a language or set of terms for articulating the attributes of the film?

Take advantage of class resources to explore possible approaches to cultural/historical film analyses, and find out whether you will be expected to do additional research into the film’s context.

Mise-en-scène analysis

A mise-en-scène analysis attends to how the filmmakers have arranged compositional elements in a film and specifically within a scene or even a single shot. This type of analysis organizes the individual elements of a scene to explore how they come together to produce meaning. You may focus on anything that adds meaning to the formal effect produced by a given scene, including: blocking, lighting, design, color, costume, as well as how these attributes work in conjunction with decisions related to sound, cinematography, and editing. For example, in the clip from Vertigo , a mise-en-scène analysis might ask how numerous elements, from lighting to camera angles, work together to present the viewer with the perspective of Jimmy Stewart’s character.

To conduct this type of analysis, you could ask:

• What effects are created in a scene, and what is their purpose?
• How does this scene represent the theme of the movie?
• How does a scene work to express a broader point to the film’s plot?

This detailed approach to analyzing the formal elements of film can help you come up with concrete evidence for more general film analysis assignments.

Reviewing your draft

Once you have a draft, it’s helpful to get feedback on what you’ve written to see if your analysis holds together and you’ve conveyed your point. You may not necessarily need to find someone who has seen the film! Ask a writing coach, roommate, or family member to read over your draft and share key takeaways from what you have written so far.

Works consulted

We consulted these works while writing this handout. This is not a comprehensive list of resources on the handout’s topic, and we encourage you to do your own research to find additional publications. Please do not use this list as a model for the format of your own reference list, as it may not match the citation style you are using. For guidance on formatting citations, please see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial . We revise these tips periodically and welcome feedback.

Aumont, Jacques, and Michel Marie. 1988. L’analyse Des Films . Paris: Nathan.

Media & Design Center. n.d. “Film and Cinema Research.” UNC University Libraries. Last updated February 10, 2021. https://guides.lib.unc.edu/filmresearch .

Oxford Royale Academy. n.d. “7 Ways to Watch Film.” Oxford Royale Academy. Accessed April 2021. https://www.oxford-royale.com/articles/7-ways-watch-films-critically/ .

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Film Analysis: Example, Format, and Outline + Topics & Prompts

Films are never just films. Instead, they are influential works of art that can evoke a wide range of emotions, spark meaningful conversations, and provide insightful commentary on society and culture. As a student, you may be tasked with writing a film analysis essay, which requires you to delve deeper into the characters and themes. But where do you start?

In this article, our expert team has explored strategies for writing a successful film analysis essay. From prompts for this assignment to an excellent movie analysis example, we’ll provide you with everything you need to craft an insightful film analysis paper.

• 📽️ Film Analysis Definition

📚 Types of Film Analysis

• ✍️ How to Write Film Analysis
• 🎞️ Movie Analysis Prompts
• 🎬 Top 15 Topics

📝 Film Analysis Example

• 🍿 More Examples

🔗 References

📽️ what is a film analysis essay.

A film analysis essay is a type of academic writing that critically examines a film, its themes, characters, and techniques used by the filmmaker. This essay aims to analyze the film’s meaning, message, and artistic elements and explain its cultural, social, and historical significance. It typically requires a writer to pay closer attention to aspects such as cinematography, editing, sound, and narrative structure.

Film Analysis vs Film Review

It’s common to confuse a film analysis with a film review, though these are two different types of writing. A film analysis paper focuses on the film’s narrative, sound, editing, and other elements. This essay aims to explore the film’s themes, symbolism , and underlying messages and to provide an in-depth interpretation of the film.

On the other hand, a film review is a brief evaluation of a film that provides the writer’s overall opinion of the movie. It includes the story’s short summary, a description of the acting, direction, and technical aspects, and a recommendation on whether or not the movie is worth watching.

Wondering what you should focus on when writing a movie analysis essay? Here are four main types of film analysis. Check them out!

📋 Film Analysis Format

The movie analysis format follows a typical essay structure, including a title, introduction, thesis statement, body, conclusion, and references.

The most common citation styles used for a film analysis are MLA and Chicago . However, we recommend you consult with your professor for specific guidelines. Remember to cite all dialogue and scene descriptions from the movie to support the analysis. The reference list should include the analyzed film and any external sources mentioned in the essay.

When referring to a specific movie in your paper, you should italicize the film’s name and use the title case. Don’t enclose the title of the movie in quotation marks.

📑 Film Analysis Essay Outline

A compelling film analysis outline is crucial as it helps make the writing process more focused and the content more insightful for the readers. Below, you’ll find the description of the main parts of the movie analysis essay.

Film Analysis Introduction

Many students experience writer’s block because they don’t know how to write an introduction for a film analysis. The truth is that the opening paragraph for a film analysis paper is similar to any other academic essay:

• Start with a hook to grab the reader’s attention . For example, it can be a fascinating fact or a thought-provoking question related to the film.
• Provide background information about the movie . Introduce the film, including its title, director, and release date. Follow this with a brief summary of the film’s plot and main themes.
• End the introduction with an analytical thesis statement . Present the central argument or interpretation that will be explored in the analysis.

Film Analysis Thesis

If you wonder how to write a thesis for a film analysis, we’ve got you! A thesis statement should clearly present your main idea related to the film and provide a roadmap for the rest of the essay. Your thesis should be specific, concise, and focused. In addition, it should be debatable so that others can present a contrasting point of view. Also, make sure it is supported with evidence from the film.

Let’s come up with a film analysis thesis example:

Through a feminist lens, Titanic is a story about Rose’s rebellion against traditional gender roles, showcasing her attempts to assert her autonomy and refusal to conform to societal expectations prevalent in the early 20th century.

Movie Analysis Main Body

Each body paragraph should focus on a specific aspect of the film that supports your main idea. These aspects include themes, characters, narrative devices , or cinematic techniques. You should also provide evidence from the film to support your analysis, such as quotes, scene descriptions, or specific visual or auditory elements.

Here are two things to avoid in body paragraphs:

• Film review . Your analysis should focus on specific movie aspects rather than your opinion of the film.
• Excessive plot summary . While it’s important to provide some context for the analysis, a lengthy plot summary can detract you from your main argument and analysis of the film.

Film Analysis Conclusion

In the conclusion of a movie analysis, restate the thesis statement to remind the reader of the main argument. Additionally, summarize the main points from the body to reinforce the key aspects of the film that were discussed. The conclusion should also provide a final thought or reflection on the film, tying together the analysis and presenting your perspective on its overall meaning.

✍️ How to Write a Film Analysis Essay

Writing a film analysis essay can be challenging since it requires a deep understanding of the film, its themes, and its characters. However, with the right approach, you can create a compelling analysis that offers insight into the film’s meaning and impact. To help you, we’ve prepared a small guide.

1. Understand the Prompt

When approaching a film analysis essay, it is crucial to understand the prompt provided by your professor. For example, suppose your professor asks you to analyze the film from the perspective of Marxist criticism or psychoanalytic film theory . In that case, it is essential to familiarize yourself with these approaches. This may involve studying these theories and identifying how they can be applied to the film.

If your professor did not provide specific guidelines, you will need to choose a film yourself and decide on the aspect you will explore. Whether it is the film’s themes, characters, cinematography, or social context, having a clear focus will help guide your analysis.

2. Watch the Film & Take Notes

Keep your assignment prompt in mind when watching the film for your analysis. For example, if you are analyzing the film from a feminist perspective, you should pay attention to the portrayal of female characters, power dynamics , and gender roles within the film.

As you watch the movie, take notes on key moments, dialogues, and scenes relevant to your analysis. Additionally, keeping track of the timecodes of important scenes can be beneficial, as it allows you to quickly revisit specific moments in the film for further analysis.

3. Develop a Thesis and an Outline

Next, develop a thesis statement for your movie analysis. Identify the central argument or perspective you want to convey about the film. For example, you can focus on the film’s themes, characters, plot, cinematography, or other outstanding aspects. Your thesis statement should clearly present your stance and provide a preview of the points you will discuss in your analysis.

Having created a thesis, you can move on to the outline for an analysis. Write down all the arguments that can support your thesis, logically organize them, and then look for the supporting evidence in the movie.

4. Write Your Movie Analysis

When writing a film analysis paper, try to offer fresh and original ideas on the film that go beyond surface-level observations. If you need some inspiration, have a look at these thought-provoking questions:

• How does the movie evoke emotional responses from the audience through sound, editing, character development , and camera work?
• Is the movie’s setting portrayed in a realistic or stylized manner? What atmosphere or mood does the setting convey to the audience?
• How does the lighting in the movie highlight certain aspects? How does the lighting impact the audience’s perception of the movie’s characters, spaces, or overall mood?
• What role does the music play in the movie? How does it create specific emotional effects for the audience?
• What underlying values or messages does the movie convey? How are these values communicated to the audience?

5. Revise and Proofread

To revise and proofread a film analysis essay, review the content for grammatical, spelling, and punctuation errors. Ensure the paper flows logically and each paragraph contributes to the overall analysis. Remember to double-check that you haven’t missed any in-text citations and have enough evidence and examples from the movie to support your arguments.

Consider seeking feedback from a peer or instructor to get an outside perspective on the essay. Another reader can provide valuable insights and suggestions for improvement.

🎞️ Movie Analysis: Sample Prompts

Now that we’ve covered the essential aspects of a film analysis template, it’s time to choose a topic. Here are some prompts to help you select a film for your analysis.

• Metropolis film analysis essay . When analyzing this movie, you can explore the themes of technology and society or the portrayal of class struggle. You can also focus on symbolism, visual effects, and the influence of German expressionism on the film’s aesthetic.
• The Godfather film analysis essay . An epic crime film, The Godfather , allows you to analyze the themes of power and corruption, the portrayal of family dynamics, and the influence of Italian neorealism on the film’s aesthetic. You can also examine the movie’s historical context and impact on future crime dramas.
• Psycho film analysis essay . Consider exploring the themes of identity and duality, the use of suspense and tension in storytelling, or the portrayal of mental illness. You can also explore the impact of this movie on the horror genre.
• Forrest Gump film analysis essay . If you decide to analyze the Forrest Gump movie, you can focus on the portrayal of historical events. You might also examine the use of nostalgia in storytelling, the character development of the protagonist, and the film’s impact on popular culture and American identity.
• The Great Gatsby film analysis essay . The Great Gatsby is a historical drama film that allows you to analyze the themes of the American Dream, wealth, and class. You can also explore the portrayal of the 1920s Jazz Age and the symbolism of the green light.
• Persepolis film analysis essay . In a Persepolis film analysis essay, you can uncover the themes of identity and self-discovery. You might also consider analyzing the portrayal of the Iranian Revolution and its aftermath, the use of animation as a storytelling device, and the film’s influence on the graphic novel genre.

🎬 Top 15 Film Analysis Essay Topics

• The use of color symbolism in Vertigo and its impact on the narrative.
• The moral ambiguity and human nature in No Country for Old Men .
• The portrayal of ethnicity in Gran Torino and its commentary on cultural stereotypes.
• The cinematography and visual effects in The Hunger Games and their contribution to the dystopian atmosphere.
• The use of silence and sound design in A Quiet Place to immerse the audience.
• The disillusionment and existential crisis in The Graduate and its reflection of the societal norms of the 1960s.
• The themes of sacrifice and patriotism in Casablanca and their relevance to the historical context of World War II.
• The psychological horror in The Shining and its impact on the audience’s experience of fear and tension.
• The exploration of existentialism in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
• Multiple perspectives and unreliable narrators in Rashomon .
• The music and soundtrack in Titanic and its contribution to the film’s emotional resonance.
• The portrayal of good versus evil in the Harry Potter film series and its impact on understanding morality.
• The incorporation of vibrant colors in The Grand Budapest Hotel as a visual motif.
• The use of editing techniques to tell a nonlinear narrative in Pulp Fiction .
• The function of music and score in enhancing the emotional impact in Schindler’s List .

Check out the Get Out film analysis essay we’ve prepared for college and high school students. We hope this movie analysis essay example will inspire you and help you understand the structure of this assignment better.

Film Analysis Essay Introduction Example

Get Out, released in 2017 and directed by Jordan Peele, is a culturally significant horror film that explores themes of racism, identity, and social commentary. The film follows Chris, a young African-American man, visiting his white girlfriend’s family for the weekend. This essay will analyze how, through its masterful storytelling, clever use of symbolism, and thought-provoking narrative, Get Out reveals the insidious nature of racism in modern America.

Film Analysis Body Paragraphs Example

Throughout the movie, Chris’s character is subject to various types of microaggression and subtle forms of discrimination. These instances highlight the insidious nature of racism, showing how it can exist even in seemingly progressive environments. For example, during Chris’s visit to his white girlfriend’s family, the parents continuously make racially insensitive comments, expressing their admiration for black physical attributes and suggesting a fascination bordering on fetishization. This sheds light on some individuals’ objectification and exotification of black bodies.

Get Out also critiques the performative allyship of white liberals who claim to be accepting and supportive of the black community. It is evident in the character of Rose’s father, who proclaims: “I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could” (Peele, 2017). However, the film exposes how this apparent acceptance can mask hidden prejudices and manipulation.

Film Analysis Conclusion Example

In conclusion, the film Get Out provides a searing critique of racial discrimination and white supremacy through its compelling narrative, brilliant performances, and skillful direction. By exploring the themes of the insidious nature of racism, fetishization, and performative allyship, Get Out not only entertains but also challenges viewers to reflect on their own biases.

🍿 More Film Analysis Examples

• Social Psychology Theories in The Experiment
• Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader: George Lukas’s Star Wars Review
• Girl, Interrupted : Mental Illness Analysis
• Mental Disorders in the Finding Nemo Film
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest Film: Interpretive Psychological Analysis
• Analysis of Spielberg’s Film Lincoln
• Glory – The Drama Movie by Edward Zwick
• Inventors in The Men Who Built America Series
• Crash Movie: Racism as a Theme
• Dances with Wolves Essay – Movie Analysis
• Superbad by G. Mottola
• Ordinary People Analysis and Maslow Hierarchy of Needs
• A Review of the Movie An Inconvenient Truth by Guggenheim
• Chaplin’s Modern Times and H.G. Wells’s The Island of Dr. Moreau
• Misé-En-Scene and Camera Shots in The King’s Speech
• Children’s Sexuality in the Out in the Dark Film
• Chinese and American Women in Joy Luck Club Novel and Film
• The Film Silver Linings Playbook by Russell
• The Role of Music in the Films The Hours and The Third Man
• The Social Network : Film Analysis
• My Neighbor Totoro : Film by Hayao Miyazaki
• Marriage Story Film Directed by Noah Baumbach

❓ Film Analysis Essay: FAQ

Why is film analysis important.

Film analysis allows viewers to go beyond the surface level and delve into the deeper layers of a film’s narrative, themes, and technical aspects. It enables a critical examination that enhances appreciation and understanding of the film’s message, cultural significance, and artistic value. At the same time, writing a movie analysis essay can boost your critical thinking and ability to spot little details.

How to write a movie analysis?

• Watch the film multiple times to grasp its key elements.
• Take notes on the story, characters, and themes.
• Pay attention to the film’s cinematography, editing, sound, message, symbolism, and social context.
• Formulate a strong thesis statement that presents your main argument.
• Support your claims with evidence from the film.

How to write a critical analysis of a movie?

A critical analysis of a movie involves evaluating its elements, such as plot, themes, characters, and cinematography, and providing an informed opinion on its strengths and weaknesses. To write it, watch the movie attentively, take notes, develop a clear thesis statement, support arguments with evidence, and balance the positive and negative.

How to write a psychological analysis of a movie?

A psychological analysis of a movie examines characters’ motivations, behaviors, and emotional experiences. To write it, analyze the characters’ psychological development, their relationships, and the impact of psychological themes conveyed in the film. Support your analysis with psychological theories and evidence from the movie.

• Film Analysis | UNC Writing Center
• Psychological Analysis of Films | Steemit
• Critical Film Analysis | University of Hawaii
• Questions to Ask of Any Film | All American High School Film Festival
• Resources – How to Write a Film Analysis | Northwestern
• Film Analysis | University of Toronto
• Film Writing: Sample Analysis | Purdue Online Writing Lab
• Film Analysis Web Site 2.0 | Yale University
• Questions for Film Analysis | University of Washington
• Film & Media Studies Resources: Types of Film Analysis | Bowling Green State University
• Film & Media Studies Resources: Researching a Film | Bowling Green State University
• Motion Picture Analysis Worksheet | University of Houston
• Reviews vs Film Criticism | The University of Vermont Libraries
• Television and Film Analysis Questions | University of Michigan
• How to Write About Film: The Movie Review, the Theoretical Essay, and the Critical Essay | University of Colorado

Descriptive Essay Topics: Examples, Outline, & More

371 fun argumentative essay topics for 2024.

Mastering Film Studies Essays: Top 6 Tips for Success

• Published: July 16, 2023
• By: Yellowbrick

Film studies is a complex and fascinating field that requires extensive research, critical thinking, and excellent writing skills. Film studies essays are a significant part of the program, and students must be well-versed in the art of essay writing to excel in their studies. In this blog post, we’ll explore some top tips for mastering film studies essays.

1. Choose a Topic That Interests You

One of the most crucial aspects of writing an excellent film studies essay is choosing a topic that interests you. If you’re passionate about the subject, you’ll be more motivated to research and write about it. When selecting a topic, consider your personal interests, the films you’ve watched, and the themes that resonate with you.

2. Conduct Thorough Research

Once you’ve selected a topic, it’s time to conduct thorough research. Read books, articles, and academic journals related to your subject. Watch the films you’re writing about, take notes, and pay attention to the details. Don’t limit yourself to one source of information. Instead, gather as much information as possible to support your arguments.

3. Develop a Strong Thesis Statement

Your thesis statement is the foundation of your essay. It should be clear, concise, and arguable. Your thesis statement should answer the question, “What is your essay about?” It should also make a claim that you can support with evidence from your research.

4. Use Evidence to Support Your Arguments

Evidence is crucial in film studies essays. Use examples from the films you’re analyzing, as well as quotes from academic sources to support your arguments. Make sure that your evidence is relevant to your thesis statement and that it supports your claims.

5. Write Clear and Concise Paragraphs

When writing your essay, make sure that your paragraphs are clear and concise. Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that introduces the main idea. Use evidence to support your arguments, and make sure that each paragraph flows logically to the next.

6. Edit and Proofread Your Essay

Once you’ve written your essay, it’s time to edit and proofread. Read your essay out loud to catch any errors or awkward phrasing. Check for spelling and grammar mistakes, and make sure that your citations are correct. Editing and proofreading are essential to ensure that your essay is polished and professional.

In conclusion, mastering film studies essays requires both an in-depth understanding of film theory and proficient academic writing skills. By watching and analyzing films carefully, thoroughly researching your topic, developing a clear and concise argument, structuring your essay properly, and meticulously proofreading and editing your work, you can create compelling, insightful essays that contribute to the discourse in film studies. It’s a process that not only enhances your understanding of film but also hones your critical thinking and communication skills, making it a worthwhile endeavor for any film studies student.

If you’re interested in pursuing a career in the film industry, consider taking the NYU Film and TV Industry Essentials online course and certificate program. This program is a comprehensive introduction to the film and television industry, covering topics such as screenwriting, producing, and distribution. The program is designed for anyone interested in pursuing a career in the film industry, whether you’re just starting or looking to advance your career.

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Step By Step Guide to Writing an Essay on Film

By Film Threat Staff | December 29, 2021

Writing an essay about a film sounds like a fun assignment to do. As part of the assignment, you get to watch the movie and write an analytical essay about your impressions. However, you will soon find that you’re staring at an empty sheet of paper or computer screen with no idea what to write, how to start writing your essay, or the essential points that need to be covered and analyzed. As an  essay writing service proves, watching the movie countless times isn’t all there is to write a film analysis essay. Here’s a step-by-step guide to help you with an essay service :

1. Watch the Movie

This is the obvious starting point, but surprisingly many students skip this step. It doesn’t matter if you’ve watched the movie twice before. If you’re asked to write an essay about it, you need to watch it again. Watching the film again allows you to pay more attention to specific elements to help you write an in-depth analysis about it.  

Watching the movie is crucial because it helps you not specific parts of the movie that can be used as illustrations and examples in your essay. You’re also going to explore and analyze the movie theme within your structured plan. Some of the critical elements that you have to look out for while watching the movie that may be crucial for your essay are:

• Key plot moments
• Editing style
• Stylistic elements
• Scenario execution
• Musical elements

2. Introduction

Your introduction will contain essential information about the film, such as the title, release date, director’s name, etc. This familiarizes the reader with the movie’s primary background information. In addition, researching the filmmaker may be crucial for your essay because it may help you discover valuable insights for your film analysis.

The introduction should also mention the movie’s central theme and explain why you think it was made that way.

Do not forget to include your thesis statement, which explains your focus on the movie.

3. Write a Summary

According to an  essay writing service  providing students   help with essays , a movie summary comes after the introduction. It includes the film’s basic premise, but it doesn’t have to reveal too many details about the film. It’s a summary, after all. Write the summary like your readers have not heard about the movie before, so you can mention the most basic plots but assume you have minimal time so you won’t be going into great details.

4. Write Your Analysis

This is the central part of the essay in which you analyze the movie critically and state your impressions about the film. Ensure to support your claims with relevant materials from the movie.

There are also several creative elements in a movie that are connected to make the film a whole. You must pay attention to these elements while watching the movie and analyze them in this part of the essay.

In this, you are looking out for the dialogs, character development, completion of scenes, and logical event sequences in the film to analyze.

Ensure you try to understand the logic behind events in the film and the actor’s motives to explain the scenario better.

The responsibility of different parts of the movie, such as plan selection and scenario execution, falls on the director. So, your analysis here focuses on how the director realized the script compared to his other movies. Understanding the director’s style of directing may be crucial to coming up with a conclusion relevant to your analysis and thesis.

The casting of a film is a significant element to consider in your essay. Without a great actor, the scriptwriter and director can’t bring their ideas to life. So, watch the actor’s acting and determine if they portrayed the character effectively and if their acting aligns with the film’s main idea.

• Musical element

A movie’s musical element enhances some of the sceneries or actions in the film and sets the mood. It has a massive impact on the movie, so it’s an essential element to analyze in your essay.

• Visual elements

This includes special effects, make-up, costumes, etc., which significantly impact the film. These elements must reflect the film’s atmosphere. It is even more crucial for historical movies since it has to be specific about an era.

Ensure to analyze elements relevant to your thesis statement, so you don’t drift from your main point.

5. Conclusion

In concluding your essay, you have to summarize the primary concepts more convincingly to support your analysis. Finally, you may include a CTA for readers to watch or avoid the movie.

These are the crucial steps to take when writing an essay about a film . Knowing this beforehand prevents you from struggling to start writing after watching the movie.

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I can’t list the number of essays that don’t follow this format in the least. But then I find most reviews of movies terrible and most people who purport themselves to be writers as people who need to spend more time drafting and editing before publishing.

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The Writing Place

Resources – writing about film: the critical essay, introduction to the topic.

Like it or not, studying film may very well be a part of the well-rounded education you receive here at Northwestern University. But how to go about writing such an essay? While film reviews and theoretical essays are part of Film Studies, the most common paper that students will face is: “the critical essay”

Fear not. Though its title combines a serious undertone that implies it is both a large chuck of your grade and also really hard and vague, this post will guide you on your way.

First, what is the critical essay? It may surprise you to note that it is much more than 35% of your grade. In actuality, the most common form of the cinematic critical essay is one in which the writer explores one or more aspects of a film and analyzes how they enhance the film’s meaning and/or artistry. This is very similar to English analysis papers. For example,  The Scarlet Letter  can be analyzed in terms of its motif of civilization versus the wilderness. In the novel, the town is representative of human civilization and authority while the forest represents natural authority (Sparknotes Editors, 2003).  Likewise, the same motif illustrates Terrence Malick’s  Tree of Life.  The wilderness represents the way of nature while the family (or civilization) represents the way of grace. The crossing over of these settings enables the viewer to visualize the internal struggles of Malick’s characters as they seek higher meaning from God.

“Hmmm…” I can hear you wondering. “I already know how to do that! It’s all we did in high school English classes!” But here is where the cinematic essay diverges from the literary essay— the elements that we analyze. Films can be analyzed from traditional literary aspects such as themes, narrative, characters, and points of view but there are also uniquely cinematic aspects: mise-en-scene, the shot, aesthetic history and edited images.

Parts of a Critical Essay

Aspect 1: mise-en-scene.

Mise-en-scene refers to everything in a scene independent of the camera’s position, movement, and editing (Corrigan, 1998). This includes lighting, costumes, sets, the quality of the acting, etc. It is important to remember that every aspect of a scene was consciously chosen by the director and his or her team. Because movies often present themselves as instances of real life, this fact is easily forgotten and the artistic choices that the film crew made are overlooked.

In the following still from   Wes Anderson’s  Moonrise Kingdom  (2012), one can analyze it in terms of mise-en-scene. One could note the arrangement of the props. In real life, it would be unlikely that rocks, sticks, and supplies would arrange themselves in an almost perfect circular fashion around the map. However, Anderson’s decision to arrange the props focus viewer’s attention on the map and highlight the adventure that the two children are about to go on in  Moonrise Kingdom.

Click  here for an example of an essay dealing with mise-en-scene.

Aspect 2: The Shot

The shot refers to the single image before the camera cuts to the next scene (Corrigan, 1998). These shots can include a lot of variety and movement. We can analyze the effect that shots have in terms of their photographic qualities such as tone, speed, and perspectives created, to name a few examples (Corrigan, 1998). A single shot is composed of multiple frames, or stills of the same scene. We can analyze the shot in terms of framing, i.e. what was actually decided to be included within the image and the location of stuff within the frame.

Watch the following shot (beginning at the 30 second mark) for an example: Click Here to Navigate to YouTube

In this shot from Dayton and Faris’  Little Miss Sunshine  (2006), Dwayne has just found out he cannot join the air force. He had maintained a vow of silence to help him focus on getting admitted to the air force and breaks it from utter frustration. The shot’s stationary position as Dwayne runs screaming from his family helps highlight how the physical distance Dwayne puts between himself and his family reflects the emotional distance and frustration he feels at the moment.

Aspect 3: Edited Images

When one or more shots are joined together, they become edited (Corrigan, 1998). These usually have two main purposes. One is the logical development of the story. A shot in the morning connected with a shot in the afternoon connotes to the viewer that time has passed. Other times the editing of shots has artistic intent. For example, in a Chipotle commercial the first shot is of an industrial slaughterhouse. The next shot features animals grazing in a pasture. This is an artistic statement on the part of the advertising team to convey to Chipotle’s customers about the higher standard of care and ethics that they ensure their meat sources follow.

Edited images can also be analyzed from other aspects. For example, one could explain how meaning is created by the specific arrangement in shots, their collisions with each other, and the presence of visual motifs “echoing” through subsequent shots.

For instance, in the edited shots from Patar and Aubier’s movie  A Town Called Panic  (2009) the editing of the kitchen shot and the snow shot serves two purposes. One purpose is to further the logical chronological development of the story. The other purpose is to add humor. Because being asleep for an entire summer is impossibly long, it adds absurd humor.

Hopefully, the brief foray into the various cinematic aspects that one could examine was helpful. The world of film analysis is vast and wide, offering a fecund source for analytical and cinematic exploration and creation.

-Developed by Kyla Donato  

Click here to return to the “writing place resources” main page..

Film & Media Studies Resources: Researching a Film

• Researching a Film

Types of Film Analysis

• Finding Books
• Journals & Articles
• Finding Films

Watching Film Analytically

1. start with the assignment..

Review the assignment prompt and identify the tasks your instructor has asked you to perform and the questions you've been asked to address. Write them out at the top of your notes before watching the film.

2. Review film terms.

Review the terms you've learned in class and practice applying them while watching your film. Studying these terms before you begin watching can help you develop abbreviations and avoid searching for these words while you watch.

3. Watch the film.

Watch the film at least once without once before (unless you've seen it before) to watch uninterrupted. When you take notes, be sure to pause when writing. This disrupts the viewing experience. 

Starting the Film Analysis Essay

4. brainstorm.

After you've watched the film at least twice, it's a good idea to brainstorm ideas based on the notes you took. Cluster your ideas around the themes or topics that emerge in your notes, possible in a concept map. If you're writing an argumentative essay, your brainstorming ideas can be used to draft your thesis statement or research question.

Things to remember:

• Use your assignment prompt as a guide.
• Write about the film in the present tense in your essay. (i.e., “In  Vertigo , Hitchcock employs techniques of observation to dramatize the act of detection.”)

5. Make a research plan.

• Review your brainstorming notes and decide what type of analysis you want to write.
• Do you need research or other background information for your essay?
• Do your sources need to be scholarly or can you use critics' review?

6. Find Sources and Reviews

• Finding a screenplay/script of the movie may be helpful and save you time when compiling citations. But keep in mind that there may be differences between the screenplay and the actual product (and these differences might be a topic of discussion!). The Popular Culture Library has a great collection of movie scripts. 
• Reading reviews and other analysis essays between viewings can help your own analysis of the film.  Search in Summon or subject databases listed below for the film's title and the ideas you brainstormed to look for sources.

Symbolic Analysis

Symbolic (or semiotic) analysis is the interpretation of signs and symbols, usually involving metaphors and analogies to both inanimate objects and characters in a film. Because symbols can have multiple meanings, you will need to determine what a particular symbol means both in the film and in a broader context, whether in other films, or in other disciplines, like literature. 

Be sure to bring the analysis back to your thesis, or why this symbolism matters.

Some questions you could ask when writing a symbolic analysis essay:

• What images or objects are repeated in the film?
• What colors, clothing, or food is associated with a character?
• How does a symbol or object relate to other symbols and objects?

Narrative Analysis

Narrative analysis is an examination of the narrative structure, character, and plot of a film (i.e., the story elements). This analysis considers the story the film seeks to tell. 

Questions to consider when writing a narrative analysis:

• How does the film fit into the Three Act structure?
• How does the plot differ from the narrative of film? Or, how is the story told? (i.e., Are events presented out of order or chronologically?)
• Does the plot revolve around one character or multiple? How do these characters develop across the film?

Cultural or Historical Analysis

In this type of analytical essay, you examine a film's relationship to its broader cultural, historical, theoretical contexts. Sometimes films intentionally comment on these contexts, but even if they don't, they are still a product of the culture or time in which they were created. This type of analysis asks how the film models, challenges, or subverts these relationships.

Questions to ask for a cultural or historical analysis:

• How does the film comment on, reinforce, or critique social and/or political issues at the time it was released, including questions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
• How might a biographical understanding of the film's creators and/or screenwriters and their historical moment affect the way the film is viewed?
• How might a specific theory, such as Queer Theory, Structuralist or Marxist Film Theory, provide a way of analyzing or viewing the film?

Mise-en-scene Analysis

A mise-en-scene (French for "putting on stage") analysis looks at the compositional elements of a specific scene or even a single shot, as well as the how those elements come together to produce meaning. You can focus on anything in the scene, including blocking, lighting, design, color, costume, and how these work in conjunction with other elements, like sound, cinematography and editing.

Questions to ask when analyzing a scene:

• What effects are created in a scene and what is their purpose?
• How does this scene represent the theme of the movie?
• How does a scene work to express a broader point to the film's point?

More Links of Interest

• BGSU Department of Popular Culture
• BGSU Department of Theatre and Film
• BGSU American Culture Studies Program
• Film Resources in the BPCL

Your Film Librarian

Film Analysis Books

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This guide was adapted from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's Writing Center's Film Analysis and Watching Film Analytically .

• Next: Types of Film Analysis >>
• Last Updated: Nov 20, 2023 9:08 AM
• URL: https://libguides.bgsu.edu/film

Film Essays: The Ultimate Guide to Writing a Film Essay

By Essaywriter

If you’re a film buff or a student of film studies, you’ve probably encountered film essays at some point in your academic career.

Writing a film essay can be challenging, but with guidance, you can craft a compelling analysis of any cinematic masterpiece.

One of the world’s most well-liked and regularly watched forms of entertainment is a film, whether blockbusters or indie movies. The film has become an essential part of culture and society worldwide.

A film is a powerful tool for social critique and cultural expression. Despite changes, movies have never lost their capacity to amuse, instruct, and inspire. This post offers knowledge, suggestions, and resources for writing film essays. An analysis of a particular film’s many elements is done in a film essay.

Understanding the Elements of Film Analysis

Film analysis comprises evaluating and comprehending the many components that make up a film. These include the movie’s cinematography, sound, editing, acting, and narrative. It is possible to gain a deeper understanding of the movie’s themes, messages, and overall relevance by analyzing these components.

Films comprise certain components, which directors and movie producers tend to tweak to recreate different cultures and historical points in time. For instance, a movie set in the 1980s will have very different scenery, costumes, and soundtrack than a movie set in the present.

There has been a major advancement in technology, music, fashion, and social conventions between the 1980s and now. Therefore, these film components need to be properly considered when writing a film essay.

Tips for Writing Film Essays

Researching and selecting a film to analyze.

To explore possible films, choose your areas of interest, such as a specific genre, era, or filmmaker. After that, you can use various tools to gather information and ideas for new films.

Thousands of films, reviews, and ratings are available through online databases such as IMDb and Rotten Tomatoes. Search engines such as Google and Bing can also be used to find articles, criticisms, and analyses of certain films or directors.”

Outlining and Organizing the Film Essays

Outlining and arranging a film essay can help ensure that your analysis is clear and succinct. Create an outline that breaks down the various parts of the film you will be analyzing, such as the narrative, characters, cinematography, and symbolism so that you can arrange your thoughts.

Maintain focus by avoiding needless details. Instead, concentrate on offering specific examples from the film to back up and connect your analysis. You should also employ transitions between paragraphs to make it easier for the reader to follow your train of thought.

Citing Sources and Formatting the Film Essays

Citation of sources and Proper formatting gives credit to the film’s creators, but it also demonstrates the credibility of your research and analysis. When citing a film, it’s important to follow the guidelines of the citation style you use, whether it be MLA, APA, or Chicago.

This includes the title of the film, the director, and the year of release. When citing sources such as articles or books, it’s important to include the author, title, publication date, and page number(s).

Tips for Incorporating Film Terminology and Analysis Techniques

It is critical to strike a balance between employing technical language and making it accessible to your audience when incorporating cinema vocabulary and analysis procedures in a film essay.

One technique is to start with a clear and short statement that defines your essay’s major argument or purpose. From there, you can support and deepen your thesis by employing specialized cinema terminology and analysis approaches. Use film examples to illustrate your views and make them more accessible to the reader.

Use a clear and simple writing style and be consistent in using technical language and analysis methodologies. This will help the reader follow your argument and understand your views.

Finally, to provide a full understanding of the film, employing a variety of analysis methodologies such as formalism or psychoanalysis. This will not only help you obtain a deeper understanding of many components of the film, but it will also allow you to provide a more sophisticated analysis.

Sample Film Essays Outline

Thesis statement: “Through its use of surreal imagery and unconventional narrative structure, ‘Mulholland Drive’ deconstructs the Hollywood dream and exposes the darkness at the heart of the film industry.”

Main point 1: The cinematography and mise-en-scène of ‘Mulholland Drive’

Main point 2: The themes and messages of ‘Mulholland Drive’

Main point 3: The cultural and historical context of ‘Mulholland Drive’

Conclusion: Recap of main points and analysis of the lasting impact of the film

Film elements are what make each film production distinct from every other. Therefore, understanding them empowers writers with the tools to analyze and write fitting essays adequately.

When writing a film essay, tips like researching and selecting a film to analyze, outlining and organizing the essay, citing sources and formatting the essay, and incorporating film terminology and analysis techniques help present your essay in the most logical, clear, clear, concise, and comprehensive way.

If you’re looking to write a film essay anytime soon, following this stepwise guide on writing film essays will get you critical acclaim when your work is peer-reviewed.

Perhaps you do not have the time to write a film essay or any other paper, or maybe you need professional help writing your paper.

Our website, ThePaperExperts.com , is a place you can visit to get your paper professionally written and delivered on time, irrespective of the type of essay you need to be written.

Try us now by calling 1-888-774-9994 and speak to an academic advisor today and get help with film essays!

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Deconstructing a Film Analysis Essay: Tips and Techniques

Enrolling in a film class might seem like a fun way to pass a class — after all, it's just watching movies, right? Not exactly! While film classes certainly require you to watch movies, you're most likely to be assigned 2-3 films per week in addition to analysis work. Considering how long movies can be, this can quickly turn into quite a hefty workload.

If you've never taken a film class before, you might feel lost and confused when it comes time to writing your first film analysis paper. This is especially true if you're accustomed to writing book analysis essays for which you choose several written quotes to analyze. Films are all about visuals, so your analysis relies heavily on interpreting vital visual elements.

How should you tackle a film analysis essay? It might sound obvious, but you'll start by watching the movie. After all, there's much more to watching a film than just hitting the "play" button.

One watch isn't enough

No matter how many films you've analyzed, it helps to have watched the movie you're analyzing more than once. One viewing of the movie could cause you to miss vital details. If possible, we recommend watching the film at least twice, so you can gather as many notes as you can. Repeated exposure to the movie will also help you put potentially confusing scenes into a better context and help you understand their purpose. However, if after you've watched the movie, you're struggling to organize your thoughts, consider breaking the film down into parts. Here's how you can deconstruct the movie into three digestible pieces.

The three-act structure

The length of your assigned movie can make an essay analysis intimidating. Films can sometimes exceed a run time of three hours. For example, fan-favorite Titanic comes in at a little over three hours long. A lot can happen in a movie of this length, so prioritizing specific scenes or focusing on particular plot points can present a challenge.

If you're struggling to follow a film, consider referring to the three-act structure . This method can be helpful in any narrative analysis you write. However, remember that this is not the same as a traditional story's narrative structure . This structure breaks the film into three distinct, purposeful sections that will help you organize the movie and your thoughts.

The format of the three-act structure is:

• Act I, Setup: This is typically the shortest part of the movie. Viewers are introduced to settings, characters, and main plot points. There is often an incident that introduces us to the film's conflict.
• Act II, Confrontation: This is the longest and most significant section of the film. The protagonist undergoes many conflicts and obstacles leading up to the climax.
• Act III, Resolution: The movie's ending most often provides some resolution to the conflict.

Breaking the film into these three sections will help you orient yourself as you watch and take notes. This will make the process of choosing scenes to analyze much easier.

Note-taking is a must

Since it's extremely difficult to mentally store all of your impressions and details you noticed while watching the film, note taking will give you a reference of your thoughts. But when and how should you take notes on a film? Should you write down your opinions on the actors and their characters? Do you take notes on scenes you didn't like or scenarios you wish had gone differently?

While these types of notes can certainly guide the argument you want to make, it's essential to remember that a film analysis essay is not the same as a film review. In an analysis paper, you can mention your opinion on the movie, but the primary focus of your essay is to analyze the film's visual elements. These elements you've noticed will provide the arguments you make in your essay.

Visual elements to analyze

If you've never analyzed a film before, you might not know the kinds of visual elements you should pay attention to. There is also a good deal of technical language associated with the film industry, and you'll come across this when writing your analysis. As with any subject or field you write about, you want your language to match what is customary in the industry.

Camera work

Writers can use several terminologies related to camera work, but we will focus on two elements that are best for beginners:

• Close-up: Close-up shots focus on one subject in a scene. In a close-up, a character's face will fill most of the screen. Directors might use this technique when they want viewers to register a character's intense emotions or small details they wouldn't notice from a distance.
• Long shot: A long shot is the opposite of a close-up. The camera films a longer distance away from the subject. A character's entire body is in the frame, but it does not make up the entirety of the frame; the space above, below, and around the character reveals more scenery. These shots help viewers become familiar with the setting and the character's place in the environment.
• Low angle: In low-angle shots, the camera is positioned below a character or scene, so viewers are forced to look up. If characters are filmed from this angle, we might interpret them as being powerful and superior because they appear above us.
• High angle: In high-angle shots, the camera is positioned above a character or scene, so viewers are forced to look down. In contrast to low-angle shots, characters filmed from this position appear to be more vulnerable or have less power.

When conducting your analysis, notice that lighting changes can be subtle or obvious. The scene could transition from light and joyful to dark and ominous with just a flashlight losing batteries. If you notice lighting changes during your viewing, consider these questions:

• What does the presence/absence of light add to the scene?
• Are there any shadows visible in the scene?
• How does the lighting affect the character's attitude/mood?
• How does the lighting shift from one scene to another?

Here are a couple of audio components you're accustomed to hearing during movies:

• What genre of music is playing? Is there a pop song playing during a cheerful scene? Is the music entirely instrumental? Does it include lyrics to bring a descriptive element to the scene?
• Is the music quiet or loud? Does the music's volume rise and fall throughout a scene, or is it purely background noise?
• Sound effects: Sound effects can help make actions more impactful. Consider a war movie that relies heavily on battle scenes. Sounds of gunshots and explosions ring in the background as viewers focus on the protagonist. Those sound effects can make us nervous, draw us into what the character might be feeling, and foreshadow something terrible coming for the soldier. Or maybe the protagonist is finally coming face to face with the enemy, and the tension in the scene is enhanced by the crack of thunder and the whirring of wind in the background.

Costumes, makeup, and props

These types of elements can depict socioeconomic status and levels of power. A man dressed in a black professional suit will appear more influential than a man dressed in a pair of ripped jeans and a t-shirt.

Since clothing and makeup are forms of expression, viewers can learn about characters' personalities through their physical appearance. These are also transitory elements, meaning viewers can recognize a switch in characters' fortune, status, or job if their appearance changes.

Clothing and props can also reveal something hidden about a character. For example, in Leigh Bardugo's Six of Crows , Kaz Brekker wears a pair of black gloves and uses a walking cane. The cane reveals a physical impairment, but the purpose of his black gloves remains a mystery until his backstory is revealed. Though characters may appear one way, their clothes and props can provide an element of mystery, showing viewers that they might not be what they seem.

You can consider timing in a movie like the syntax in written text. Instead of sentence length and organization, timing refers to the length of a scene and the order in which scenes appear. The duration of the shot will impact the feel of the scene.

For example, fast-paced scenes switch from one frame to another within a short time. This makes the viewers feel like they're being rushed, and tension is high. Slower scenes feature one subject in a shot for extended periods, drawing our attention to what is happening at that moment.

Your essay structure

Now that you know how to "read" a movie, consider how to organize your analysis essay. Your paper will be set up like other analysis papers you've written. For example, the basic format of your paper will be:

• Introduction
• Body paragraphs

Naturally, however, the content of these paragraphs will differ from, say, a literary analysis.

What to include in the introduction

The introduction will contain specific information about the film. For example, you must include:

• The film title
• The director's name
• The film's release date

These details give context to the film. For example, if you are familiar with the director of the film under analysis and you know other works of theirs, this information gives color to your analysis. This connection can help you read into the movie more deeply because you can anticipate patterns, themes, or visual elements for which the director is famous.

The introduction will also include your thesis statement. This statement serves as your argument and comes as a result of considering questions like:

• What aspects of the film stood out to you?
• Did you notice one specific theme throughout the movie?
• Is there a specific object or symbol that holds significant meaning to the plot or protagonist?
• Is there a unique pattern you want to make an argument about?

Your thesis can state whatever you find interesting as long as you prove your argument with evidence from the film.

You might follow the introduction with a brief summary of the movie. Introduce the main characters, the setting, and the conflict. Provide some context, but don't make it overwhelming.

Body paragraph analysis

Body paragraphs include your analysis. The analysis of a film differs from that of a literary essay, as a textual analysis comes entirely from passages of a book or article. While you can certainly analyze dialogue in movie scenes, film analysis focuses significantly on the film's visual elements.

The number of body paragraphs you write depends on how many scenes you analyze. Unless your assignment asks you to examine only one scene closely, we recommend you write about three scenes or more.

Your body paragraphs should each begin with a topic sentence that introduces your argument. What will you focus on in this specific paragraph? Then, frame the scene. Remember that you want to avoid summarizing the scene that you are analyzing. Instead, provide just a sentence or two of context to introduce the scene and then frame it according to your argument. Once you've done this, you can focus on the film's visual construction, which will make up the bulk of the body.

Concluding your analysis essay

Your conclusion will restate the argument you made in the introduction. Your analysis leads to a personal decision about the film, so you should also include your overall opinion. You might consider including a call to action, whereby you encourage or discourage readers from watching the movie.

It's also possible to consider the film's implications. For example, did the film touch on a political or historical issue that's still relevant today? Did the film introduce a new filming technique never seen before? How does the film inform future movies of the same genre?

Films can be lengthy and complicated, but this guide can help you deconstruct a movie and ease your analysis essay writing process. Be sure to take your time watching the movie — more than once, if you can! — and take ample notes to use as a reference. As long as you focus on your visual analysis and not a summary or description of each scene, you'll be on your way to writing an insightful analysis essay.

Header photo by stokkete .

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Website of Filmmaker Lynne Sachs

“on writing the film essay” by lynne sachs.

 “On Writing the Film Essay” by Lynne Sachs Published in Essays on the Essay Film , edited by Nora M. Alter and Tim Corrigan Columbia University Press, 2017

Note: All of the films I discuss in this essay can be found on www.lynnesachs.com

Throughout the 1990s, I gravitated toward the simultaneously visceral and cerebral French feminist theory of Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigaray. As a moving image artist searching for a new discourse that spoke to radical issues with an equally radical form, I embraced this kind of writing as it led me toward the non-narrative, unconventional grammar of experimental film as well as the self-reflexivity of the essay.  My first essay film was “The House of Science: A Museum of False Facts” (1991), a personal rumination on the relationship between a woman’s body and the often-opposing institutions of art and science.  While I was shooting this film, I was also keeping a diary:

“My memory of being a girl includes a “me” that is two. I am two bodies – the body of the body and the body of the mind.  The body of the body was flaccid and forgotten.  This was the body that was wet with dirty liquids, holes that wouldn’t close, full of smells and curdled milk.  Of course there was the skeleton.  This was assumed and only reconsidered upon my very rare attempts at jumping farther than far enough, clearing the ditch, lifting the heave-ho. But the body of the body was not the bones.  This body wrapped and encircled the bones, a protective cover of flesh, just on the other side of the wall I call skin.”

I will never forget a cross-country plane ride I took near the end of editing this film. Throughout the time I was in the air, as I flew across the Mississippi, the Great Plains, and the Rockies, I was searching frantically for the hidden skeletal structure of the film. I’d committed to a premiere at the Los Angeles Film Forum, and I only had a couple of months until my screening date.  (Stupid me. I’ll never do that again!) Midway into the flight, I realized it was all laid out before me in the form of the poetry journal I carried in my backpack.  The writing had been with me all along; I simply hadn’t realized that this text was more than a dispensable traveling partner in the “journey” that was the production of the movie. Over the next few weeks, my poems began to guide my editing of the images and sounds,.  Ever since that early period in my filmmaking career, I’ve kept a handwritten journal during the making of my films. In addition to contributing an often times essential narrative element, this kind of writing can also be the critical link to the “naïve” yet curious person I may no longer really “know,” the person I was when I embarked on the intellectual and artistic adventure that is the creation of a film.

In my 1994 essay film “Which Way is East: Notebooks from Vietnam” (1994), I built a voice-over narration out of two surprisingly oppositional perspectives on post-war Vietnam. My sister Dana Sachs, one of the first American journalists to live for an extended period of time in Vietnam, offered expansive, highly informed insights on Vietnamese daily life.  In contrast, my writing traced my own transformation from earnest, war-obsessed American tourist to more keenly observant traveler:

“Driving through the Mekong Delta, a name that carries so much weight. My mind is full of war, and my eyes are on a scavenger hunt for leftovers. Dana told me that those ponds full of bright green rice seedlings are actually craters, the inverted ghosts of bombed out fields.  At Cu Chi, we pay three U.S. dollars so that a tour guide will lead us through a section of this well-known 200-kilometer tunnel complex. This is the engineering masterpiece of the Viet Cong, a matrix of underground kitchens and living rooms and army headquarters. As I slide through the narrow, dusty passageway, my head fills up with those old war movies Dad took us to in the ’70′s. My body is way too big for these tunnels. I can hardly breathe. After five minutes, I come out gasping.  We decide not to spend the extra ten dollars it costs to shoot a rifle.”

Only by reconnecting to the developing stages of my awareness through my journal could I provide an opening to my American audience.  The narrative trajectory of this half-hour film follows our evolving understanding of the landscape and the people of Vietnam. Honestly, my sister Dana and I fought all the through the shaping of the film’s voice over.  If she hadn’t been my sister, I probably would have fired her as a collaborator!  The fundamental tension between the two of us grew out of several distinct differences between our points of view.  While she had very much completed her own reckoning with the destruction of the war between Vietnam and the United States, I, like most tourists, was still dealing with the war’s echoes and the guilt that came with that psychic burden.  While she wanted to follow the order of events to the letter, I felt free to articulate our experiences by distilling our stories into anecdotes that could function like parables. By recognizing the inherent tension between my position as a non-narrative experimental filmmaker and my sister’s commitment to a more transparent commentary, we were able to find a rhetorical strategy that mirrors the most fundamental conflicts around discourse and truth facing an essayist in any format.   In several quintessentially self-reflexive moments, my sister expresses exasperation with almost every aspect of my production process:

“Lynne can stand for an hour finding the perfect frame for her shot. It’s as if she can understand Vietnam better when she looks at it through the lens of her camera. I hate the camera. The world feels too wide for the lens, and if I try to frame it, I only cut it up.”

In 1997, I completed “Biography of Lilith” (1997), a film exploring the ruptures both women and men must confront when transitioning from being autonomous individuals to parents with responsibilities.  I began making this film when I discovered I was pregnant with my first daughter and by the time I finished three years later I was able to punctuate the final sound mix with the cries of my second child. Inspired by the theoretical texts of Julia Kristeva and Antonin Artaud, in particular, this film celebrates my most intimate and abject concerns about the changes in my body and my place in the world as a woman. My film on Lilith, Adam’s first mate, is also a portrait of a female archetype who boldly wanted to be on top during sex. The film matches a non-authoritative exposition of Lilith in a multiplicity of cultures – both ancient and contemporary – with my own pre and post-partum writing. In this way, I juxtaposed two years of historical and cultural research and interviews with intimate ruminations on my own sexuality and motherhood.

“I’m learning to read all over again. A face, this time, connected to a body.  At first, I feel your story from within.  Nose rubs against belly, elbow prods groin. Your silent cough becomes a confusing dip and bulge.  You speak and I struggle to translate.  I lie on my side, talk to myself, rub my fingers across my skin, from left to right.  I read out loud, and I hope you can hear me.  I’m learning to read all over again, but this time I have a teacher.”

In “States of UnBelonging” (2005), my fourth film in a five-film body of work I call “I Am Not a War Photographer”, I turned to Terence Malick’s “The Thin Red Line” and to the “Hell” section of Jean Luc Godard’s “Notre Musique” for lessons from makers who were capable of articulating the horror of war. I constructed this film around an epistolary friendship I had with an Israeli student who moved back to Tel Aviv during an extremely volatile period in Israel-Palestine.  A meditation on war as well as land, the Bible, and filmmaking, this essay film is built from over three years of emails.  With enormous hesitation and intimidation, we reveal our anguish and bewilderment in the film’s soundtrack as well as on the screen as text. With an awareness of my own position in this charged political landscape, I start the film with a kind of meta-historical lamentation on the way that human beings organize time:

“Do you ever have the feeling that the history you are experiencing has no shape?

Even as a teenager I was obsessed with history’s shifts and ruptures. Wars helped us order time. A war established beginnings and endings. There is “before.” There is “during.” There is “after.”

I am currently working on “Tip of My Tongue” , a film on memory that began with 50 autobiographical poems I wrote about each year from my birth in 1961 to my 50 th birthday.  Unlike my previous films, in which the research and shooting themselves prompted the text, this project grew directly from my poetry.   Without the slightest concern for how the poems would eventually shimmy their way into one of my movies, in 2012 I gave myself the unencumbered freedom to write about my own life.  In each poem, I looked at the relationship between a large public event and my own insignificant, yet somehow personally memorable, connection to that situation.  Now, three years later, I am working with a cast of eleven people from almost every continent, each of whom was born around the year 1961. Together we are creating an inverted history of our collective half-century through a series of spoken story distillations that place the grand in the shadow of the intimate.  From glimpsing a drunken Winston Churchill on the streets of London to watching the Moon landing from a playground in Melbourne to washing dishes during the Iranian Revolution to feeling destitute during the Recession, we are working collaboratively to construct our own recipe for a performative sound-image essay film.

Excerpt from Review by Tanya Goldman in Cinema Journal:

“There is often a poetic dialogue extending between sections when a voice of the past rhymes with the present. In 1948, Alexandre Astruc wrote of a cinema that should function as “the seismograph of our hearts, a disorderly pendulum inscribing on film the tense dialectics of our ideas.” This quality is echoed in Lynne Sachs’s 2016 reflections on her own practice through which she feels a stronger sense of kinship with writers, poets, and painters than film directors. She states that her job “is not to educate but rather to spark curiosity in my viewer that moves from the inside out.” Observations such as these bestow the essay film with a distinct emotive quality much at odds with classical documentary’s association with sobriety.”

Tanya Goldman Cinema Journal, Volume 57, Number 4, Summer 2018, pp. 161-166 (Review) Published by University of Texas Press DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2018.0064

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In This Article Expand or collapse the "in this article" section Essay Film

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Essay Film by Yelizaveta Moss LAST REVIEWED: 24 March 2021 LAST MODIFIED: 24 March 2021 DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199791286-0216

The term “essay film” has become increasingly used in film criticism to describe a self-reflective and self-referential documentary cinema that blurs the lines between fiction and nonfiction. Scholars unanimously agree that the first published use of the term was by Richter in 1940. Also uncontested is that Andre Bazin, in 1958, was the first to analyze a film, which was Marker’s Letter from Siberia (1958), according to the essay form. The French New Wave created a popularization of short essay films, and German New Cinema saw a resurgence in essay films due to a broad interest in examining German history. But beyond these origins of the term, scholars deviate on what exactly constitutes an essay film and how to categorize essay films. Generally, scholars fall into two camps: those who find a literary genealogy to the essay film and those who find a documentary genealogy to the essay film. The most commonly cited essay filmmakers are French and German: Marker, Resnais, Godard, and Farocki. These filmmakers are singled out for their breadth of essay film projects, as opposed to filmmakers who have made an essay film but who specialize in other genres. Though essay films have been and are being produced outside of the West, scholarship specifically addressing essay films focuses largely on France and Germany, although Solanas and Getino’s theory of “Third Cinema” and approval of certain French essay films has produced some essay film scholarship on Latin America. But the gap in scholarship on global essay film remains, with hope of being bridged by some forthcoming work. Since the term “essay film” is used so sparingly for specific films and filmmakers, the scholarship on essay film tends to take the form of single articles or chapters in either film theory or documentary anthologies and journals. Some recent scholarship has pointed out the evolutionary quality of essay films, emphasizing their ability to change form and style as a response to conventional filmmaking practices. The most recent scholarship and conference papers on essay film have shifted from an emphasis on literary essay to an emphasis on technology, arguing that essay film has the potential in the 21st century to present technology as self-conscious and self-reflexive of its role in art.

Both anthologies dedicated entirely to essay film have been published in order to fill gaps in essay film scholarship. Biemann 2003 brings the discussion of essay film into the digital age by explicitly resisting traditional German and French film and literary theory. Papazian and Eades 2016 also resists European theory by explicitly showcasing work on postcolonial and transnational essay film.

Biemann, Ursula, ed. Stuff It: The Video Essay in the Digital Age . New York: Springer, 2003.

This anthology positions Marker’s Sans Soleil (1983) as the originator of the post-structuralist essay film. In opposition to German and French film and literary theory, Biemann discusses video essays with respect to non-linear and non-logical movement of thought and a range of new media in Internet, digital imaging, and art installation. In its resistance to the French/German theory influence on essay film, this anthology makes a concerted effort to include other theoretical influences, such as transnationalism, postcolonialism, and globalization.

Papazian, Elizabeth, and Caroline Eades, eds. The Essay Film: Dialogue, Politics, Utopia . London: Wallflower, 2016.

This forthcoming anthology bridges several gaps in 21st-century essay film scholarship: non-Western cinemas, popular cinema, and digital media.

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Film and Television 6A: History of the American Motion Picture

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African americans in motion pictures, audiences and early spectatorship, censorship, the hays office, and the production code, color and technicolor development, d.w. griffith and his impact, exhibition and projection practice, hollywood / los angeles as place, lumiere brothers, motion picture studios and the studio system, movie stars, the star system, and fan culture, movie moguls, picture palaces and movie theaters, sound and the talkies, thomas edison, patents, and monopolies in the early industry, special effects, women in the early film industry, walt disney and early animation.

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This page links to books and other sources on very selective paper topics that are frequently chosen by students in 6A. All of the titles are meant as possible starting places only (not as a comprehensive list or everything you might need), and are available readily via Arts Library class reserves, the non-circulating reference collection, or the Library's online resources . Students are also encouraged to think creatively beyond these topics, or on a specific aspect of them.

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• African Americans in motion pictures Subject search in the UCLA Library catalog for books with this heading.
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See also: Exhibition and Projection Technologies, plus Picture Palaces and Movie Theaters

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• Film: An International History of the Medium Contains short section on "The Rise of Hollywood" (p. 98-99) and the building of studio lots crucial to the studio system.
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• The American Movie Industry: The Business of Motion Pictures Includes chapter on "Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution: 1908-1915" (p. 68-78).
• U.S. vs. Motion Picture Patents Company Trial Documents From the Media History Digital Library site, which includes seven volumes of testimonies and supporting documents from the U.S. District Court’s 1912-1913 antitrust lawsuit against the Motion Picture Patents Company (MPPC).
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• Hollywood's Modern Women: Screenwriting, Work Culture, and Feminism, 1910-1940 (Dissertation)
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• Mary Pickford Papers Digitized primary source photographs and papers from Pickford, available via the Academy's Margaret Herrick Library.
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The essay film

In recent years the essay film has attained widespread recognition as a particular category of film practice, with its own history and canonical figures and texts. In tandem with a major season throughout August at London’s BFI Southbank, Sight & Sound explores the characteristics that have come to define this most elastic of forms and looks in detail at a dozen influential milestone essay films.

Andrew Tracy , Katy McGahan , Olaf Möller , Sergio Wolf , Nina Power Updated: 7 May 2019

from our August 2013 issue

Le camera stylo? Dziga Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929)

I recently had a heated argument with a cinephile filmmaking friend about Chris Marker’s Sans soleil (1983). Having recently completed her first feature, and with such matters on her mind, my friend contended that the film’s power lay in its combinations of image and sound, irrespective of Marker’s inimitable voiceover narration. “Do you think that people who can’t understand English or French will get nothing out of the film?” she said; to which I – hot under the collar – replied that they might very well get something, but that something would not be the complete work.

The Sight & Sound Deep Focus season Thought in Action: The Art of the Essay Film runs at BFI Southbank 1-28 August 2013, with a keynote lecture by Kodwo Eshun on 1 August, a talk by writer and academic Laura Rascaroli on 27 August and a closing panel debate on 28 August.

To take this film-lovers’ tiff to a more elevated plane, what it suggests is that the essentialist conception of cinema is still present in cinephilic and critical culture, as are the difficulties of containing within it works that disrupt its very fabric. Ever since Vachel Lindsay published The Art of the Moving Picture in 1915 the quest to secure the autonomy of film as both medium and art – that ever-elusive ‘pure cinema’ – has been a preoccupation of film scholars, critics, cinephiles and filmmakers alike. My friend’s implicit derogation of the irreducible literary element of Sans soleil and her neo- Godard ian invocation of ‘image and sound’ touch on that strain of this phenomenon which finds, in the technical-functional combination of those two elements, an alchemical, if not transubstantiational, result.

Mechanically created, cinema defies mechanism: it is poetic, transportive and, if not irrational, then a-rational. This mystically-minded view has a long and illustrious tradition in film history, stretching from the sense-deranging surrealists – who famously found accidental poetry in the juxtapositions created by randomly walking into and out of films; to the surrealist-influenced, scientifically trained and ontologically minded André Bazin , whose realist veneration of the long take centred on the very preternaturalness of nature as revealed by the unblinking gaze of the camera; to the trash-bin idolatry of the American underground, weaving new cinematic mythologies from Hollywood detritus; and to auteurism itself, which (in its more simplistic iterations) sees the essence of the filmmaker inscribed even upon the most compromised of works.

It isn’t going too far to claim that this tradition has constituted the foundation of cinephilic culture and helped to shape the cinematic canon itself. If Marker has now been welcomed into that canon and – thanks to the far greater availability of his work – into the mainstream of (primarily DVD-educated) cinephilia, it is rarely acknowledged how much of that work cheerfully undercuts many of the long-held assumptions and pieties upon which it is built.

In his review of Letter from Siberia (1957), Bazin placed Marker at right angles to cinema proper, describing the film’s “primary material” as intelligence – specifically a “verbal intelligence” – rather than image. He dubbed Marker’s method a “horizontal” montage, “as opposed to traditional montage that plays with the sense of duration through the relationship of shot to shot”.

Here, claimed Bazin, “a given image doesn’t refer to the one that preceded it or the one that will follow, but rather it refers laterally, in some way, to what is said.” Thus the very thing which makes Letter “extraordinary”, in Bazin’s estimation, is also what makes it not-cinema. Looking for a term to describe it, Bazin hit upon a prophetic turn of phrase, writing that Marker’s film is, “to borrow Jean Vigo’s formulation of À propos de Nice (‘a documentary point of view’), an essay documented by film. The important word is ‘essay’, understood in the same sense that it has in literature – an essay at once historical and political, written by a poet as well.”

Marker’s canonisation has proceeded apace with that of the form of which he has become the exemplar. Whether used as critical/curatorial shorthand in reviews and programme notes, employed as a model by filmmakers or examined in theoretical depth in major retrospectives (this summer’s BFI Southbank programme, for instance, follows upon Andréa Picard’s two-part series ‘The Way of the Termite’ at TIFF Cinémathèque in 2009-2010, which drew inspiration from Jean-Pierre Gorin ’s groundbreaking programme of the same title at Vienna Filmmuseum in 2007), the ‘essay film’ has attained in recent years widespread recognition as a particular, if perennially porous, mode of film practice. An appealingly simple formulation, the term has proved both taxonomically useful and remarkably elastic, allowing one to define a field of previously unassimilable objects while ranging far and wide throughout film history to claim other previously identified objects for this invented tradition.

Las Hurdes (1933)

It is crucial to note that the ‘essay film’ is not only a post-facto appellation for a kind of film practice that had not bothered to mark itself with a moniker, but also an invention and an intervention. While it has acquired its own set of canonical ‘texts’ that include the collected works of Marker, much of Godard – from the missive (the 52-minute Letter to Jane , 1972) to the massive ( Histoire(s) de cinéma , 1988-98) – Welles’s F for Fake (1973) and Thom Andersen’s Los Angeles Plays Itself (2003), it has also poached on the territory of other, ‘sovereign’ forms, expanding its purview in accordance with the whims of its missionaries.

From documentary especially, Vigo’s aforementioned À propos de Nice, Ivens’s Rain (1929), Buñuel’s sardonic Las Hurdes (1933), Resnais’s Night and Fog (1955), Rouch and Morin’s Chronicle of a Summer (1961); from the avant garde, Akerman’s Je, Tu, Il, Elle (1974), Straub/Huillet’s Trop tôt, trop tard (1982); from agitprop, Getino and Solanas’s The Hour of the Furnaces (1968), Portabella’s Informe general… (1976); and even from ‘pure’ fiction, for example Gorin’s provocative selection of Griffith’s A Corner in Wheat (1909).

Just as within itself the essay film presents, in the words of Gorin, “the meandering of an intelligence that tries to multiply the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected),” so, without, its scope expands exponentially through the industrious activity of its adherents, blithely cutting across definitional borders and – as per the Manny Farber ian concept which gave Gorin’s ‘Termite’ series its name –  creating meaning precisely by eating away at its own boundaries. In the scope of its application and its association more with an (amorphous) sensibility as opposed to fixed rules, the essay film bears similarities to the most famous of all fabricated genres: film noir, which has been located both in its natural habitat of the crime thriller as well as in such disparate climates as melodramas, westerns and science fiction.

The essay film, however, has proved even more peripatetic: where noir was formulated from the films of a determinate historical period (no matter that the temporal goalposts are continually shifted), the essay film is resolutely unfixed in time; it has its choice of forebears. And while noir, despite its occasional shadings over into semi-documentary during the 1940s, remains bound to fictional narratives, the essay film moves blithely between the realms of fiction and non-fiction, complicating the terms of both.

“Here is a form that seems to accommodate the two sides of that divide at the same time, that can navigate from documentary to fiction and back, creating other polarities in the process between which it can operate,” writes Gorin. When Orson Welles , in the closing moments of his masterful meditation on authenticity and illusion F for Fake, chortles, “I did promise that for one hour, I’d tell you only the truth. For the past 17 minutes, I’ve been lying my head off,” he is expressing both the conjuror’s pleasure in a trick well played and the artist’s delight in a self-defined mode that is cheerfully impure in both form and, perhaps, intention.

Nevertheless, as the essay film merrily traipses through celluloid history it intersects with ‘pure cinema’ at many turns and its form as such owes much to one particularly prominent variety thereof.

The montage tradition

If the mystical strain described above represents the Dionysian side of pure cinema, Soviet montage was its Apollonian opposite: randomness, revelation and sensuous response countered by construction, forceful argumentation and didactic instruction.

No less than the mystics, however, the montagists were after essences. Eisenstein , Dziga Vertov and Pudovkin , along with their transnational associates and acolytes, sought to crystallise abstract concepts in the direct and purposeful juxtaposition of forceful, hard-edged images – the general made powerfully, viscerally immediate in the particular. Here, says Eisenstein, in the umbrella-wielding harpies who set upon the revolutionaries in October (1928), is bourgeois Reaction made manifest; here, in the serried ranks of soldiers proceeding as one down the Odessa Steps in Battleship Potemkin (1925), is Oppression undisguised; here, in the condemned Potemkin sailor who wins over his imminent executioners with a cry of “Brothers!” – a moment powerfully invoked by Marker at the beginning of his magnum opus A Grin Without a Cat (1977) – is Solidarity emergent and, from it, the seeds of Revolution.

The relentlessly unidirectional focus of classical Soviet montage puts it methodologically and temperamentally at odds with the ruminative, digressive and playful qualities we associate with the essay film. So, too, the former’s fierce ideological certainty and cadre spirit contrast with that free play of the mind, the Montaigne -inspired meanderings of individual intelligence, that so characterise our image of the latter.

Beyond Marker’s personal interest in and inheritance from the Soviet masters, classical montage laid the foundations of the essay film most pertinently in its foregrounding of the presence, within the fabric of the film, of a directing intelligence. Conducting their experiments in film not through ‘pure’ abstraction but through narrative, the montagists made manifest at least two operative levels within the film: the narrative itself and the arrangement of that narrative by which the deeper structures that move it are made legible. Against the seamless, immersive illusionism of commercial cinema, montage was a key for decrypting those social forces, both overt and hidden, that govern human society.

And as such it was method rather than material that was the pathway to truth. Fidelity to the authentic – whether the accurate representation of historical events or the documentary flavouring of Eisensteinian typage – was important only insomuch as it provided the filmmaker with another tool to reach a considerably higher plane of reality.

Dziga Vertov’s Enthusiasm (1931)

Midway on their Marxian mission to change the world rather than interpret it, the montagists actively made the world even as they revealed it. In doing so they powerfully expressed the dialectic between control and chaos that would come to be not only one of the chief motors of the essay film but the crux of modernity itself.

Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera (1929), now claimed as the most venerable and venerated ancestor of the essay film (and this despite its prototypically purist claim to realise a ‘universal’ cinematic language “based on its complete separation from the language of literature and the theatre”) is the archetypal model of this high-modernist agon. While it is the turning of the movie projector itself and the penetrating gaze of Vertov’s kino-eye that sets the whirling dynamo of the city into motion, the recorder creating that which it records, that motion is also outside its control.

At the dawn of the cinematic century, the American writer Henry Adams saw in the dynamo both the expression of human mastery over nature and a conduit to mysterious, elemental powers beyond our comprehension. So, too, the modernist ambition expressed in literature, painting, architecture and cinema to capture a subject from all angles – to exhaust its wealth of surfaces, meanings, implications, resonances – collides with awe (or fear) before a plenitude that can never be encompassed.

Remove the high-modernist sense of mission and we can see this same dynamic as animating the essay film – recall that last, parenthetical term in Gorin’s formulation of the essay film, “multiply[ing] the entries and the exits into the material it has elected (or by which it has been elected)”. The nimble movements and multi-angled perspectives of the essay film are founded on this negotiation between active choice and passive possession; on the recognition that even the keenest insight pales in the face of an ultimate unknowability.

The other key inheritance the essay film received from the classical montage tradition, perhaps inevitably, was a progressive spirit, however variously defined. While Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph of the Will (1935) and Olympia (1938) amply and chillingly demonstrated that montage, like any instrumental apparatus, has no inherent ideological nature, hers were more the exceptions that proved the rule. (Though why, apart from ideological repulsiveness, should Riefenstahl’s plentifully fabricated ‘documentaries’ not be considered as essay films in their own right?)

The overwhelming fact remains that the great majority of those who drew upon the Soviet montagists for explicitly ideological ends (as opposed to Hollywood’s opportunistic swipings) resided on the left of the spectrum – and, in the montagists’ most notable successor in the period immediately following, retained their alignment with and inextricability from the state.

Progressive vs radical

The Grierson ian documentary movement in Britain neutered the political and aesthetic radicalism of its more dynamic model in favour of paternalistic progressivism founded on conformity, class complacency and snobbery towards its own medium. But if it offered a far paler antecedent to the essay film than the Soviet montage tradition, it nevertheless represents an important stage in the evolution of the essay-film form, for reasons not unrelated to some of those rather staid qualities.

The Soviet montagists had created a vision of modernity racing into the future at pace with the social and spiritual liberation of its proletarian pilot-passenger, an aggressively public ideology of group solidarity. The Grierson school, by contrast, offered a domesticated image of an efficient, rational and productive modern industrial society based on interconnected but separate public and private spheres, as per the ideological values of middle-class liberal individualism.

The Soviet montagists had looked to forge a universal, ‘pure’ cinematic language, at least before the oppressive dictates of Stalinist socialist realism shackled them. The Grierson school, evincing a middle-class disdain for the popular and ‘low’ arts, sought instead to purify the sullied medium of cinema by importing extra-cinematic prestige: most notably Night Mail (1936), with its Auden -penned, Britten -scored ode to the magic of the mail, or Humphrey Jennings’s salute to wartime solidarity A Diary for Timothy (1945), with its mildly sententious E.M. Forster narration.

Night Mail (1936)

What this domesticated dynamism and retrograde pursuit of high-cultural bona fides achieved, however, was to mingle a newfound cinematic language (montage) with a traditionally literary one (narration); and, despite the salutes to state-oriented communality, to re-introduce the individual, idiosyncratic voice as the vehicle of meaning – as the mediating intelligence that connects the viewer to the images viewed.

In Night Mail especially there is, in the whimsy of the Auden text and the film’s synchronisation of private time and public history, an intimation of the essay film’s musing, reflective voice as the chugging rhythm of the narration timed to the speeding wheels of the train gives way to a nocturnal vision of solitary dreamers bedevilled by spectral monsters, awakening in expectation of the postman’s knock with a “quickening of the heart/for who can bear to be forgot?”

It’s a curiously disquieting conclusion: this unsettling, anxious vision of disappearance that takes on an even darker shade with the looming spectre of war – one that rhymes, five decades on, with the wistful search of Marker’s narrator in Sans soleil, seeking those fleeting images which “quicken the heart” in a world where wars both past and present have been forgotten, subsumed in a modern society built upon the systematic banishment of memory.

It is, of course, with the seminal post-war collaborations between Marker and Alain Resnais that the essay film proper emerges. In contrast to the striving culture-snobbery of the Griersonian documentary, the Resnais-Marker collaborations (and the Resnais solo documentary shorts that preceded them) inaugurate a blithe, seemingly effortless dialogue between cinema and the other arts in both their subjects (painting, sculpture) and their assorted creative personnel (writers Paul Éluard , Jean Cayrol , Raymond Queneau , composers Darius Milhaud and Hanns Eisler ). This also marks the point where the revolutionary line of the Soviets and the soft, statist liberalism of the British documentarians give way to a more free-floating but staunchly oppositional leftism, one derived as much from a spirit of humanistic inquiry as from ideological affiliation.

Related to this was the form’s problems with official patronage. Originally conceived as commissions by various French government or government-affiliated bodies, the Resnais-Marker films famously ran into trouble from French censors: Les statues meurent aussi (1953) for its condemnation of French colonialism, Night and Fog for its shots of Vichy policemen guarding deportation camps; the former film would have its second half lopped off before being cleared for screening, the latter its offending shots removed.

Night and Fog (1955)

Appropriately, it is at this moment that the emphasis of the essay film begins to shift away from tactile presence – the whirl of the city, the rhythm of the rain, the workings of industry – to felt absence. The montagists had marvelled at the workings of human creations which raced ahead irrespective of human efforts; here, the systems created by humanity to master the world write, in their very functioning, an epitaph for those things extinguished in the act of mastering them. The African masks preserved in the Musée de l’Homme in Les statues meurent aussi speak of a bloody legacy of vanquished and conquered civilisations; the labyrinthine archival complex of the Bibliothèque Nationale in the sardonically titled Toute la mémoire du monde (1956) sparks a disquisition on all that is forgotten in the act of cataloguing knowledge; the miracle of modern plastics saluted in the witty, industrially commissioned Le Chant du styrène (1958) regresses backwards to its homely beginnings; in Night and Fog an unprecedentedly enormous effort of human organisation marshals itself to actively produce a dreadful, previously unimaginable nullity.

To overstate the case, loss is the primary motor of the modern essay film: loss of belief in the image’s ability to faithfully reflect reality; loss of faith in the cinema’s ability to capture life as it is lived; loss of illusions about cinema’s ‘purity’, its autonomy from the other arts or, for that matter, the world.

“You never know what you may be filming,” notes one of Marker’s narrating surrogates in A Grin Without a Cat, as footage of the Chilean equestrian team at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics offers a glimpse of a future member of the Pinochet junta. The image and sound captured at the time of filming offer one facet of reality; it is only with this lateral move outside that reality that the future reality it conceals can speak.

What will distinguish the essay film, as Bazin noted, is not only its ability to make the image but also its ability to interrogate it, to dispel the illusion of its sovereignty and see it as part of a matrix of meaning that extends beyond the screen. No less than were the montagists, the film-essayists seek the motive forces of modern society not by crystallising eternal verities in powerful images but by investigating that ever-shifting, kaleidoscopic relationship between our regime of images and the realities it both reveals and occludes.

— Andrew Tracy

1.   À propos de Nice

Jean Vigo, 1930

Few documentaries have achieved the cult status of the 22-minute A propos de Nice, co-directed by Jean Vigo and cameraman Boris Kaufman at the beginning of their careers. The film retains a spontaneous, apparently haphazard, quality yet its careful montage combines a strong realist drive, lyrical dashes – helped by Marc Perrone’s accordion music – and a clear political agenda.

In today’s era, in which the Côte d’Azur has become a byword for hedonistic consumption, it’s refreshing to see a film that systematically undermines its glossy surface. Using images sometimes ‘stolen’ with hidden cameras, A propos de Nice moves between the city’s main sites of pleasure: the Casino, the Promenade des Anglais, the Hotel Negresco and the carnival. Occasionally the filmmakers remind us of the sea, the birds, the wind in the trees but mostly they contrast people: the rich play tennis, the poor boules; the rich have tea, the poor gamble in the (then) squalid streets of the Old Town.

As often, women bear the brunt of any critique of bourgeois consumption: a rich old woman’s head is compared to an ostrich, others grin as they gaze up at phallic factory chimneys; young women dance frenetically, their crotch to the camera. In the film’s most famous image, an elegant woman is ‘stripped’ by the camera to reveal her naked body – not quite matched by a man’s shoes vanishing to display his naked feet to the shoe-shine.

An essay film avant la lettre , A propos de Nice ends on Soviet-style workers’ faces and burning furnaces. The message is clear, even if it has not been heeded by history.

— Ginette Vincendeau

2. A Diary for Timothy

Humphrey Jennings, 1945

A Diary for Timothy takes the form of a journal addressed to the eponymous Timothy James Jenkins, born on 3 September 1944, exactly five years after Britain’s entry into World War II. The narrator, Michael Redgrave , a benevolent offscreen presence, informs young Timothy about the momentous events since his birth and later advises that, even when the war is over, there will be “everyday danger”.

The subjectivity and speculative approach maintained throughout are more akin to the essay tradition than traditional propaganda in their rejection of mere glib conveyance of information or thunderous hectoring. Instead Jennings invites us quietly to observe the nuances of everyday life as Britain enters the final chapter of the war. Against the momentous political backdrop, otherwise routine, everyday activities are ascribed new profundity as the Welsh miner Geronwy, Alan the farmer, Bill the railway engineer and Peter the convalescent fighter pilot go about their daily business.

Within the confines of the Ministry of Information’s remit – to lift the spirits of a battle-weary nation – and the loose narrative framework of Timothy’s first six months, Jennings finds ample expression for the kind of formal experiment that sets his work apart from that of other contemporary documentarians. He worked across film, painting, photography, theatrical design, journalism and poetry; in Diary his protean spirit finds expression in a manner that transgresses the conventional parameters of wartime propaganda, stretching into film poem, philosophical reflection, social document, surrealistic ethnographic observation and impressionistic symphony. Managing to keep to the right side of sentimentality, it still makes for potent viewing.

— Catherine McGahan

3. Toute la mémoire du monde

Alain Resnais, 1956

In the opening credits of Toute la mémoire du monde, alongside the director’s name and that of producer Pierre Braunberger , one reads the mysterious designation “Groupe des XXX”. This Group of Thirty was an assembly of filmmakers who mobilised in the early 1950s to defend the “style, quality and ambitious subject matter” of short films in post-war France; the signatories of its 1953 ‘Declaration’ included Resnais , Chris Marker and Agnès Varda. The success of the campaign contributed to a golden age of short filmmaking that would last a decade and form the crucible of the French essay film.

A 22-minute poetic documentary about the old French Bibliothèque Nationale, Toute la mémoire du monde is a key work in this strand of filmmaking and one which can also be seen as part of a loose ‘trilogy of memory’ in Resnais’s early documentaries. Les statues meurent aussi (co-directed with Chris Marker) explored cultural memory as embodied in African art and the depredations of colonialism; Night and Fog was a seminal reckoning with the historical memory of the Nazi death camps. While less politically controversial than these earlier works, Toute la mémoire du monde’s depiction of the Bibliothèque Nationale is still oddly suggestive of a prison, with its uniformed guards and endless corridors. In W.G. Sebald ’s 2001 novel Austerlitz, directly after a passage dedicated to Resnais’s film, the protagonist describes his uncertainty over whether, when using the library, he “was on the Islands of the Blest, or, on the contrary, in a penal colony”.

Resnais explores the workings of the library through the effective device of following a book from arrival and cataloguing to its delivery to a reader (the book itself being something of an in-joke: a mocked-up travel guide to Mars in the Petite Planète series Marker was then editing for Editions du Seuil). With Resnais’s probing, mobile camerawork and a commentary by French writer Remo Forlani, Toute la mémoire du monde transforms the library into a mysterious labyrinth, something between an edifice and an organism: part brain and part tomb.

— Chris Darke

4. The House is Black

(Khaneh siah ast) Forough Farrokhzad, 1963

Before the House of Makhmalbaf there was The House is Black. Called “the greatest of all Iranian films” by critic Jonathan Rosenbaum, who helped translate the subtitles from Farsi into English, this 20-minute black-and-white essay film by feminist poet Farrokhzad was shot in a leper colony near Tabriz in northern Iran and has been heralded as the touchstone of the Iranian New Wave.

The buildings of the Baba Baghi colony are brick and peeling whitewash but a student asked to write a sentence using the word ‘house’ offers Khaneh siah ast : the house is black. His hand, seen in close-up, is one of many in the film; rather than objects of medical curiosity, these hands – some fingerless, many distorted by the disease – are agents, always in movement, doing, making, exercising, praying. In putting white words on the blackboard, the student makes part of the film; in the next shots, the film’s credits appear, similarly handwritten on the same blackboard.

As they negotiate the camera’s gaze and provide the soundtrack by singing, stamping and wheeling a barrow, the lepers are co-authors of the film. Farrokhzad echoes their prayers, heard and seen on screen, with her voiceover, which collages religious texts, beginning with the passage from Psalm 55 famously set to music by Mendelssohn (“O for the wings of a dove”).

In the conjunctions between Farrokhzad’s poetic narration and diegetic sound, including tanbur-playing, an intense assonance arises. Its beat is provided by uniquely lyrical associative editing that would influence Abbas Kiarostami , who quotes Farrokhzad’s poem ‘The Wind Will Carry Us’ in his eponymous film . Repeated shots of familiar bodily movement, made musical, move the film insistently into the viewer’s body: it is infectious. Posing a question of aesthetics, The House Is Black uses the contagious gaze of cinema to dissolve the screen between Us and Them.

— Sophie Mayer

5. Letter to Jane: An Investigation About a Still

Jean-Luc Godard & Jean-Pierre Gorin, 1972

With its invocation of Brecht (“Uncle Bertolt”), rejection of visual pleasure (for 52 minutes we’re mostly looking at a single black-and-white still) and discussion of the role of intellectuals in “the revolution”, Letter to Jane is so much of its time as to appear untranslatable to the present except as a curio from a distant era of radical cinema. Between 1969 and 1971, Godard and Gorin made films collectively as part of the Dziga Vertov Group before they returned, in 1972, to the mainstream with Tout va bien , a big-budget film about the aftermath of May 1968 featuring leftist stars Yves Montand and  Jane Fonda . It was to the latter that Godard and Gorin directed their Letter after seeing a news photograph of her on a solidarity visit to North Vietnam in August 1972.

Intended to accompany the US release of Tout va bien, Letter to Jane is ‘a letter’ only in as much as it is fairly conversational in tone, with Godard and Gorin delivering their voiceovers in English. It’s stylistically more akin to the ‘blackboard films’ of the time, with their combination of pedagogical instruction and stern auto-critique.

It’s also an inspired semiological reading of a media image and a reckoning with the contradictions of celebrity activism. Godard and Gorin examine the image’s framing and camera angle and ask why Fonda is the ‘star’ of the photograph while the Vietnamese themselves remain faceless or out of focus? And what of her expression of compassionate concern? This “expression of an expression” they trace back, via an elaboration of the Kuleshov effect , through other famous faces – Henry Fonda , John Wayne , Lillian Gish and Falconetti – concluding that it allows for “no reverse shot” and serves only to bolster Western “good conscience”.

Letter to Jane is ultimately concerned with the same question that troubled philosophers such as Levinas and Derrida : what’s at stake ethically when one claims to speak “in place of the other”? Any contemporary critique of celebrity activism – from Bono and Geldof to Angelina Jolie – should start here, with a pair of gauchiste trolls muttering darkly beneath a press shot of ‘Hanoi Jane’.

6. F for Fake

Orson Welles, 1973

Those who insist it was all downhill for Orson Welles after Citizen Kane would do well to take a close look at this film made more than three decades later, in its own idiosyncratic way a masterpiece just as innovative as his better-known feature debut.

Perhaps the film’s comparative and undeserved critical neglect is due to its predominantly playful tone, or perhaps it’s because it is a low-budget, hard-to-categorise, deeply personal work that mixes original material with plenty of footage filmed by others – most extensively taken from a documentary by François Reichenbach about Clifford Irving and his bogus biography of his friend Elmyr de Hory , an art forger who claimed to have painted pictures attributed to famous names and hung in the world’s most prestigious galleries.

If the film had simply offered an account of the hoaxes perpetrated by that disreputable duo, it would have been entertaining enough but, by means of some extremely inventive, innovative and inspired editing, Welles broadens his study of fakery to take in his own history as a ‘charlatan’ – not merely his lifelong penchant for magician’s tricks but also the 1938 radio broadcast of his news-report adaptation of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds – as well as observations on Howard Hughes , Pablo Picasso and the anonymous builders of Chartres cathedral. So it is that Welles contrives to conjure up, behind a colourful cloak of consistently entertaining mischief, a rueful meditation on truth and falsehood, art and authorship – a subject presumably dear to his heart following Pauline Kael ’s then recent attempts to persuade the world that Herman J. Mankiewicz had been the real creative force behind Kane.

As a riposte to that thesis (albeit never framed as such), F for Fake is subtle, robust, supremely erudite and never once bitter; the darkest moment – as Welles contemplates the serene magnificence of Chartres – is at once an uncharacteristic but touchingly heartfelt display of humility and a poignant memento mori. And it is in this delicate balancing of the autobiographical with the universal, as well as in the dazzling deployment of cinematic form to illustrate and mirror content, that the film works its once unique, now highly influential magic.

— Geoff Andrew

7. How to Live in the German Federal Republic

(Leben – BRD) Harun Farocki, 1990

Harun Farocki ’s portrait of West Germany in 32 simulations from training sessions has no commentary, just the actions themselves in all their surreal beauty, one after the other. The Bundesrepublik Deutschland is shown as a nation of people who can deal with everything because they have been prepared – taught how to react properly in every possible situation.

We know how birth works; how to behave in kindergarten; how to chat up girls, boys or whatever we fancy (for we’re liberal-minded, if only in principle); how to look for a job and maybe live without finding one; how to wiggle our arses in the hottest way possible when we pole-dance, or manage a hostage crisis without things getting (too) bloody. Whatever job we do, we know it by heart; we also know how to manage whatever kind of psychological breakdown we experience; and we are also prepared for the end, and even have an idea about how our burial will go. This is the nation: one of fearful people in dire need of control over their one chance of getting it right.

Viewed from the present, How to Live in the German Federal Republic is revealed as the archetype of many a Farocki film in the decades to follow, for example Die Umschulung (1994), Der Auftritt (1996) or Nicht ohne Risiko (2004), all of which document as dispassionately as possible different – not necessarily simulated – scenarios of social interactions related to labour and capital. For all their enlightening beauty, none of these ever came close to How to Live in the German Federal Republic which, depending on one’s mood, can play like an absurd comedy or the most gut-wrenching drama. Yet one disquieting thing is certain: How to Live in the German Federal Republic didn’t age – our lives still look the same.

— Olaf Möller

8. One Man’s War

(La Guerre d’un seul homme) Edgardo Cozarinsky , 1982

One Man’s War proves that an auteur film can be made without writing a line, recording a sound or shooting a single frame. It’s easy to point to the ‘extraordinary’ character of the film, given its combination of materials that were not made to cohabit; there couldn’t be a less plausible dialogue than the one Cozarinsky establishes between the newsreels shot during the Nazi occupation of Paris and the Parisian diaries of novelist and Nazi officer Ernst Jünger . There’s some truth to Pascal Bonitzer’s assertion in Cahiers du cinéma in 1982 that the principle of the documentary was inverted here, since it is the images that provide a commentary for the voice.

But that observation still doesn’t pin down the uniqueness of a work that forces history through a series of registers, styles and dimensions, wiping out the distance between reality and subjectivity, propaganda and literature, cinema and journalism, daily life and dream, and establishing the idea not so much of communicating vessels as of contaminating vessels.

To enquire about the essayistic dimension of One Man’s War is to submit it to a test of purity against which the film itself is rebelling. This is no ars combinatoria but systems of collision and harmony; organic in their temporal development and experimental in their procedural eagerness. It’s like a machine created to die instantly; neither Cozarinsky nor anyone else could repeat the trick, as is the case with all great avant-garde works.

By blurring the genre of his literary essays, his fictional films, his archival documentaries, his literary fictions, Cozarinsky showed he knew how to reinvent the erasure of borders. One Man’s War is not a film about the Occupation but a meditation on the different forms in which that Occupation can be represented.

—Sergio Wolf. Translated by Mar Diestro-Dópido

9. Sans soleil

Chris Marker, 1982

There are many moments to quicken the heart in Sans soleil but one in particular demonstrates the method at work in Marker’s peerless film. An unseen female narrator reads from letters sent to her by a globetrotting cameraman named Sandor Krasna (Marker’s nom de voyage), one of which muses on the 11th-century Japanese writer  Sei Shōnagon .

As we hear of Shōnagon’s “list of elegant things, distressing things, even of things not worth doing”, we watch images of a missile being launched and a hovering bomber. What’s the connection? There is none. Nothing here fixes word and image in illustrative lockstep; it’s in the space between them that Sans soleil makes room for the spectator to drift, dream and think – to inimitable effect.

Sans soleil was Marker’s return to a personal mode of filmmaking after more than a decade in militant cinema. His reprise of the epistolary form looks back to earlier films such as  Letter from Siberia  (1958) but the ‘voice’ here is both intimate and removed. The narrator’s reading of Krasna’s letters flips the first person to the third, using ‘he’ instead of ‘I’. Distance and proximity in the words mirror, multiply and magnify both the distances travelled and the time spanned in the images, especially those of the 1960s and its lost dreams of revolutionary social change.

While it’s handy to define Sans soleil as an ‘essay film’, there’s something about the dry term that doesn’t do justice to the experience of watching it. After Marker’s death last year, when writing programme notes on the film, I came up with a line that captures something of what it’s like to watch Sans soleil: “a mesmerising, lucid and lovely river of film, which, like the river of the ancients, is never the same when one steps into it a second time”.

10. Handsworth Songs

Black Audio Film Collective, 1986

Made at the time of civil unrest in Birmingham, this key example of the essay film at its most complex remains relevant both formally and thematically. Handsworth Songs is no straightforward attempt to provide answers as to why the riots happened; instead, using archive film spliced with made and found footage of the events and the media and popular reaction to them, it creates a poetic sense of context.

The film is an example of counter-media in that it slows down the demand for either immediate explanation or blanket condemnation. Its stillness allows the history of immigration and the subsequent hostility of the media and the police to the black and Asian population to be told in careful detail.

One repeated scene shows a young black man running through a group of white policemen who surround him on all sides. He manages to break free several times before being wrestled to the ground; if only for one brief, utopian moment, an entirely different history of race in the UK is opened up.

The waves of post-war immigration are charted in the stories told both by a dominant (and frequently repressive) televisual narrative and, importantly, by migrants themselves. Interviews mingle with voiceover, music accompanies the machines that the Windrush generation work at. But there are no definitive answers here, only, as the Black Audio Film Collective memorably suggests, “the ghosts of songs”.

— Nina Power

11.   Los Angeles Plays Itself

Thom Andersen, 2003

One of the attractions that drew early film pioneers out west, besides the sunlight and the industrial freedom, was the versatility of the southern Californian landscape: with sea, snowy mountains, desert, fruit groves, Spanish missions, an urban downtown and suburban boulevards all within a 100-mile radius, the Los Angeles basin quickly and famously became a kind of giant open-air film studio, available and pliant.

Of course, some people actually live there too. “Sometimes I think that gives me the right to criticise,” growls native Angeleno Andersen in his forensic three-hour prosecution of moving images of the movie city, whose mounting litany of complaints – couched in Encke King’s gravelly, near-parodically irritated voiceover, and sometimes organised, as Stuart Klawans wrote in The Nation, “in the manner of a saloon orator” – belies a sly humour leavening a radically serious intent.

Inspired in part by Mark Rappaport’s factual essay appropriations of screen fictions (Rock Hudson’s Home Movies, 1993; From the Journals of Jean Seberg , 1995), as well as Godard’s Histoire(s) de cinéma, this “city symphony in reverse” asserts public rights to our screen discourse through its magpie method as well as its argument. (Today you could rebrand it ‘Occupy Hollywood’.) Tinseltown malfeasance is evidenced across some 200 different film clips, from offences against geography and slurs against architecture to the overt historical mythologies of Chinatown (1974), Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) and L.A. Confidential (1997), in which the city’s class and cultural fault-lines are repainted “in crocodile tears” as doleful tragedies of conspiracy, promoting hopelessness in the face of injustice.

Andersen’s film by contrast spurs us to independent activism, starting with the reclamation of our gaze: “What if we watch with our voluntary attention, instead of letting the movies direct us?” he asks, peering beyond the foregrounding of character and story. And what if more movies were better and more useful, helping us see our world for what it is? Los Angeles Plays Itself grows most moving – and useful – extolling the Los Angeles neorealism Andersen has in mind: stories of “so many men unneeded, unwanted”, as he says over a scene from Billy Woodberry’s Bless Their Little Hearts (1983), “in a world in which there is so much to be done”.

— Nick Bradshaw

12.   La Morte Rouge

Víctor Erice, 2006

The famously unprolific Spanish director Víctor Erice may remain best known for his full-length fiction feature The Spirit of the Beehive (1973), but his other films are no less rewarding. Having made a brilliant foray into the fertile territory located somewhere between ‘documentary’ and ‘fiction’ with The Quince Tree Sun (1992), in this half-hour film made for the ‘Correspondences’ exhibition exploring resemblances in the oeuvres of Erice and Kiarostami , the relationship between reality and artifice becomes his very subject.

A ‘small’ work, it comprises stills, archive footage, clips from an old Sherlock Holmes movie, a few brief new scenes – mostly without actors – and music by Mompou and (for once, superbly used) Arvo Pärt . If its tone – it’s introduced as a “soliloquy” – and scale are modest, its thematic range and philosophical sophistication are considerable.

The title is the name of the Québécois village that is the setting for The Scarlet Claw (1944), a wartime Holmes mystery starring Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce which was the first movie Erice ever saw, taken by his sister to the Kursaal cinema in San Sebastian.

For the five-year-old, the experience was a revelation: unable to distinguish the ‘reality’ of the newsreel from that of the nightmare world of Roy William Neill’s film, he not only learned that death and murder existed but noted that the adults in the audience, presumably privy to some secret knowledge denied him, were unaffected by the corpses on screen. Had this something to do with war? Why was La Morte Rouge not on any map? And what did it signify that postman Potts was not, in fact, Potts but the killer – and an actor (whatever that was) to boot?

From such personal reminiscences – evoked with wondrous intimacy in the immaculate Castillian of the writer-director’s own wry narration – Erice fashions a lyrical meditation on themes that have underpinned his work from Beehive to Broken Windows (2012): time and change, memory and identity, innocence and experience, war and death. And because he understands, intellectually and emotionally, that the time-based medium he himself works in can reveal unforgettably vivid realities that belong wholly to the realm of the imaginary, La Morte Rouge is a great film not only about the power of cinema but about life itself.

Sight & Sound: the August 2013 issue

In this issue: Frances Ha’s Greta Gerwig – the most exciting actress in America? Plus Ryan Gosling in Only God Forgives, Wadjda, The Wall,...

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Buy The Complete Humphrey Jennings Collection Volume Three: A Diary for Timothy on DVD and Blu Ray

Humphrey Jennings’s transition from wartime to peacetime filmmaking.

Buy Chronicle of a Summer on DVD and Blu Ray

Jean Rouch’s hugely influential and ground-breaking documentary.

Further reading

Video essay: The essay film – some thoughts of discontent

Kevin B. Lee

The land still lies: Handsworth Songs and the English riots

The world at sea: The Forgotten Space

What I owe to Chris Marker

Patricio Guzmán

His and her ghosts: reworking La Jetée

Melissa Bradshaw

At home (and away) with Agnès Varda

Daniel Trilling

Pere Portabella looks back

John Akomfrah’s Hauntologies

Laura Allsop

The roots of neorealism

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Home — Essay Samples — Education — Class Reflection — Reflecting On Filmmaking Process

Film Production Experience: a Reflective Paper

• Categories: Class Reflection

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Words: 3557 |

18 min read

Published: Nov 22, 2018

Words: 3557 | Pages: 8 | 18 min read

Table of contents

Film production: reflective essay, works cited, what i learned.

• Allen, W. (Director). (Year). Title of Woody Allen film [Film]. Production Company.
• Boggs, J. M., & Petrie, D. W. (2019). The art of watching films. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Bordwell, D., & Thompson, K. (2017). Film art: An introduction. McGraw-Hill Education.
• Corrigan, T. (2016). A short guide to writing about film. Pearson.
• Giannetti, L. (2014). Understanding movies. Pearson.
• Katz, S. D. (2017). Film directing shot by shot: Visualizing from concept to screen. Michael Wiese Productions.
• Rabiger, M. (2015). Directing: Film techniques and aesthetics. CRC Press.
• Rea, P., & Irving, D. (2014). Producing and directing the short film and video. CRC Press.
• Thompson, R. J. (2018). Writing for visual media. Routledge.
• Wurtzel, D. (2015). The complete idiot's guide to independent filmmaking. Alpha Books.

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Essay on My Favourite Movie | Short & Long Essay For Students

If you are trying to write an essay on the topic my favorite Movie then you can read here a sample essay on topic of my favorite movie. Everyone loves different movies my favorite movie can be; 3 idiots, fast & furious, harry potter, bahubali 2 etc.

List of Topics

The following sample essay on my favorite movie in English, in 150, 300 words will help you to write an essay on my favorite movie easily.

Essay on My Favorite Movie For Children & Students

The entertainment industry is very popular for making hundreds of exciting movies to entertain us. Each film has a different genre like there are social, historical, science, fiction, documentary-based, religious, thriller, or horror movies.

I also like to watch movies in my spare time. According to me, a good movie is the one in which we can relate with the characters and share the excitement or sorrows.

My Favorite Movie Essay

The movie that I like the most is “Taarezameen per”. It is my favorite movie and I have seen it so many times. There are no bold scenes in this movie and people of every age can watch it. This is my favorite movie because the story is very touching. This movie is both entertaining and educational. All the characters have acted so well in this movie.

>>>> Related Post:    Essay on My Favorite Personality For Students

It is an emotional movie which always keeps me glued to the screen. It tells about the story of a boy who suffers from dyslexia due to which he is unable to identify speech sounds and how they relate to letters. Because of this disorder, he cannot excel in any activity.

He finds all the subjects difficult to study. Even with this disorder, he is very good at painting. However, he gets expelled from school because of his poor performance.

All the teachers tell his parents that their boy is not normal and he should be sent to school which is especially made for special children like him. Later, his parents send him to boarding school. There he sinks into a state of nervousness and fear because of new environment. Fortunately, he finds an art teacher there who is very supportive and caring.

>>>> Related Post:   Paragraph on My Best Friend for School Exam

His teacher realizes that it is not ishaan’s fault to get bad grades but a disorder which makes it difficult for him to focus. He visits ishaan’s home and gets surprised to see his drawings.

He also gets to know that ishaan’s dad does not understand him and often shouts at him for not getting good grades. Because of this, ishaan no longer paints and suffers from anxiety.

He gets motivated to improve ishaan’s writing and reading by using techniques developed by dyslexia specialists. These techniques help ishaan to score good grades in school. In the end, he also wins a painting competition because of his striking creative style.

I like how this story is relevant in today’s society. According to me, this is a movie which gives best moral to parents, teachers and every child. It is a marvelous piece of work which shows a perfect relationship between a teacher and a student. It highlights the issue that sometimes, parents do not understand that every kid is different.

If he is not good at studies then there must be some other thing which he is good at. He might be interested in painting, acting, singing or sports. Therefore, parents should not discourage their children but help them in what they like.

I like how the director of this movie has brought out a clear message that parents should not ignore the interests of kids and they should not snatch their childhood from them by giving them burden of getting good grades or efficient performance in every field.

>>>> Related Post:    Essay on My Favorite Author For Students

I just hope that this movie will change the thinking of parents and society. I have seen this movie so many times with my family. Every aspect of this movie, from cast to location selection is amazing. All the actors have done an amazing job. I really cried while seeing this movie. I know, I will never get bored from this movie.

Essay on My Favorite Movie Harry Potter

My love for movies started when I was a kid, and ever since then, movies have been my favorite pastime. From action-packed thrillers to romantic comedies, there’s a movie genre for every mood. But if I have to pick just one movie as my all-time favorite, hands down it would be the Harry Potter series.

For those who are not familiar with the name, Harry Potter is a fictional character created by British author J.K. Rowling. The series consists of seven books and eight movies, which follows the journey of a young wizard named Harry Potter, who discovers his true identity as “The Chosen One” and battles against the dark wizard, Lord Voldemort.

I was first introduced to Harry Potter when I was in elementary school, and I still remember the excitement of reading the books for the first time. The magical world of Hogwarts, spells, potions, and flying broomsticks had me completely captivated. As a kid, I would often daydream about receiving my acceptance letter to Hogwarts and attending classes with Harry, Ron, and Hermione.

When the movies were released, I was ecstatic! It was a dream come true to see my favorite characters and their adventures brought to life on the big screen. The cast, especially Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter, Emma Watson as Hermione Granger, and Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley, did an incredible job of portraying their characters and staying true to the books.

One of the things I love most about the Harry Potter series is the way it tackles important themes such as love, friendship, courage, and good vs. evil. The characters face challenges and overcome them by staying true to their values and relying on each other for support. This message of unity and strength in the face of adversity resonated with me, and I believe it’s one of the reasons why the series has such a huge fan base.

Moreover, the world-building in the Harry Potter series is impeccable. J.K. Rowling’s attention to detail and ability to create a vivid and complex magical world is truly impressive. From Diagon Alley to Hogsmeade, each location has its own unique charm and adds depth to the story. The spells and magical creatures introduced in the series are also fascinating, and I love how each one has its own history and significance.

Apart from the story and characters, the music in the Harry Potter movies is another aspect that makes them stand out for me. The iconic theme song composed by John Williams never fails to give me chills, and it perfectly captures the essence of the series. The rest of the soundtrack is also beautifully crafted and adds to the overall magical atmosphere of the movies.

As I grew older, my love for the Harry Potter series only intensified. I started noticing and appreciating the deeper themes and symbolism in the story that went beyond just a tale of magic and adventure. The series also taught me valuable life lessons about courage, friendship, and standing up for what is right.

Even today, I find myself re-reading the books and re-watching the movies whenever I need a break from reality. The Harry Potter series has become a timeless classic, and I believe it will continue to capture the hearts of audiences for generations to come.

In conclusion, the Harry Potter series holds a special place in my heart as my all-time favorite movie. It’s not just about magic and adventure, but it’s a story about love, friendship, and overcoming challenges. The series has sparked my imagination and taught me valuable life lessons that I will carry with me forever. And for that, I will always be grateful to J.K. Rowling for creating such a magical world and to the cast and crew for bringing it to life on the big screen.

My Favorite Movie PK

Are you a big movie fan? Do you ever find yourself eagerly waiting for new releases, rewatching old classics, and discussing plot twists with your friends? If so, then you probably understand the feeling of having a favorite movie. For me, that movie is PK.

Released in 2014, PK is an Indian satirical comedy-drama directed by Rajkumar Hirani. The film stars Aamir Khan as the lead character, an alien who lands on earth and becomes stranded when his remote control to return home is stolen. He then embarks on a journey to retrieve it and encounters various aspects of human society, including religion, superstition, and love.

The first time I watched PK, I was blown away by its unique concept and thought-provoking message. The film uses comedy to address serious issues, making it both entertaining and meaningful. It challenges societal norms and beliefs, encouraging viewers to think critically about their own values.

One of the things I love most about PK is its ability to make me laugh while also making me reflect on larger societal issues. The character of PK himself is endearing and hilarious, with his childlike innocence and curiosity about human behaviors. Aamir Khan’s performance as PK is outstanding, bringing the character to life in a way that captures the audience’s hearts.

The film also has a stellar supporting cast, including Anushka Sharma, Sushant Singh Rajput, and Boman Irani. Each actor delivers a memorable performance, adding depth and complexity to the film’s themes. The chemistry between the characters is palpable, making their relationships feel authentic and relatable.

One of the most impactful aspects of PK is its commentary on religion. The film presents a thought-provoking argument against blind faith and superstition, showcasing how religious leaders can exploit people’s beliefs for personal gain.

It also highlights the importance of questioning and understanding one’s own beliefs rather than blindly following societal norms. This message resonated with me deeply and has stayed with me long after watching the film.

In addition to its thought-provoking themes, PK also boasts stunning cinematography and a captivating soundtrack. The music adds emotion and depth to key scenes, enhancing the overall viewing experience. The film’s settings, from the bustling streets of Mumbai to the tranquil beauty of Rajasthan, further immerse viewers into PK’s world.

But what truly makes PK my favorite movie is its ability to make me feel a range of emotions. I laughed at PK’s antics, cried during emotional moments, and felt anger towards societal injustices portrayed in the film. It takes skillful storytelling to evoke such strong emotions from the audience, and PK does it flawlessly.

PK has received both critical and commercial success, becoming one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time. It also won several awards, including Best Film at the 60th Filmfare Awards. However, what matters most to me is its impact on society and its ability to spark important conversations.

The film’s message is timeless and relevant, making it a must-watch for people of all ages and backgrounds.

In conclusion PK is more than just a movie to me. It’s a thought-provoking masterpiece that challenges societal norms and encourages viewers to question their own beliefs. Its unique blend of comedy, drama, and social commentary makes it my favorite movie, one that I will continue to rewatch and recommend to others. If you haven’t seen PK yet, do yourself a favor and add it to your must-watch list. Who knows, it may become your favorite movie too. So, what are you waiting for? Grab some popcorn and hit play on PK – an unforgettable cinematic experience awaits!

Essay on My Favorite Movie Fast and Furious:

The Fast and Furious franchise has been a staple in the action movie genre for over two decades. With its adrenaline-fueled car chases, heart-stopping stunts, and diverse cast of characters, it’s no wonder that this series has become a favorite among fans worldwide.

My love for this franchise began when I first watched The Fast and the Furious back in 2001. From the very first race scene, I was hooked. The sound of revving engines and the sight of sleek cars racing through the streets had me on the edge of my seat. But what truly drew me in was the chemistry between characters Dominic Toretto and Brian O’Conner.

Their bromance and loyalty to each other despite their differences resonated with me. It’s not just about fast cars and action-packed scenes, but also about the bond of family and friendship that has kept this franchise going strong.

One of the most appealing aspects of the Fast and Furious series is its diverse cast. From street racers to former criminals, each character brings their own unique skills and personalities to the table. And as the franchise grew, so did the representation of different cultures and backgrounds.

The shift from street racing to heists in Fast Five not only upped the ante with thrilling action sequences but also introduced us to fan-favorite characters like Han, Tej, and Roman. Even more diversity was brought to the franchise with strong female characters like Letty, Mia, and most recently Hattie Shaw. Seeing people from all walks of life come together and form a strong bond is what makes this series stand out for me.

But it’s not just the characters that make this franchise special; it’s also the crazy stunts and over-the-top action sequences. From driving cars off cliffs to jumping between skyscrapers, each movie manages to push the limits of what we thought was possible. And the fact that most of these stunts are done practically is a testament to the dedication and hard work put in by the cast and crew.

It’s also worth mentioning how well this franchise has evolved over time. From humble beginnings as a street racing movie, it has now become a global phenomenon with spin-offs, video games, and even a live show. The Fast and Furious franchise has proven that it can adapt and continue to entertain audiences with each new installment.

While I have enjoyed all the movies in this franchise, there are a few that stand out for me. Fast Five, in particular, holds a special place in my heart. It was the first movie that fully embraced the heist aspect of the series while still maintaining its signature car chases and fight scenes. The addition of Dwayne Johnson’s character, Luke Hobbs, also added an extra layer of excitement to the movie.

Another favorite of mine is Furious 7. Not only did it have some of the most thrilling action sequences in the franchise, but it also served as a touching tribute to Paul Walker, who tragically passed away during filming. The emotional impact of his absence was felt throughout the movie, and it truly showed how much this cast had become a family both on and off-screen.

In conclusion, the Fast and Furious franchise holds a special place in my heart as my favorite movie series. Its diverse cast, heart-pumping action sequences, and themes of family and friendship make each movie a joy to watch. While the franchise may have started as a simple movie about street racing, it has now become a global phenomenon that continues to entertain audiences worldwide.

And with more movies and spin-offs in the works, I can’t wait to see what other exciting adventures this franchise has in store for us. So, if you haven’t watched any of the Fast and Furious movies yet, I highly recommend you give them a chance and join in on the ride. So buckle up and get ready for some high-speed action with the Fast and Furious franchise!

Essay on My Favorite Movie Twilight:

My favorite movie of all time is Twilight. I know, I know, it may sound cliché but hear me out. The reason why it’s my favorite movie goes beyond the romantic vampire and werewolf love triangle that captured the hearts of millions around the world.

Twilight is not just a typical romance film. It’s a story about self-discovery, acceptance, and the power of love to transcend all boundaries.

The movie is based on the novel by Stephenie Meyer and follows the story of Bella Swan, a teenage girl who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father. There she meets Edward Cullen, a mysterious and handsome vampire who she falls in love with. However, their love is not without challenges as they must navigate the dangerous world of vampires and werewolves while also facing their own personal demons.

One of the reasons why I love this movie is because of its strong female lead. Bella is not your typical damsel in distress waiting to be saved by her prince charming. She is independent, brave, and unafraid to stand up for what she believes in. Her character development throughout the series is inspiring and relatable, making her a role model for young girls everywhere.

Another aspect of the movie that I enjoy is its beautiful cinematography. The stunning scenery of the Pacific Northwest adds to the mystical and enchanting atmosphere of the story. It’s no wonder that fans from all over the world travel to Forks to visit some of the filming locations.

But what makes this movie truly special to me is its theme of love conquering all. Despite their differences, Bella and Edward’s love for each other remains strong and unwavering. It shows that true love knows no boundaries, whether it be race, social status, or even species.

Twilight may have its fair share of critics but for me, it will always hold a special place in my heart. It’s not just a movie, it’s a reminder that love is the most powerful force in the world and can overcome any obstacle.

In conclusion, Twilight is more than just a teenage romance movie. It’s a beautiful story about love, growth, and acceptance. Its captivating characters, breathtaking scenery, and timeless message make it my all-time favorite movie. It’s a film that I can watch over and over again, always finding something new to love about it. And for that, it will forever hold a special place in my heart.

So the next time someone asks me why Twilight is my favorite movie, I’ll simply smile and say “because it’s not just a movie, it’s a love story that transcends all boundaries.” So, if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend giving it a chance and experiencing the magic of Twilight for yourself. Trust me, you won’t regret it.

Essay on My Favorite Movie Dangal:

As a movie buff, I have watched hundreds of movies spanning different genres. But there is one movie that stands out amongst them all and holds a special place in my heart – Dangal.

Dangal is an Indian sports biographical drama based on the real-life story of former wrestler Mahavir Singh Phogat and his daughters Geeta Phogat and Babita Kumari. Directed by Nitesh Tiwari, the movie stars Aamir Khan as Mahavir Singh Phogat and Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra as his daughters. The film was released in 2016 and has since become one of the highest-grossing Indian films of all time.

What makes Dangal my favorite movie is not just its box office success, but the powerful message it delivers. The film challenges societal norms and stereotypes by showcasing the struggle of a father who defies all odds to train his daughters in a male-dominated sport like wrestling. It breaks gender barriers and inspires young girls to pursue their dreams, no matter how unconventional they may seem.

Apart from its impactful message, Dangal also delivers exceptional performances by its lead actors. Aamir Khan once again proves his versatility as an actor with his portrayal of Mahavir Singh Phogat. He not only physically transforms himself to play the role of a wrestler but also brings out the emotional side of a father who is determined to see his daughters succeed. Fatima Sana Shaikh and Sanya Malhotra also shine in their roles as the Phogat sisters, displaying strong-willed and determined characters.

The film’s screenplay and direction are top-notch, keeping the audience engaged from start to finish. The wrestling scenes are choreographed brilliantly, making them look realistic and intense. The soundtrack of the movie is another highlight, with songs like “Dangal” and “Haanikaarak Bapu” becoming instant hits.

In addition to its commercial success, Dangal has also received critical acclaim. The film won several awards, including the National Film Award for Best Popular Film Providing Wholesome Entertainment and three Filmfare Awards. It was also India’s official entry for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

In conclusion, Dangal is a movie that has it all – a powerful message, exceptional performances, and top-notch execution. It not only entertains but also educates and inspires its audience. For me, it will always remain my favorite movie and one that I highly recommend to everyone. So if you haven’t watched it yet, do yourself a favor and add it to your must-watch list. You won’t be disappointed. So, keep watching amazing movies!

Short Essay on My Favorite Movie Bahubali:

Bahubali is an epic Indian movie that swept the nation off its feet with its grandeur, action-packed scenes, and compelling storyline. Released in 2015, this movie was a game-changer for Indian cinema as it broke all box office records and took the world by storm.

Directed by S.S. Rajamouli, Bahubali tells the story of two brothers, Amarendra Bahubali and Bhallaladeva, who fight for the throne of the ancient kingdom of Mahishmati. The movie is set in a fictional world filled with political intrigue, love, war, and betrayal.

One of the reasons I fell in love with this movie is its incredible action sequences. From sword fights to larger-than-life battle scenes, Bahubali has it all. The special effects and CGI used in the movie are top-notch and make the fight scenes even more captivating.

But what truly sets Bahubali apart is its strong characters, especially its female lead Devasena. She is a fierce warrior who can hold her ground against any opponent. Her character challenges traditional gender roles and stands out as a symbol of strength and resilience.

Apart from the action, Bahubali also has a heart-wrenching love story between Amarendra Bahubali and Devasena. Their chemistry is palpable, and their love for each other is portrayed beautifully on screen. This adds an emotional depth to the movie that makes it even more impactful.

Moreover, what I admire about Bahubali is how it showcases the rich culture and traditions of India. The sets, costumes, and music all beautifully capture the essence of Indian mythology and history.

Aside from its entertainment value, Bahubali also has a powerful message about good triumphing over evil. Through the character of Amarendra Bahubali, the movie teaches us that true strength lies in compassion and not violence.

In conclusion, Bahubali will always hold a special place in my heart as it is not just a movie but an experience. It has set the bar high for Indian cinema and has left its mark on audiences worldwide. This movie truly represents the magic of storytelling and proves that with passion and dedication, anything is possible. So, if you haven’t watched Bahubali yet, do yourself a favor and experience this masterpiece for yourself. So, don’t wait any longer and dive into the world of Bahubali – you won’t regret it!

How do I write an essay about my favorite movie?

Answer: To write an essay about your favorite movie, start with an introduction, provide a brief summary of the film, discuss the plot, characters, and themes, share personal insights and emotions it evoked, and conclude with your overall assessment.

How do I write an essay about a movie?

Answer: To write an essay about a movie, introduce the film and its context, summarize the plot, analyze elements like characters, themes, and cinematography, discuss the impact and significance of the movie, and conclude with your evaluation and personal reflections.

How would you describe your favorite movie?

Answer: My favorite movie is “The Shawshank Redemption.” It’s a powerful and poignant drama set in a prison, focusing on the themes of hope, friendship, and the resilience of the human spirit. The film’s characters and storytelling are exceptional, making it a timeless classic.

What is your favorite movie and why?

Answer: My favorite movie is “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring.” I love it because of its epic fantasy world, compelling characters, and the timeless battle of good versus evil. The storytelling, visuals, and music combine to create an immersive and magical experience that never gets old

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Reader Interactions

April 30, 2021 at 7:01 am

Hey! Can you make a essay on Break the Silence: The movie💜

September 10, 2021 at 12:19 pm

June 18, 2021 at 11:55 am

Hey! Can you make a essay on Frozen and How to train your dragon: The movie💜

June 28, 2021 at 9:54 am

Thank you for writing this essay. This essay is very important.

March 20, 2022 at 10:46 am

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