Winter 2005
Film Analysis Check Sheet
Identify the filmmaker.
- When did they make it and why?
Evaluate the formal elements
of the film.
- Cinematic style (camera angle, lighting,
color palette)?
- Editing style (pacing, cross cutting)?
Conduct a functional analysis
of the film as formal system.
- How do the various elements of the
film function in the film? How do they relate to, support, and/or contradict
each other? How do they form an over all pattern?
- What elements are repeated as motifs
in the film? How does any given repeated element compare and contrast
across its own repetition? At what plot points are repetitions made?
- How do repeated elements or motifs
compare and contrast to each other? Which motifs depend upon the execution
of others? How is any given motif motivated in relation to the others?
To the whole?
- What principles of progression or
development are at work in the formal system of the film? That is, how
does a comparison of the beginning and end of the film reveal the over
all form?
- To what degree is the over all form
consistent? Coherent? Is there complete unity in the film as a formal
system? Are there loose ends? Discontinuities or contradictions? If so,
what do they reveal in the over all form?
- What are the film's various layers
of meaning? Which formal elements work together at what layers of meaning?