Assignment: American Film and Culture (spring 2013):
Write an 8 to 10 page analysis of an American film released during the 1960s. Two outside research sources are required as points of reference, supplementation of your thesis, or as points of argumentation.
Possible topics for consideration:
1. Does your chosen film directly or indirectly reference historical events or social, cultural, or political concerns of the era? If so, how are these handled? What is the point of view taken by the filmmaker(s) and how is it articulated?
2. Are concerns of gender addressed? Are assumptions of masculinity and/or femininity addressed? Challenged? How so? What does it say about the shifting attitudes regarding social roles, sexuality, etc. during the 1963s?
3. Given that the influence of the Hays Code effectively ends in the late 1960s, how does your film take advantage of the loosening of censorship? Does it depict sexuality or violence in a more direct and explicit manner? How so?
4. Does your film reference the legacy of classical Hollywood in any way? Does it seek to deconstruct it through the use of genre revisionism, the satirizing of particular archetypes, rituals, etc?