Silent film review Anthro-
Ethnographic Film Review Guidelines - Cultural Anthropology
Film link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6PNSf1XJbw
1. Make sure your film review is typed! It will be approximately three pages, or 10 paragraphs. You may work with one partner.
2. Make sure you name and describe the culture(s) in the film. What is the geographic area where the people live? How do the people make their living? Does the film look recent or old? Who made the film?
3. What aspect(s) of culture does the film focus on? (Family, marriage, kinship, food procurement, politics, religion, art, childrearing, sexuality, gender?)
Content Description
4. Paragraph 1: Opening paragraph-can start to summarize the film and give early suggestions about your general view of the film.
5. Paragraph 2: Start or continue summary of film. Be sure to mention those details that made a strong impression on you-either negative or positive. State why your reaction was positive or negative.
6. Paragraph 3: Briefly compose the descriptive and non-judgmental message of the film/video. Why would this message be important to an anthropologist? To you as a student?
7. Paragraph 4 and 5: Positive things you liked about the film, what did you like? Why? What did you learn that you did not know before? Use descriptive words, think about the story, setting, effects used, music used.
8. Paragraph 6: Anything (custom, belief, behavior) that strikes you as strange. Why? Would you say your reaction was ethnocentric? Did the filmmaker have any biases? How did you know and what were these biases. What belief, value, custom of your own culture made it difficult to appreciate the uniqueness of the culture portrayed in the video?
9. Paragraph 7 and 8: Negative things you thought about the film, what didn't you like? Why? Comment on the same type of things that you mentioned in paragraphs 4 and 5.
10. Paragraph 9 and 10: Talk about the people/animals/early ancestors portrayed in the film. If the film is a biography, did the film present a multi-dimension approach? Are key turning points in the person's life presented? What are they? What did you like or dislike about how people and/or the culture/ or subject was presented? What do you think is the most important thing you learned and why is this important to you? Can you think of others who would like/dislike the film? Why? Who are they?
11. Paragraph 10: Final comments-General comments that summarize your view of the film. After the last paragraph, give the movie/video a star rating out of 5(excellent) to indicate your rating of the film.