Film Analysis: Key Concepts and Techniques

Film Analysis Topics

• Nostalgia
• Frank Newman/Newman's Laugh-o-grams
• Iris shot/panoramic effects
• Hybridity/Sentimental Modernism
• Hyperkineticism of modernity (Benjamin)
• Multiplane camera/motion and emotion
• Old Mill
• "Illusion of life"/"caricature of realism"
• Schneewittchen vs. Schneeweißchen
• Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra/Deems Taylor
• Fantasound
• "The Sorcerer's Apprentice"/"neatly ordered patriarchal realms"
• Screen Cartoonists' Guild/collaboration
• Impressionism
• Propriety
• Disnature
• Gustaf Tenggren/Marc Davis
• Tyrus Wong/Orientalism
• Pastoral mode
• Point of view (POV) in Bambi
• Disneyfication
• NFB/The Thrifty Pig/Three Little Pigs
• Donald Duck as wartime mascot
• Paranoid populism
• Superimposition or dissolve/symbolic logic
• Edutainment
• Diegesis vs. non-diegesis
• "New realism" vs. "caricature of realism"
• Expressionism in film
• Rotoscoping
• Perfect girl/femme fatale/grandmother archetypes
• Pentimento/somatext
• CAPS
• "Appeal" as a principle of animation/female labor
• Deep Canvas
• Get A Horse!
• The "flawed" princess as "corrective" mechanism vs. "bourgeois" feminism
• Postfeminism/commodification of feminism
• The Disney Princess designation
• Cinematic shots (shallow focus, dolly shot, close-ups, extreme close-ups, bird's eye view, breaking the fourth wall, shaky cam, extreme wide shots, shallow focus)
• Mimesis: hybridity, expressivity, photorealism v. hyperrealism
• "User power" vs. corporation/threat of technology
• Traditional vs. CG/digital animation
• Back-lit animation/"painting with light"
• 65mm/aspect ratio
• Chronos/kairos/aeon
• "Straight" time vs. queer temporality
• Filmmaker/creative-driven process vs. executive-driven process
• The Law or Rule of the Father/symbolic order
• "New man" vs. hegemonic masculinity/vertical vs. horizontal homosociality
• Intertextuality
• Simulacrum, simulation (Baudrillard)
• Media environment/media ecology
• EPCOT
• Motion capture
• LIDAR
• Remakes as a film genre
• Course correction
• Deferral/endless delays
• Retcon
• Multiverse
• Imagined Blackness, physical absence, Black effacement, blue-washing
• PEP context
• Walter Benjamin's reading of Mickey Mouse as an icon, reflecting collective realities and anxieties of Disney's generation
• Hybridity in various aspects of Disney films (narrative, technical, cinematographic)
• Dynamics of animation-as-art and collaborative labor (Disney's "creative genius")
• History and time, potentially informing Disney's quest for a "neatly ordered patriarchal realm" rooted in a "golden past"
• Representations of race, class, gender, sexuality (feminism and masculinity in Disney, heteronormativity, "straight" time vs. queer temporality)
• Disneyfication as a process of regulation and control, with nostalgia's dependence
• The "Law" of the Father/Symbolic order, how Disney enforces it, and how we might be complicit
• Technology's role in progressively creating Disney worlds ("illusion of life," "caricatures of reality," lifestyle influence)
• Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs, Fantasia, Pinocchio, Bambi, The Story of Menstruation, Tron, Frozen, The Little Mermaid, Cinderella, The Lion King, Toy Story, Wall-E, Beauty and the Beast, and Captain Marvel (film release dates listed)

Explore essential topics in film analysis, including nostalgia, hybrid narratives, and the role of animation techniques. This quiz delves into the innovations of early animation, the collaboration within the Screen Cartoonists' Guild, and the impact of music in film. Test your understanding of how these elements shape our perception of cinematic art.