| Instructor: Dr Kenneth
Chan |
Pre-Writing Assignment One: Close Reading a Film
This brief assignment involves your writing a 250-300 word paragraph on a scene of your choice from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Instructions:
1. Read through my handout on Close Reading and apply some of the strategies
I suggest there.
2. View Psycho in its entirety. The DVD version is available at the Media Resource
Centre at Central Library (2nd level). Get a sense of the film as a whole.
Take notes on the themes and issue that emerge. Identify scenes that intrigue
or trouble you.
3. Choose one of these scenes and view it again (as often as time permits).
4. Close read the scene:
How does the scene fit (or does not fit) into the larger narrative of the film? Establish the context of the scene: how does it relate to the genre, in this case the classic slasher flick? How does it relate to the scenes before and after?
Isolate elements in the scene such as plot details, dialogue, characters, music, soundtrack, lighting, set design, and camera angles.
Identify themes and elements of style.
If you have a deeper understanding of the genre’s history or Hitchcock’s oeuvre, locate this scene in relation to that understanding. (Optional)
5. Write your paragraph based on an aspect of your close reading of this scene.
Because of the length of the paragraph, just isolate one aspect of the scene
and discuss it in detail, fleshing out your analysis of it.
6. Do not exceed the word limit. I do not want to read an entire essay. This
is just a pre-writing exercise.
This assignment can eventually serve as the basis for Essay One, if you so choose to write about the film.
On Thursday, 15 January 2004, bring to class two copies of your paragraph.
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