Visual Close Reading

Using this handout will help you focus your research more on visual representation in film (how things look on the screen, how things are visually constructed), rather than on film narrative (what the story is, what the characters do).

How to Do a Visual Close Reading

Short papers that focus on visual close reading have the following aims:

1. to allow you to experiment with film writing
2. to challenge you to see elements of a scene that may otherwise be submerged by narrative
3. to move the emphasis from plot to visual representation
4. to allow you to build arguments about the meaning of films
through a focused and specific process: from visual description to argumentation and analysis
5. to familiarize you with the vocabulary of film production, representation and criticism

This is what you do:

1. Choose a film that interests you from the films we have seen in class

2. If you can, choose a scene that seems important to you, even if it is not clear why it is important, or it is not particularly special in the narrative

3. What is it about this particular scene / film that attracts you?

4. Watch the film or the scene again. What strikes you?

5. In outline form describe the element that you are focusing on as you watch the scene

6. Describe the interaction between elements

7. How does the element you chose function with other visual effects?

8. Consider the following list of possibly interacting elements:

image
costume
actors' bodies
frame
lighting
the juxtaposition of images
dialogue
shots
camera movement
props
space
sound effects
music
contrasts
references to other films
references to other moments in the same film

9. Look up some of these elements of film production and representation in a glossary, or in the index of Film Art.

10. Think again about the film as a whole. Does noticing this particular scene affect our understanding of the film? For example, is something added in visual or narrative terms? Is something clearer? Is something more complex? Is something obscured?

11. Look out for parallel scenes in the rest of the film. You do not have the space to analyze them for this paper, but it will give you a clue about the importance of the scene you are focusing on.

Finally: You have an outline that has three parts:

1. the visual elements that are major for your understanding of the scene

2. their function in the scene, analyzed in relation to frames, lights etc.

3. the critical importance of this analysis: how it changes our understanding of this scene and perhaps of the film as a whole

Now you can write your paper.

** Don't waste time with grand introductions. If you did all this work on one scene, you have a lot of interesting ideas to communicate.

** Remember that your reader knows the plot of the film - do not give plot summaries.

** Write clearly and without digressions. Use endnotes if you have relevant but not directly connected ideas.

** Have a beginning, a middle and an end in your paper.

** Have a conclusion. Be ambitious. Tell us why what you did matters.

** Proofread and spell-check your paper. Hand it in on time. Don't write it the night before.

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