For assignment three, you will be writing a review of a contemporary or classic film using one of Bruner’s ten narrative features as a framing mechanism and analytical catalyst for your essay. Your chosen film can be of any genre suitable for this type of analysis (if you have questions about a particular film, please clear it in advance with me). This could be a favorite film you have seen many times or a brand new film you view specifically for this assignment. For instance, you might choose to write a review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind in terms of its creative applications of narrative diachronicity, or of Spiderman 3 in terms of the importance of particularities. In your review, you should clearly define Bruner’s feature as you understand it and then discuss how that feature functions within the film you choose. Support your ideas with specific examples from the film. Your review should incorporate a formal (academic/scholarly) style. You may also choose to incorporate ideas or perspectives outlined by Julian Murphet in the Narrative and Media text, but you must choose one and only one of Bruner’s features to address in your essay.
In this piece, I am not looking for whether or not you enjoyed the film, but rather for how the feature enhanced, sustained, or degraded the narrative vision of the production team. While you may use some subjective and qualitative language to indicate how the film resonated with you on a personal level, I am also looking for a more critical and detailed perspective and would like to see that you can understand and apply the ideas proposed by Bruner to a real-world example.
Your review should contain a brief synopsis of the film (read the back of a DVD case or VHS case for an idea of what to include in this synopsis) and then a more detailed analysis of the feature you selected and how it applies to the film’s narrative.
Your overall review should be a minimum of 500 words and is due to be uploaded to WebCT and posted to your personal blog by Sunday, June 10, at 11:55pm. Let me know if you have any questions about this assignment!
Grading Rubric (out of ten points):
__ /3 Grammar and mechanics
__ /2 Quality of synopsis (a clear and original overview of the film is presented)
__ /5 Quality of analysis (essay shows a clear understanding and application of selected feature to the film’s narrative)
