Daniel Craig talks about Munich

Spielberg on Spielberg 2007 11 Munich

One Day In September (Part I)

Frank Darabont on filmmaking - Part I

Link to locations used in the filming of Shawshank Redemption

http://www.movie-locations.com/movies/s/shawshank.html

Dear Censor - BBFC Documentary - Video Nasties

Spectatorship: Popular Film and Emotional Response

Cinema and Emotional Response explores spectatorship in relation to popular mainstream films, particularly ones constructed in such a way as to illicit very strong emotional responses. Why do we laugh, cry, scream?
You may wish to centre your study on a particular genre – such as horror or melodrama or thriller. This is perfectly acceptable and indeed adopting a mixed genre approach might produce too diffuse a study.
There is also an ideological dimension – which better students will almost certainly raise. This concerns manipulation and the pleasure of ‘surrendering’ to the film experience.
A popular film is one that sets out to reach a broad mainstream audience using what can broadly be described as a conventional stylistic approach and employing tried-and-tested film techniques to provide audience pleasure. In doing so, it is likely to be identifiable by its adherence to classical narrative and to generic features. In addition, it may play on the particular screen persona of one or more stars. A popular film need not be an English Language film and it need not be contemporary.

• How does the film work to generate emotion, and here the emphasis may be on relatively straight forward issues like the use of mise-en-scene, staging and music or more complex issues of identification and spectator alignment with particular characters?

• How far does the spectator feel consciously manipulated by the film and, by contrast, how far does the emotional power of the film derive from a combination of elements which are difficult to pin down?

• How far does the emotional affect of the film derive from contextual knowledge, – in this case, our ability to respond to the film in the gap between fictional representation and historical fact?

You may take a genre approach – or identify auteurs whose cinematic approach lends itself particularly well to the study of emotion and spectatorship. You could select from the following but don’t have to…
Sports films
Coming of age films
Transgression films
Holocaust films
Animated films
Struggle against adversity films
Social realism films
Shock films
Childhood films
Miscarriage of Justice films
Action films
Horror films