7.4–Writing About Film

When it comes to writing about film, there are quite a few paths to take with regard to evaluation, analysis, response, and research. A work may be explored via genre studies, psychoanalytic criticism, gender & sexuality, historical perspective, and other forms of critique. Each of these provides a way to explore how film functions for a particular argument created by the writer. We have to think about how we would like to approach analysis of the texts, and typically a good way to do such is to base it upon what a reader/viewer finds most interesting about the narrative form and/or content.

Depending on the writing prompt your instructor provides, the work you create will most often concentrate on a close reading of a film to examine elements that can be critically analyzed, evaluated, and/or argued about in formal writing. For example, a comparative analysis of George Langelaan’s “The Fly” (1957) and David Cronenberg’s The Fly (1986) might examine how the brief format of the short story and the extension of the feature-length film affects character development. The short story and film could also be investigated on the basis of genre to analyze how the written form exemplifies science fiction while the film adaptation conveys body horror to its audience. These are just two paths that can be taken for such a set of texts. Take a look at this short/non-exhaustive list of literary/film analysis criticism that can be used to help decide how to focus your writing:

Table 7.2. Critical Theories

One way to examine a film is through a lens of critical theory. Like most literary criticism, the volume of theoretical perspectives focused on cinema is vast, often investigated by way of Marxist criticism, auteur theory, feminist criticism, genre studies, and an array of other academic frameworks. Our purpose here serves to inform about a few standard lenses of criticism to demonstrate how the texts may be approached through argumentation and research. In horror studies–keeping in line with our genre focus this chapter–familiar names for scholars and critics of the genre include Carol Clover, Robin Wood, Philip Brophy, Noel Carroll, Barbara Creed, Harry Benshoff, and Linda Williams. These scholars explore horror via film criticism that unpacks concepts of gender, monstrosity, queerness, psychology, race and ethnicity, etc. in order to posit claims about how the films inform, persuade, and entertain us throughout static genre conventions and textual elements that reflect the sociocultural developments–evolution and regression–of humanity. But first, let’s start with a theoretical perspective that is specific to film studies at large.

Auteur Theory

The French word “auteur” means author, and the theory developed out of French New Wave cinema movement of the 1950s that pushed for more experimental filmmaking over established film conventions, structurally and narratively. This theory holds that the director of a film is the recognized author of the text in the way that we associate traditional definitions of authorship with written literature–one person as the sole creator of the text–although most contemporary analyses of moviemaking view it as a collaborative process in which a variety of roles (screenwriter, director, cinematographer, actor, editor, composer) contribute to authoring the text. Along with a designation of sole author, the theory also argues that one director’s creative, aesthetic style connects their work as a collective volume of films completely separate from other directors. Auteurism reveals itself when we consider creatives like Spike Lee, Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarantino, and John Waters. Lee often uses a signature double-dolly tracking shot in many of his films–Malcolm X (1992), Summer of Sam (1999), 25th Hour (2002), Inside Man (2006)–in which the camera (mounted on a dolly) moves with a character (seated on a separate dolly) as if to propel them forward through a crowd or other localized space at a point of epiphany, crisis, or conflict resolution. Bigelow, as an auteur, extends from directing films such as Near Dark (1987), Point Break (1991), Strange Days (1995), The Hurt Locker (2008), Zero Dark Thirty (2012), and Detroit (2017). The movies vary in genre from action and sci-fi to war and horror, but they connect through narrative examinations of technological advancements in war, vice, and crime; people groups (specialized military units, the Black experience of the Civil Rights Movement era, smut peddlers, vampire brood, surf culture); and concerns over atavism in humanity. And as much as we might initially think Tarantino and Waters are completely opposite as filmmakers, they share similar auteur characteristics. Tarantino became a household name with Reservoir Dogs (1992) and Pulp Fiction (1994), two films developed in the style of “cool” – movies about men for men that focus on masculinity, feature violence, and deliver catchy dialogue and one-liners. The director accesses exploitation cinema for visual style that celebrates the 1960s and 1960s, narrative structures that deal with revenge, and an appreciation for language that guarantees an R-rating. Water, on the other hand, became an overnight sensation of infamy with Pink Flamingos in 1972 by offering audiences a bold taste of camp that was either well-received or vehemently rejected for its depictions of graphic nudity, gross-out comedy, and human depravity. Both Tarantino and Waters have continued to reference their cool and camp stylings, respectively, visually and textually throughout their careers, and both directors exemplify a Shakespearean troupe at times as they developed their own community-created team of actors to work on multiple productions over time. Furthermore, horror–never a genre to be left out of the conversation–has George A. Romero’s six “… of the Dead” films that examine American consumerism, capitalism, and the economy while an international focus might zero in on Mario Bava as an auteur of the Italian giallo, hyper-focused on violence in the realm of mystery, crime, and suspense. All of these directors’ stylistic points of view and narrative sensibilities contribute to them being categorized as auteurs within cinema. What other film directors might reflect the principles of auteur theory?

Gender Studies

The spectrum of gender studies–overly simplified–covers gender and gender identity, along with sex and sexuality. Performing a close-reading of a film text through gender studies demands an examination of gender non-conforming individuals, non-binary people, men, and women in their representations on the surface (visually) and subtextually (narrative content). When it comes to horror, there is no denying the genre’s apparent love-hate relationship with women as its heroes and victims, both typically physically objectified, tortured, and celebrated. Clearly horror films objectify women’s bodies and frequently position them as the survivors and heroes (“The Final Girl” concept in slasher films) of the texts. Even if you are not a typical audience member of the genre, many people easily recognize Marion Crane from Psycho (1960), Regan MacNeil from The Exorcist (1976), Carrie White from Carrie (1976), Laurie Strode from Halloween (1979), Ellen Ripley from Alien (1979), Nancy Thompson from A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984), Sidney Prescott from Scream (1996), and/or Grace Le Domas from Ready or Not (2019). Almost all of these women–minus Marion and Carrie–survive their attackers or extreme circumstances to live another day, but throughout their tumultuous narrative lifeline, they are surveilled, stalked, sexually assaulted, gaslit, emotionally tortured, and physically objectified. These situations play out on the screen; however, film criticism complicates the relationship between horror and women to showcase a multilayered approach to recognize what women represent in the genre as it positions them within these often violent and violating spaces.

Feminist criticism–in one aspect of it as a theoretical lens–asks us to read a text with a particular focus on the ways in which women are presented, treated, and characterized among other women, nonbinary and gender-nonconforming individuals, and men with attention to oppression, (in)equality, and progression (social, economic, political, etc.). When we examine the (in)equality of gender within a genre like horror, the imbalance is quite easy to recognize. In Night of the Living Dead (1968), all of the women exist on a lower status regarding power, authority, and strength of character as opposed to the men. Barbara, for example, falls into shock and becomes comatose after her first encounter with a ghoul (they weren’t called zombies in the film). She is slapped, manhandled, and ignored when it comes to the group trying to survive the onslaught of ghouls throughout the night. When she does attempt to communicate, her emotional state represents hysteria and instability. Within the text, Barbara and the other women are shown to be physically and emotionally weaker than the men which seems to argue a position on how women are not effective leaders in crisis situations. Whether the director (George A. Romero) meant for an audience to receive or decipher that message from the film when it was first released in the 60s or so many years later now in the present cannot be known without direct acknowledgment from him; however, applying a lens of feminist criticism allows a viewer to consider the characterization of women among other groups–usually men–in the story.

If we apply the same criticism to a more contemporary film such as Midsommar (2019), a conversation about the strength and unity of women emerges from Dani experiencing a life crisis from her sister committing suicide and killing their parents by carbon monoxide poisoning and continuing an unfulfilling relationship with Christian. As the couple take a trip to Sweden to observe a cultural celebration for academic study and help Dani forget the traumatic incident, she finds an unlikely new home among a foreign commune with women who help her confront her grief, anger, and confusion over the deaths of her sister and parents and frustration with her unsupportive boyfriend. On the surface, the film presents a traditional horror motif that warns Americans against traveling to international locales in which they do not understand cultural practices; however, viewing the film through the eyes of feminist criticism interrogates homosocial spaces for women to find strength in emotional release, to demonstrate bodily autonomy and sexual power, and find happiness in the self without need or want for others to make it happen for them. Dani shares her grieving process with the women of the commune in a group setting and learns to let go of things and people who do nothing to benefit her livelihood (Christian is burned alive). Although Dani’s experiences are not new to many cultural groups around the world–quite simple and traditional from a reverse perspective–the trip to Sweden opens her eyes and those of the audience to different, empowering ways that women experience emotion against the grain of stereotypical depictions of weakness in expressing emotion.

Horror can also be complicated when it comes to applying criticism. When Slumber Party Massacre was released in 1982, it was deemed a standard slasher movie of the genre in the way it objectified the bodies of young women, sexualizing them for male audience members in a male gaze sensibility and offering them up as nothing more than unintelligent fodder for a hypermasculinized killer. But when people learned that Amy Holden Jones was the director and the story was written by Rita Mae Brown, they had to grapple with the concept of women writing and directing horror films that played into traditional elements of the slasher as a visual and narrative framing without attempting to showcase women in a different light than men who directed similar films. In this manner, feminist criticism can be applied to detail how women directors have the same freedoms to create static characters in horror, objetify bodies for visual pleasure, and characterize women in binary concepts of victim or survivor. In 2021, a reimagined version of the 1982 original film by the same title was produced in which the story is a reversal of the ‘82 movie as it physically and sexually objectifies the men instead of the women and depicts the men as extremely unintelligent as they are killed one by one through various scenarios. A similar reversal also exists within the story of A Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985) which is mostly a revamp of the original film in the franchise with the final-girl concept and storyline intact but with a male highschooler as the lead character which makes him a final boy; replacing the gender of the actors and characters but keeping the original story structure queered the lead character, masculinized the girlfriend, and shifted the overall dynamics of stereotypical gender roles and identities toward stereotypical depictions of gay-male identity and assertive women. What resolutions might be arrive at by applying feminist criticism to this franchise sequel?

Ethnic Studies & Queer Theory

We now turn focus to ethnic studies which primarily involves inquiries of race and ethnicity, and queer theory which primarily functions to challenge the idea that heterosexual(ity) represents the standard, normative base for all humanity. Because ethnic studies can extend to components of nationhood and sexuality toward an evaluation of difference and queer theory can extend to consider how things are queered to view them outside heteronormative frameworks, we address the theoretical perspectives in a blended conversation; however, both ethnic studies and queer theory are vast fields of criticism independently that can be researched separately to learn more about their intricate, in-depth foundations and developments . To “other” in horror is to call attention to the characterization of its villains, victims, and survivors. This focus usually presents an audience with characters that are non-white and non-cishet: BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) and queer (LGBTQ+ as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, non-binary, gender-nonconforming, and more). On the surface, we might say that “others” in horror usually represent a minority group or faction within a larger localized community or society at large that refuse to conform or adhere to the status quo, thus they are ostracized in fear that they might overcome the majority in power; and within horror’s affinity for binary constructions, a question develops as to which group is right or wrong, good or evil. But when we apply film criticism to the horror genre, a wealth of knowledge presents itself beneath the surface to reveal subtext regarding historical connections between the facts of reality and the fiction within the films.

Because so much of horror accesses binary constructs, when it comes to race and ethnicity, most often we receive a spotlight on Black vs. White people in the texts. Although there are many horror films with Korean, Mexican, West Indian, etc. casts, characters, and storylines, the concepts of race and ethnicity often focus on cultural histories that involve ancestral practices, superstitions, generational divides, and modern disconnects from tradition instead of pitting one people group against another. If we examine Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) from a race and ethnicity critical perspective, several points are revealed: Black people have been stereotyped as more naturally physically fit and aggressive than white people; a longstanding struggle of power and authority dynamics between Black and white people has existed for hundreds of years; and there is an unspoken fear of majority versus minority group in which the latter somehow overpowers the former to reverse contemporary inequalities. Get Out’s story of modern mad-scientist experiments that allow white people to transfer their consciousness into Black bodies provides audiences with a text that can be examined through a lens of race and ethic studies to analyze the aforementioned points of thematic discussion. Chris’ (Daniel Kaluuya – main character ) vice of smoking cigarettes, the party guests’ surveillance of him, and his interaction with the police officer as passenger in the car his girlfriend is driving–along with Walter’s (the groundskeeper) physical prowess–represent just a few points in the narrative that operate to shine a light on stereotyping, inequality, and Black bodies as objects that can be bought and sold in reference to the slave auction block.

In a similar–but not the same–manner to race and ethnicity, queerness as other persists throughout the horror genre. Early films such as Frankenstein (1931), Dracula (1931), and a host of other early literary novels adapted to film and original screenplays–most notably by Universal Studios and Hammer Film Productions–showcased the outsider, the inhuman, the undead, and the unnatural as other. The presence of these monsters or monstrous entities have been queer coded by scholars to recognize their existence as representations of queerness that lies beyond the confines of what is considered normal or normative (measured against heterosexuality). In this manner, the monsters always had to die, be sent away, or somehow disappear or be defeated in order to return the social order back to its normative state. And so, we return to the discussion of not every writer or director purposely meaning to create films that depict monsters as queer representation symbolically or metaphorically, but historicizing a film allows us to anachronistically consider the time period in which a text was produced regarding the sociocultural moment its production might reference or be influenced by. Films produced just prior to and during the Hays Code–(late 1920s-late 1960s)–exemplified moral sensibilities meant to keep cinema “safe” from depictions of sex and sexuality, violence, and non-normative (read as non white cishet heteronormative) behaviors deemed as deviant.

From a contemporary perspective, we might look to Thelma (2017), a horror film about a college student battling childhood trauma, a lack of control over supernatural powers, and the uncertainties of a blossoming romance. Queer theory supplies a way to read the film regarding Thelma’s identity as lesbian and the problems she has connected to her father, trauma, and supernatural powers as a “coming out as coming-of-age” story; the horrors she experiences trying to control her powers and confront the childhood trauma associated with her father relate to the tumultuous time of sexuality awakening and the fear of revealing lesbian identity to family, friends, and self. In the film, the coming-out process is the monster instead of Thelma, and she must learn to confront the “evil” force in order to defeat it and learn how to: love herself, have a relationship with the woman she loves, help her mother (restore the ability to walk), and “forgive” her father (kill him for not accepting her–he planned to shoot her–when she was a child because her powers accidentally drowned her baby brother). The story is not a happy one, and it does not provide the most positive message about how and when to come out, but through a queer theory lens for a horror film we can access one interpretation of how the genre treats difference in sexuality. How else might we apply queer theory to film texts?

From this simplified discussion of theory and criticism within film–examined within horror studies–we take into account how some visual texts may be viewed through particular theoretical lenses to unlock arguments about humanity in our shared connections to fear, anxiety, and dread. Beyond this concise, niche investigation, we come to an understanding of the ways in which directors operating within any genre may be designated as auteurs from the visual, technical, and written elements of their films along with stylistic signatures and appropriations and actor troupes. Other areas of theory and criticism–including but not limited to Marxist criticism, psychoanalytic film theory, genre studies, and structuralist film theory–provide us additional ways to frame a film as a text for academic study. These theoretical perspectives in cinema connect the medium to literary theory and literary studies in a unified, expanded, interdisciplinary, and intersectional angle from which to view literature. And when we watch films as visual literature, we consider which lenses will offer a deeper understanding of the texts when applied to them.

Wikipedia can be a great source to review simple definitions of the critical and theoretical approaches to analyzing a film listed above; the site can help you understand how to apply them to film; and it can provide background information about the people credited to developing the criticisms and theories. These critical analyses are not the only way to write about a film, so always check with your instructor to ensure that you approach writing about the text in response to guidelines for an assignment.