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What is Film?

Film is one of the most versatile subjects in the arts and humanities, appearing in courses ranging from media studies and communication to sociology, psychology, and cultural criticism. What makes it academically compelling is its dual nature: film functions simultaneously as an art form with distinct technical and aesthetic conventions and as a cultural artifact that reflects the values, tensions, and relationships of the society that produces it. Students are asked to analyze specific works such as Mean Girls, Tough Guise, Sarafina, Wit, Menace II Society, and True Grit precisely because these films open up larger conversations about identity, violence, gender, race, and human behavior.

The papers archived here approach film from several directions. Some focus on technical and production elements, examining terminology, cinematography, and the conventions of silent film. Others take a sociological or psychological angle, using specific movies to explore addiction, domestic violence, and human behavior. Comparative essays place films side by side to highlight contrasting storytelling choices, while genre analysis papers examine why a film like The Hangover operates as comedy. Reflective and reaction-based writing also appears frequently, asking students to connect a film's scenes and story to real-world experience.

A strong film essay anchors its argument in specific scenes, dialogue, or cinematic techniques rather than plot summary. A well-scoped thesis makes a clear interpretive claim about what a film communicates and how it achieves that effect. Evidence drawn from the viewer's experience of particular moments carries more weight than general impressions. The most common pitfall is treating a film purely as a story to retell rather than as a constructed text where every choice — sound, framing, character relationship — contributes to meaning.

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Research Paper Undergraduate

Bill Nichols' documentary modes and their application to film analysis

What is the value of Nichols' system of documentary modes? The value first of all is in the fact that Nichols' system puts a microscope on the topic of documentaries. Nichols slows down the process of how critics and…

Essay Doctorate

Identity crisis and extremism in Henry Bean's "The Believer"

Released in 2001 to critical acclaim, director Henry Bean's The Believer presents a searing story of an individual's tragic struggle to form their own identity through overt acts of religious and racial intolerance. Played by Ryan Gosling, the protagonist of The Believer is a Daniel Balint¸ a troubled young man who has fashioned himself into a Neo-Nazi after violently rejecting his Jewish heritage. During his adolescence Balint rebelled against the orthodox authority of the Jewish religion, questioning the teachings of the Torah during his time as yeshiva student before ultimately refusing to obey a God he considers to be merely a bully. Set in contemporary New York City, The Believer tells the tale of Balint's slow descent into bigotry and fanaticism after he encounters a group of fascists organized by skinheads sympathetic to his existing prejudices against Jews and other minorities.

Thesis Doctorate

Apocalypse Now as homage to Heart of Darkness rather than adaptation

This paper compares and contrasts Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now with Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. While the two are strikingly different works in two different artistic mediums, both are inspired by the same theme: the overwhelming nature of darkness in the human heart. Coppola's film is an extension of Conrad's vision.

Research Paper Doctorate

Understanding death through biological knowledge reduces fear and mystery

Human life is riddled with conflict and moral dilemmas. The process, journey or instantaneous moment of dying is by no means exempt from this. Many would agree that it's fair to say that most human beings harbor a fear of death. Nuland is correct in stating, "To most people, death remains a hidden secret, as eroticized as it is feared… Modern dying takes place in the modern hospital, where it can be hidden, cleansed of its organic blight, and finally packaged for modern burial. We can now deny the power of death but of nature itself" (Nuland, xv).

Research Paper Doctorate

Sissela Bok's balanced approach to media violence regulation

The ancient Romans had the gory gladiator ring; we modern Americans have slasher films and violent video games. The nature of the content has changed little; the manners of distribution have.

Paper Undergraduate

Cinematography and characterization in Raiders of the Lost Ark

Directors Steven Spieldberg and George Lucas teamed to bring the audience Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first action adventure of a series of Indiana Jones movies. For anyone who has not seen the series, Indiana Jones is…

Unlikely heroes in conspiracy thrillers: Da Vinci Code and Conspiracy Theory

Conspiracy films generally succeed in captivating audiences and in having people actively engaged in trying to determine the bodies behind elaborate schemes meant to harm society as a whole. Ron Howard's The Da Vinci Code and Richard Donner's Conspiracy Theory both attempt to provide viewers with intricate scripts that they have to untangle on their own before they eventually come to gain a more complex understanding of the conspiracies as the motion pictures end. The two motion pictures focus on constantly tricking viewers in thinking that particular characters are not exactly what they seem to be. While some might be inclined to say that The Da Vinci Code is less intriguing because of the false religious messages it appears to send, one can still appreciate its storyline as long as he or she refrains from being influenced by religious concepts while trying to understand it.

Research Paper Doctorate

Characterization and social class in Renoir's Rules of the Game

Characterization in Renior's Rules Of The Game

Research Paper Doctorate

Effects of media on culture and violent behavior

The objective of this work is to write a research proposal relating to the effects of media on culture.

Essay Doctorate

Media exposure and sexual behavior correlation in adolescents

¶ … Pardun, L'Engle and Brown (2005) designed research to test exposure rates of sexual content to later increases in sexual actions and behaviors. The study examined 3,261 participants in the seventh and eighth grades.

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