Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2
Write a critical essay about the movie using the rubrics below. If you use any outside sources, which are not a
requirement, you MUST use APA style for citations and references (bibliography). Any information from
another source that goes uncited is considered plagiarism.
An important part of film critique and what holds the audience to the film has to do with
“suspended disbelief.” Consider a films like the Batman series. We know that Batman is
really Bruce Wayne, and he has none of what comics call “super powers,” but he is still
infallible. His car turns into a rocket, his suit deflects most bullets. Another example: The
television show, CSI Miami, we accept that forensic detectives cut apart bodies, work in
their labs complete with colored lighting and music that ‘rocks,’ which is very unlikely in
most precincts. Yet we like believing these things are possible. When you watch a movie,
is the director successful in creating suspended disbelief? Were effects overstated? Were they
tiresome, were they ridiculous or was that the point. Will Farrell, for example, is ridiculous
and plays on your disbelief in another way.
FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYZING FILM (http://www.frankwbaker.com/filmframework.htm)
Questions to consider while introducing, studying and analyzing film:
1. Who is telling the story? Why is it being told? Does it appear to have a purpose?
(media agencies, authorial voice, writers and ‘auteurs’, marketing, economics, ideology)
2. How is it experienced? Who ‘consumes’ it, where and in what way?
(readers and media audiences- private and public experience, narrative structures)
3. How is it made?
(film technology, publishing and episodic publishing-the differences they make to the
production process as well as to the finished product)
4. How does it construct meaning?
(film language and written language-expectations of audiences and readers, codes and
conventions, narrative structures)
5. How does it represent its subject- especially with reference to period?
(representation, use of stereotypes, representation of the past)
There are faxes for this order.
