Study Guide: Film Quiz from Origins to Screwball Comedy

I have compiled a list of terms and definitions that we have covered in class throughout the last few few weeks. You can use this Quizlet resource to your disposal to study from or modify. If you would like to be added to class so that you can made edits (add/modify terms), please send me an email. 

Click to access the Quizlet resource: Film Quiz 1 Study Guide

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not . . .

At the begining of the film, Genevieve, Robert's mistress, is entertaining guests at a dinner party.  As they discuss Andre's profession of love for Christine after his heroic crossing of the Atlantic, she offers this observation on love by Chamfort:"Love is the exchange of two fantasies and contact of two skins." What does this bon mot mean?  Is this a theme in the rest of the film?  What is the meaning of love and intimate relationships in The Rules of the Game?

What Rules? What Game?

What is the meaning of the title of The Rules of the Game? What is the "game"? What are the "rules"? Who are the participants? How does one "win" the game? What are the penalties for breaking the rules?

The Hunt

Perhaps the most famous scene from The Rules of the Game involves the scene in which the Marquis' guests shoot rabbit and pheasant beaten from the forest by the gamekeeper. What is so distinctive and striking about the scene? Why does it pack such an emotional punch? What is the deeper significance or symbolism of this scene?

A Little Bird Told Me . . .

The gossip of the members of his community about his demotion, rather than the demoition itself, is the direct cause of the doorman's downfall in The Last Laugh.  Some of the most expressive images in the film demonstrate the spread of gossip and the resultant mockery of the neighbors: the camera moves to an outstretched ear, the camera follows the doorman along a walk of shame, grotesque and blurry heads superimposed on the neighborhood mock him with unabashed laughter.  What is the movie saying about gossip as a form of communication?  What is it saying about the community that listens to it?  How does what other people think of us influence how we think of ourselves?

Shiny, Happy People

The concluding scene of The Last Laugh depicts the incredible gluttony and generosity of the unnamed, demoted doorman after he miraculously inherits a fortune from a dying American millionaire. He feasts on mounds of food, eating caviar as if it were candy and drinking champagne as if it were water. A tracking shot of the "spread" emphasizes the opulence and indulgence of our hero. What is the point of this ending? Is is a happy ending or a parody of a happy ending? Is this supposed to be objective reality or a fantasy? Is this a cynical commercial ploy or is there deeper significance to the ending?

Tragedy of the Common Man?

When the unnamed doorman in The Last Laugh is demoted to bathroom attendant, his world collapses. At the end of the film he is estranged from his family, fellow workers and neighbors and only the night watchman gives him succor. Is this film a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense (that is, does he fall because of some tragic character flaw?)? Is it an indictment of the society of the time? A study of the inevitable effects of aging? Or, to put the point another way, whose fault is the doorman's downfall?

Gag and Story

In comedy, especially in physical comedy, there is always a tension between the gag and the story. The gag is a visual joke, be it a pratfall or an unexpected (and sometimes seemingly impossible) achievement.  If a comedy focus too much on the gag, the story bogs down.  That was one reason so many early silent comedies were shorts.  If a comedy focuses too much on the story, there is not enough visual invention to be funny.  The General, however, is widely viewed as a masterpiece in integrating the jokes and narratives.  FOCUS on one visual gag and explain how it serves the interest of the story in terms of such things as plot, character, or theme.