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Essay questions – Assignment #1
LICA357 Movie Musicals
Essays due Monday March 27, 2023, 12.00 midday
Essays must be 1700-2000 words. Assignments must be uploaded to Moodle.
Answer the question: How do movie musicals provide pleasure?
In answering the question you must refer to at least three films screened on the module.
The aim of this assignment is for you to look back over your film commentaries
(submitted to Moodle) and work out what you liked and did not like; that is, to try work
out why certain films provide pleasure (or not). What did the films do that produced
pleasure (for you)? And what did they do which thwarted pleasure? To do this, you will
need to define pleasure. Perhaps you can do this in terms of ‘entertainment’ or the ‘good
feelings’ musicals might provide.
The assignment is designed in such a way that you can investigate your own personal
responses to these films, but you must try to convey those personal responses in a clear
and precise way. You cannot merely say ‘I liked the songs’ or ‘the costumes were
good’; rather, you must try to work out why you liked the songs, or why you thought the
costumes were good, and so on.
You will do well if you forge connections between different films – for example, to
argue that the narrative of one film provided pleasure in ways that the narrative of
another film did not; or that the links between narrative and number in one film were
more effective than those of another, and so on.
You do not need to refer to seminar readings or secondary literature for this assignment,
but you can if you want to. But this assignment is about the films themselves and your
ability to observe, describe and interpret what you see and hear. You will be expected to
engage in some close analysis of scenes, so make sure you spend time re-visiting the
films and examining specific scenes in close detail. You should also rely on your
weekly commentaries to provide ways of articulating what you liked and did not like
about the films, and for you to make connections between different films.
The films you choose to write about for this assignment can still be written about in
your final essay too, so don’t feel as though you have to ‘save’ a certain film that you
might want to write about for your final essay. The final essay topics will be different
enough that there will be no fear of repeating yourself.
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For submission guidelines please see the LICA Undergraduate Handbook, section 6.
For marking criteria please see LICA Undergraduate Handbook, section 7.
The LICA Undergraduate Handbook can be downloaded from Moodle
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