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Lesson 3

As we consider how a film tells a story, we will discuss three different perspectives we might use to understand filmmakers’ choices: the perspective of the film’s creators, the perspective of the film’s audience, and the perspective of critics. Film critics closely analyze a film’s construction and the quality of its storytelling, while audience members view the film for personal entertainment or enrichment, without having to articulate a response. We will read critical reviews of movies, talk about our experiences as audience members, and apply both of these viewing approaches so that we can use them on the Culminating Task, in which we will create a concept for our own, original movie.

Lesson Goals

  • Can I distinguish between a filmmaker’s perspective, a critic’s perspective, and an audience member’s perspective?

  • Can I closely read, compare, and contrast multiple reviews of the same movie?

Texts

Core

  • Multimedia
    • Excerpts from Hidden Figures, Theodore Melfi, Fox 2000 Pictures, 2016
  • Digital Access
    • “Hidden Figures Is a Groundbreaking Book. But the Film? Not so Much,” Marie Hicks, The Guardian, 2017
    • “‘Hidden Figures’ Review: Three Women Make History in Inspirational Space-Race Drama,” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone, 2016
    • “Review: ‘Hidden Figures’ Honors 3 Black Women Who Helped NASA Soar,” A. O. Scott, The New York Times, 2016
    • “Theodore Melfi: Hidden Figures,” The Movie Times, YouTube, 2016
    • “What Sets the Smart Heroines of Hidden Figures Apart,” Leneka Cruz, The Atlantic, 2017

Materials

Tools

Reference Guides

Question Sets

Editable Google Docs

Activity 1: Write – Discuss – View

As a class, we will study the distinctions among the perspectives of film creators, an audience, and critics.

Step 1

First, consider the audience’s perspective about a movie such as Hidden Figures.

Follow along as your teacher introduces a movie rating site, such as Rotten Tomatoes, which collects and presents ratings of movies by audience members and critic reviews.

Use an audience rating scale to individually rate the movie Hidden Figures. For example, the Rotten Tomatoes scale goes up to five stars.

In your Learning Log, write a few sentences that explain why you rated Hidden Figures as you did. In this portion of the activity, you are simply providing an opinion about the film as an audience member. You are not yet forming an evidence-based claim about the merits of the film, as a film critic would.

Compare your rating and explanation to those of other students in the class. As a class, tally or average your ratings to determine an overall class rating of the movie.

Discuss the patterns you see in the class’s reaction to the movie, and the reasons you as audience members might agree or disagree with each other. Compare your rating, and that of your peers, to the ratings on Rotten Tomatoes; discuss what patterns you see there, too.

Step 2

Next, consider the film director’s perspective about a movie such as Hidden Figures.

Access and view the interview with director Theodore Melfi, presented by The Movie Times on YouTube.

Take notes (with a copy of the Video Note-Taking Tool or your Learning Log) as you watch Melfi talk about his movie and its making. Consider one or more of the following text-specific questions, which can be accessed on the Section 1 Question Set:

  1. What reasons does Melfi present about why he felt he should "stop everything [he was] doing" to make this movie and "do it right"?

  2. What challenges does Melfi suggest were considered so that the movie is both "respectful" of history and "inspiring" for audiences?

  3. What connections does Melfi point out about the coming together in time of the space race, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Cold War?

  4. In what ways does Melfi connect the theme of the movie to Kevin Costner’s line: "We all get there together or we don’t get there at all"?

  5. In what ways does Melfi characterize and give credit to each of the three actors who play the lead roles of Katherine, Mary, and Dorothy?

  6. Overall, how would you summarize Melfi’s perspective on the movie he directed?

After you view Melfi’s interview, discuss your responses to the questions and your observations about Melfi’s perspective on the movie.

Activity 2: Discuss – Write

We will think about our own critical responses to Hidden Figures so that we can compare them to reviews by four different critics and publications.

Step 1

As a class, discuss the concepts of film review and film criticism as presented in Part 4 of the Filmmaking Glossary.

Based on the class discussion, write a concise definition for these two terms in your Vocabulary Journal.

Think about how you might approach the viewing of a movie such as Hidden Figures differently if you were a film critic rather than an audience member. In your Learning Log, write several sentences about what you might pay attention to and how you would go about evaluating the movie.

Imagine you had to write a review of Hidden Figures. Individually, review what you have written down on your Understanding a Movie Tool and think about your overall impressions of the movie now that you have analyzed it fully.

Step 2

Using evidence from your notes and the tool, form an evidence-based claim that presents your overall critical evaluation of the movie. Use an evidence-based thinking process to form and support your claim.

  1. Examine your Understanding a Movie Tool and notes to find a basis for your claim. Look for key details about Hidden Figures and its use of one or more filmmaking elements.

  2. Think about the connections and relationships among the key details you identify.

  3. Develop observations about the movie’s theme, presentation of characters, use of visual techniques, or use of sound based on your synthesis of the key details.

  4. Determine an evaluative conclusion based on the observations you have made about the movie.

  5. Form your claim based on your conclusion.

  6. Draft a claim statement, communicating your claim clearly and effectively.

Compare your claim with those of other students.

As a class, continue to discuss the role and work of movie critics, how they view films, the kinds of evaluative claims they make, and how their reviews and claims sometimes influence the audience's reactions to movies.

Activity 3: Read – Write – Discuss

We will use a jigsaw strategy to study one of four critical reviews of Hidden Figures.

Step 1

In this jigsaw, you will first work with your expert group (e.g., Expert Group A, Expert Group B, Expert Group C, or Expert Group D). As you read and discuss one of the four critical reviews of Hidden Figures, you should become an expert on that review.

You will then form home groups made up of experts from each expert group. In your home group, you will share your analysis of the assigned review from your expert group in a jigsaw discussion.

Step 2

Form Expert Groups A, B, C, and D as assigned by your teacher.

Individually, read and annotate the review, looking for a key central claim about the movie made by the reviewer. Write down new or challenging words you encounter in your Vocabulary Journal.

As a team, discuss the challenging vocabulary words you have identified and write definitions for them in your Vocabulary Journals.

Compare the claim you identified with those identified by other students in your team.

Discuss the perspective you see your reviewer taking and summarize what your team thinks the review says about the movie. Be prepared to share these observations with your home group.

Identify an evaluative claim you or other team members have found in your review; write down the claim in the first Critical Responses section of your Understanding a Movie Tool. You will share and explain this central claim in a comparative discussion with your home group.

You are now an expert on the review assigned to your group.

Step 3

If your teacher has assigned home groups, form them now. If you are to form your own home groups, find students from each other expert group. Ensure that each home group has at least one expert from each expert group.

For each of the four reviews, do the following:

  • Identify the reviewer and the publication.

  • Explain what perspective you think the reviewer viewed the movie from.

  • Summarize what the reviewer focuses on in the review. Present one or more evaluative claims from the review, and explain what you think the reviewer’s claim says about the movie.

  • Compare the review with the three others in terms of its perspective and evaluation of the movie.

Step 4

As a class, share what your home group has found in the four critical reviews, and compare their views of the movie. Present the evaluative claims you identified in each review.

Based on what you hear in the discussion, select a quote from one of the other reviews (that you have not personally read) and write it down as a second claim on your Understanding a Movie Tool.

Respond to the final task on the Understanding a Movie Tool:

  • Explain which critical response to the movie you most agree with, and why.

Activity 4: Read – Discuss

We will learn how to find reviews, articles, interviews with filmmakers, and other Resources to help us study a movie we have chosen to analyze individually for the Section Diagnostic.

Your teacher will choose a movie from the categories and titles you are considering for independent viewing.

Follow along as your teacher demonstrates how to search on the Rotten Tomatoes website (or another source) for reviews of the movie, and how to find interesting quotes and evaluative claims about the movie.

Discuss how you might use this resource and the information you can access there to prepare for watching your chosen movie and for completing an Understanding a Movie Tool about it.

Activity 5: Read

For homework, we will explore the rotten tomatoes Website (or another source), searching for information and reviews about the movies we are planning to watch and analyze individually.

For homework, access the Rotten Tomatoes website (or another source) and search for the title of a movie you are interested in watching and evaluating.

Using the About the Movie section of the Understanding a Movie Tool, search for information about the movie, its creators, and its genre.

Check on overall audience and critical responses to the movie. Find several reviews of the movie that you can reread later when you want to find key claims and quotes about your movie.