Chinatown Presentation Reflection

One strength of our presentation was the choice of our examples. We picked solid examples throughout the story that not only key to the narrative as a whole, but also to our topic of entrapment. Within these topics, we addressed how not only the narrative techniques contributed to our topic, but also how filmic techniques contributed to entrapment. We did this by talking about how the mis en scene, lighting, shadows, set design, blocking, framing, and narrative all had their impact on entrapment. Then we explained how our scene relating back to film noir as a whole.

My example was the scene where Gitties finds out that the water is being wasted during a drought at night. He is caught snooping around and has his nose cut by the crooked cops. I think I thoroughly analyzed this scene as I analyzed it through physical filmic techniques. I talked about how the low lighting and the little lighting is significant to feeling trapped within the light. I talked about how the blocking of characters made Gitties feel trapped. I talked about how set design of fence made viewer and Gitties feel trapped, and that it was a classic film noir technique. I also talked about how Gitties was physically trapped in the narrative. I felt that it was one of my strength that I addressed all these feelings of entrapment that come from techniques other than the narrative.

A weakness of mine was more in the presentation than the content. I felt that my content was solid. I could have used more filmic terms which is what IB wants. I also felt i was a bit repetitious in my description of entrapment.

Overall, I think the scenes we picked, particularly mine, demonstrated the basic film noir characteristics in Chinatown. We picked up on how these characteristics affected the movie, making it fit under the genre Film Noir.