1. What’s your favorite documentary? What was the best? How did it change your view or perception of documentaries?
  2. The high school experience is multi-faceted, ever changing, and in some ways, universal. What aspects and perspectives does each film capture in relation to the high school experience? Support your answer with references to the film. ½ page
  3. Pick one film and discuss how the soundtrack* influences the film’s tone, content, or overall character? Include references. ½ page
  4. Which film do you think will remain relevant to high school students 50 years from now? Why? ½ page

*“Rock around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets became a massive hit after being featured in Blackboard Jungle. It captured some of the youthful enthusiasm inherent in early rock n’ roll.

Allegedly, Molly Ringwald asked John Hughes to write a movie based on the song “Pretty in Pink” by the Psychedelic Furs. The rest of the film’s soundtrack relies heavily on 80s new wave and pop songs.

Brian Eno, who’s featured on most of the soundtrack for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is known for his use of avant-garde, ambient music. “A 1975 car accident that left Eno bedridden for several months resulted in perhaps his most significant innovation, the creation of ambient music: unable to move to turn up his stereo to hear above the din of a rainstorm, he realized that music could assume the same properties as light or color, and blend thoroughly into its given atmosphere without upsetting the environmental balance.”

  1. Briefly define cult cinema. Using I Walked with a Zombie or The Warriors as an example, discuss the appeal of these films over time.
  2. Choose A or B
  3. Some musicals address topics that are at odds with the cheerful and celebratory undertones inherent in musicals. The Sound of Music is set against the background of an Austria under the threat of invading Nazis. Chicago is about a murder trial and the intersection of criminality and celebrity. A more recent musical, Silence!, is centered around the fictional Hannibal Lecter. Using any musical you’ve seen, discuss a significant theme addressed in the filmand how the director reconciles theme (or topic) with the conventions of the musical – a combination of song, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. How are song and dance appropriate for the story? How does the introduction of song and dance shape or affect the theme or topic explored? To what extent is the musical an accurate reflection of reality?
  4. What story, real or factual, would you like to see as a musical? How would the conventions of the musical add to the story? What thematic ideas from the story would be featured in this musical, and how would song and dance be an appropriate avenue for exploring these ideas?
  5. ½ page