Break Down Cinema

The following is a slightly edited and reformatted backup of my article for the Centre for Social Development blog in 2021. I cannot find an archive of the original. I wanted to preserve it but with better wording. The original essay also used a different referencing style; I have converted it to the Harvard style to be more consistent with my other essays for this blog. Additionally, I used Fight Club (Fincher, 1999) as one of my key examples. However, I overlooked that Renegade Cut - whose video I cited in my section on The Incredibles (Bird, 2004) - also briefly discussed the potential interpretations of Fight Club that I mentioned. In the interest of transparency and sufficient attribution, the feminist and Marxist readings of Fight Club I mentioned come from Renegade Cut. While I otherwise present my article as published in 2021, I would not attempt to fit the different types of thematic criticism into a finite number of categories if I discussed the topic today, as such a methodo...

The following is a slightly edited version of one of my pieces of written coursework from my undergraduate university studies. I have posted it here with a slightly altered title alongside my later works for the purpose of showing the development of my academic research and writing skills. I wrote and submitted the original version of this essay for university coursework in 2019. Please keep in mind that my quoting any given author, critic, scholar etc. is neither necessarily an endorsement nor a disavowal of said person ’ s actions, statements, or views. Rather, it is solely to identify a particular viewpoint for the purpose of contextualising the discourse surrounding the text(s) central to my analysis. Content Warning: the film central to this essay features depictions of violence and occasional allusions to sexual assault and child abuse;  this essay  references  these scenes   solely  for analytical purposes. Readers who are likely to be distressed by these...