choose any 3-5 questions you’d like to answer.

1. Are special effects used in the film? To what extent? Are they appropriate to, and effective in, telling the story? Are they effective in making something look real when it isn’t?
2. Does the actor look the part? Is it necessary for the actor to look the part?
3. How, if at all, is the actor’s conception of the character based on logic? How does the performance demonstrate expressive coherence?
4. Does the actor’s performance have the expressive power to make us forget that he or she is acting? If it does, how do you think the actor achieved this effect?
5. How do the setting and the scope of the narrative complement the other elements?
6. Are the plot events presented in chronological order? What is the significance of the order of plot events in the movie?
7. Keep track of the major and minor events in the movie’s plot. Are any of the minor events unnecessary to the movie overall? If these events were not included, would the movie be better? Why
8. If the film is a documentary, is it factual, instructional, persuasive, or propaganda—or a blend of two or more of these documentary approaches? Consider the movie’s relationship with the spectator and with relative truth. Does it appear to be attempting to present events and ideas in as objective a manner as is cinematically possible, or does it make a specific persuasive argument? What elements of form or content lead you to this conclusion?
9. Look for ways in which the documentary employs narrative. Are the events portrayed selected and organized so they tell a story?
10. Ask yourself how this movie compares to other documentary films you’ve seen. Think about your formal expectations of nonfiction movies: talkinghead interviews, voice-over narration, archival footage, and so on. Does this movie conform to those expectations? If not, how does it convey information and meaning in ways that are different from a typical documentary?
11. Do you notice anything particular about the movie’s presentation of cinematic space? What do you see on the screen? Lots of landscapes or close-ups? Moving or static camera?
12. Does the director manipulate viewers’ experience of time? Is this condensing, slowing, speeding, repeating, or reordering of time simply practical (as in removing insignificant events) or is it expressive? If it is expressive, just what does it express?
13. Does the director’s use of lighting help to create meaning? If so, how?