Spend approximately one hour writing your essay, as though you were doing so in class. Select ONE of the following prompts:

1.Analyze the themes ofJane Campion’s The Piano(1993, Australia). Consider the character arc of Ada (Holly Hunter), positioned as an outsider, as she undergoes a physical and psychological journey to free herself from patriarchal forces. Thesetting (place and historical period), antagonists, metaphoricalimplications of Ada finding her voice and the gazeof the camera should be addressed.

2.Address how the theoretical framework of Dogme95—the self-imposed limitations—“frees” Thomas Vinterberg as a director and affects The Celebration(1998,Denmark).Also refer to Jørgen LethandLarsvon Trier’s The Five Obstructions(2003, Denmark) in terms of limits fostering creativity.

3. Analyze the stylistic innovationsof the first Dogme95 film, Vinterberg’s The Celebration(1998, Denmark), andCuarón’s Y tu mamá también(2001, Mexico). Consider how the Dogme rules impact the former, and cinematic techniques such as the dual narrative and straying camera affect the latter.

4. Analyze the political ideology expressed in Alfonso Cuarón’s Y tu mamá también (2001, Mexico) and Zhang Yimou’s government-supported Hero (2002, China). How do both films reflect a transitional time in each country’s changing political landscape: Mexico’s changeover in 2000 to the leadership of a different party after 71 years of Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) rule and Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997?

5. Jane Campion’s The Piano, Zhang Yimou’s Heroand Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in SanFrancisco comment on the power of art to affect personal and political change. What do they convey about music, calligraphy and playwriting, respectively?

6. •In what waysdoes Joe Talbot’s The Last Black Man in San Francisco (2019, USA) represent the independent film movement?What themes emerge thatreflect conditionsand issuesin the San Francisco Bay Area?

7. Does film history repeat itself? Although events can never come close to true replication, has film historyfrom 1950-Presentrepeated itself in any broad patterns?