Writing Homework Help

There are two Discussions

First one

In this chapter, you’ll see that throughout the history of movie-making there is little consensus about the role of movies in society or who should make them and how. For Cesare Zavattini, the father of neorealism, the job of a filmmaker included a necessary social-political role. For early Hollywood, the job of the filmmaker was the opposite. His/her job was not to provoke or upset the status quo. Films were not seen as tools for political activism.

Required Discussion Questions:

Do you think current American cinema is too careful in avoiding conflict?

Do you prefer films that are escapist or more political in nature?

Why?

Documentary filmmaking and foreign films have recently become a major staple in the offerings of venues like Netflix. Many of these films have a strong political bent.

Optional Discussion Question: Recommend a film to your fellow students: Can you recommend a documentary or foreign film you have recently seen that had a political bent? If you haven’t seen one, no problem, then just recommend a favorite film regardless of genre.

Second one

In Chapter 11, you’ll read about the fall of the old Studio System and the rise of independent filmmakers.

Hollywood never disappeared and through a series of mergers, and newcomers, a new Hollywood emerged.

Today the system is again being challenged by Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, and others including the nascent Apple TV.

For the first time films that were not available to the mainstream viewer are readily available. These include low-budget fictional films from around the world. Documentaries which rarely had a commercial life now thrive on venues like Netflix. New voices from every community are becoming available, especially notable are those that had little to no representation in the past.

At the same time, the franchise is fast developing as a staple product producers seek with films often costing over 300 million USD to produce forcing a limited number of stories to get strong funding. There are also those who complain that “great” films are rare today because with the huge increase in the volume of film and TV produced the quality of writing has taken a big hit. Older generations often bemoan the loss of the classic movie experience because many of theatres are now completely gone or cut up into Cineplexes.

Discussion Forum Prompt: How have venues like Netflix contributed or detracted to the American Movie industry.