Crime Film Analysis
This assignment is designed to test your ability to describe and interpret film narrative. You will be shown a scene from the film, Out of the Past (1947). Your task will be to give a description of the scene by breaking it down into its component parts, and then to speculate on its possible meanings.
The clip entitled, Out of the Past, can be found at this location on YouTube:
The assignment asks you to consider the scene in isolation from the rest of the film. You may watch the entire film if you wish, but you will be graded on the precision with which you are able to describe the sequence and the quality of your ideas about its possible meanings.
Your task, then, is twofold: 1) to describe what you see as clearly as possible (you do not need to use filmic terms); and 2) to explain what it might mean (literally, thematically and symbolically).
