Genre films employ "systems of orientations, expectations, and conventions that circulate between industry [the marketing of films], text [the content of films], and subject [the audience who watches the films]." Steven Neale and Frank Krutnik
"A romantic comedy is a film which has as its central narrative motor a quest for love, which portrays this quest in a light-hearted way and almost always to a successful conclusion.” Tamar Jeffers McDonald
"The best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastoral-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable, or poem unlimited: Seneca cannot be too heavy, nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men." Shakespeare, Hamlet 2.2.379-84

Viewing Questions for MOONRISE KINGDOM (Wes Anderson, 2012)

Viewing Questions for Moonrise Kingdom
  1.  To what extent has Anderson's visual style changed since the release of Rushmore in 1998? Keep in mind many aspects of mise-en-scène, including composition within the frame, camera angle and movement, editing, and sound. You needn't cover all of these; select one or two that seem most noteworthy to you.
  2. Do you have a name for Anderson's style? Not a name found in media (as in "Contrived, pretentious, lifeless style," as proffered by a commentator on IMDb), but one you've coined yourself. If you do create a new name for Anderson's style, provide the name, define it, contextualize it, if necessary, and defend its application to Anderson.
  3. Consider the musical selections in Moonrise Kingdom (I'm more interested in previously recorded music rather than the music written for the film). If you're not familiar with them, you can find them at IMDb under "Soundtracks" in the listing for MK. Why these selections? Do they add anything to the themes or plots? Are different types of music associated with different characters? In answering this question, you might read up about the composers of the various works.
  4. A quotation from Hamlet on our blog contrasts the "law of writ and the liberty," the rules and violation thereof possible within a given genre. Discuss how this opposition plays out in Moonrise Kingdom, either stylistically or in terms of plots and themes.


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