Academic Essays
All of the following essays were composed in Microsoft Word and converted to Adobe Acrobat files (Download Adobe Reader Here), and are my intellectual property. They exist here in their original forms, with the goal of presenting a body of work that reflects some steady improvement and change. The topics include cinema, literary theory, cultural theory, history, and semiotics.
Personal Statement 1
UF Undergraduate Admission Application (2002)
Topic: American Beauty (Sam Mendes, 1999)
Length: 1 page, 214 words
The Use of Montage in the Works of Griffith and Eisenstein
Topics: The Birth of a Nation (D. W. Griffith, 1915), Battleship Potemkin (Sergei Eisenstein, 1925)
Class: Film Analysis (Rochelle Mabry, Fall 2002)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 10 pages, 2287 words
Tokyo Story (Yasujiro Ozu, 1953)
Class: Introduction to Japanese Film (Dr. Joseph Murphy, Spring 2003)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 5 pages, 975 words
Yojimbo (Akira Kurosawa, 1961): Ideology and Interpretation
Class: Introduction to Japanese Film (Dr. Joseph Murphy, Spring 2003)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 6 pages, 1186 words
Orientalism (Edward Said)
Class: Introduction to Japanese Film (Dr. Joseph Murphy, Spring 2003)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 5 pages, 1460 words
How the Relation of the Camera to the Real is Problematized in Documentary Films
Topics: The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1988), Yuki Yukite Shingun (Kazuo Hara, 1987)
Class: Documentary and Propaganda Film (Dr. Scott Nygren, Spring 2003)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 11 pages, 2434 words
The Function of Subject as Signified
Topics: The Death of the Author (Roland Barthes, 1968), Of Grammatology (Jacques Derrida, 1967), The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious (Jacques Lacan, 1977), Course in General Linguistics (Ferdinand de Saussure, 1916)
Class: Introduction to Modern Criticism and Theory (Dr. John Murchek, Fall 2003)
Assignment: Final Essay
Length: 13 pages, 2424 words
The Subordination of the Camera Eye to the Human Subject
Topics: 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), Blowup (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Man With a Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929), Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960)
Class: Psycho-Cinem-Analysis (Dr. Richard Burt, Fall 2003)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 12 pages, 2895 words
The War Experience in Italian Film
Topics: Roma, Città Aperta (Roberto Rossellini, 1945), Salo, o le 120 Giornate di Sodoma (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1976), La Vita è Bella (Roberto Benigni, 1997)
Class: Italian Cinema (Dr. Mary Watt, Fall 2003)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 15 pages, 3468 words
Pépé le Moko (Julien Duvivier, 1937)
Class: French Cinema (Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 3 pages, 665 words
The Visual Re-creation of Orphée (Jean Cocteau, 1949)
Class: French Cinema (Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 3 pages, 842 words
La Règle du Jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939)
Class: French Cinema (Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 3 pages, 761 words
Mon Oncle (Jacques Tati, 1958)
Class: French Cinema (Dr. Sylvie Blum-Reid, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 3 pages, 767 words
The Death of the Auteur
Topic: Le Mépris (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963)
Class: Introduction to Film Criticism and Theory (Renuka Bisht, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Final Essay
Length: 13 pages, 2929 words
The ABC's of Cinema
Topics: The Philadelphia Story (George Cukor, 1940), Grand Hotel (Edmund Goulding, 1932), The Maltese Falcon (John Huston, 1941), Meet Me in St. Louis (Vincente Minnelli, 1944)
Class: The ABC's of Cinema (Dr. Robert Ray, Spring 2004)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 43 pages, 9913 words
Memento: A Film Clip Analysis
Topics: Memento (Cristopher Nolan, 2000)
Class: The Accident (Dr. Richard Burt, Fall 2004)
Assignment: Film Clip Analysis
Length: 53 shots, 4981 words
Fade to Black: The Destruction of Identity in Vertigo, The Tenant, & Mulholland Drive
Topics: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), The Tenant (Roman Polanski, 1976), Mulholland Drive (David Lynch, 2001)
Class: The Accident (Dr. Richard Burt, Fall 2004)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 13 pages, 2885 words
Dehistoricizing Man(n): El Cid and Kracauer’s Mass Ornament
Topics: El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961), The Mass Ornament (Siegfried Kracauer, 1927), The Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies (Siegfried Kracauer, 1927)
Class: The Schlock of Medievalism (Dr. Richard Burt, Spring 2005)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 5 pages, 1000 words
Sophisticated Life: The Modern Experience in Jean Toomer’s Cane
Topics: Cane (Jean Toomer, 1923), Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson, 1919)
Class: American Modernism (Dr. Susan Hegeman, Fall 2005)
Assignment: Short essay
Length: 7 pages, 1115 words
Doubling Reality: Artifice and Self-Reflexivity in Non-fiction Film
Topics: F for Fake (Orson Welles, 1977), Tokyo Ga (Wim Wenders, 1985), Hiroshima Mon Amour (Alain Resnais, 1959)
Class: The Essay Film (Dr. Nora Alter, Fall 2005)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 11 pages, 2699 words
Standing Out in a Crowd: The Aesthetic of Modernist Cinema
Topics: The Crowd (King Vidor, 1928), Modern Times (Charles Chaplin, 1936), The Mass Ornament (Siegfried Kracauer, 1927)
Class: American Modernism (Dr. Susan Hegeman, Fall 2005)
Assignment: Final essay
Length: 12 pages, 2602 words
Gladiator: A Film Clip Analysis
Topics: Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)
Class: The Film Epic & U.S. Imperialism (Dr. Richard Burt, Spring 2006)
Assignment: Film Clip Analysis
Length: 41 shots, 3862 words
Rethinking Parody: Life of Brian as Historical Satire
Topics: Monty Python's Life of Brian (Terry Jones, 1979), Epic Encounters (Melanie McAlister, 2005), The Ancient World in Cinema (Jon Solomon, 2001)
Class: The Film Epic & U.S. Imperialism (Dr. Richard Burt, Spring 2006)
Assignment: Final Paper
Length: 13 pages, 2759 words
The Historical Epic Film: Visualizing Reality through Crowds, Culture, and Counterhistory
Topics: Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959), Spartacus (Stanley Kubrick, 1960), El Cid (Anthony Mann, 1961), Braveheart (Mel Gibson, 1995), Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000), Gangs of New York (Martin Scorsese, 2002), The Mass Ornament (Siegfried Kracauer, 1927), Practicing New Historicism (Catherine Gallagher and Stephen Greenblatt, 2000)
Outline: Full thesis outline with annotated quotes, illustrations, and arguments (32 pages)
Class: Honors Thesis Project (Dr. Richard Burt & Dr. Nora Alter, Spring 2006)
Assignment: Honors Thesis
Length: 43 pages, 9049 words
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