Film Session (Online Class Sept 1st)

From Hell

Choose ONE task to carry out while watching the film and select a scene to analyse. Add your still to the presentation so  as to share your analysis next wednesday (September 6th)

1. Define what eurocentrism is and mention its characteristics in form of binary oppositions. How is it made manifest in the film?
2. How is ethnicity presented in the film? Select a scene where the topic of conversation is ethnic differences. Analyse the dialogue using Foucault’s approach taking into consideration the definitions of power, discourse and the gaze.
3. How is femininity presented in this text? Using gender studies select a scene where the life of the prostitutes is depicted in relation to patriarchal ideology.
4. Analyse the context of culture presented in the movie. In order to do so you need to work on the following concept: imperialism. How is imperialism depicted in the film? Pay attentio to symbols carrying Queen Vicoria's image.
5. From Hell may be considered a hybrid from the perspective of genre classification. On the one hand, this text may be considered as a horror film. On the other hand, it may be considered as crime fiction/detective fiction. Taking genre theory into consideration elaborate two lists of what you consider are the textual characteristics of both genres.
6. How is the medical profession presented in this film? What kind of power do doctors exert on the female body? Use gender studies and Foucaut’s approach to analyse one scene where the manipulation of the female body at the hands of science is shown.

Composed upon Westminster Bridge

By William Wordsworth

Earth has not anything to show more fair:
Dull would he be of soul who could pass by
A sight so touching in its majesty:
This City now doth, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie
Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
The river glideth at his own sweet will:
Dear God! the very houses seem asleep;


And all that mighty heart is lying still!

The Chimney Sweeper

By William Blake

When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."

And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;

And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.

Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.

A lego stop-motion animation of William Blake's poem, "The Chimney Sweeper".

Victorian Times

Kubla Khan by Samuel Taylor Coleridge