Film is a form of drama – a literary representation meant to be performed – but interpreting film is quite different from interpreting drama when, say, a play is read in a book. Drama is usually much more open to interpretation than film is, especially in the case of something like Shakespearean drama, where the stage directions are very sparse, leaving a great deal of latitude for different performances to play the same scene in different ways. Film, because it is doing so much more work (with acting, directing, visuals, music, etc.), is not as open to that sort of imaginative authorship by the reader.

Insofar as it is meant to be performed, all drama is visual, but film deals in visuals much more seriously than most other forms of drama do.

When analyzing a text, it is important to do so in terms of the formal elements unique to the medium of the text. For example, when analyzing verse, we speak in terms of meter, syntax, metaphor, rhyme scheme, etc. When analyzing drama, we speak about soliloquies, scene divisions, plays within plays, etc. With film, the formal elements of the medium all relate to the fact that there is a camera capturing the action.

Thus, the elements of direction (such as camera angle and movement) and elements of editing (such as cuts and montages) are central to film studies. Music is also usually a central concern in film studies: music is usually more involved in the artistic vision of a film than it is in other kinds of drama.

Film is a corporate enterprise. No other artform has as many hands involved in the creation of the artwork. Having so many hands in play creates a problem when searching for the intent of the author(s). The intents of Hollywood executives and producers (usually to make money) can be quite different from and even opposed to the intents of writers, directors, and actors (to teach and delight).

When “reading” film, you sometimes only get one shot (if, for example, you are seeing the film during its theatrical release or at a screening): in these cases, it is important to take notes as you watch.

Because most film studies in my classes are related to films of literature, and specifically Shakespearean adaptation, I’m including below some elements of film to pay special attention to:

• Interpolation: In general, interpolation refers to the insertion into a text of material that is not in the original text. In film, and Shakespearean film adaptations in particular, interpolation often takes the form of nonverbal interactions and symbols that add or extract meaning from the text without adding any new words.
• Editing: Look out for flashbacks, cross cuts, voiceovers, and montages. The most important of these, a montage joins together a series of shots into a continuous, condensed presentation, often set to must, and often suggesting abstract ideas and thematic connections.
• Fidelity (Edits, Ellisons, Divergence, Order): Always ask yourself if a certain divergence from the source text is interpretive or resistant. Something is interpretive when there is a gap or openness in the original text that the film fills in with a possible reading. Something is resistant when it includes some outside element that goes against or changes the meaning of the text.
• Setting: One of the most common features of adaptation is the introduction of a new setting that (in the filmmaker’s vision) adds some new layer to the meaning of the text our our understanding of that setting.
• Costume: Like setting, costume can be used to update or change the atmosphere of a text.
• Genre: In drama, there are four main genres: comedy, tragedy, history, and romance. In film, a number of sub-genres have emerged: the horror flick, the slapstick comedy, the epic, the biopic, etc. Be alert to the ways that these different formations of genre may influence each other.
• Camera (Angle, Movement): While we see traditional drama from one place (our seat in the theatrehouse), we jump around and move in film. Take note of close ups, point of view shots, reaction shots, long shots, handheld shots, high and low angles,
• Point of View: Directors love to use camera angles to encourage their audiences to experience the events of a narrative from a certain perspective, usually one of the characters’ perspectives.
• Acting: The choices a director and actor make about how to play a certain moment – joyously, anxiously, crying, confused, etc. – can radically alter the meaning of words that in a script are “just words.”
• Visual Quoting (Allusions): Just as any literature likes to allude to other literature, films love to allude to other films.