EXAMINERS REPORT JAN 2008
Topic 9 World Cinema
"More candidates attempting this topic than in previous sessions – with varying degrees of success. It is really important to ensure a clear hypothesis/ area for investigation and debate. Some candidates researched interesting options such as Nigerian or Chinese cinema but unfortunately did not move beyond basic description of some films. More successful candidates explored topics such as the emergence of New German Cinema and the ways in which it represents the past, drawing some comparison with Hollywood. Other areas of study were Japanese cinema: Manga/Anime and Horror.
There was one excellent focus looking at feminism across Chinese cinema. This candidate had been able to access appropriate academic theory and was able to discuss social issues and historical context with reference and application to an appropriate filmography. There were also many effective studies of Bollywood and Asian cinema although these are rarely linked to national identity or auteur theories and primarily focus on representational issues. ‘Urban Realism’ of texts such as City of God and La Haine was the successful focus of one candidate who was able to make a contrast between this and the US gangster genre.
There were many responses offering comparative analysis to western cinema and Centres should be advised to guide candidates carefully when choosing a suitable focus, because candidates often lose focus on the topic and refer almost exclusively to the western films to which they compare their chosen texts. This has been a common weakness in these responses. Examples such as the ‘comparison of Studio Ghibli to Disney films’ or ‘how martial arts films have influenced western film’ often discuss Disney, Tarantino or The Matrix at the expense of their chosen focus. There is a lot of scope within this topic to discuss the wider context but candidates must not lose sight of the main issues."
DW
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