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For the final project for this class, you will be writing a paper about one of the films from your course textbook. Your analysis will need to be well researched, incorporating several types of information. This guide points you towards resources that will help you find the sources you need for this assignment.
Historical Context
- Scholarly books
- Encylopedias
Recommended Search Tools: library catalog; Gale Virtual Reference Library
Film Criticism and Scholarly Analysis
- DVD liner notes
- Magazine article
- Scholarly articles
- Chapters from scholarly books
- Scholarly books
Recommended Search Tools: library catalog; JSTOR; MLA
Biographical Information
- Biographies of director, actor,
- IMDB profile
- Encyclopedia articles
Recommended Search Tools: library catalog; Gale Virtual Reference Library; google
Film Reviews
- contemporary reviews (in newspapers usually)
Recommended Search Tools: Metacritic; Nexis Uni; "Find a Journal by Title" tool
Example
Library Resources
- Do the Right Thing (DVD of the film)
- Spike Lee by Laurie Lanzen Harris (a biography of the filmmaker)
- "But compared to what? Reading realism, representation, and essentialism in 'School Daze,' 'Do the Right Thing', and the Spike Lee Discourse" by Wahneema Lubiano. In Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video. (chapter in a book)
- "Right Thing: Sizzling City" by Hal Hinson for The Washington Post (review of the film)
- Race and Ethnicity in America: A Concise History, ed. by Ronald Bayor (book about race relations in the U.S.)
- "Spike Lee and the Sympathetic Racist" by Dan Flory (scholarly journal article)
Web Resources
- "Spike Lee" (IMDB entry)
- "Do the Right Thing" (Wikipedia entry)
- "The Enduring Urgency of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing at Thirty" by Richard Brody (article in The New Yorker)
