Start a new thread for this post. In your post, engage with the film and the readings in a thoughtful and meaningful way.Write your Discussion Analysis Post in paragraph form. Think of it as a short film analysis essay and try to use some of the terms from the film terms lecture and handout in your analysis when they are helpful. You should be organized in your thoughts and ideas and provide evidence of critical, university-level thinking making connections to our course materials and other relevant experiences. Please try your best to contribute to the learning community by being creative in your approaches to the film and readings and by making an effort to motivate the discussion. Avoid summarizing the film or the readings as all members of the learning community have seen the movie and read the assigned chapters in the book. If you quote from our textbook or other sources, please use MLA style. Be aware of spelling, grammar, and sentence mechanics and use proper etiquette. Remember that being respectful is critical. Your Discussion Analysis Post has to be at least 200 words long.
The following ten questions offer possible topics that you might want to discuss in your Discussion Analysis Post. The questions are there to help you critically reflect on the film and readings for this week. Feel free to engage with as many or as few of them as you see fit in your post. Rather than a number of individual answers to the questions in the prompt, present your post as a short coherent film analysis essay, i.e. do not write separate answers to the questions but use them to launch your own coherent analysis and interpretation of the film. This also means that you should not copy and paste the questions into your post. The questions are only there to help you get started and to show you possible topics that you might want to explore in your analysis. Please do not think that you need to answer all questions in your Discussion Analysis Post. In fact, it would be very hard to do these questions justice if you tried to answer all of them in one short, coherent film analysis post.
It is important that your post offers an academic analysis of the film rather than a summary or a mere statement of what you liked and disliked. Make sure to analyze and interpret the film and to support your argument with evidence. Try to be original and avoid repeating what others have already noted before you in their posts. At the end of your post, please include any additional questions that you bring to the movie to spark further discussion.
Carefully look at the picture above. In what context does this scene appear in the movie? What is happening here? Describe in detail what you see in the image and how it is structured. Pay particular attention to the facial expression of the character and his gaze. What can we hear in this scene? With whom are you identifying and empathizing in this scene? Why?
Why did the boys want to go to war? Were they misinformed and if so, why? Did peer pressure play a role in the movie? If so, how?
Do you find the characters well developed? What characters can you remember particularly well? Why? Select one particularly dynamic character and describe his or her character development in detail.
Analyze and interpret what happened on the bridge. How are the different war parties depicted in the film? Which scenes are particularly important in this regard?
In your opinion, are their heroes and villains in this film? Explain your answer and support your argument with evidence from the film.
What are your observations concerning issues of loyalty, personal integrity, freedom, and idealism in this film and how are these values being challenged?
Do we see traces of a generational conflict expressed in the film and if so, how does it manifest itself? Give specific examples and put the generational conflict in the larger context of German history.
What are the most important moments in this film and why? What aspects of the film did you like and which did you not like? Why?
With the help of the readings in our textbook and our discussion about Trace of Stones, please compare and contrast East and West German Postwar Cinema. Explain in how far The Bridge is representative of West German Postwar Cinema. How does the film compare to other movies that we have watched this semester?
Is this film still relevant for us today from a historical and/or moral-philosophical perspective? What can we potentially learn from this film?
