Decoding Art: Crafting a Profound Movie/Book Review in Academic Writing
Similarities:
- Both discuss the important points regarding storytelling and
plotline - Highlight the progress and journey of the
protagonists - Analyses conventional style of authors/ directors
- Both pieces of art are based on symbolism which the critic is asked to analyse by decoding elements
Differences:
- A book review primarily analyses the organisation and structure of the plot, character development, point of view, while a movie review analyses all sensory elements along with the plot, including cinematography, music, characters' expressions, camera angle and so on.
- A book review focuses on analysing written elements, while a movie review focuses more on finding any visual cues put up by the director.
Now, as we have discussed some commonalities and differences between the two, let’s take a look at the common elements a movie/book review should have:
Introduction
An introduction is a mirror to the whole piece of critique. It serves as a hook to captivate the readers' attention while gently unfolding the elements the author/ director used. An introduction for a movie/book review as a part of academic writing needs to have plot details, the director's name or protagonist' and the antagonists' brief background with the context in which the movie/ book is set. This brief overview of the facts and backdrop in the introduction provides the relevance of the book/ movie which is later explained in detail in the latter section. As a movie/book review as a piece of essay writing or academic writing is primarily opinionated writing, stating your individual opinion in the thesis statement will act as a pivotal point of your critique upon which the whole discussion and evaluation will take place.
Main Body
As a movie/book review is generally written in an essay format in academic writing, the main body is required to provide the necessary backdrop for the events. A short summary will help the readers grasp important concepts by summarising the plot and introducing key characters.
However, a movie/book review is not merely the summary of the book or movie. This is a common misconception of many students that lands them a “0” in their grades. As a movie/book review in academic writing or essay writing is essentially a critique of the piece of art, you need to write your own analysis to enrich it. You have to remember that an author/director only puts certain meaning to the piece while the actual unravelling of the elements is done by the readers/ spectators while writing a movie/book review, which must be the focal point of your discussion.
Offering an analysis of the cinematography, storytelling, acting, important and recurring themes as well as sound/ music are important elements for a movie review in essay writing as elements affecting the sensory perceptions of the viewers must be the focal point here as these elements help the viewers/ critics with meaning-making and deconstruction.
Elements for a book review in essay writing include analysing recurring themes, tropes and patterns, storytelling, narration, points of view of narrator versus author, intertextuality and so on.
Analysing these elements help the reviewer to assess strengths, weaknesses and areas for improvement for the piece of art while doing their essay writing or academic writing. This also enables the reviewer to share their personal opinion which is the key point of writing any movie/book review.
Conclusion
Conclusion is an essential part of any academic writing. Conclusion provides a restatement of the thesis statement while reviewing all important points discussed in the Main Body in a piece of essay writing.
However, apart from the above points, there are certain questions you need to ask yourself before finalising your draft for a movie/ book review and submitting the same to the professor, as this information is necessary to make a movie/book review excellent. The checklist for questions are as follows:
- Where is the film or book set?
- Which is the timeline of the piece? What is its cultural and sociological significance?
- Is it a prequel, sequel, or an extended part of an already published book or film written/ directed by other artists/ directors? Or is it an original piece of writing?
- What genre is applicable for the book/ movie?
- What styles are followed by the writer/ director to help the readers with meaning-making?
- Are the author/ narrator the same? Why or why not? What difference does it make when the two are different? Is there any difference between the original book and the movie based on it? Why or why not? Are there cultural appropriation or time-based appropriation involved?
- Are there major twists in the plot? What are the main themes?
- Can you find any binary patterns in themes?
- Are the characters well-developed? Or are they flat?
- What points appeal to the audience and why? Is it based on a critique of society, culture or stereotypes? Or do they confirm the cultural, societal and stereotypical beliefs?
- Is there intertextuality involved?
Finding these details can sound overwhelming, especially finding recurring themes and the play of intertextuality can be daunting. However, you need not worry as the team at Word Solvo offers free essay samples for you to draw inspiration from. If you still have no time to write your essay and need assistance, we are always there to offer academic content free from plagiarism. Word Solvo ensures that you get your projects delivered on time with confidentiality and privacy.
