The kind of analysis learned in English 1102 and Humanities will enhance appreciation of both films (see the analysis of Star Wars, for example, in Ch. 9, "Symbolism," of Roberts' and Jacobs' Literature: An Introduction to Reading and Writing) and the lyrics to many songs in every variety of popular music. As examples of increased film appreciation, ponder the following questions (listed in order of the films' release date):

1. (a) How does the theme song, "Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling," sung repeatedly (by Tex Ritter) throughout one of the greatest Westerns ever made, High Noon (1952), starring Gary Cooper, Grace Kelly, and many others, come to have multiple symbolic or thematic meanings in the film? (b) How does the Sean Connery science fiction film Outland (1981) cleverly allude to High Noon?

2. How, and with what meanings, does 1 Corinthians 13 become a recurrent motif in Arthur Penn's Left-Handed Gun (1958)?

3. (a) Most of the characters' names in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove (1964) have comic meanings and jokes in them; what are some of these? (b) Toward the end of the picture, a British colonel has to get change to use a pay telephone to call the President; the manner in which he does this elicited cheering in the theater in which I saw the film when it was first released; why did we in the audience cheer the way in which the character secured the money?

4. What is the very pronounced symbolism of the very peculiar crime that gets the main character, played wonderfully by Paul Newman, sentenced to the chain gang in Cool Hand Luke (1967)?

5. In Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), when one of the apes, under the influence of one of the mysterious monoliths, discovers a use for an animal legbone, and later throws it up in the air (all in the opening scenes of the movie), what symbolism is suggested by what the bone turns into, in a "jump cut" on screen, as the plot jumps millions of years ahead?

6. How is Christian symbolism repeatedly manifested in the film The Poseidon Adventure (1972)?

7. How is a Phi Beta Kappa key used symbolically in the film Soylent Green (1973), starring Charleton Heston and Edward G. Robinson? How is a Phi Beta Kappa key used symbolically in the much earlier film Teacher's Pet (1958), starring Clark Gable and Doris Day, as well as in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway? How does the conduct of the board game the two main characters play in The Thomas Crown Affair symbolically reflect and anticipate their real-life behavior toward each other?

8. (a) What is the symbolism of the name of the boat of the professional shark hunter in the film Jaws (1975), and how does his profession relate to his past life, as suggested by his story of his past life to the oceanographer while they're drinking beer on the boat? (b) What themes are suggested by the death of the professional shark hunter, in connection with what has happened in his past life? (c) How is each of the three main characters' weapons aboard the boat pursuing the great white shark symbolic of the particular character? (d) What ideas or themes are implied by how the shark is finally killed? (e) How does Steven Spielberg repeatedly allude to this breakthrough film of his in several of his later movies (e.g., in E.T. and Back to the Future)?

9. (a) How is Christian symbolism repeatedly manifested in the films Superman (1978) and Superman II (1980), the screenplays for both done by Mario Puzo? (For example, for the second film, how about the number and costume of the villains, the peculiar name of the leader, especially brought out in the scene in which the U.S. President kneels to him, what the villains' leader wants from Superman, and the peculiar way the villains arrive on earth [which causes an inebriated angler to throw away his bottle]?) (b) For what other screenplays (and novel) is Mario Puzo famous?

10. (a) What is the symbolism of the name of the spaceship (as well as the rescue ship) pointedly and repeatedly mentioned in Alien (1979), Aliens (1986), and Alien³ (1992)? (Hint: in our first view of the vessel in the film, when the name is superimposed below it, it actually looks like a sailing ship because of the long funnels and antennae resembling masts; this also relates to the thematic and allusive name of the craft.) (b) What ideas might the director and studio have been trying to suggest by opting for a superscript in the third Alien film, rather than putting the Arabic numeral 3 right beside the name, or using a Roman numeral III right beside the name?

11. How does Indiana Jones wind up hanging from a cliff in each of the following movies: Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)? How are Steven Spielberg and George Lukas alluding, with playful symbolism, to the name of a genre of action movie serials of the 1940's and 1950's by this motif in the Indiana Jones movies?

12. (a) What is the symbolism of the rapist's being impaled on the horn of the merry-go-round unicorn at the end of the Clint Eastwood film Sudden Impact (1983)? (b) How does the very early Tom Cruise film Legend (1985) help answer the first part of this question?

13. (a) What is the symbolism of the official name of the computer in the John Badham film WarGames (1983), starring Matthew Broderick, Dabney Coleman, Ally Sheedy, and others? (b) What ideas about technology are suggested by the film, partly by the computer's official name?

14. What is the symbolism of what personal item, which he wears, that saves Virgil, the underwater crew chief, from the closing of the underwater doors (and drowning) when his underwater station is rocked by the hurricane in the film The Abyss (1989)?

15. What ideas about the relationship between art (especially movies, and illusion) and life are suggested, and how, in the comedy The Freshman (1990), starring Marlon Brando, Matthew Broderick, and others?

16. What is the Old Testament symbolism with which the film Batman Returns (1992) (about Batman's conflict with Penguin, played by Danny DeVito) opens? How does this symbolism connect with what Penguin is doing, and why, in the Gotham Hall of Records, later in the film?

17.. What ideas about the nature of life are suggested by how the plot of Quentin Tarantino's film Pulp Fiction (1994) hangs together? What ideas or themes does each of the film's subplots suggest? What are the meanings of the film's title?

18. What several meanings has the Crackerjack prize, which repeatedly changes hands in the film Contact (1998)?

19.  (a) In Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks, what is the symbolism of the book that Fran Abignale (played by DiCaprio) uses to press the Pan Am logo onto his first forged airline check?  (b) What is the symbolism of Frank Abignale's compulsive removal of bottle labels (a motif in the film), which he even stuffs into his wallet? (c) How does the motif of father and son continually recur in the movie?

20. (a) How does the motif of father and son continually recur in the film Road to Perdition (2002), starring Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, and Jude Law? (b) What are at least two different meanings or uses of the phrase that is the title of the movie?

21. (a) In the movie Seabiscuit (2003), how is the horse and what it achieves emblematic or symbolic of the social and historical events of the time? (b) What is the "big little book" (an older kind of comic book) that the son of the wealthy car dealer is reading, and how does it relate to the boy's adventurousness and fate?

22. In the movie American Splendor (2003), how does the structure of the movie itself mirror how art (comics) and life parallel or interact with each other in the composition of the comics by the main character, Harvey Pekar?

23. In the movie Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life (2003), what joke is made, via visual symbolism connected to art works, of how rich and powerful an Asian crime lord is, with whom Laura Croft deals?

24. What are the multiple meanings of the title of the movie Maria Full of Grace (2004)?

25. Concerning the movie Collateral (2004), starring Tom Cruise and Jamie Lee Fox, (a) what are the multiple meanings of the title, and (b) what is the irony in how the hitman, Vincent, physically ends up?

26. What are the multiple meanings of the title of the movie Beyond the Sea, the biography of Bobby Darin, starring Kevin Spacey (2004)?

27. What are the multiple meanings of the movie titles (a) Bobby Jones, Stroke of Genius (2004) and (b) Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)?

28. What extra meanings does the name of the titular hero have in the movie Constantine (2005)?

29. How does the Hispanic father's fairytale story to his daughter come true in the movie Crash (2005), including a kind of fairytale dimension?
 
30. How does the appearance of the Sith, as in Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), continue the visual symbolism of the conflict between good and evil? 

31. What are the multiple meanings of the title of the Mel Gibson movie Apocalypto (2006)?

32. In Superman Returns (2006), (a) how is religious symbolism conveyed (as in the earlier Superman and Superman II movies of 1978 and 1980, respectively)? (b) How does this film, like the earlier film Superman (1978), cleverly allude to the TV series Superman of the 1950s? (c) What film starring Adrian Brody and Ben Affleck deals with the TV series Superman of the 1950s?

33. What are the multiple meanings of the title of the movie -- the phrase itself -- Inside Man (2006)?

34. (a) What is the irony of where the tomb of Mary Magdalene is finally found by the academic symbologist Professor Robert Langdon (played by Tom Hanks) in The Da Vinci Code (2006)? (b) How is the name of the heroine of the movie, Sophie, symbolic?