Rosewood discussion

1. What is the film arguing? Why choose this particular story to serve these arguments and ideas?

2. As docudrama, how does the film address its audience? What is the impact in this case of the film being “based on a true story?”

3. As a docudrama:

how do the elements of melodrama appear? What is the result of their combination with the actual historical material at the basis of the story?

What happens here to the narrative structure of characters-as-victims?

Docudramas are hybrid forms—how does this story take up the idea of boundaries? How does it the address the implications of boundaries? What are the key boundary lines in this film?

4. As a western:

How does Rosewood work the conventions of the western? What is the impact of these conventions on the film’s argument?

Re: Neale discussion: how does the clash here of determinate and indeterminate space affect the film’s efforts to clarify how ideology works?

Re: Altman discussion: does thinking about the interplay of syntactic and semantic elements of the western in this case explain how the film’s argument becomes relatable?