Defining Film Rhetoric

1. In Blakesley's article "Defining Film Rhetoric," he writes "In its most general sense, the visual turn simply asserts that symbolic action entails visual representation in the inseparable and complex verbal, visual and perceptual acts of making meaning. Who we are and what we know suddenly become intertwined with questions about visual representation or about the relationship between what we can see or imagine and what we know... Seeing is believing, but believing is seeing as well (112)."
In what ways do visual representations in film rhetoric intertwine what we know, see and imagine to make us believe what we are seeing in front of us? What is a specific example of a time this has been effective for you as a viewer? When has it not been effective?

2. "The task of film criticism is to expose film's complicity with or deconstruction of dominant ideology. Rhetorical analyses (of film, texts, speeches or any other symbolic activity) are typically concerned with both how works achieve their effects and how they make their appeals to shared interests (the margin of overlap)among people (115-116)."
In what ways is it easier to analyze and criticize film as a symbolic activities? In what ways is it more difficult? Do you believe that all film needs to be analyzed? Can a film ever be made solely for the purpose of entertainment, with no message attached? Must films always have a rhetorical function?

3. Blakesley argues "The aim of rhetoric, according to Burke, is identification... Film is an especially powerful medium for cultivating this desire for identification, and, of course, not just between film and spectator, but among characters on screen (117)."
How do filmmakers direct our attention to shape our identification when watching a film? Not only in the film itself, but in the way that films are marketed and promoted? Is it possible for filmmakers to create more than one identification with their viewers?