The basic task of an interpreter is to negotiate with the audience's institutionally grounded assumptions. One must balance the risk of a more novel interpretation - which if successful may make one seem exemplary but if unsuccessful may make one seem odd - and that of a more safe plausible interpretation - which may make one seem routine.

David Bordwell treats rhetoric as a matter of three things inventio. (the devising of arguments), dispositio (their arrangement), and elocutio (their stylistic articulation).

Inventio

A step in devising one's rhetorical argument of a film is to establish one's expertise. Ways in which this can be accomplished are by reviewing the literature or a state of question, by making fine distinctions, and by displaying a range or depth of knowledge about the film, the director, and/or the genre.

Another aspect to devising one's argument is to appeal to the reader's emotions. To do this one would use descriptive words as in the case of the critic who wrote about a scene of L'Atalante "humanizes the thief, modeling his grail body wasted by cold and hunger"

If one's interpretation and the filmmaker's agree using quotes from the filmmaker will make one's interpretation stronger. The filmmaker's words can function as rhetorical backup for an interpretation. Even the symptomatic critic who denounces the idea of origins or creative agency uses interviews, manifestos, and essays to furnish evidence for interpretation.

Dispositio

There are two types of arrangements of an interpretation argument. The explicatory critic frequently structures the argument around an intuitively apprehended experience of the film, while the more "theoretical" critic characteristically mixes an exposition or elaboration of concepts drawn from the writings of an authority which claims that the film illustrates or manifests those concepts. Lately the distinction between these types of critics has been blurred. What follows is a typical interpreation scheme laid down by Aristotle and revised by Cicero:

Introduction:

Entrance: an introduction to the issue.

Narration: The background circumstance; in film interpretation, either a

brief account of an issue's history or a description of synopsis of film to be examined.

Proposition: The statement of the thesis to be proven.

Body:

Division: A breakdown of points that support the thesis.

Confirmation: The arguments under each point.

Confutation: The destruction of opposing arguments.

Conclusion: A review and emotional exhortation.

Elocutio

Elocutio is the use of stylistic language. Stylistic language captures the reader's mind making pieces of works more interesting and easier to follow. Elocutio is best describe by looking at examples of what critics have said:

On Psycho: "Soes Marion imagine no one in the world with the power to make her feel this alive, no one to whom she might offer herself this freely and passionately?"

On Rebecca: "If death by drowning did not extinguish the woman's desire, can we be certain that deat by fire has reduced it to ashes?"

On the Phantom of the Opera: " The crowd freezes, the Phantom laughs and opens his hand to reveal that it contains...nothing at all."

The use of stylistic language not only ties a theory together but it captures the reader and persuades him to follow the theory through.