CLass news
Semester One
December 2-20: Women in Cinema, Race and Cinema
A snowstorm began our run up to the winter break, so let's hope that's it for a little while! We will be ending our unit on women in cinema with the film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which is also out only animated feature this semester. We will use it to examine girl's lives, culture, and (incidentally) the animated feature film. Work will transition to ways in which cinema has portrayed the black experience in America, with excerpts from Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind, followed by Steve McQueen's Twelve Years a Slave and Spike Lee's Black KKKlansman. The most important reminder is that students should be working outside of class on their projects, because a draft is due when we return from break on 1/6.
November 4-22: Women in Cinema
The first week of November will be used for students to wrap up our 'Director as Auteur' unit with in-class support and discussion to prepare papers. As the second week begins, we will be looking at the contribution on women to the world of cinema. We will look at women’s roles as creators and performers in film. Students will examine ways in which film has been a medium of both subjugation and liberation. Besides readings, students will view Hawk's His Girl Friday, Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham.
October 21-November 1: Director as Auteur
Students will be applying understanding of film analysis and criticism to examination of two seminal directors, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. We will consider what about their work makes the 'auteurs,' or the creator and visionary of their films. Students will write their own auteur paper after viewing at least three films by a director of their choice.
October 1- 18: Film Analysis & Critical Viewing
Our second unit is designed to train students to truly read film, by isolating the literary, theatrical, and cinematic elements of the art. After examining excerpts of Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner to learn approaches to analysis, students view the mini-documentary Pure Cinema that studies Hitchcock's technical approach to film. We will follow up with his 1954 thriller Rear Window and Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb to examine how these two masters construct and how students can deconstruct the viewing experience.
September 16-27: Film Origins Unit Wraps
Having examined film's earliest days, we are capping the introductory unit with two feature-length works, 1934's The Thin Man and an all-time classic, Casablanca from 1942. In these works we see film taking its modern form, along with great performances, direction, and design. There will be a unit test to show understanding, then we will begin our unit on film analysis, essentially 'close reading' of film. Here we will examine the various careers and responsibilities within the industry, as well as learning how to break scenes down with shot by shot analysis.
September 4-12: Welcome Back!
Class in the first week is all about getting oriented. Beside discussion of upcoming units and the all important project, students are getting glimpses of the earliest moving pictures, including camera tests from 1889, and original short films of daily life and entertainment that date from before the turn of the century. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" and Melies's "Voyage dans la Lune" will be early story films for us to study. Students will provide a writing sample with a short discussion of a "Film that Changed My Life" which will be an initial formative assessment to shape areas for class focus.
A snowstorm began our run up to the winter break, so let's hope that's it for a little while! We will be ending our unit on women in cinema with the film Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, which is also out only animated feature this semester. We will use it to examine girl's lives, culture, and (incidentally) the animated feature film. Work will transition to ways in which cinema has portrayed the black experience in America, with excerpts from Birth of a Nation and Gone With the Wind, followed by Steve McQueen's Twelve Years a Slave and Spike Lee's Black KKKlansman. The most important reminder is that students should be working outside of class on their projects, because a draft is due when we return from break on 1/6.
November 4-22: Women in Cinema
The first week of November will be used for students to wrap up our 'Director as Auteur' unit with in-class support and discussion to prepare papers. As the second week begins, we will be looking at the contribution on women to the world of cinema. We will look at women’s roles as creators and performers in film. Students will examine ways in which film has been a medium of both subjugation and liberation. Besides readings, students will view Hawk's His Girl Friday, Chadha's Bend it Like Beckham.
October 21-November 1: Director as Auteur
Students will be applying understanding of film analysis and criticism to examination of two seminal directors, Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Kubrick. We will consider what about their work makes the 'auteurs,' or the creator and visionary of their films. Students will write their own auteur paper after viewing at least three films by a director of their choice.
October 1- 18: Film Analysis & Critical Viewing
Our second unit is designed to train students to truly read film, by isolating the literary, theatrical, and cinematic elements of the art. After examining excerpts of Ridley Scott's 1982 Blade Runner to learn approaches to analysis, students view the mini-documentary Pure Cinema that studies Hitchcock's technical approach to film. We will follow up with his 1954 thriller Rear Window and Kubrick's 1964 Dr. Strangelove, or How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb to examine how these two masters construct and how students can deconstruct the viewing experience.
September 16-27: Film Origins Unit Wraps
Having examined film's earliest days, we are capping the introductory unit with two feature-length works, 1934's The Thin Man and an all-time classic, Casablanca from 1942. In these works we see film taking its modern form, along with great performances, direction, and design. There will be a unit test to show understanding, then we will begin our unit on film analysis, essentially 'close reading' of film. Here we will examine the various careers and responsibilities within the industry, as well as learning how to break scenes down with shot by shot analysis.
September 4-12: Welcome Back!
Class in the first week is all about getting oriented. Beside discussion of upcoming units and the all important project, students are getting glimpses of the earliest moving pictures, including camera tests from 1889, and original short films of daily life and entertainment that date from before the turn of the century. Porter's "The Great Train Robbery" and Melies's "Voyage dans la Lune" will be early story films for us to study. Students will provide a writing sample with a short discussion of a "Film that Changed My Life" which will be an initial formative assessment to shape areas for class focus.