Tuesday, July 15, 2014
Melodrama Recommended Viewing List
Stella Dallas (Vidor 1937)
Leave Her To Heaven (Stahl 1945)
Mildred Pierce (Curiz 1945)
All That Heaven Allows (Sirkn 1955)
Written on the Wind (Sirk 1956)
There’s Always Tomorrow (Sirk 1956)
An Affair to Remember (McCarey 1957)
Imitation of Life (Sirk 1959)
Two Weeks in Another Town (Minnelli 1962)
Love Story (Hiller 1970)
Terms of Endearment (Brooks 1983)
Beaches (Marshall 1988)
Sleeping with the Enemy (Ruben 1991)
The Prince of Tides (Streisand 1991)
Message In A Bottle (Mandoki 1999)
Girl, Interrupted (Mangold 1999)
White Oleander (Kosminsky 2002)
Where the Heart Is (Williams 2002)
The Notebook (Cassavetes 2004)
Dear John (Hallstrom 2010)
Sunday, July 6, 2014
Western and Film Noir recommended viewing lists
Westerns
My Darling Clementine (Ford 1946)
Red River (Hawks 1948)
Rio Bravo (Hawks 1951)
High Noon (1952 Zinnemann)
The Naked Spur (Mann 1953)
The Searchers (Ford 1956)
3:10 to Yuma (Daves 1957)
True Grit (Hathaway 1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Hill 1969)
Little Big Man (Penn 1970)
The Cowboys (Rydell 1972)
The Shootist (Siegel 1976)
Heaven’s Gate (Ciminio 1980)
Young Guns (Cain 1988)
Dances With Wolves (Costner 1990)
Unforgiven (Eastwood 1992)
Dead Man (Jarmusch 1995)
Open Range (Costner 2003)
3:10 to Yuma (Mangold 2007)
Appaloosa (Harris 2008)
True Grit (Coen 2010)
Rango (Verbinski 2011)
Film Noir/Crime
Little Caesar (LeRoy 1930)
Scarface (Hawks 1932)
The Maltese Falcon (Huston 1941)
This Gun For Hire (Tuttle 1942)
The Lady in the Window (Lang 1944)
Detour (Ulmer 1945)
The Big Sleep (Hawks 1946)
Born to Kill (Wise 1947)
The Big Clock (Farrow 1948)
White Heat (Walsh 1949)
DOA (Mate 1950)
Gun Crazy (Lewis 1950)
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950)
Pickup on South Street (Fuller 1953)
The Blue Gardenia (Lang 1953)
The Big Heat (Lang 1953)
Touch of Evil (1958 Welles)
Chinatown (Polanski 1974)
Blood Simple (Coen 1984)
DOA (Jankel, Morton 1988)
Kill Me Again (Dahl 1989)
The Grifters (Frears 1990)
Red Rock West (Dahl 1993)
U Turn (Stone 1997)
The Departed (Scorcese 2006)
My Darling Clementine (Ford 1946)
Red River (Hawks 1948)
Rio Bravo (Hawks 1951)
High Noon (1952 Zinnemann)
The Naked Spur (Mann 1953)
The Searchers (Ford 1956)
3:10 to Yuma (Daves 1957)
True Grit (Hathaway 1969)
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (Hill 1969)
Little Big Man (Penn 1970)
The Cowboys (Rydell 1972)
The Shootist (Siegel 1976)
Heaven’s Gate (Ciminio 1980)
Young Guns (Cain 1988)
Dances With Wolves (Costner 1990)
Unforgiven (Eastwood 1992)
Dead Man (Jarmusch 1995)
Open Range (Costner 2003)
3:10 to Yuma (Mangold 2007)
Appaloosa (Harris 2008)
True Grit (Coen 2010)
Rango (Verbinski 2011)
Film Noir/Crime
Little Caesar (LeRoy 1930)
Scarface (Hawks 1932)
The Maltese Falcon (Huston 1941)
This Gun For Hire (Tuttle 1942)
The Lady in the Window (Lang 1944)
Detour (Ulmer 1945)
The Big Sleep (Hawks 1946)
Born to Kill (Wise 1947)
The Big Clock (Farrow 1948)
White Heat (Walsh 1949)
DOA (Mate 1950)
Gun Crazy (Lewis 1950)
Sunset Boulevard (Wilder 1950)
Pickup on South Street (Fuller 1953)
The Blue Gardenia (Lang 1953)
The Big Heat (Lang 1953)
Touch of Evil (1958 Welles)
Chinatown (Polanski 1974)
Blood Simple (Coen 1984)
DOA (Jankel, Morton 1988)
Kill Me Again (Dahl 1989)
The Grifters (Frears 1990)
Red Rock West (Dahl 1993)
U Turn (Stone 1997)
The Departed (Scorcese 2006)
The American Motion Picture
This summer I'm teaching a section of LIT 227, the American Motion Picture. The idea is to link significant movies made over the last hundred years to important ideas, movements, and events in American culture while also educating students about the basics of cinematic vocabulary.
For me, it's just a fantastic opportunity to fuse some of the things that I love most -- watching movies, talking about them, and teaching. The fact that I'm getting paid too is just gravy.
So a few people have asked what films we're watching, what concepts I'm covering, etc. so I thought I'd just post some of my materials here. Anyone who wants to follow along for the next six weeks is more than welcome.
So here's our schedule:
Genre/Western
July 1 Stagecoach (Ford 1939)
July 3 Lone Star (Sayles 1996) Quiz #1 - Genre
Mis En Scene/Film Noir
July 8 Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich 1955) Quiz #2 – Mis En Scene
July 10 Brick (Johnson 2005) Film Analysis # 1 due - Western
Cinematography/MelodramaJuly 15 Magnificent Obsession (Sirk 1954) Quiz #3 - Cinematography
July 17 Far From Heaven (Haynes 2002) Film Analysis #2 due – Film Noir
Editing/Musical
July 22 Singin’ In The Rain (Kelly, Donen 1952) Quiz #4 - Editing
July 24 Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (Whedon 2008), Moulin Rouge! (Luhrman 2001)
Film Analysis #3 due - Melodrama
Screenwriting/Comedy
July 29 His Girl Friday (Hawks 1940) Quiz #5 - Screenwriting
July 31 Intolerable Cruelty (Coen 2003) Film Analysis #4 due - Musical
Acting/Horror
Aug. 5 Dracula (Browning 1931) Quiz #6 – Acting, Final Paper Proposal due
Aug. 7 The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, Sanchez 1999) Film Analysis #5 due - Comedy
Ideology/Sci Fi
Aug. 12 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel 1956) Quiz #7 - Ideology
Aug. 14 District 9 (Blomkamp 2009) Longer Film Analysis due – genre of your choice,
Final Exam?
The idea is that we watch a traditional/classic example of a given genre or subgenre on Tuesdays and then a more contemporary alternate or revisionist example of Thursdays. We talk about how they're the same, how they're different, how they fit within the confines of the genre, how they don't, etc.
Each week, the students also have to watch an additional movie on their own outside of class. I give them a list of twenty or so for each category from which they can choose. They have to write 500-1000 word analysis of each film demonstrating that they understand both the conventions of the genre and film concept of the week.
So last week, we covered westerns and talked about how they are sort of the creation myths of American culture. They are the stories we tell ourselves about where we think we've come from. They primarily focus on the weird collision between how we value ourselves as rugged individuals and how we need civilization and community. Tough loners tame the west usually in the name of law and order but then rarely stick around to enjoy the peace and community that come from it. They always have to move on because they're too tough, too crabby, too untamable to be plain ol' town folk. So what westerns seem to suggest is that, as Americans, we see ourselves as both communal and individual.
We watched John Ford's Stagecoach, one of the urtexts of American westerns and American film. Apparently, when Orson Welles was making Citizen Kane, he watched Stagecoach forty times because he considered it essentially a perfect film and wanted it to inspire his own work. To modern eyes, it's a little draggy in places and the musical interlude seems a little inexplicable, but all the western conventions are firmly in place, the sweeping shots of Monument Valley are appropriately breathtaking, and the stunts during the chase scene toward the end are really impressive. It may seem old fashioned in some ways, but that's mainly because the film has been aped, stolen from, and imitated ad infinitum, Westerns being made today are still trying to be Stagecoach. (There are several segments of last year's pretty terrible The Lone Ranger that I could point to as blatant Stagecoach rip offs.)
We actually didn't end up watching Lone Star because of a scheduling error I made, but it remains one of my favorite revisionist westerns. It takes place in modern day Texas in a small border town where the reserved, somewhat hesitant Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) is the sheriff of a the same town where his tough, rugged father Buddy Deeds (young Matthew McConaughey) was sheriff years before. The film asks questions about western identity; about borders between countries, cultures, people; and about links between parents and children. The film shifts back and forth in time between the late 1950s and the early 1990s, and the ways director John Sayles manages the flashbacks/flashforwards is nothing less than masterful. Every time there is a shift in time, the way the film pulls it off gives me that little shiver of "that's so cool!" that I go to the movies for. And, may I point out, the transitions are accomplished in a way that could really only be done on film. I highly recommend it.
Anyway, I'll post the additional film list for both westerns and film noirs in another entry. If there's anything on them that piques your interest, look around on your favorite streaming service or online and give it a try.
Coming up this week is film noir, my favorite film subgenre of all time. Cool, tough, with a dark heart that's equal parts gun metal and bumper chrome, it is the epitome of post war disaffection. It is the dark shadow of the cheerful, sunlit 1950s. I'm excited. Can you tell?
For me, it's just a fantastic opportunity to fuse some of the things that I love most -- watching movies, talking about them, and teaching. The fact that I'm getting paid too is just gravy.
So a few people have asked what films we're watching, what concepts I'm covering, etc. so I thought I'd just post some of my materials here. Anyone who wants to follow along for the next six weeks is more than welcome.
So here's our schedule:
Genre/Western
July 1 Stagecoach (Ford 1939)
July 3 Lone Star (Sayles 1996) Quiz #1 - Genre
Mis En Scene/Film Noir
July 8 Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich 1955) Quiz #2 – Mis En Scene
July 10 Brick (Johnson 2005) Film Analysis # 1 due - Western
Cinematography/MelodramaJuly 15 Magnificent Obsession (Sirk 1954) Quiz #3 - Cinematography
July 17 Far From Heaven (Haynes 2002) Film Analysis #2 due – Film Noir
Editing/Musical
July 22 Singin’ In The Rain (Kelly, Donen 1952) Quiz #4 - Editing
July 24 Dr. Horrible’s Sing Along Blog (Whedon 2008), Moulin Rouge! (Luhrman 2001)
Film Analysis #3 due - Melodrama
Screenwriting/Comedy
July 29 His Girl Friday (Hawks 1940) Quiz #5 - Screenwriting
July 31 Intolerable Cruelty (Coen 2003) Film Analysis #4 due - Musical
Acting/Horror
Aug. 5 Dracula (Browning 1931) Quiz #6 – Acting, Final Paper Proposal due
Aug. 7 The Blair Witch Project (Myrick, Sanchez 1999) Film Analysis #5 due - Comedy
Ideology/Sci Fi
Aug. 12 Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel 1956) Quiz #7 - Ideology
Aug. 14 District 9 (Blomkamp 2009) Longer Film Analysis due – genre of your choice,
Final Exam?
The idea is that we watch a traditional/classic example of a given genre or subgenre on Tuesdays and then a more contemporary alternate or revisionist example of Thursdays. We talk about how they're the same, how they're different, how they fit within the confines of the genre, how they don't, etc.
Each week, the students also have to watch an additional movie on their own outside of class. I give them a list of twenty or so for each category from which they can choose. They have to write 500-1000 word analysis of each film demonstrating that they understand both the conventions of the genre and film concept of the week.
So last week, we covered westerns and talked about how they are sort of the creation myths of American culture. They are the stories we tell ourselves about where we think we've come from. They primarily focus on the weird collision between how we value ourselves as rugged individuals and how we need civilization and community. Tough loners tame the west usually in the name of law and order but then rarely stick around to enjoy the peace and community that come from it. They always have to move on because they're too tough, too crabby, too untamable to be plain ol' town folk. So what westerns seem to suggest is that, as Americans, we see ourselves as both communal and individual.
We watched John Ford's Stagecoach, one of the urtexts of American westerns and American film. Apparently, when Orson Welles was making Citizen Kane, he watched Stagecoach forty times because he considered it essentially a perfect film and wanted it to inspire his own work. To modern eyes, it's a little draggy in places and the musical interlude seems a little inexplicable, but all the western conventions are firmly in place, the sweeping shots of Monument Valley are appropriately breathtaking, and the stunts during the chase scene toward the end are really impressive. It may seem old fashioned in some ways, but that's mainly because the film has been aped, stolen from, and imitated ad infinitum, Westerns being made today are still trying to be Stagecoach. (There are several segments of last year's pretty terrible The Lone Ranger that I could point to as blatant Stagecoach rip offs.)
We actually didn't end up watching Lone Star because of a scheduling error I made, but it remains one of my favorite revisionist westerns. It takes place in modern day Texas in a small border town where the reserved, somewhat hesitant Sam Deeds (Chris Cooper) is the sheriff of a the same town where his tough, rugged father Buddy Deeds (young Matthew McConaughey) was sheriff years before. The film asks questions about western identity; about borders between countries, cultures, people; and about links between parents and children. The film shifts back and forth in time between the late 1950s and the early 1990s, and the ways director John Sayles manages the flashbacks/flashforwards is nothing less than masterful. Every time there is a shift in time, the way the film pulls it off gives me that little shiver of "that's so cool!" that I go to the movies for. And, may I point out, the transitions are accomplished in a way that could really only be done on film. I highly recommend it.
Anyway, I'll post the additional film list for both westerns and film noirs in another entry. If there's anything on them that piques your interest, look around on your favorite streaming service or online and give it a try.
Coming up this week is film noir, my favorite film subgenre of all time. Cool, tough, with a dark heart that's equal parts gun metal and bumper chrome, it is the epitome of post war disaffection. It is the dark shadow of the cheerful, sunlit 1950s. I'm excited. Can you tell?
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