Thursday, June 10

We finished Bonnie and Clyde and briefly discussed the film and the real Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows, focusing on the film's depiction of the self-mythologization of the pair and the painful contrast between the heroic myth and the brutal reality.

Wednesday, June 9

Students took the final exam.

Tuesday, June 8

We watched more of Bonnie and Clyde, which we will finish on Thursday.

Final exam on Wednesday. See yesterday's log entry.

Monday, June 7

Mr. P announced that he would sign all Senior check-out forms on Wednesday while students are taking the final exam. That exam will take the form of three or four short clips from films, some of which students have seen, which students will analyze in terms of certain specified elements of filmcraft (cinematography, mise en scene, film editing, etc.). To prepare for the exam students should review the original "Classical Hollywood Cinema" packet one final time.

We watched more of Bonnie and Clyde.

Friday, June 4

The class and Mr. P debated whether Night and the City conformed to the "Characteristics of Film Noir" listed in the worksheet.

At the end of class we watched the very beginning of our last film, Bonnie and Clyde.

Wednesday, June 2

We briefly disucussed what students had written so far on their "Noir Characteristics" worksheet about how well Night and the City conforms to those benchmarks of film noir.

Then we watched 45 more minutes of the film.

Tuesday, June 1

Students received a sheet outlining Characteristics of Film Noir, to which they were asked to add their comments on the relevance of those characteristics to our next film, Jules Dassin's Night and the City (1951).

Afterwards we watched the first 27 minutes of that film.