Film Studies Daily Log

Monday, December 13

Students received the assignment sheet for the second Outside Viewing Paper. Whereas the first paper was an analysis of several elements of filmcraft in a single scene, this assignment calls for a study of a single element (be it cinematography, lighting, film editing, sound editing, or mise en scene) throughout the chosen film. Due Wednesday, January 5. Films will be distributed Tuesday (tomorrow).

We watched several more minutes of Hollywoodism, which portrayed the Hollywood version of the American dream in the studio era (30's - 50's) as the recasting of the Jewish dream of assimilation and success as the dream of all outsiders, and focused on the Jewish embrace of Black music and culture. Afterwards we watched brief snippets from The Jazz Singer, unusual in being an explicitly Jewish treatment of these themes.