Wednesday, October 31

We finished watching M. Students turned in their notes at the end of class.


Tuesday, October 30

We watched M as far as the point where Peter Lorre is marked with the M.
Students took notes on Expressionist technique in the film.

Monday, October 29

We surveyed high points of Lang's Metropolis (having watched the first half-hour on Friday), then watched the opening (the first twelve minutes) of M.

Friday, October 26

The students (many of them) were vile.
We nevertheless managed to watch the first 25 minutes of Fritz Lang's Metropolis.

Thursday, October 25

Students took the quiz over Expressionism and we corrected it together in class.

We watched the first half-hour of F.W, Murnau's masterful study in chiaroscuro, Faust.

Wednesday, October 24

We looked at projections of works by leading Expressionist artists, and students took notes.

Quiz tomorrow over Expressionism, including class notes, Caligari, two handouts.

Tuesday, October 23

We finished watching The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and discussed it very briefly.

Handout: article on Expressionism from Britannica Online to be read by Wednesday.

Quiz over Expressionism postponed until Thursday.



Monday, October 22
School cancelled in honor of Vandals Day.

Friday, October 19

HW for weekend: Read handout on "German Expressionism."
QUIZ Tuesday over German Expressionism.

We watched the first half hour of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Thursday, October 18

We watched all of Man with a Movie Camera again, this time in three minutes (at 20x speed)!

We then compared the film as a Constructivist artwork with projections of other early Soviet Constructivist works, from movie posters to towers.

Next we watched a short section of the film dealing with labor, and discussed the comments about it from the handout entitled "Sergei Eisenstein's montage theory" (not to be confused with the handout entitled "Eisenstein's Montage Theories").

Finally, we watched the section again with the voice-over commentary of Yuri Tsivian expanding upon the contrast in the segment between service work and production work.

Wednesday, October 17

Further investigation of montage in Battleship Potemkin, this time rhythmic & tonal montage. Detailed examination of the Odessa Steps scene.

Tuesday, October 16

Lecture on Montage, continued.
Focus on examples of "intellectual montage" from Battleship Potemkin.

Monday, October 15

HW (93-word paragraph) turned in.

Illustrated lecture on Soviet Montage.
Handouts: (1) Montage Notesheet, and (2) "Eisenstein's Montage Theory"
Mr. Potratz lectured and students took notes on the definition of montage, on photomontage stills (the photomontages of John Heartfield), the relationship between Eisenstein and D.W. Griffith, and Eisenstein's classification of montage into types.

Friday, October 12

No school (for students).

Thursday, October 11

Students chose and took films for outside viewing.
HW due Monday: Watch the film you chose and write exactly 93 words summing it up. What makes the film what it is? What makes it distinctive? Do not write a plot summary. Do talk about theme, technique (photography, lighting, editing, sound, etc.), and style. Your audience is the rest of the class, who have not seen the film. Do your best to convey the film's essence to them in 93 well-chosen words.

We rewatched a segment of Man with a Movie Camera, focusing on Dziga Vertov's ("Spinning Top's") many whirling circles.

Wednesday, October 10

We finished watching Vertov's The Man with a Movie Camera, after which students wrote very briefly about (1) what the subject of the film is and (2) what the film has to say about that subject. Some students then shared what they had written.


Tuesday, October 9

Students took ten minutes to complete their Theater/Film Venn diagrams from Monday and submitted those. Then they watched (Mr. Potratz being absent) the first 40 minutes of Dziga Vertov's Man with a Movie Camera.

Monday, October 8

We went to the auditorium for the dramatic scenes presented by Intiman Theater's Living History project. Students were given Venn diagrams to fill in, listing elements of theater as opposed to film, elements of film as opposed to theater, and elements shared by both theater and film.