Wednesday, December 19

We went over the Film Noir quiz, students answered the questions as a class, and everybody who took the quiz received 100% (Merry Xmas). Then we partied and watched the first episode of the 1936 Flash Gordon serial.

HW due Friday, January 4:
Your assignment for the holidays is to write one longer or two shorter movie reviews and submit them online, either to The Internet Movie Database (IMDB) or to Amazon.com. You must write at least 500 words total. (IMDB encourages somewhat longer reviews than does Amazon; you could submit two reviews to Amazon or either one or two to IMDB.) Note: it turns out you can't post reviews on Amazon unless you have an account on which you have purchased something! (Oops.) So: unless you do have such an account: IMDB.


Tuesday, December 18:

We watched the second half of Detour and students then took a quiz on film noir.

Monday, December 17

Quiz postponed until tomorrow.
We watched the first halgf of Edgar G. Ulman's classic fim noir B-movie, Detour.

Friday, December 14
We examined a few additional scenes in Citizen Kane, then watched 15 minutes of the documentary film The Battle Over Citizen Kane depicting Wm. Randolph Hearst's campaign to destroy the film and Welles's career.

HW due Monday:
Two handouts introducing Film Noir. Quiz over them Monday.

Thursday, December 13

Brief discussion of yesterday's film on Hollywood Style, followed by discussion of the theme(s) of Citizen Kane and further revisiting of scenes from that film, up to Kane's taking over the Inquirer.


Wednesday, December 12
Mr. Potratz was absent. The class watched a documentary on classic Hollywood Style.

Tuesday, December 11

We ran the beginning of Citizen Kane again, up to the point where young Charles leaves home for the East, commenting on motifs and expressive details, transitions and connections with previous films.

Monday, December 10

Students took, and we graded, a quiz over Citizen Kane.

Friday, December 7

Having displaced Everybody Reads! with the end of Citizen Kane on Thursday, we devoted the short class period to free reading.

Quiz over Citizen Kane on Monday.

Thursday, December 6

We finished watching Citizen Kane, using the Everybody Reads! period for the purpose.
Friday's class will therefore be devoted to free reading.

There will be a quiz over Citizen Kane on Monday.

Wednesday, December 5

We listened to three minutes or so of Orson Welles's famous 1938 broadcast of The War of the Worlds.

Then we began watching Citizen Kane, with the admonition to watch carefully and the information that there will be a quiz over the film on Monday.

Tuesday, December 4

Fascism & Anti-Fascism in the 1930s.
Es spricht der Fuehrer: We watched the final eleven minutes of Triumph of the Will and then a clip from The Great Dictator with Charlie Chaplin imitating Hitler.
Then we watched thirteen minutes of The Battle over Citizen Kane covering Orson Welles's early theatrical triumphs in NYC, esp. the WPA voodoo MacBeth and the antifascist Julius Caesar.

Monday, December 3

Busby Berkeley & Adolf Hitler
We looked at production numbers staged by Busby Berkeley from Depression-era musicals, combining pure escapism and social commentary, then compared them with Nazi "production numbers" from Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will.

Friday, November 30

Flappers on the Silver Screen: "I Want to Be Loved by You" sung by Helen Kane, the inspiration for Betty Boop, followed by scenes from It, with Clara Bow ("The It Girl"). Finally Louise Brooks as Lulu in G.W. Pabst’s silent German masterwork Pandora’s Box.

Thursday, November 29

We read students' predictions of what would happen after the ending of City Lights, and debated the matter. Having done so, we watched the final scene one last time.

Wednesday, November 28

We finished watching City Lights, then watched the final scene a second time, this time with the students taking notes.

HW due Thursday:
Type one or two well-written paragraphs in response to both of the following questions:
(1) What happens in the final scene of City Lights? Describe in detail.
(2) What do you think will happen next?

Tuesday, November 27

We watched the Fleischers' "Snow White" with Betty Boop, then the first 40 minutes of City Lights, written by, directed by, with music composed by, and starring, Charlie Chaplin.

Monday, November 26

Students took the quiz over Complicated Women and the Hays Code. We graded it and briefly discussed the Code, then watched some pre-Code Betty Boop.

Tuesday, November 20

Film: Complicated Women, about women in pre-Code Hollywood films.
Students took notes on the film.

Handouts: The Motion Picture Production Code of 1930 (Hays Code)

Quiz Monday over the film and the handouts. Open notes and open handouts.

Friday, November 16

We watched more scenes from Young Frankenstein with Mel Brooks's commentary.

Thursday, November 15

We rewatched certain scenes of Young Frankenstein, this time with director Mel Brooks's voice-over commentary.

Special Pedagogical Dispensation:
Outside viewing essays submitted Friday will receive 5 points extra credit.
Essays will be accepted at full credit on Tuesday.

Wednesday, November 14

We finished (almost) watching Young Frankenstein.

HW due Friday: Outside Viewing Essay due.

Tuesday, November 13

We watched the first half of Young Frankenstein.

Friday, November 9

We watched excerpts from Bride of Frankenstein.

HW due Friday, Nov. 16: Outside viewing essay.

Thursday, November 8

We finished watching Frankenstein (1931), skipping a few of the duller parts to get through it in time.

HW due Friday: You need to have selected the film you are writing the analytical essay about.

Wednesday, November 7

We watched a little more of Dracula and the beginning of Frankenstein.
Then we hid under our desks until the shaking subsided, after which we fled the building.

Tuesday, November 6

We finished our examination of M and focused on the cinematographer Karl Freund as a bridge between German Expressionism and Hollywood horror films of the 1930's. We watched the intoxication scene from The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann), directed by Murnau, and a scene from Dracula (1931).

Monday, November 5

Close analysis of scenes in M as a model for student papers, with reference to the Expressionist tradition, especially monster movies.

Friday, November 2

Mr. Potratz distributed copies of the assignment sheet for an outside viewing essay, requiring students to analyze a single representative scene from a film they have chosen.

We then discussed key images from M.

Thursday, November 1

We revisited and analyzed various scenes from the first half of M.

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.