EXTRA CREDIT OPPORTUNITY for what's left of Winter Break

Up to 20 points available for a 1-2 page paper on the historical background of Casablanca, due Monday, January 5.

Questions to be answered include: Where is Casablanca? Who controlled it at the time the film was made? What role did Germany play there? Who governed France? What was Vichy France? What territory did it contain? How was it different from Occupied France? What territory was included in Occupied France? When was it occupied and by whom? Who was Marshall Petain? Who was Charles DeGaulle? Where was he? What was the Resistance? What were its different arms? What was the Spanish Civil War? What was the situation at the time in Ethiopia? What is the "Marseillaise"? What is "The Watch on the Rhine"? What was the Angriff? What is Vichy water?

Tuesday, December 16

This week: Facist and Anti-Fascist Propaganda

Today: excerpts from Triumph of the Will, the official propaganda film of the 1934 Nazi Party rally in Nuremberg and from Charlie Chaplin's Hitler parody in The Great Dictator.

Tomorrow: Casablanca.

Monday, December 15

We watched two film excerpts concerning the early days of the film industry focusing on the war between Edison's Trust and the independent producers. The second ( from An Empire of Their Own) stressed the common experiences of many of these independents -- later the leading Hollywood "moguls" -- as Eastern European Jewish immigrants. Following the excerpts Mr. Potratz talked about the history of anti-Semitism directed at Hollywood and the background of Fascism in Europe in the 1930s, the threat of which went largely unnoticed by Hollywood until after the U.S. entered the war in December, 1941.

Friday, December 12

Students turned in their homework, we watched the final scene of City Lights yet once more, and then we discussed that scene and people's varying reactions to and interpretations of it.

Thursday, December 11

Students turned in their HW>

We finished watching City Lights, then rewatched the final scene with students taking notes.

HW due Friday:
Type one page (1) describing in detail what happens in the final scene, and (2) telling what you think will happen next.

Wednesday, December 10

We watched the first 40 minutes of City Lights.

HW due Thursday:
Compile (e.g., copy and paste) at least one page (single-spaced) of information about the life and works of Charlie Chaplin from at least three sources. Cite all sources in MLA format (pp. 17-19 of your planners).

Tuesday, December 9

Pre-Code excerpts

We watched

(1) the ending of Golddiggers of 1933, including "The Ballad of the Forgotten Man," followed by a brief discussion,

and

(2) scenes from Tarzan and His Mate (1934).

Here come the forces of decency!

Monday, December 8

We watched the beginning of the Depression-era document of escapism and social upheaval Golddiggers of 1933.

Friday, December 5

Students retrieved their notes from Thursday, and we watched the final few minutes of Complicated Women, then discussed it. At the end of class students turned in their completed notes.

Thursday, December 4

We watched most of Complicated Women, a documentary film about the treatment of women in "pre-code" films made between 1929 and 1934.

Students took notes on the major ideas presented in the film, which they turned in at the end of the period.

Wednesday, December 3

Students took a quiz over Citizen Kane which required them to identify images from the film according to where they are in the film and their thematic significance. Afterwards we looked at and discussed one or two of the images.

Next Mr. Potratz passed out copies of the Hays Code of 1930. Students read it, then we discussed what it prohibited and one or two of its contradictions.

Tuesday, December 2

We returned to Citizen Kane one last time to examine its use of the subjective camera.

We compared the two treatments of Susan's operatic career in this connection: first the nightmarish sequence as seen from Susan's tortured perspective (which actually occurs second in the film) and then the earlier presentation with its shifting perspectives, reflecting the viewpoints of the singing coach, Bernstein, Leland, and especially Kane.

Tomorrow's class will begin with a second (and final) quiz over Citizen Kane.

Monday, December 1

Students listed what they thought were the leading visual motifs in Citizen Kane -- such as windows, statues, smoke, shadows, and the entire complex of motifs surrounding "Rosebud": the sled, the snowglobe , snow itself.

Following that we reviewed several early scenes in the film with an eye out for those motifs.