Friday, December 18

We continued briefly our discussion of the musical score of Citizen Kane and of the significance of sound editing more generally.

Students received an assignment for the break:

On Tuesday, January 5, you are to turn in a typed assignment which has two parts: the first involves cutting and pasting, while the second requires writing of your own.

Part 1: After consulting several websites from the Links page of the class website copy the five or six critical comments or passages which you find most interesting and insightful.

Part 2: In response to those passages, write a 400-word piece of your own describing, analysing and evaluating the film, its techniques, impact and significance.

Thursday, December 17

We focused on Bernard Herrmann's musical score for Citizen Kane, listening to the film's opening scene without the image several times, both before and after reading Herrmann's remarks about the score's use of musical motifs. We considered the relation of musical motifs with visual ones, and we began to look at the use of camera angles and movement in the film.

Thursday, December 16

Starting from a statement by Orson Welles about the centrality of Kane's love for his mother and the "dollar book Freudianism" of Citizen Kane, we examined various scenes in the film and the imagery of snow which binds them together. We analyzed the scene in the snow when young Charles is taken from his home and revisited the by now rather tedious dispute over whether certain details in films have meaning beyond their simple, matter-of-fact existence as objects in a story.

Tuesday, December 15

We examined subjective uses of the camera in Citizen Kane, first reviewing the subjectivity of the viewer's response to the opening sequence and consequently to the film's investigative mission as a whole, then re-viewing and comparing to each other the two montages of Susan's opera performances.

After this it was Sentencing Time: students wrote two drafts of a single sentence summing up the theme of Citizen Kane, and several students then read their sentences aloud to the class.

Monday, December 14

Students turned in their second outside reading essays.

Students received back their quizzes from Friday, and we went over them, after which we looked very briefly at the opening sequence again.

Friday, December 11

Students took an unannounced quiz over Citizen Kane.

HW due Monday:
Single-scene analysis essay (outside viewing)

Thursday, December 10

Mr. P announced that essays turned in tomorrow as assigned would earn five points extra credit and that essays turned in Monday would receive full credit.

We finished watching Citizen Kane.

HW due Monday:
Single-element analysis essay. Essays turned in Friday will earn five points of extra credit.

Wednesday, December 9

We spoke briefly about the single element analysis which is due Friday, using Citizen Kane as an example of possible approaches.

Afterwards we continued watching Citizen Kane for the balance of the period.

Tuesday, December 8

We watched twenty-five more minutes of the documentary we began yesterday, then watched the first twenty-five minutes of Citizen Kane.

Monday, December 7

We continued to address questions which were raised Friday regarding film as a storytelling art and the techniques it employs. The careful choice and presentation of details -- and the embuing of those details with emotive and other meaning -- through visual and other means was compared with the purely verbal resources of literature.

After this discussion we turned our attention to a new film, Citizen Kane, directed by and starring Orson Welles -- many film lovers' choice as the finest American film. We began not with the film itself, however, but with the first few minutes of a documentary about the making of the film containing information about both Welles and the person on whom the central character Charles Foster Kane is largely based, the newspaper mogul William Randolph Hearst.

HW due Friday:
Second outside viewing essay.

Friday, December 4

We continued the discussion begun yesterday about the final scene of City Lights, ranging far and wide , but focusing especially on the relation of plot and story to symbolism and other aspects of film technique.

Thursday, December 3

Students read a handout compiling numerous critical commentaries on the final scene of City Lights, which students themselves wrote about in class on Wednesday.The welter of emotions on the faces of both characters and the heavy question mark left hanging in the air at "The End" elicited differing views and various comments.

Class was shortened by an evacuation drill.

Wednesday, December 2

We finished watching City Lights, then watched the final scene a second time, after which students wrote for ten minutes on the following:

(1) Describe what happens in the final scene. Include what people think and feel as well as what they say and do.

(2) What do you think will happen next?

Monday, November 30

Mr. P announced that assignment sheets and films would be distributed tomorrow for the second outside reading assignment. Students will not be issued a film if they have not yet returned the first film they checked out.

In a close election, we decided to watch the Charlie Chaplin sound-era silent masterpiece City Lights before proceeding to Citizen Kane, and we watched the first 35 minutes.

Due Tuesday:
Any films still checked out to students must be returned.

Tuesday, November 24

Students took a quiz over the Hays Code and the pre-Code period, using their notes from watching Complicated Women and their class handouts. We graded the quizzes in class and students turned them in along with their notes.

We then watched a clip from Tarzan and His Mate (1934), a sexual/racial fantasy which was an important target of the outcry against Hollywood immorality which led to strict enforcement of the Hays Code.

Friday, November 20

We watched most of Complicated Women, a documentary film about the role and treatment of women in pre-Code Hollywood films from 1929-1934. Students took notes.

HW due Tuesday:
Quiz over the Hays Code and the pre-Code period. Both handouts from Thursday and today's film will be covered. Student notes on the film will be turned in at the time of the quiz.

Thursday, November 19

We watched parts of The Jazz Singer (1929) as a historical document in two senses: as the landmark film in launching synchronized sound in the movies, and as an examination of the Jewish experience in America, exemplifying the conflicts inherent in the process of assimilation which the Jewish studio moguls in Hollywood were themselves embarked upon.

We then looked at the anti-Jewish backlash against Hollywood in the form of the Hays Code and the reign of Joseph Breen as chief crusader against everything evil in the movies from drunkenness to sexual perversion, all sponsored by "the scum of the earth," namely Eastern European Jews.

Students received two handouts on the Hays Code, which along with the documentary film Complicated Women (to be shown Friday) will be the subject of a quiz on Tuesday.

HW due Tuesday:
Quiz over the Hays Code and the pre-Code period.

Wednesday, November 18

We watched and afterwards discussed the beginning of a documentary on "The Physical History of M" which chronicled not only the different versions and editions of the film but its treatment by the National Socialists under Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels. An excerpt from Der Ewige Jude in the documentary showed how "the Jew Lorre" promoted compassion for pathological criminals.

Students took notes and turned them in.

Tuesday, November 17

We finished watching the Paul Falkenberg lecture and discussed some of the themes presented in it. We then watched the beginning of an interview with the son of Seymour Nebenzal, the producer of M, and then part of an interview with director Fritz Lang.

Students turned in their notes.

Monday, November 16

We briefly continued our discussion from Friday about M, discussing among other things its relation to the horror film tradition, then watched most of an illustrated lecture by Paul Falkenberg, the film editor of M. Students took notes, which they will complete on Tuesday when we finish with the lecture.

Friday, November 13

We discussed the questions re M which students wrote about in class Thursday, especially the issues raised by the film's ending: how should we respond to monstrous acts in our midst? Should the underworld have been allowed to carry out their response? Does killing the killers the administration of justice, or does it reduce society to their level and continue the chain of violence?

Thursday, November 12

Students spent the period writing three mini-essays about M, responding to questions on a worksheet.

Tuesday, November 10

We finished watching M.

Monday, November 9

We continued to watch M, ending as the authorities and the underworld both begin to close in on Beckert. We will finish watching the film on Tuesday.

Friday, November 6

We began watching Fritz Lang's early sound-era masterpiece, M.

Thursday, November 5

Students took a quiz over Expressionism, and we graded it together. We then watched more clips from German films of the 20's, including Murnau's Faust and Joe May's Asphalt.

Wednesday, November 4

Focus on Expressionism

We began by watching one more clip from Metropolis, in which the false Maria turns men to beasts with her dancing and Freder dreams of the Seven Deadly Sins -- a primer in Expressionist style.

From film we turned to painting, and illustrated references to artists in the Britannica handout --from Van Gogh to Kaethe Kollwitz -- with projected images.

HW due Thursday
Quiz over Expressionism, based on class instruction, films and clips, and the two handouts.

Tuesday, November 3

We returned to Freaks and re-viewed the pivotal scene where the tables are turned on Cleopatra, focusing on how the change in perspective to that of the freaks is accomplished in cinematic terms.

We also discussed further question of the film's moral center (in simple terms whether film ridicules or advocates for those who are not "normal").

We then turned (returned) to Lang's Metropolis as an important example of the German Expressionist movement in film to which Freaks is very heavily indebted. We watched two scenes of that Metropolis.

HW due Thursday:
Quiz over Expressionism; review the two handouts.

Monday, November 2

We finished watching Freaks, students read a handout about the actual people in the film, and we briefly began to discuss the film.

Friday, October 30

We watched a couple of the classic horror clips on cinemassacre.com (courtesy of Ryan), then watched the first twenty minutes or so of Freaks (1934).

Thursday, October 29

Students took a quizlet (5 questions) over the handout on German Expressionism distributed Wednesday, after which we watched more scenes from Murnau's Nosferatu and the very beginning of Lang's Metropolis.

Mr. P distributed a second handout on Expressionism, this time from Brittanica Online.
The two handouts and information from class sessions will be the material tested in a quiz next Wednesday.

Wednesday, October 28

In response to the class's request on Tuesday that we watch films appropriate to Halloween, we turned our attention to German post-WWI Expressionism and the films which launched the horror genre.

We learned a bit about conditions in Germany in the wake of the Great War which gave birth to Expressionism in the arts, then watched the first twenty-five minutes of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, followed by a few minutes of Murnau's Nosferatu.

Students received a multi-page handout on German Expressionism

HW due Thursday:
Read the handout and prepare to answer questions about it.

Tuesday, October 27

We watched the opening of a "media awareness" video ("Reading Between the Frames") from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Entitled "Time is not what it seems," the segment discusses the distortion of time in film for emotional effect and uses a clip from The Fast and the Furious. We then compared that scene to the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin with its time distortions.

After that we discussed questions of realism (or illusionism) and propaganda in films ranging from Birth of a Nation to Potemkin to 300.

Monday, October 26

We continued our study of montage in the 1920's, first by looking at some of the static photomontages by the German socialist (Communist) John Heartfield, then by re-viewing (again) and discussing the Odessa Steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin, and comparing it with Marcel Duchamps' famous painting Nude Descending a Staircase.

Friday, October 23

We continued our analysis of Battleship Potemkin, looking at the stone cherubs and at both montage and motif in the famous Odessa Steps sequence.

Thursday, October 22

Students having finished watching Battleship Potemkin in Mr. P's absence Wednesday, we discussed juxtaposition, montage, and imagery in the early parts of the film. We focused especially on montage of association and its opposite, montage of contrast, and on sexual imagery in the scene leading up to the mutiny, which some students dismissed as a mere product of the teacher's overheated brain.

Tuesday, October 20

Mr. P introduced certain terms and concepts central to montage in avant-garde Soviet film of the 1920's, after which we began watching Battleship Potemkin.

Friday, October 16

Intro to Early Soviet Film

Mr. P announced Battleship Potemkin as the next film we will study in class, and we made the transition from Birth of a Nation partly by glancing at the decisive influence which Griffith's films had upon Eisenstein and other Soviet filmmakers around the time of the Russian Revolution. We also showed how the appeal of film's propaganda potential linked Griffith with the Russians.

Another link we examined (using projected images) was the link between Russian Constructivism as an artistic style and developments in modern art in Western Europe at that time.

Thursday, October 15

We reviewed the lessons of Birth of a Nation (thank God for the KKK, white people unite and fight), then watched more of Lillian Gish, starting with the famous cross-cutting tour de force on the ice floes in Way Down East and including her final role in The Whales of August in 1987!

Wednesday, October 14

We went over the worksheet from Tuesday, supplying examples from Birth of various techniques pioneered or perfected by Griffith in that film.

Students turned in the worksheets at the end of class.

Tuesday, October 13

We finished watching Birth of a Nation while students checked off items on a list of pioneering techniques used in the film.

Monday, October 12

tudents received a handout ("Mr. Griffith Goes to Washington") about the Washington, D.C. premieres of Birth of a Nation, including one at the White House. We discussed the handout briefly, then returned to watching the film, as the carpetbaggers head pursue their insidious crusade to crush the white South and to (gasp) elevate black people to full social equality.

Friday, October 9

Students turned in single-scene analysis essays and returned films.

We examined briefy the mulatto characters in Birth of a Nation and looked at yesterday's news coverage of Michelle Obama's ancestry.

Thursday, October 8

We reviewed briefly what we learned Wednesday in the beginning of Birth of a Nation, then resumed watching it, skimming through and skipping over some passages, and finishing with the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis essay.

Wednesday, October 7

Class was divided between watching parts of two films, namely:

(1) a few more secctions of the PBS Reconstruction documentary, sampled yesterday, and

(2) the antidote to that mendacious and subversive propaganda, the beginning of D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis

Tuesday, October 6

We turned our attention to the next film we will watch, D.W. Griffith's monumental Birth of a Nation, and discussed why it is the most influential film in American cinematic history (both for its influence on other filmmakers and for its influence on American racial attitudes).

Students received a handout on the film.

We then watched several minutes of a PBS documentary on Reconstruction for historical background (and for a very different perspective on the subject from Griffith's).

HW due Wednesday:
Read the handout.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis.

Monday, October 5

Students turned in the first paragraphs of their single-scene analysis essays and we put several, chose at random, under the document camera and critiqued them.

Afterwards, we watched the beginning of "In the Beginning," the first film in a documentary series about the silent-film era.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis essay.

Thursday, October 1

Senior meeting. No class.

Wednesday, Septenber 30

We continued our analysis of the library scene in Shadow of a Doubt as a model of a single-scene analysis of the kind required for the assigned essay. We then looked at and began to analyze a scene from Night of the Hunter.

HW due Monday, October 5:
First paragraph of the single-scene analysis, introducing the film and explaining why you chose the specific scene and how it fits into the film as a whole.

Monday, September 28

Students received assignment sheets for the first outside viewing paper, which is due October 9, and checked out DVD's and VHS tapes of the films which they will write about. The essay is to be a detailed, in-depth analysis of a single scene in the film, examining such elements as mise en scene, pictorial composition, lighting, camera angles and movement, film editing, and sound.

After that we began to examine the library scene in Shadow of a Doubt as a model of how to analyze a single scene as students will do in their essays.

HW due Friday, October 9:
Outside viewing essay (single scene analysis). There will be at least one intermediate deadline before Oct. 9

Friday, September 25

We finished Beyond Doubt and students turned in their notes, after which we talked very briefly about what students had found noteworthy.

Thursday, September 24

We continued our examination of motifs in Shadow of a Doubt, especially images of stairs and shadows. Near the end of the period we began watching Beyond a Doubt, a (rather uneven) documentary about the making of Hitchcock's film. Students took notes, which they will hand in Friday when we finish watching the documentary.

Wednesday, September 23

We continued our examination of leading visual motifs in Shadow of a Doubt, most notably stairs (which we connected with the broader matter of low and high camera angles and their role in expressing the film's power struggles), smoke, and of course shadows.

Tuesday, September 22

Mr. P. introduced the concept of "motifs" in art & architecture, in music, in literature -- and in film. Afterwards students identified leading visual motifs in Shadow of a Doubt, such as Uncle Charlie's cigar and smoke more generally, shadows (of course), pairs or doubling, and stairs. We looked again at several key examples, especially the image of smoke and shadow as the train pulls in to Santa Rosa. Mr. P read a passage from Francois Truffaut's interview with Alfred Hitchcock in which they discuss that scene.

Monday, September 21

We watched the final twenty minutes of Shadow of a Doubt, then discussed its themes, especially the loss of innocence, centering on the character of young Charlie. We also discussed how that theme was relevant to the larger world situation in 1943.


Friday, September 18

After a brief review of the film so far we watched more of Shadow of a Doubt till the end of the period.

Thursday, September 17

We briefly reviewed what we learned Wednesday from the first few minutes of Shadow of a Doubt, then continued watching the film until the end of the period (up to the point when young Charlie arives at the library).

HW due tomorrow:
IMDB user comment (at least 400 words). See Tuesday's log.

Wednesday, September 16

We examined the opening of Shadow of a Doubt again, this time with an eye -- make that ear --for the use of Dmitri's Tiomkin's musical score. Then we covered the windows and settled in to begin watching the film from beginning to end.

Tuesday, September 15

We read the analysis in our "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style" packet of the opening scene of Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, watched the scene, and subjected the scene to further analysis -- particularly in terms of eyeline matches and the use of camera angles.

HW due Friday:

Students received the assignment sheet for the assignment mentioned Monday involving submission of a 400-word "user comment" to imdb.com reviewing students' favorite movies.

Monday, September 14

We watched the opening sequence of Citizen Kane, then analyzed its use of graphic matching on the lighted window in Kane's room as discussed in the editing section of our packet ("Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style). From there we moved on to the other two kinds of visual matches presented in the packet, eyeline matches and matches on action, illustrating each with a clip from that immortal classic of machismo, Roadhouse (1989), starring Patrick Swayze. We then looked at the IMDB page for that film and students were given first notice of the next assignment, which will be to post user comments about their favorite films on the IMDB website.

Friday, September 11

We watched The Girl and Her Trust again (at 4x speed), then pooled observations of ways in which the film represents an advance over such films as Rescued by Rover. These ways included the many different cuts and camera placements to convey a complicated story line, the use of tracking shots and closeups, the smooth integration of exterior and interior shots, and especially the subtle and effective character development.

Thursday, September 10

We began class by discussing two different ways of looking at film: (1) the simpler and more naive way of immersing oneself in the movie, suspending disbelief, and experience the film as reality, and (2) the analytical way of regarding the film as a film and paying attention to the themes and techniques of the film. We debated whether the second way ruins the experience, with Mr. Potratz advocating the negative.

After that we watched the rest of The Girl and her Trust, with students taking notes.

Wednesday, September 9

Students took an "open-packet" quiz over the "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style" handout, and we went over the answers together.

Afterwards we began watching D.W. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust while students took notes about technical and other advances they perceived in the film over yesterday's thrilling Rescued by Rover.

Tuesday, September 8

We surveyed the packet on "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style," and students were reminded to read it carefully in preparation for tomorrow's quiz.

We then watched two very popular films from the first decade of the 20th century, Georges Melies's A Trip to the Moon and the Hepworth Studio's Rescued by Rover. We compared the two in terms of the reliance on special effects in the first, and the emphasis on narrative sequence and suspense in the second. These films both involve sophisticated editing (for the period) but of very different sorts, and we looked at Rover as an early instance of cross-cutting.

HW due Wednesday:
Quiz over the packet.

Friday, September 4

Students received copies of a packet entitled "Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style," which is the closest thing we will have to a textbook for the class. It introduces key terms and concepts for understanding film.

We discussed the question "Which is the more important part of making a film -- cinematography or editing?

HW due Tuesday:
Read the packet carefully. Quiz on Wednesday over the packet.

Thursday, September 3

Students took an "open packet" quiz over aspects of early cinema, after which we graded it together. We then touched briefly on the technical similarities between animation and film itself, and watched a short film spotlighting the early animations of Winsor McCay. We also learned "How it Feels to Be Run Over" (O won't mother be pleased!).

Wednesday, September 2

We reviewed the course syllabus briefy, then watched an assortment of very short early films, including "actualities," humorous trick-photography or special effects films, and the magical, colorized Golden Beetle.

Students received a small packet of information on elements and pioneers of early film and were informed there will be a quiz over it to begin the class Thursday.

Wednesday, June 17

We watched the end of The Shop Around the Corner and the beginning of Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory.

Tuesday, June 16

We resumed watching The Shop Around the Corner, stopping with ten minutes remaining to visit briefly with Nikky Ye before her return to China.

Monday, June 15

We watched the first 49 ninutes of Ernst Lubitsch's immaculate confection The Shop Around the Corner.

Friday, June 12

We discussed Bonnie and Clyde, its mixture of comedy with violence and tragedy, its harsh collision of fantasy with reality, and its ambivalent treatment of the the major characters.

We also talked about what to watch next, in the absence of seniors.

Thursday, June 11

We finished watching Bonnie and Clyde, then re-viewed the famous balletic, violent death scene, comparing it with the Odessa steps scene in Battleship Potemkin.

Tuesday, June 9

We continued our close reading of Chapter 1 of The Great Gatsby.

Monday, June 8

Mr. Potratz returned the Single Element Analysis essays.

We looked at some photos of the real-life Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrows, then watched the first forty minutes of Bonnie and Clyde.

On Wednesday:
Final exam.

Friday, June 5

Classic American "noir" style of the 1940's in forms other than cinema was illustrated with projections of paintings by Edward Hopper and George Bellows and of photographs by Weegee (Arthur Fellig).

Thursday, June 4

Students turned in their film noir websearch worksheets.

We discussed The Killers and in what ways it demonstrates the characteristics of film noir, particularly with reference to hats.

Wednesday, June 3

We watched the conclusion of The Killers.

HW due Thursday:
Film noir websearch

Tuesday, June 2

Students received a new handout, which they may use as one of their sources for the websearch assignment due Thursday, on "Characteristics of Film Noir." We went over this handout together, and students were asked to keep it in mind while watching The Killers and to determine whether that film conforms to the handout's criteria for noir.

We then watched another forty-five minutes of the movie.

HW due Thursday: Film noir worksheet.

Monday, June 1

Students turned in their Single Element Essays.

Students received a new handout, an assignment involving a websearch into film noir. Mr. Potratz supplied information for some of the questions, and then we proceded to watch another half-hour of The Killers (1946).

HW due Thursday:
Film noir worksheet.

Friday, May 29

We finished reading "The Killers" and discussed it briefly. Why does it stop where it does? Whose story is it? Ole's? Nick's? What is it about?

Then we watched the beginning of The Killers (1946) up to about where the story ends.

HW due Monday:
Single-element essay due.

Thursday, May 28

We continued our analysis of pictorial composition/mise en scene in Citizen Kane, then began reading "The Killers" a short story by Ernest Hemingway preparatory to watching the 1946 film of the same name (directed by Robert Siodmak) which takes that story as its starting point.

HW due Monday:
Outside viewing essay on a single element of film technique as used throughout the assigned film.

Wednesday, May 27

We examined the slippery concept of mise en scene in cinema and analyzed certain scenes of Citizen Kane with an eye to their expressive pictorial composition.

HW due MONDAY:
The due date for the Single Element Analysis essay has been pushed back to Monday, June 1.

Monday, May 26

Students wrote brief comparisons of Citizen Kane to three other movies, and we talked about these comparisons. Afterwards, we illustrated aspects of the selected parts.parts of the film.

Friday, May 22

We watched the conclusion of Citizen Kane and talked about the theme of the film.

HW due next Friday, May 29:
Single-element analysis of an outside-viewing film (min. 800 words). See Documents page for the assignment sheet if you don't have one.

Thursday, May 21

We continued watching Citizen Kane.

Wednesday, May 20

We reviewed the opening scenes of Citizen Kane, then watched another 40 minutes of the film.

Tuesday, May 19

We spoke with Kendra Fowler, a recent Mount Si graduate now studying Screenwriting at the New York Film Academy in Hollywood. She told us about what she has been learning about being a writer in the film & tv industries and showed us her latest 150-page screenplay.

Students turned in their notes on the documentary from yesterday, after which we watched the first quarter-hour of Citizen Kane.

Monday, May 18

Students took notes while we watched the beginning of The Battle Over Citizen Kane, a documentary about Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst.

Friday, May 15

Students received an assignment sheet for the second outside viewing paper, which will be due Friday, May 29. Several students also borrowed films for the purpose.

Students were advised to review the "Classical Hollywood Style" packet distributed early in the semester before embarking on the paper.

That packet will also be an essential resource for the final exam on Wednesday, June 10. Students will be shown several film clips and asked to analyze the use of specific film elements in each.

Thursday, May 14

We discussed Casablanca, focusing on the relation of the personal (romantic) and political elements of the movie. Students received a handout with a brief essay by Alastaire Cooke on Humphrey Bogart as "the only possible idealist" in the WWII anti-fascist period.

Wednesday, May 13

We watched the rest of Casablanca. Following the film, it was revealed by the Peanut Gallery that the German Major Strasser was played by the same actor (Conrad Veidt) who portrayed Cesare (aka EMO Man) in The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, thus earning them the right to inflict upon the class as a whole six minutes of "H3 Montage" to conclude the period.

Tuesday, May 12

We continued watching Casablanca up to 70 minutes in.

Monday, May 11

Mr. Potratz introduced Casablanca by distributing a handout about Vichy France and by playing La Marseillaise over the computer.

Following this introduction to the historical-political background of the film we watched the first twenty minutes of the movie.

Friday, May 8

We watched some more Busby Berkeley production numbers mixing eye candy and social commentary.

Next up: Casablanca

Thursday, May 7

We decided to watch Casablanca next, to be followed by Citizen Kane, though that reverses the chronological order. Citizen Kane is many critics' choice for the greatest American film, while the popular choice for that title may well be Casablanca.

Today we took a "sweet babes" break and sucked on the eye candy (so to speak) of production numbers from the Depression-era Busby Berkeley musicals, replete with racism, sexism, leering and even social commentary.

Wednesday, May 6

We finished watching -- and taking notes on -- the first part of None Without Sin, and students turned in their notes. Then Mr. Potratz answered questions about the content of the film, and we discussed what the film had to teach us about why Arthur Miller wrote The Crucible.

Students received a four-page booklet for taking notes on the the major characters in The Crucible.

Tuesday, May 5

Cinco de Mayo

We watched the rest of City Lights, then rewatched the final scene, entitled "Autumn," while students took notes.

HW due Wednesday:
Two typed paragraphs telling:
(1) what happens in the final scenem and
(2) what do you think will happen next, and why?

Monday, May 4

We began watching Charlie Chaplin's City Lights (1931).

Students received their single-scene analysis papers back.

Friday, May 1

Students took a quiz over pre-Code films and the Hays Code, and we graded it together.

Thursday, April 30

We watched the second half of Complicated Women, after which students received two handouts -- one about the Hays Code (the Motion Picture Production Code) and the other the text of the code itself in its 1930 form. We went over the first of these and looked briefly at the second.

HW due Friday: Students are to read the two handouts carefully. There will be a quiz Friday over Complicated Women (students kept their notes for review) and the two handouts.

Wednesday, April 29

We discussed Freaks a bit more, focusing on Olga Roderick's (the bearded lady's) assessment of the film as "an insult to all freaks everywhere." The discussion wandered to the question of the film's "rating" and students were reminded that there was no rating system at in 1931. From there we turned to the Hays Code, and the "pre-Code" status of Freaks, and began watching Complicated Women, a documentary about the many-faceted presentation of women in pre-Code films from 1929 to 1934.

Tuesday, April 28

Students received a handout with information about the real-life "freaks" who appear in Freaks, which students began watching yesterday in Mr. Potratz's absence. Afterwards, we watched the conclusion of the film.

Nest we discussed the film and its message. Students spoke about feeling guilty for laughing at the freaks in the film when they learned these were actual individuals, and we discussed how the film makes us see "normal" people from the freaks' perspective, and we explored what "freaks" may represent in other contexts.

Friday, April 24

We watched the first half-hour of Visions of Light, a documentary about the history and craft of cinematography.

Wednesday, April 22

We watched the conclusion of M.

Tuesday, April 21

We continued watching Fritz Lang's M.

Monday, April 20

Students took a quiz over German Expressionism.

Anyone who was absent Friday (with an excused absence) may make up the quiz by Tuesday afternoon.

We watched the final scene of Metropolis, then discussed the politics of the film, and its political context. Mr. Potratz gave information about Fritz Lang's relations with Nazism.

We then watched the first 12 minutes of Lang's masterpiece M.

Friday, April 17

We looked at images -- woodcuts and paintings -- by several more Expression artists, then watched two scenes from F.W. Murnau's Expressionist masterpiece The Last Laugh (Der Letzte Mann) (1924).

HW due Monday:
Review your class notes and the two handouts on Expressionism (see Documents page for one of them) for a quiz on Monday over German Expressionism.

Thursday, April 16

Continuing our introduction to German Expressionist film, we watched scenes from Fritz Lang's early sci-fi blockbuster, Metropolis.

Wednesday, April 15

We continued our introduction to German cinematic Expressionism, reading from a new handout and watching a further clip of Caligari and a montage of images from F.W. Murnau's Nosferatu.

HW due Thursday:
Read the new handout, "German Expressionism" by David Hudson.

Monday, April 13



We began our study of German Expressionist cinema (after reading Brad's most excellent IMDB posting on Battleship Potemkin) by looking briefly at the origins of Expressionism as an artistic movement, specifically in painting (handout and projections).



Following that brief foray, we watched the first two acts of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari.



HW due Wednesday:
Read the handout (from Encyclopedia Britannica) and cross-reference it with your notes.

Friday, April 3

Students took a quiz over montage in film, for which they were allowed to use their notes and handouts, after which we graded it together.

Extra credit opportunity for spring break:
Go on imdb.com (Internet Movie Database), and read user reviews for any of the films you have watched in the class, which includes the outside viewing film from your single-scene analysis. (Search for the film by name, then scroll down to the bottom of the films' home page.) Then register and add your own review. Up to 15 points extra credit, up to 20 points for two.

Thursday, April 2

We watched some of Sergei Eisenstein's favorite films: early Micky Mouse cartoons.
We discussed why Eisenstein may have admired these cartoons and what similarities they have with Battleship Potemkin.
We closed the class with another early sound cartoon creation, the Fleischer Brothers' Betty Boop.

Quiz tomorrow over montage.
Review all the montage handouts.

Wednesday, April 1

We reviewed different species of Eisensteinian montage by way of re-viewing yet again the Odessa Steps sequence of Battleship Potemkin and identifying examples of intellectual, rhythmic, tonal, formal, and directional cutting. Handout.

HW: Review all montage handouts in preparation for a quiz on Friday.

Tuesday, March 31

Students submitted their single-scene analysis essays. Essays submitted tomorrow will lose 10%; essays submitted Thursday will lose 20% (last day for submission).

We returned to Man With a Movie Camera and listen to what Yuri Tsivian had to say about the last sequence we watched and discussed on Monday. We then returned to Battleship Potemkin and did some of the same sort of analysis of montage juxtapositions for that film, looking at the sequence leading up to the mutiny and parts of the mutiny itself.

Mr. Potratz distributed another handout on montage in Eisenstein.

HW due Wednesday:
Read the new handout.

Monday, March 30

We watched sequences from Man With a Movie Camera and analyzed the juxtaposition of images. What meanings are conveyed by the combination of cuts? Is this montage of association (visual metaphor) or montage of contrast? We discussed these questions with regard to part of the industrial section of the film, then replayed it with Yuri Tsivian's commentary to see how he viewed the sequence. Then we watched an earlier part of the same section with juxtapositions of the beauty parlor and other worksites and attempted to answer the same questions about it.

HW due Tuesday:
Single-scene analysis essay. It will be worth 80 pts.

Friday, March 27

We discussed Man With a Movie Camera as an example of Russian Constructivism and looked at projected examples of Constructivist art and architecture. We also put Constructivism into the context of modern art (i.e., early 1900's) more generally, looking at sample cubist and futurist reproductions, and at photos of the Bauhaus and Bauhaus designs.

HW due Tuesday:
Single-scene analysis.

Thursday, March 26

We watched the remaining few minutes of Man With a Movie Camera, then talked about it briefly. Afterwards, we started over at the beginning and watched the first several minutes, this time with a voice-over commentary by Russian film historian Yuri Tsivian.

HW due Tuesday (March 31):
Single-scene analysis essay.


Wednesday, March 25
Mr. Potratz was absent. Students watched most of Dziga Vertov's Man With a Movie Camera.

Tuesday, March 24

Class was diverted from a detailed discussion of montage techniques in Battleship Potemkin to a repetitious but intermittently enlightening debate between Mr. Potratz and certain members of the class over whether Eisenstein's editing in the Odessa Steps scene is or is not "realistic," and what that means. Both sides expressed their frustration over the inability of the other side to perceive the obvious truth of what they were saying.

At the end of class, Mr. Potratz (perhaps unwisely) consented to postpone the due date for the single-scene analysis from Friday to next Tuesday, March 31, and he counseled students to get their posteriors into gear.

Monday, March 23

We reviewed handouts on montage which were passed out Friday, identifying several different types of montage as practised by Sergei Eisenstein in Battleship Potemkin. We re-viewed the Odessa Steps sequence from the film, making notes as we did so of examples of each type of montage in the scene.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis essays.

Friday, March 20

We discussed the excerpt from the Eisenstein essay about Charles Dickens and D.W. Griffith, and students examined a printout from Cinemetrics.com with statistics on the number and duration of shots in different sections of the film (handout). (Students received two other handouts on montage as well, but we did not get as far as discussing them.)

Near the end of the period we began to list some similarities and differences between Birth of a Nation and Battleship Potemkin.

HW due in one week (Friday, March 27):
Final draft of the Single Scene Analysis essay (see Documents page).

Wednesday, March 18

We warched an entire movie start to finish!
Students took Mental Notes on Battleship Potemkin.

HW due Friday:
Read the Eisenstein handout distributed Monday and prepare to be quizzed on it.
Watch and rewatch your film for the outside viewing essay due in one week.

Monday, March 16

Students received the assignment sheet for the first Outside Viewing assignment, due Friday, March 27, and borrowed films to analyze. The assignment is to closely analyze a single scene from the film, explaining how it uses techniques such as camera movement, lighting, film editing, mise en scene, pictorial composition and sound editing to express atheme or create an effect.

Students then took notes while Mr. Potratz lectured on how Birth of a Nation influenced (A) American history and (B) the subsequent development of film and especially Sergei Eisenstein and other early Russian (Soviet) filmmakers. We reviewed what we learned from The Cutting Edge about Soviet Montage, Kuleshov's famous experiment, and the like. We also looked at several of the photomontage stills of the German artist John Heartfield.

Students received a handout with an excerpt from Eisenstein's essay "Dickens, Griffith, and Film Today," and we read the very beginning of it together.

HW due Wednesday:
Read the Eisenstein handout and come to class prepared to answer questions about it.
Also, begin work on the outside viewing essay.

Friday, March 13

We watched the exciting conclusion of Birth of a Nation, in which the Ku Klux Klan rescues Elsie, the town, and the people in the cabin from the "crazed negroes"; North and South (white edition) are reunited in the form of a double Yankee-Dixie wedding, and the Prince of Peace sings "The Star-Spangled Banner."

After our heartbeats subsided we discussed the film and compared it to the Reconstruction documentary we watched part of on Wednesday, outlining their similar facts and their opposing viewpoints.

The class concluded with a moving rendition of Stephen Foster's "Old Black Joe."


Thursday, March 12
Mr. Potratz was absent. Students took a short quiz over Birth of a Nation background and then watched more of the film.

Wednesday, March 11

Due to the Senior meeting which sent half the class away for much of the period, the quiz was postponed until Thursday, and instead of Birth of a Nation we watched part of Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, an American Experience documentary from PBS, which gives a very different perspective on the subject from the one in Griffith's film.

HW due Thursday:
Quiz, postponed from today, over the three handouts concerning Birth of a Nation.

Tuesday, March 10

We continued to watch Birth of a Nation, beginning with the assassination of Lincoln and ending with the Little Colonel's inspiration for the Ku Klux Klan.

Students turned in their completed checklists of techniques in the film.

HW due Wednesday:
Read and review the three handouts distributed Monday in preparation for a quiz over them.

Monday, March 9

Students received three handouts about Birth of a Nation, and were told they would be quizzed over them on Wednesday.

Using a quotation (found in one of the handouts) from the time of the film's release, we examined how the photographic status of the film was linked to the idea that what the film depicted -- its Confederate, racist interpretation of American history -- was objectively true, that the audience was "beholding what actually happened."

In this connection we began to look at the "historical facsimile" of Lincoln's assassination at the end of Part I of the film.

HW due Tuesday: Read the three handouts. Quiz on Wednesday.

Monday, March 9

Students received three handouts: one with information about D.W. Griffith, one about the contemporary impact of Birth of a Nation, and one containing the Tim Dirks' treatment of the film from filmsite.org. Students were advised that there will be a quiz over these materials on Wednesday.

Using the second handout, we examined the way in which the supposedly objective and historially accurate nature of the images in Birth as photographs is advanced as proof that the film's pro-Confederate, racist interpretation of American history is true, that the audience of the film is "beholding what actually happened." In this connection, we began to look at the "historical facsimile" of Lincoln's assassination at the end of Part I of the film.

Friday, March 6

We reviewed some of the notes from students' checklists, then resumed watching Birth of a Nation, fast-forwarding through some parts and stopping at other parts to remark upon techniques.

Extra Credit Opportunity:
Up to 10 pts. extra credit for answering the following questions about Tolo.
(1) What does the word mean?
(2) What language is it from?
(3) When and where was the first Tolo dance?

Thursday, March 5

Students were given a checklist of techniques pioneered by D.W. Griffith which are used in Birth of a Nation, and we reviewed it briefly. Then we began watching the film and students recorded examples of techniques while they watched. Mr. Potratz provided some commentary with the film.

Wednesday, March 4

We continued our discussion of The Cutting Edge, with all students contributing comments from their notes. Then Colby described the recent film Memento, which uses radically discontinuous editing to reflect the mental state of its central character and we contrasted the film as described with the classic (a la D.W. Griffith) editing goal of seamless continuity.

We briefly reviewed the concept of parallel editing, also known as cross-cutting, and watched the famous chase over the ice floes from Griffith's Way Down East as an example.

Tomorrow: Birth of a Nation.

Tuesday, March 3

We watched the first half hour of The Cutting Edge, a documentary about film editing, and students took notes on what they deemed the most significant points made by the film.

Afterwards, we began to share notes, with every student requested to contribute at least one item. Students kept their notes, and we will resume the discussion on Wednesday.

Monday, March 2

We concentrated on editing in Hitchcock, examining in detail the cutting rhythms of two scenes from Shadow of a Doubt and the famous shower scene from Psycho.

Friday, February 27

We continued our discussion of Shadow of a Doubt, focusing on what we learned from watching the Beyond Doubt documentary, and re-viewing and analyzing certain scenes, especially the scene in the library.

Thursday, February 26

We watched Beyond Doubt, a documentary about the making of Shadow of a Doubt, then discussed what we had gleaned from it.

Wednesday, February 25

We continued our analysis of motifs in Shadow of a Doubt, looking at and discussing examples in the three categories we established Tuesday: shadows, smoke and stairs.

We also digressed briefly to consider of two different (but complementary) ways of looking at film.

Tuesday, February 24

Mr. Potratz lectured on what is meant by "motifs" in architecture and design, in music, in literature and in filmn after which we discussed both musical and visual motifs in Shadow of a Doubt, watching the opening scene of the film yet one more time, and connecting details of shadows, smoke, and stairs with instances elsewhere in the film.

Monday, February 23

Students turned in the HW assignment. Due to the dismally low number of assignments submitted, Mr. Potratz kindly consented to give papers turned in today a small amount of extra credit and to accept papers tomorrow at full credit. This one-time dispensation does not imply a change in policy. Late work will still not be accepted without prior arrangement.

Mr. Potratz and the students who did submit work shared with the delinquents some tips about how to find the needed information for the assignment.

Following that, we watched the final brief scene of Shadow of a Doubt and discussed it and what it adds to (or subtracts from) the film's presentation of evil in the world.

For tomorrow: motifs of Shadows, Smoke, and Stairs in the film.

Friday, February 13

We (almost) finished watching Shadow of a Doubt.

HW due Monday, February 23 (the day we return from break):
As per the assignment sheet passed out today, students are to investigate selected categories for which Academy Awards will be given on Sunday the 22nd. For each category they are to (1) explain what the "job description" is -- that is what creative role the person nominated performs in the making of a motion picture, and (2) to list at two of the most famous practicioners of each "art" or "science" over the history of film, and to list at least one film that person worked on (for example: Director: Alfred Hitchcock, Shadow of a Doubt, Psycho; Orson Welles, Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil.)

Typed, double-spaced, in your own words (not copied and pasted).

Suggested resources:
www.imdb.com -- Glossary. On home page, scroll to bottom and select index, then in index select Glossary and look up terms (categories, job descriptions) alphabetically.

www.filmsite.org -- Glossary. At bottom of page select Site Map, then scroll way down till you find gossary & go to it.

www.filmreference.com -- Enclopedia has informative longer entries on some of the categories.

For famous practitioners, try going to www.oscars.com and looking up past recipients of the various awards.

Raw googling is of course another possibility.

Thursday, February 12

First we reviewed what we knew about the various characters from watching the beginning of Shadow of a Doubt; then we watched another half hour of it.

Wednesday, February 11

We listened to the first scene of Shadow of a Doubt without the image, then watched it without the soundtrack. We considered the different ways in which both components create the same effects and reinforce each other. We compared classic period Hollywood musical scores with Beethoven, and looked briefly at the career of Dmitri Tiomkin.

We then began our viewing of the film as a whole, starting once again from the beginning, and stopping fifteen minutes in.

Tuesday, February 10

Students took a twenty-minute "open packet" quiz over the Classical Hollywood Style handout.

We proceeded to begin discussing the packet by means of examining its analysis of the opening scene of Alfred Hitchcock's Shadow of a Doubt, and we watched the scene.

Monday, February 9

To trace the technical and expressive development of early cinema we watched first The Great Train Robbery (1903), then D.W. Griffith's The Girl and Her Trust (1912), commenting on the technical advancement in quick and fluid cutting, close-ups, and crosscutting, and its expressive advancement in the development of character.

HW due Tuesday:
Finish reading the Classical Hollywood Style packet and prepare to be quizzed on it.

Friday, Februaty 6

We watched the first famous science fiction film, Melies's A Trip to the Moon (1902), and agreed that it was stronger on special effects than narrative, as is reportedly true of Melies's films as a whole. The Hepworth Studio's Rescued by Rover (1905) was used as an example of the opposite, an early film where a suspensful story line is aided by skillful cutting. The technique of cross-cutting was examined hypothetically, leaving examples for next class period on Monday.

HW due Tuesday:
A handout on "Classic Hollywood Cinema: Style" was distributed. It covers many basics of cinematic technique, though it focuses on their use in American films of the classic period of the nineteen-thirties and -forties. Quiz on Tuesday over the packet.

Thursday, February 5

Students took the quiz over the early cinema packet, "open-packet," after which we graded them.

Next we watched the scandalous 1896 Edison film, :The Rice-May Kiss," followed by even more scandalous Eadweard Muybridge serial photos, and finally a few early "actualities."

Wednesday, February 4

We watched "La Reve d'Aladin," (The Dream of Aladdin" 1906), an early fantasy color film, and discussed it briefly. We talked about the technical similarity of motion pictures and animation, and then watched "Windsor McKay and his Moving Pictures," and finally "Onesieme, the Clockmaker."

HW due Thursday:
Read the early cinema packet and prepare for a quiz over it.

Tuesday, February 3

Mr. Potratz passed out a small packet of readings on aspects of early cinema.

We then watched early clips, including the Lumiere actualite, Arrival of a Train, as well as The Countryman and the Cinematograph, That Fatal Sneeze, How It Feels to Be Run Over, and one or two others, with an eye to both the realistic and the magical aspects of early films.

HW due Thursday:
Read the packet and prepare for a quiz on it.

Monday, February 2

Welcome and introduction to the class. Students read the syllabus and asked questions about it. Mr. Potratz went over some class expectations and procedures, then briefly introduced the early history of film.

HW: Bring back the release form signed by a parent or guardian saying that you are allowed to be in the class and watch all assigned movies.

Friday, January 30

Students turned in late papers and extra-credit worksheets and we watched the ending of O Brother, Where Art Thou?, then said auf Wiedersehen.

Students should come back next week to return any unreturned films and to check on any questions regarding grades.

Wednesday, January 28

We discussed yesterday's handout concerning Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and specifically the question what sort of conformity this anti-conformity movie is warning us against.

Afterwards, we watched the firest twenty minutes of O Brother, Where Art Thou?

HW due Thursday: Second outside-viewing essay.

Tuesday, January 27

Students took the final exam.

Mr. Potratz distributed a handout presenting different perspectives on the politics of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, after which we decided on O Brother, Where Art Thou? as the final film of the class.

HW due Wednesday: Read today's handout
HW due Thursday: Second outside viewing paper

Monday, January 26

We watched the last half hour of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, then discussed whether it is about Communism or anti-Communism (i.e., are the pod people Communists or McCarthyites?).

Final exam tomorrow
(See Friday's entry.)

Friday, January 23

Mr. Potratz announced that the final examination will be on Tuesday (January 27), that it will consist of four or five clips from films (some of which we have seen), each played twice, which students will be required to analyze in terms of specific filmic elements. Those elements will be the same (camera, lighting, etc.) as those analyzed in the second outside viewing essay (due Thursday, January 29), and preparation for the exam should include careful rereading of the Classic Hollywood Style packet.

We watched twenty-five more minutes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

Thursday, January 22

We examined the ending of Murder, My Sweet and its contrast with Farewell, My Lovely, the Raymond Chandler novel on which it was based. This happy Hollywood ending takes the film (even further) away from the noir underworld.

We then looked briefly at a more serious imposition of the forces of light on Hollywood movies, namely the Hollywood Blacklist, and watched six minutes of a documentary about that chapter in film (and U.S.) history.

Finally, we began watching Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Students were asked to ponder while watching the film what the real-world relevance of this film was in the 1950's and what it is today.

Wednesday, January 21

We finished watching Murder, My Sweet, then discussed it and the larger phenomenon of film noir.

Students turned in the notes they took while watching the film.

Tuesday, January 20

Mr. Potratz returned the first outside viewing essay, and distributed the assignment sheets for the second. Students who wish to improve slightly their grades on the first paper may submit corrections and return the paper with them. The procedure is outlined at the bottom of the sheet of editing marks.

We returned to watching Murder, My Sweet, with students taking notes to accompany the handout of "Characteristics of Film Noir."

Friday, January 16

Students took out their "Classical Hollywood Style" packets from early in the term, and Mr. Potratz explained that they would be the basis for both the final paper and the final examination.

Students are to review the fundamental elements of film discussed in the packet, including Camera, Lighting, Mise en scene, Film editing, and Sound. The final paper will dicuss the use of one of these elements throughout the film which the student has chosen or been assigned. The final examination will require students to discuss the use of specific elements in specific scenes which will be projected.

We briefly reviewed the plot of Murder, My Sweet, then watched several more minutes of the film, ending with Marlowe's dope dream.