Thursday, March 31

Students took an "open handout" 36 pt. quiz over early Soviet film, and we graded it together in class.

HW due Friday:
Single-scene analysis essay.

Wednesday, March 30

We returned to the two handouts which discuss Russian Constructivism, reread portions of them, and looked at more relevant images onscreen (reviewing several from yesterday in the process). Stage set designs by Meyerhold, montage artworks by Alexander Rodchenko, and Vladimir Tatlin's scale model of the never-built monument to the Second International were among those images.

HW due Thursday: Review handouts and notes for the unit test on early Soviet film in class class Thursday.

HW due Friday: Single-scene analysis essay.

Tuesday, March 29 Referring to the "Great Experiment" handout and the box on "Russian Art Movements" on the handout about Dziga Vertov, we examined Russian avant garde art of the Revolutionary period in the context of other images of the time. We looked at projected images of Picasso, futurist designs, Russian icon paintings, and Russian constructivist works themselves. HW due Thursday: Quiz over early Soviet film. HW due Friday: Outside viewing essay

Monday, March 28 Mr. P announced that the quiz over early Soviet film will be on Thursday (not Tuesday), that it will be "open handout" and that students should use the next two class periods to make sure their questions about the material are answered. We watched a section of the first reel of Man with a Movie Camera three times: twice to determine our own reading of how juxtaposed images of people doing different kinds of work related to each other (whether by contrast or analogy) and once with Yuri Tsivian's voiceover commentary to hear his read on the question. We also watched two other segments with Tsivian's commentary on the film as a statement on seeing (seeing things anew) and on the preoccupation with the machine. HW due Thursday: Quiz over early Soviet cinema. We then watched part of Ferdinand Leger's modernist film from 1924, Ballet mecanique, and compared it with the Vertov film.

Friday, March 25

We reviewed expectations for the Single-scene Analysis essay due next Thursday (March 31), stressing that it is not to contain plot summary, and is not to be a review, but is to explain in the first paragraph how the chosen scene is representative of the film's themes, feel, and/or techniques, and then proceed to do a close analysis of a short scene examining the use of at least two major elements of filmcraft.

We then turned to just such analysis (of film editing) in The Man with a Movie Camera, and we listened to Yuri Tsivian's voiceover commentary on the first few minutes of the film.

HW due Monday:
Read yesterday's handouts if you haven't done so already.
HW due next Thursday:
Outside viwing essay.

Thursday, March 24

Students received three new handouts: one (mostly pictures and mainly review) on montage; one on Dziga Vertov; and one on "The Great Experiment" -- currents in post-Revolutionary Russian art of the twenties.

We watched the last twenty minutes of The Man with a Movie Camera and began to discuss it.

HW due Friday:
Read the three new handouts.
Coming up next Tuesday:
Quiz over Early Soviet Film (seven handouts and two films).

Wednesday, March 23

We began watching Dziga Vertov's The Man with the Movie Camera, a brilliant exercise in pure montage, without script, actors, scenery, or story.

HW due Thursday, March 31:
Single-scene analysis essay.