SEPTEMBER 24 

BEGINNING THIS WEEK, UNDERGRADUATES ARE TO EMAIL THEIR ESSAYS DIRECTLY TO T.A. MATTHEW LAX AT LAXCO@OUTLOOK.COM  

GRADUATE STUDENTS SEND THEIR PAPERS TO GARY AT GMAIRS@CALARTS.EDU 

Films: 

Musketeers of Pig Alley (Griffith 1912) DVD 536 
Broken Blossoms (Griffith 1919) DVD 244 

Reading (to be done by September 30): 

Tom Gunning, “Weaving a Narrative: Style and Economic Background in Griffithʼs Biograph Films,” in course reader. 

Paper topic (paper due October 1. Graduate students send papers via email to gmairs@calarts.edu; undergraduates send papers to TA Matthew Lax at laxco@outlook.com): 

Write again about the scene you explored last week, this time focusing on the editing. Instead of describing the content of each shot, talk about how the shots work together. The crucial questions are: how long is each shot, and why? And why do you think the filmmakers change from one camera position to the next in the course of the scene – what does the audience get from these shifts in perspective? Finally, how noticeable are these cuts as you watch the film?

SEPTEMBER 17

Films:

Workers Leaving the Factory; Train Arriving at a Station; The Sprinkler Sprinkled; Snowball Fight (Lumières 1895-1897) DVD 467

Four Troublesome Heads; The Astronomer's Dream; The Skipping Cheese; Eclipse: or, the Courtship of the Sun and Moon (Méliès 1898, 1898, 1907, 1907) DVD 3303, disks 1 and 4

Automatic Hat and Sausage Machine; How Monsieur Takes His Bath; Alice Guy Films a “Phonoscène” in the Studio at Buttes-Chaumont, Paris; Indiscreet Questions (Guy 1900, 1903, 1907, 1906)  DVD 4408 

The Dancing Pig (Pathé company 1907) DVD 2743

The Golden Beetle (Zecca 1907) DVD 467

The Great Train Robbery (Porter 1903) DVD 467

Making an American Citizen (Guy 1912) DVD 467

A Corner in Wheat (Griffith 1909) DVD 1180

Heart of the World (Maddin 2000) DVD 2025

Premonition Following an Evil Deed aka Lumière (Lynch 2000) DVD 810

Fire and Rain (Benning 2009): 

Reading (to be done by September 23):

Roberta Pearson, "Early Cinema," in course reader.

Paper topic (paper due September 24. Send all papers via email to gmairs@calarts.edu):

Discuss the use of composition in a single scene from one of your favorite movies, focusing in particular on whether the framing is open or closed (most films use a combination of both styles), what these choices say about the world surrounding the story, and why the scene is composed in such a way. Keep it very simple: no more than two or three consecutive shots. Begin with description and please follow the guidelines laid out in "Writing Film Essays" in the reader.

SEPTEMBER 10

Films:

Pickup On South Street (Samuel Fuller 1953) DVD 1007

"The Po River Valley" from Paisan (Rossellini 1946) DVD 3701 (1:42:31 to end)

Reading (to be done by September 16):

Manny Farber. "White Elephant Art vs. Termite Art." (in course reader)

André Bazin. "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema." (in course reader)

No paper this week.