film class
This is one of those times when my blog is for me; in cleaning to move out of my apartment, I found all my notes from my film class last winter paper-clipped together with a note reminding me to go through them and extract whatever jotted notes I wanted to remember. It was absolutely one of my favorite classes of my college career, and rather putting these notes somewhere that I'll not likely look for a long, long time, I'm typing them here, to be sorted under the label "film." In my categorical mind, whenever I click on that label, I can reread and be reminded of these, tucked away neatly with related posts on this blog.
Although my entire page and a half of notes from bread day is going directly into my cookbook.
• projection of a film, social experience of seeing a movie
• "reading" a film, visual system
• film as language, foreign films as a different film language. grammar, syntax, vocabulary. we're familiar with Hollywood; different storytelling tradition, aesthetic values in foreign films
• the films we've watched structure our understanding (what you grow up watching)
• what is going on in the films and what is our reaction
• art that is about art or tells us about art
Rear Window (1954) Alfred Hitchcock
"start at the beginning, tell me everything you saw and what you think it means."
Why does a particular movie enthrall us? What goes into it?
1 - seeing and understanding are not the same
2 - objectivity implies a certain voyeurism
[for class we read and I loved this essay, "Seeking After the Good in Art, Drama, Film, and Literature" by Travis Anderson]
The Vampires (episode 5) Louis Feuillade (Bourgeois party interrupted)
WWI evoked in subtle ways:
-gas - mustard gas, embodies societal fears, effects of war, death coming in
The sensationalistic and melodramatic allows society to face issues and problems through allegories without addressing them directly. (genre films)
cameras reveal a world to us: framing, light, emphasis
different ways of interpreting movies: how they're constructed & details versus starpower
misc: our color-coordinated handouts (purple for Antonioni's Blow-Up) were so great. "Dan in Real Life" references galore (I think DL secretly loves that movie).
some of my favorite films that were screened in class: Marius РMarcel Pagnol, Ladri di biciclette РVittorio De Sica, Les quatre cents coups (The 400 Blows) РFran̤ois Truffaut, Au Revoir Les Enfants РLouis Malle, Fiorile РPaolo e Vittorio Taviani, Cinema Paradiso РGiuseppe Tornatore, Red РKrystof Kieslowski (some of these we saw edited versions)
That bread looks amazing! Can you post your bread day notes here too?
ReplyDeleteYes I will at some point! He made this bread for us and it was seriously amazing.
ReplyDelete