Week 5 dada, surrealism, sound, crash, depression, rise of Hitler.

This week we have a bullet list, compressing a lot of intense involved history into a very cursory sweep. Nonetheless, I'd like you to consider the massive cultural changes on each others' heels that were occurring in the relatively brief historical period covering the repercussions of WWI through the 20's and 30's and into WWII. Relating all of this to film history, and how all these events and movements shaped cinema, and its use as a new media, a vector of memes, be it Nazi propaganda, American Imperialism, entertainment, education or social activism.

I'll be posting links and youtube playlist here to illustrate.

week 4 Soviet Montage

During Monday's lecture class, we discussed the development of montage, specifically by the Soviets,

Kuleshov, Pudovkin and Eisenstein. I'm Including a youtube widget here with the clips, and am trying to see if I can also

bring in slides from the lecture to accompany it.

If you mouse over the widget you should get little pop-up thumbnails of all the clips. Navigate through them with the 

little arrows to find all of them.

Week 3 Silent Era

This week we discussed among other things, WWI's influence on world film markets, the development of the Hollywood studio system, and smaller international cinematic movements of the time. Emphasis on the industrialization of the medium, and the framing of cinema as product were stressed. Also outlined French Impressionism and German Expressionism, and Surrealism showing slides and referencing examples. Recommended further viewing would be The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Nosferatu, and all of Andalusian Dog (Un Chien Andalou)

Thursday's screening is scheduled to be Murnau's 'Sunrise' 1927, but I may instead show Lang's Metropolis 1927, and show only some excerpts from Sunrise.

Looking forward to insightful new posts after reading and viewing that synthesize new and original information, thoughts, reflections and reactions.

Week 2 Early Cinema: Edison, Melies,Porter, Griffith, Leonard, Memes,and more...

This week we screened Edison, Melies, Porter, Griffith, and Leonard.

I asked you to try to get your head into what life must have been like during the late 1800's, and imagine how the dawn of cinema began to evolve and emerge.

I continue to urge you to keep one eye on the present and future as we trace this evolution-

and try to synthesize the readings, screenings and discussions into an appreciation of the cultural power of moving images. once again- here are the links from the syllabus to read, as well as the link to my youtube favorites where some of the clips we've seen can be found. Please read the essays attached to the links and reflect on them in your responses to the screenings.

Richard Dawkins (1976)

excerpt from The Selfish Gene  Memes, the new replicators.

http://www.rubinghscience.org/memetics/dawkinsmemes.html

Walter Benjamin (1936)

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

 

Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer (1944)

The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/adorno/1944/culture-industry.htm

Douglas Davis (1995)

The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction 

http://cristine.org/borders/Davis_Essay.html

http://www.storyofstuff.com 

also clips here 

http://www.youtube.com/gordonglover (favorites)