Powerpoint: Do The Right Thing–Film Terms

Powerpoint: The Landlord 1970-Auteur and Genre

Film Noir:

PROMPT:  Discuss an aspect of film noir from the reading that you found particularly striking or thought-provoking in the film.

For this week, you will watch Dmytryk’s Christ in Concrete (1949) (AKA Give Us This Day).  It is available in the library on a Criterion DVD, with very high quality.  I recommend watching it this way in order to get the full visual effect.

Note: I am replacing your reading from Red Hollywood with a reading that I think gives you a better introduction to film noir.

1) Some Visual Motifs of Film Noir-Place and Peterson

2) Charles Mayland Film GrisFilm Criticism 26 no 3 2002

3) City that Never Sleeps, “Night City” (Page 243-257)

The Pawnbroker–POWERPOINT

Readings for February 24th:

For this week, your assignment is to watch Do The Right Thing (1989) on Amazon.com or to take it out from the Rosenthal library.  Please think about the film in relation to the readings below.

• (It has come to my attention that certain pages in this reading are difficult to see because of the copying. This version should be clearer.) Ella Shohat-Ethnicities in Relation Clearest

• Polyphony and Do the Right thing-Victoria Johnson
• Do the Right thing-Mosaic city

PROMPT:

Who are the people in Spike’s neighborhood?  How and why do relations devolve there (pay careful attention to how the visual aesthetics and music mark this decline)?  And (the question Michelle and Barack discussed after seeing Do The Right Thing on their first date) why does Mookie throw the garbage can?

Film: For this week, you will need to visit Rosenthal Library to watch The Pawnbroker (1964).  The library has two copies–both on reserve on the 4th floor–one is a VHS and the other is a DVD.

The call number for the VHS is PN1997 .P3862 1997 and for the DVD, PN1995.9 .H53 P39 2003.  Hopefully this will be the only time you will have to use the library to access films.

Readings:

• Pamela Grace, “The City of Nightmares: The New York of Sidney Lumet” (Page 183)

• Hirsch-Afterimages-Pawnbroker

• dyer-white

PROMPT:

This week I would like you to use the blog post to explore one of two questions.

1) Explore, compare and contrast the depiction neighborhoods in the films we have watched to this point.  How do they seem to “feel” and why?  What cinematic effects contribute to this feeling?

2) How do the various ethnic groups represented in The Pawnbroker (1964) relate to one another?  Are the various “ghettos”–past and present–that the film depicts somehow related to one another? If so, how does the film craft this connection?

• Films: Your assignment is to watch the rest of Brother From Another Planet (available in the Rosenthal library and via Amazon) and you will watch West Side Story (1961) which can be accessed by checking it out from the main office for use in the lounge or on campus.
• Readings:
• Caryl Phillips-Crossing the River
• Guerrero-Framing Blackness-Brother
• In the Shadow of Slavery: CHAPTER 3:
• Alberto Sanchez on West Side Story (1961):
• Flores-Citizens vs Citizenry
• Recommended: Slavery in New York (you can just browse the website a bit to get a clearer sense of this history)
• Recommended: Some of you might be interested to listen to This American Life from this week which provided a very enlightening view of contemporary American attitudes on immigration.

Prompt for Week 2: It can be argued that for some of New York’s people (im)migration is a one time experience that begins with official entry and culminates with assimilation.  For others, however, migrations occur every day, as they pass across myriad boundary lines (some more visible than others) of status, language, race, or culture—having to prove themselves, time and again, as Americans that belong here.

How do West Side Story and The Brother from Another Planet express the experience of being among New York’s permanent others and marginal citizens?  In order to practice your skills at mise-en-scene criticism, try to use a detailed description of one scene from each film as an example, as well as reference to the readings, which similarly describe marginal migrant experience.