The Fine Arts Department announces a new series of
Film Courses
offered by Professor Bob Keser.
Film course FAQ (frequently asked questions).
Summer 2004
Teacher! Teacher! Images of the Educator in Popular Film
This course traces how popular films shape the public's image of the teacher, and how this picture has changed as conditions in the classroom have changed.
Through excerpts from influential images of teachers in films like Goodbye, Mr. Chips and The Blackboard Jungle , students will study and discuss what mainstream films have taught the general audience about the early childhood classroom, middle school learning, and the needs of special education, all in widely differing settings ranging from the one-room schoolhouse to the inner city public school.
Students will investigate how films like Conrack , The Miracle Worker , The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T , and Stand and Deliver treat subjects like creating environments that support learning; dealing with classroom discipline and external social problems; developing strategies for alternate styles of learning and special needs; and nurturing visual, spatial and musical intelligences.
Films viewed in class will include: To Be and To Have, The Miracle Worker, Conrack, Stand and Deliver, The Faculty.
For assignments, students may also view films such as Goodbye, Mr. Chips; How Green Was My Valley; The Corn Is Green; The Blackboard Jungle; To Sir With Love; Up the Down Staircase; The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie; The Wild Child; Children of a Lesser God; Dead Poets' Society; Dangerous Minds; Mr.Holland's Opus; Music Of the Heart; Election.
Fall 2004
How to See a Movie: Building Visual Literacy
Most people learn to read but how many are taught to see? This course is designed to help students look more deeply into the screen, to notice the various elements of how a movie is put together, like montage, mise en scene, framing, color, and performance. This also means learning the vocabulary to describe and interpret what they are seeing.
Films viewed in class include Black Narcissus, Man With a Movie Camera, Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, and Mother and Son.
Students may also view and write about films such as Citizen Kane, Psycho, Breathless, Red Beard, Cries and Whispers, McCabe and Mrs. Miller, Apocalypse Now, Koyanisqaatsi, Run Lola Run, 21 Grams, and Hiroshima, Mon Amour.
Winter 2005
Black Like Me: People of Color in Popular Film
From Uncle Tom's Cabin to the Blaxpolitation era, people of color have been shown through many stereotypes, including the plantation mammy, the tap-dancing star, the civil rights leader, and the gangsta in the hood. This course follows African-American voices developing from the "race" films of the 1930s to the reclaiming of history and the success of the New Black Cinema.
The class will also trace the impact of stars--like Paul Robeson, Josephine Baker, Mantan Moreland, Hattie McDaniel, Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, and Denzel Washington--as well as the attempts to "pass" from black to white (Imitation of Life ) and white to black (Black Like Me ).
Films viewed in class include Hallellujah, The Blood of Jesus, Pinky, Carmen Jones, Black Like Me, Nothing But a Man, Sparkle, To Sleep With Anger, Sankofa, and Do the Right Thing.
Students may also view and write about Birth of a Nation, Imitation of Life, Green Pastures, Stormy Weather, Cabin In the Sky, No Way Out, The Color Purple, Glory, Boyz 'N the Hood, Jungle Fever, Rosewood, Beloved, Malcolm X, The Tuskegee Airmen, Antwone Fisher.
Spring 2005
Banned and Forbidden: Freedom of Speech in Film
How did an Italian movie change freedom of speech in America? How could the president of the United States praise a film that celebrates the Ku Klux Klan (and what happened)? How did the Production Code limit Hollywood's depiction of sex and marriage? Who are the censors and where does their power come from? What are the limits to our freedom of expression today? Do movies and TV have different rules?
Following the changing patterns of censorship, students will follow how various interest groups organized to protest issues, from racial stereotypes, to frank depictions of sex and power in the Pre-Code era of Hollywood, to Nazi and Soviet propaganda films, to recent non-traditional treatments of religious subjects and greater openness about same-sex subjects.
Films viewed in class will include Baby Face (1933), Baby Doll (1956), Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Boys Don't Cry ( 1999), and Battle Royale (2001).
Students may also view excerpts from landmark films like Salome, Un Chien Andalou, Triumph of the Will, The Miracle, Scorpio Rising, Cruising, Straw Dogs, In the Realm of the Senses, Last Temptation of Christ, and Kids.
Coming in Fall 2005
Shot-By-Shot: Building Visual Literacy
See Fall 2004.
Film Course FAQ
For more information, contact Bob Keser, Fine Arts Department (Chicago).
312.261.3086 rkeser@nl.edu
