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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 03:09
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Book Announcement: MOVIES AND AMERICA SOCIETY

From: "Steven J. Ross" <sjross <at> rcf.usc.edu>
_______________
BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT:

MOVIES AND AMERICAN SOCIETY
Edited by: STEVEN J. ROSS, University of Southern California
Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History

"I know from personal experience that historians have often wanted a good
book on
American film in the twentieth century   to assign in their classes. This is
it. It combines excellent primary sources, and stimulating commentary by one
of the  major historians of film, Steven Ross."   Lary May, University of
Minnesota 

"Steven Ross brings together a compelling mix of essays and contemporaneous
documents, 
which provide essential insights into the collective power of the movies
from the late 
nineteenth to the early twenty-first centuries."     Charles Musser, Yale
University

   This outstanding collection of the best film history scholarship gathers
recent essays and supporting documents to illustrate the power of movies to
change, and be changed by, American society. The book follows movies from
their beginnings in nickelodeons to the current state of Hollywood
globalism. It illustrates that movies have played an  important role in
shaping and reflecting how millions of Americans see and think about their
world. The essays show to a great extent exactly how and why movies have a
unique influence on all aspects of  American culture, including ideology,
(Continue reading)

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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 03:11
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Born to Be Bad: Trash Cinema from the 1960s and 70s - May 17-19

From: Tamao Nakahara <tamao <at> socrates.Berkeley.EDU>

"Born to Be Bad: Trash Cinema from the 1960s and 70s"
http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~tamao/Trash.htm
Conference and Film Festival
May 17 -19, 2002
University of California, Berkeley

Keynote speaker: Eric Schaefer
Emerson College, Boston
Author of "Bold! Daring! Shocking! True!": A History of Exploitation Film,
1919-1959 (Duke University Press, 1999).
Guest: Xavier Mendik (Director of the Cult Film Archive in Northampton, UK)
will present a paper and is scheduled to do a workshop on the Archive, its
activities, and upcoming journal.

Whether they are low-budget films that have found a life as auctioned and
traded bootlegs, high-profile successes that have fallen into second-run
obscurity, or something in between, Trash films have left their mark on a
different type of film history and writing. However these films have come
to be defined ("trash," "cult," "exploitation," etc.), there is no doubt
that they have had an effect on us and have led us down some unusual paths.
This three-day international conference honors Trash films and the
activities surrounding them.

Conference and Film Festival Schedule:
Conference at The Geballe Room, 220 Stephens Hall, on the UC Berkeley Campus
Films at the Pacific Film Archive (On campus facing Bancroft Ave. at
Bowditch St.)
(Continue reading)

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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 03:14
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Re: freeze frames & teaching film classes

From: TBGroucho <at> aol.com

> i was wondering why so few voices in this
> conversation mentioned freeze frames, which have always been an
> essential part of what i do in class . . . but perhaps there is a consensus
>
> out there that stopping the flow of images to examine a single one in
> great detail is a violation of "the way that the artist meant for it to
> be experienced" . . .
>
> ignoring for the moment questions of intention [and intentional fallacy]
> i take it that critical analysis by its very nature involves analysis, that
> is,
> the breaking down of a whole into its constituent parts in order to see
> more clearly how it was put together . . . analyzing a movie is NEVER the
> same as experiencing it . . . even if all we do is watch it through and
> then
>
> talk about it [what we do when we see a new film in the theater] we are
> always dissecting and reconstructing it in memory and imagination
>
> to be sure, it would be irresponsible [not to say insane] to introduce an
> audience to a movie by showing it in frame by frame segments from the
> start . . . but once the film has been shown through [and i've been arguing
>
> from the start for the importance of showing it through from beginning to
> end in a dark room on a large screen with others watching alongside] it
> would seem to me that freezing isolated important frames is one [of a
> number] of crucial analytical tools . . . of course, this usually requires
> that
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 03:38
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help for my student

From: saul steier <sauls <at> sfsu.edu>

I have a student working on a paper about how formal excellence and
virtuousity are used by directors and critics to mask and/or avoid
confronting sexist treatment of women's bodies in film. Her examples
are Kubrick and Greenaway. She's looking for some theory or
scholarship that isn't Mulvey or one one of her Gaze-oriented
followers that deals with the relationship between MPAA ratings and
the formal sophistication of the films rated.How are auteurs with
high artistic pretensions treated by rating bodies ?.What about gross
films like American Pie? Any help would be appreciated including
suggestion of other filmmakers to add to the above mentioned Pantheon
of two? Thanks in advance.
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 05:01
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Re: help for my student

From: RGHunt57 <at> aol.com

Given that Greenaway's "The Cook..." was the film that began the push to
abolish the "X" rating, and that Kubrick trimmed "Clockwork Orange" to an
"R"
( just as his successors altered "Eyes Wide Shut") I don't think it could be
said that artistic intentions are given any special treatment by the MPAA..

Robert Hunt
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 05:03
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Re: teaching large enrollment film classes

From: "Mark L. Feinsod" <mfeinsod <at> nyc.rr.com>

I can understand resorting to watching videos if one is in an area wherein
materials aren¹t readily available.  Admittedly, I studied in London and the
BFI¹s film library was utilized several times daily.  I¹m sure other
colleges in other big cities have similar arrangements.

I¹m going to have to respectfully bow out of this argument because I simply
can¹t see ‹ and I don¹t think I can be convinced ‹ that a person can really
learn about cinema without.... well, seeing films in a cinema (or a
cinema-like setting).  And I don¹t see how it can be taught in other
circumstances, either.  Perhaps this is my own limitation, however ‹ I¹ll
certainly grant the possibility.

Obviously, many of you feel differently.  But ‹ there¹s a saying among
filmmakers that those who succeed are most often those who dropped out of
film school, and I wonder if seeing films in a reduced, inferior form such
as video projection doesn¹t contribute to the feeling of dissatisfaction
that leads to leaving.

Cheers.
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 16:13
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Re: freeze frames & teaching film classes (correction)

From: TBGroucho <at> aol.com

Correction to my comment!

> It's likely that many of the film
> makers we study thought it appropriate to teach their films at universities
> (my idol Billy Wilder, for one).

There should be a negative in there, somewhere :  It should read :

It's likely that many of the film
makers we study thought it INappropriate to teach their films at
universities
(my idol Billy Wilder, for one).

Tom G
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 16:12
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Re: help for my student

From: "miss.ayeka" <miss.ayeka <at> ntlworld.com>

I have a similar request to the gaze argument, I am studying animation and
film studies and in particular Japanese animation. I want to deconstruct the
narrative fuctions of the variety of gendered stereotypes in anime
(especially the bishonen "beautiful" or even "feminine" man) and was looking
for a suitable theorist to help me map the argument aside from Mulvey whose
ideas seem very commonly used.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Laura Powderham
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 16:22
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Re: help for my student

From: "Rene Ash" <blenhem <at> lycos.com>

 It should be kept in mind that the MPAA is a political body being supported
by the major studios. That is why junk such as American Pie gets an R. One
should not only focus on films released in the US - for instance A CLOCKWORK
ORANGE directed by one of the masters - EYES WIDE SHUT not included - was
released here in the states 25 years ago, and finally this past year in the
UK where it was shot. More and more films in the independent community do
not go through rating process, not because of artistic merit - but because
today the rating system no longer has much meaning. Historically speaking
the rating system was established with the release of WHO'S AFRAID OF
VIRGINIA WOLFF.

Rene L. Ash
History on and of Film
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Darryl Wiggers | 1 May 2002 17:15

Harvard 1920s

From: "Polan, Dana" <dpolan <at> cinema.usc.edu>

For a research project I'm doing I wonder if anybody has come across info
on:  1.  a plan in 1927 by Harvard Fine Arts and the university's Fogg
Museum to initiate an annual selection of best American films; 2.  a
business school prof named Howard T. Lewis who did research on the film
business (published as a Harvard Business Report and as a book called MOTION
PICTURE INDUSTRY);  3. the University Film Foundation -- an educational film
production and distribution service.

Thanks!
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Gmane