Selection of Cultural Activities (24/10/10 - 06/11/10)

Films

Black Sunday (Mario Bava, Galatea Film/Jolly Film, Italy, 1960)

Bloody Mama (Roger Corman, American International Pictures (AIP), USA, 1970)

Cape Fear (Martin Scorsee, Amblin Entertainment/Cappa Films/Tribeca Productions, USA, 1991)

The Cook the Thief His Wife & Her Lover (Peter Greenaway, Allarts Cook/ Elsevira/ Erato Films/ Erbograph Co./ Films Inc./Miramax Films/Vendex , France/UK, 1989)

Exodous (Otto Preminger, Otto Preminger Films,USA, 1960)

Fahrenheit 451 (François Truffaut, Anglo Enterprises/Vineyard Film Ltd., UK,1966)

The Hound of the Baskervilles (Terrence Fisher, Hammer Film Productions, UK, 1959)

The House by the Cemetery (Lucio Fulci, Fulvia Film, Italy, 1981)

The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, USA,1956)

The Godless Girl (Cecil B. DeMille, C.B. DeMille Productions, USA, 1929)

Giulietta degli Spiriti (‘Juliet of the Spirits’)(Federico Fellini, Rizzoli Film/Francoriz Production, Italy/France, 1965)

Has Anybody Seen My Gal (Douglas Sirk, Universal International Pictures, USA, 1952)

His Girl Friday (Howard Hawks, Columbia Pictures Corporation, USA, 1940)

Laura (Otto Preminger,  Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, USA, 1944)

Lola Montès (Max Ophuls, Gamma Films/Florida Films/Oska-Film GmbH/Union-Film GmbH, France/West Germany/Luxembourg, 1955)

Marnie (Alfred Hitchcock, Universal Pictures, USA, 1964)

A Matter of Life and Death (Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger, The Archers/Independent Producers, UK, 1946)

Night and the City (Jules Dassin, Twentieth-Century Fox Productions, UK, 1950)

Phenomena (Dario Argento, DACFILM Rome, Italy, 1985)

Pocketful of Miracles (Frank Capra, Franton Productions, USA, 1961)

Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, Fidelity Pictures Corporation, USA, 1952)

The Searchers (John Ford,C.V Whitney Pictures/Warner Bros. Pictures, USA, 1956)

Scarlet Empress (Josef von Sternberg, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1934)

Shanghai Express (Josef von Sternberg, Paramount Pictures, USA, 1932)

Soy Cuba (‘I Am Cuba”) (Mikhail Kalatozov, Instituto Cubano del Arte e Industrias Cinematográficos (ICAIC)/Mosfilm, Soviet Union/Cuba, 1964)

Stage Fright (Alfred Hitchcock, Warner Bros. Pictures, UK, 1950)

Le Temps qui Reste (‘Time to Leave’) (François Ozon, Fidélité Productions/France 2 Cinéma/Banque Populaire Images 5, France, 2005)

Todo Sobre Mi Madre (‘All About My Mother’) (Pedro Almodóvar, El Deseo S.A./Renn Productions/France 2 Cinéma, France/Spain, 1999)

Whiskey Galore (Alexander Mackendrick, Ealing Studios, UK, 1949)

• To consider a film for analysis I think you should at least screen it twice. These preliminary notes are brief ideas that I get from the initial screening that may be useful to take into consideration in a further screening of the film.

Preliminary Notes: Bloody Mama
Freudian interpretation. Implied incest. Shelley Winters performance. Links to American ‘New Wave’ (budget and film style).

Preliminary Notes: Cape Fear
Clear influence of Hitchcock. Freudian Interpretation.  Duality: ‘Max Cady’/’Sam Bowden’. Is ‘Cady’ ‘Bowden’s alter ego? Phallic imagery associated with ‘Cady’. Levels of the Bowden household could suggest exploration of psyche (ID, ego, super-ego). The river at Cape Fear could suggest the unconscious. Sadism and voyeurism evident when ‘Bowden’ watches ‘Cady’ beat his attackers (an action he intentionally organised).
 

Jayne Mansfield in The Girl Can’t Help It (Frank Tashlin, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, USA,1956)
as 'Jerri Jordan' (Top), the persona, and 'Georgiana' (Bottom), the aspiring housewife; two sides of the same woman.
Polarised stereotypical patriarchal views of  female sexuality?

Preliminary Notes: The Girl Can’t Help It
Tashlin and the influence of the cartoon on his live action work. The performance of Jayne Mansfield may be a parody of femininity both in look (over the top, a caricature almost bordering on the grotesque – links in with the conventions of cartoon characterisation) and in character of ‘Jerri’ (the blonde bombshell who wants to be a housewife). 



Preliminary Notes: Has Anybody Seen My Gal
Colour scheme of film is the palette (dominated by pastels) of contemporary illustrative advertising to the setting of the film. It suggest the new found opulence of the Blaisdell family. Is Sirk, through form, having a dig at consumerism?

Altar Keane (Marlene Dietrich) winning the "race" in the saloon. Rancho Notorious (Fritz Lang, Fidelity Pictures Corporation, USA, 1952).

Preliminary: Rancho Notorious
Brecht. The Character of ‘Altar Keane’ and the saloon scene (domination suggested through the "race"; the Wheel of Fortune). The use of painted backdrops in a Western, although a budgetary constraint, is deliberately artificial (alienation?).


Television

‘The Summer Man’, episode seven, Mad Men, fourth series, USA, BBCHD, tx. 27.10.2010.

‘The Beautiful Girls’, episode eight, Mad Men, fourth series, USA, BBCHD, tx. 03.11.2010.

Preliminary Notes Mad Men
Narrative and theme’s exemplified in the last shot of ‘The Beautiful Girls’. The three main female protagonists (‘Peggy’, ‘Joan’ and ‘Faye’) catch the lift together and the doors close. Fade to black and then the credits.


Radio

The Film Programme, 2010. [Radio programme] BBC, BBC Radio 4, 29 October 2010 16.30.

The Film Programme, 2010. [Radio programme] BBC, BBC Radio 4, 05 November 2010 16.30.

Reading

Bazin, Andre. (1967) What is Cinema?: Volume 1. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press

Bordwell, David. 2005. The Cinema of Eisenstein. London: Routledge.

Eisenstein, Sergei. 1968. The Battleship Potemkin. London: Faber and Faber.

Eisenstein, Sergei. 1991. Towards a Theory of Montage (Selected Works, Volume 2). London: BFI.

Eisenstein, Sergei. 1988. Writings, 1922-34 (Selected Works, Volume 1). London: BFI.  

Gillespie, David (2000) Early Soviet Cinema: Innovation, Ideology and Propaganda. Short Cuts. London: Wallflower Press.

Leyda, Jay. 1960. Kino: History of Russian and Soviet Film. New York: George Allen & Unwin.

Nilsen, Vladimir. 1972. The Cinema as a Graphic Art. New York: Hill & Wang.

Nizhny, Vladimir. 1979. Lessons with Eisenstein. New York: Da Capo Press.

Taylor, Richard. 2007. The Battleship Potemkin. London: I.B. Tauris.

Wollen, Peter. 1969. ‘Eisenstein’s Aesthetics’. In: Signs and Meanings in the Cinema.1997.London: BFI.

Sight & Sound. 21. (12/December 2010).

My extended reading for the past two weeks has been inexplicably linked to the part-time courses I am doing (Check the relevant bibliographies). Though, I have began preparatory reading for my summative essay (2,000 words) for Warwick Open Studies: "Discuss the ways in which Battleship Potemkin demonstrates Eisenstein's theory of montage".