| |
|
In the intro cinema criticism class (we call it American CInema, and try to stay focused on American Film, though the text certainly takes into account film the world over) I (partially) teach we (the departement tends to set these things together) use the genre based text by Joe Boggs and Dennise W. Petrie, _The Art of Watching Films_, it is a very basic text and proceeds historically as well as by genre, it also introduces students to quite a bit of technical lingo/artisitic considerations, it is however an introductory text. I should also note that the course is a semester long (15 weeks or so), and that the students are in the freshman/sophomore level, so we have a lot of time and the students are all late teens/early twenties. The text itself provides examples of films from each period/genre, though we tend to deviate from that in actually presenting the course.
I would steer away from Memento for narrative structure, unless you wish to teach a divergence from the standard narrative structural curve, I love the film but would probably have it on the suggested list (as opposed to the required list) for films to watch in contrast to the narrative curve. I could imagine a number of good papers coming out of using that film (or other films that do not proceed linearly, such as Pulp Fiction) to contrast with traditional narrative structure.
Our students (usually between 60-120 a semester, depending on how many sections) tend to get over the old films pretty quickly, that is, we try to get them to recognize and suspend personal bias (such as against Black and White films in general, or Westerns, or Sci Fi, etc) from the beginning, this also helps with the teaching of critial thinking skills, that is they have to provide reasons for their views on films.
Furthermore, we deal a lot with historical and social circumstances surrounding particular films (we touch on it). Many of these films the students would never watch, much less attempt to appreciate in any way, and many come out liking, or exploring further particular genres or directors. I think the exposure is healthy, and that they should not be baby-fed current films that they may me more (or already) familiar with.
Some Films we used last semester (and I am not saying I like these films at all, some I do, they were used as examples and content of a class) were,
Seabiscut
Wizard of Oz (Hollywood style/narrative structure)
Citizen Kane (Director influence)
Casablanca (We teach this as sort of Noir, and use it to talk about lighting)
Searchers (Western)
Some Like it Hot (comedy)
Psycho (horror)
Godfather (gangster/crime)
Patton (War)
Traffic (Breaks in Narrative Structure, Film and Current affairs)
Network (Media influence, this is the film I would recomend instead of Bowling for Columbine)
We supplement with exerpts from the 1995 PBS series ``American Cinema`` an excellent documentary series that introduces many of the same topics covered in the text.
and a number of other films that I can’t recall, we did one film a week. This is not my favourite course (to teach) by the way, I much more enjoy the Media and Society class, for which we use David Croteau & William Hoynes’s _Media/Socitety text book as well as a number of examples and both of Rushkoff’s Frontline Documentaries. |
|
|
