Film Project Due! Review for Final Exam

Please turn in your responses (if you have not posted them) and read the article on the MPAA and American New Wave Directors.

Your final exam covering the 1950's and 1960's film material will occur on Wednesday (next class). A review will be posted above for your assistance.

Please continue and complete your fiction film projects. These are due today! Please drop MP4 files into the workshop folder when you have completed your editing.

June 3rd Agenda

Please continue to edit and work on your films. Do read and complete the instructions below (Tuesday's post).

Important 1960s Films

The coffeehouse readings have been moved to Friday at 7:00 in the Ensemble Theater. Sorry for the confusion.

Take a look at these clips. Choose one category and respond in writing to this question:
After viewing the sample clips here, choose a contemporary film that reminds you of what you watched. Explain the connection and answer: do you think the connection is on purpose or by accident? Why? This comment/response will be due next class (June 7).

1960's Epic/Costume Drama Films:
Spartacus (1960) Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Charleton Heston
El Cid (1961) Charleton Heston
Cleopatra (1963) Elizabeth Taylor & Richard Burton
Becket (1964) Richard Burton & Peter O'Toole
The Sound of Music (1965) Julie Andrews & Christopher Plumber
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
The Lion in Winter (1968) Peter O'Toole & Katherine Hepburn

Angry Young Man Films:
Look Back in Anger (1959)
The Loneliness of the Longdistance Runner (1962)
The Caretaker (1963)
The Leather Boys (1963)
If (1969)
Easy Rider (1969)

Beatles' Films
A Hard Day's Night (1964)
Help! (1965)
Yellow Submarine (1968)

Famous/Influential Directors:
Stanley Kubrick: Lolita (1962), Dr. Strangelove (1964)
John Ford: The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
George Pal: The Time Machine (1960), Jason & the Argonauts (1963), One Million Years BC (1966)
John Frankenheimer: The Young Savages (1961), The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
Arthur Penn: The Miracle Worker (1962), Bonny & Clyde (1967), Alice's Restaurant (1969)
Alfred Hitchcock: Psycho (1960), The Birds (1963), Marnie (1964), Torn Curtain (1966)
James Bond Films: Dr. No (1962), Goldfinger (1964)

African American Films:
Sidney Poitier: A Raisin in the Sun (1961), Lilies of the Field (1963), To Sir With Love (1967), Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967)

1960's Film/Film Project

Continue to work on your film project. Please complete the film questions for Thursday. You should read and take notes from AMC's Filmsite (Tim Dirks): under the film history by decade section.

The last Coffeehouse of the year is tomorrow: 7:00 in the Ensemble Theatre. All are welcome!

Alfred Hitchcock

Please take a look at the link on Alfred Hitchcock. Read the articles "About Hitchcock", Anecdotes, and "Alfred Hitchcock and the making of a film culture".

Here are a few clips from Hitchcock's 50's films:

Dial M for Murder (1954)
Rear Window (1954)
Vertigo (1958)
North By Northwest (1959)

After reading and viewing the clips, please work on your fiction film projects.

B-Flicks & Film Project

Today, please read about Samuel Arkoff, Ed Wood, and Roger Corman--all influential "B" horror/suspense film makers. As you watch it is important to consider why these films were made, who the audience was for these horrible horrors, and how these producers, directors, and film makers went on to influence our contemporary horror/suspense film making.

After reading and watching, please respond to this post with a comment about what you thought. You are free to comment on any of the following: (please refer to specific clips/films & use examples) what purpose does the horror flick serve in society? How does marketing a film through trailers entice or ruin the movie? How were horror films of the 1950's similar or different from those in our own time? And, of course, other reactions.

After viewing and commenting, please continue to work on your film projects. Those of you who have shot footage, please download and prepare the clips for editing. Those of you who have not yet started, please remember the deadline is June 7. The camera may be signed out, but please realize we only have one. Plan ahead and progress with your project.

Ed Wood & Roger Corman

From IMDB:

Ed Wood (Jr.) (10 October 1924 – 10 December 1978) was an American screenwriter, director, producer, actor, author, and editor, who often performed many of these functions simultaneously. In the 1950s, Wood made a run of cheap and poorly produced genre films, now humorously celebrated for their technical errors, unsophisticated special effects, large amounts of ill-fitting stock footage, idiosyncratic dialogue, eccentric casts and outlandish plot elements, although his flair for showmanship gave his projects at least a modicum of critical success.

Wood's popularity waned soon after his biggest 'name' star, Béla Lugosi, died. He was able to salvage a saleable feature from Lugosi's last moments on film, but his career declined thereafter. Toward the end of his life, Wood made pornographic movies and wrote pulp crime, horror, and sex novels. His posthumous fame began two years after his death, when he was awarded a Golden Turkey Award as Worst Director of All Time. The lack of conventional film making ability in his work has earned Wood and his films a considerable cult following.

Glen or Glenda (1953)

Jail Bait (1954)

Bride of the Monster(1955)

Plan Nine from Outer Space (1956) Written and shot in 5 days! (and it shows!)

Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926), sometimes nicknamed "King of the Bs" for his output of B-movies, is a prolific American producer and director of low-budget movies, some of which have an established critical reputation: many of his films derived from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe.

Corman has apprenticed many now-famous directors, stressing the importance of budgeting and resourcefulness; Corman once joked he could make a film about the fall of the Roman Empire with two extras and a sagebush.

It Conquered the World (1956)

The Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

The Raven(1963)

The Terror (1963)

The Masque of Red Death (1963)