Change in reading assignment

Your syllabus lists an essay on "Gangsters and the Fallen Woman Cycle" as an assignment for Tuesday, but you need not read that.  Instead, read Belton, ch. 2 in addition to the other assignment, Corrigan, pp. 39-61.

Today's films

White Fawn's Devotion is available at archive.org, but Ramona  is available only through the set of movies on reserve. 

Tomorrow we'll be watching Redskin. If these films interest you, you might think about a paper topic that would look at Redskin and The Vanishing American (which we're not watching), among others.

You can find the PowerPoint slides from today's class and last week's class at the Lectures link on the right sidebar of this page. 

Blog posts

I've commented on all the blog posts available that had comment features. If you don't have comments enabled, I didn't leave a comment.

Please put your name (first and last) somewhere on your blog or at least in your profile, so that I can credit you for blog posts and comments that you leave. In Blogger, you can do this by editing your User Profile.

Within Our Gates

The film we saw today, Within Our Gates, is on reserve at Holland/Terrell library; just look under ENGL 339 in Course Reserves (or use this link). You can also find it, with a different soundtrack, in 8 parts on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTJIz5-ULbg/

The book I mentioned at the beginning of class is Jane M. Gaines's Fire and Desire: Mixed-Race Movies of the Silent Era. It's not in our library, but you can get it through Summit.

What to look for in a film (from class discussion)

Here's a list of what you all suggested as important items to look for in a film. Thanks to Brianne Geffre for sending this information.

1. Art Form or Not pure Art? (are they out to make money?)

               

2. New Technology

                -Effects

3. Technical issues

• Lighting, angles (length of cuts, quality of movement) 

4. Direction of Action (gaze, sight lines)

5. Genre

6. Budget/ Purpose

                -Quality

7. Method of narration and subject matter

                -music/ sound

                -Narration/ voice over

8. Dialogue between viewer and movie

                -what questions arise while watching

9. Intended audience

                -era, population

10. Symbols that repeat

11. Context

                -historical background

12. Setting, props, staging

13. Beginnings and Endings

                -Order of the scenes 

14. Acting,

• who is chosen
  
• Type Casting

15. What sells the movie?

                Effects vs Story/ Characters

Broken Blossoms and The Birth of a Nation

We saw excerpts today from Broken Blossoms and The Birth of a Nation; you can see full versions at the links. (BOAN is in 20 parts at YouTube or in one continuous film at archive.org)

I'll bring the scenes from Micheaux's Veiled Aristocrats to class tomorrow.

Updates to blogroll

I've updated the links on the blogroll, so if you don't see your blog listed, please send me another email with the link.  I've also updated the report list, so please check to see if your report date is listed correctly.