Tuesday, February 5, 2013

re:booting (now with hulu+!!!)

After too long a layoff, it's time to dust off the blog and get to some writing.  The excuse, of course, is teaching a topics course on Television Studies (COMM 399) and the Film History (COMM 310) class, plus a few folks doing Global Cinema (COMM 371) with me independently.  All those classes have to blog too... So it's only fair I get back on the horse myself.

My goal is to offer up a post relevant to each of these classes per week.  Three posts a week this semester?!  Given my track record, that's a nice idea, but... We'll see.  The idea, of course, is to use this as something of a mental stretching exercise for other writing projects (ahem!)...

To jump-start things, I've made the leap to hulu+, and am really pleased with my initial results.  Streamed Night and Fog (1955), w/ an article tied to it in the latest Cineaste (a review of two new books) & an upcoming presentation in the topics class on The Holocaust and Film (COMM 399).  The opening shot / sequence of the film is going to be my object lesson to talk about film form and style (plot and story, framing / tracking) ...



I'm also well into a Swedish silent film directed by Victor Sjöström, The Phantom Carriage (1921), which shows up in the "alternatives to Hollywood silents" chapter in Gomery's textbook.  Love the beautiful use of double exposure, as you can see in this clip:


Both films are part of the Criterion Collection--one of the big draws for me personally going to hulu+ was the ability to readily access this back-catalogue.  Ideal for Film History courses, no doubt.

So: so far so good.  Now if I just had enough time to dive into Downton Abbey (2010- )...


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