Category: Movies

The Dance of Life (1929): “Thought In Its Wildness”

The Dance of Life (1929), dir. John Cromwell & A. Edward Sutherland

Writes Professor Robert Gerst:

Novelist Virginia Woolf explained in 1926 what she sought from movies: “…We should be able to see thought in its wildness, in its beauty, in its oddity, pouring from men with their elbows on a table; from women with their little handbags slipping to the floor.” (The Movies and Reality)

In this shot from The Dance of Life (1929), a character prepares for her wedding night. What do you see?

Reading-Poetry-Like-We-Mean-It Freshman Seminar

“My thighs say thunderous. My thighs say too fat for skinny jeans. My thighs say wide, say open. My thighs say cellulite, say tattoo, say stretch marks, say pockmarks, say ingrown hair. My thighs feel upset that you only offered one bite of your Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia,” begins Desireé Dallagiacomo’s poem, “Thighs.”

Dallagiacomo  performed  “Thighs” at the Last Chance Slam at the 2014 Women of the World Poetry Slam in Austin. Texas.

Reading-Poetry-Like-We-Mean-It students Austin Kimmell, Sara Manfredi, Julie Martin, and Morgan Metcalf  visualized Dallagiacomo’s poem in the video below, setting it on the Mass Art campus.

“Thighs” Film Adapation (2016). Video by Austin Kimmell, Sara Manfredi, Julie Martin, and Morgan Metcalf.

Silent Film Miracle Students Appraise The Silent Screen’s Most Famous Love Affair

Writes Professor Robert Gerst:

In Silent Film Miracles, students decode the semaphore of silent film. Above in The Son of the Sheik (1926), Rudolph Valentino (Son of the Sheik) and Vilma Bank (Jasmine) embrace. But can silent movies like this still speak to viewers today?

“Yes!” thirty-eight Spring 2016 Silent Film Miracles students appraising this movie declare. Read their (abridged and edited) assessments of this ninety year old classic movie here.

Edwin J. McEnelly’s Orchestra, “That Night In Araby,” (1926)

Film History: The Flashbulb Frenzy World of Martin Scorsese

Above: Raging Bull (1980), top left; The Aviator (2004), bottom right; The King of Comedy (1982), top right; Casino (1995), bottom left

“Cinema is a matter of what’s in the frame and what’s out.” – Martin Scorsese

In essays treating films of the twentieth century, students in Film History often focus on elements that distill a director’s vision. Elyssa Iacobello cites flashing flashbulbs as a critical component of Martin Scorsese’s vision. She observes:

“Flashbulbs [in a scene hint] that Martin Scorsese had a hand in the film. Using them in different settings, he captures different emotions that come with flashbulbs. In Raging Bull, you feel the suffocating pressure emanating from the aggressive reporters. In The Aviator, you experience the strange disorienting effect of the flashing lights. Using flashbulbs in multiples and at the correct time, Scorsese heightens the feeling he wants you to feel. In the suffocation, you feel trapped. In the strangeness, you feel the illusion. Scorsese uses flash bulbs for editing effects, too. In The Aviator, he uses flashes to disguise difficult cuts. In that film, flashbulbs and strobes disorient both characters and viewer. Scorsese is very fond of dreamlike states in movies. His flashes allow you to feel like you have stepped into another world.”

Jump-Cut In Film History

Excerpt: Jean Luc Godard, Breathless (1960)

“In History of Film,” Professor Robert Gerst writes, “students can learn by doing. They can undertake film making exercises I provide on the website accompanying my film history book, Make Film History. In the exercises, students re-experience moments when choices made by film making giants of the past created the cinema of today.

About Jean Luc Godard’s visual style, Elizabeth Pattyn writes:

One of the most defining films of the French New Wave, Godard’s Breathless changed the rules for what is acceptable in filmmaking. The film is most commonly known for showcasing Godard’s unique style of editing, which made the jump cut popular and acceptable. Although films at this time were expected to follow a smooth digression of editing, with every cut following a very logical pattern, Godard completely did away with this generic formula for storytelling, and instead relied on unexpected, quick jumps in editing.

Only minutes into the film do we see the first jump cuts. In the first scene, we witness Michel steal a car from the streets of Paris, and conspicuously rush through the narrow country road at top speed. Godard makes use of the jump cut as Michel passes numerous cars on the road. We’re given a POV shot from Michel’s view on the street, quickly passing car after car. Here Godard is showing the same action over and over again, without fluidity or polish. The mastery of Godard’s precise cutting is not only thrilling to the audience, but it also clarifies the character of Michel. He isn’t the mastermind he thinks he is. He isn’t smooth or cautious. He’s reckless and will undoubtedly be arrested before he can reach the heights of crime.

Working thru a Make Film History jump-cut exercise, Elizabeth Pattyn recreates Godard’s Breathless jump-cuts above in her 2016 version below.”

“My empathetic response to the film & the treatment of its subjects”

Professor Dermot Smyth explains how students in his History of Documentary Film class use art works of their own to reach the center of films they study:

“Hands-on responses like these combined with research on the documentary they undertake give students a concrete sense of how documentaries work and change and represent the world.”

Man With A Movie Camera (Live Music)

man_with_a_movie_camera
Man With A Movie Camera (1929)

November 1, 2016

The world renown Alloy Orchestra (musicians Ken Winokur, Terry Donahue, and Roger Miller) will be bringing their magic to Mass Art 7:00 PM November 1, 2106. Liberal Arts, SIM, and Studio Foundation proudly sponsor this extraordinary event. It’s free and open to all Mass Art, Colleges of the Fenway, and Musuem School affiliates.

Live in the Tower Auditorium, they’re performing their inimitable, riveting, original score for Dziga Vertov’s 1929 silent film classic, The Man With A Movie Camera. (In 2012, Sound and Sight readers voted this astounding Soviet documentary one of the ten greatest movies ever.) Not to be missed!

Paired with a less percussive score for the same four-minute film segment composed by Michael Nyman, here’s a hint of the Alloy Orchestra in action:

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