Great American Film Directors of Hollywood's "Golden Age"April 4, 11, 18 and 25 |
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Motion picture directors, like their counterparts in the theatre, are accountable for a great many of the artistic decisions made in the work they ultimately help to produce. The visual choices directors make with the help of cinematographers and editors – particularly about camera placement and compositional framing of the image – are capable of imparting to any film a discernible “directorial stamp,” what we tend to call “style.” Cinematic style, based on imaginative use of camera and sound montage in narrative storytelling, is what truly distinguishes the work of the finest film directors from that of their peers. The subject of this forum is the cinematic output of four American movie directors whose 1930s films have come to exemplify what is known as the “classical Hollywood” style. The four directors now regarded as giants of Hollywood’s so-called “Golden Age” are Frank Capra, George Cukor, John Ford and Howard Hawks. Theatre Professor Steven Marc Weiss will assess the output of each of these important directors with regard to both form and content. Each established his own distinctive version of classical style, and each also contributed (for better or worse) to the myths about American life so effectively promulgated by the Hollywood system. Short sequences from the films of these directors will be screened during in-class discussions in order to assess the extent of their contributions to the overall development of Hollywood cinema as an art form. Additionally, special full-length screenings – one film per director – will be scheduled outside of the forum classroom on Sunday afternoons throughout the month. |
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