Whether you are new to filmmaking, a seasoned veteran, want to know more about the ‘behind the scenes’, or you just want to enjoy some good films, The Film History Crash Course offers a unique opportunity usually not available outside a university film program. The most important points in film History will be examined in each two and a half hour class, which will include full screenings of complete films along with shorter excerpts. The FHCC promises to be a brisk, informative and entertaining trip into Film History and theory, revealing how yesterday’s movies have informed and influenced today’s motion pictures.
The series is hosted by Ron Foley Macdonald, Film Curator at the Dalhousie Art Gallery since 1988 and Senior Programmer at the Atlantic Film Festival. Macdonald is also a broadcaster, film critic, and arts journalist who has written for The Globe and Mail and The Chronicle Herald.
The cost for each individual seminar/screening is: $15.00 AFCOOP Members / $20.00 Non-Members. You can also register for all 11 seminar screenings at a special advance price of $140.00 AFCOOP Members / $175.00 Non-Members. To sign-up please call the AFCOOP offices at 420-4572 or drop by for a visit. We accept Visa, Mastercard, Debit, Cash, and Cheques. All workshops in this series will be held at The Atlantic Filmmakers Cooperative, 5663 Cornwallis st. suite 101.
•The Film History Crash Course: BEGINNINGS – From the Real to the Surreal
Monday, September 26th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Entracte, Rene Clair, France, 1924
plus Edison, Lumiere, Melies and Edwin Porter early films.
•The Film History Crash Course: The Introduction of Sound
Monday, October 3rd , 6:30pm-9:00pm
Boudu Saved From Drowing, Jean Renoir, France, 1932, 85 minutes.
Poetic Realism onscreen when a rescued indigent disrupts a bourgeois family, and key to Neorealism and the French New Wave.
•The Film History Crash Course: Hollywood Ascendant
Monday, October 17th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Stagecoach, John Ford, US 1939, 96 minutes.
The Western as American Eden Myth, the Ford/JohnWayne partnership, and legendary indie producer Walter Wanger who helped to break the studios’ hold.
•The Film History Crash Course: The Musical
Monday, October 24th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Good News, Charles Walters, US 1947, 90 minutes.
MGM’s Arthur Freed Musical unit: artifice supreme from Hollywood’s biggest studio.”More Stars Than There Are In Heaven!” The template for ‘High School Musical’ .
•The Film History Crash Course-Ideas In Film: 60′s Drama: Postwar Existentialism and Non-Western Filmmaking
Monday, October 31st, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Rashoman, Akira Kurosawa, Japan, 1950, 90 minutes.
One story told from alternate points of view revealing the fragility of human perception.
•The Film History Crash Course: Neo-Realism and Personal Filmmaking
Monday, November 7th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Journey to Italy, Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1954, 85 minutes.
Reality overwhelms an about-to-divorce British Postwar couple; the departure point for the New Wave of filmmaking.
•The Film History Crash Course: Film Noir and Women’s Film:
Monday, November 14th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Slightly Scarlet, Allan Dwan, US, 1956, 99 minutes.
A Canadian director adapts James M. Cain’s potboiler. The legendary John Alton is the hothouse colour cinematographer.
•The Film History Crash Course: The French New Wave
Monday, November 21st, 6:30pm-9:00pm
Cleo From 5 to 7, Agnes Varda, France 1961, 90 minutes.
A real-time experiment unfolds as a female jazz singer awaits the results of a cancer test while distracted by the delights of early ‘60s Paris. - Minimalism, Formalism, Women’s Filmmaking.
•The Film History Crash Course : 1970s Despair on TV
Monday, November 28th, 6:30pm-9:00pm
The Death Of Richie, Paul Wendkos, US 1977,97 minutes.
The cautionary real-life tale of a drug-crazed son shot by his father, the Death Of Richie comes from the crucial year when the optimism and idealism of the 1960s crashed against the ugly realities of the 1970s.
•The Film History Crash Course: The Birth of the Chinese Fifth Generation Filmmakers
Monday, December 5th, 6pm-8:30pm
Yellow Earth, Chen Kaige, China, 1985, 89 minutes.
An astonishing musical about a folk song collector that dares to question communist promises, Yellow Earth marked the resurgence of Mainland China’s Filmmaking prowess. Arguably the most important film of the movement.
•The Film History Crash Course: The Age Of Irony and the Rise of American Indies
Monday, December 12th, 6pm-8:30pm
Trust, Hal Hartley, US 1990, 107 minutes.
Deadpan humour, Postmodernist attitude, and snatches of surrealism fuel Hal Hartley’s wizened world view (His dad was from Newfoundland and helped build the skyscrapers in New York City!).
