presents The American West and the Western Film GenreThe Film Foundation’s Story of Movies...
Transcript of presents The American West and the Western Film GenreThe Film Foundation’s Story of Movies...
The Film Foundation’s Story of Movies presents
The American West and the Western Film Genre
In association with
The Harrington School of Communication and Media, University of Rhode Island
with additional support from the National Endowment for the Humanities
A FREE professional development seminar for educators and librarians
Saturday, June 14 8 a.m. – 9 p.m.
&
Sunday, June 15 8 – 5 p.m.
Swan Hall
Agnes Doody Auditorium, URI Campus, Kingston, RI
Who & What This free weekend seminar introduces educators to an interdisciplinary curriculum covering a critical period of American history (1860 – 1900) when the United States was expanding and forging an identity, and explores how filmmakers of the 20th century represented this era.
• Workshops focus on cinema literacy/film language, and film as historical/cultural document. Handout materials include screening activities and primary source documents to challenge students’ critical-‐thinking skills.
• Lunch provided for registered participants. • Afternoon & evening screenings feature classic Western films, each voted culturally and
aesthetically significant by the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
How & When to Register Classroom capacity is limited so early registration is encouraged. Continuing Education Credits (CEUs) may be supported by your school district for this program. Workshops require pre-‐registration. Registration deadline is Friday, May 30.
REGISTER ONLINE: http://harrington.uri .edu/event/the-story-of-movies/
Why Teach the Western Film Genre?
• A rich tapestry of literature, art and social history exist to enhance the study of the Western genre, making it an ideal interdisciplinary subject for classroom study.
• Because the Western is an evolving and changing expression of different stages of American cultural history, investigating the mythology of the Western allows students to interpret how Americans – as well as people in other countries – have viewed American political, social and economic values.
• The decline of the Western genre in the last decades of the 20th Century and early decades of the 21st Century presents an intriguing subject for argument. Why did the genre decline? And what mythology, if any, has replaced the Western to explain our present-‐day American demographics and value systems?
• Movies are a door to knowledge—of society, of history, of art. The Story of Movies curriculum opens these doors by teaching students to think critically about film, and providing them with a deeper understanding of this uniquely influential art form.
Seminar Schedule
Sessions Saturday, June 14
Sunday, June 15
Registration 8:30
9:00
Introduction to the Interdisciplinary Curriculum & Common Core Connections
Watching vs. Seeing Screening Activity: The Inciting Incident, from Red River
9:30 – 10:30
Block 1: Conventions of the Western Film Genre • Manifest Destiny and the American Frontier • Screening The Great Train Robbery • What is a Western Film? Conventions of the Genre
Block 4: How the Soundtrack Communicates • Selected Scenes from Once Upon a Time in the West • What Is Savage? Sound analysis and depictions in scenes from The Searchers
10:45 – 12:15
Block 2: Decoding a Film’s Ideology • Identifying Ideology through Cinematic Depictions • Break-‐out Session for screening activity: Selected scenes from Destry Rides Again
• EXPLORING FILM MUSIC with Professor Kay Kalinak, Rhode Island College
Block 5: Changing Ideologies, Changing Depictions • Time & Interpretation & Racial Relations: “Don’t Scream” from Sergeant Rutledge and Broken Arrow
• Violence and Vengeance: Scenes for analysis: Ulzana’s Raid
Lunch 12:15 – 1:00
1:00 – 2:30
Block 3: Film Language – Composition & Juxtaposition • Four Elements of Film Language • Selected scenes for analysis from The Oxbow Incident and The Outlaw Josey Wales
Block 6: Pulling It All Together—Mise-‐en-‐scène • Watching: “The McBain Family” from Once Upon a time in the West
• Seeing: “The McBain Family” revisited
Matinee Screening 3:00 – 5:00
Film Introduction: Social Class & Prejudice Feature Film: Stagecoach (1939, d. John Ford)
Film Introduction: The Closing of the American Frontier Feature Film: Shane (1953, d. George Stevens)
7 p.m. Evening Screening
The New Frontier: The Journey West The Big Trail (1930, d. Raoul Walsh)
About The Film Foundation The mission of the Film Foundation, a non-‐profit 501(c)(3) organization founded by Martin Scorsese and other prominent filmmakers, is to preserve America’s cultural and artistic film heritage and to ensure that classic films remain accessible to future generations.
“Westerns have always been
roadmaps that tell viewers more
about the contemporary U.S. than
about the country as it existed in the
last half of the 19th Century.”
—R. Philip Loy, Westerns in a Changing America