Welcome to the American Studies Institute
 

         AMERICAN EXPERIENCE THROUGH FILM

 “I had some glowing dreams about what the camera could be made to do and ought to do in teaching the world the things it needed to know-teaching it in a more vivid, direct way.” Thomas A. Edison

COURSE OUTLINE

 AMERICAN EXPERIENCE THROUGH FILM
                   [AmSt 8093-502     3 credits]
                   Saturdays: 3:30 – 6:00 p. m.
Professor:            Dr. Mohammed  S. Dajani          
                              Phone: 02-2989184    Fax:  2989185 
                              E-mail: mohddajani@hotmail.com

Office:   American Studies Institute (ASI), Al-Quds University
Office Hours:       Saturdays: 6:00 – 7:00 p.m. and by appointment

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Course Objective:    The purpose of this course is to introduce you to the American experience and to familiarize you with way of life through the review of classic movies depicting the American society and culture.

Course Description: A study of the American rich experience as viewed through

films. Discusses American attitudes, values, traditions, beliefs toward politics and government. Analyzes the mix in American political culture: Moralistic culture, Traditionalistic culture, and Individualistic culture. Readings, films, videos, discussions, and special guests will focus on race relations, ethics, sports, music, the media, religion, women and sex in American culture.

Throughout this course, students will study those movies that best reflect a wide range of American way of life and the various aspects of American heritage. It is designed to confront students with fundamental questions about the development an growth of American society, questions of the following kind: What is America all about? How did the American character and experience develop? What is the relationship between the various ingredients in the melting pot such as native Indians and early Americans, black and white, north and south, rich and poor, etc.? Students are expected to reflect upon these and other questions throughout the semester, as well as to learn some basic facts about the American society and culture.

Choice of Films:            Each film selected examines an aspect of the American experience and features at least one clearly defined American central character. Films selected for this course were chosen either for their artistic excellence, or for the fascinating information they impart, or for their vital contribution to the evolution of the American stereotype image worldwide or because they are popular, provocative and inspiring or because they offered a groundbreaking discussion of a taboo subject. The films selected feature great American super stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Clark Gable, Henry Fonda, Orson Welles, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro. Dustin Hoffman, and Jene Kelly. Personal taste, of course, played a big role in the choice of films, and I selected those landmark movies that I believe had an enormous impact on American society. The chosen films cover such topics as American history, the civil war, race relationship depicted in the Black experience, literature, politics, and the social environment. . Each film in this course is one piece of a puzzle that, when assembled, will depict the wide range of American experience. No doubt, there are dozens of worthy important movies that should have been included in this course but were not due to time limitation.     

 Course Requirement:   

(a) Film Reviews(40%): Students are required to view and write in-depth review of four films selected from the eight films listed in the course and discussed in class that should include biographical and historical information. The size of each review should be 2-4 type-written pages in English. All students must meet the deadlines for assignments. They must be turned in during the class on the day they are due. If the deadlines are not met – and the teacher has not granted a prior exemption based on an extraordinary circumstance – no credit will be allowed. It is the personal responsibility of each student to comprehend the material of the course, and to seek assistance from me whenever problems arise.

(b) Term Paper (20%):           Students are required at the end of the course to hand in a 8-12 type-written term paper on one of the topics discussed of their choice.

(c) Final Exam (40%): The Final Exam will cover the film material discussed in class throughout the semester.        

(c) Attendance:    Students are expected to attend class regularly, and will be held responsible for all materials presented there. Furthermore, in order for an assignment to be accepted, the student must be in class for the entire class period. It is critical that students recognize the importance of attendance and participation in determining their final grade.

 Course Grade:     The final grade will be based on the performance of the student on the written assignments, the term paper, the final exam as well as class attendance and participation. 

Academic Honesty:       All of the work students do in this course is expected to be their own. Students should not use the ideas or writings of others as their own.

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Films selected for this course:

Introduction        

1.     Wizard of Oz. Starring Judy Garlend. [1938]

2.      Gone With the Wind. Starring Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh. (1939)

3.     Grapes of Wrath . Starring Henry Fonda (1940).

4.     Citizen Kane. Starring Orson Welles. [1941]

5.     Casablanca. Starring Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman (1942).

6.     Singin' in the Rain. Starring Jene Kelly and Donen. [1951]

7.      On The Waterfront.  Starring Marlon Brando.(1954)

8.      The Godfather I.  Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino (1972).

Final Exam

Other Recommended Films:

·        The Old Man and the Sea

·        For Whom the Bell Tolls

·        A Farewell to Arms

·        The Sun Also Rises

·        The Hellelujah Trail. Starring Burt Lancaster and Lee Remick.

·        Shane. Starring Allan Ladd.

·        High Noon.

·        Texas. Starring Stacy Keach and Patrick Duffy.  

·        The Alamo.

·        The Patriot. Starring Mel Gibson.

·        The Crossing.

·        They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? Starring Jane Fonda.

·        The Godfather II.  Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

·        New York, New York. Starring Liza Minnelli [Color. 1977]

·        All that Jazz

·        West Side Story

·        Oklahoma

·        All the President’s Men. Starring Robert Redford.

·        Coming Home. Starring Jane Fonda and Jon Voight.

·        Wag the Dog. Starring Robert de Niro and Dustin Hoffman.

·        G.I. Jane

·        The Hunt for Red October Starring Sean Connery.

·        Best Defense. Starring Eddie Murphy.

·        Apocalypse Now. Starring Marlon Brando.

·        True Crime

·        The Green Mile

·        The Ox-Bow Incident.

·        To Kill a Mocking Bird. Starring Gregory Peck.

·        Amistad.

·        Men of Honor

·        MacArthur. Starring Gregory Peck.

·        JFK. Starring Kevin Kostner.

·        Patton.

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Recommended Readings:

·        Arthur Knight. The Liveliest Art. (1957).

·        David Cook. A History of Narrative Film. (Norton: 1981).

·        Understanding Movies. (Prentiss-Hall, fifth edition, 1990).

·        Richard A. Maynard. Classroom Cinema. Teachers College Press, New York, 1977.

·        Mark C. Carnes, Ed. Past Imperfect, Henry Holt and Company, New York, 1995

·        Robert Brent Toplin. History by Hollywood: The Use and Abuse of the American Past. University of Illinois Press, Urbana & Chicago, 1996.

Discussion Questions

Discussion Questions:

1.     What was the theme of this film? What were the film makers trying to tell us? Were they successful? Justify your answer.

2.     Did you learn anything from this movie? What was it?

3.     Was there something you didn't understand about the movie?

4.     What did you like best about the movie? Why?

5.     Select an action performed by one of the characters in the film and explain why the character took that action. What motivated him or her? What did this motivation have to do with the theme of the film?

6.     Who was your favorite character in the movie? Why?

7.     Who was your least favorite character in the movie? Why?

8.     Describe the use of color in the film? Did it advance the emotions the film makers were trying to evoke? How would you have used color in the movie?

9.     Analyze the use of music in the movie. Did it enhance the story that the film makers were trying to tell? How would you have used music in this movie?

10. Did all of the events portrayed in the film ring true? Describe the scenes that you found especially accurate. Which sequences didn't seem to match reality? Why?

11. What was the structure of the story told by the movie?

12. Would you recommend this movie to others? Explain Why?

13. Analyze the actions of any major character in the film applying two tests which any ethical action must pass: (1) reversibility (Would the person taking the action want to be treated the same way?) and (2) universality (Would the person taking the action want all persons to act the same way in a similar situation?).

 Film Reviews:

   “Citizen Kane by Orson Welles, about the life of newspaper tycoon Charles Foster Kane, is ‘the best film ever made’, according to a global critics' poll. Both critics and directors put Citizen Kane at the top after being asked to name their top 10 films. It is said to be the most innovative film of all time, and many of the tricks used by Welles - who directed, wrote and starred in the film - are now commonplace in modern movies. As a film, Citizen Kane is a powerful dramatic tale about the uses and abuses of wealth and power. Kane is like a Chinese warlord who intends to be buried with his closest retainers and an army of statues. But he dies alone, left only with his statues and the mausoleum he built to house them. While the film begins and ends with Kane's death, his story is told through a series of five interviews which in turn frame dramatized periods of the tycoon's life. One is with a drunk, another with a dead man (via his journal)... the last one is with a butler. Kane celebrates the success of his newspaper The Inquirer by bringing in some chorus girls and joining in with their performance as his employees enjoy the show with their dinner. Unable to buy the people for the political power he craves, Kane buys statues in Europe in an obsession that not only reveals the psychology of a man desperately trying to control his fantasy of himself, but also works as an analogy to the growth of the American capitalist state through immigration. They come as slaves, they come as refugees, they come as statues. The film famously revolves around Kane's dying word - "Rosebud" - and a journalist's attempts to discover its meaning, which reveals his subject's life in a series of flashbacks. "Rosebud", Kane's last word, trigger the hunt into the soul of Charles Foster Kane to search for the mystery of its meaning – one finally discovers that it was the name of Kane-the-boy's sleigh, his last object of desire when he was separated forever from his mother. For the last 40 years Citizen Kane has topped the critics' poll confirming Orson Welles, the director, as the Shakespeare of modern cinema. Pushing all the resources of a Hollywood studio to its limits, the film is a dazzling formal experiment and compelling portrait of a great man's life."

• Gone With the Wind. Starring Clark Gable and Vivian Leigh.

“This production of Margaret Mitchell’s famous novel portrays the American Civil War era and was judged by many critics to be ‘the greatest movie of all time.’”

• The Godfather I & II.  Starring Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

Francis Ford Coppola's mafia sagas The Godfather Part I and The Godfather Part II has been acclaimed as “one of the most popular movies of all times”.