by hefnerbe | Dec 1, 2011 | Uncategorized
Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man is an undeniably mysterious film. The protagonist, accountant William Blake, is mistaken for the other famous William Blake, the mystic/visionary English Romantic poet. Some of you may be familiar with Blake from the literature courses...
by hefnerbe | Oct 20, 2011 | Uncategorized
Mann and Boetticher each made a group of films in the 1950s that set the standard for what critics have called the “psychological” western – a turn toward dark, gloomy, and tormented protagonists and bleak plots that certainly influenced the work of...
by hefnerbe | Oct 11, 2011 | Uncategorized
The votes are in and, although it was relatively close, our final Wednesday night screening will consist of two episodes from the first season of the HBO series Deadwood. Depending on how our semester is going at that point, I might use some in class time to talk...
by hefnerbe | Oct 7, 2011 | Uncategorized
One of the most recurrent sounds of Shane (1953) is Joey Sharrett’s “Bang! Bang!” as he imagines his toy gun firing at the bad guys. Shane’s 1953 debut corresponds to a moment where toy makers exploited this fascination with western violence,...
by hefnerbe | Sep 27, 2011 | Uncategorized
John Ford is the director most associated with the western, and some call him the best director in the history of American cinema. In his biography of Ford, Joseph McBride writes, “At the famous meeting in October 1950 when the Screen Director’s Guild was...
by hefnerbe | Sep 18, 2011 | Uncategorized
Here is a list of the volumes in the University of California Press’s History of American Cinema series, along with links to their records in the JMU library catalog. With off-campus library access, you can read these as eBooks. Vol 1: Charles Musser, The...
