Film 50: History of Cinema

1/20/10 to 4/28/10

If you want to explore the history and aesthetics of film, this popular course is the place to start.

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  • Rashomon, March 3

  • Upcoming
    Films
  • Upcoming
    Events
  • Selected
    Objects
  • Past
    Films
  • Past
    Events

Past Films

  • Introduction: Cinema and the Representation of Memory and the Past

    Wednesday, January 20 3:00 pm
    Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. This informative illustrated lecture introduces students to film language and to the themes of the course.
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  • From the Cinema of Attractions to Narrative Integration

    Wednesday, January 27 3:00 pm
    Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Bruce Loeb on piano. This program showcases the wonders of early cinema and traces the beginnings of film narrative.
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  • The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari

    Wednesday, February 3 3:00 pm
    Robert Wiene (Germany, 1919). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Bruce Loeb on piano. The quintessential German Expressionist film translates narrative and psychology into stunning set design. (82 mins)
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  • Citizen Kane

    Wednesday, February 10 3:00 pm
    Orson Welles (U.S., 1941). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. A childhood memory is the ultimate red herring in Welles's audacious debut, which still tops many critics' lists of the best films of all time. (119 mins)
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  • Spellbound

    Wednesday, February 17 3:00 pm
    Alfred Hitchcock (U.S., 1945). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Analyst Ingrid Bergman probes the guilt-ridden psyche of Gregory Peck and finds clues to a murder in this Hitchcock whodunit. With Luis Buñuel's Un chien andalou. (127 mins)
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  • Pursued

    Wednesday, February 24 3:00 pm
    Raoul Walsh (U.S., 1947). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Robert Mitchum is haunted by a childhood nightmare in this great noir-Western, a combination of Freudian psychodrama and fated family tragedy. (101 mins)
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  • Rashomon

    Wednesday, March 3 3:00 pm
    Akira Kurosawa (Japan, 1950). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Visual proof of the relativity of truth, Kurosawa's legendary film remains a revelation. (88 mins)
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  • Night and Fog

    Wednesday, March 10 3:00 pm
    Alain Resnais (France, 1956). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. An extraordinary study of the Nazi death camps, and the human capacity to remember and forget. With A Visitor from the Living by Claude Lanzmann, the director of Shoah. (95 mins)
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  • Last Year at Marienbad

    Wednesday, March 17 3:00 pm
    Alain Resnais (France, 1961). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. It's déjà vu all over the place in Alain Resnais's elegant, labyrinthine puzzle, written by Alain Robbe-Grillet and starring Delphine Seyrig. With Maya Deren's Meshes of the Afternoon. (108 mins)
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  • Memories of Underdevelopment

    Wednesday, March 31 3:00 pm
    Tomás Gutiérrez Alea (Cuba, 1968). Guest Lecturer: Andre Rosario. This groundbreaking Cuban work explores the experiences and reveries of a bourgeois writer after the revolution. “A profound, noble film.”-N.Y. Times (97 mins)
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  • Annie Hall

    Wednesday, April 7 3:00 pm
    Woody Allen (U.S., 1977). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Woody Allen's universe is expanding-and his relationship with Diane Keaton is imploding-in what might be Allen's most winning comedy. (94 mins)
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  • Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

    Wednesday, April 14 3:00 pm
    Michael Gondry (U.S., 2004). Guest Lecturer: George Larkin. When Jim Carrey falls for Kate Winslet, it's almost as if they'd met before. Charlie Kaufman's script uses a goofy science-fiction conceit to consider the vagaries of love and memory. (108 mins)
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  • The Beaches of Agnès

    Wednesday, April 21 3:00 pm
    Agnès Varda (France, 2008). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Varda takes a cinematic stroll through her long career-and the history of French film-in this jovial first-person documentary. (110 mins)
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  • Waltz with Bashir

    Wednesday, April 28 3:00 pm
    Ari Folman (Israel, 2008). Lecture by Marilyn Fabe. Folman's animated recollection of the 1982 massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps of West Beirut is part history, part personal memory, part dream. (87 mins)
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