I would like to regard what I am offering here as a series of conversations. This is not an official course in any academic program. It is not being offered for credit. Those attending will not be required to do any written work-as the instigator of the series I guarantee that I will not read it if it is written. At the same time, I hope that we may all learn something from it.
I am basing the program on this assumption: by the late fifties, classical Hollywood was in ruins-both as a business and as a way of telling stories. And so a group of films appeared-without any organizing principle-in which it was evident that such old codes as genre, suspense, comedy, happy ending, and stardom were being abandoned. Films were being made out of self-referential obsession, groundbreaking camp satire, and the simple feeling that this nonsense can't go on.
The films I am choosing as illustration of this-Vertigo, Touch of Evil, Rio Bravo, and Some Like It Hot-are all “obvious” and well known (they are also great fun). I have chosen familiar films because our shared knowledge of the movies will help generate a freer conversation. But then I offer two more-Pierrot le Fou and Bonnie and Clyde-as responses to the breakdown. So six days, six movies, each with an introduction and open conversation.
David Thomson
David Thomson is a regular contributor to The New York Times, Film Comment, Movieline, The New Republic, and Salon. His books include The New Biographical Dictionary of Film; The Whole Equation: A History of Hollywood; Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles; Showman: The Life of David O. Selznick; and, most recently, Nicole Kidman. Born in London, he lives in San Francisco.