The Language of Hollywood: Storytelling, Sound, and Color

Here is a week-by week description of the course and the films discussed. Each lecture is followed by an ungraded multiple choice quiz. At the end of the course, students can complete a longer, 20 question multiple-choice quiz for a grade. This is an online educational experience, not intended to be equivalent to a college course.

Week One: 
INTRODUCTION

Lecture One: Form, Technology, and the Art of Cinema

Lecture Two: The Power of Silence: Cinema as a Visual Art.  

Watch Street Angel (Fox, 1928)
NOTE: Street Angel is Optional because the purchase price of the DVD can be prohibitive.

Lecture Three: Street Angel: Borzage's Visual Opera

Lecture Four: von Sternberg's World

Watch Docks of New York (Paramount, 1928)

Lecture Five: Docks of New York: The Seedy Side of Silence

SOUND

Week Two:

Lecture One: Sound Comes to Cinema

Watch Applause (Paramount, 1929)

Lecture Two:Applause, Mamoulian's Struggle for Style
Lecture Three: The Marx Brothers: Unbridled Talk

Watch Monkey Business (Paramount, 1931)

Lecture Four:  Monkey Business: Vaudeville Anarchy in the Sound Film

Week Three:

Lecture One: Gunfire and the City: Introduction to the Gangster Film

Watch Scarface (United Artists, 1932)

Lecture Two: Scarface: Sound and the Gangster's World

Lecture Three: Building an Atmosphere: Val Lewton’s Horror Films

Watch The Ghost Ship (RKO 1943)

Lecture Four: Ghost Ship: Horror through Sound and Light

Week Four:

Lecture One: Harnessing the Rainbow: Introducing Technicolor 

Watch Trail of the Lonesome Pine (Paramount, 1936)

Lecture Two: Trail of the Lonesome Pine: Dramatic Restraint

Lecture Three:  The Color of Adventure

Watch Adventures of Robin Hood (Warner Bros. 1938)

Lecture Four: Robin Hood: Technicolor’s New Palette.

Week Five:

Lecture One: Color and Melodrama

Watch All that Heaven Allows (Universal, 1958)

Lecture Two: All that Heaven Allows: Orange, Blue, Loss and Longing

Lecture Three: Continuing the Technicolor Tradition

Watch Punch Drunk Love (New Line: 2002)

Lecture Four: Punch Drunk Love: P.T. Anderson's Palette Games

Lecture Five: Conclusions

• Scott Higgins - Film Studies