Musical Parody

A joke on students of English: this is a parody of a tune you will recognize. To understand all of the lyrics, try watching it more than once. Enjoy!

The Mammy and Aunt Jemima Cover-Up

Gone with the Wind is a film that gives a distorted picture of slavery that is conveyed to a great extent in the depiction of Scarlett's Mammy, played by Hattie McDaniel.  Janell Hobson writes about the contrast between this fantasized Mammy and the real-life situation of being sexually subjugated by white men in Ms. Magazine's blog, "The Fantasy of Mammy, the Truth of Patsey" (March 5, 2014).

Muscle Shoals, Rock & Roll

This documentary film explores ground-breaking recordings of Soul and Rock music in the 1960s and 1970s in a small Alabama town.




Andrew Martin, writing in a blog for The New York Review of Books (February 28, 2014), offers a critical account of this film, as well as some of the music it inspired.

The Secret Life of Bees

Lily takes refuge with the Boatwrights.

Franco-American Visit

This is a bit outside the normal run of this blog, but it seems unfair to let some great film footage of the French President's visit to the United States go unmentioned. In this selection you can understand why President Obama and President Hollande found it so symbolic to visit Monticello together. Vive l'amitié franco-américain !  Happy Valentine's Day to French-American friendship.

 


The photo below of the White House Dinner is from the Nouvel Observateur and posted also here.

Precious

Go past a few stereotypes while watching this film.

The Butler

If you saw the movie Lincoln, you'll also want to see this film, which makes a brilliant follow-up.

On The Road

The American continent is known for its highways and automobiles. The 1950s became the decade when many people were able to purchase their own car. This changed the face of American society forever, giving rise to a new genre: the road trip novel or film.

The Lorax

Children never tire of Dr. Seuss, and it's a bit surprising that his complete works are not yet in film versions. Here's the latest.

Harvey Milk

What happens when a gay man runs for political office?

Langston Hughes at the Movies

Black Nativity (2013), is based on Langston Hughes's The Nativity. You'll want to see this film, especially for the music.

Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln by Daniel Day-Lewis and Sally Field

No history buff will be able to pass up this film. Learn how the political process was put to the test and how Lincoln managed to have congress vote the Emancipation Proclamation that would end slavery in the United States.

 

F.B.I.

How did the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States become so powerful? Find some answers here.

Bird

This film about jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker shows the difficulties of the life of a travelling musician, particularly in a racist America.

Visit Detroit

Eminem stars in 8-Mile, a film about living in the city of Detroit from 2002.




 And see another musician from a few decades earlier: Rodriguez in Sugar Man, about a musician who was active in the 1970s.

Short Cuts

The original thing about this film is that splicing Raymond Carver's short stories into a film gives them an added coherence, and the characters that do not meet each other in the published stories, are quite credible as people that live close to each other in the film. Altman gave us a brilliant piece of social criticism.

Viola Davis stars in The Help

Viola Davis is everyone's favorite maid in The Help (2011), which was released in the US in August.





Links
Official Site for the film (thehelpmovie.com).
Joel Stein, "Help Wanted.  Viola Davis is a star." Time (August 15, 2011).
Betsy Sharkey, "The Help" Los Angeles Times (August 10, 2011).
Manohla Dargis, "'The Maids' Now Have Their Say," New York Times (August 9, 2011).
Kirk Honeycult, "The Help: Film Review" Hollywood Reporter (August 7, 2011).

While we wait for the movie...

Students have produced what they think might be a good trailer for the film... and the wait is long to get a full movie-length version of this excellent book, A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole.

Meanwhile, the story has been produced as a play by Book-It Repertory Theatre. See the video here: http://www.book-it.org/confederacy.php.

Initiation and Tall Tale

Anne-Marie Paquet-Deyris explores trickery, fantasy, initiation, narrative invention and the Tall Tale in Big Fish by Tim Burton in Sillages critiques 10 (2010).

Keats & "Bright Star"

Jane Campion has put poetry and the life of young John Keats at the heart of her film Bright Star, which takes place in 1818.  Keats was in love with Fanny Brawne, knowing that it was a hopeless romance, that for reasons of class she could never become his wife.

Links about the film:

A short excerpt from "Bright Star" from the Cannes Film Festival (AFP, 2009).

Bright Star Production Scrapbook (2009).

Four clips from the film — from www.commeaucinema.com (2009)

"Cannes film festival: Bright Star rising, Ben Whishaw," Guardian (May 19, 2009).

"'Bright Star': le trouble exquis d'une passion chaste au XIXe siècle," Le Monde (May 16, 2009).

Michaël Melinard, "Campion revient à ses premières amours," L'Humanité (May 16, 2009).

Joan Dupont, "Jane Campion Presents Another Resilient Heroine," New York Times (May 15, 2009).

Links about the poet and his poetry:

Charles McGrath, "Truth and Beauty? Only in Afterlife," New York Times (August 7, 2008).

Stanley Plumly, (first chapter) "Posthumous Keats," New York Times (August 8, 2008).

John Keats (.com)

John Keats, Poems 1817 (e-book, Project Gutenberg).