Please read the Class Policies page now.

Tron Ares (2025) double trailer
COMPANION Trailer (2025) Jack Quaid
APM 2 09 40--2:11:00; see also 1 39 36 / 1 48 40 1 54 50
Many abuses in the world—or to put it more boldly, all the abuses in the world—result from our being taught to fear admitting our ignorance, and our being trained to accept anything we cannot refute. We talk about everything dogmatically and categorically. The practice in ancient Rome required that even testimony given by an eyewitness and rulings of judges based on their most certain knowledge had to be couched in the expression: “It seems to me.” It makes me hate things that are probable when they are impressed on me as infallible. I favor those words that soften and moderate the boldness of our assertions: “perhaps,” “in a sense,” “some,” “they say,” “I think,” and the like. And if I’d had to rear children, I would have so filled their mouths with this inquiring and open-ended way of answering—“What does that mean?” “I don’t understand.” “That may be.” “Is that true?”—that they would more likely have preserved the attitude of students at sixty, than resemble learned doctors at ten, as boys tend to do.
Michel Montaigne, "Of the Lame," Essays, Vol. 3, p. 11
Close Reading as Analysis / Close Reading Archive / On Close Reading
Spring 2023 LIT 4930: From Close Reading to Closed Reading
TO MY KNOWLEDGE, THE BEST WEBSITE FOR FILM ANALYSIS IS
https://filmanalysis.yale.edu/
These websites can also be useful;
Film Studies: Film Terminology & Analysis
Columbia film glossary with clips
Columbia film glossary of terms
I will give quizzes at the beginning of class
Discussion Questions (DQs) on something concrete about the film (200 words max) and descriptions any three shots of your choice with three film analysis terms are due every Monday by 5:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Please be aware that the closing time on canvas is 5:00 p.m. Canvas will not allow you to submit work after the closing time. So do manage your time well.
I will give quizzes at the beginning of class on Thursdays.
YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT is due August 25 by 5:00 p.m. (See below.)
Write two Discussion Questions (DQs) on something concrete about the film (200 words max) and describe any three shots of your choice with three film analysis terms (100 words max).
Post your BOTH on this Google doc
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
Give me permission to edit your google docs for DQs and for co-leading. Do not delete your notes. Please put the links to your co-leadings on Canvas. Please email all notes and papers for the course to me at [email protected]. I designed this course myself and am looking forward to teaching it this semester. If you have a question or a problem, please contact me in class or at [email protected].
No cell phones, ipads, or laptops in use during class.
Email give me permission in all google docs for DQs and for co-leading. Please put the links to these docs on Canvas. Please email all papers for the course to me at [email protected].
TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (Please expect adjustments to be made in the schedule from time to time. All changes will be announced both in class and on the class email listserv.)
INTRODUCTION: Finding Footage: Looking Around, Finding, Noticing, Looking into . . . . What is in the film beyond the narrative itself? Opening and End Title Sequences; trailers, animated DVD / Blu-ray / 4K menus, Studio Logos, and so on.
DQs due Monday August 25
YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT is due by 5:00 p.m. Watch Medium Cool (dir. Haskel Weskler, 1969) https://archive.org/details/medium-cool-1969 and then write two Discussion Questions (DQs) on the film (200 words max) and describe any three shots of your choice with three film analysis terms (100 words max).
Post your DQs and three shots BOTH on this Google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w8kLtA2YPfD7y8_bANphtgFAeHBNxe_skC7c9IAl0cw/edit
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
August 26 "Found Film" as Art Film
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Medium Cool (dir. Haskel Weskler, 1969) https://archive.org/details/medium-cool-1969
"With its mix of fictional storytelling and documentary technique, this depiction of the working world and romantic life of a television cameraman (Robert Forster) is a visceral cinematic snapshot of the era, climaxing with an extended sequence shot right in the middle of the riots surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. "
Cronin-Medium-Cool-Sight-and-Sound-2001 "I attempt to make [my films] look as 'found' as possible."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG9ZnwL37l4

SIGN UP TO CO-LEAD CLASS!!!
August 27 quiz in class on : Riotsville, USA
August 28
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Riotsville, USA (dir. Sierra Pettengill, 2022)

DUE September 1: Post your write two Discussion Questions (DQs) on the film (200 words max) and describe any three shots of your choice with three film analysis terms (100 words max). Post them BOTH on this Google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w8kLtA2YPfD7y8_bANphtgFAeHBNxe_skC7c9IAl0cw/edit
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
Sign up to co-lead class twice, once on a Tuesday and once on a Thursday. Co-lead the second time at least three weeks after the first time. Do not co-lead with the same student twice. Although I am letting you choose the dates, I may have to move one or both of your dates for some unforeseen reason.
September 2 Contempt as documentary, the beginning of film history: "Cinema is dead." Jacques Rozier. Film includes rushes of a film being made.
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Contempt (dir. Jean Luc-Godard, 1963)
The fake film: rushes for Fritz Lang's Odyssey; shots are later spliced into the film as inserts
Recommended:
The spoken end titles at the end of of Orson Welles' The Magnificient Ambersons (1942)

September 4 In class quiz (I won't post the due dates any longer.)
Shot selection: How do the trailers reconstruct the film?
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Jean-Luc Godard's LE MEPRIS - Newly restored in 4K (click cc for English subtitles)
Le Mépris (1963) Bande Annonce VF (The original French trailer of 1963.
Nouvelle bande-annonce pour LE MÉPRIS de Jean-Luc Godard, en version restaurée 4K(Don't worry about not understanding the French dialogue or voice-over narration.)
In Class Viewing:
"Le Parti des choses (lit. On the Side of Things) a.k.a. Bardot et Godard (lit. Bardot and Godard) or Le Parti des choses: Bardot et Godard is a 1964 short documentary directed by Jacques Rozier on the making of Jean-Luc Godard's film Le Mépris." Poor image and sound quality with English subtitles
Excellent sound and image quality but in French only.
Orson Welles used the same music in 1962. Albinoni - Adagio in G Minor / The Trial
Paparazzi Directed by Jacques Rozier • 1964 • France
Recommended Documentary:
Criterion DVD supplement on the widescreen and Hollywood aspect ratios of Contempt.
Le Mépris (1963) – Once Upon a Time There Was... Contempt
Contempt (1963) audio-commentary by Robert Stam
Marcade, Jean Roma amor; essay on erotic elements in Etruscan and Roman art
Alfa Romeo 2600 Spider in “Le Mépris” (1963)





8: Post your DQs and three shots BOTH on this Google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w8kLtA2YPfD7y8_bANphtgFAeHBNxe_skC7c9IAl0cw/edit
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
September 9
REQUIRED VIEWING:
F for Fake (dir. Orson Welles, 1973)


September 11
REQUIRED VIEWING: Two Trailers
1. F for Fake - Movie Trailer (1974) Janus Films
2. The French Trailer (1973, 2minutes, 34 seconds) begins at 00:08 (02:40 in the film). "This is a film about trickery, about fraud) and cuts to Oja and Welles sat the train station: Up to your old tricks again" 00:16 (03:18 in the film), the trailer cuts to the opening titles starting with the sci-fi space ship blowing up a building and a question mark Welles draws on the movieola (2:18-23) up the opening titles ("About Fakes" and "by Orson Welles") (00:34); (04:66-5:15 in the film). We then cut (00:37-montage of shots of) to focus on Elmyr (03:12:00-34 in the film) and later on Irving. The trailer ends (21:58--63) the same way the film does: Welles wishes "everyone a very pleasant evening followed by a clanging sound (1:28:03-1:28:09).

Recommended Viewing:
F for Fake introduction / trailer
F for Fake (1973) - How to Structure a Video Essay
DQs due September 16: Post your DQs and three shots BOTH on this Google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w8kLtA2YPfD7y8_bANphtgFAeHBNxe_skC7c9IAl0cw/edit
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
I will no longer post the due dates for DQs. They are due every Monday by 5:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted.
September 16 Not Actually Making a "Fake Film" in a "Real Film" based on True Events
REQUIRED VIEWING:

September 18 Reading Film through Trailers Made for Related Films
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Trailer for Argo (dir. Ben Affleck, 2012)
Trailer for Battle of the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Note the "stock footage" credit to Deborah Ricketts in the end title sequence.

"In first, CIA acknowledges 1953 coup it backed to overthrow leader of Iran was undemocratic"
Warner logo in All the President's Men 1976 -- OPENING TITLE SEQUENCE
Joshuah Bearman,"How the CIA Used a Fake Sci-Fi Flick to Rescue Americans From Tehran" Apr 24, 2007
Escape from Alacatraz (1979) Escape from New York (1981) The Great Escape (1963)
All the President's Men (1976) ORIGINAL TRAILER / Second Trailer / Trailer Recut as bromance
Quentin Tarantino names the greatest movie trailer in cinema history: “It’s too good”
Jack Kirby "He created a new grammar of storytelling and a cinematic style of motion. Once-wooden characters cascaded from one frame to another—or even from page to page—threatening to fall right out of the book into the reader's lap. The force of punches thrown was visibly and explosively evident. Even at rest, a Kirby character pulsed with tension and energy in a way that makes movie versions of the same characters seem static by comparison.[173]" Wikipedia
All Marvel Studios Logos / Intros from 2008 to 2018 / Jack Kirby's Art for the Fake Movie in Argo /
The Lord of Light: Jack Kirby’s Concept Art for Argo /
The Deceptions of Argo / Look! Jack Kirby’s Designs for Argo! / Flash Gordon (1980) Trailer / 4K
September 23
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera (1929) with Alloy Orchestra soundtrack or
Music by Michael Nyman / DZIGA VERTOV: THE MAN WITH THE MOVIE CAMERA AND OTHER NEWLY-RESTORED WORKS


Recommended:
(compare: Alloy vs. Nyman). The BFI released two versions of the film on DVD: the first with scores from the Alloy Orchestra and In the Nursery, and the second billed as "Michael Nyman's Man with a Movie Camera".
Man with a Movie Camera (2014 Restoration trailer)
NYman with a Movie Camera' Trailer 2011 Cut by Michael Nyman
5 wonderful effects in Man with a Movie Camera
Shostakovich - Symphony No 10 in E minor, Op 93 - Gergiev

FIRST PAPER:
DUE Saturday, September 27, by 11:59 p.m.
September 25: FOUND SOUND
The spy (listening through an app without permission) is the hero of the paranoid thriller. Text: advertising the company ia sprinkled across the film. Update on Coppola's The Conversation (misunderstanding "He would kill us if he had the chance").

Recommended:
Claude Rains The Unsuspected--recording and radio as alibi
The Unsuspected (dir. Michael Curtiz, 1947)
FIRST PAPER:
DUE Saturday, September 27, by 11:59 p.m.
Email the link to your google doc to me at [email protected].
September 30 Films and Music Videos
REQUIRED VIEWING:
2. Out of the Past (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1947)
Recommended: Notes I took on Ferry's music video.

October 2
REQUIRED VIEWING:
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPp1uDib5iU
October 2: ID the shots in the video in
Out of the Past (dir. Jacques Tourneur, 1947)

REQUIRED VIEWING:
Murder, My Sweet (dir. Edward Dmytrk, 1944)
October 9
REQUIRED VIEWING:
DICK POWELL IN (NEOEXPRESSIONIST) MUSICAL THE G0LDIGGERS OF 1935 (DIR. BUSBY BERKELY, 1935) LULLABY ON BROADWAY NUMBER (PART ONE) FOR PART TWO GO HERE. PART THREE
Trailer Double Bill /
Gold Diggers of Broadway 1929 All Found Footage
"Warner Night at the Movies: 1939" introduction
RECOMMENDED READING:
October 14
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Crossfire (dir. Edward Dmytrk,1947)
Due October 14 ID the shots from Crossfire (dir. Edward Dmytrk,1947)

October 16
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Crossfire (dir. Edward Dmytrk,1947) opening titles

DUE October 20 ID THE SHOTS FROM The Killers (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1947)
October 21
REQUIRED VIEWING:
The Killers (dir. Robert Siodmak, 1947)

October 23
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Criterion Trailer 176.2: The Killers 1946




October 28
REQUIRED VIEWING: Music Videos inspired by films
The Moulin Rouge trailer (dir. Baz Luhrmann, 2001)
Moulin Rouge ( bande annonce VF )
"Mr. Brightside," The Killers (2003)
Lady Marmalade (2011) Cover of Patti Labelle, 1975
A Trip to the Moon (dir. Georges Melies, 1902)
"Tonight," Smashing Pumpkins (1996)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOG3eus4ZSo&list=RDNOG3eus4ZSo&start_radio=1
Madonna - Bad Girl (Official Video) [HD] dir. David Fincher Official Trailer stars Christopher Walken
AT CLOSE RANGE (1985, Sean Penn, Christopher Walken, Mary Stuart Masterson)
Madonna - Live To Tell (Official Video) includes footage from At Close Range
WHY ALL SOUNDTRACKS SOUND SO SIMILAR NOW: The Marvel Symphonic Universe Every Frame a Painting
Gimme Shelter - Apocalypse Now Music Video
October 30
REQUIRED VIEWING:
1. METROPOLIS - Fritz Lang - New Version - 3 Hours - New English Intertitles & Music Soundtrack 4K
2. Fritz Lang's METROPOLIS 90th Anniversary Trailer

Metropolis restored again / w/out English subtitles
Two documentaries
1. Voyage to Metropolis | Metropolis (1927) Extras
2. Metropolis - 1927 - The Metropolis Case Documentary

Metropolis 16mm original print (dir. Fritz Lang, 1927)
Metropolis (1927, Griggs Moviedrome 16mm Print)
Metropolis (1927 / 1984 Giorgio Moroder Version)
November 4
Write 2 DQs
1. Compare a scene from the complete version (with the additional footage) and argue that the same scene with different music in the shorter colorized version by Giorgio Moroder is better.
2. Pick a scene from the colorized version by Moroder and argue that it is worse than the same scene in black and white with a different soundtrack
REQUIRED VIEWING
Gergio Moroder version The Complete Metropolis [Blu-ray] 1984
https://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=15613

November 6 REQUIRED VIEWING: An all analog world?
Fallen Leaves (dir. Aki Kaurismaki, 2023) streaming on amazon

November 11
Holiday
November 13 Found Live News: Or news footage
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Nightcrawler (dir. Dan Gilroy, 2014)

Nightcrawler TRAILER 1 (2014) - Jake Gyllenhaal Crime Drama HD
November 18 "We had faces then!" Silent film in sound film
REQUIRED VIEWING:
Sunset Boulevard (dir. Billy Wilder, 1950)



For the extract from Erich von Stroheim's Queen Kelly (1929), go to timestamp 23:27.
If you want to see what is left of the never completed film, you can go here.
Recognizing that the restoration of a film that was never completed is an impossibility, Doros calls the 2025 release of Queen Kelly an improved re-imagining of what von Stroheim’s film could have looked like.
November 20
REQUIRED VIEWING:

The Thin Blue Line (dir. Erroll Morris, 1988)
Three Reasons The Thin Blue Line
SECOND PAPER
and /or
Make a trailer assignment 2024
DUE Saturday, November 30, by 11:59 p.m
REQUIRED VIEWING:
The Souvenir: Part II (dir. Joanna Hogg, 2023)
Recommended Viewing:
The Souvenir Part II | Tráiler - YouTube
Unfinished films or posthumously completed
Trailer Asssignment Shot by Shot
https://richardburtphd.com/indextrailerredsparrow.html
Metallica - One (Johnny got his gun Official Video)
Johnny Got His Gun (1971) ORIGINAL TRAILERWriting music in film--What does sound look like?
Bach, Art of Fugue (Complete --- Netherlands Bach Society, BWV 1080) or can look like? Bach's Toccata and Fugue Abtract sequence in Fantasia (1934)
Frame Rate Celluloid 24 / Digital frame rate as high as the camera will go.
The Man in the High Castle | Opening Title Sequence (Celluloid film projector)
https://www.amazon.com/Corbeau-Criterion-Collection-Blu-ray/dp/B0B48B7YN2
Re-Finding Footage
In his 1931 survey of the young art form, Cinema, the Observer's film critic C.A. 'Chestnuts' Lejeune says: "Dreyer's Jeanne d'Arc remains the type of great still photography on the screen."
Trailer music cliches: Vivaldi (also in I, Tonia, 2017
2018 Lady J Official Trailer 1 HD Netflix Klokline
VERMIGLIO - Official Trailer
CriterionTrailers @CriterionTrailers
Fan-Made Film Trailers@choloOnEaster10
Ben Model - silent film accompanist/historian
Biggest Trailer DataBase @biggesttrailerdatabase9294Gimme Shelter (dir. Albert Mayles, 1970)
Don LaFontaine: The Voice "Only One Man" male voice-overs imitated in In a World (2013) Trailers for End of Days (Amazon Prime Starz logo) and The Craft (Columbia logo)1999 character dialogue alternates with male voice over and together tell the story.
How To Make A Blockbuster Movie TrailerAlien Recut as a Comedy | Trailer Mix
Exhibition - Official Trailer (Dir. Joanna Hogg)
The films of Carl-Theodor Dreyer Bordwell, DavidAll The President's Men | Soundtrack Suite (David Shire)

Jodorowsky's Dune (2014) jodorowskysdune.com/
or
Columbia logo "To the other kids at Saint Bernard's Academy, they were the girls . . . '
Stargate (2025) | First Teaser Trailer | Starring Dave Bautista & Anya Taylor-Joy
Elf recut as a Thriller - Trailer Mix
Must Have Color Grading Tool | SHOTDECK
Textile on FBI privacy warns, clarity of (as paratext)
DVDXtras www.youtube.com/@DVDXtras_
DescriptionYour home for hard-to-find DVD extras with an emphasis on "making of" and "behind the scenes" featurettes and documentaries. Follow us on Twitter/X: @dvdxtras
https://richardburtphd.com/warnung.html




Btw, don't even think of going to graduate school to get a Ph.D in English--or any other kind of--literature.
Stephen Marche, a survivor of academia, returns to a troubled field"
TLS, June 2019
DUE October 6 ID the shots from Murder, My Sweet (dir. Edward Dmytrk, 1944)

Missing (dir. Costa-Gravas, 1982)
Quick opening to a film Try and Get Me 1950
Let Students Finish the Whole Book. It Could Change Their Lives. Feb. 16, 2025


Blow Up / Blow Out
https://www.paperspecs.com/gallery/publications/babadook-pop-up-book/
Movie logo with film leader, celluloid cinema.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vevas5aS5j8
Used in this film about Martin Scorcese. Go to timestamp 1 39 50
What music looks like
Franz Schubert - Der Leiermann (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau)https://richardburtphd.com/schedfindingfootagebryanferry.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sIMtUPvsL
ID the film by one shot (NY Times)

Incorporating the title sequences as prologues into the film William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet.
Teddybears feat. Iggy Pop - Punk Rocker
LARRY GREENEMEIER, "Could AI be the future of fake news and product reviews?" OCTOBER 16, 2017


Inferno (dir. Georges Clouzot, 2009) rent https://www.amazon.com/Inferno-English-Subtitled-B%C3%A9r%C3%A9nice-Bejo/dp/B01MCT33XI/

https://flickeralley.com/products/41384366-henri-georges-clouzots-inferno-2009https://www.francetvinfo.fr/culture/bd/l-enfer-l-extraordinaire-adaptation-en-bd-du-film-inacheve-d-henri-georges-clouzot_7143594.html0&t=1s
Metropolis (1927, Griggs Moviedrome 16mm Print)
M3gan 2.0 Bad Megan and Good Megan / Bad Maria and Good Megan in Metropolis
Iggy Pop / Teddybears Punkrocker Guitar Lesson / Guitar Tabs / Chords / Cover - Superman 2025
The Evolution of Film Music: From Silent Movies to Symphonic Masterpieces
End Titles Assignment: Watch the end title sequences of five films on you tube. You can search "end titles" and "end credits." Send me the titles and links.
Try guessing which shots from the film are in the trailer. Which ones stand out to you, especially those that stand alone, apart from the plot. Art film genre film shots.
You Were Never Really Here (dir. Lynn Ramsay, 2018) trailer
Gordon Willis, ASC on THE PARALLAX VIEW (Alan J. Pakula, 1974)
Roger Deakins and Steven Soderbergh on "Chinatown" (Roman Polanski, 1974)
End Title Sequence - Captain America
Very professional looking re-edits of film sequences on Twitter: are they film criticism? A fan trailer? A fan film?
The Battle for the Best Movie Trailer Since 1990
Dissect your trailer (the one you analyzed for your first paper) If you know how to use microsoft excel, you could create a graph like the one from Silver Linings Playbook below. Or you could go back to the trailer assignment we turned in and give stamps for where the shots occur in the film. Like this. Email all work to me at [email protected].

Yanny vs Laurel video: which name do you hear?
Oblique Perspective in Hans Holbein's The Ambassadors (anamorphosis); Jacques Derrida on oblique reading in Passion: An Oblique Offering.
E. H. Gombrich, Art and Illusion: A study in the Psychology of Pictorial Representation
Ludwig Wittgenstein, "Rabbit Duck"
John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite
Gadaj?ce g?owy / Talking Heads (1980)
RichardBurtPhd.com/DVDbluraychaptertitles/
Gerard Genette and Marie Maclean, "Introduction to the Paratext" in New Literary History, Vol. 22, No. 2, Probings: Art, Criticism, Genre (Spring, 1991), pp. 261-272
Georg Stanitzek Translated by Klein, Ellen. "Texts and Paratexts in Media." Critical Inquiry. (September 2005). 32 (1): 27–42
Cornelia Klecker, "The other kind of film frames: a research report on paratexts in film." in Word & Image A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry Volume 31, 2015 - Issue 4: Writing in Film
Sally Bushell, "Paratext or imagetext? Interpreting the fictional map" in Word & Image A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry Volume 32, 2016 - Issue 2

Alexander Zons, "Projecting the title" in Word & Image A Journal of Verbal/Visual Enquiry Volume 32, 2016 - Issue 2
This Is What It’s Like to Be a Teacher in America (2018)

You will be counted absent if you do not turn in the DQs on time Mondays by 5:00 p.m. No late work is accepted. I allow you two absences. Three or four absences will impact your final grade at my discretion. More than four absences means you will fail the course. See the Attendance policies for this course. Everything you write in this course counts. The papers will count for 35-50 percent. Co-leading 10-20 percent. DQs 10-20 percent. If you get 1 or a 2 on your DQs, that means you need to improve it for grammar and clarity. Canvas gives you an approximation. If you want to calculate how much work you need to do think you will get a certain grade in the course, this is not a good course for you.
Co-leading one to three weeks depending on how many students are enrolled in the course.
ParaCinema (extracts) and Paratexts
Match Cut (contiguity); Superimposition (two shots shown simultaneously); Reveal
UF gives you free access to many films, although the quality is sometimes terrible. Go to https://uflib.ufl.edu/find/videos/
Then scroll all the way down for Swank Digital Campus
Requirements: Class participation; co-lead class discussion twice; one film clip exercise; two 500-700 word papers; and two discussion questions and three shot analyses for each class
Please be aware that the closing time on canvas is 5:00 p.m. Canvas will not be able to submit work after the closing time. So do manage your time well.
You will be counted absent if you do not turn in the DQs on time Sundays and Tuesdays. No late work is accepted. I allow two unexcused absences. Three or four absences will impact your final grade at my discretion. More than four absences means you will fail the course. See the Attendance policies for this course.
https://richardburtphd.com/schedfindingfootagebryanferry.html
Close Listening 5 Minutes That Will Make You Love Classical Music
"Teach us to care and not to care"Ash-Wednesday
by T S EliotCyrano de Bergerac (1990) with Gerard Depardieu "Tirade du nez"
WATCHING FILMS TO THE END
Widescreen vs. Pan & Scan
The Rise of Finance and the Fall of American Business - RAI with Rana Foroohar A Brief History of Capitalism.
"I'm Afraid Of Americans" David Bowie
LCD Soundsystem - American Dream
Game of Thrones cinematographer defends 'too dark' episode "People don't know how to tune their TVs properly." Jennifer BissetCreative Looking for footage from a film or music videos to use in your ownFinding footage thought lost and restoring to exisiting version of the film. MetropolisSoundtrack Giorgio Moroder Metropolis
Reusing scenes or shots from your own film(s)Combining your film with someone else was making
Using footage you did not plan to shoot did but ended up documenting.Finding photos or conversation as plot vehicles.
Breaking down David Bowie's 'Heroes' – Tony Visconti & Erin Tonkonhttps://www.youtube.com/@Eurekaentertainment The Man in the High Castle | Opening Title Sequence
The lush and breathtaking beauty of the Alps, filmed with painterly grace under natural light from frigid winter to redemptive spring, provides the physical and emotional backdrop for Vermiglio, Maura Delpero’s visionary film, which won the Silver Lion at the 2024 Venice Film Festival. This singular portrait of a sprawling family, set in the small, mountainous village of Vermiglio during the waning days of WWII, follows a series of dramatic, consequential events after the arrival of a taciturn Sicilian soldier (Giuseppe De Domenico), who hides out in town after deserting the army. While there, the soldier develops a romance with the family's eldest daughter, Lucia (Martina Scrinzi). Vermiglio shows the lives of a provincial family in a remote village suspended in time by the customs of a fading era. Conjuring stories from her own family’s past, Delpero creates a deeply personal and human tale that recalls the great neorealist movement in Italian cinema, but through Lucia’s perspective Vermiglio feels distinct and novel. Italy’s Official Selection for the 2025 Academy Awards. In theaters 12/25!
How Should One Read a Book?Read it as if one were writing itVirginia Woolf
Consider what slowing down to think about this passage from Henry David Thoreau can do. He’s musing on the origin of the word “saunter”: “Some, however, would derive the word from ‘sans terre,’ without land or a home, which, therefore, in the good sense, will mean having no particular home, but equally at home everywhere. For this is the secret of successful sauntering. He who sits still in a house all the time may be the greatest vagrant of all; but the saunterer, in the good sense, is no more vagrant than the meandering river, which is all the while sedulously seeking the shortest course to the sea.”https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/07/opinion/high-school-students-free-time.html
This is the nature of what the French philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville described as soft despotism, a form of control that “covers the surface of society with a network of small, complicated, minute and uniform rules.” This “does not break wills, but it softens them, bends them and directs them; it rarely forces action, but it constantly opposes your acting.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/03/opinion/college-students-adulting.html
Les mystères de « La Liseuse »
Letters and translation from French to English
Judi Dench - Katherine - Henry V - "English Lesson Scene" - 1960
Diegetic silent sound, or "deaf" (and mute) cinema
Farhenheit 451 paratext
Turner Classic Movies: Letterbox
Martin Scorcese on pan and scan versus letterboxing
Warner Brothers high def website; Toshiba's "dead" website The Look and Sound of Perfect HD-DVD website (YouTube trailer)
THE DAY AFTER (1983) Without Stock Footage
The Day After (1983 Full, Original - 1:75:1 Aspect Ratio
Atomic Bombings Opening Scene | Fallout (2024)
I designed this course myself and am looking forward to teaching it this semester. If you have a question or a problem, please contact me in class or at [email protected]. (I am the manager.)
No cell phones, ipads, or laptops in use during class.
(All changes will be announced both in class and on the class email listserv.)
La Prisonnière: Woman in Chains
What Chopin looks like Scherzo no. 2 in B flat minor.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/6zJWs93ETbI
DVD Menus - PlatinumYoshi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6k089eUOLDU&t=198sMy Shakespeare - Romeo & Juliet for a New Generation, with Baz Luhrmann Bindu De Stoppani (Actor), Lennie James (Actor), Michael Waldman (Director) Rated:
NR
Format: DVD
https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/william-shakespeares-romeo-juliet-dvd/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuKJ3jiIqCgThe lost art of the DVD menuThe screensaver of our lives
https://theweek.com/articles/852110/lost-art-dvd-menu
Due to the more sophisticated technology available on streaming websites today, you would think this would mean we'd be living in a corresponding golden age of menu design. The opposite has unfortunately been the case; Netflix has an especially detestable and unimaginative menu that auto-plays trailers, while Amazon Prime is equally bad, with boring, static landing pages.
While early DVD menus were often also static, or relied on background montages similar to what Netflix uses now, there were nevertheless smart innovations at the turn of the millennium. One notable example, 2001's Shrek, stands out due to its original approach to menu design. Instead of showing footage from the movie, the menu features a row of characters who appear to gaze out patiently at the viewer. The donkey's calls in the background of "pick me, pick me!" are as if in appeal to whoever has the remote in hand.
Likewise, Paranormal Activity (2009) used an intentionally basic home movie menu in keeping with the film's found footage pretensions.
Scale: The Galaxy June 23, 2025 NY Times
Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
"Over the next decade, the imagery will be patched together to create “the greatest movie of all time,” Dr. Ivezi?
said."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3sIMtUPvsL0&t=1s
https://richardburtphd.com/schedfindingfootagebryanferry.html
70mm: From Oklahoma to Oppenheimer (Or, How Very Big Film Was Used to Make Very Big Movies)
The CinemaScope Story
Cinematography Citizen Kane Anatomy of a Classic
Aspect Ratio & Director's Intent
Aspect ratios explained | How do aspect ratios work?
Where Do You Put the Camera? When and where do you put it.
The Art of Cinematic Composition
Hangman also Die and suppressed translation of the German.
Recycled footage in John Dillinger from Fritz Lang's film You Only Live Once? Bank robbery with robbers wearing gas masks then car in mud being fragged out by a crane
Color Grading Comparison of blu-ray and 4K
Aspect ratio in "Maria" in Robert Wise's 1961 West Side Story and in Spielberg's 2021 remake. Long takes, stationary camera as in "Somewhere"), modest, abstraction and minimalism as mise-en-scene (see the end of "Maria") versus showy hyperrealism, lots of angles, and cutting to the music matched to dance moves.
THE DARK PAST 1948 Original Theatrical Trailer
The Dark Past 1948 Film Noir Thriller
The Dark Past (1948) title sequence
Trailer - Inception Style "Mrs Doubtfire" as a Horror Film (Trailer)
The Equalizer 4 (2025) - First Trailer |
Denzel Washington Titanic - Concept Trailer | Florence Pugh, Paul Mescal (Parody) T
he Equalizer 4 (2025) - First Trailer | Denzel Washington (Parody) The trailer starts here: Canonical Literature survives in action films like the Equalizer 2.
Opening title sequence of Se7en.
Film inserts in FIGHT CLUB
Fight Club Family film insert.... Tyler as film projectionist.The cigarrette burn in the upper right cornerof the frame is for the projectionist.
Hollywood Scores & Soundtracks: What Do They Sound Like? Do They Sound Like Things?? Let's Find Out!
FIGHT CLUB 43 Easter Eggs, Insane Details,
Megan 2.0 "Slaying" punning on "Planning."





Vertigo Twelve Second Dictionary Definition of "Vertigo"


The Equalizer 3 Trailer Starts Now
The trailer without the six second intro

IT ENDS WITH US - Official Trailer (HD) starts now)
The trailer without the seven second intro

The Dark Past (1948)

"Warning" from David Fincher's Fight Club
King Kong (15th Anniversary) | Jack Black Pitches Shooting on Skull Island
. A.I. Made These Movies Sharper. Critics Say It Ruined Them.

The re-edits of Gates of Heaven or The Phantom Menace (removing every scene with jar jar binks)
I've read many, many reports about the film being too dark, so this is looking like a widespread thing."
1. "This Film Does Not Exist" NY TIMES JANUARY 13, 2023 On Jodorwoski's plans for Tron and A.I. imaging of film.
Le retour de Donald Trump | Le Grand Live du Dessous des Cartes | ARTE
Guide To Orchestral Scoring In Studio One – Part 1 Intro & Basics: Woodwinds
Pieter Bruegel the Elder, "Hunters in the Snow," 1565
ANATOMY OF A SCENE IN THE NY TIMES (Directors narrate sequences from their films.)


Match cut









"I want to pay tribute to his memory here and to recall all that I owe to the trust and encouragement he gave me, even when, as he one day told me, he did not see at all where I was going. That was in 1966 during a colloquium in the United States in which we were both taking part. After a few friendly remarks on the paper I had just given, Jean Hippolyte added, “That said, I really don’t see where you are going.” I think I replied to him more or less as follows: “If I clearly saw ahead of time where I was going, I don’t really believe that I would take another step to get there.” Perhaps I then thought that knowing where one is going may no doubt help in orienting one’s thinking, but that it has never made anyone take a single step, quite the opposite in fact. What is the good of going where one knows oneself to be going and where one knows that one is destined to arrive? Recalling this reply today, I am not sure that I really understand it very well, but it surely did not mean that I never see or never know where I am going and that to this this extent, to the extent that I do not know, it I not certain that I ever taken any step or said anything at all."
--Jacques Derrida,"Punctuations: The Time of a Thesis," in The Eyes of the Univerversity, 115
https://richardburtphd.com/indexanamorph.htmlDue January 14 by 5:00 p.m: Second Viewing Responses. Give the timestamps of the shots or scenes in the film you think are related by design to two of the four shots I will give you.In your word doc, give the timestamps of the single shots or sequence of shots for two of the four out of mix, and give a description (around 40 words) of the formal relation you observe between the shots I gave you and the shots you noticed. Email all work for the course to me at After you click on the link on the title and watch, write two Discussion Questions (DQs) on and describe any three shots of your choice with three film analysis terms. Post Your DQs etc for History of Film 1 Fall 2022 here.Put your DQs and three shots in one word document--.doc or .docx--and send the word . Don't send me a google doc or copy your document into your email. Don't forget to put your name in the upper right corner of your word document. If you want to know how to improve your discussion questions, I will be happy to meet with you on zoom during office hours or by appointment and show you.Example of the word document format for discussion questions due Mondays by 5:00 p.m.:Your name in the upper right corner.Discussion Questions 1. (with timestamps of the shots you are discussing)2. (with timestamps of the shots you are discussing)Three Film Shots a. (descriptions using film analysis terms with timestamps)b. (descriptions using film analysis terms with timestamps)c. (descriptions using film analysis terms with timestamps)(Clip)REQUIRED VIEWING: Post Your DQs etc for Spring 2025 here.Le Vert au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTELe Rouge au cinéma - Blow Up - ARTEWall E (2008)
Inferno (dir. Henri Clouzot)



Two Discussion Questions (DQs) and Three Big Words (or the three shots if we're watching a film) are due every Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday by 5:00 p.m. unless otherwise noted. Please be aware that the closing time on canvas is 5:00 p.m. Canvas will not allow you to submit work after the closing time. So do manage your time well.
You will be counted absent if you do not turn in the DQs on time Mondays by 5:00 p.m. No late work is accepted. I allow you two absences. Three or four absences will impact your final grade at my discretion. More than four absences means you will fail the course. See the Attendance policies for this course. Everything you write in this course counts. The papers will count for 35-50 percent. Co-leading 10-20 percent. DQs 10-20 percent. If you get 1 oe 2 on your DQs, that means you need to improve it for grammar and clarity. Canvas gives you an approximation. If you want to calculate how much work you need to do think you will get a certain grade in the course, this is not a good course for you.
Co-leading one to three weeks depending on how many students are enrolled in the course.
ParaCinema (extracts) and Paratexts
Art in Detail_Famous Dwarfs at the Prado Museum | PPT.pdf
Art in Detail_The inhabitants of the Museu Picasso, Las Meninas, after Velázquez, La Californie, Au.pdf
YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT is due by 5:00 p.m. Post your DQs and three shots BOTH on this Google doc
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1w8kLtA2YPfD7y8_bANphtgFAeHBNxe_skC7c9IAl0cw/edit
AND on CANVAS https://elearning.ufl.edu/
UF gives you free access to many films, although the quality is sometimes terrible. Go to https://uflib.ufl.edu/find/videos/
Then scroll all the way down for Swank Digital Campus
Requirements: Class participation; co-lead class discussion twice; one film clip exercise; two 500-700 word papers; and two discussion questions and three shot analyses for each class
Please be aware that the closing time on canvas is 5:00 p.m. Canvas will not be able to submit work after the closing time. So do manage your time well.
You will be counted absent if you do not turn in the DQs on time Sundays and Tuesdays. No late work is accepted. I allow two unexcused absences. Three or four absences will impact your final grade at my discretion. More than four absences means you will fail the course. See the Attendance policies for this course.
I will be asking you to learn how to do something no one may ever have asked you to do: it's called close reading. (Please do not confuse being moralistic and judgmental--"it didn't do 'x' and it should have done!"--with being critical--"why is the work doing what it is doing the way it is doing it?")." Close reading means paying attention to language, to the words the author has used, the order in which they are used, and appreciating how well they are used. It means paying attention not to what is said but to how it is said; it means paying attention to the structure of sentences and the structure of the narrative; it means paying attention to tropes such as metaphor, metonymy, and irony, among others; it means being alert to allusions a work of literature makes to other works of literature.See Cleanth Brooks, "The Heresy of Paraphrase," in The Well-Wrought Urn.Close reading is a practice designed for literature, for texts that are extremely well-written. Literature is universal. Literature is often difficult to write. And it is often difficult to read. Not just anyone can write it. And not just anyone can read it closely. (If you do not know how to write a grammatical sentence or how to punctuate or how to use words correctly, you cannot learn how to read closely.) All writers of literature are excellent close readers. They know humongous amounts of (big) words.Do not ask about the author or the historical context. Do not ask speculative questions. They cannot be answered and so are not productive for discussion. Do not ask what the work tells us about some general issue today. Ask about what the work says.Predatory Reading vs. Literary CriticismHow to Read a Book 1940 editionHow to Read a Book 1966 editionHow To Read A Book 1972 EditionGuy J. Williams, "Harkness Learning: Principles of a Radical American Pedagogy"Harkness table"What we must not forget, however, is that it is in the completion of the text by the reader that these adjustments are made; and each reader will make them differently. Plurality is here not a prescription but a fact. There is so much that is blurred and tentative, incapable of decisive explanation; however we set about our reading, with a sociological or a pneumatological, a cultural or a narrative code uppermost in our minds, we must fall into division and discrepancy; the doors of communication are sometimes locked, sometimes open, and Heathcliff may be astride the threshold, opening, closing, breaking. And it is surely evident that the possibilities of interpretation increase as time goes on. The constraints of a period culture dissolve, generic presumptions which concealed gaps disappear, and we now see that the book, as James thought novels should, truly "glories in a gap," a hermeneutic gap in which the reader's imagination must operate, so that he speaks continuously in the text.Barthes denies the charge that on his view of the reading process one can say absolutely anything one likes about the work in question; but he is actually much less interested in defining contraints that in asserting liberties.When we see that the writer speaks more than he knows what we mean is that the text is under the absolute control of no thinking subject, or that it is not a message from one mind to another."--Frank Kermode, "A Modern Way with the Classic"
New Literary History Vol. 5, No. 3 (Spring, 1974), pp. 415-434; pp. 425; 432; 433The reason literature, film, and philosophy are so great, so deeply admired yet often controversial, even despised, is that writers are free to say anything they wish they way they want to say it, fillmakers get to show images of anything they wish, they way they want to show them, and philosophers can ask philosophical questions about anything they wish whenever they want. It's called FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION. As anyone who understands anything about language knows, intention and context do matter. I find attempts to get people fired from their jobs because of something they said repellent and unseemly.TENTATIVE SCHEDULE (Please expect adjustments to be made in the schedule from time to time; all changes will be announced both in class and on the class email listserv.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTziL0Xwa-s timestamp 29:00 |
--Barbara Johnson quoting Roland Barthes on rereading versus reading.