Dear Cinemythologists,
On Thursday, October 29, our unit on the Trojan War continues. Please do the following.
VIEWING
- Helen of Troy (Robert Wise, 1956)
Streaming on Swank Digital Campus. Take notes as you see fit. This is our first real introduction to the big-budget Hollywood screen epic, and our readings today will reflect that fact.
ANALYSIS
Gross and Jefferson will continue our Analysis series. Their sequence selection is in the comments.
READING
Today’s readings begin focused on Helen of Troy, but quickly zoom out toward considerations of genre and the film-making process.
- Nisbet, Gideon. 2008. “Helen of Troy (1956)” Ancient Greece in Film and Popular Culture, 30–6. Liverpool University Press.
Nisbet, in a brief overview of today’s viewing, demonstrates why the film remains relevant after almost 70 years.
- Llewellyn-Jones, Lloyd. 2018. “The Genre and History: Defining the Epic.” Designs on the Past: How Hollywood Created the Ancient World, 26–35. Edinburgh University Press.
This excerpt, from the inaugural chapter of Llewellyn-Jones’ book (which is fast becoming a seminal work on the Hollywood screen epic), will set tone for our discussions of screen epic.
- “Mise-en-Scène” LAM Chapter 5, pp. 154–77.
Chapter 5 of Looking at Movies is devoted to mise-en-scène (roughly translated as “staging”), a term which encompasses all of the elements we see in any given shot or sequence, from set design, costuming, make up, lighting and more. So many of these elements define the screen epic, so it’s appropriate that we take a deeper dive into their history and practice.
SEQUENCES
- Bernstein, Eiger.
Use the comments feature on this post to recommend a sequence to be reviewed and discussed in class.
Recommendations should contain the following:
- A brief description of the sequence.
- Precise starting and ending times (hh:mm:ss — hh:mm:ss).
- A rationale as to why this sequence is worth our time.
DC
