Films from Here: the Cinema of New York and New Jersey
354:318
Although the mass production of feature films was centralized in California by 1914, the history of American cinema is not synonymous with the history of Hollywood. This class will examine the development of the motion picture industry in New York and New Jersey, where filmmakers unhappy with conditions of industrial mass production on the west coast have worked to create an alternative “Hollywood on the Hudson.” Students will learn how New York’s diverse cultural resources inspired an array of innovative writers, directors and producers to create new films for new audiences, while pioneering a revolution in marketing, financing and distribution that would supersede the dominant west coast model.
Learning Goals: This course addresses learning goals established by the English Department, as follows. Students who major in English will demonstrate:
1. knowledge of works in English, their historical, cultural, and formal dimensions and diversity
2. strategies of interpretation, including an ability to use critical and theoretical terms, concepts, and methods in relation to a variety of textual forms and other media
3. the ability to engage with the work of other critics and writers, using and citing such sources effectively
4. the ability to write persuasively and precisely, in scholarly and, optionally, creative forms.
Requirements:The course will meet during two 80-minutres class periods each week and will have one evening screening (outside of class) from 6:10 to 9:00 once each week. Given the lab-like nature of the extra two periods of class time, the course is valued at four credits
Writing Assignments: Students will write short critical essays in response to each week’s material, and will meet regularly with the instructor throughout the semester in developing a ten page research paper.
Readings: Weekly readings will be drawn from the attached bibliography and from additional essays made available through our Sakai site.
Evaluation: Grading will be based on the weekly response papers (25%), term paper (50%) and final exam (25%). Class participation is important, and attendance at both screenings and lecture sessions is required. More than four absences will affect your grade negatively. If you expect to miss one or two classes, please report via and an email will automatically be forwarded to the instructor.
Week One: Introduction: New York as the Anti-Hollywood. Screening: Killer’s Kiss (Stanley Kubrick, 1955)
Week Two: Development of the silent-era studio system in New York and New Jersey. Screening: Regeneration (Raoul Walsh, 1915)
Week Three: Sound, dialog, and The Theatre Guild. Screening: Applause (Rouben Mamoulian, 1929)
Week Four: Who let the writers out? A failed experiment in artistic control. Screening: Crime Without Passion (Ben Hecht & Charles MacArthur, 1934)
Week Five: New York as a niche for racial and ethnic cinema. Screenings: The Emperor Jones (Dudley Murphy, 1933) and Tevya (Maurice Schwartz, 1939).
Week Six: Newsfilm, non-fiction, and documentary. Movies from the real world. Screening: Let There be Light (John Huston, 1946/1980)
Week Seven: The “golden age” of New York dramatic television. Screening: Twelve Angry Men (Live Television Version) (Franklin Schaffner, 1954)
Week Eight: Runaway production and the decline of the Hollywood studio system. Screening: On the Waterfront (Elia Kazan, 1954)
Week Nine: Mayor John Lindsay and the Office of Motion Pictures and Television. Screening: The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1968)
Week Ten: Crime in the streets. Documentary meets neo-noir. Screening: Serpico (Sidney Lumet, 1973)
Week Eleven: New Wave meets borscht belt. Screening: Annie Hall (Woody Allen, 1977)
Week Twelve: Fruits of the “film school generation.” Screening: GoodFellas (Martin Scorsese, 1990)
Week Thirteen: Up from the Underground. The new “new American cinema.” Screening: I Shot Andy Warhol (Mary Harron, 1996)
Bibliography:
The relevant (and worthwhile) bibliography regarding this subject is still quite small. Below is a list of longer works you should find of value. We will be reading selections from these books, as well as shorter documents and essays, each week.
Blake, Richard. Street Smart: The New York of Lumet, Allen, Scorsese, and Lee (University of Kentucky, 2005).
Boddy, William. Fifties Television: The Industry and Its Critics (University of Illinois, 1990).
Crafton, Donald. Before Mickey: The Animated Film 1898-1928 (MIT, 1982).
De Navacelle, Thierry. Woody Allen on Location (William Morrow, 1987).
Fielding, Raymond. The American Newsreel, 1911-1967 (U. of Oklahoma Press, 1972).
Haberski, Raymond. Freedom to Offend: How New York Remade Movie Culture (University of Kentucky, 2007).
Hoberman, J. Bridge of Light: Yiddish Film Between Two Worlds (Museum of Modern Art, 1991).
Koszarski, Richard. Fort Lee, The Film Town (Indiana University Press, 2004).
--Hollywood on the Hudson (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2008).
Lee, Spike. By Any Means Necessary: The Trials and Tribulations of the Making of ‘Malcolm X’ (Hyperion, 1992).
Boyer, Jay. Sidney Lumet (Twayne, 1993).
McGilligan, Patrick. Oscar Micheaux: The Great and Only (HarperCollins, 2007).
Musser, Charles. The Emergence of Cinema: The American Screen to 1907 (Scribner’s, 1990).
Pomerance, Murray (ed.). The City That Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination (Rutgers University Press, 2007).
Rosenblum, Ralph. When the Shooting Stops, the Cutting Begins (Viking, 1979).
Salomon, Julie. The Devil’s Candy (Houghton-Mifflin, 1991).
Sanders, James (ed.). Scenes from the City: Filmmaking in New York 1966-2006 (Rizzoli, 2006).
Spehr, Paul. The Movies Begin: Making Movies in New Jersey 1887-1920 (Morgan & Morgan, 1977).