ENGL 197

Quick Links

• Clips
• Handouts
• Course Films and Directors
• Film Research
• Film Terminology
• Writing About Film
• Seattle Film Scene

 

Course Information

Instructor: K. Gillis-Bridges
Class: MW, 12:30-1:50 p.m.
Rooms: Mary Gates 082A/082
Office: Padelford A-105
Hours: MW 11 a.m.-12 p.m.
Phone/Voice: 206.543.4892
Email: kgb@u

Links

This page includes links to clips from Comparative Literature 272 films, English 197 class handouts, information on course films and directors, databases for film research, sites on film terminology, guidelines on writing about film, and highlights of the Seattle film scene. 

Clips

The clips page contains high- and low-bandwidth versions of scenes from Comparative Literature 272 films. Please note that you must log on with your UW Net ID and password to access the clips page.

Additional clips can be found on YouTube; search by film title. The 1925 and 1929 versions of Phantom of the Opera, "Excerpts from the Photoplay Dracula" and "Excerpts from the Photoplay The Bride of Frankenstein" are available on The Internet Archive.

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Handouts

All course handouts are in Adobe PDF format unless otherwise specified. To get a free copy of the latest Adobe Reader, go to the Adobe site. Handout titles appear in reverse chronological order, with recent materials at the top of the list.

• Portfolio and Reflective Essay Assignment
• Using and Documenting Sources
• Compiled Videodrome Group Work Notes
• Modeleski Article Response
• Essay 3 Grading
• Essay 3 Assignment and Guidelines
• Essay 2 Proposal Assignment
• Essay 2 Grading
• Essay 2 Assignment and Guidelines
• Compiled Scene Analysis Group Work Notes [HTML]
• Storyboard Panels [Rich Text Format :: Word 2007]
• Storyboarding Homework
• Essay 1 Grading
• Essay 1 Assignment and Guidelines
• Defining Horror
• How to Read a Film
• Syllabus [PDF :: Rich Text Format :: Word 2007]

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Course Films and Directors

• Alfred Hitchcock: A Piece of Bone and a Hank of Hair
  A photo essay from Bright Lights on prominent motifs in Hitchcock's work, including "houses, staircases, women's hair, the human hand, the human eye, the 'uncanny,' and the swirling vortex." Author Alan Vanneman argues that Psycho epitomizes the director's use of these motifs.
• Allmovie Horror/Horror Film History
  Short histories of horror and horror movies with reference to horror films made in each decade of the twentieth century, including most movies viewed in Comparative Literature 272.
• Baby Bitches from Hell: Monstrous Little Women in Film
  Barbara Creed's article is part of a web site for the Scary Women conference held at UCLA. The article focuses on several films, including Carrie, The Exorcist and Curse of the Cat People. Analysis includes short film clips.
• The Blair Witch Project
  Mockumentary web site that accompanied the film's release examines the disappearance of three film students near Burkittsville, Maryland.
• Bride of Frankenstein, from Filmsite
  Extensive summary with attention to the film's cinematography and editing.
• Bright Lights Horror Collection
  Index of articles on horror film that have appeared in the online film journal Bright Lights. Offerings include essays on Bride of Frankenstein and other classic Universal horror films, Night of the Living Dead, Psycho, the work of directors George Romero (Night of the Living Dead), John Carpenter (Halloween) and David Cronenberg (Videodrome) and the career of producer Val Lewton (Cat People).
• Cat People, from Filmsite
  A scene-by-scene discussion of the film.
• Chartist Magazine on Invasion of the Body Snatchers
  Author Pete Smith examines three versions of the film within the political contexts of the 1950s, 1970s, and 1990s.
• Cutting the Flow, Thinking Psycho
  Bill Schaffer examines the flow of cuts in Psycho to highlight "the positive and specific power of indeterminacy which moving images can generate in our lives by violating the privacy of perception."
• Dracula, from Filmsite
  Thorough summary of the film that takes note of the violence that occurs off-screen.
• Ebert on Dracula
  Roger Ebert discusses the film's influence during its period and on other Dracula films.
• Eviscerating David Cronenberg
  Article examines the theme of evisceration in Cronenberg's films, including Videodrome.
• The Exorcist, from Filmsite
  Thorough summary of the film's plot, with visual description of some scenes and a brief overview of sequels and films inspired by The Exorcist.
• Hollywood, HUAC, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers
  PowerPoint presentation on the Red Scare context of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
• Horror Films
  History of horror films with extensive listing of films in the genre.
• The Horror Film: Supernature, Science and Psyche
  From the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, excerpts from notes that accompany study kits on the horror genre. The introduction reviews Andrew Tudor's distinction between "secure" and "paranoid" horror as well as Noel Carroll's typology of the monster and his concept of "art-horror." The site then turns to a discussion of three broad categories of horror film: those in which the supernatural constitutes a threat, those in which science/scientists or nature are dangerous, and those that feature characters with disturbed psyches.
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tale for our Times
  Writer John Whitehead argues for the film as an indictment of McCarthyism.
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers, from Filmsite
  Description of the film, with brief reference to the ways critics have interpreted it.
• The Kubrick Site
  Essays and debates on Kubrick's films, including The Shining, reprinted interviews with the director, and press materials from various Kubrick films.
• Life in the Old Girl Yet: Carrie and the Unbearable Lightness of De Palma Bashing
  From the Filmbunnies blog, an overview and critique of scholarly responses to Carrie that range from examinations of De Palma's technical style (and his debt to Hitchcock) to analyses of his film's mysogyny.
• Monsters as Uncanny Metaphors
  From Other Voices: An E-Journal of Cultural Criticism, an article that presents a Freudian reading of the horror film monster.
• "Mother, Oh God Mother . . .": Analysing the "Horror" of Single Mothers in Contemporary Horror Film
  Writer John Lewis examines the depiction of single mothers in three contemporary films in the "ghost-horror" sub-genre: The Sixth Sense, The Others, and The Ring. Lewis contends that the films simultaneously suggest the need for conservative "family values" and critique "the dominant ideologies that suppress women."
• Myth and Magic in De Palma's Carrie
  Critic Dmitri Kakmi discusses Carrie's connections to mythology. From Senses of Cinema, an online film journal.
• The Paradox of Horror
  Created for a course on the paradox of horror, this site contains links to multiple resources, including journal articles, study guides, and zines and fan sites.
• The Parlor Scene in Psycho: Images of Duality
  An analysis of the parlor scene demonstrates how lighting, camera angle and mise-en-scene underscore the theme of duality.
• The Phantom of the Opera: The Ultimate Edition
  Review of film DVD includes information on the film's production and reception as well as a list of the various editions of Phantom.
• The Psycho Page
  The "Psycho Informations" section contains reprints of articles and interviews about the film.
• Psycho, from Filmsite
  Extensive summary, with quoted dialogue and shot descriptions. Briefly discusses the film's influence on other films of the serial killer genre.
• Psycho: Queering Hitchcock's Classic
  Author Jay Poole argues that Psycho is a queer film: "Not only does it disturb the ordinary, it also uses broad cultural definitions of 'normal' in 1950s America to question what is defined as 'abnormal,' while exposing the presence of darkness and 'madness' in all of us . . . ."
• Rosemary's Baby, from Filmsite
  Extensive plot summary of the film, with breakdowns of camerawork in early scene.
• Senses of Cinema Great Directors
  Site includes biographical/analytical essays on course film directors John Carpenter (Carrie), David Cronenberg (Videodrome), Brian De Palma (Carrie), Johnathan Demme (Silence of the Lambs), Alfred Hitchcock (Psycho), Stanley Kubrick (The Shining), George Romero (Night of the Living Dead ), Don Siegel (Invasion of the Body Snatchers) and James Whale (Bride of Frankenstein).
• The Shining
  Discussion of duality, commentary on the film's composers and music, and links to other sites.
• The Shining, from Filmsite
• Thorough summary, with extensive quoted dialogue, that pays some attention to cinematography and parenthetically poses questions and offers analysis.
• The Silence of the Lambs, from Filmsite
  Review and interpretive summary of the film.
• Silent Film Sources: The Phantom of the Opera
  Review discusses the film's "elemental mix of eroticism and horror."
• Sound in SciFi and Horror Films
  Site that includes analyses of sound in several class films.
• Zombies of Mass Destruction
  Typecast Releasing maintains a web site for the film. Interviews with director Kevin Hamedani and articles about the upcoming film have appeared on FEARnet and the545. Hamedani also has a production company, Razi Films.

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Film Research

• AFI Online
  Site of the American Film Institute.
• English Server
  Links to multiple resources in the humanities and social sciences.
• Film History
  Decade-by-decade overview of historical events, industrial shifts, and emerging genres, with listing of key films from each year of a particular decade.
• Hollywood and Society
  Essay by Douglas Kellner that explores the connection between film and social forces from the silent period to the contemporary era.
• Internet Movie Database
  Searchable index of over 125,000 films.  Contains links to biographies of directors, screenwriters, producers and actors; commentaries on individual films; and links to popular film reviews.
• Movie Review Query Engine
  Use the query engine to search for Web reviews of particular films.
• National Film Preservation Board Moving Image Archives and Research Centers
  Links to U.S. and international research sites on film and filmmakers.
• Research 101
  This page defines primary and secondary sources, describes the information cycle and offers tips on how to construct search statements, select databases and evaluate sources.
• Scene to Shining Screen: A Short History of Film Music
  UCLA Professor Paul Chihara's page on changing styles of film composition.
• UCLA Arts Library Selected Internet Sources on Film
  Links to sites on directors, actors, studios, unions, electronic journals, film research, festivals, movie reviews, searchable databases, and internet guides to film.
• UW Libraries Cinema Studies Research Site
  Authored by a cinema studies librarian, the site has information on finding cinema studies resources in the UW libraries and links to electronic journals and cinema studies resources on the Web.

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Film Terminology

• Film Sound Design
  Site dedicated to film sound includes extensive glossaries of several scholars' descriptions of sound terminology, introductory articles on film sound and the soundtrack, other online articles, and links to sites on film, sound, and film sound.
• Glossary of Film Terms
  Part of Dartmouth's page on writing about film, the glossary defines key film terms, from "accelerated motion" to "zoom."
• Reading a Film Sequence
  A short guide on how to to read the text and context of a film.  The page has excellent questions to guide students in their analysis of narrative, staging, cinematography, editing and sound.
• Sound and Image: Notes for a Glossary
  From the University of Waikato, an online glossary of films terms grouped under the headings "General," "Image," "Sound," "Movement," "Editing," "Ideology," and "Semiotics." The section on images provides screen shots and other graphics to illustrate shot distance, framing, and composition.

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Writing About Film

• Citing Film, Video, and Online Media
  Information on how to correctly document citations of film, video and online media materials.
• Dartmouth's Writing About Film Page
  Detailed web site explains expectations for film papers; defines types of papers written for film classes (formal, historical, ideological, cultural studies, auteurist); describes useful strategies for taking film notes, annotating shot sequences, and questioning the film's contexts; provides writing tips; and includes an extensive glossary of film terms. 
• GMU Writing Center's "Writing About Film" Page
  George Mason's step-by-step guide to writing film analyses.
• Plagiarism Discussed
  A Purdue Online Writing Lab handout on what can constitute plagiarism, with information on when and when not to cite sources.
• Judging Quality on the Web
  Authored by UCLA librarian Patti Caravello, this page offers criteria for evaluating web sites.  Writers can use Caravello's list to help them decide whether a particular web source is appropiate for an academic paper.
• MLA Citation Guide
  This site not only reviews MLA guidelines for formatting papers, composing a works cited list, and citing books, articles, and electronic sources within your text.

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Seattle Film Scene

• IFP Seattle
  IFP/Seattle offers local filmmakers education on the business of filmmaking, connects them with other filmmakers, and exposes their work on a national level.
• Northwest Film Forum
  An organization that supports local filmmakers with a Start-toFinish Grant program, production facilities, equipment, and workshop, Northwest Film Forum also houses two cinemas featuring unique programs of American and international films.
• 911 Media Arts Center
  911 helps independent digital media artists to create and distribute their work. The center also offers classes for community members.
• Seattle Film Institute
  Seattle Film Institute concentrates on film, offering courses in Super 8, 16 mm, sync sound, screenwriting, and the language of film.
• Seattle International Film Festival
  Complete information on Seattle's annual film festival as well year-round screenings at the SIFF Cinema.
• Seattle's True Independent Film Festival
  Seattle's answer to Slamdance is "a celebration of off-beat independent film from the Northwest and the rest of the world." STIFF seeks to program innovative films that can be overlooked by festivals that concentrate on higher budget "independent" films starring name actors.
• TheFilmSchool
  A local school focused on dramatic writing, TheFilmSchool offers intensive classes in screenwriting and directing fundamentals.
• Three-Dollar Bill Cinema
  Sponsor of the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and other events.

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