We’re excited to be kicking off our weekly film discussion and appreciation class tomorrow, Feb. 21st at the Henry Miller Library, 6-10 pm.
The class will be taught by the esteemed Mike Harrington. He’s the guy you saw at the bar. Consider him the coolest professor ever. But please, no Facebooking during class. And keep the cell phones on vibrate. He’s cool but that’s just bad manners.
Tomorrow’s topic will be “The Great Hollywood Epic: Historical Film as Mass Entertainment,” with a focus on Spartacus.
Of course, “Spartacus” is a 1960 American epic historical drama film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel of the same name by Howard Fast. The film stars Kirk Douglas as rebellious slave Spartacus and Laurence Olivier as his foe, the Roman general and politician Marcus Licinius Crassus.
Some of the questions that’ll be addressed include:
- How does the time in which a film is made reflect itself in and influence the film?
- In what ways can/will films serve as historical records?
- In what ways do historians and filmmakers differ in their approach to documenting history?
- How do filmmakers rely on historians? Do historians, or will they someday, rely on filmmakers and the films they’ve made?
- What is the difference between examining ancient history vs. modern history?
- Why all the loincloth?
- What’s the plural form of “loincloth”?
See you there!