14S103F Films About Personal Quests
Location: Lebanon College
Room: Room 117
Friday, March 21, 2014-Friday, May 09, 2014
Meets 9:30 AM-12:00 PM EST
on Fri
Tuition: $55.00
Level: New
Status: This course is completed
We are told that life is “a journey” – a reference to journeys of self-discovery, soul-searching, moving-on, of finding oneself, of having an adventure.
These films of personal quests, some archetypal, some not, involve four “foreign” films and four Hollywood ones. The first four engage us with stories or themes about an itinerant mute child-woman, a perilous voyage to return a borrowed object, a medieval knight’s return during a plague and a Japanese son’s adventure in Iceland as he honors his dead geologist grand-parents.
The final four, with well-known directors, take place respectively in the West just after the Civil War ends, in the modern day Southwest, in the South during the depression, and on a train between New York City and Chicago, and on to Mount Rushmore.
FILMS TO BE SCREENED:
La Strada, Fellini, 1954
Wind Journeys, Guerra, 2009
The Seventh Seal, Bergman, 1956
Cold Fever, Fridriksson, 1994
The Searchers, Ford, 1956
Sullivan’s Travels, Sturges, 1941
Thelma and Louise, Scott, 1991
North by Northwest, Hitchcock, 1959
Film Clips Handouts Discussions Travel
There are no required textbooks for this course.
Instructor -- Don Watson
While a student at the Universite de Poitiers, Don Watson discovered the French fascination with American Westerns. He also learned to appreciate the New Wave Cinema of Godard, Truffaut and Charbrol. He retired from teaching French, Latin and English at Hanover High School while he still had a sense of humor. In 1991, he started the Sister City Exchange Program between Hanover and Joigny, France. He has an MA from the University of Chicago and an MLS from SUNY, Albany.