Tomorrow in Anatomy of a Film, I’m planning to show a clip from Night of the Living Dead that should work as a good springboard for a discussion of the key elements of film form, which students should have read. We’ll discuss conventions and prior experience; the way we register emotion within the film and in our own responses; the differences between referential, explicit, implicit, and symptomatic meaning; the concept of interpretation; the nature of evaluation; and especially the basic issues of function and motivation, similarity and repetition, difference and variation, development, and unity.
Farah will spend a bit of time at the beginning of class going over some issues of adjustment that the students might be facing, and I’ve also got to go over homework assignments as well as discuss the portfolio project. Should be a fun class–I’m hoping we’ll have time for it all!
Tonya Howe 