Readings

Readings marked with a † should be read before the film; all other assignments should be read prior to the discussion at the next class meeting after the film.

[TC] = Buy at Amazon Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing about Film. 9th ed. Longman, 2014. ISBN: 9780321965240.

SES # FILMS READINGS
1 Metropolis. Directed by Fritz Lang. Black & White, 153 min. 1927.

Buy at Amazon Davis, Kingsley. "The Urbanization of the Human Population." In The City Reader. 4th ed. Edited by Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. Routledge, 2007, pp. 17–26.

Buy at Amazon Wells, H. G. "Mr. Wells Reviews a Current Film." In Fritz Lang's Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear. Edited by Michael Minden and Holger Bachmann. Camden House, 2000, pp. 94–100. ISBN: 9781571131225.

Buy at Amazon Bunel, Luis. "Metropolis." In Fritz Lang's Metropolis: Cinematic Visions of Technology and Fear. Edited by Michael Minden and Holger Bachmann. Camden House, 2000, pp. 106–8. ISBN: 9781571131225.

[TC] Chapter 1.

Read an in-depth critical review of a film you've seen, ideally one related to the some of topics we'll be covering in this course. Good sources include The New York Times and The New Yorker, or something from Lopate (2006) (on reserve at the library).

2 Berlin: Symphony of a Great City. Directed by Walther Ruttman. Black & White, 65 min. 1927.

† Mumford, Lewis. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader."What is a City?" (PDF) Architectural Record, 1937.

Jacobs, Allan B. This resource may not render correctly in a screen reader."Looking at Cities." (PDF - 1.4MB) Places 1, no. 4 (1984).

Buy at Amazon Brodnax, Mary M. "Man a Machine: The Shift from Soul to Identity in Lang's Metropolis and Ruttmann's Berlin." Chapter 4 in Peripheral Visions: The Hidden Stages of Weimar Cinema. Edited by Kenneth S. Calhoon. Wayne State University Press, 2001, pp. 73–93. ISBN: 9780814329283. [Preview with Google Books]

[TC] Chapter 2.

3 The Crowd. Directed by King Vidor. Black & White, 98 min. 1928.

Buy at Amazon Wirth, Louis. "Urbanism as a Way of Life." In The City Reader. 4th ed. Edited by Richard T. LeGates and Frederic Stout. Routledge, 2007, pp. 90–97.

[TC] Chapter 3.

4 Modern Times. Directed by Charlie Chaplin. Black & White, 87 min. 1936.

Buy at Amazon Taylor, Frederick W. "Scientific Management." Chapter 4 in Critical Studies in Organization & Bureaucracy. 2nd ed. Edited by Frank Fisher and Carmen Sirianni. Temple University Press, 1984, pp. 90–97. ISBN: 9780877223443. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at Amazon Mellen, Joan. Modern Times. British Film Institute, 2006, pp. 22–68. ISBN: 9781844571222.

[TC] Chapter 4.

5 Ladri di Biciclette (Bicycle Thieves). Directed by Vittorio De Sica. Black & White, 93 min. 1948.

Buy at Amazon Gordon, Robert S. C. "Cities" and "Communities". Chapters 5–6 in Bicycle Thieves. British Film Institute, 2008. ISBN: 9781844572380.

[TC] Chapter 5.

6 The Naked City. Directed by Jules Dassin. Black & White, 96 min. 1948.

† Crowther, Bosley. "'Naked City,' Mark Hellinger's Final Film, at Capitol—Fitzgerald Heads Cast." New York Times, March 5, 1948. [Selected Sections]

Buy at Amazon Weegee. Naked City. Essential Books, 1945.

Buy at Amazon McDonnell, Brian. "Film Noir and the City." In Encyclopedia of Film Noir. Edited by Geoff Mayer and Brian McDonnell. Greenwood Press, 2007, pp. 47–61. ISBN: 9780313333064. [Preview with Google Books]

Farish, Matthew. "Cities in Shade: Urban Geography and the Uses of Noir." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 23, no. 1 (2005): 95–118. [Excerpt]

[TC] Chapter 6.

7 West Side Story. Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Color, 152 min. 1961.

Buy at Amazon Lewis, Oscar. La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty—San Juan and New York. Vintage, 1966. [Excerpts]

Buy at Amazon Padilla, Ellen. "Race Relations: A Puerto Rican View." Chapter 3 in The City in the Seventies. Edited by Robert K. Yin. F. E. Peacock Publishers, Incorporation, 1972.

Kauffmann, Stanley. "The Asphalt Romeo and Juliet." The New Republic 145, no. 17 (1961): 28–9.

Sanchez, Alberto Sandoval. "West Side Story: A Puerto Rican Reading of 'America'". Jump Cut, no. 39 (1994): 59–66.

 

8 Play Time. Directed by Jacques Tati. Color, 115 min. 1967.

Buy at Amazon Jacobs, Jane. The Death and Life of Great American Cities. Random House, 1961, pp. 50–54.

Rosenbaum, Jonathan. "Tati's Democracy: An Interview and Introduction." Film Comment. May 1973, pp. 341–66.

Buy at Amazon Marie, Laurent. "Jacques Tati's Play Time as the New Babylon." In Cinema and the City: Film and Urban Societies in a Global Context. Edited by Mark Shiel and Tony Fitzmaurice. Wiley-Blackwell, 2001, pp. 257–69. ISBN: 9780631222446. [Preview with Google Books]

9 Midnight Cowboy. Directed by John Schlesinger. Black & White and Color, 113 min. 1969.

Buy at Amazon Milgram, Stanley. "The Experience of Living in Cities." Chapter 36 in The City in the Seventies. Edited by Robert K. Yin. F. E. Peacock Publishers, Incorporation, 1972, pp. 250–59.

Buy at Amazon Delany, Samuel R. Time Square Red, Times Square Blue. New York University Press, 1999, pp. xi–xviii and 3–19. ISBN: 9780814719190. [Preview with Google Books]

Clapp, James. "'Are You Talking to Me?'—New York and the Cinema of Urban Alienation". Visual Anthropology 18, no. 1 (2005): 1–18.

10 Blade Runner. Directed by Ridley Scott. Color, 117 min. 1982.

Buy at Amazon Jenkins, Henry. "Looking at the City in the Matrix Franchise." Chapter 13 in Cities in Transition: The Moving Image and the Modern Metropolis. Edited by Andrew Webber and Emma Wilson. Wallflower Press, 2008.

Buy at Amazon Bukatman, Scott. Blade Runner. British Film Institute, 1997, pp. 42–63.

Buy at Amazon Davis, Mike. Beyond Blade Runner: Urban Control–the Ecology of Fear. Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, 1992.

11 Do the Right Thing. Directed by Spike Lee. Color, 120 min. 1989.

Buy at Amazon Sterritt, David. "He Cuts Heads." In City that Never Sleeps: New York and the Filmic Imagination. Edited by Murray Pomerance. Rutgers University Press, 2007, pp. 137–50. ISBN: 9780813540320. [Preview with Google Books]

Klein, Joe. "Spiked? Dinkins and Do the Right Thing." New York Magazine, June 1989.

Lee, Spike. "Say It Ain't So, Joe." New York Magazine, July 1989.

Buy at Amazon Reid, Mark A., ed. Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Cambridge University Press, 1997. ISBN: 9780521559546. [Preview with Google Books] [Selected Reviews]

12 London. Directed by Patrick Keiller. Color, 85 min. 1994.

Buy at Amazon Debord, Guy. "Theory of the D'erive." In Situationist International Anthology. Edited by Ken Knabb. Bureau of Public Secrets, 2006, pp. 62–66. ISBN: 9780939682041.

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Lynch, Kevin. "The Image of the Environment" and "Three Cities." Chapters 1 and 2 in The Image of the City. MIT Press, 1960. ISBN: 9780262620017. [Preview with Google Books]

Buy at MIT Press Buy at Amazon Sadler, Simon. "Formulary for a New Urbanism: Rethinking the City." Chapter 2 in The Situationist City. MIT Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780262193924.

13 Night on Earth. Directed by Jim Jarmusch. Color, 129 min. 1991. None.