American Studies Winter Film Series

 

Sundays at 6PM in 200-002

Organized by Carlos Valladares, American Studies '18

 

 

Jan 14 — Playtime (1967)

Jacques tati's widescreen comic masterpiece about humans lost in the modern city.

 

Jan 22 — Meet Me in St. Louis (1944)

The musical misadventures of Judy Garland and her three sisters in the year leading up to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

 

Jan 29 — The Clock (1945)

A woman (Garland) and a soldier embark on a whirlwind love affair in the Big Apple.

Faculty discussant: Scott Bukatman, American Studies

 

Feb 5 —  A Woman Under the Influence

The emotional epic of a Los Angeles housewife, as her family tries to have her institutionalized for mental problems. 

 

Feb 19 — The Apartment (1960)

Billy Wilder's classic New York comedy, about a pushover company man (Jack Lemmon) who lends his apartment to his colleagues for their affairs.

 

Feb 26 — Imitation of Life (1959)

Douglas sirk's tearjerking melodrama, about a struggling young white actress and her black maid and girlfriend, whose light-skinned daughter rejects her mother by passing for white.

 

Mar 5 — Bush Mama (1978)

Set in the inner city of Los Angeles, the story of a Black mother whose welfare is in danger of being revoked by the state if she does not get an abortion. 

Faculty discussant: Usha Iyer, Film & Media Studies

 

The Exiles (1961)

This hybrid fiction-film and documentary centers on the lives of a group of Native Americans living in 1961 Los Angeles.

Faculty discussant: Usha Iyer, Film & Media Studies