How to Watch Movies Like a Film Professor

Yale University

Marc Lapadula is a Senior Lecturer in the Film Studies Program at Yale University. He is a playwright, screenwriter and an award-winning film producer. In addition to Yale, Marc has taught at Columbia University’s Graduate Film School, created the screenwriting programs at both The University of Pennsylvania and Johns Hopkins–where he won Outstanding Teaching awards–and has lectured on British and American Theatre and playwriting. Lapadula has given highly acclaimed classic film lectures on a wide range of cinema topics across the country at notable venues, such as: The National Press Club, The Smithsonian Institution, The Commonwealth Club, The Cleveland Museum of Art, and The New York Historical Society.

Overview

How To Analyze Films

Great film directors all have one thing in common — lofty artistic ambitions. They take on the toughest issues and most provocative themes of their day hoping to eloquently bring them to life on screen. They regard the movie screen the same way great artists gaze upon their canvases. Every inch of the frame offers a crucial opportunity to leave audiences spellbound by their handiwork.

The most challenging directors disguise their bold artistic intentions behind the mask of easily accessible genre forms, oftentimes burying something quite profound beneath a story’s glossy surface.

This sort of “subtext” and the prospect of unraveling a hidden, encoded message in a film is what drives some movie lovers (and Yale film professors) to attempt to decipher what is really going on beneath the scenes playing out on screen. There is always something much more mesmerizing to be uncovered in a great film once it’s been brought out into the light. This presentation will illustrate some remarkable examples of cinematic mastery through technical innovation and complex thematic construction. The films selected for this presentation accomplish their missions by eliciting some of the most memorable moments and performances ever captured on celluloid.

Our Guide To Film Analysis Will Cover

Film Clips Include:

CASABLANCA

CITIZEN KANE

REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE

PSYCHO

ON THE WATERFRONT

NIGHT OF THE HUNTER

And more…

Learn More How To Analyze Movies

Learn more about film by checking out other great videos at OneDayU, including ‘Three Musical Masterpieces Every Music Lover Should Listen Too, ‘Unexplained History & ‘The Jewish Brain’ all on-demand now.

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