Alternatives to Hollywood
Oct 24 - Dec 05, 2011
Six Mondays, Oct 24-Dec 5 (no class on Halloween, Oct 31), 6:30-8:30pm
Instructor: Lyall Bush
Tuition: $120/NWFF members, $140/general
Max Attendance: 25
Hollywood is a place but, more importantly, it refers to the style and system in which most American films get made. Hollywood films are shaped by witty conceits and bold designs, and the stories they tell are usually ones in which decency triumphs, good people find each other and fall in love, challenges are overcome, lessons are learned—and all in three neat acts. In this class we will take time to understand the Hollywood model before turning to watch some alternatives to it, movies made in film cultures that have grown up in Paris, Rome, New York, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Austin, Portland and even Seattle. We will consider different filmmaking styles or “languages," alternative stories, and how outside the Hollywood system filmmakers have explored images, worlds, ideas and concerns that parallel writing, painting and other art movements of the past century. We will look at and discuss films by such great filmmakes as Vittorio de Sica, Jean-Luc Godard, Robert Bresson, Ross McElwee, Jim Jarmusch, Won Kar-Wai, Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Claire Denis, Gus Van Sant and Richard Linklater.