Red Mosquito

I'm putting together a politics and film class for the first time. No documentaries--just movies.

It's probably going to look like this

Office Space
Fight Club
Hunger Games
Wag the Dog
(I am going to show Bill Moyer's show about the media's complicity in the lead up to the war in iraq afterwards, so there is one documentary)
Bob Roberts
Bread and Roses

But I'm going to teach this again in the spring, since it ended up being a popular course (in theory, anyway). What should I have included that I missed?

why not something like Charlie Wilson's War, Full Metal Jacket, Hurt Locker, and/or Deer Hunter?

those are all good choices, but I need to tell a story with the films, and I wasn't really going for any war stuff this time out.

Something on war and the national security state could be cool for next semester.

Quiz Show

would The Network, Enemy of the State, and/or Minority Report be more what you're looking for? i'm really bad at this game, i think.

Minority report is a really good one. Forgot about that.

I'm not sure i'm looking for anything. Just fishing for ideas for next time, and the possible flash of inspiration.

stip wrote:Minority report is a really good one. Forgot about that.

I'm not sure i'm looking for anything. Just fishing for ideas for next time, and the possible flash of inspiration.

QUIZ SHOW

you know, I've never seen quiz show.

stip wrote:you know, I've never seen quiz show.

I think youd enjoy quiz show

@SkitchP wrote:

stip wrote:you know, I've never seen quiz show.

I think youd enjoy quiz show

excellent movie

i could think of political issues that each of these could relate to:

jurassic park
clockwork orange
one flew over the cuckoo's nest
benjamin button
beasts of the southern wild
there will be blood
good will hunting

What are you trying to teach in this class? How film affects political culture? Should that have been effects?

nah, it's not that specific. It's basically using movies to introduce ideas, although a side effect is that some of the students will hopefully start to realize that the shit they like may also have a message. The films are all paired with readings that unpack the ideas in the films. So for instance Office Space is paired with Shopcraft as Soulcraft and Fight Club is paired with Stiffed (which is one of the very best books I've ever read). This semester we're going to start talking about whether or not the ways we work and reproduce our lives leave us spiritually unfulfilled, what that does to our sense of self, and move from there into larger arguments about class and exploitation. Part II we'll look at how such an unsatisfying way of living manages to keep reproducing itself and what can be done about it.

Not the only story to tell in this class, obviously, but the one I'm using this semester.

based on that last post, i thought of:

rounders
adjustment bureau
avatar
no country for old men

I think there's an adaptation of Animal Farm, but I don't know whether it's any good. Cuckoo's Nest was always a really good one to think about. The Matrix?

Children of Men?

harmless wrote:I think there's an adaptation of Animal Farm, but I don't know whether it's any good. Cuckoo's Nest was always a really good one to think about. The Matrix?

the adaptation isn't bad.

I've used the matrix to teach marx, but then hunger game enables me to make most of the same points in a less abstract way, although it is also less philosophically interesting

Dr. Strangelove

1984
Wag The Dog
The Manchurian Candidate
Thank You For Smoking
Recount
All The President's Men
Mr. Smith Goes To Washington