Facets Multimedia
1517 W. Fullerton Ave.
Chicago IL 60614
800.331.6197

Sales hours:
    9am-5pm, Mon.-Fri.

Rental hours:
    10am-10pm, Mon.-Sat.,
    12pm-10pm, Sun. & holidays

• Current Class Schedule

    Film School Archives:

• 2011
  • Fall Session II 2011
  • Fall Session I 2011
  • Summer Session II 2011
  • Summer Session I 2011
• 2010
  • Winter Session II 2010
  • Fall Session 2010
  • Summer Session II 2010
  • Summer Session I 2010
  • Winter Session I 2010
• 2009
  • Fall Session II 2009
  • Fall Session I 2009
  • Summer Session II 2009
  • Summer Session I 2009
• 2008
  • Fall Session II 2008
  • Fall Session I 2008
  • Summer Session II 2008
  • Summer Session I 2008
  • Winter Session 2008
• 2007
  • Fall Session II 2007
  • Fall Session I 2007

Film School Registration

FEE PER COURSE:
$80 MEMBERS, $125 NON-MEMBERS

For inquiries about Facets Film School,
email Charles Coleman at charles@facets.org

To register for classes by phone,
call 1-800-331-6197

WINTER SESSION I:


Mondays, March 5 - April 9, 7-10pm CINEMA OF ABSENCE:
Elusive Objects of Desire Tuesdays, March 6 - April 10, 7-10pm ALAIN RESNAIS and
His World of Imagination

Wednesdays, March 7 - April 11, 7-10pm COUTURE CINEMA:
The World of Fashion on Film Thursdays, March 8 - April 12, 7-10pm JAMES CAGNEY:
Superhero of the Depression

CHARLES COLEMAN
Film Programmer for Facets Cinémathèque

Read his feature in the Chicago Reader

Mondays
March 5 - April 9
7-10 pm

The desire for something lost can trigger a quest that reveals more about the hunter than the object hunted. Additionally, the absence or loss of this object can create consequences that can become more significant than the object itself. This narrative device can produce a profound conflict, since anything that is so highly desirable creates obstacles and challenges for the main character who tries to obtain it. The films in this class revel so deeply in feelings of yearning, loss, and desire that the absence of the object is as palpable as the object itself. Alfred Hitchcock famously dubbed this gimmick the "MacGuffin," though it exists in a variety of genres and styles. While "MacGuffins" are generally thought of as being meaningless and replaceable, for the purposes of this course, we are going to define them as the objects that motivate a film's characters and propel the narrative along. The Maltese Falcon, a seminal example of absence and desire, asks the key questions: "Why is this object valuable?"; "What are the protagonist's and antagonist's reasons for possessing this object?"; and "What does it really mean?" Films such as Blow Up or Sisters, with their vanishing corpses, and the cult classic Repo Man, with its extraterrestrial Chevy Malibu, suggest that by the time the characters find the "MacGuffin", they realize something else should have been more important. In this course, we will find that the purpose of the "MacGuffin" is akin to the meaning of a poem, which T.S. Eliot compared to a bone thrown by a burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind while the poem goes about its own, deeper business.

Philip Sorenson teaches writing and literature at Loyola, Northeastern Illinois, and Roosevelt Universities. His first book of poetry, Of Embodies, will be published this winter by Rescue Press. His recent poems have appeared in Asymptote and Strange Machine.

Olivia Cronk teaches writing and literature at Northeastern Illinois University and Oakton Community College. Her first book of poetry, Skin Horse, will be published this winter by Action Books. She also reviews poetry for Bookslut.

Tuesdays
March 6 - April 10
7-10 pm

With his first two features, Hiroshima mon amour (1959) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961), Alain Resnais became one of the most influential figures in modern cinema, introducing wholly new ways of presenting psychology, subjective experience, and the passing of time. Yet these films also created the false impression that Resnais was cerebral and humorless--when, in fact, he claimed not to be an intellectual and that his major source of inspiration was Dick Tracy comics. As his career progressed, Resnais would continue to explore the crucial political and psychological themes that marked his first masterworks, but he'd incorporate into the films more influences from popular culture, such as comic books, the musicals of Steven Sondheim, even The X-Files TV series. This class will look at some of Resnais’ lesser known films (and a few of his best), presenting the many sides of his complex personality and the expansive imaginative world of his art.

Ben Sachs is a contributor to the Chicago Reader and the local website CINE-FILE. He has served as a programmer at Doc Films and the late, great screening salon NWA. With Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, he authored "A Decade with Takashi Miike," a series of essays published by MUBI.com in 2010. He is also a musician, playwright, and certified direct-care provider for adults with developmental disabilities. He has previously taught a class at the Facets Film School titled Polish Cinema in Exile: Selected Films by Polanski, Skolimowski and Zulawski.

Wednesdays
March 7 - April 11
7-10 pm

For an art as photogenic as fashion there have been surprisingly few good films focused on the world of couture. We'll take a look at the intersection of fashion and cinema with three superb documentaries and three entertaining narrative films that collectively present a vibrant perspective on the art and industry of clothing the world. Beginning with Stanley Donen's classic musical Funny Face (1957) starring the ultimate movie fashion icon Audrey Hepburn and the ageless Fred Astaire, we'll continue with Bill Cunningham New York, an affectionate portrait of a Manhattan fashion fixture, the great photographer Bill Cunningham. Next, a fascinating look at two French fashion legends: the moving documentary L'amour Fou about fashion genius Yves Saint Laurent and Coco Before Chanel with Audrey Tatou shedding some of her Amélie charm to play the hard edged designer in her early days. The semester concludes with The September Issue, a documentary portrait of formidable Vogue editor Anna Wintour, and we wrap with Anne Hathaway's star turn in The Devil Wears Prada, featuring a scene stealing Meryl Streep as a very Wintour-like fashion editor. Join us at Facets for a stylish trip down the cinematic runway – the spring collection has arrived!

Jeffrey Jon Smith holds an MFA in Film and Video from Columbia College Chicago, where he has been on the faculty since 2003, and where he teaches directing, screenwriting and cinema studies. Since 2005 he has taught an ongoing series of classes at Columbia on classic Hollywood, beginning with his "Picturing Women" series which covered the 1930s through the 1980s, continuing with recent classes on Bette Davis, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Cary Grant. His previous Facets classes include: Just Between Us Girls: Female Friendship in Classic Hollywood, Woman to Woman: Female Friendship in Hollywood (1949-1959) and Beautiful Music Together, which focused on Katharine Hepburn and her screen partnerships with Cary Grant and Spencer Tracy.

Thursdays
March 8 - April 12
7-10 pm

James Cagney, one of the great stars of American film history, started out as a tough street kid from New York City's Lower East Side. A small, rather plain-looking man, he had few of the external qualities usually associated with the traditional Hollywood star. Yet, inside, Cagney was a dynamo, able to project a contentious and arrogant self-confidence that made him the ideal movie tough guy during the hard times of the 1930s. During the Great Depression, Hollywood played a valuable psychological and ideological role, providing reassurance and hope to a demoralized nation. Americans attended the movies each week, and, in the face of doubt and despair, films helped to sustain national morale. Though he was kept busy playing aggressive, rebellious characters on both sides of the law, during the Great Depression, Cagney became one of the screen's most famous gangsters, electrifying audiences with his machine-gun line delivery and aggressive stance.

Doug Deuchler is a playwright, historian, long-time educator, and theater critic for Oak Park's Wednesday Journal. He has written five books for the Arcadia Images of America series on the history of Oak Park, Cicero, Berwyn, Maywood, and the Brookfield Zoo. He teaches Film Appreciation at Moraine Valley College and Film History at Oakton Community College. He has previously taught many classes at the Facets Film School, including High Heels on Wet Pavement: Femme Fatales in '40s Film Noir, Robert Ryan, Chicago's Own Film Noir Icon and Tragic Star: Montgomery Clift: Cinema's Forgotten Rebel.