Film School Registration

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

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

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Mondays
Feb. 22 - March 29
7-10 pm

Between the end of the heyday of the film musical in the 1960s and something of a resurgence recently, this much-loved genre went through a fascinating period of transition in the 70s and 80s. Gone were the fantasy of An American in Paris, the sophistication of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, and the populism of the Broadway adaptions. During this time a number of innovative, challenging, and outright strange musicals were produced. Frequently darker in tone, more self-reflexive about their own status as musicals, and playing more creatively with genre conventions, these films stand out as provocative and unique additions to an eighty-year-old tradition. The use of nostalgia was more complex and disturbing; the musical as escapism transformed into a means of psychological and social inquiry and exploration. Directors as surprising as Coppola and Altman took up the genre for more personal investigations of relationships and human frailty (even if that was through Popeye). As they shared space with traditional musicals such as Grease, these films broke new ground and led the way for recent efforts such as Moulin Rouge!, Dancer in the Dark, and Nine.

Patrick Friel was Program Director at Chicago Filmmakers for eleven years (1996-2007) and has been the Programmer of the Onion City Experimental Film and Video Festival (organized by Chicago Filmmakers) since 2001. He is currently running his own screening series, White Light Cinema, and is the Managing Editor for Cine-File. He has presented freelance programs at many venues and festivals, including the Chicago Underground Film Festival, Anthology Film Archives, and The Aurora Picture Show. Friel has also written for Time Out Chicago, Film Comment, Cineaste, and Senses of Cinema. He has an M.A. from Northwestern University and a B.A. from Indiana University. He previously taught the classes Documentary Film and the Poetic Imagination, Experimental Film: An Introductory Crash Course and Chris Marker: Cinema's Enigma at the Facets Film School.

Register online: $125 for non-members Register online: $80 for members

Tuesdays
Feb. 23 - March 30
7-10 pm

With the exception of Cary Grant, no movie star has been more identified with screwball comedy than Carole Lombard. In fact, if it were not for Lombard, this genre might not have received its name. "Miss Lombard has played screwball dames before...she needs only a resin bag to be a female Rube Waddell." So said Variety in 1936, comparing Lombard's performance as Irene Bullock in My Man Godfrey to the nineteenth-century baseball legend known for his screwball pitches. From her breakthrough role in Twentieth Century (1934) opposite John Barrymore, it was apparent that a comic genius was born. Lombard could have become a typical Hollywood leading lady on her movie star looks alone, but instead she jumped head-first into screwball comedies, taking on roles that often downplayed her natural beauty. She took comedic risks that few women in Hollywood were willing to take, and it paid off big time. The public loved Lombard, as well as her screwball heroines and by the mid-1930s, Lombard was one of the top box office draws, besting Janet Gaynor, Bette Davis, Jean Harlow, and Katharine Hepburn. Lombard tried her hand at drama with some success, but the public adored her screwball persona and these wonderful comedies have endured. Even by today's standards, Lombard's performances seem strikingly fresh and contemporary. This class will review Lombard's comedic career in films and explore her sustained popularity.

Stephen Reginald is a freelance writer and editor. He has worked at various positions within the publishing industry for over 25 years. Most recently he was executive editor for McGraw-Hill’s The Learning Group Division. A long-time amateur student of film, Reginald hosts "Meet Me at the Movies" once a month at the Sherwood Conservatory of Music (Columbia College). He previously taught a class at the Facets Film School titled The Screwball Comedy and the Feminine Mystique.

Register online: $125 for non-members Register online: $80 for members

Wednesdays
Feb. 24 - March 31
7-10 pm

Legendary director Billy Wilder always wrote his own screenplays, but he never composed them alone. Born in Poland, 1906, he started out as a journalist in Vienna, then began working as a screenwriter for silent films in Berlin. He fled to Paris at the start of World War II, then emigrated to Hollywood, where he began to work with his first longtime partner, Charles Brackett, and they wrote such classics as The Major and the Minor (1942), The Lost Weekend (1945), and Sunset Boulevard (1950). Then, according to Wilder, "The surface of the matchbox had been struck too many times," and they ended their collaboration. Years later, Wilder met his second longtime partner, I.A.L. Diamond, on the Audrey Hepburn romance Love in the Afternoon (1957). In this course, we will examine films from Wilder and Diamond's collaborations, starting with their second film together, Some Like It Hot (1959) through their final film, Buddy Buddy (1981). We will pay special attention to Wilder and Diamond's trademark snappy dialogue, their keen sense of screenplay structure, examination of modern romantic relationships, and perfection of the the buddy comedy genre in their work with the masterful comic duo of Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau.

James Francis Flynn is a graduate of the Western College Program at Miami University with a degree in Creative Writing and Film. His debut feature film as a writer/director, Eastern College, played festivals in 2008 and is currently available on DVD and video-on-demand. He is in preproduction on his second feature, The Stick-Up Kid, and his other credits include Fingerman, Miss Ohio, Audrey the Trainwreck, and the Joe Swanberg’s web series Young American Bodies.

Register online: $125 for non-members Register online: $80 for members

Thursdays
Feb. 25 - April 1
7-10 pm

In a recent article, New York Times critic A.O. Scott stated, "What we need from movies, in the face of a dismaying and confusing real world, is realism." This may seem like an unusual statement to make since cinema normally allows us to forget our troubles, at least momentarily. Yet by diverting from fantasy, cinematic realism can offer portraits of people and situations that give us meaningful glimpses into our own lives. These depictions of the everyday, no matter how mundane or grim they may seem, underline lyrical aspects of reality that are typically overlooked by escapist cinema, but nevertheless help us to better understand and appreciate our own lives. Starting with Vittorio de Sica's 1948 masterpiece The Bicycle Thief, this class will explore various styles of realism in cinema from Italian Neo-Realism onwards. It will also look into theories behind the nature of the cinematic image, the relationship between film and reality, and the ways that cinema helps us to organize our perceptions of the world around us. Engaging Reality: Neorealism and Beyond will explore the ways that realism has sought to depict ordinary modes of existence that reflect our common experience, as well as the economic, political, and social conditions that define our daily realities.

Kate Balsley has a BFA in Film and Video from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, and an MFA in Mass Communication and Media Arts from Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Her film, video, and visual artwork has been exhibited at galleries and film festivals throughout the United States and abroad, and she has presented her own research on cinema at the University of Cincinnati, San Francisco State University, and the University of Iowa. She has taught classes and given lectures at Southern Illinois University, Chicago Filmmakers, and also the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design. She previously taught a class at the Facets Film School titled Cinema and Surveillance.

Register online: $125 for non-members Register online: $80 for members