FILMS IN AMERICAN SOCIETY- Primary Movie List, Fall 2014
1.
UNDETERMINED!
2.
Modern Times
(Written, directed & scored by Charles Chaplin, 1936, 87 minutes, b&w, “mostly silent”)
Charlie, the Little Tramp, goes on adventures during the Great Depression, trying to get work and make a living. Along the
way, he meets a girl.
3.
Casablanca
(Michael Curtiz, 1942, 102 minutes, b&w)
With Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Paul Henreid, Claude Rains, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, Dooley Wilson
At Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca, North Africa, European refugees fleeing from the Nazis in World War II gather to
calculate ways to get to America. The cynical Rick Blaine is forced to confront his past.
4.
Chinatown
(Roman Polanski, 1974, 131 minutes, color)
Screenplay by Robert Towne, With Jack Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, and John Huston
In the 1930s, a private detective named J. J. Gittes is hired to investigate an alleged affair. As the seemingly simple
investigation unfolds, Gittes stumbles onto a murder and a plot to dominate the city.
5.
Psycho
(Alfred Hitchcock, 1960, 109 minutes, b&w)
With Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh
Marion Crane, a secretary in a real estate office, is fed up with her life. Tired of meeting her lover during lunch breaks and frustrated
by his alimony payments to his ex-wife, she steals $40,000 from her employer, packs her bag, and sets out for California so the two
can start anew. Driving late into the night, she stops at the Bates’ motel for some rest, where she soon discovers not all is as it seems.
6.
The Shining
(Stanley Kubrick, 1980, 144 minutes, color)
With Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, Danny Lloyd, and Scatman Crothers
Jack Torrance, an author and a recovering alcoholic takes his wife and son to the Overlook Hotel to act as caretaker over the
winter while the hotel is closed. A grisly murder was committed in the hotel by a previous caretaker. Jack is warned about the
hotel’s past, and about the isolation and claustrophobia that await them though he accepts the position. As the winter
progresses, Jack begins a decent into madness. Are there supernatural forces at play? Is the madness in the hotel? In Jack? Or
in all of us?
7.
JFK
(Oliver Stone, 1991, 205 minutes (Director’s Cut), color / b&w)
With Kevin Costner, Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Bacon, Sissy Spacek, Ed Asner, Jack Lemmon, Joe Pesci, Walter Matthau,
John Candy, Donald Sutherland
Jim Garrison, a real-life District Attorney from New Orleans, works to uncover a massive conspiracy (involving the FBI,
CIA, Mafia, Anti-Castro Cubans, and Vice President Lyndon Johnson) to assassinate president John F. Kennedy in 1963, in
order to prevent Kennedy’s potential withdrawal from the conflict in Vietnam.
OVER
8.
Apocalypse Now
(Francis Ford Coppola, 1979, 153 minutes; 2001, 202 minutes, color)
With Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Laurence Fishburne, Dennis Hopper
Captain Willard, a CIA operative in the Vietnam War, has been sent on a secret and illegal mission, beyond Vietnam and into
Cambodia, to assassinate Colonel Kurtz, an American officer who is fighting on his own and without control.
9.
American History X
Tony Kaye, 1998, color and b&w, 119 minutes)
With Edward Norton, Edward Furlong, Beverly D’Angelo, Avery Brooks, Stacy Keach
An angry and charismatic young man in Venice Beach, California, becomes the local
leader of a neo-Nazi movement in his area. The story builds around his influence on
his younger brother, who idolizes him, and an African-American history teacher who
refuses to give up on either of them.