The Gold Rush Screening Report

1.     Relate what was discussed in class or the text to the screening

In class we talked about the change from the beginning of modern film to the early Hollywood system and the short films by early comedians learned to create humor with slapstick gags that could be easily expressed without the use of sound. Charlie chaplin’s the gold rush was an advancement on to the early silent short films that came before him, and although he had done plenty of films and many of them short in nature before the gold rush it proved to be his most technically skilled film and most popular of the silent age.

2.     Find a related article and summarize the content

The article I found was by the New Yorker called The Gold Rush: Where The Money Was by Richard Brody in which he describes underlying messages within Chaplins comedies such as the corrupting influence of decadence and frivolous pleasures pitting it squarely against the expansive ideals of the early Hollywood first generation ideas of unchecked wealth. The gold rush itself is a fierce political commentary using the mining boomtown and its corrupt self-serving people as an allegory for early Hollywood, which was also a huge boomtown, which chewed up and spit out people like the little tramp on a daily basis.

http://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-gold-rush-where-the-money-was

3.     Apply the article to the film screened in class

The New Yorker article applies to the material from our class because it spoke on the topic of Chaplin using his medium to not only create extremely popular comedies but to build deeper political implications behind his pieces. As film language and technique progressed from its early stages in the turn of the century directors were able to imbed their films with more implicit meanings under the explicit visual content that the viewer was seeing. This was one of the ways in which film began its turn from just a medium of entertainment to one of thoughtful artistic statements and Chaplin’s many films are layered with important and moral messages he hopes to convey to his film audience.

4.     Write a critical analysis of the film, including your personal opinion, formed as a result of the screening, class discussions, text material and the article.

Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush is the highest grossing film of the silent era and this is in part because Chaplin has created a film which is a near communal experience seeing it express humor, joy, love and heartache to its viewers in a way that every single human being can understand without the help of sound or dialogue. He crafts a tale of one of the purest human experiences that we can all relate to, the quest for money and love. The little tramp character that Chaplin plays is an idealistic and romantic person that lives within each and every one of us. He is never cruel or aggressive but takes the beatings that life and cruel people send his way. The tramp is the person we all in our hearts aspire to be someone who is above the cruelness of the world and who only seeks pleasure and joy.

Besides the film having a strong story with a lovable main character, it also was exquisitely shot and made great use of set pieces. The scene where the tramp is teetering in the log cabin is so well done that it hard to tell the difference between the actual cabin and the set piece teetering on the edge of the cliff.  Chaplin considered The Gold Rush to be the film he would like to be remembered by and we can understand why as we view one of the most human and uplifting stories ever committed to celluloid.

CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM 

1) ( x ) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class. 

2) (x  ) If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper. 

3) (x  ) If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text. 

4) (x  ) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper. 

5) ( x ) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read. 

6) (  x) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography. 

7) ( x ) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality. 

8) (  x) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper. 



Name: _______________Matthew Larue__________  Date: ________9/24/14_________

Birth of a Nation screening report

1.     Relate what was discussed in class or the text to the screening

The screening of Birth of a Nation in class relates to the first chapter about the invention of motion pictures because D.W. Griffith was the first film auteur who built his body of work on top of the shoulders of the technical film inventors and early film makers that came before him. His film expanded the film language that early filmmakers like Melies and Porter created for the medium.  Griffith’s film length helped change movies from the early nickelodeons into massive theaters that we are used to seeing today.

2.     Find a related article and summarize the content

The article I found was called the worst thing about “Birth of a Nation” is how good it is. In this article Richard Brody writes about how D.W. Griffith’s film for all its flaws it created a new template for the many capabilities of cinema. And it showed how it could imprint ideas onto an audience whom knew very little about slaver, reconstruction and Jim Crow. They only saw what the director wanted them to and accepted it as truth over the facts from the period.

3.     Apply the article to the film screened in class

The article makes a case for the ability of Griffith’s film techniques to influence his viewers and it indeed did, creating both a shift in the perceptions of the Klu Klux Klan and African Americans within American society. Films became very influential on the masses for example helping people escape into fantasy during the great depression.

4.     Write a critical analysis of the film, including your personal opinion, formed as a result of the screening, class discussions, text material and the article.

The screening of Birth of a Nation in class left me with mixed feelings about whether art can and should be censured at times. Griffith considered his art more important than any negative implications the work could lead to. And his work of art helped to shape and change the film medium but at the same time it led the way in a shift in opinion on the way African Americans were treated in American society. The large amount of people who saw the film took the actions in it for truth and went out willing to commit violent acts against African Americans. His advances in editing and transitions helped move film from its early days a series of long scenes shot in a fixed position to the future where individual shots and camera movement helped expand film language.

CHECKLIST FOR PLAGIARISM 

1) ( x ) I have not handed in this assignment for any other class. 

2) (x  ) If I reused any information from other papers I have written for other classes, I clearly explain that in the paper. 

3) (x  ) If I used any passages word for word, I put quotations around those words, or used indentation and citation within the text. 

4) (x  ) I have not padded the bibliography. I have used all sources cited in the bibliography in the text of the paper. 

5) ( x ) I have cited in the bibliography only the pages I personally read. 

6) (  x) I have used direct quotations only in cases where it could not be stated in another way. I cited the source within the paper and in the bibliography. 

7) ( x ) I did not so over-use direct quotations that the paper lacks interpretation or originality. 

8) (  x) I checked yes on steps 1-7 and therefore have been fully transparent about the research and ideas used in my paper. 



Name: _______________Matthew Larue__________  Date: _________9/16/14_________