Summer 2008 Film Series: The World in a Frame: Human Nature in Films
Tuesdays & Thursdays, July 15, 17, 22 & 24, 2008
4 meetings 10am-3:30pm with lunch break; Warren Auditorium, Ives Hall
Course Fee:
$70
Register!
This summer series features four of the Osher Lifelong Learning’s best-known instructors, each presenting a film and providing commentary. They will look at the way in which their chosen film presents the drama of how cinema portrays the conditions of people caught in larger social, political, and media driven realities. In so doing these experts in covert foreign operations, the lives of East European Jews under the Nazis, Iranian anthropology, and the influence of modern culture will both entertain and inform. We will come out of the experience not only having seen great films and considered important matters but with the ability to look at movies more critically in the future.
This is an excellent opportunity to bring friends who are not yet OLLI members and introduce them to the program; they will experience a variety of instructors, and at a reasonable cost.
The classes will run from 10am to approximately 3:30pm, providing time for instructors to talk about their subjects, to view the movie, to engage in discussion, and for everyone to join together for lunch. Each instructor will organize the day in the way he/she feels is most appropriate to the materials and the movie.
Students may bring their own lunch; go to Charlie Brown’s, the outdoor Barbeque at the Commons Patio or to a restaurant across the street. Parking is not included in the course fee; there are no carpool passes for summer. Seating is limited so register early.
Tuesday, July 15, 2008
THE COUNTERFEITERS
(Stefan Ruzowitzky, director) presented by Michael Thaler
From its very beginnings, the Nazi government of Germany (1933-1945) had two foundational goals--the conquest and subjugation of Europe, and the extinction of the Jewish ‘race.’ These paired leitmotifs were activated in parallel when Hitler launched World War II and the Holocaust. This cataclysmic scenario is powerfully played out in the Austrian docudrama THE COUNTERFEITERS, winner of this year’s Oscar for best foreign film. The production focuses on an authentic episode in the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen where sadistic SS overseers forced Jewish expert craftsmen into printing billions of bogus dollars and British pounds intended to undermine the Allied war effort.
Michael Thaler, M.D., who taught many courses for SSU’s Osher LLI, including “Rethinking the Holocaust,” will use excerpts from videotaped interviews of counterfeiters who survived Sachsenhausen to illustrate and discuss the role of artistic, cultural and ideological perspectives, the problem of historic accuracy in framing dramatic narratives, and the challenges of interpretation.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
FIFTH REACTION
(Tahmineh Milani, director) presented by Donna Brasset
FIFTH REACTION is an Iranian film directed by one of Iran’s top female filmmakers, Tahmineh Milani. Milani has won international acclaim for her poignant depictions of the plight of women in Iran’s male-dominated society, and for her evocative treatment of the uneasy social tensions set in motion by the competing forces of tradition and modernity in contemporary Iran. The film tells the story of a recently widowed mother whose powerful father-in-law insists that she marry her deceased husband’s brother as a matter of family honor. Conspiring with female friends, Fereshteh (the mother) develops a scheme to outwit her father-in-law by escaping with her two children on a tension-filled journey that has father and daughter-in-law playing a suspenseful cat-and-mouse game as they try to out-maneuver one another. This is a taut, extraordinarily well made film that evolves into a genuine thriller. It has a decidedly un-American ending. (In Farsi, with English subtitles).
Donna Brasset, Ph.D., (who recently taught a course on Iran for OLLI) will provide commentary on the background of the film’s director, as well as highlight the experiences of women--such as Tahmineh Milani’s--who have dared to use art (literature, poetry and filmmaking) as their medium of resistance to the oppressive restrictions on their lives imposed by Iran’s narrow religious elite. She will direct students’ attention to the question the movie clearly begs: in what ways are the experiences of the film’s female characters similar to, or different from, those of women in the U.S.? And what of the men in the film? To what degree do they conform to widely shared stereotypes of males in an Islamic society (or in any society)? What other controversial subjects does the film cover in the subtle, symbolic ways needed to pass Iranian censors?
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
THE TRUMAN SHOW
(Peter Weir, director) presented by William Garrett
The Truman Show (1998) is a rich metaphor that supports various interpretations. The main character, Truman Burbank grows up in a contrived world that is an invention of the media. Truman alone has no idea he is in a giant TV studio, as the rest of humanity watches him go from one staged situation to another in a nonstop telethon of reality programming that lets audiences enjoy a little pathos and vicarious emotion.
William Garrett, PhD., has taught many courses for SSU’s OLLI, especially in the realm of religion, will concentrate on one of the more interesting interpretations of the film: that of a Cathar myth. This is a Christian heresy in which the Creator God, an evil God, has entrapped worthy souls in a false world, souls who are occasionally called beyond the baseness of the prison-world by a visit from the divine Sophia. “The Truman Show” is a serious film, yet funny; it expresses the commonplace, yet ends in triumph. It is both thought provoking and entertaining.
Thursday, July 24, 2008
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR
CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR (Mike Nichols, director) presented by John Syer
Charlie Wilson’s War depicts how poorly equipped fighters (the mujahideen) were eventually able to drive the occupying Soviet army out of Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Rep. Charles Wilson (D, Texas) and a band of extraordinary insiders succeeded in building funding for arming the mujahideen from $5 million per year to $1 billion annually. The impetus for this massive increase in support for the mujahideen did not originate in the State Department, the Pentagon, the CIA, or the White House. This supposedly “covert” operation in Afghanistan is credited with accelerating the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Based on the nonfiction book published in 2003 by the late George Crile, the film was directed by Mike Nichols and released in December of 2007. A serious Tom Hanks and a blonde Julia Roberts head the cast.
John Syer, Ph.D., who has taught courses on U.S. intelligence activities for SSU and other Osher LLI programs, will examine some of the differences between Crile’s book and Nichols’ film. What roles have been added or deleted? Does the movie faithfully reflect the book or not? As to politics within the U. S., was Rep. Charles Wilson acting legally or not in augmenting the funding for the mujahideen? Did the U.S. Congress usurp the authority of the Executive Branch in the conduct of foreign affairs? On the global level, have the ongoing conflicts in Afghanistan since 1979 brought about the decline of not one superpower, but two? Charles Wilson retired from the U.S. House of Representatives in 1996, so he and his band are no longer making U.S. foreign policy.