Etc.
And while I have you all captive, I have a request of my own:
I'm gonna be teaching a course this Spring (a freshman/sophomore seminar) tentatively entitled: "Screening the Machine: Technology, Anxiety, and the Movies."
It's going to focus on the treatment of technology and technological developmentin the movies over time. I'll also be using newsreels and print stuff to provide socio-cultural context for the films we watch.
So, here's the deal: I have a long roster of likely films (Man with a Movie Camera; Metropolis; Modern Times; Things to Come; Playtime; Deskset; a few Tex Avery Cartoons (The Modern House); some nuclear paranoia stuff (Attack of the 50'
Woman, etc); Robocop; Terminator; Bladerunner; War Games; The Net; Virtuosity...and blah blah blah.
I'm still compiling my list, however, and would love to hear about your cool ideas for stuff to watch. I'm going to try a chronological approach with thematic
focus within this structure (city as machine; body as machine; machine as creator; machine as destroyer...)
Want to play? All suggestions greatly appreciated. It'd be particularly usefulto get recommendations for 20's, 30's, and 40's films. Also: if you have
articles on the subject of science/tech and the movies, I'd love to hear about
them...
Cheers!
Gary Handman
UC Berkeley
ghandman@library.berkeley.edu