Preston Sturges is a Winner
I just had a very good teaching day. A few days in, I really feel like I am finding my stride, but today's class was a slam dunk. Sturges was Hollywood's first writer / director and wrote these zany screwball comedies with a biting undercurrent of satire. And my interesting factoid of the day - he invented "kiss proof" lipstick while working for a cosmetics company in Paris in the 1920s. The films are winners and they speak for themselves, but I think today I hit the right balance of clips / biography / style. We really looked at
The Lady Eve and
Sullivan's Travels, two absolute gems that should be available from Blockbuster, but definitely Netflix, and if you don't have Netflix, you should. I had a nice crowd (it varies depending on day trips / and other unpredictable factors). The job is coming along. I am still doing more prep work than I probably should be, but I am learning a lot and familiarizing myself with a lot of things I should have already known before coming to film school. I still don't think I am cut out to be a Hollywood person, but at least I am finding my way through the deep, dark forest that is, like my course description boasts, "Hollywood's Golden Era." My pupils are interesting... a group steeped in strong personalities. They nod off occasionally and ask interesting questions (a degree in film is a lot like having a degree in trivia... Who won the Oscar?... Who directed that one again?) But I suppose that I am learning things and it's nice to hear that people really like the class and feel like they learn things. Today was kind of a riot, a woman brought in binoculars to watch the big screen TV from about 4 rows back... Whatever works, right?
Things have been busy, busy, busy... I feel behind on survival things like laundry, cleaning, and grocery shopping... but between the teaching, the office, and Patrick's big job interview tomorrow for what seems like the last professor job he has a solid shot at for this fall [while I won't reveal the school, it's a midwestern university that ranks in the top 20 - where he'd teach mostly TV classes, but a few film], the routine has been decidedly out of whack. Last night we actually watched
Hill Street Blues, and A Different World (he watched Amos & Andy too) Looking forward to things blowing over and having clean sheets when it does.
My lunch break is coming to an end... time to continue my bifurcated day and go to the PR office job. Then I am left to my own devices for the rest of the evening as Patrick tweaks syllabi for the big interview tomorrow. I may watch a recent HBO film called
Second Civil War, following a request from my favorite student to talk about the style of the film that is also being watched for historical / political reasons in another of the MSS classes.
posted by lmjasinski at 12:19 PM
