Pulp Fiction: Class Notes March 2023

 Film: Pulp Fiction

Attendance: I give everyone 10% for this. Every hour you miss, I subtract 1%. If you miss nine hours, you fail. Pulp Fiction works similarly to TV or when people go to the movies to watch crap like Marvel. They want to rest and not think.

Pulp is the flesh of an orange. Fiction means not true.

Genre is dark humor or comedy. Funny, but evil.

Trivia: they say f%$k 255 times. John Travolta, perhaps the most famous actor of the 1970s, was washed up. That means not famous or good anymore. He couldn’t get roles in the 1980s. He made a comeback in this movie. Travolta in the

1970s. Opening credits.

1994: Tarantino wrote and directed it. He wrote it while

drinking coffee in the diner which is at the start of the movie.

This movie is not in chronological order. It opens at the end.

Your assignment is to write a sentence to describe each

scene. Then put the sentences in chronological order and

give me.

Vincent (Travolta) says he doesn’t watch TV, implying that it is too stupid for him. But he loves to read pulp fiction = contradiction.

What does 666 represent? It is the sign of the beast

(devil). Tarantino is also paying homage to Stanley

Kubrick. When you copy a famous scene from another

movie to show respect.

1. We have a myth or superstition. You can make a deal

with the devil. He will give you whatever you want,

but he gets his soul. If you want to make this deal,

go to the crossroads.

If we say you are “square” it means not a cool person.

SShe says she is going to powder her nose. 

A cameo is when a famous actor goes in a movie for just

a few minutes.

Good Will Hunting Class Notes from Feb 13

Rules for this class. You lose 1% for every hour you miss of class. If you miss nine hours, you fail. This class is easy to get 90%. Just come.

Please do not sleep in here. This is NOT your bedroom. This is a classroom. I want to do a different genre of film each time: Drama, classic, comedy, western (cowboy), no animation, science fiction, horror, etc. Let us start with drama.

My dad told me a story about a janitor (cleaning person) who worked at the University of Toronto during World War II. He had a grade 10 education. He would clean the radar lab at night. Just by looking at the research, he could understand it. He invented advanced radar. They tested him and he had a 197 IQ.

I think Good Will Hunting is based on this story. The screenplay was written by Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. They won an Oscar. Robin Williams did as well for Best Supporting Actor. He committed suicide nine years ago.

Questions for you guys: Why does Will (the protagonist) feel angst?

What does the title of the movie mean? It is a pun (two meanings). What does the psychologist (played by Robin Williams) mean when he tells Will “It’s not your fault.”  ???

 

Do you hear the Boston accent?

When the camera work in a movie is really good or stylish, we talk about the cinematography. This director is a gay man: Gus van Sant

When you slow down the film speed: slow motion

 

Overhead direct down shot is a “bird’s eye view.”

“Pay homage to” means to copy a scene from a famous movie to show respect to the director. Van Sant is paying homage to Stanley Kubrick and A Clockwork Orange.

 

Match cut. When the last image from the first scene is the same or similar to the first image of the second scene. It gets you from A to B in the movie. 

Will is embarrassed about being an orphan. Why? Oliver Twist is a novel by Charles Dickens from the 1840s about an orphan.

Tell me some background on the actor Robin Williams.

 

 

******************************************************************

Listen for the Boston accent. It is quite flat. They do not curl the r, for example.

The unabomber used to send letters to rich people who had companies that hurt the environment. The letters would blow up when they were opened. The police could not catch him. His brother turned him in.

“Paying homage to” is when a director copies a famous scene from a previous movie to show respect to that director. Students of film will quickly recognize what is going on. Here van Sant is paying homage to Danny Boyd and “Train Spotting.”

1.  Close-up shot

2.  Bird’s eye view (shot)

3.  Fade

4.  Tracking shot: when the camera follows

5.  Slow motion makes the scene more dramatic (they used for baseball and the batting cage plus the fight scene)

Why does Will feel angst?

Why is Will self-protective?

Why does Will push people away?

Why is Will afraid of relationships?

What does Sean mean when he affirms: “It’s not your fault?”

This is a theme of Good Will Hunting.

The irony of the film is in Will’s destiny. He was unlucky to be an orphan who was abused by his foster parents. But, he was also born with a lot of talent and smartness.

Smart: you are born with this; high IQ

Intelligent: work hard to learn a lot of things

Wise: is like old people who know of things through experience.

Good Will means to be nice to other people. Hunting is his search for what do to in life. Destiny = hunting.

We cannot change fate. That is an Asian idea. It is also a European idea before. We can change our destiny through hard work. Wheel of fortune that we could not get off during the medieval period. Fate must be accepted.

Closing credits: the list of actors shown at the end of a movie

Opening credits: the list of actors, director, producer, etc. at the start of the movie; the opening credits are a form of film art as well; they also set the tone for the movie; they create the opening mood

I will do attendance next week. Every class you miss is minus -2%. If you miss nine hours, you automatically fail. 

Final Exam Film and Society

I will make the test like the mid term exam. You will have to memorize some words. Then match the vocabulary to the meaning. There will be some sentence answers to see if you watched the films. Finally, you must write a paragraph.

Words: angst, pay homage to, match cut, allegory, noble savage, clique, dork, jock, cookie cutter house,

coming of age movie, mundanity, pun, twist of fate, genre, colony, Garden of Eden 

Match cut.

Pun: when a word has two meanings

Hunting is his surname, but he is looking for something.

The first English novel was written in 1688 by Aphra Behn.

The novel developed over the next two centuries until the Victorian Era (1837 to 1901). Most scholars will say this was the greatest era for novel.

And most consider Charles Dickens to be greatest novelist of that era.

1812 to 1870. A Christmas Carol was published in 1843. Everyone in the West knows this story; we watch it every Christmas.

At this time, the West was transitioning from an agrarian society (farming) to the industrial revolution (factories and city life). The cities were dirty, polluted and the people had a terrible quality of life.

They put the coins on the eyes of corpses (dead bodies) so the ghost can get over the River Styx to the afterworld (heaven, hell, etc.)

The protagonist (main character) is named Scrooge. The name has become a word, meaning stingy. He always says “humbug” which is also a word now. It means nonsense.

One of Dickens’ common themes is the mistreatment / abuse of children. In real life, his dad was in jail and he had to work in a boot polish factory (as a boy).

 

 

 

 

Allegory: a writing technique where the author gives us hints to make us think about The Bible. Seven years later: according to The Bible, God created the world in seven days

You will be haunted by three spirits. The spirits will teach Scrooge how to be good or to repent.

Ghosts are often depicted as having to go through an ironic form of punishment or torture. 

Both the psychiatrist and Will are dealing with mental issues. The shrink has depression from his wife dying of cancer and underachieving. Remember he graduated from MIT, perhaps the best university in the world, but he teaches at a lousy community college. Will has issues with angst.

Oliver Twist is a story by Charles Dickens about an orphan in the 1840s. He is so poor that he has to work in a factory as a boy and is a pickpocket.

Remastering film and better technology allows us to see flaws now in old movies. Flaw is like a mistake.

The Unabomber sent letters to rich businessmen who had companies that harmed the environment. The letters would blow up when opened.

Einstein went to a prestigious school. He was the only one not offered a job at the school from his class. They thought he was lazy, a trouble maker, and cheater.

Scrooge is a stingy person. His name has become a word.

The job interview is paying homage to Trainspotting, right down to the shoes and three interviewers. And the nonsense.

 

Child abuse and personality determination. Your personality is set from an early age.

Science fiction will be our last genre.

The Myth of the Noble Savage

 The myth of the noble savage.

This shows up in literature a lot. The noble savage is someone from a supposedly simpler society / culture. He meets someone from a modern society. The noble savage is not educated but will say lots of things that are true to make the person from the modern society realize his life is empty or that the person from the modern society really isn’t so smart.

In The Breakfast Club, I think the janitor is doing a version of the noble savage.

My father said: “Do not try to understand them. And do not try to make them understand you. That is because they are a breed apart that makes no sense.”

 

Collective society v. individual society.

In a collective society, people want to be a part of a group. In an individual society, people are comfortable being alone. Americans (American myth) like to tell you they are individuals. I think they are more collective though.

In The Breakfast Club, we can see the teacher trying to force these kids, who are different from each other, into a collective organization. The teacher is on a power trip. He tells the students to explain to him who they are. So, he is putting them in a defensive position. The students have a good point. Even if we tell you who we are, you won’t listen.

You have cliques. One guy is from the athlete clique. We call that “jock.” The pretty girl is from the princess or cheerleader clique.

Weirdo clique.

Geek / Dork clique: He studies a lot.

Rebel clique.

Five cliques represented in this movie.

 Idiom: “You mess with the bull, you get the horns.”

Themes:

1.  Power tripping teachers

2.  The boredom of education / school

3.  Questioning authority / ridiculous people in positions of power

4.  The normal weirdness of teachers, because they can’t be fired and they are not dealing with people their own age / teachers losing perspective

5.  The ridiculous behavior of teachers

Cookie cutter school: they all look the same

Cookie cutter house: ditto

Collective versus individual

They treat the students like they are from a cookie cutter. They all need to look and behave the same, to fit in, etc.

Mr. Rogers is famous for being square. Square or goody two shoes is someone who is not cool.

The director is John Hughes. Most of his movies were in the 1980s and usually about teenagers coming of age. Growing up and learning life’s lessons. The movies are normally set in Chicago in the suburbs and about middle class people. They are about normal things. When life is too normal and repetitive, we say mundanity.

I wanted to show My Private Idaho, directed by Gus van Sant. Van Sant also does coming of age movies, about young adults. It is based on Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I.

I heard this story about a janitor working in the lab at the University of Toronto during WWII. He had a grade ten education. While he was cleaning, he would look at the experiments. He invented modern radar. They tested his IQ and he got 197.

Matt Damon and Ben Affleck wrote the screenplay for this movie. They won an Oscar.

Robin Williams won best supporting actor. Minor role. He usually is in comedies. He doesn’t do dramas so much. He committed suicide in 2015.

The Boston accent is very flat. Usually in America, we curl our accent.

Boston is full of Irish immigrants or the ancestors of Irish immigrants.

Pulp Fiction paid homage to A Clockwork Orange with the driving scene.

Good Will Hunting pays homage with the fighting scene. Look at how the music does not match the violence in both instances.

Match cut takes you from one scene to a different shot and place by showing two similar things.

Above are the class notes. I am behind on the marking of your assignments. But, we need to do some work. Answer the following questions for this movie's assignment. You cannot actually answer the first question as the film has not revealed it yet. That means you can hand this in next Monday.

1. What do you think is causing Will Hunting angst?

2. Please give a paragraph biography on Robin Williams. If you cut and paste (plagiarize), I will know it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTWKbfoikeg

Class Notes and Questions for Homework: Snatch

Here are the class notes. There are questions below. Answer them and I will give you 10/10

Genre is action comedy.

England and America, focusing on two outgroups (minority groups): Jewish, gypsies: pikey (not really polite to call them either): Roma or Romani

They came to Europe overland from India nine hundred years ago. The stereotype is they are poor, live in wagons/caravans and thieves. They are also dark, mysterious, magical, and good-looking.

They are great fighters. Right now, the heavy boxing champion of the world is a gypsy: pikey. There is around 800,000 gypsies in America now.

There is a lot of prejudice against them in Europe. The European societies treat them like garbage. They were also killed by the Nazis along with Jews and gay people.

Director and writer of this movie is Guy Ritchie. He used to be married to Madonna.

I didn’t send any questions, so you don’t have to worry about that. I will send these notes though with questions underneath. I will do that tonight. If you do them, I will give you 10/10 for a grade. We are half-way through Snatch. Snatch means “to steal” or “rob” and run away. Remember they snatched the diamonds in Belgium. A lot of the shenanigans are around getting the diamond. Shenanigans means mischief or do something bad. Brad Pitt was supposed to play Turkish, but he was unable to do a London accent. As an actor, this is his weakness. He can’t do accents. The old gangster is called Brick Top. This is something I don’t really understand. That is slang for “red-head” (hair) or a ginger, but he doesn’t have red hair. There must be a backstory. A backstory is what happened before the start of the movie. It helps actors develop the role or acting more clearly.

Antisemitic is to hate Jewish people.

One of the themes of the movie is prejudice against outgroup people (minorities).

The director had a Brazilian friend who said in Brazil the worst thing you can do is abuse dogs. Irony.

Extras are actors in the background who do not have lines (don’t say anything).

Paying homage to: copy an earlier great film scene to show respect

McGregor’s character is dealing with being sick from heroin. Brad Pitt’s character is really hung over. Alcohol. Constipated.

I will ask you to explain the twist of fate at the end of Snatch.

Coming of age genre. This means teenagers growing up.

The cookie cutter metaphor.

 ****************

1. How is the Garden of Eden related to The Last of the Mohicans?

2. What does Hawkeye say about the white man? He is quoting his stepfather. (We will rewatch this scene in next week's class.)

3. Why does the last sequence of The Last of the Mohicans feel like an MTV music video?

4. What is the twist of fate in The Last of the Mohicans?

5. Why are caravans important in Snatch?

6. What is Mickey's (Brad Pitt) occupation?

7. How does Brick Top get rid of corpses?

8. Why does your teacher think the director of Snatch is paying homage to Trainspotting?

9. What is the twist of fate in Snatch? 

10. How is Lucky Star related? 

Mysterious Skin

The Last of the Mohicans

 Here are the notes for November 19, 2022:

The Last of the Mohicans

An Indian nation in America

Starring Daniel Day Lewis, the only actor to win three Oscar Awards

Based on the 1826 novel by James F. Cooper

One of the early masterpieces of American literature.

It is talking about history

1757 in New York

Seven Years War between England and France. This had a massive impact on world history

1756 tp 1763

England will fight America 1775 to 1783: This is the first war England has lost since 1066. As a result, America becomes free of England and establishes the first modern democracy.

Also these wars bankrupt France. As a result, the King of France has his head chopped off and France becomes the second modern democracy.

Genre is an historical epic. Epic is when the protagonist is forced to take a journey (long trip where you find meaning about life).

The soundtrack is loud and grand. It matches the grandness of America’s landscape.

The first white people to come to America were the poor people of Europe. They saw America as a Garden of Eden (from the Bible where Adam and Eve live) because of all of the food and resources available.

The Indians thought how the British fought in war was stupid. They wore red coats so they were easy to see and thought both sides should follow some rules to fighting.

The Indians used surprise attacks called an ambush and would hide in the forest, called guerrilla warfare. Later, when America fought England, they copied the guerrilla style of fighting.

 1826

Describes the 18 century and the wars between England and France. But they have not fought 1815. England will win this war 1756 to 1763, and they acquire Quebec, which is still part of Canada today. Canada is still a colony of England today. That is the reason why people in Quebec speak French and not English.

Michael Mann is the director. He started out making music videos. Then he made a famous TV show in the 1980 called Miami Vice.

The Huron houses are called wigwams.

Yankee is actually an Indian word to call the white man, but we have forgotten the actual meaning. People debate it.

Opening credits are the start of a movie or TV show. They tell who the actors are.

But they set the mood or feeling for the program.

The Last of the Mohicans has a twist of fate.

Remember, that means surprise ending. We think the last Mohican is the son; actually, it is the father.

Mid-Term Test

This test will not be difficult. Let us call it a quiz. 

PART I: Just memorize the following words or expressions. I will have a matching activity, with the words below in the left column and the meanings (definitions) in the right column. Then, just match. 

Pay homage to, tracking shot, foreshadow, protagonist, homoerotic, bird's eye view, dark comedy, chronological order, narration, opening credits, revisionist history, genre, sparse landscape, soundtrack, myth, landscape/cityscape, misanthrope, misogyny, figment of my imagination 

PART II: I will ask some plot questions. If you watched the movies, you will be able to answer them.

 Philadelphia Brownstone