Poster Placement

Adaptation
Just saw The Amazing Spider-Man and I was struck by the prominent poster of Hitchcock's Rear Window in Peter Parker's bedroom. I don't see much of a connection between the two films, except that Peter is a photographer and so is the hero (played by James Stewart) of Rear Window. There's no comparison in quality, BTW. The Amazing Spider-Man is OK but hardly, well, amazing, while Hitchcock's film, of course, is great.

Class Act

Cary Grant & Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby

Adaptation
Well, that sure was a great class last night! My students were just so well prepared to discuss Rear Window and the whole concept of adapting a text as a film! I just hope we don't lose too much momentum next week, which we have off for Memorial Day.  Meanwhile, we watched Bringing Up Baby and I had the feeling that at least most of the students enjoyed both the verbal humor and the slapstick gags. You'd think that nearly four hours per night would be enough time to cover everything, but we had to leave a few loose ends hanging. Guess we'll tie them up next time.

One Glitch

Adaptation
The first class of the summer went really well. We all introduced ourselves and this seems like a group of very interesting, very smart people. I did make one mistake, though. We watched Rear Window and I told them I would announce when Alfred Hitchcock made his usual cameo appearance in the movie, and then I forgot to do it! (See photo.) I'll have to show them that scene again next week.

Death in the Classroom

Really good discussion in my Film Adaptation class today. The class may have been stimulated by Rear Window, which we saw last week. I think they were surprised at how very clever Hitchcock was in adapting the short story that became that film, and how he infused the whole thing with a theme of romance.

At the beginning of the class, though, a moth (or something) was flying around the room and it was very distracting. I was joking about it, but after a while it was no joke. Then one of the students mercifully stood up and killed it. And with that, we were able to focus on our murder mystery.