New Required Viewing classes on Hitchcock and Westerns

The wait is over!  We are pleased to announce our next round of Required Viewing, classes for filmgoers and makers interested in broadening their knowledge of cinemas’ 115-year history.

End-of-the-Western

Six Tuesdays, Sep 21–Oct 26, 7–9pm
Instructor: Robert Cumbow
Tuition: $100/WigglyWorld members, $120/general
Max Attendance: 25

If any genre defines the film medium, it is the Western. The second half of the 20th century saw a continuing dialogue of culminating epic westerns, defining and redefining the genre, announcing its end while struggling to point toward new directions. We’ll try to define the essential features of the western genre, and why it lends itself so appropriately to crisis, apocalyptic finality, and some kind of renewal. We will focus on Red River (Howard Hawks, 1946), The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (John Ford, 1962), Once Upon a Time in the West (Sergio Leone, 1968), The Wild  Bunch (Sam Peckinpah, 1969), and Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992), relating each film to the vision of its director, the time in which it was made, and the westerns that came before and after it, and seeking to draw some conclusions about this quintessentially American film genre.

Register for End-Of-The-Western

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Hitchcock Masterpieces

Six Tuesdays, Nov 2–Dec 7, 7–9pm
Instructor: Robert Cumbow
Tuition: $100/WigglyWorld members, $120/general
Max Attendance: 25

As a detailed investigation into one of cinema’s landmark directors, this class will look at films from three periods of Hitchcock’s remarkable career: The 39 Steps and The Lady Vanishes, which crowned his early British period; Notorious, which culminated his American work of the 1940s; and his astonishing succession of classics from 1956 through 1964, Vertigo, North By Northwest, Psycho, and The Birds. Class lecture and discussion will focus on how Hitchcock’s stylistic and technical innovation always matched technique to theme in a way that made him the greatest of directors.

Register for Hitchcock Masterpieces