The Program in Film & Media Studies announces a new Graduate Certificate in Film & Media Studies for which it is now accepting applications. This program is designed to provide Ph.D. students with interest in the theories and history of “visual culture” an opportunity to extend their formal intellectual training into film and media studies.

Students accepted into the Graduate Certificate Program in Film & Media Studies acquire appropriate graduate level knowledge in film and media studies approaches to criticism, history, and theory. Providing substantial knowledge in the discipline, the certificate provides a student another research specialty and enhances her/his ability to do interdisciplinary research. Completion of the program also enhances the potential range of teaching. We believe a Certificate in Film and Media Studies is a most useful added competence to enhance graduate students’ prospects for job placement after completing the Ph.D.

Graduate Certificate in Film & Media Studies

Ride With the Devil: Director’s Cut

Ang Lee, U.S., 1999/2009, 158 min.
Sunday, Nov. 15, 6:30 p.m., Brown Hall
FREE PROGRAM

Between “The Ice Storm” and “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” Oscar®-winning director Ang Lee made the ambitious “Ride With the Devil.” Based on Missourian Daniel Woodrell’s novel, the Civil War film was shot entirely in Missouri and Kansas and boasted an ensemble cast of Tobey Maguire, Jewel, Tom Wilkinson, Skeet Ulrich, Jeffrey Wright, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Jim Caviezel and Mark Ruffalo. Lee has now revisited the film, restoring vital material that the studio had cut. “Most of all, the new movie has breadth and pacing, more plot and action,” says Lee. “All the information is laid out. There’s a big action war sequence that is longer and more detailed. It feels more epic.”
With novelist Woodrell and a discussion of book-to-film translation.

Co-presented by the Missouri Center for the Book
The St. Louis International Film Festival

Children’s Film Symposium

Saturday, Nov. 21, 10 a.m.-9:30 p.m., Brown Hall
Free

Washington U.’s Center for the Humanities and Cinema St. Louis annually present this symposium, which explores issues related to children’s films through screenings, lectures and discussions. The free public program includes screenings of four films: the animated features Princess of the Sun and Egon & Donci, the Indian feature Tahaan and the French-Canadian teen drama West of Pluto. The day concludes with animation historian Michael Barrier’s program on The Hollywood Cartoon. Visit the Center’s Web site for more information: cenhum.artsci.wustl.edu.

Co-presented by Washington University’s Center for the Humanities
The St. Louis International Film Festival

Fall 2009 Guidebooks
are now available for download.

GuideBook

DECENT GRADES? Up-and-coming (and soon gone!) noteworthy films, as reviewed by your devoted faculty...

NEW YORK, I LOVE YOU
Dressed in the the rich and intense textures of NYC, this hide and seek game of romance teases and seduces. More integrated than its Parisian cousin, the colorful encrustations make this multifaceted and most international set of directors shine. ---> A- (pm)

EARTHDAYS
Whether we contemplate the pale blue dot with astronaut Rusty Shweickart and Stewart Brand, or we hear Rachel Carson and others describe the destruction our life form surrounds itself with, we might experience a similar vertigo. We are asked to resonate with the long term view and the path the trailblazers forged through various presidencies in their effort to achieve a form of conscientious living. ---> Beyond the Grading System (pm)

UP THE AIR
Flying high above the earthly firing of working people, the unattached Clooney attempts a dry comedic swift swipe through life. ---> B+ (pm)

A SERIOUS MAN
The Coen brothers love their caricatures of American life. Here they turn their magnifying lens on a few aspects of Jewish life. It is entertaining and slippery territory, but one shot does manage to hit its target. ---> B+ (pm)

THE INVENTION OF LYING
Gervais successfully unmasks some of the decorum we use to protect ourselves. Without sparing religion from its arrows, the film offers a light stroll through our wished-for daily dosage of lies. ---> B (pm)

CAPITALISM: A LOVE STORY
Michael Moore turns his ire towards "the system". While the individuals presented in his palette are real, the brushstrokes are too wide and the specificity of the would-be attack, lacking. ---> B- (pm)

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