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A Touch of Tinseltown Comes to C.W. Post
Summer Course on Hollywood Open to General Public
March 22, 2000 - Ever wonder why we hold Hollywood legends
of the past and present so close to our hearts? Here's your chance
to find out through a unique course that the C.W. Post Campus
of Long Island University in Brookville is offering this summer.
Designed for film students as well as members of the Long
Island community wishing to explore the workings of Tinseltown,
the course Hollywood: Brando, Nicholson and Monroe will
focus on the creative contributions of these major stars as well
as their impact on society. The course will also take a look
at how performances by today's stars, such as Rosie Perez and
Wesley Snipes, have served to absorb minorities into mainstream
cultural folds.
Star vehicles such as The Wild One, Five Easy Pieces
and The Misfits will be screened in their entirety and
followed by class discussions. In addition, students will be
encouraged to present excerpts from their favorite films.
"This course aims to relocate film study as an interactive
community enterprise that values individual experiences,"
says the course's instructor, Vivek Adarkar, Ph.D. whose articles,
film reviews and interviews have appeared in Columbia Film
View, Magill's Cinema Annual, and The Economic
Times. "We hope the student will realize how stars have
impacted our thinking in ways we may be wholly unaware of."
Issues to be explored include: Is Mel Gibson justifying brutish
violence at the end of Lethal Weapon? Is John Travolta selling
heroin to us as a form of transcendent release in Pulp Fiction?
How do today's stars use this hidden power to manipulate? Has
the availability of films on home video increased their ability
to do so?
Last year, Dr. Adarkar was awarded a doctorate by Columbia
University for his dissertation "Towards a Radical Conception
of Film Acting." His social comedy, Identity Blues,
was optioned last year for production as an international film
venture. For the past decade he has been teaching film history,
film theory and screenwriting at C.W. Post.
The course, Hollywood: Brando, Nicholson and Monroe
will meet July 31 to August 25 from 10:35 a.m. to 1 p.m. Registration
is open to the public and there are no prerequisites. There is
a fee for the course. To register or for more information, contact
the Department of Theatre, Film and Dance at C.W. Post at (516)
299-2353.
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