Is Friday Feminist or Feeble-Minded?

Hildy Johnson is a confident career woman who can compete with men (and defeat them) in the dog-eat-dog world of journalism. She is even willing to divorce her man if he doesn't treat he right. Yet, at the same time, she seeks the domestic joys of children and caring for her man -- and in the end returns to the rascal whom she left in the first place. What is the role of women in this film? Does is tell us anything about "modern" women in 1940's America?

Marriage -- and Divorce -- His Girl Friday Style

His Girl Friday charts the marriage and divorce and remarriage of Walter and Hildy and the engagement -- and near marriage -- of Hildy and Bruce. What is this film saying about that state of marriage in the modern world?

What Rules? What Game?

What is the meaning of the title of The Rules of the Game? What is the "game"? What are the "rules"? Who are the participants? How does one "win" the game? What are the penalties for breaking the rules?

The Hunt

Perhaps the most famous scene from The Rules of the Game involves the scene in which the Marquis' guests shoot rabbit and pheasant beaten from the forest by the gamekeeper. Indeed our reaction in class was fraught with emotion, from disgust to awkward laughter. What is so distinctive and striking about the scene? Why does it pack such an emotional punch? What is the deeper significance or symbolism of this scene?

Style in Service of Substance

F. W. Murnau, the director of The Last Laugh, used a wide palette of virtuoso film techniques to express the feelings of his everyman doorman: pride, terror, drunkenness, and despair. Focus on a single scene or technique and describe how the technique expressed an emotion, a state of mind or otherwise served to make a point.

Tragedy of the Common Man?

When the unnamed doorman in The Last Laugh is demoted to bathroom attendant, his world collapses. At the end of the film he is estranged from his family, fellow workers and neighbors and only the night watchman gives him succor. Is this film a tragedy in the Aristotelian sense? Is it an indictment of the society of the time? Or, to put the point another way, whose fault is the doorman's downfall?