Writing Seminar: Film Violence
Reading Packet List

The reading packet is available in the bookstore as two folders of copied material. The first folder is available now; the second will be available within the first two weeks of class. The numbers in the course schedule correspond to the numbers on this list.

Segment One: the Western

  1. "Killer Elite" -- Richard Slotkin, from Gunfighter Nation
  2. "A Good Man with a Gun: Shane" -- Richard Slotkin, from Gunfighter Nation
  3. "Shane: the Ambivalent, Violent Prince of Peace" – Geoffrey Hill, from Illuminating Shadows
  4. "Epilogue: Fighting Words" – Jane Tompkins, from West of Everything
  5. "Cross-over Point" – Richard Slotkin, from Gunfighter Nation
  6. "The Wild Bunch" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultra Violent Movies
  7. "The Wild Bunch" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  8. "The Wild Bunch Revisited" – Michael Sragow, from Flesh and Blood
  9. "Gunfire" – Jason Jacobs, from Screen Violence, Karl French ed.
  10. "Guns are Gold on Today’s Silver Screen" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  11. "Unforgiven" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  12. "Deserve’s Got Nothing to Do with It, or Men with No Names II: Unforgiven" – Dennis Bingham, from Acting Male

    Segment Two: Family Violence / Violence Toward Women
  13. "The Last Decade" – Molly Haskell, from From Reverence to Rape: The Treatment of Women in Movies
  14. "Interview with Karl French – June 1996" – Camille Paglia, from Screen Violence
  15. "Poetic and Psychological Montages," et. al. – Stephen Prince, from Savage Cinema
  16. "Peckinpah’s Obsession" – Pauline Kael, from Deeper into Movies
  17. "Straw Dogs" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultra Violent Movies
  18. "Brute Force" (Raging Bull) – David Denby, from New York Magazine
  19. "Look Back at Anger" (Raging Bull) – Stanley Kauffmann, from New Republic
  20. "Religious Pulp, or The Incredible Hulk" (Raging Bull) – Pauline Kael, from Taking it All In
  21. "Two Films by Martin Scorcese" (Raging Bull) – Robin Wood, from Hollywood from Vietnam to Reagan
  22. "Tribes and Tribulations" (Once Were Warriors) – Gary Dauphin, Village Voice


    Segment Three: Violent Reversals

  23. "1967-1968, The Wonder Year, Part I: Bonnie and Clyde" – Glenn Mann, from Radical Visions
  24. "Bonnie and Clyde" – J. Hoberman, from Flesh and Blood
  25. "Bonnie and Clyde" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultraviolent Movies
  26. "Arthur Penn," excerpt from Cinema of Loneliness – Phillip Kolker
  27. "Bonnie and Clyde" – Pauline Kael, from Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
  28. "Taxi Driver" excerpt from Cinema of Loneliness – Phillip Kolker
  29. "Taxi Driver" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultraviolent Movies
  30. "Taxi Driver: The Mad Messiah of Historic Christian Art" -- Geoffrey Hill, from Illuminating Shadows
  31. "Taxi Driver (1976)" – Glenn Mann, from Radical Visions
  32. "Women Warriors: Gender, Sexuality and Hollywood’s Fighting Heroines" – Yvonne Tasker, from Spectacular Bodies
  33. "Grim Fairy Tales" (Freeway) – Gary Dauphin, Village Voice
  34. "The Movies, Me and Violence" – Harry McCallon, from Screen Violence
  35. "Role Models" – Roderick Anscombe, from Screen Violence

     


    Segment Four: Introspective Bloodbaths

  36. "Hollywood’s Four Big Lies" – Michael Medved, from Screen Violence
  37. "Poets of Blood," from Flesh and Blood
  38. "The Poetry of Violence" – Poppy Z. Brite, from Screen Violence
  39. "Stanley Strangelove" (A Clockwork Orange) – Pauline Kael, from Deeper into Movies
  40. "A Clockwork Orange" – John Anderson, from Flesh and Blood
  41. "Alex Through the Looking Glass" – Tony Parsons, from Screen Violence
  42. Clockwork Orange excerpt from Cinema of Loneliness – Phillip Kolker
  43. "A Clockwork Orange" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultraviolent Movies
  44. "The New Violence" and "In Defense of Violence" – Peter Travers and Hal Hinson, Flesh and Blood
  45. "New Breed, New Blood: Quentin Tarantino" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultraviolent Movies
  46. "Reservoir Dogs" – Owen Gleiberman, from Flesh and Blood
  47. "Reservoir Dogs" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  48. "Pulp Fiction" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  49. "In Front of the Children" – Nicci Gerrard, from Screen Violence
  50. "Natural Born Killers" – Owen Gleiberman, from Flesh and Blood
  51. "Natural Born Killers" – Laurent Bouzereau, from Ultraviolent Movies
  52. "Natural Born Killers" – Stephen Hunter, from Violent Screen
  53. "Natural Bred Killers" – John Grisham, from Screen Violence