PAS Program Calendar
Events in June 2006
You can register to these events by email (irchanoi@gmail.com), phone (844-8314580, ext. 207, 149) or fax (844-8314601).
Our office is located at the Rose Garden Tower (RG), 170 Ngoc Khanh Street. You can leave your vehicle at VKO Supermarket's vehicle keeping area. Remember to take your ID with you.
The Construction of Film Space
Time: 2:00-3:30pm, June 9, 2006
Venue: 3rd Floor, Rose Garden Tower, 170 Ngoc Khanh Street, Hanoi
Speaker: Associate Professor Todd Berliner
Speaker’s Bio
Todd Berliner is a scholar of American cinema and Associate Professor of Film Studies at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. His scholarly articles—which have appeared in Film Quarterly, Journal of Film and Video, Cinema Journal, Style, and other publications—cover such subjects as the use of songs in cinema, movie sequels, Raging Bull’s visual style, and Hollywood movie dialogue. His current research deals with the relationship between film and cognition.
Movies trick us into thinking we are seeing something that exists. Although the places we see when watching a movie are not really there, our brain often responds to such places as though they were. Why are our brains so easily fooled? Professor Berliner’s talk will show that the brain uses the same tools for making sense of film space that it does for making sense of real space. Our ability to understand movie space is not learned, as most film scholars think; the ability is innate and automatic. Cinema’s conventions of space construction evolved in the ways they did because the human brain evolved in the way it did.
Time: 14:00-16:00pm, June 16, 2006
Venue: 3rd Floor, Rose Garden Tower, 170 Ngoc Khanh Street, Hanoi
Superbly adapted and directed by Tim Robbins from the nonfiction book of the same name by Sister Helen Prejean, this spiritually enlightened drama is too intelligent to traffic in polemics or self-righteous pontifications against the death penalty. But in examining the issue of capital punishment from a humanitarian perspective, the film urges thoughtful reflection on the justifications for legally ending a human life. Although it features a fine supporting cast, the film maintains its sharp focus through flawless lead performances by Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon as the Catholic nun Prejean, and Sean Penn as the death-row killer she struggles to save. Robbins avoids a biased message, letting the movie examine both sides of the issue instead. As the drama unfolds and Penn's execution deadline grows near, Dead Man Walking is graced by compelling depths of theme and character, achieving an emotional impact that demands further reflection and removes the stigma of piousness from socially conscious filmmaking.
Time: 14:00-16:00pm, June 23, 2006
Venue: 3rd Floor, Rose Garden Tower, 170 Ngoc Khanh Street, Hanoi
Maybe it doesn't quite live up to its sterling reputation, and maybe the leading man and director were slightly miscast. But who cares? Roman Holiday is the film that brought Audrey Hepburn to prominence, and the world movie audience went weak at the knees. The endlessly charming Hepburn had her first starring role in this sweet romance, playing a European princess on an official tour through Rome. Frustrated by her lack of connection to the real world, she slips away from her protective handlers and goes on a spree, aided by a tough-guy news reporter (Gregory Peck). Director William Wyler, more at home with such heavy-going, Oscar-winning classics as The Best Years of Our Lives and Ben- Hur, doesn't always keep the champagne bubbles afloat, and the Peck role would have fit Cary Grant like a silk glove. But the film is great fun, the location shooting is irresistible, and Hepburn embodies an image of chic style that would rule for the rest of the fifties. No coincidence: she won an Oscar, and so did veteran costume designer Edith Head.
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