stabbity!

Jan. 12th, 2006 03:18 pm
kaydeefalls: blank with text: "white. a blank page or canvas. so many possibilities..." (dumbass)
[personal profile] kaydeefalls
Remind to never, ever choose my own topic for a paper again. Or to choose to analyze a film that was not part of our course, even though the professor said it was okay. Because although every film critic everywhere seems to agree that "12 Angry Men" is a fantastic and insightful film, there has apparently been virtually NO academic criticism written on it, and particularly there is absolutely nothing in the Trinity library even remotely relating to it, aside from a copy of the script. I mean, I have this list of books on 1950s films, and this movie is only ever mentioned in passing as a "great example" of this form of filmmaking or in a list of other really awesome movies of the fifties that we don't have space to elaborate on sorry. If everyone in film studies academia thinks it's so wonderful, WHY DOES NO ONE WRITE ABOUT IT?

Paper due tomorrow. No time to change topic. Must blunder through on my own. BAH.

Also, I really need sleep. *sighs* Twenty-five and a half hours, and it will all be over.

Date: 2006-01-12 03:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] azewewish.livejournal.com
Can you compare the play to the film? I'm only asking, because quite a bit's been written about the play, so maybe you might want to start there.

Good luck!!! *throws on cheerleading outfit & shakes pom-poms*

Date: 2006-01-12 07:20 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
I haven't found anything Twelve Angry Men related, play or film. At any rate, the focus of this course is such that only the film works for my essay -- it's 1950s culture/performance course, and the play wasn't adapted from the film until later.

Fortunately, I'm comparing it to The Crucible, which sports a veritable assload of critical writings, so I can neatly take those analyses and ingeniously demonstrate how easily they could also be applied to Twelve Angry Men. ;)

Date: 2006-01-12 11:55 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] azewewish.livejournal.com
Interesting. I like it. *g*

Date: 2006-01-12 05:05 pm (UTC)
ext_19642: j2 -Silly boys! (Default)
From: [identity profile] smidirini.livejournal.com
Hey there. I'm always on the lookout for lj users around Ireland with similar intersts to me and I noticed from your userinfo that we have some interests in common. At the rist of sounding like a 6 year old... would you like to be friends? :P

Date: 2006-01-12 07:26 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
Heh, that's a new proposition for me. Sure. :) Although I should warn you, I'm only an American temporarily posing as Irish.

Date: 2006-01-12 07:31 pm (UTC)
ext_19642: j2 -Silly boys! (Default)
From: [identity profile] smidirini.livejournal.com
Yeah I noticed that. Whereabouts are you studying?

Date: 2006-01-12 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
Trinity College, Dublin.

Date: 2006-01-12 07:53 pm (UTC)
ext_19642: j2 -Silly boys! (Default)
From: [identity profile] smidirini.livejournal.com
Ahh, I had a friend who was studying theatre there but he finished a year or so ago. I know someone who's doing music in trinity but I don't think that it's part of the Samuel Beckett Centre program...

Date: 2006-01-12 06:22 pm (UTC)
semielliptical: woman in casual pose, wearing jeans (Default)
From: [personal profile] semielliptical
Because I can't resist a research question I tried a little searching here, and you're right, it's hard to find anything scholarly. These are probably not the type of articles that you would need, but I found 3 articles in the Journal of Law and Society that discuss 12 Angry Men, among other movies. They're all in a special issue March 2001, Vol 28, No 1 - I think you should be able to see the abstracts even if your library doesn't have access to the articles.

Anyway, the 3 that include 12 Angry Men are: Greenfield, Steve (2001)
Hero or Villain? Cinematic Lawyers and the Delivery of Justice, Rafter, Nicole (2001)
American Criminal Trial Films: An Overview of Their Development, 1930–2000, and Silbey, Jessica (2001) Patterns of Courtroom Justice. If you want any of them, let me know.

Date: 2006-01-12 07:30 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
Whoa, you didn't need to do research! *boggles* But, yeah, all I could find were lawyerly analyses in journals my college library doesn't have, and since I'm looking at this film culturally rather than from a legal perspective and have no background in law, I can't really use them. Thanks, though!

Date: 2006-01-12 07:46 pm (UTC)
semielliptical: woman in casual pose, wearing jeans (Default)
From: [personal profile] semielliptical
See, for me, hearing that something can't be found makes me want to instantly go out and see if I can find it. And it was interesting to learn just how hard it is to find accessible scholarship on the film!

Date: 2006-01-12 07:51 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
You're a weird one, you are. ;)

Date: 2006-01-12 09:51 pm (UTC)
hope: Art of a woman writing from tour poster (geek)
From: [personal profile] hope
I like picking movies i like instead of ones on the course too - what i tend to do with them is read critical theory about the film's genre etc and then write about how the film i've picked does or doesn't measure up, yaknow? i find that the profs quite like showing that kind of initiative - being able to apply the theories to things we haven't actually looked at in class/coming up with my own applications instead of discussing other theorists'.

for example, when i wrote on chicago & sin city there was practically no critical theory written on either of the films - i just read a lot of theory about action women, objectification, female performers & prostitutes in film, & feminist theory. then talked about how these films supported or subordinated these theories, around the question i made up (eg. is chicago better than sin city in unproblematic/accurate representations of women? yes because this scene demonstrates theorist X who says Y, etc etc etc).

anyhoo. good luck!

Date: 2006-01-12 11:37 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] kaydeefalls.livejournal.com
Yeah. My essay is comparing '12 Angry Men' to 'The Crucible' (play, not film), and lord knows there's an excess of critical theory on Arthur Miller. So, like you said, I'm applying the stuff written about 'The Crucible' to the movie. It'll work. The last-minute aspect is stressing me out a bit, is the main problem.

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