COMM 5026 - Penn State Schuylkill Film Series

Course Description

Participants will watch and discuss films exploring the portrayal of comedy in cinema.  
 
Each class session will include a pre-screening lecture followed by a showing of the film. Afterward, audience members will engage in conversation about the content events featured, the ways directors presented the subjects, and cinematic techniques used that may answer some questions while raising others. 
 
Each class begins at 6:00 p.m. in Morgan Auditorium at Penn State Schuylkill’s Student Community Center. 
 
Cost: $30 for community members  
 
Media, Manipulation, and the Demise of Public Discourse 
Act III: Comedy in Film 
 
September 21 
Life Is Beautiful (La vita è bella) (1997) 
Rated: PG-13 
Runtime: 1h 56m 
Roberto Benigni's Academy Award-winning film blends comedy and drama as an Italian Jewish father uses humor and imagination to shield his young son from the horrors of a Nazi concentration camp, convincing him that their imprisonment is part of an elaborate game. 
 
October 19 
The Farewell (2019) 
Rated: PG 
Runtime: 1h 39m 
After her beloved grandmother is diagnosed with terminal cancer, a Chinese American woman returns to China for a family gathering secretly designed to say goodbye to the family matriarch. When it becomes apparent that her grandmother is the only one unaware of the diagnosis, she struggles to keep the secret while navigating the tension between cultural traditions and personal beliefs. 
 
November 9 
American Fiction (2023) 
Rated: R 
Runtime: 1h 56m 
Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a novelist and English professor, finds that his work is dismissed because it is not considered "Black enough." To satirize the publishing industry's stereotypes and hypocrisies, he writes a novel under a pseudonym. Its unexpected success forces him to embrace a false identity while confronting difficult questions about authenticity, race, and artistic integrity.