I am very glad I chose to join this studio as I feel it is a great extension from the cinema studies class I took last semester. In the past two weeks I have become more familiar with film’s past, the way film adjusted and progressed because of people like Alice Guy-blache and the Colin brothers. Prior to entering this class, I had never delved into the history of film and the constant question surrounding why a film is so great and what tropes are used to make it that way– and what is greatness and how do we recognize it to be that way and most importantly how do we decide a film is canonical. In the first week I noticed how much I liked the structure of the class, how we’d watch a film on a Thursday and then discuss it in depth the following day. Since starting this class Ive began noticing more about a film’s contextual elements and history, for example what period it was set in and how its themes attributed to discussion and analysis on how the film was produced, directed and relayed in the time it was set.  I thoroughly enjoyed re-watching Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘Vertigo’ being older and more aware of film elements. I began questioning Hitchcock’s purpose as a director– and what he was trying to convey by employing scotty whose fear made him buy into a deceptive distortion of reality which lead to great calamity. What the past two weeks have illuminated in me about the film canon is that 1, a film is never the same the second time. 2, whether it’s the films that came before which matter more as an exemplary moment for future film, or the films that came after and emulated what came first. My most enjoyed film of the three was the ‘the untold story of Alice guy-blache‘ I felt slightly ignorant that I along with many others hadn’t heard of Alice as a woman and as a director. For someone who had brought some of the most integral aspects of film to the surface and had been kept in obscurity most of her life astonished me. The industry at the time was dominated by men, and all her discoveries were swept under the rug. The documentary allowed me to understand more about the underrepresentation of women directors. I enjoyed reading ‘The forgotten mother of cinema’ by Tony Fernandez as it illustrated more about Alice’s life that I may have looked over in the documentary. I also thought it was great to learn about Alice through the director of the documentary. It illuminated to me that Alice has never gained the recognition she deserved when reading Tony’s article; being an undergrad student at NYU he had never heard her name. It saddened me when Tony’s article developed into an interview with Pamela Green about the hardship Alice faced to gain validation, and to gain it still.  I liked that it followed the form of an interview and the interviewee had a breadth of knowledge on Alice’s lack of exposure. I had heard of L’Avvnetura but never got around to watching, I enjoyed the suspense of the film and mostly the use of cinematic devices to make it visually encapsulating. Cinematographer Aldo Scarvarda’s enhancement of adventure was done well using powerful tracking shots and movement of camera.  It was interesting to draw the parallel between Hitchcock and Michelangelo Antonioni‘s film with regard to the purpose of women in their films, the role they played in alignment with the period and the sexism that prevailed in cinema. After viewing ‘La’Avventura’ I found the reading to be very helpful in the way it made justifications about why the film is considered ‘great’ and how it preserved its views and carried out to be a respected  film despite its earlier reception. It changed the fundamental rules of film due to its modernity for its time.