Useful film websites

British Film Institute. http://www.bfi.org.uk A goldmine of information about films.

The Greatest Films. http://www.filmsite.org/ A website which provides an enormous amount of film resources, including discussions of film history, film genre and detailed descriptions of film content. The scenarios of many of the films analyzed this year can be consulted on this site.

Internet Movie Data Base, The (IMDb). http://us.imdb.com Surrounded by entirely too much advertising (but then, how is a poor website to live?), is a very complete database of films. Unlike The Greatest Films, the abstracts and critiques are penned by the general public and are nowhere near as complete and detailed as those on the other website. On the other hand, the database is very complete. Useful site for general information about a film but not very helpful for an in-depth analysis.

Irish Films. http://www.irishfilm.net/index.html A website dedicated entirely to Irish films and which may be searched by Title, Year, Director or Category (IRA, for example).

Senses of Cinema. http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/ This online film journal, produced with the help of the Australian Film Commission, offers serious analyses of films. To go to the articles you are interested in use this address to call up the current issue and then click on SEARCH or ARCHIVE.

Learning to analyze films

Université de Grenoble website-Films. http://languagelearningresourcecenter.org/anglais/read_films/index.htm This is an extremely practical and down-to-earth website giving instruction in analyzing narratives, themes, content, etc. Read the documents on Apocalypse Now, Blade Runner and Matrix (particularly the analysis of the themes) and attempt to apply the same techniques to the films you will be studying this year. The analyses of Mulholland Drive and Million Dollar Baby are student papers (which explains the language errors), but they are quite useful in seeing how the principles of analysis can be applied.

N.B.: an excellent manual for learning the techniques of film analysis is Understanding Movies by Louis Gianetti (Upper Saddle River (New Jersey): Prentice Hall). Updated regularly, it is used as a textbook in many courses on introduction to film studies. Although expensive, it is worth the investment and, as it is updated regularly, there are numerous second-hand copies available at lower prices.

Where to locate film scripts on the web

American Film Scripts Online (Alexander Street Press and the University of Chicago): this database is not free but it is endowed with multiple facets and a powerful search tool. It is worth subscribing to if you plan to do a great deal of research on American film.

Classic Movie Scripts: this website is devoted to films made before 1970.

Internet Script Database

Movie Page

Movie Script Gallery of the British Film Institute

Script-o-rama

Where to purchase the films
Websites
http://www.amazon.com: this is the US site of Amazon and mailing costs by airmail will be rather expensive. Depending on how many cassettes you purchase, you may have to pay customs duties. Only resort to this source if your VCR can read NTSC cassettes.
http://www.amazon.co.uk: here too you will have to pay postage, but it will be considerably less than from the US and, in addition, you are not subject to customs taxes. Cassettes will be PAL which should pose no problem for students living in Alsace-Lorraine but may pose a problem elsewhere in France, depending on the type of television set and VCR they use.
http://www.blackstar.co.uk: same remarks as for amazon.uk

Bookstores
Bookshop (English books and tapes)
23, rue du Clou dans le Fer
51100 Reims
Tel.: 03.26.84.99.81
Fax: 03.26.47.57.35
This bookshop specializes in English videos, including American films issued in PAL format. It does not carry American-published books but it does carry American publications distributed in Great Britain.