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5. Film and New York City, Writing About Movies, Primary and Secondary Sources

Prompt

Using one of the following films we have studied in class:

1. On the Town (1949)
2. Taxi Driver (1976)
3. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
4. The Warriors (1979)

Locate, report, and summarize four research sources about the film you selected:

• two primary sources
  1. Use the New York Times film review database. Register for a free NYT digital account using your LaGuardia email address
  2. Find a primary source from the “References” section in the Wikipedia article on the movie
• two secondary sources
  • use OneSearch to find articles or books about your movie
  • enter the film title in quotes, followed by either the director’s surname or the year of the film’s release
    • “Warriors” 1979
    • “On the Town” 1949
    • “Taxi Driver” scorsese
    • “Taking of Pelham” 1974
    • “West Side Story” 1961

Here is the example I did using the film West Side Story (1961):

• Primary Source
  1. Bosley Crowther, “Film at the Rivoli is Called Masterpiece,” New York Times, October 19, 1961, https://www.nytimes.com/1961/10/19/archives/film-at-the-rivoli-is-called-masterpiece.html
  2. Roger Ebert, “West Side Story Movie Review & Film Summary (1961),” https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/great-movie-west-side-story-1961
• Secondary Sources
  1. Megan Woller, “‘This Is Our Turf!’: Puerto Rican Youths in the 1961 Film Adaptation of West Side Story,” Studies in Musical Theatre 8, no. 1 (2014): 27–41.
  2. Lauren Devine, “‘Could We Not Dye It Red at Least?’: Color and Race in West Side Story,” The Journal of Popular Film and Television 44, no. 3 (2016): 139–149.

Report Your Sources

Submit the sources you found using the Cite feature—formatted in MLA or Chicago—followed by the Permalink or URL for the source. See the examples above for guidance on how to enter your sources.

Submit the sources on Microsoft Teams

Links and Resources from Presentation

• Mordaunt Hall, “Review: Life’s Struggles,” New York Times
• New York Times Film Review database
• Variety film review of The Crowd
• Miriam Hansen, “Ambivalences of the ‘Mass Ornament’: King Vidor’s The Crowd.” Qui Parle 5, no. 2 (1992): 102–19.
• Jordan R. Young, King Vidor’s The Crowd: The Making of a Silent Classic available at Amazon
• Durgnat, Raymond. “The Crowd (1928).” Film Comment 9, no. 4 (1973): 15–17. https://rpa.laguardia.edu/login?url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/43450625
• bibliographic management software
  • Zotero
  • RefWorks
• help with bibliographic software
  • Zotero, from LaGuardia Library
  • RefWorks