Week 9 – March 31 & April 2

Tuesday: Food, Ethnicity, Culture and Film – Part 1
Watch Film: María Ripoll Tortilla Soup (2001) (103 minutes)
Watch Film: Ang Lee Eat Drink Man Woman (1994) (124 minutes)

Thursday: Read: James Keller, “Family Suppers and the Social Syntax of Dissimilation”, in Food, Film and Culture, pp. 163-176
Discussion of the reading and the 2 films

Proposal for Term Paper is due today.

Blog Entry 8: Tortilla Soup is a remake of Eat Drink Man Woman. Compare both films and write about the role of food in both. Blog is due by Sunday, April 5.

Week 8 – March 24 & 26

Tuesday: How to Review a Film
Read: Warren Buckland, “The reception of film: the art and profession of film reviewing”, in Teach Yourself Film Studies, Chapter 6, pp. 179-199
Watch Film: Lasse Hallström Chocolat (2000) (121 minutes)

Thursday: Read: James Keller, “Itzam Revealed: Chocolate and the Mayan Cosmology”, in Food, Film and Culture, pp. 24-36

Blog Entry 7: Discuss the role/effect/function of food in the film. What is Vianne's role as cook/ healer/ shaman in the film. OR: Write about the role of cocoa (chocolate) in Mayan culture. OR The physical and metaphysical meaning of transformation in the village during lent leading up to Easter. Blog is due by Sunday, March 29.

Liam Breslin's Blog 5

Foods are often cohesive to one another, ever binding. Foods go well with other foods and are often blended, mixed, and or kept together. What's more? Food can bind more than just itself and other foods, but it also has a binding and sometimes building affect on people. Like Water for Chocolate clearly establishes its narrative emphasis on food within traditional, personal, and national boundaries.

 This film takes place in early 20th Century Mexico. As the name of the film implies, the traditional recipe for hot chocolate in Mexico includes water when mixing rather than milk, which is used in countries where milk is plentiful. By boiling back and forth the water and chocolate (cocoa) together, the two mix and form a more so overstimulated bond/mix. Linking both personal and national ideas, this can be personified through how Tita feels personally around and in relation to her love interest, Pedro. We can see this side of her and her personal feelings through the meals she cooks in the film.

 When Pedro and Rosarua are married, Tita is to prepare a wedding day meal. Within this meal, Tita essentially adds her tears of sadness over the loss of her beloved Pedro to her sister Rosaura. Upon eating the prepared meal, the wedding guests become overturned with emotion from Titas tears in the cake and begin to mourn their loved ones as well. Across the films plot, Tita is learning and growing. From being with her illegitimate mother who didn't allow her to marry, all the way to taking care of Esperanza and finally being with Pedro once more. Bound by nationality and location, certain food and the concept of cooking depicts how Titas emotions take shape to form her personality, attachments, and lessons she has learned throughout the film.