Gangster Films

Name: Andrew Langer (read my profile)

Year: Class of 2009

Previous Guest Blog entries:

December 5, 2006: My Path to IR, click here.

March 27, 2006: Baltimore's Music Scene, click here.

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Ask any Hopkins student about it, and they’ll tell you that registering for classes each semester is a struggle. You’d probably think that online registration would make thinks easier, right? Think again. When everyone in your year gets up at the exact same time on the exact same day to register online, the internet doesn’t necessarily run so smoothly. Students scramble to click into the perfect class and section, because no one wants to wake up for a 9am class.

When I saw that the Film and Media Studies Department was offering a class called “Gangster Films” this spring semester, and that it had a 15-person limit, I knew that I had to get into the class. I woke up on that fateful day in November at 7am and executed the perfect amount of clicks in order to beat the online traffic for spring registration. Never have I been so excited to get into a class.

As an International Relations major, it’s somewhat difficult to take classes that aren’t related to economics, political science, history, or language because there are a fair amount of requirements. However, I’ve managed to dabble in classes in the Film and Media Studies Department, as is the case this semester. Gangster Films is probably the most fun class I’ve ever taken and will ever take in college. As an avid lover of films like The Godfather and Goodfellas, I knew that Gangster Films would be a perfect fit for me.

The class meets every Wednesday afternoon for two and a half hours, and we are required to watch two films per week. The course syllabus takes us from films in the 1930s (Little Caesar and The Public Enemy, to name a few) all the way to more recent films like Goodfellas and Bugsy. When I originally saw the course listing, I was drawn to it because I assumed that it was strictly about mafia films. I have a strange fascination with the Italian mafia. I was totally wrong. Gangster Films has opened my eyes to an entire genre of films that I had no previous knowledge of. I’ve been exposed to films with actors like James Cagney and Humphrey Bogart (though I have seen and enjoyed The Maltese Falcon) that I might not have seen were I not in this class.

The best part about Gangster Films is the change of pace it brings to my weekly schedule. Instead of spending my Wednesday afternoons learning about supply and demand curves, I get to discuss Gangster movies in class with about 12 people. While it is certainly a fun and relaxed class, it is also intellectually stimulating. Obviously, there are more to these movies than meets the eye, which is why we analyze every aspect of pivotal scenes, and ultimately how these movies are reflections of American society at the time of their production.

My favorite films out of the ones we have watched so far are High Sierra (with Humphrey Bogart), White Heat, G-Men (both with James Cagney), Point Blank (with Lee Marvin and John Vernon, the latter of whom you might recognize from Animal House), and the original Scarface (made in 1932, featuring Paul Muni). Recently, we watched The Big Heat and Bonnie and Clyde.

The point of all this is that even if your major is incredibly stressful, you can find the time to take fun classes. Gangster Films is the epitome of a “fun” class. I would recommend it to anyone with room for an extra class in their schedules or anyone looking for the ultimate, a-typical Hopkins class.