Course Description

Old men rarely have a protagonist role in movies. And when they do, their narrative seems to be the same

over and over. Old men stand at the center of the picture, alone, without a female companion who is either

deceased or was never there in the first place. From professionally active and even successful career men,

they have turned into gruff, grumpy old men, with misanthropic attitudes and a strong dislike for their

progeny. These movies tell stories of vulnerability, of distress, of fear of death. Sometimes, the only possible

solution these men can envisage is a preemptive suicide, to avoid the inevitable, while at other times, these

stories offer a renewed sense of hope in the future through intergenerational mentoring with unlikely

younger pupils. In this class we will observe how the picture of “the white old man” has been constructed

and entertained in cinematic reality since the 1950s. We will strive to deconstruct it to understand what

kind of male and societal anxieties are feeding it.