Single Class: $20 (Bloor Members: $17, $14, Free)
Full course registration is now closed.
There is no pop music without pictures. When Al Jolson broke the sound barrier with The Jazz Singer, he brought audiences down the road to today's infinitely accessible YouTube online jukebox. Now, we don’t just expect our pop music to look as good as it sounds: we demand it. Join Geoff Pevere on a multimedia journey through the history of pop music as a visual medium in the 20th century. In this irresistible crash course, you’ll get the inside scoop on the giants that innovated and created popular music on screen—from Al Jolson and Busby Berkeley to Elvis, American Bandstand, A Hard Day's Night, cinema verité, Madonna, MTV and beyond.
This course is led by film writer Geoff Pevere, who has been writing, teaching and broadcasting about movies, media and popular culture for more than thirty years. A former movie critic with The Toronto Star and regular contributor to The Globe and Mail, he is also the author of two books on Toronto's cinematic legacy, Toronto on Film and Don Shebib's Goin' Down the Road.
Doors will open one hour before the first class. Registrants will receive supplementary materials in advance of their first class.
Thursdays, January 28 - March 10, 10:00 a.m. to noon
January 28: Sound, Song & Dance: The Singing and Swinging of Early Sound
Sound arrives and it sings from the very first instant. With the advent of early sound, it seems like the technology was invented so we could hear music.
February 4: A Crooner's Age: Frank, Bing, Swing and the Kings of All Media
The biggest stars of radio and records storm the movies. If the camera worships the face, the microphone adores the singer.
February 11: Apopcalypse Now: The Teenage Bomb Drops in the '50s
It's a big new beat: angry, sexual and unrelenting. And this new beat is carrying a new creature called the teenager—all the way to pop culture kingdom come.
February 18: Big Beat, No Mercy: The 60s, The Beatles, the Whole World is Watching
The opening chord of A Hard Day's Night clinches the deal: the world belongs to the kids and the motion picture media belongs to their music.
March 3: Don’t Look Back: The Music Documentary Revolution
Armed with new lightweight stealth technology, filmmakers stalk the new music gods and bring them back to earth. Reality is the subject, truth the goal. The result is a new, fleeting art form.
March 10: I'll Be Watching You: MTV, Music Video and the Ubiquitous Culture of Picture Pop
Music video slaps the pop wallpaper on for good: we can watch and listen to music anywhere at any time and carry infinitely replenished audio and video jukeboxes in our pockets.
IMAGE CREDITS
Left: Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and John Lennon star
in Richard Lester's A HARD DAY'S NIGHT, a Janus Films release. (C) Bruce and
Martha Karsh
Centre: Rolling Stones concert in Torino, 1982, Mick Jagger
Right: Elvis Presley promotional image for Jailhouse Rock