Pod Cine Cool

Week 4: Cool Imitation

Anna and Suzanne dissect our desire to imitate our cool heroes, as portrayed by Woody Allen in Play It Again, Sam. Can we adopt a cool style like a fashionable set of clothes? And for what purposes do we emulate the icons of cool in our midst and in our media?

Week 3: Cool Sacrifice

Luke and Amy discuss what makes Rick Blaine (as played by Humphrey Bogart) such a cool icon. “Everybody comes to Rick’s,” as Claude Rains says cheerily in Casablanca. Why? And does anything about Bogart’s cool presence change over the course of the film?

Week 2: Cool Criminality

This week Emileigh and Jerry tackle James Cagney in The Public Enemy. Why are the bad guys so cool, and how do movies treat the relationship between crime and charisma?

Week 1: What Is Cool?

After hearing F. John Rickert discuss the nature of cool, Brittney Warren and Logan Danielson discuss examples and counterexamples to his thesis. Do transcendence and dissidence define the two ends of the continuum? Where do geeks fit? And are there categories this scheme doesn't explain?

The Art of the Cool - Prologue

F. John Rickert and Whit Barringer discuss cool in popular culture and their hopes for the class.