0--Greetings from Jim

Hi, I’m Jim—one of your classmates. I was born and raised in San Jose, California, but I’ve lived in Minnesota long enough to understand the concept of “hot dish.” I retired in 2005 from a 40-year career as a food development scientist for Procter & Gamble, Pillsbury, and, most recently, General Mills. Since retirement, I’ve been enrolled in the U’s Senior Citizens Education Program, which allows me to audit regular academic courses. Since my formal academic training was largely in technology (chemical engineering and microbiology), I have pursued courses in the liberal arts to broaden my knowledge.

I enrolled in Cinema and Ideology for the opportunity to experience and discuss film genre outside of my usual scope of interest. I expect this course will help me understand how film direction, writing, and techniques implicitly or explicitly express ideology.

Stating my favorite film is as difficult as naming my favorite food (although chunky peanut butter immediately comes to mind). My default position gravitates to classic comedies such as those of Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, W. C. Fields, and Jacques Tati. But, if I had to pick an all-time favorite, I would chose Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. I am wild about the images (Mount Rushmore, the desolate cornfield, the passenger train winding through the vast northern country), the perfect casting (Cary Grant as the innocent executive caught in a CIA-spy caper and James Mason as the icy, calculating villain), and, of course, the majestic music of Bernard Herrmann.