This ambitious movie presentation reflects the multi-faceted narrative of a diverse nation in all its thrilling, tumultuous and triumphant complexity. By utilizing ten major themes in the categories listed below, talented filmmakers from different eras and unique artistic sensibilities form a genuine composite sketch of American Life — framing in sharp relief where we’ve been, where we are now and where we, as a people and a country, might be heading in the future. The musical soundtracks from each film will be showcased since film composers so often play a pivotal, and unheralded, role in making a powerful cinematic experience so memorable.

1. The American Dream – films:
The Godfather Part 2, West Side Story,The New Centurions

2. Social Justice – films:
Crossfire, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Patch of Blue,  Do The Right Thing
3. On the Road — films:
Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise, Rain Man

4. Coming of Age – films:
The Graduate, Lady Bird
5. War – films:
Saving Private Ryan
6. Home From War - films:
The Best Years Of Our Lives, The Hurt Locker

7. The Workplace - films:Stripes, Norma Rae, Working Girl
8. The Outlaw — films: 
The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Godfather: Part 1 & Part 2
9. Redemption - film:
The Last Picture Show
10. The Underdog – films:
Hoosiers,  Rocky

This ambitious movie presentation reflects the multi-faceted narrative of a diverse nation in all its thrilling, tumultuous and triumphant complexity. By utilizing ten major themes in the categories listed below, talented filmmakers from different eras and unique artistic sensibilities form a genuine composite sketch of American Life — framing in sharp relief where we’ve been, where we are now and where we, as a people and a country, might be heading in the future. The musical soundtracks from each film will be showcased since film composers so often play a pivotal, and unheralded, role in making a powerful cinematic experience so memorable.
1. The American Dream – films:
The Godfather Part 2, West Side Story,The New Centurions
2. Social Justice – films:
Crossfire, To Kill A Mockingbird, A Patch of Blue,  Do The Right Thing
3. On the Road — films:
Easy Rider, Thelma & Louise, Rain Man
4. Coming of Age – films:
The Graduate, Lady Bird
5. War – films:
Saving Private Ryan
6. Home From War - films:
The Best Years Of Our Lives, The Hurt Locker
7. The Workplace - films:Stripes, Norma Rae, Working Girl
8. The Outlaw — films: 
The Outlaw Josey Wales, The Godfather: Part 1 & Part 2
9. Redemption - film:
The Last Picture Show
10. The Underdog – films:
Hoosiers,  Rocky

The American dream and beyond...

Our Nation's Narrative in Film

Marc Lapadula, playwright and screenwriter, is an award-winning film producer and university lecturer. As Senior Lecturer at Yale University in The Film Studies Program, he has taught screenwriting seminars since 1992.

His stage plays, including StripHer, Not by Name, Two Shakes, Men Like Us, Last Order, The Rains Change, Serial Killer, and In Uniform Thanksgiving, have been produced in New York (off-Broadway), England, Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Iowa.

Marc also has had several screenplays commissioned or optioned, including Distant Influence, Night Bloom, At Risk and screen adaptations of Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog and Migueal de Unamuno’s Saint Emmanuel the Good, Martyr.

He produced Angel Passing, starring Hume Cronyn and Teresa Wright, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won, among other awards, the grand prize at WorldFest Houston. He also co-produced the film Mentor, starring Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner) that premiered at The Tribeca Film Festival.

Former students have written highly successful and/or critically-acclaimed scripts for films such as (500) Days of Summer, The Disaster Artist, Ocean's 8,The Hangover, 30 Minutes Or Less, Olympus Has Fallen, Our Souls At Night, The Break Up, The Spectacular Now, Anamorph, Expendables 3, The Wedding Ringer, The Fault in Our Stars, The Sisterhood of Night, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon and Bride Wars. Marc’s students have also scripted award-winning teleplays for television: Family Guy, Law and Order- SVU, Scrubs, The Simpsons, Channel Zero, The Agency, Hannibal, Believe, The Last Resort, Benched, Perfect Harmony and other noteworthy shows.

In addition to Yale University, Marc taught screenwriting, playwriting and film analysis courses at Johns Hopkins and The University of Pennsylvania (where he created and ran both Universities’ screenwriting programs) as well as Columbia University's Graduate Film School. He has led several Screenwriting Series at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC and also been a consultant for film producers and studios, including New Line Films Studio. He has been an expert script analyst in major Hollywood lawsuits.

Marc graduated cum laude with a BA in English from The University of Pennsylvania, studied Irish and English Drama at Oxford University, received his M.A. from Malcolm Bradbury’s Creative Writing Workshop at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, England, and earned an MFA in playwriting from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Our Nation's Narrative in Film

The American dream and beyond...

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