Unit 1: Women’s Films and The Woman’s Film
1. TUE, JAN. 19: INTRODUCTIONS, CLASS POLICIES, CLASS EXPECTATIONS
Screenings
The Cabbage Fairy (Dir: Alice Guy-Blaché, France. 1896. 1 min.)
A Fool and his Money (Dir: Alice Guy-Blaché, France. 1912. 11 min.)
Video Essays
Alice Guy-Blaché: The First Filmmaker Nobody's Heard Of (Fandor, 2017. 4 min.)
Frame by Frame: Alice Guy-Blaché (Wheeler Winston Dixon, 2010. 3 min)
For next class read:
Mick LaSalle, “Introduction”. Complicated Women. Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2002. 1-9.
2. THU, JAN. 21: HISTORY OF THE FEMALE FILMMAKER
Screenings
Suspense (Dir: Lois Weber, USA. 1913, 10 min)
Shoes (Dir: Lois Weber, USA. 1916, 50 min)
Clips
Hypocrites (Dir: Lois Weber, USA. 1915)
The Smiling Madame Beudet (Dir: Germaine Dulac, France. 1923)
Female (Dir: Michael Curtiz, USA. 1933)
Baby Face (Dir: Alfred Green, USA. 1933)
Christopher Strong (Dir: Dorothy Arzner, USA. 1940)
Stella Dallas (Dir: King Vidor, USA. 1937)
Dance, Girl, Dance (Dir: Dorothy Arzner, USA. 1940)
Video Essays
The Herstory of the Female Filmmaker (Kelly Gallagher, USA. 2011. 15 min.)
3. TUE, JAN. 26:
Screening: All That Heaven Allows (Dir: Douglas Sirk, USA. 1955. 89 min)
For next class read:
Molly Haskell, "The Woman's Film," Feminist Film Theory. A Reader. New York: NYU, 1999, pp. 14-20.
Annette Kuhn, “Women’s Genres: Melodrama, Soap Opera and Theory”. Screen 25:1, 1984, pp. 18-28.
Optional Readings:
Judith Mayne, "Female Authorship Reconsidered,” The Woman at the Keyhole: Feminism and Women’s Cinema (Indiana University Press, 1990), 89-123.
Jeanine Basinger, “The Genre” in A Woman’s View. How Hollywood Spoke to Women, 1930-1960. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993, pp. 3-23.
4. THU, JAN. 28: CLASSICAL HOLLYWOOD AND THE WOMAN'S FILM
Clips
It Happened One Night (Dir: Frank Capra, USA. 1934)
Imitation of Life (Dir: John. M. Stahl, USA,.1934)
Jezebel (Dir: William Wyler, USA, 1938)
Gone with the Wind (Dir: Victor Fleming, USA, 1939)
The Lady Eve (Dir: Preston Sturges, USA, 1941)
Mildred Pierce (Dir: Michael Curtiz, USA, 1945)
Adam's Rib (Dir: George Cukor, USA, 1949)
All About Eve (Dir: Joseph L. Mankiewicz, USA, 1950)
Video Essays
White Melodrama: An Appreciation of Douglas Sirk (RubyTuesday717, 2011, 3 min.)
Unit 2: The Gaze
5. TUE, FEB. 2:
Screening: Rear Window (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, USA, 1954. 115 min.)
For next class read:
Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Eds. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen. New York: Oxford UP, 1999: 833-44.
Tania Modleski, “Feminity by Design”. The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory. New York: Methuen, 1988. 87-100.
Daisy Sheridan, “Judy, Please! It can’t matter to you!” Spectator desire beyond The Male Gaze and Vertigo, 2016.
Optional Readings/Viewing:
E. Ann Kaplan, “Hollywood, Science, and Cinema: The Imperial and the Male Gaze in Classic Film” (56- 98)
Mandy Merck, "Mulvey’s Manifesto". Camera Obscura 66, V.22, n. 3 (2007): 1-23.
6. THU, FEB. 4: THE (WHITE) MALE GAZE
Video Essays.
A Male Eye. John Berger (Marina Trigueros, Spain, 3 min)
Rear Window – Turning Viewer into Voyeur (Matt Draper, USA, 8 min)
Framing Megan Fox (Lindsay Ellis, USA, 14 min)
7. TUE, FEB. 9:
Screening: She’s Gotta Have It (Dir: Spike Lee. USA, 1986, 84 min)
For next class read:
bell hooks “‘Whose Pussy is This’: A Feminist Comment” (1989)
Felly Nkweto Simmonds, “‘She’s Gotta Have It’: The Representation of Black Female Sexuality on Film”; Feminist Review, No. 29 (Summer, 1988), pp. 10-22.
Salamishah Tillet “A New ‘She’s Gotta Have it’: Spike Lee’s Feminist Breakthrough,” NYTimes, 2017.
8. THU, FEB. 11: THE (BLACK) MALE GAZE
Clips
She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix, 2017)
9. TUE, FEB. 16:
Screening: Daughters of the Dust (Dir: Julie Dash. USA, 1991, 113 min)
For next class read:
bell hooks, “‘The Oppositional Gaze’: Black Female Spectators,” in Black Looks: Race and Representation. (Boston: South End Press, 1992), 115-31.
Laura Gaither, “Closeβup and slow motion in Julie Dash's Daughters of the Dust,” Howard Journal of Communications, Volume:7, Issue:2
Stephanie Phillips, Beyoncé vs Daughters of the Dust: How an American indie classic inspired Lemonade (bfi.org.uk, 2017)
Optional Readings:
Angeletta K. M. Gourdine, Fashioning the Body [as] Politic in Julie Dash's "Daughters of the Dust," African American Review, Vol. 38, No. 3 (Autumn, 2004), pp. 499-511
Gertrud Koch, “Why Women Go to the Movies”. Jump Cut 27 (July 1982): 51-53.
10. THU, FEB. 18: FEMALE SPECTATORSHIP AND AUTHORSHIP
Clips
Richard Brody on Julie Dash’s “Daughters of the Dust” (newyorker.com, 2015)
Lemonade (Beyoncé, 2016)
11. TUE, FEB. 23:
Screening: The Piano (Dir: Jane Campion. New Zealand, 1993. 117 min)
For next class read:
Ann E. Kaplan, “Is the Gaze Male?” Women & Film. Both Sides of the Camera. London and New York: Routledge, 1983. 23-35.
Pahull Bains, What Is the Female Gaze, and Can It Reshape Pop Culture? (fashionmagazine.com, 2019)
Optional Readings:
Amanda Hughes, Broad Cinema: THE BAD BATCH and The Rise of The Female Gaze (birthmoviesdeath.com, 2017)
Janice Loreck, “Explainer: what does the 'male gaze' mean, and what about a female gaze?” (The Conversation, 2016)
Christine Gledhill, “Pleasurable Negotiations”. Female Spectators: Looking at Film and Television. Ed. Pribram, E. Deirdre. London and New York: Verso, 1988. 64-77.
12. THU, FEB. 25: FEMALE GAZE
Clips
Removed (Dir: Naomi Uman, USA, 2001)
Cameraperson (Dir: Kirsten Johnson, 2016)
Jill Soloway, The Female Gaze lecture (TIFF, 2017)
Video Essays
The Piano (Eye Filmmuseum, 2020, 7 min)
Fe/Male Gaze (Amanda Tingley, 2018, 5 min)
Unit 3: The New Wave
13. TUE, MAR. 2:
Screening: Le Bonheur (Dir: Agnès Varda. France, 1965, 90 min)
For next class read:
Michelle Citron, et al.,” Women and Film: A Discussion of Feminist Aesthetics," Feminism and Film Theory. Ed. Constance Penley. New York: Routledge, 1988. pp. 89-103.
Sue Thornham, “Forerunners and beginnings”. Passionate Detachments. An Introduction to Feminist Film Theory. London: Arnold, 1997. 1-21.
Lauren Rabinovitz, “Maya Deren and an American Avant-garde Cinema”. Points of Resistance: Women, Power & Politics in the New York Avant-garde cinema, 1943-1971. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 2003. 49-65.
Optional Readings/Viewing:
Sharon Smith, “The Image of Women in Film: Some Suggestions for Future Research”. Feminist Film Theory. A Reader. Ed. Sue Thornham. New York: NYU, 1999. 14-19.
Contemporary Reel Women (Reel Herstory Series) (2014) (Kanopy)
14. THU, MAR. 4: THE NEW WAVE WOMAN
Clips
The Seashell and the Clergyman (Dir: Germaine Dulac, France. 1927)
Meshes of The Afternoon (Dir: Maya Deren, USSR/USA. 1943)
At Land (Dir: Maya Deren, USSR/USA. 1946)
Cléo from 5 to 7 (Dir: Agnes Varda, France. 1961)
Vagabond (Dir: Agnes Varda, France. 1985)
Footnotes to a House of Love (Dir: Laida Lerxtundi, Basque/USA. 2017)
Video Essays
Mathematical Beauty: Visual Music by Mary Ellen Bute (Laura Ivins, 2017, 3 min)
Agnès Varda and the Makings of a Film Movement (Fandor, 2018, 4 min)
15. TUE, MAR. 16:
Screening: I Am Not A Witch (Dir. Rungano Nyoni, Zambia, 2017. 93 min)
For next class read:
Claire Johnston, “WomenΚΌs Cinema as Counter Cinema”. Notes on Women's Cinema, London: Society for Education in Film and Television. 1975. Rpt in Sue Thornham (ed.), Feminist Film Theory. A Reader, Edinburgh U. P.1999, 31-40.
Alison Butler, “From Counter-Cinema to Minor Cinema” in The Contested Screen. London: Wallflower, 2002, 1-23.
Ann-Sargent Wooster, “The Way We Were”, from The First Generation, Women and Video 1970-75, Independent Curators Incorporated
Optional Readings:
Janet McCabe, “Structuring a Language of Theory”. Feminist Film Studies. Writing the Woman into Cinema. London: Wallflower, 2004, 14-36.
Christine Gledhill, “Developments in Feminist Film Criticism”. Re-vision. Essays in Feminist Film Criticism. Eds. Mary Ann Doane, Patricia Mellencamp and Linda Williams. Los Angeles: AFI, 1984, 18-45.
Jane Gaines, “Women and Representation”, in Patricia Erens, ed. Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. Bloomington: Indiana UP, 1990, 75-92.
16. THU, MAR. 18: COUNTERCINEMA
Clips
Fuses (Dir: Carolee Schneeman, USA, 1969, 22 min)
Wanda (Dir: Barbara Loden, USA, 1970)
Near the Big Chakra (Dir: Anne Severson, USA, 1972, 17 min)
Fake Fruit Factory (Dir: Chick Strand, USA/Mexico,1986, 22 min)
Semiotics of the Kitchen (Dir: Martha Rosler, USA, 1975, 6 min)
Technology/Transformation: Wonder Woman (Dir: Dara Birnbaum, USA 1978, 6 min)
Vertical Roll (Dir: Joan Jonas, USA, 1972, 22 min)
Gently Down the Stream (Dir: Su Friedrich, USA, 1981, 14 min)
Home Avenue (Dir: Jennifer Montgomery, USA, 1989, 17 min)
She Puppet (Dir: Peggy Ahwesh, USA, 2001, 15 min)
After Hours (Dir: Jane Campion, Australia, 1984, 24 min)
Listen (Dirs: Hamy Ramezan and Rungano Nyoni, 2014, 12 min)
Born in Flames. (Dir: Lizzie Borden. USA. 1983)
Unit 4: The Body
17. TUE, MAR. 23:
Screening: Revenge (Dir: Coralie Fargeat, France, 2017, 108 min)
For next class read:
Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, “The Rape-Revenge Film Canon” in Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study, Jefferson NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers, 2011.
Anne Billson, “How the 'rape-revenge movie' became a feminist weapon for the #MeToo generation” (The Guardian, 2018)
Anne Billson, “Does the 'female gaze' make sexual violence on film any less repugnant?” (The Guardian, 2019)
Optional Readings:
Amanda Hess, How Movies and TV Address Rape and Revenge (The New York Times, 2017)
Cara Buckley, When Rape Onscreen Is Directed by a Woman (The New York Times, 2019)
April Wolfe, Rape Choreography Makes Films Safer, But Still Takes a Toll on Cast and Crew (LA Weekly, 2017)
18. THU, MAR. 25: REVENGE/EXPLOITATION
Clips
Special topic: Rape Revenge films (What Doesn’t Kill Us podcast, 2017)
19. TUE, MAR. 30:
Screening: Black Christmas (Dir: Sophia Takal, USA. 2019. 93 min)
For next class read:
Barbara Creed, “Horror and the Monstrous-Feminine: An Imaginary Abjection”. Screen 27.1 (1986): 44-71
Carol J. Clover, “Her Body, Himself: Gender in the Slasher Film”. Representations 20. Special Issue: Misogyny, Misandry, and Misanthropy. (Autumn 1987). 187-228.
Alison Gillmor, ‘Feminist Horror: Plotting Against Patriarchy’ in Herizons 29.1 (Summer 2015): 20-23, 3.
Optional Readings:
Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre and Excess”. In Sue Thornham (ed). Feminist Film Theory: A Reader. New York: New York UP, 1999. 267-281.
Donato Totaro, The Final Girl: A Few Thoughts on Feminism and Horror – Offscreen, Volume 6, Issue 1 – January 2002
20. THU, APR. 1: THE MONSTROUS-FEMININE
Clips
Rosemary’s Baby (Dir: Roman Polanski, USA. 1968)
Carrie (Dir: Brian De Palma. USA. 1976)
Suspiria (Dir: Dario Argento, Italy, 1977)
The Shining (Dir: Stanley Kubrick, USA, 1980)
Body Double (Dir: Brian De Palma. USA. 1984)
Scream (Dir: Wes Craven, USA, 1996)
A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Dir: Ana Lily Amirpour, Iran, 2014)
The Babadook (Dir: Jennifer Kent, Australia, 2014)
Hereditary (Dir: Ari Aster, USA, 2018)
Suspiria (Dir: Luca Guadagnino, USA/Italy, 2018)
Video Essay:
Siding with the Victim, Part 2: Horror Films and the War on Women (Dirs: Jed Mayer and Ken Cancelosi, 2013, 8 min)
21. TUE, APR. 6:
Screening: Double Indemnity (Dir: Billy Wilder, USA. 1944. 110 min)
For next class read:
Kate Stables, “The Postmodern Always Rings Twice: Constructing the Femme Fatale in 90s Cinema”. Women in Film Noir. Ed. E. Ann Kaplan. London. BFI. 2007 (1978).
Jack Boozer, The Lethal Femme Fatale in the Noir Tradition. Journal of Film and Video. Vol. 51, No. 3/4, dedicated to Nina Leibman (Fall/Winter 1999/2000), pp. 20-35.
Miranda Sherwin, “Deconstructing the Male: Masochism, Female Spectatorship, and the Femme Fatale” in Fatal Attraction, Body of Evidence, and Basic Instinct. Journal of Popular Film and Television, Volume 35, 2008 - Issue 4
Optional Readings:
Julie Grossman, “Looking Forward: Deconstructing the ‘Femme Fatale’” in Rethinking the Femme Fatale in Film Noir: Ready for Her Close-Up (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).
Deborah Jermyn, “Rereading the Bitches from Hell: A Feminist Appropriation of the Female Psychopath.” Screen 37: 3 (Autumn 1996): 251- 267.
Helen Hanson, “The Big Seduction: Feminist Film Criticism and the Femme Fatale” in The Femme Fatale: Images, Histories, Contexts. Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Elizabeth Cowie, “Film Noir and Women” in Joan Copjec (ed). Shades of Noir. New York: Verso, 1993.121-166.
22. THU, APR. 8: THE FEMME FATALE
Clips
The Maltese Falcon (Dir: John Huston, 1941)
Double Indemnity (Dir: Billy Wilder, 1944)
The Killing (Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1956)
Chinatown (Dir: Roman Polanski, 1974)
Body Heat (Dir: Lawrence Kasdan, 1981)
Fatal Attraction (Dir: Adrian Lyne, 1987)
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Dir: Robert Zemeckis, 1988)
Basic Instinct (Dir: Paul Verhoeven, 1992)
The Last Seduction (Dir: John Dahl, 1994)
To Die For (Dir: Gus Van Sant, 1995)
L.A Confidential (Dir: Curtis Hanson, 1997)
Gone Girl (Dir: David Fincher, 2014)
Video Essays
The Femme Fatale Trope, Explained (The Take, 2020, 24 min)
Of Course I'm Lying: A Tribute to Femme Fatales (ZZ, 2013, 6 min)
Unit 5: Gender and Sexuality
23. TUE, APR. 13:
Screening: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Dir: Céline Sciamma. France, 2019. 119 min)
For next class read:
Harry M, Benshoff, “From Pansies to Predators: Queer Characters in Early American Cinema” in Queer images: a history of gay and lesbian film in America, Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Pub., 2006.
Edith Becker, et al. Lesbians and Film. Jump Cut, no. 24-25, March 1981, pp. 17-21
Optional Readings:
Chris Straayer. “The Hypothetical Lesbian Heroine in Narrative Feature Film”. Multiple Voices in Feminist Film Criticism. Eds. Diane Carson, Linda Dittmar and Janice R. Welsch. U of Minnesota P, 1994. 343-357.
24. THU, APR. 15: QUEER GIRLS
Clips
Dry Kisses Only (Dirs: Kayuclia Brooke and Jane Cottis, 1990)
Video Essays:
What Portrait of a Lady on Fire Tells Us About "the Gaze" (Broey Deschanel, 2020, 14 min)
The Lesbian Gaze as a Signifier of Female Agency (Edith Gras, 2016, 4 min)
Of Love and Longing (Allain Daigle, 2018, 3 min)
25. TUE, APR. 20:
Screening: Orlando (Dir: Sally Potter. UK, 1192, 94 min)
For next class read:
Judith Butler, “Gender is Burning” from Bodies That Matter. 1993
26. THU, APR. 22: PERFORMING GENDER
Clips
Glen or Glenda (Dir: Ed Wood, USA, 1953)
Victor/Victoria (Dir: Blake Edwards, UK/USA, 1982)
Tootsie (Dir: Sydney Pollack, USA, 1982)
The Crying Game (Dir: Neil Jordan, UK, 1992)
Mrs. Doubtfire (Dir: Chris Columbus, USA, 1993)
To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (Dir: Beeban Gidron, USA, 1995)
Ma Vie en Rose (Dir: Alain Berliner, Belgium, 1997)
Boys Don’t Cry (Dir: Kimberly Peirce, USA, 1999)
Hedwig and the Angry Inch (Dir: John Cameron Mitchell, USA, 2001)
Tomboy (Dir: Celine Sciamma, France, 2011)
Tangerine (Dir: Sean Baker, USA, 2015)
27. TUE, APR. 27:
Screening: The Farewell (Dir: Lulu Wang. USA, 2019, 100)
For next class listen:
Terry Gross, Filmmaker Lulu Wang Based 'The Farewell' On Her Family's Real-Life Lie (NPR, 2019)
Optional Readings:
Michael Sun, “I would love it if white men were asked the same questions as me” (The Guardian, 2019)
28. THU, APR. 29: THE MODERN WOMXN