NB:
- Some screenings and readings listed here are subject to change
- The use of laptop computers and other electronic devices during class is NOT permitted.
Week 1:
What is Cinema?
Screening: Caché (Micheal Haneke, 2005)
Readings:
1) Film: A Critical Introduction, chapters 1 & 2 (pp. 3-36).
2) Thomas Elsaesser and Malte Hagener, "Cinema as Window and Frame," in Film Theory: An Introduction Through the Senses (Routledge, 2010), pp. 13-34.
3) Catherine Wheatley, "Secrets, Lies and Videotape," Sight & Sound (February 2006).
Week 2:
Narrative: Classical Hollywood Cinema
Screening: Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 4 (pp. 65-90) & chapter 11 (pp. 343-350).
2) David Bordwell, "Classical Narration: The Hollywood Example," in Narration in the Fiction Film (University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), pp. 56-204, extracts.
Week 3:
Mise-en-Scene
Screening: Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974)
Reading:
1) Film, chapter 5 (pp. 91-128).
2) TBD
Week 4:
Cinematography and Camera Movement
Screening: The Lady from Shanghai (Orson Welles, 1947)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 6 (pp. 129-190).
2) TBD.
Week 5:
Film Sound
Screening: Blow Out (Brian De Palma, 1980)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 8 (pp. 227-274).
2) Michel Chion, The Voice in Cinema (Columbia University Press, 1999), extracts.
Week 6:
Editing
Screening: Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, 1965)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 7 (pp. 191-226) & chapter 11 (pp. 350-364).
2) André Bazin, "The Virtues and Limitations of Montage," in What is Cinema? Vol. 1 (University of California Press, 2004), 23-40.
3) Sergej Eisenstein, "A Dialectic Approach to Film Form," in Film Form (Harcourt Brace, 1977), 45-63.
Week 7:
Mid-Term Review: Writing a Film Analysis
MIDTERM EXAM
Reading:
1) Film, chapter 3 (pp. 37-64).
Recommended reading: Timothy Corrigan, A Short Guide to Writing About Film (Pearson/Longman, 2007)
Week 8:
Genre
Screening: Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 13 (pp. 381-406).
2) TBD
Week 9:
Authorship
Screening: Jackie Brown (Quentin Tarantino, 1997)
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 14 (pp. 407-428).
2) Andrew Sarris, "Notes on the Auteur Theory," in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (OUP, 2004).
3) Edward Buscombe, "Ideas of Authorship," Screen 14, no. 3 (Autumn 1973).
Week 10:
Gender & Sexuality
Screening: Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1959)
Reading:
1) Film, chapter 10 (pp. 309-342).
2) Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings (OUP, 2004).
3) Tania Modleski, The Women Who Knew Too Much: Hitchcock and Feminist Theory (Routledge, 2005), extracts.
Week 11:
Race & Ethnicity
Screening: TBD
Reading:
1) bell hooks, "The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectatorship," in Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2000).
2) Stuart Hall, "Cultural Identity and Cinematic Representation," in Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2000).
Week 12:
Documentary Film
Screening: The Thin Blue Line (Errol Morris, 1987)
Reading:
1) Film, chapter 9 (pp. 275-290).
2) Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary (Indiana UP, 2001), extracts.
3) TBD.
PAPER DUE
Week 13:
Avant-Garde Film and Video
Screening: Un Chien Andalou (Luis Bunuel/Salvador Dali, 1929); Rose Hobart (Joseph Cornell, 1936); Window Water Baby Moving (Brakhage,1959); Scorpio Rising (Kenneth Anger, 1964); Walden (Jonas Mekas, 1969); Serene Velocity (Ernie Gehr, 1970); Associations (John Smith, 1975); Outer Space (Peter Tscherkassky, 1999); Decasia (Bill Morrison, 2000).
Readings:
1) Film, chapter 9 (pp. 291-306).
1) P. Adams Sitney, "Structural Film," in Visionary Film.
2) A.L. Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video, extracts.
Week 14:
Early Film Form: 1895-1925
Screenings: Early cinema shorts
Readings:
1) Tom Gunning, "The Cinema of Attractions: Early Cinema, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde," in Film and Theory: An Anthology (Blackwell, 2000).