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Spring 2002 |
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English 376 |
Rice 109, (440) 775-8653, |
Leo Braudy & Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 5th edition.
Other readings available at electronic reserve
The great French film critic, André Bazin, wrote that cinema “has always been interested in God,” because film itself is a kind of miracle. This course takes up cinema’s historic obsession with the limits of what can be represented and known. The questions we will encounter are difficult to frame in the transparent and rational critical language that academia often aspires toward. In fact, the challenge that cinematic treatments of the ineffable present to critical thinking is one of the main attractions of this topic. When we engage with films that accentuate particular features of cinema, in an effort to strain against the possibilities of representation, we will also find ourselves straining against the interpretive templates we construct and rely upon to make sense of cultural works. Understand the course to have several foci, then. First, upon cinema’s persistent explorations of its capacity to embody and explore reality. Second, upon critical thought’s implication with the same concerns. And finally, upon our own practice, as viewers, thinkers, writers, people for whom ultimate questions of being have an import. Rather than simply applying critical methods to movies, or celebrating the unique triumph of film over criticism, we will put all these aspects of the course into play and attempt to innovate a variety of perspectives and possibilities for responding to our concerns. The course ultimately depends upon our joint willingness to experiment, to engage with uncertainty without seeking simplified methods or taking refuge in easy relativism.
Lateness: unacceptable: attendance will only be taken at the beginning of class. See above.
Readings: completed and considered before the class for which they are assigned. Bring annotated texts to class and be prepared to refer to them.
Viewings: held in King 343, Tuesday evenings from 7:00-9:30. For extra viewings—absolutely necessary for writing about a film, for instance—multiple copies are on standard reserve in Mudd. Please take notes, focusing on form and style as well as content and critical questions, and bring to class to facilitate discussion.
Participation: encouraged and rewarded with a higher grade. Quality outweighs quantity. Contributions that build off of, or respond to, the ideas of other students are especially appreciated as they demonstrate an ability to listen and a concern for the group’s learning process.
Presentations: dates are outlined on syllabus. In small groups of three or four, you are responsible for a presentation centered on the assigned film and readings of the week. (You may, with sufficient notice, vary the assignments to, say, include a recommended film and/or a different reading.) These presentations should take no more than 15 minutes and be designed to provoke discussion and reflection for the class as a whole. One week afterward, members of the group are to develop the issues and ideas of the presentation into a reflective report covering the genesis of the presentation idea, the content and form of the actual presentation, and the resulting discussion. These reports should be approximately 1000-1500 words.
Prep papers: preliminary reflections on the issues to be discussed in class that day. Three of these are due before Spring Break, and three after. They are to be turned in on Thursdays. These are speculative exercises of about 300-500 words; while they need not reflect your most polished prose, they should reflect energetic thought. They must deal with material to be considered that day, not previous days. None are accepted late. I will give you a single grade for these at mid-term and at the end of the semester.
Mid-Term Essay: an essay incorporating and developing ideas from the first half of the class, this piece must include significant discussion of at least one recommended film. Due Friday, March 22.
Final Essay: 2500-3000 words, due at the end of Reading Period. Proposals of about 300 words will be due Tuesday, April 16. You have the option of submitting a rough draft on Thursday, May 2. Finals due at the end of Reading Period.
Participation: 15%
Prep Papers: 20%
Presentation: 10%
Mid-Term Essay: 25%
Final Essay: 30%
Week 1
2/5 Introduction and procedures
SCREENING: Photographing Fairies (1998, dir. Nick Willig)
2/7 Kristin Thompson, “The Concept of Cinematic Excess,” FTC 487-498
2/12 Gunning, “An Aesthetic of Astonishment: Early Film and the (In)Credulous Spectator,” FTC 818-832
SCREENING: The Passion of Joan of Arc
(1928, dir. Carl Dreyer)
Recommended Screenings: Intolerance
(1916, dir. . D.W. Griffith).
The Student of Prague (1926, dir.
Henrik Galeen)
2/14 Balász, “The Close-Up” and “The Face of Man,” FTC, 304-311.
Presentation #1
2/19 Kracauer, from From Caligari to Hitler, FTC, 183-194
SCREENING: The Diary of a Country Priest
(1951, dir. Robert Bresson)
Recommended Screening: Curse of the Cat People (1944, dir. Robert Wise).
2/21 Bazin, “The Evolution of the Language of Cinema,” FTC, 43-56
Presentation #2
2/26 Michael Bird, “Film as Hierophany,” Reserve
SCREENING: The Night of the Hunter (1955,
dir. Charles Laughton)
Recommended
Screening: The Next Voice
You Hear (1951 dir. William Wellman)
2/28 Ingebretsen, “Staking the Monster: A Politics of Remonstrance,” Reserve; Presentation #3
3/5 André Bazin, “The Ontology of the Photographic Image” and “They Myth of Total Cinema,” FTC 195-202
SCREENING: Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1964, dir. Sergei Paradjanov)
3/7 David Cook, “Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors: Film as Religious Art,” Reserve; Presentation #4
3/12 Jean-Louis Baudry, “Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus,” FTC 345-355
SCREENING: The Gospel According to St.
Matthew (1964, dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini)
Recommended Screening: The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ (1988, dir. Martin Scorcese)
3/14 David Bordwell, “The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice,” FTC 716-24; Presentation #5
3/19 Stanley Cavell, from The World Viewed, in FTC 334-344
SCREENING: The Book of Life (1998, dir. Hal Hartley) and Jesus of Montreal (1989, dir. Denys Arcand)
3/21 Rick Altman, “A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre,” FTC 630-641
3/22 Mid-Term Essays due.
SPRING BREAK
4/2 Stam and Spence, “Colonialism, Racism, and Representation,” FTC 235-50
SCREENING: Black Robe (1991, dir.
Bruce Beresford)
Recommended Screening: Holy Smoke (1999, dir. Jane Campion)
4/4 Presentation #6
4/9 Mulvey,
“Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,” FTC 833-844
SCREENING: Household Saints (1993, dir.
Nancy Savoca)
Recommended Screening: : The Navigator (1984, dir. Vincent Ward)
4/11 Makarushka,
“Tracing the Other in Household Saints,” Reserve; Presentation #7
Recommended Screening: The New Age (1994, dir. Michael
Tolkin)
4/16 Judith Wilt, “Acts of God: Film, Religion, and FX,” Reserve;
Final Project Proposals due
SCREENING: The Apostle (1997, dir. Robert Duvall)
4/17 from John Caputo, On Religion, Reserve; Presentation #8
4/23 Kristin Thompson, “The Concept of Cinematic Excess,” FTC 487-498
SCREENING: The New Age (1994, dir. Milchael Tolkin) and The Rapture (1991, dir. Michael Tolkin)
4/25 Linda Williams, “Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess,” FTC 701-715
4/30 Heath, “God, Faith and
Film: Breaking the Waves,”
Reserve
SCREENING: Breaking the Waves (1996, dir. Lars von Trier)
5/2 Optional Rough Draft of Final Project Due
5/7 Lyotard, “Acinema,” Reserve
SCREENING: The Thin Red Line (1998,
dir. Terrence Malick)
5/9