2003-04 Cinema Studies Courses
Spring 2004
First-Year Seminar
Beyond offering different sorts of content and engagement
for their audiences, various artistic forms and techniques can be understood
to provide alternative models for individuals and groups to filter and process
experience in general. This course will look at multiple artistic forms (e.g.,
painting, photography, film, literature), in light of their own technical developments
and contrasts with each other across time, in order to develop a greater sense
of the many ways medium matters. Enrollment Limit: 14 first-year students
only.
Introductory Core Courses
This course considers the cinema as a particular media form and explores issues and methods in cinema studies.The class focuses on questions of film form and style (narrative, editing, sound, framing, mise-en-scène) and introduces students to concepts in film history and theory (industry, auteurism, spectatorship, the star system, ideology, genre). Students develop a basic critical vocabulary for examining the cinema as an art form, an industry, and a system of culturally meaningful representation. Identical to ENG 173. Enrollment Limit: 60.
A selected viewing and close analysis of Ingmar Bergman's most acclaimed films from his earlier comedies to his epic Fanny and Alexander. The evolution of Bergman’s central thematic concerns and the development of his distinctive cinematic style is traced out in Smiles of a Summer Night, The Seventh Seal, Wild Strawberries, Through a Glass Darkly, Winter Light, The Silence, Persona, and Fanny and Alexander. Enrollment Limit: 40
A focused discussion and critical analysis of Polanski's most significant films
from his earliest works in his native Poland, his British, Hollywood, and French
periods, to his recent award-winning international co-productions Death
and the Maiden and The Pianist. Emphasis will be placed on continuities
and discontinuities of artistic influences, thematic treatment, sociocultural
content, and aesthetic form and imagery as Polanski moved from the political
East to the political West and from one film culture to another. Enrollment
Limit: 40.
Cinematic Traditions Courses
It would be an exaggeration to say that contemporary American film would disappear without crime as a subject, but not much of one. At various times in the history of American movies, crime has played a central role as subject, theme, and metaphor. The criminal is one of the common archetypes of American stories and the meaning of crime an American preoccupation, often suffused with romanticism and nostalgia as well as fear and anger.
In this course I want to explore how crime and criminals become lenses and metaphors for a wide variety of ethical, social, and epistemological themes as well as subjects on their own. In addition to being concerned with what cinema does with crime, I'm interested in what crime does to cinema, particularly the ways in which the crime film affects realism as a cinematic mode and goal. In other words, what challenges, possibilities, and problems does using crime as the center of a story pose for artists working the medium of film?
The number of movies we could look at is vast; I've chosen ones that I think are particularly interesting and important and tried to keep the list relatively contemporary. If your favorite crime drama isn't on the list, you can still write one of the longer essays on a movie we don't discuss in class. We'll also pay attention to the issue what it means to be a critical writer and develop an understanding of the issues and concerns that are central to critical inquiry
Movies will probably include, The Godfather, The Long Goodbye, Night Moves, The Grifters, House of Games, One False Move, Hard Choices, Mean Streets, Badlands, Dirty Harry, Silence of the Lambs, Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Honeymoon Killers, Across 110th Street, The Big Lebowski, To Die For, Mulholland Drive, though this list might change between now and February. (No Tarantino, don't bother to ask.) Requirements: Two critical essays one 5-7 pages, a second 7-10. Also, 4 3-page assignments. Students will be expected to form a small discussion group outside of class. While there will be weekly showings of each movie, they will also be on reserve. Identical to ENGL 371. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25. Syllabus
Since its inception, cinema has maintained a perennial concern with problems of representing experiences of the miraculous or transcendental. Despite the customary linkage of film to secular modernization, then, filmmakers and critics have returned repeatedly to the form's profound evocation of a sense of reality to explore the limits and consequences of this tendency. Across historical and national divisions, we will investigate cinematic treatments of spirituality in light of the challenges they present to critical theory and practice. Identical to ENGL 376. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 25.
A comparative study of the films of Jean-Luc Godard and Bernardo Bertolucci over the past four decades. Particular attention is paid to the close relationship between the two filmmakers during the 1960s and the different paths their careers eventually took. Prerequisite: CINE 101 and any other 200-level cinema course or consent of instructor. Enrollment limit: 25. Syllabus
This course will explore the long history, cultural contexts, and critical challenges associated with melodramatic narrative cinema. We will study the origins of melodrama, the rise and fall of its status as a form, its association with women as subjects and audiences, its adaptation to different historical and cultural contexts, and its relationship to contemporary problems of cultural analysis. Expect a demanding viewing and reading schedule, high expectations about participation, and to develop a significant independent project. Identical to ENGL 368. Prerequisite: See headnote above. Enrollment limit: 18. Consent of instructor required.
A study of the major contributions of feminist film theory over the past twenty-five years. Topics include spectatorship, psychoanalysis, genre, and authorship, as well as recent works that have addressed the mutual interrogation of gender and race. Students become conversant with the critical methodologies of feminist scholarly writing and apply them to the analysis of film texts. Prerequisite: CINE 101 and any other 200-level cinema course or consent of instructor. Enrollment limit: 16. Syllabus
Students should consult with the Director
of the Program about arranging a Senior Tutorial.
Consent of instructor required.
Intensive work on the student's honors project, culminating in either an honors paper or creative project. Students interested in pursuing Honors should consult with the Director of the Program. Consent of instructor required.
Consent of instructor required.
Related Courses
Art
ARTS
051 (11907).
VisPro: Video Art Installation
TTh 9:00-12:00
Ms. Mattern
ARTS
059 (10445). VisPro: Digital Video
TuTh 1:30-4:30,
Ms.
Brown-Orso
Russian
RUSS 446 (7219). Senior
Seminar: Special Topics in Russian Cinema
Th 7:00-9:00 pm, Ms.
Monastireva-Ansdell
First-Year Seminar
FYSP 113 (5106) Us/Them: Russian and American Mutual (Mis)Perceptions, 3 hours/
3HU, CD, Wr
MW 2:30-3:45, Ms. Forman
An exploration of Russian and American interactions from tsarist times to the present day. We will examine fiction and film to see how both cultures have viewed and continue to view the other. Included will be 19th-century memoirs, along with works by Maxim Gorky, the satirists Ilf and Petrov, emigres (including Vladimir Nabokov, Ayn Rand, and third wave writers), as well as films by Lev Kuleshov, Georgij Aleksandrov, Ernst Lubitsch and others. Enrollment limit: 14 first-year students only.
FYSP 157 ( 5489) The Sense of Time and Place, 4 hours/ 4HU,
Wri
MWF 10:00-10:50, Mr.
Day
We often treat time and place as background, focusing on characters and actions rather than their context. In this course we will read and view works that put time and place in the foreground to explore the relationship between our sense of self to time and place. We will also explore how artists characterize the relation between time and place. A second concern in this course is the nature of reading and viewing. Enrollment limit: 14 first-year students only.
FYSP
171 (5500). Media and Meaning 4 hours /4HU, WRi
TuTh 1:35-2:50 + Tu 7:00-10:00 pm, Mr.
Pingree
Television shows, movies, newspapers, magazines, CDs, DVDs, websites -- these all profoundly influence the ways we understand and experience the world. In this course we will explore how such media produce meaning. To do this, we will examine a variety of different media "texts" and learn to read them more self-consciously, expanding our sense of what they mean to include how and why they mean what they do. Enrollment limit: 14.
Introductory Core Courses
101-01
(4729)
Form, Style, and Meaning in Cinema
4 hours /4HU
TuTh 11:00-12:15 + W 7:00-10:00 pm, Mr.
Pingree
This course considers the cinema as a particular media form and explores issues and methods in cinema studies.The class focuses on questions of film form and style (narrative, editing, sound, framing, mise-en-scène) and introduces students to concepts in film history and theory (industry, auteurism, spectatorship, the star system, ideology, genre). Students develop a basic critical vocabulary for examining the cinema as an art form, an industry, and a system of culturally meaningful representation. Identical to ENGL 173. Enrollment Limit: 60.
Advanced Cinema Courses
378 (5682) Questions of Italian Cinema 4
hours/ 4HU,WR
TuTh--1:30-2:45& Sun 7:00-10:00 p.m., Ms.
Monti
A historical approach to the issue of realism in Italian cinema. This course will focus particularly on the rise of Neo-Realism after World War II and the ways in which this theory of filmmaking, so deeply embedded in the culture moment of the post-war era, informed the later developments in Italian Cinema. Enrollment Limit: 25. Syllabus
379 (5683) The
Construction of Stardom 4 hours/ 4HU,WR
TuTh--9:35-10:50 & M--7:00-10:00 p.m., Ms.
Monti
The course will focus on the "star" as a central aspect of cinema. By exploring the ways in which movie stars have been defined and received in different eras and in different countries, this course will develop ways of thinking critically about this important, but poorly understood aspect of cinema. Enrollment Limit: 25. Syllabus
399 (5195).
Cinema Studies Practicum 1-2 hours / 1-2HU