Film 100a: Introduction to the Moving Image
Instructors:
Office Hours:
Class hours/location:
E-mail:
Dr. Mary Harrod (course leader) & Mr. Matthew Chernick
Tues/Fri 11.30-12 and Tues 2-3, Olin-Sang 219
Tues/Fri 12.30-1.50, tba
[email protected]
Course Description
An interdisciplinary course surveying the history of moving image media from 1895 to the
present, from the earliest silent cinema to the age of the 500-channel cable television. Open
to all undergraduates as an elective, it is the introductory course for the major and minor in
film, television and interactive media. This course introduces basic concepts of film analysis,
which are discussed through examples from different national cinemas over cinema’s
history, through various genres and modes of production and exhibition. While emphasis is
put on questions of film form and style, the course will also offer an introduction to critical
approaches and theories related to the study of international cinema.
Course Expectations, Requirements/Regulations, and Goals
Expectations
Required Texts:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction (8th, 9th or 10th edition is
okay; page references below are to eighth edition but relevant sections for each topic are
obviously marked in all editions)
Timothy Corrigan and Patricia White, The Film Experience: An Introduction (Bedford/St.
Martin’s, 2004)
Essays indicated on schedule below on internet or LATTE [marked L]
Lectures, screenings, readings, and discussions are essential components of the course.
Students should come to class having completed in advance all of the reading
listed for that class day. Films should be watched before Tuesday classes (at the
latest). Thoughtful, civil, well-prepared, regular participation in class discussions is
expected. I encourage students to visit me during office hours or by appointment to discuss
papers, assignments, and the class more generally.
Students in the course will sometimes take a short response quiz based on the films screened
week. The quiz will happen at the start of class on some Tuesdays. There are no make-ups for
any reason—including late arrival to class—for a missed quiz. I eliminate one quiz at the end
of the semester so that emergency cases will not count against a student’s final grade.
In addition to the response quizzes, there will be an in-class shot analysis, a midterm
sequence analysis, a mini-presentation, and a cumulative final exam, all of which will focus
on terminology, analysis, film history, and the broader questions covered each week in the
course.
Specific breakdown for factoring final grades:
Participation / Response-quizzes/ Mini-presentations: 25%
In-class shot analysis (Tuesday, January 31): 20%
Midterm assignment: sequence analysis (2,000 words) (Due Tuesday 28 March): 25%
Final exam (Tues 2 May): 30%
Regulations
There are no make-ups for in-class assignments, regardless of reason, including late arrival.
Missing more than 3 classes will lower a student’s grade by one sub-grade per additional
class missed. Students are responsible for making up any material missed during an absence.
Grades for late papers will be lowered one sub-grade per day they are late (e.g., from A- to
B+). With at least 24 hours’ notice and in exceptional, proven extenuating
circumstances, extensions may be granted at the discretion of the professor. Unless given
written permission otherwise, students must turn in all work on time and in hard copy—
printed out and handed to the instructor at the start of class.
Section 504 of the Americans with Disabilities Act offers guidelines for curriculum
modifications and adaptations for students with documented disabilities. If applicable,
students may obtain adaptation recommendations if they provide appropriate
documentation.
Incompletes are granted only under very rare and exceptional circumstances. The basic
requirements for an incomplete are: 1) you must be passing the course; 2) there must be only
one significant assignment outstanding; and 3) you must have an insurmountable problem
that prevents you from completing the course. If you believe this describes your case, you
must request an incomplete from me.
*A note on plagiarism and academic dishonesty: Do your own work in all instances, cite all
your sources, and do not recycle work from other courses or contexts. All cases of academic
dishonesty will be reported to the appropriate academic offices and the department. Do not
hesitate to see me if you have other questions about what constitutes appropriate research or
citation practices.
Goals
In taking this course, students will:
• Learn to analyze a cinematic text;
• Develop the ability to recognize and interpret visual information and patterns;
• Become familiar with the standard vocabulary for discussing cinematic texts;
• Gain an introduction to the critical stances one might take toward a film;
• Demonstrate an understanding of the ways in which films derive from and/or interact
with their various historical, ideological, technological, economic, and/or aesthetic
contexts;
• Write essays that employ well-considered arguments, provide excellent textual support
for those arguments, and pay attention to the structure and efficacy of those arguments;
• Become more comfortable and practiced in discussing cinematic texts among their peers.
SCHEDULE
1. Tuesday 17 January
Introduction and Early Cinema
Films: Ramona (D. W. Griffith, USA 1910, 16 minutes) and The
Unchanging Sea (Griffith, 1910, 14 minutes, around 43 minutes into
recording on Latte)
In class, if time allows, we will also watch: The Great Train Robbery (Porter, 1903, 11
minutes, around 57 minutes into recording on Latte)
Required reading:
- BEFORE TUESDAY CLASS: James Monaco, How to Read a Film: the Art,
-
Technology, Language, History, and Theory of Film and Media (OUP, 1981 –
Revised Edition), Chapter 1, ‘Film as an Art’. L
Bordwell and Thompson, Film Art, 441-4 (Section on early cinema, in chapter 12)
Further optional reading:
-
Tom Gunning, “The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator, and the AvantGarde” in R. Stam & T. Miller (eds.) Film and Theory: An Anthology. Blackwell,
2000. 229-235.
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/film/gaines/historiography/Gunning.pdf
-
Bordwell and Thompson, opening section, 2-51.
Jon Gartenberg, “Camera Movement in Edison and Biograph Films, 1900-1906”,
Cinema Journal, vol. 19, no. 2, Spring 1980, pp. 1-16
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1224867
Charles Musser, “The Early Cinema of Edwin Porter”, Cinema Journal, vol. 19, no. 1,
Autumn 1979, pp. 1-38 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1225418
William Johnson, “Early Griffith: A Wider View”, Film Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 3,
Spring 1976, pp. 2-13 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211707?origin=JSTOR-pdf
-
2. Friday 20 and Tuesday 24 January
Mise-en-scène I: Early Cinema in the Studio
Film: Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari/The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Robert
Wiene, Germany 1920)
Reading:
- BEFORE FRIDAY CLASS: Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 2 (on Film
Form)
- BEFORE TUESDAY: Corrigan and White, Film Experience, 42-64.
Further reading:
- Jerome Ashmore, “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari as Fine Art”, College Art Journal, vol.
9, no. 4, Summer 1950, pp. 412-418 http://www.jstor.org/stable/773704
-
Bert Cardullo, “Expressionism and the Real Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, Film Criticism,
vol. 6, no. 2, Winter 1982, pp. 28-34
Michael Budd, “Retrospective Narration in Film: Re-reading ‘The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari’”, Film Criticism, vol. 4, no. 1, Fall 1979, pp. 35-43.
3. Friday 27 and Tuesday 31 January
Cinematography: the shot - *and shot analysis*
Film: Une partie de campagne/A Day in the Country (Jean Renoir,
France 1935)
Reading:
- BEFORE FRI: Corrigan and White, Chapter 3
- BEFORE TUES: No set reading but go over handout I will distribute based on
Bordwell and Thompson chapters 4 and 5 to prepare for in-class graded shot
analysis today.
Further reading:
- Robert M. Webster, “Renoir's Une Partie de campagne: Film as the Art of Fishing”, The
French Review, vol. 64, no. 3, February 1991, pp. 487-496
http://www.jstor.org/stable/395390
- Barry Salt, “Film Style and Technology in the Thirties”, Film Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 1,
Fall 1976, pp. 19-32 http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1211681.pdf
- Charles H. Harpole, “Ideological and Technological Determinism in Deep-Space Cinema
Images”, Film Quarterly, vol. 33, no. 3, Spring 1980, pp. 11-22
- Béla Balázs, ‘The Close-Up,’ in Balázs Early Film Theory - see Berhahn 2010 reedition: https://rosswolfe.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/becc81la-balacc81zs-early-filmtheory-visible-man-1924-and-the-spirit-of-film-1930.pdf
4. Friday 3 and Tuesday 7 February
Editing I: The Continuity Style
Film: It Happened One Night (Frank Capra, USA 1934)
Reading:
- BEFORE FRI: Noel Carroll, “Toward a Theory of Film Editing”, Millennium Film
Journal, Winter 1979, 3, pp. 79-99. L
- BEFORE TUES : Bordwell and Thompson, 218-51 (Chapter 6, section on
Continuity Editing)
Further reading:
- Vincent LoBrutto, “‘Invisible’ or ‘Visible’ Editing: The Development of Editorial Styles and
Strategies”, Cineaste, Spring 2009, pp. 43-47
- Tom Paulus, “The View Across the Courtyard: Bazin and the Evolution of Depth Style”, Film
International, no. 30, 2007, pp. 62-75
5. Friday 10 and Tuesday 14 February
Editing II : Art cinemas
Film: Pierrot le fou (Jean-Luc Godard, France 1965)
Reading :
- BEFORE FRI : Bordwell and Thompson, 251-63 (Chapter 6, ‘Alternatives to
continuity editing,’) and Bordwell and Thompson, 207-13, ‘The Long Take’
- BEFORE TUES : Angela Dalle Vacche, “Jean-Luc Godard’s Pierrot le fou:
Cinema as collage against painting”, Literature/Film Quarterly, vol. 23, no. 1,
January 1995, pp. 39-54. L
Further reading:
- Benjamin Bergery, “Raoul Coutard: Revolutionary of the Nouvelle Vague”, American
Cinematographer, vol. 78, no. 3, March 1997, pp. 28-32
- Peter Harcourt, “Analogical Thinking: Organizational Strategies Within the Work of
Jean-Luc Godard”, Cineaction, no. 75, 2008, pp. 20-23
- André Bazin, ‘The Virtues and Limitations of Montage,’ in Bazin, What is Cinema? Vol.
I, trans. H. Gray (University of California Press)
https://understandingcinema.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/long-take-sup-texts.pdf
6. Fri 17 and Tues 28 February (Winter Recess in between)
Narrative
Film: Once Upon a Time in the West/C’era una volta il west (Sergio
Leone, Italy/USA 1968)
Reading:
- BEFORE FRI: Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 3.
Week commencing 20 February: WINTER RECESS
-
BEFORE TUES 28: Patrick Keating, “Emotional Curves and Linear Narratives”,
Velvet Light Trap, 58, Fall 2006, pp. 4-15. L
Further reading :
-
- Richard T. Jameson, “Something to do with Death: A Fistful of Sergio Leone”, Film
Comment, vol. 9, no. 2, March/April 1973, pp. 8-16
- Kristin Thompson, “Narration early in the transition to classical filmmaking: Three
Vitagraph Shorts”, Film History, vol. 9, no. 4, 1997, pp. 410-434
Tom Gunning, “Narrative Discourse and the Narrator System.” From Braudy, Leo, and
Marshall Cohen. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. New York: Oxford
University Press, 1999, 470-481.
7. Friday 3 and Tuesday 7 March
Mise-en-Scène II: Location Filming
Film: La battaglia di Algeri/La Bataille D’Alger/The Battle of
Algiers (Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria, 1966)
Reading:
- General : Review B&T chapters 4 and 5 if still unclear on mise-en-scène.
- BEFORE FRI : Corrigan and White, 64-74. .
- BEFORE TUES: Irene Bignardi, “The Making of the Battle of Algiers”, Cineaste,
vol. 25, no. 2, March 2000, pp. 14-22. L
Further reading:
-
William Johnson, “Coming to Terms with Color”, Film Quarterly, vol. 20, no. 1, Autumn
1966, pp. 2-22 http://www.jstor.org/stable/1211158
Mike Wayne, “Realism: Eleven theses and some elaborations”, Film International, vol.
4, no. 24, November 2006, pp. 6-13
8. Friday 10 and Tuesday 14 March
Authorship
-
-
Film: Manhattan (Woody Allen, USA 1979)
BEFORE FRI:
Pam Cook, “Authorship and Cinema”, in P. Cook and M. Bernink (Eds), The
Cinema Book (2nd. Edition, BFI, 1999), 235-41, 246, 250-8. L
Noël King and Toby Miller, “Auteurism in the 1990s”, in The Cinema Book (2nd
edition), 311-14. L
BEFORE TUES: Celestino Deleyto, “The Narrator and the Narrative. The
Evolution of Woody Allen’s Film Comedies”, in C. L. P. Silet (ed.), The Films of
Woody Allen. Critical Essays (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2006), 21-33. L
Further reading:
Andrew Sarris, ‘‘Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962”, in L. Braudy and M. Cohen (eds),
Film Theory and Criticism (5th edition, OUP), 515-18.
Timothy Corrigan,‘‘Auteurs and the New Hollywood’’, in J. Lewis (ed.), The New
American Cinema (Duke UP, 1998), 38-63.
David Desser and Lester D. Friedman,‘‘The Schlemiel as Modern Philosopher’’, in
American-Jewish Filmmakers: Traditions and Trends (University of Illinois Press,
1993), 36-104.
9. Friday 17 and Tuesday 21 March
Sound (+ discussion of sequence analysis)
Film: The Conversation (Coppola, USA 1974)
Reading:
- BEFORE FRI: Corrigan and White, 166-207
- BEFORE TUES:
- Corrigan and White, 207-9
-
Leo Braudy, “The Sacraments of Genre: Coppola, DePalma, Scorsese”, Film
Quarterly, vol. 39, no. 3, Spring 1986, pp. 17-28
http://www.jstor.org/stable/1212373
Further reading:
- B&T, Chapter 7.
- Michael Jarrett and Walter Murch, “Sound Doctrine: An Interview with Walter Murch”,
Film Quarterly, vol. 53, no. 3, Spring 2000, pp. 2-11
http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1213731.pdf
- Noel Carroll, “The Future of Allusion: Hollywood in the Seventies (and beyond)”,
October, vol. 20, Spring 1982, pp. 51-81 http://www.jstor.org/stable/778606
*Choice of sequence for analysis from some set films will
become available Tues 21st March (end of class and Latte)*
Friday 24 March no class, please dedicate yourself to the *midterm
sequence analysis, due on Tuesday 28th March*
10. Tuesday 28 March
From authorship to genre
Film: Atonement (Wright, UK/France/USA, 2007)
Reading:
-
BEFORE TUES:
Steve Neale, ‘Questions of Genre,’ Screen 31 (1): 45-66 (1990).
Christine Geraghty, ‘Foregrounding the Media. Atonement as an Adaptation,’ in
Adaptation 2,2 (2009) : 91-109. L
Further reading:
- Barry Langford, “Who Needs Genres?” in Film Genre. Hollywood and Beyond.
(Edinburgh UP, 2005).
- Belén Vidal, Heritage Film: Nation, Genre and Representation (Columbia UP, 2012).
- Claire Monk, “The British Heritage Film Debate Revisited”, in C. Monk and A. Sergeant
(Eds), British Historical Cinema (Routledge, 2002), 176-98.
11. Friday 31 March and Tuesday 4 April
National Cinemas (+ discussion of exam and presentations)
Film: Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios/Women on the Verge of
a Nervous Breakdown (Almodóvar, Spain, 1988)
Reading:
- FOR FRI:
- Barry Jordan and Mark Allinson, Spanish Cinema: A Student’s Guide (Hodder
Arnold, 2005). 134-47. L
-
-
Barry Jordan, “How Spanish Is It? Spanish Cinema and National Identity”, in B.
Morgan and R. Tamosunas (eds), Contemporary Spanish Cultural Studies
(Arnold, 2000), 68-78. L
FOR TUES: Evans, Peter William Evans, Women on the Verge of a Nervous
Breakdown. 10-53. London: BFI, 1996. L
Further reading:
- Andrew Higson, “The Concept of National Cinema”, Screen 30:4 (1989): 36-46.
- Susan Hayward, “Framing National Cinemas”, in M. Hjort and S. MacKenzie (eds),
Cinema and Nation (Routledge, 2000), 88-101.
- Sara M. Saz, ‘Mujeres al borde de un ataque de nervios: elementos subversivos’. Actas XI
(1992) http://cvc.cervantes.es/literatura/aih/pdf/11/aih_11_2_018.pdf
- Rob Stone, “Over Franco”. In Spanish Cinema. 110-131. Harlow: Longman, 2002.
- Dorothy Kelly, “Selling Spanish ‘otherness’ since the 1960s”. In Contemporary Spanish
Cultural Studies, edited by Barry Jordan and Rikki Morgan-Tamosunas, 29-37. London:
Hodder Arnold, 2000.
- Mark Allinson, A Spanish Labyrinth. The Films of Pedro Almodóvar, esp. 39-45.
London: I.B. Tauris, 2001.
12. Friday 7 and Friday 21 April (Passover and Spring Recess in middle)
Transnational and Diasporic Cinemas
2 FILMS:
For Fri 7 – El laberinto del fauno/Pan’s Labyrinth (Guillermo
del Toro, Spain/Mexico/USA 2006)
Reading (before FRI): Elizabeth Ezra & Terry Rowden, “What is Transnational
Cinema?” in Ezra and Rowden, Transnational Cinema: The Film Reader, 1-10. (New
York: Routledge, 2006). L
Further reading
- Andrew Higson, “The Limiting Imagination of National Cinema”, in M. Hjort and S.
Mackenzie (eds), Cinema and Nation, 57-68. London and New York: Routledge, 2000
(whole book online http://is.muni.cz/el/1421/jaro2012/FAV196/um/32133503/HjortMackenzie_Cinema_and_Nation.pdf).
- Deborah Shaw, “El laberinto del fauno: breaking through the barriers of filmmaking”, in
The Three Amigos. The Transnational Filmmaking of Guillermo del Toro, Alejandro
González Iñárritu, and Alfonso Cuarón. 67-92. Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 2013. L
- Paul Julian Smith, “Pan's Labyrinth (El laberinto del fauno)”, Film Quarterly, 60.4
(2007), 4-9.
- Ernesto R. Acevedo-Muñoz, “Horror of allegory: The Others and its contexts”, in
Contemporary Spanish Cinema and Genre, 202-218. Manchester: Manchester
University Press, 2008.
April PASSOVER AND SPRING RECESS
For Fri 21 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Ang Lee, 2000,
Taiwan/ Hong Kong/USA/China)
Reading (before FRI):
-
-
Mette Hjort, “On the Plurality of Cinematic Transnationalism”, in Natasa
Ďurovičová and Kathleen Newman (eds)World Cinemas,Transnational
Perspectives, 12-33. New York: Routledge, 2010. L
Christina Klein, ‘Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: A Diasporic Reading”,
Cinema Journal 43, 4 (2004), 18-42.
http://www.jstor.org.resources.library.brandeis.edu/stable/pdf/3661154.pdf
Further reading:
- Kenneth Chan, “The Global Return of the Wu Xia Pan (Chinese Sword-Fighting Movie):
Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”, Cinema Journal 44, 4 (2004), 3-17.
- Lu, Sheldon Hsiao-Peng. “Chinese Cinemas (1896-1996) and Transnational Film
Studies”, in Lu (ed.), Transnational Chinese Cinemas. Identity, Nationhood, Gender, 134. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
- Theo, Stephen. “Wuxia Redux: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as a Model of Late
Transnational Production”, in M. Morrs, S. L. Li and S. Chan Ching-Kiu (eds), Hong
Kong Connections. Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema, 191-204. Durham:
Duke University Pres, 2006.
15. Week commencing 24 April
Putting it all together: Mini-presentations
16.
Tuesday 2 May - EXAM