Course Schedule
*tentative and subject to change as the needs of our class evolve
Date | Discussion Topics/Readings | Assignment Due |
Week 1: Introduction to Course | ||
M 1/9 | Overview of course and syllabus | |
W 1/11 | Defining “Theory” and “Criticism” Adrian Martin and James Naremore “The Future of Academic Film Study” | |
F 1/13 | Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” Set up Personal Blogs | |
Week 2: Early Film Experience | ||
M 1/16 | HOLIDAY – no classes | |
W 1/18 | Cinema’s Early Years: Short Clips | |
F 1/20 | Tom Gunning’s “The Cinema of Attractions” & “Primitive Cinema: A Frame-up? Or The Trick’s On Us?” | |
Week 3: Marxist Film Theory | ||
M 1/23 | Eisenstein “Montage of Attractions” & “The Dramaturgy of Film Form” Screening: Masculin, féminin (France, Godard, 1966) | |
W 1/25 | Film Analysis | |
F 1/27 | Allison Butler “Éloge de l’Amour (2001): Moments in Time” | Blog #1 (Theory) |
Week 4: Realism | ||
M 1/30 | Siegfried Kracauer “Basic Concepts” Screening: Midnight in Paris (USA, Allen, 2011) | |
W 2/1 | Andre Bazin “An Aesthetic of Reality: Neorealism” & Jean-Louis Baudry “The Apparatus” | |
F 2/3 | Blog #2 (Theory) | |
Week 5: Auteur Theory | ||
M 2/6 | Francois Truffaut "Une Certaine Tendancce du Cinema Francais" Andre Bazin "On the politique des auteurs" Screening: Citizen Kane (USA, Welles, 1941) | |
W 2/8 | Andrew Sarris “Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962” | |
F 2/10 | Andrew Klevan “Internalizing the Musical: The Band Wagon (1953)” | Blog #3 (Criticism) |
Week 6: Formalist Film Criticism | ||
M 2/13 | Movie critics Screening: Psycho (USA, Hitchcock, 1960) | |
W 2/15 | V.F. Perkins Film as Film (excerpt) & Robin Wood “Psycho” | |
F 2/17 | Blog #4 (Criticism) | |
Week 7: Psychoanalytic Film Theory | ||
M 2/20 | Sigmund Freud “Fetishism” | |
W 2/22 | Laura Mulvey “Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema” & Death 24x a Second (excerpt) | |
F 2/24 | Essay # 1 Due | |
Week 8: Semiotics | ||
M 2/27 | Christian Metz “Some Points in the Semiotics of Cinema” & Stephen Prince “The Discourse of Pictures: Iconicity and Film Studies” Screening: Viaggio in Italia (Italy, Rossellini, 1954) | |
W 2/29 | Laura Mulvey “Vesuvian Topographies: The Eruption of the Past in Journey to Italy” (2000) | |
F 3/2 | Film Analysis | |
March 5- 9 **SPRING BREAK** | ||
Week 9: Culture & History | ||
M 3/12 | Introduction to cultural studies & historiography (no reading) Screening: The Hurt Locker (USA, Bigelow, 2009) | |
W 3/14 | Sue Tait “Visualizing Technologies and the Ethics and Aesthetics of Screening Death” Cultural Theory vs. Aesthetic History | |
F 3/16 | Robert Ray “How a Film Theory Got Lost” Avant-Garde Games and Film Analysis | |
Week 10: The Death of the Cinema | ||
M 3/19 | Susan Sontag “The Decay of the Cinema” & Godfrey Cheshire “The Death of Film/The Decay of Cinema” Screening: Melancholia (Denmark, von Trier, 2011) | |
W 3/21 | No class | |
F 3/23 | Blog #5 | |
Week 11: Against Grand (SLAB) Theory | ||
M 3/26 | David Bordwell and Noël Carroll Post Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies (excerpt) Screening: The Prestige (USA, Nolan, 2006) | |
W 3/28 | Film Analysis (Cognitivist Approach) | |
F 3/30 | Blog #6 | |
Week 12: | ||
M 4/2 | Christian Keathley Cinephilia and History, or The Wind in the Trees (excerpt) Screening: A Single Man (USA, Ford, 2009) | |
W 4/4 | Sontag “Against Interpretation” & Rashna Wadia Richards “Re-Viewing Cinephilia” | |
F 4/6 | Blog #7 | |
Week 13: Digital Cinema | ||
M 4/9 | Lev Manovich “What is Digital Cinema?” Screening: Hugo (USA, Scorsese, 2011) | |
W 4/11 | Rodowick’s “Elegy for Theory” | |
F 4/13 | Writing Day | |
Week 14: Film as Philosophy | ||
M 4/16 | Introduction to Stanley Cavell’s Philosophical Approach Screening: It Happened One Night (USA, Capra, 1934) | Essay #2 Due |
W 4/18 | Stanley Cavell “A Capra Moment” | |
F 4/20 | Group Discussion – philosophical moments | |
Week 15: | ||
M 4/23 | Project Presentations Screening Time: More Project Presentations | |
W 4/25 | Project Presentations | |
F 4/27 | Reading Day – no classes |
