Download Film Studies 3310: A Survey of the History of Cinema (Fall Semester 2007) - Prof. Chris Li and more Study notes The Avant Garde in Literature and Cinema in PDF only on Docsity!
History of Film: The First Half-Century Film Studies 3310 (4 credits), Fall Semester 2007 MW 10:45-11:35 (FAMB); T 12:25-3:20 (WPRA) Chris Lippard/University of Utah Office: Old Art Museum/New Media Wing Room 2 (Mailbox in AAC 257B) Office Hours: MW 2-4 585-9358 c.lippard@utah.edu We came to cinema as something not yet existent. We came upon no ready- built city; there were no squares, no streets laid out, not even little crooked lanes or blind alleys such as we may find in the cinematropolis of our day. We came like bedouins or gold-seekers to a place with unimaginably great possibilities, only a small section of which has even now been developed. We pitched our tents and dragged into our camp our experiences in varied fields. Private activities, accidental past professions, unguessed crafts, unsuspected eruditions--all were pooled and went into the building of something that had, as yet, no written traditions, no exact stylistic requirements, nor even formulated demands. --Sergei Eisenstein, pioneer Soviet film director The very nature of film as a supremely popular art guarantees that it is the carrier of deep if enigmatic truths. Individuals create plays, novels, landscapes. But the creation of a movie is a mass undertaking, involving directors, writers, producers, cinematographers, players, and an army of technicians; the artifact is delivered by an intricate assembly line to a vast and anonymous audience. The production process, an unstable merger of commerce and art, is intimately interwoven with the mentality of the society. If, as Ralph Waldo Emerson said and cultural historians have always assumed, "no man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the religion, the politics, message, and arts of his time shall have no share," how much truer this must be for the art created by a crowd. What succeeds at the time in the movies, what is remembered later (often two separate things) obviously offer the social and intellectual historian significant clues to the tastes, apprehensions, myths, and inner vibrations of the age. --Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., American historian
Course Description Film 3310 is a survey of the history of cinema from its beginnings in the 1890s to about 1952. Although there is a concentration on Hollywood cinema, we will also study the development of cinema in France, Germany, the Soviet Union, Britain, and Japan. Course Objectives The purpose of this course is to inform and excite you about the first 55 years of world cinema. We'll try to outline, clarify, and draw connections among artistic, technological, economic, and social forces that have shaped and are reflected in film history. We will focus on key films and directors from around the world in order to understand their contributions to the evolution of film form and content. As in any survey, the compression is staggering, the danger of superficiality lurks, but the rewards of discovering the early achievements in cinema could be great. Course Overview This class will meet for lecture on Mondays. Lectures will be supplemented by film clips and paintings—on slides or on poster-boards. Films will be introduced and shown at the Tuesday meetings. Wednesday sessions will mostly be for discussion of films seen the previous day. The class will be divided into two sections for this purpose. Texts *Ellis, John, A History of Film ( th ed or 6 th ed) Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2002, 2006. *Package of readings on sale at the Union copy Center *Class handouts—to be distributed in class on Mondays Reading assignments should, in general, be completed for the Monday meeting of class. Requirements and Grade weighting *Class participation (15%) *Midterm Examination on October 10th (10%) *Two analytical papers, the first, 4-5 pages, due on October 17th (20%); the second, 7-9 pages, due on December 6th (30%) *Final Exam (25%) on December 12 th In addition, Please submit a photo and brief description of your interests including major if known, by Wednesday August 22
Week Two (August 27-29): Griffith and the development of Narrative Reading Ellis ch. 2 Birth of a Nation (Griffith, 1916) Week Three (September 4-5): No class on Monday September 3rd— Labor Day): American Film, Chaplin and World War One Reading Freeburg (handout) Norris (packet) Maland (handout) The Cure (Chaplin, 1917) The Immigrant (Chaplin, 1917) Shoulder Arms (Chaplin,1918) Unknown Chaplin: My Happiest Years (Brownlow, 1982) Week Four (September 10-12): German Expressionism and Kammerspielfilm Reading Kracauer (packet) Ellis ch. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Wiene, 1919) The Last Laugh (Murnau, 1924) Week Five (September 17-19): Concepts of Montage in Soviet Cinema Reading Ellis ch. Battleship Potemkin (Eisenstein,1925) excerpt from October (Eisenstein, 1928) excerpt from Mother (Pudovkin, 1926)
Week Six (September 24-26): The Hollywood Studio System Reading: Norris (packet) Koszarski (handout) Greed (von Stroheim, 1924) Week Seven (October 1-3): Early Documentary MIDTERM EXAMINATION on October 2 Reading Cooper (handout) Nanook of the North (Flaherty, 1922) Gras (Cooper/Schoedsach, 1925) October 8-14: Fall Break Week Eight (October 15-17): The Consummation of the Silent Narrative Form Reading Ellis pp. 88-103 ( th edition) / pp.,80-94 ( th edition) (ch.5) Allen and Gomery (packet) Sunrise (Murnau, 1927) Sherlock Junior ( Keaton , 1925 ) FIRST PAPER DUE Week Nine (October 22-24): The Coming of Sound Reading Lawrence (handout) Eisenstein (handout) Ellis pp. 104-111 (5th^ edition)/ pp. 94-101 (6th^ edition) (ch.5)
Week Thirteen (November 19-21): Italian Neo-Realism Reading Ellis pp. 161-170 ( th edition)/ pp. 149-159 ( th edition) (ch.8) Bondanella (packet) Zavattini (handout) Battle of San Pietro (Huston, 1945) Rome, Open City (Rossellini, 1945) Week Fourteen (November 26-28): Film Noir Reading Ellis pp.151-155 (ch.7); pp.367-370 (ch.15) ( th edition)/pp.140-143 (ch.7); pp.183-186 (ch.10) ( th edition) Notes (handout) excerpt from The Naked City (Dassin, 1948) Night and the City (Dassin, 1950) Week Fifteen (December 3-5): Japanese Cinema Reading Ellis pp. 312-322 (ch.13) ( th edition)/ pp. 201-208 (ch.11) Early Summer (Ozu, 1951) excerpt from Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950) Final Paper due Week Sixteen (Tuesday December 11): Final Examination, 10:30 am-12:30 pm
Accommodations *The University of Utah seeks to provide equal access to its programs, services and activities for people with disabilities. If you will need accommodations in the class, reasonable prior notice needs to be given to the Center for Disability Services, 162 Olpin Union Building, 581- (V/TDD). CDS will work with you and the instructor to make arrangements for accommodations. All written information in this course can be made available in alternative format with prior notification to the Center for Disability Services. *Some of the films screened in this course are unrated; I do not believe that any of them are, or would be “R” rated. In any case, because of the aesthetic and historical significance of these films and their importance in illustrating the course material, no content accommodations can be made. Please see http://www.admin.utah.edu/facdev/accommodations-policy.pdf for more details of University policy in this regard. All students are expected to maintain professional behavior in the classroom setting, according to the Student Code, spelled out in the Student Handbook. Students have specific rights in the classroom as detailed in Article III of the Code. The Code also specifies proscribed conduct (Article XI) that involves cheating on tests, plagiarism, and/or collusion, as well as fraud, theft, etc. Students should read the Code carefully and know they are responsible for the content. According to Faculty Rules and Regulations, it is the faculty responsibility to enforce responsible classroom behaviors, and I will do so, beginning with verbal warnings and progressing to dismissal from and class and a failing grade. Students have the right to appeal such action to the Student Behavior Committee.
