Fall 2009

FRESHMAN SEMINAR: RACE
& ETHNICITY IN
AMERICAN CINEMA 112
From the early documentary roots of cinema through the Civil Rights movement and to the recent democratization of the means of media production, questions of race and ethnicity have proved crucial both to the content of American films and also to the perspective from which they are made. This class will look at the representation of historical moments from the Civil War to Hurricane Katrina, the production of cinematic stereotypes as well as their appropriation for subversive purposes, and the gradual evolution of multi-culturalism as a central factor in the stories told and the telling of stories on the American screen. Students will use film texts to develop a critical understanding of one of the most important issues in American history. REQUIRED SCREENING: Monday at 4:00pm. 3 units.
AS:> TH
01 MW 10:00a-11:30a XXXII Vaughan

SPECIAL PROJECTS 200
This course is intended for freshmen and sophomores who wish to register for internships. Students must receive Program approval prior to beginning the internship. Please consult the Program guidelines governing internships. Credit variable, max 3 units.
01 TBA XXXI Paul
02 TBA XXXI Marton
03 TBA XXXI Chapman
04 TBA XXXI Sewell

INTRO TO COMPARATIVE
PRACTICE: ADAPTION;
FROM PEN TO CELLULOID 2151
We will examine different types of adaptation that include film remakes, graphic novels, short fiction, and the novel, noting how film fuses, assimilates, and synthesizes narratives from other media. The class will consider what alterations need to be made in order to bring a story to life on the screen and also what (style, technique, nuances) of the original narrative is modified and/or compromised through that process. We will thus focus both on what makes a film a film and also on how the narrative, the way in which the story is related in print, is adapted on screen. Works will include Lynch’s and Gifford’s WILD AT HEART, Welles’s and Kafka’s TRIAL, Olivier’s and Shakespeare’s HENRY V, Scorsese’s DEPARTED and Lau’s INFERNAL AFFAIRS, The Wachowski Brothers’ and Lloyd’s V FOR VENDETTA, and Kubrick’s and Burgess’s CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Screening times to be announced. 3 units. Same as home course L16 Comp Lit 215C.
AS:> TH
SB:> HUM
FA:> Lit
02 MWF 12:00p-1:00p XXXV Boehm

INTRO TO STUDIES 220
How do film images create meaning? What are the tools the film artist uses to create images? This course will introduce students to basic techniques of film production and formal methodologies for analyzing film art. Students will learn the essential components of film language -- staging, camera placement, camera movement, editing, lighting, special effects, film stock, lenses -- to heighten perceptual skills in viewing films and increase critical understanding of the ways films function as visual discourse. The course is foundational for the major in film and media studies. REQUIRED SCREENING: Monday at 7:00pm. 3 units. Same as L98 AMCS 246.
AS:> LA
SB:> HUM
01 MW 2:00p-3:00p XV Sewell
Subsections:
A W 3:00p-4:00p Sewell
B W 3:00p-4:00p TBA
C W 4:00p-5:00p TBA
D W 4:00p-5:00p TBA
E W 5:00p-6:00p TBA

MOVING IMAGES AND SOUND 230
SPECIAL NOTE: Admission by Wait-list only. Preference will be given to Film and Media Studies majors and minors. This introductory video production course explores how images and sounds function as cinematic building blocks and purveyors of content. Through creative assignments involving at times personal inquiry, at other times the understanding of elementary semiotics, the components of film and video are examined. Students learn the basics of key sound and editing software to produce, outside of class time, an original two-minute narrative piece. This course is a prerequisite to all other Film and Media Studies video courses. Prereq: Film Studies 220 or consent of instructor. 3 units.
AS:> LA
01 W 4:00p-7:00p Marton
02 Th 4:00p-7:00p Marton

CONTEMPORARY EAST ASIAN
CINEMA:
TAIWANESE NEW WAVE 322
This course focuses on films made in Japan, Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea over the past three decades. Students will examine how the global/local geopolitics specific to the post-Cold War period, the passing of authoritarian regimes, the boom and bust of the Asian economy, and international film festivals have influenced the shaping of New East Asian cinemas across borders. The first section of our course will investigate the ways in which historical traumas (wars, massacres, revolutions, and uprisings) have been revisited in the cinemas of Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea. What is the relationship between history and national cinema? How do such concepts as imperialism, nationalism, postcolonialism, guilt and trauma figure in films shouldering the “burden of history” and representing the “unrepresentable”? The second section explores selected auteurs and stars familiar to international cinephiles, such as Zhang Yimou, Kim Ki-duk, Park Chan-wook, Nagisa Oshima, Maggie Cheung, Stephen Chow, John Woo, Chow Yun-fat, Gong Li, and Takeshi Kitano. In the process, we will identify the themes, styles, genres and ideological/cultural content of East Asian film canons in the West. The final weeks will be devoted to border-crossing films such as Ang Lee’s Wedding Banquet, Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together, the Korean-Japanese co-production Asako in Ruby Shoes, and the pan-Asian horror film Three Extremes, which highlight the critical concerns of diaspora, hybridity, transnationalism, and globalization. REQUIRED SCREENING: Thursday at 7:00pm. 3 units. Same as L06 ANECC 322, L03 East Asia 3220, L97 IAS 322.
AS:> CD, TH
SB:> IS
01 MWF 3:00p-4:00p Chen

FRENCH CULTURE 325
Called “the seventh art,” film has a long tradition of serious popular appreciation and academic study in France. This course will offer an overview of French cinema, including the origins of film (Lumire brothers, Mlis), the inventive silent period (which created such avant-garde classics as Un chien andalou), the poetic realism of the 30s, the difficulties of the war years, the post-war emphasis on historical/nationalist themes in the “tradition of quality” films, the French New Wave’s attempt to create a more “cinematic” style, the effects of the political turmoil of May ‘68 on film culture, the “art house” reception of French films in the US, and the broader appeal of recent hyper-visual (“cinma du look”) films, such as La Femme Nikita and Amlieas, as well as the recent emergence of what is known as the cinema of transgression in films of Breillate, Haneke, and others. While the primary focus of the course will be on French cinema, we will also discuss the reciprocal influences between American and French film culture, both in terms of formal influences on filmmaking and theoretical approaches to film studies. French film terms will be introduced but no prior knowledge of the language is expected. REQUIRED SCREENING: Wednesday at 4:00pm. 3 units. Same as L79 EuSt 3250, L97 IAS 3250.
AS:> TH
SB:> IS
01 TuTh 2:30p-4:00p XXXI Vaughan

HISTORY OF WORLD CINEMA 340
The course surveys the history of cinema as it developed in nations other than the United States. Beginning with the initially dominant film producing nations of Western Europe, which soon found themselves threatened by the economic power of the Hollywood film industry, this course will consider the development of various national cinemas in Europe, Asia, and Third World countries. The course will seek to develop an understanding of each individual film both as an expression of a national culture as well as a possible response to international movements in other art forms. Throughout, the course will consider how various national cinemas sought ways of dealing with the pervasiveness of Hollywood films, developing their own distinctive styles, which could in turn influence American cinema itself. REQUIRED SCREENING: Tuesday at 7:00pm. 3 units. Same as L16 Comp Lit 3405, L97 IAS 3400.
AS:> CD, TH
SB:> HUM, IS
FA:> AH
01 TuTh 1:00p-2:00p XVIII Paul
Subsections:
A Tu 2:00p-3:00p Paul
B Tu 3:00p-4:00p [TBA]

INTRO TO SCREENWRITING 352
SPECIAL NOTE: Admission by wait-list only. Preference will be given to declared Film & Media Studies AND English majors and minors. Writers will explore the various elements, structures and styles used in crafting a motion picture screenplay. They will experience this process as they conceive, develop and execute the first act of a feature-length script. Writers will create a screenplay story, present an outline for class discussion and analysis, then craft Act One. Writers will be encouraged to consult with the instructor at various stages: concept, outline, character and scene development and dialogue execution. While the students fashion their screenwriting independently, the class will also explore the general elements of THEME, GENRE, and VOICE. A more specific examination of mechanics, the nuts and bolts of story construction, plotting, pacing, etc. will follow to support the ongoing writing process. In-class exercises will aid the writer in sharpening skills and discovering new approaches to form and content. Writers’ work will be shared and discussed regularly in class. Screening of film scenes and sequences will provide students with concrete examples of how dramatic screenwriting evolves once it leaves the writer’s hands. 3 units. Same as L13 E Comp 352.
AS:> LA
SB:> HUM
01 TuTh 10:00a-11:30a XXXI Chapman
02 TuTh 1:00p-2:30p XXXI Chapman

THE AMERICAN
MUSICAL 359
Film musicals were crucial to the success of the American film industry from the dawn of sound film in the late 1920s to the demise of the studio system in the late 1950s. This course examines the American film musical from a variety of aesthetic, critical, and historical perspectives, with particular attention to how the genre interacted with popular music and dance and the major political and social trends of the Thirties, Forties, and Fifties. REQUIRED SCREENING: Thursday at 4:00pm. 3 units. Same as L98 AMCS 3590, L15 Drama 3950, L27 Music 320.
AS:> LA
SB:> HUM
01 MWF 1:00p-2:00p Decker

AMERICAN HORRORS 370
Horror movies. Fright films. Scream marathons. Blood and gore fests. Why should we want to look at movies that aim to frighten us? What is the attraction of repulsion? Is there an aesthetics of ugliness? Except for some early prestige literary adaptations like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the horror film began as a low class genre, a notch above exploitation movies. In the 1970s-1980s, it became the dominant commercial genre by offering increasingly graphic images of violence and mayhem. The horror film had arrived: lavish budgets, big stars, and dazzling special effects in mainstream major studio films competed with low-budget, no frills productions that helped establish artistically ambitious and quirky filmmakers like George Romero and David Cronenberg. By a chronological survey of the American horror film, this course will explore how differing notions of what is terrifying reflect changing cultural values and norms. Throughout, we will consider the difficult questions raised by horror’s simple aim of scaring its audience. In addition to weekly screenings, work for the course will include analytical and theoretical essays on the horror film. Written analyses of films with a close attention to visual style will be required. Prereq: Film 220. REQUIRED SCREENING: Tuesday at 4:00pm. 3 units. Same as L98 AMCS 369.
AS:> TH
SB:> HUM
01 TuTh 10:00a-11:30a Paul

THEORIES OF MASS MEDIA 419
This course explores theories of the mass media with an emphasis on television as well as its convergences with other media and computer technologies. It starts by examining theories that posit the media as instruments of societal maintenance or transformation and then examines the ways in which various theorists have refined or rejected elements of these theories in a quest for both specificity and complexity. In particular, the course examines media and cultural studies’ attempts to synthesize critical paradigms ranging from political economy to semiotics to feminism. The course concludes with an examination of the challenges and opportunities posed to theorizations of the mass media by contemporary circumstances such as media conglomeration, niche marketing and micro-casting, and global flows of information, capital, and people. REQUIRED SCREENING: Tuesday at 4:00pm. 3 units.
01 TuTh 11:30a-1:00p Sewell

STARDOM,
PERFORMANCE
AND FAN CULTURE 422
This course focuses the Hollywood star system. We will explore stars in relation to celebrity and consumerism, especially how “stardom” is created by a system that seeks to create effects in film viewers whether conceived as audiences, fans, or spectators. We will examine the performance element of stardom and its relationship to genre, style, and changing film technology. Also of concern will be how stars and the discursive construction of stardom intersect with gender representation, race, ideology, sexuality, age, disability, nationality, and other points of theoretical interest to and historical inquiry in contemporary film studies. While emphasis will be placed on mainstream commercial U.S. cinema, students are encouraged to pursue questions beyond this framework within their own research. REQUIRED SCREENING: Monday at 4:00pm. 3 units. Same as L15 Drama 422A.
01 MW 1:00p-2:30p Studlar

SEMINARY IN CULTURAL
THEORY: SPLIT SCREENS:
WEIMAR CINEMA AND ITS
VISIONS OF MODERNITY 4529
German cinema during the Weimar Republic has gained international reputation for the distorted images and haunted narratives of its expressionist filmmakers, the uncompromising visions and dystopian fantasies of its auteur directors, the artistic interventions of its avant-gardists and the political commitments of its realists. Like Weimar culture in general, Weimar cinema was a crucible of formal and social experimentation, a site of modernist departures wedged between the decline of the Wilhelminian Reich and the rise of the Nazi period. This seminar explores some of the most important films produced in Germany between 1918 and 1933 and locates them in their artistic, cultural, and historical context. Aside from discussing the work of such directors as Fritz Lang, Leni Riefenstahl, Walter Ruttmann, and Robert Wiene as case studies to explore the contested course of Weimar film history and culture, this seminar also serves as a theoretically informed introduction to the critical study of film and visual materials in general. Discussions and readings in English. Undergraduates with permission of instructor only. Weekly screenings. W: 4 - 6:30 3 units. Same as home course L21 German 529.
01 W 11:30a-1:00p XXXV Koepnick

MAJOR DIRECTORS 458
What does the film director do? In the earliest movies, film directors modeled themselves on their theatrical counterparts: they chiefly focused on how to stage an action in a confined space for a stationary camera that represented an ideal member of the audience. As the camera began to be used to direct audience attention, first through cutting, then through actual movement, the film director evolved from a stager of events to a narrator. By analyzing the work of one or more major film directors, this course will explore the art of film direction. We will learn how film directors may use the camera to narrate a scene, to provide their own distinctive view of the actions playing out on the movie screen. SEE SECTION DESCRIPTIONS FOR COURSE OFFERINGS. May be repeated for credit with permission of the instructor. REQUIRED SCREENING: Wednesday at 7:00pm. 3 units.
AS:> TH
SB:> HUM
SECT 02: Masters of Suspense--Alfred Hitchcock, Claude Chabrol, Brian de Palma. From the time early filmmakers learned to cut back and forth between converging lines of action, suspense has been a central element in popular movies, expressed visually through the distinctive properties of film style as well as dramatically through the conventions of films melodramatic inheritance. There is suspense in practically every Hollywood genre; yet, some films are so permeated with this dramatic quality, they are known simply as “suspense films,” a particularly voyeuristic genre of film in which representations of gender and sexuality, as well as the morality of characters and the emotional and visceral engagement of the spectator, areheightened. This course will focus critically on such questions of representation and voyeurism in the works of three directors who specialized in suspense: from Alfred Hitchcocks heightened visual language, to Claude Chabrols morally ambiguous stylism, to Brian de Palma’s postmodern modes of homage and reflexivity. The course will consist of one film a week plus critical readings on the three directors. Frequent written analyses of the films with a close attention to visualstyle will be required. REQUIRED SCREENING: Wednesday at 7:00pm.
02 MW 2:30p-4:00p Vaughan

SPECIAL PROJECTS 495
This course is intended for juniors and seniors who wish to register for internships. Students must receive Program approval prior to beginning the internship. Please consult the Program guidelines governing internships. Credit variable, max 3 units.
01 TBA XXXI Paul
02 TBA XXXI Marton
03 TBA XXXI Chapman
04 TBA XXXI Sewell
05 TBA XXXI Studlar

STUDY FOR HONORS 499
This course is intended for majors pursuing honors in Film and Media Studies. In order to enroll for this course, students must apply in advance for honors and be approved by a faculty committee. Please consult the Program for application deadlines and other requirements. 3 units.
01 TBA XXXI Paul
02 TBA XXXI Chapman
03 TBA XXXI Sewell
04 TBA XXXI Studlar

INDEPENDENT STUDY 500
This course is intended for students who wish to pursue areas of study not available within the standard curriculum. In order to enroll for this course, students must have a faculty adviser and submit a contract outlining the work for the course to the Film and Media Studies office. Please consult the Program guidelines governing independent study work. Credit variable, max 3 units.
01 TBA XXX Paul
02 TBA XXX Marton
03 TBA XXX Chapman
04 TBA XXX Sewell
05 TBA XXX Studlar