CINE 200: Introduction to Film Studies

Spring 2009

 

Building: FA101 Coppola Theater

Instructor: Aaron Kerner

 

Office: FA 536

 

Email: amkerner@sfsu.edu

 

Website: http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/index.html

 

Office Hours:

Monday 12:00-1:00

Wednesday 11:00-1:00

Or by appointment

 

 

Course Description: This course is a survey of the discipline of Film Studies, its methodologies, genres and histories. Through an examination of various cinematic forms, styles, and genres, roughly following a historical chronology, the course aims to develop the critical skills crucial to the discourse of Film Studies. In addition to developing an understanding of the critical tools available to us, the course is designed to provide a wide survey of not only domestic film but also international film.

 

This course is designed for prospective film majors. If you wish to continue in the film major, you must receive a grade of "C" or higher in this course and in Cinema 202.

 

Course Requirements:

  1. Attend all class meetings
  2. Readings must be completed by the assigned dates
  3. All written work must be submitted on time

 

Course Assessment: Accompanying each examination (the two midterms and the final) there will be a short paper assignment. Prompts/questions will be posted online prior to each exam. These should be typed and submitted on the day of the exam.

 

 

Midterm One

15%

Take Home One

10%

Midterm Two

15%

Take Home Two

10%

Final Examination

25%

Final Take Home

15%

Meet with an Advisor

5%

Attendance/Participation

5%

 

 

Extra-credit is NEVER an option.

 

Plagiarism and other issues concerning academic integrity will not be tolerated, and is grounds for an automatic failure in the course. Students who violate academic integrity can be referred to Student Judicial Affairs.

 

NB: This syllabus is subject to change at any time.

 

Turn off your cell phones and all other electronic devices!

 

Citation Method: The Chicago Manual of Style: For assistance with citations see the online version of Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual.

 

Course Text:

 

  1. David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction Eighth Edition, New York: McGraw Hill, 2001.
  2. E-reserve Material – the password is: TBA

 

Session 1 January 26 PPT

Screening:

Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, Fax Bahr with George Hickenlooper; documentary footage directed by Eleanor Coppola, 1991

Reading:

Film Art "Chapter One – Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business."

 

Session 2 February 2 PPT

Screening:

The Lumi¸re Brothers First Films, 1895-97/1996

Selections from Lumi¸re and Company, 1995

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Twelve – Film Art and Film History "

 

Session 3 February 9 PPT

Screening:

Chinpokomon, South Park, 2000

The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleminng, 1939

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Two – The Significance of Film Form."

 

Session 4 February 16 PPT

Screening:

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1919

Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray, 1955

 

Reading: Note that the reading assignment is larger than usual

Film Art, "Chapter Four – The Shot: Mise-en-Scene," and "Chapter Five – The Shot: Cinematography."

 

Session 5 February 23 PPT

Screening:

Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979


Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Seven – Sound in the Cinema"

 

Session 6 March 2

Mid-term One – Film Form

 

Session 7 March 9 PPT

Screening:

Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960

The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, 1941

The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock, 1963

 

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Six – The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing"

 

Session 8 March 16 PPT

Screening:

Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941

 

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Eight – Summary: Style as a Formal System"

 

NO CLASS – March 23 Spring Break

 

Session 9 March 30 PPT

Screening:

Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa, 1950

Ghost Dog, Jim Jarmusch, 1999

Mishima: A Life In Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1985

 

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Three – Narrative as a Formal System"

 

Session 10 April 6 PPT

Screening:

Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl, 1935

Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl, 1938

Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, 1985

Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, PBS series America at the Crossroads, Richard E. Robbins, 2005

Select clips from the films of Hara Kazuo

 

Reading:

Film Art, "Chapter Ten – Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films"

 

Session 11 April 13

Mid-Term Two Narrative Structures

 

Session 12 April 20 PPT

Screening:

Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958

Peeping Tom, Michael Powell, 1960

 

Reading:

Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 14 – 26. On e-reserve

 

Session 13 April 27 PPT

Screening:

The Bicycle Thief, Vittorio De Sica, 1948

Kids, Larry Clark, 1995

 

Reading:

Susan Hayward, "Realism," Key Concepts in Cinema Studies (New York: Routledge, 1996), 298 – 300. On e-reserve

 

Andrˇ Bazin, "An Aesthetic of Reality: Cinematic Realism and the Italian School of Liberation," What Is Cinema? Volume II (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1971): 16 – 40. On e-reserve

 

Film Art pages 459-461 for a discussion of "Italian Neo-Realism (1942-1951)."

 

Session 14 May 4 PPT

Screening:

Baadasssss, Mario Van Peebles, 2005

Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith, 1915

 

Reading:

Manthia Diawara, "Black Spectatorship: Problems of Identification and Resistance," in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen eds., Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Fifth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 845 – 853. On e-reserve.

 

Session 15 May 11

Film Finals Preview

 

Session 16 May 18

Final Exam