Preliminary Syllabus
CINE 203: Introduction to Cinema Studies and Production
Fall 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:
TBA
Or by appointment
Course Description:
This is a lecture course
that introduces students to some of the basic principles of film studies and
production. During the course of the semester students will study the
historical development of film taking into consideration technical developments
and the evolution of film aesthetics. Through an examination of various
cinematic forms, styles, and genres – roughly following a historical
chronology – the course aims to develop the critical thinking and
production skills that are fundamental to the Cinema Major.
CINE 203 is a gateway course into the Cinema Major. Students who wish to become Cinema Majors need to either: 1) pass both CINE200 and CINE 202 with a C or better, or 2) pass CINE 203 with a C or better.
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. Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, New York; Scarborough, Ont.: New American Library, 1984.
3. E-reserve Material – the password is: TBA
Mandatory Viewing:
View these at the Library Media Center, located in HSS 127. These films are also available at the Cinema Studies Center (FA344).
Session 1 August 24 PPT NO CLASS
Screening:
Reading:
Session 2 August 31 PPT (1) PPT (2)
Screening:
The Lumire Brothers First Films, 1895-97/1996
The Rice/Irwin Kiss, William Heise, 1896
Selected clips from Georges Mlis: Cinema Magician, Luciano Martinengo and Patrick Montgomery, 1978
A Trip to the Moon, Georges Mlis, 1902
Selected clip from Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson, 1999
Selected clips from Lumire and Company, 1995
Selected clips from Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942
Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse, Fax Bahr with George Hickenlooper; documentary footage directed by Eleanor Coppola, 1991
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 1 – Film as Art: Creativity, Technology, and Business."
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 1 – Introduction to Video and Film Systems"
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 2 – Before You Begin Your Production
September 7 Labor Day – NO CLASS
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, Chapter 5 – The Shot: Cinematography."
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 3 – The Video Camcorder
Session 3 September 14 PPT
Featured presentation by Weimin Zhang
Screening:
Selected clips from Ashes and Diamonds, Andrzes Wajda, 1958
Selected clips from Boyz N the Hood, John Singleton, 1991
Selected clips from American Cinema: Romantic Comedy / Film Noir, 1994
Selected clips from A Time to Live, a Time to Die, Hsiao-Hsien Hou, 1985
Selected clips from Boy Meets Girl, Leos Carax, 1984
Selected clips from The Last Tango in Paris, Bernardo Bertolucci, 1972
Selected clips from Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone, 1994
Selected clips from Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard, 1963
Selected clips from Carrie, Brian De Palma, 1976
Selected clips from Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
Selected clips from Dexter, Tony Goldwyn, 2007
Selected clips from Goodfellas, Martin Scorsese, 1990
Selected clips from Oedipus Rex, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1967
Selected clips from Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray, 1955
Selected clips from Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942
Selected clips from Cinematographer Style, Jon Fauer, 2006
Selected clips from Visions of Light, Arnold Glassman, Todd McCarthy, and Stuart Samuels, 1992
Reading:
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 4 – the Lens
OPTIONAL: Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 5 – the Video Image
REVIEW FOR EXAM - Depth of Field Tables
Session 4 September 21 PPT
Screening:
Selected clips from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Robert Wiene, 1919
Selected clips from Rebel Without a Cause, Nicholas Ray, 1955
Selected clips from King Kong, John Guillermin, 1976
Selected clips from 25th Hour, Spike Lee, 2002
Selected clips from Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone, 1994
Selected clips from Contempt, Jean-Luc Godard, 1963
Selected clips from American Cinema: Romantic Comedy / Film Noir, 1994
Selected clips from the making of The Cooler, Wayne Kramer, 2003
Selected clips from The Great Dictator, Charles Chaplin, 1940
Selected clips from Draughtsman's Contract, Peter Greenaway, 1982
Selected clips from Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 4 – The Shot: Mise-en-Scene."
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 6 – the Film Camera
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 7 – the Film Image
Session 5 September 28 PPT
Freatured presentation by: Larry Clark
Screening:
Selected clips from Chinpokomon, South Park, 2000
Selected clips from The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleminng, 1939
Selected clips from Barefoot Gen, Mori Masaki, 1983
Selected clips from Thirteen, Catherine Hardwicke, 2003
Selected clips from The Golem, Paul Wegner, 1920
Selected clips from Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror, F. W. Murnau, 1922
Selected clips from Friday the 13th, Sean Cunningham, 1980
Selected clips from Casablanca, Michael Curtiz, 1942
Reading:
Maria Pramaggiore and Tom Wallis, "Chapter 9 - Writing About Film," in Film: A Critical Introduction (Boston: Pearson/Allyn and Bacon, 2006), 270-293. Available via e-res.
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 8 - Color and Filters"
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 12 – Lighting
OPTIONAL: David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 2 - The Significance of Film Form."
Session 6 October 5
Mid-term One – Film Form
Session 7 October 12 PPT
Featured presentation by Pat Jackson PPT
Screening:
Selected clips from Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola, 1979
Selected clips from What's Up Tiger Lily, Woody Allen, 1966
Selected clips from The Lambeth Walk Nazi Style, Len Lye, 1942
Selected clips from The Great Dictator, Charles Chaplin, 1940
Selected clips from The Story of Adele H., Franois Truffaut, 1975
Selected clips from A Man Escaped, Robert Bresson, 1956
Selected clips from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 7 – Sound in the Cinema"
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 10 – Sound Recording Systems
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 11 – Sound Recording Techniques
Session 8 October 19 PPT
Screening:
Selected clips from Russian Ark, Alexander Sokurov, 2002
Selected clips from Rope, Alfred Hitchcock, 1948
Selected clips from A Talk with Hitchcock, 1964
Selected clips from Alien, Ridley Scott, 1979
Selected clips from Psycho, Alfred Hitchcock, 1960
Selected clips from The Maltese Falcon, John Huston, 1941
Selected clips from The Birds, Alfred Hitchcock, 1963
Selected clips from The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk, Corey Yuen, 1993
Selected clips from Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Carl Reiner, 1982
Selected clips from Lost Boys, Joel Schumacher, 1987
Selected clips from Hiroshima mon amour, Alain Resnais, 1959
Selected clips from Breathless, Jean-Luc Godard, 1960
Selected clips from Jerry Maguire, Cameron Crowe, 1996
Selected clips from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter Six – The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing"
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 13 – Picture and Dialogue Editing
Session 9 October 26 PPT FURLOUGH DAY - NO CLASS
Screening:
Selected clips from Dial M for Murder, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
Selected clips from The Strike, Sergei M. Eisenstein, 1925
Selected clips from Powaqqatsi, Godfrey Reggio, 1988
Selected clips from Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929
Selected clips from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941
Reading:
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 14 – Editing Video
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 15 – Editing Film
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 16 – Sound Editing and Mixing
Session 10 November 2 PPT
Featured presentation by: Julian Hoxter PPT (see Professor Hoxter's Blog for Basic Screenwriting Formatting)
Screening:
Selected clips from Rashomon, Akira Kurosawa, 1950
Selected clips from Ghost Dog, Jim Jarmusch, 1999
Selected clips from Mishima: A
Life In Four Chapters, Paul Schrader, 1985
Selected clips from Citizen Kane, Orson Welles, 1941
Selected clips from Delicatessen, Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, 1990
Selected clips from City of Lost Children, Jean-Pierre and Marc Caro, 1995
Selected clips from Alien 4: Resurrection, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997
Selected clips from Neon Gensis Evangelion, Hideaki Anno, 1995-96
Selected clips from Love and Pop, Hideaki Anno, 1998
Selected clips from Squarepusher "Come On My Selector," music video by Chris Cunningham
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin
Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 3
– Narrative as a Formal System"
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 8 – Summary: Style as a Formal System"
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 9 – the Shoot
Session 11 November 9
Mid-Term Two Narrative
Structures/Editing/Sound
Session 12 November 16 PPT
Screening:
Selected clips from Triumph of the Will, Leni Riefenstahl, 1935
Selected clips from Olympia, Leni Riefenstahl, 1938
Selected clips from Shoah, Claude Lanzmann, 1985
Selected clips from Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience, PBS series America at the Crossroads, Richard E. Robbins, 2005
Selected clips from Gokushiteki Erosu: Renka 1974 [Extreme Private Eros Love Song 1974], Kazuo Hara, 1974
Selected clips from Yuki
Yukite shingun, Kazuo Hara, 1987 [The
Emperors Naked Army Marches On]
Selected clips from Sayonara CP, Kazuo
Hara, 1972 [Goodbye CP]
Selected clips from The
Thin Blue Line, Errol Morris, 1988
Selected clips from Waltz With Bashir, Ari Folman, 2008
Selected clips from Paisan, Roberto Rossellini, 1946
Selected clips from The Blair Witch Project, Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999
Selected clips from The Bicycle Thief, Vittorio De Sica, 1948
Selected clips from Kids, Larry Clark, 1995
Reading:
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, "Chapter 10 – Documentary, Experimental, and Animated Films"
Susan Hayward, "Realism," Key Concepts in Cinema Studies (New York: Routledge, 1996), 298 – 300. On e-reserve
Andr 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
David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art, see pages 459-461 for a discussion of "Italian Neo-Realism (1942-1951)."
November 23 – Fall Recess – NO CLASS - PPT
Screening:
Selected clips from Vertigo, Alfred Hitchcock, 1958
Selected clips from Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954
Selected clips from Peeping Tom, Michael Powell, 1960
Selected clips from Baadasssss Cinema, Issac Julien, 2002
Selected clips from Baadasssss, Mario Van Peebles, 2005
Selected clips from Birth of a Nation, D. W. Griffith, 1915
Reading:
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema," in Visual and Other Pleasures (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989), 14 – 26. On e-reserve
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
Edward Pincus and Steven Ascher, The Filmmaker's Handbook, Chapter 19 – Producing and Distributing the Movie
Session 13 November 30 PPT
Session 14 December 7 PPT FURLOUGH DAY - NO CLASS
Session 15 December 14 FURLOUGH DAY - NO CLASS
Session 16 December 21 NO CLASS