Cinema 340: Critical Studies

Monday 9:10 - 11:55 Room FA101

Instructor: Aaron Kerner

Office: FA  536


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

Office Hours:

Mon 12:00-1:00

Tuesday 11:00-1:00

And by appointment.

 

 

Course Description: The intention of this course is to introduce modes of critical analysis in cinema studies. The fundament concern of critical studies is to determine how film "constructs meaning," or "communicates" to the spectator. Whether we are addressing early Twentieth Century montage theories, genre, auteur , semiotics, or psychoanalysis, these discourses have been applied to cinema to go beyond dialogue and plot to determine how the nuances of cinema (e.g., editing, character relationships, narrative structure, sound-image relationships) also generate meaning.

 

Course Requirements:

1.     Attend all class meetings and discussion groups (attending your 341 section is required)

2.     Readings must be completed by the assigned dates

3.     All written work must be submitted on time

 

Course Assessment: The course assessment will be based on four papers (4-6 pages) and two quizzes as well as attendance and participation. Participation in your discussion group is an essential part of the learning process. As for the papers, I want to encourage the development of critical thinking and research skills. I will require that you find outside research material to support your argument.

1.     First Paper  
 15%
2.     Second Paper
 15%
3.     Third Paper 
 15%
4.     Final Paper 
 15%
5.     First Quiz 
 15%
6.     Second Quiz 
 15%
7.     Attendance/Participation
 10%

 

Course Reading Material:

  1. REQUIRED: Nichols, Bill, ed. Movies and Methods Volume II. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985.
  2. OPTIONAL: Nichols, Bill, ed. Movies and Methods Volume I. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976.
  3. Electronic Reserves and Databases (e.g., Project Muse and JSTOR)

  4. The password for electronic reserve will be announced in class.

  5. Instructions for accessing the online course reading.

 

NB:    


Citation Method - Chicago Manual of Style:

 

For assistance with citations see the online version of Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual.

 


Introduction

 

Session 1: September 8th, 2008


PPT


Screening:

Man with a Movie Camera, Dziga Vertov, 1929

 

Session 2: September 15, 2008


PPT

Screening:

The Battleship Potmekin, Sergei Eisenstein, 1925

Reading:

1.     David Harrah, "Aesthetics of the Film: The Pudovkin-Arnheim-Eisenstein Theory," The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, vol. 13, no. 2 (December 1954): 163 - 174. Available through the JSTOR Database.

2.    Sergei Eisenstein, "Beyond the Shot [the Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram]" and "The Dramaturgy of Film Form [The Dialectical Approach to Film Form]," in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Fifth Edition, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 15 - 42. Available through Electronic Reserves.

 

Session 3: September 22, 2008


PPT

Screening:

The Searchers, John Ford, 1956

Reading:

1.     Brian Henderson, "The Searchers an American Dilemma," MMII, 429 - 449.

2.     Peter Wollen, "The Auteur Theory," in MMI, 529 - 542. Available through Electronic Reserves.

 

Structuralism and Semiotics

 

Session 4: September 29, 2008 

First Paper Due in class


PPT


Screening:

Natural Born Killers, Oliver Stone, 1994

21 Grams, Alejandro Gonzelez I–arritu, 2003

Reading:

1.     Paul Sandro, "Signification in the Cinema," in MMII, 391 - 407.

2.     Christian Metz, "On the Notion of Cinematographic Language," MMI, 582 - 589. Available through Electronic Reserves.

 

Session 5: October 6, 2008


PPT


Screening:

Rules of the Game, Jean Renoir, 1939

And God created woman …, Roger Vadim, 1956

Reading:

1.     Roland Barthes, "The Rhetoric of the Image," in Image/Music/Text, trans. Stephen Heath (New York: Hill and Wang, 1977), 32 - 51.

2.     Julia Lesage, "S/Z and The Rules of the Game," MMII, 476 - 500.

 

Session 6: October 13, 2008


PPT


Screening:

Mildred Pierce, Michael Curtiz, 1945

Reading:

1.     Daniel Dayan, "The Tutor-Code of Classic Cinema," MMI, 438 - 451. Available through Electronic Reserves.

2.     Joyce Nelson, "Mildred Pierce Reconsidered," MMII, 450 - 458.

 

Session 7: October 20, 2008


PPT

Screening:

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, Howard Hawks, 1953

Reading:

1.     Maureen Turim, "Gentlemen Consume Blondes," MM II, 369 - 378.

2.     Review Brian Henderson, "The Searchers an American Dilemma," MMII, 429 - 449.

 

 

Ideology

 

Session 8: October 27, 2008

Second Paper Due in class

First Quiz


PPT

 

Screening:

Diva, Jean-Jacques Beineix, 1981

Reading:

1.     Fredric Jameson, "On Diva," Social Text vol., 0, no. 6 (Autumn 1982): 114 - 119. Available through the JSTOR database.

2.     Guy Debord, "Chapter 1 Separation Perfected," in Society of the Spectacle,
<http://library.nothingness.org/articles/SI/en/pub_contents/4>

 

PPT

 

Session 9: November 3, 2008

Screening:

Super-size Me, Morgan Spurlock, 2004
Fog of War: Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara, Errol Morris, 2003
Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore, 2004


Reading:

1.     Thomas Waugh, "Beyond Verite," MMII, 234 - 258.

2.     Bill Nichols, "The Voice of Documentary," MMII, 258 - 273.

 

PPT

 

Session 10: November 10, 2008

Screening:

The Battle of Algiers, Gillo Pontecorvo, 1965

Sweet Sweetback"s Baadassss Song, Melvin Van Peebles, 1971

Baadasssss, Mario Van Peebles, 2008

Reading:

1.     Robert Stam and Louise Spence, "Colonialism, Racism, and Representation: An Introduction," MMII, 632 - 649.


Psychoanalysis and Feminism


Session 11: November 17, 2008

Third Paper Due in class

PPT

Screening:

Peeping Tom, Michael Powel, 1960

Rear Window, Alfred Hitchcock, 1954

Reading:

1.     Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema," MMII, 303 - 315.

 

 

November 24 NO CLASS - THANKSGIVING BREAK

 

Session 12: December 1, 2008

PPT

 

Screening:

Carrie, Brian De Palma, 1976

Reading:

1.     Robin Wood, "An Introduction to the American Horror," MMII, 195 - 220.


Session 13: December 8, 2008

 

PPT

 

Screening:

Blow Up, Michaelangelo Antonioni, 1966


Reading:

    1. Christian Metz, "Story/Discourse," MMII, 543 - 549.
    2. Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, "Note on Story/Discourse," MMII, 549 - 557.


Session 14: December 15, 2008

Submit final paper in class

            Final  Quiz