Cinema 502: Avant-Garde Cinema

Monday 1:10 – 3:55 Room FA101

Instructor: Aaron Kerner

Office: TBA

Telephone: 405 3972

Office Hours: TBA

Course Description: This course aims to survey various forms of avant-garde cinema. By no means is the course exhaustive in its scope, however, the course will attempt to cover a wide range of avant-garde, or as they are sometimes called, 'experimental' or 'alternative' films from a variety of cultural perspectives.

What purpose does such an alternative cinema serve? Do avant-garde practices eventually manifest in mainstream films? Do these films help to expand our understanding of the cinematic? Or do they operate in a parallel manner; that is, never influencing one another?

Frequently what we will find is that avant-garde practices are employed to express radical ideas; sometimes in conflict with the dominant culture. Consequently, there is often a performative element in the cinematic form itself. A number of the films that we will be screening do not adhere to standard narrative conventions. Moreover, some of the films are extremely challenging, and will demand the utmost critical attention.

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: The course assessment will be based on four papers as well as attendance and participation. I want to make student participation an important 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.

First Paper	15%
Second Paper	15%
Third Paper	30%
Final Paper	30%
Attendance/Participation	10%

Course Reading Material: Because of the California economic crisis and the subsequent raise in your tuition, I have attempted to make this course as economical as possible. All of the reading material is available through electronic-reserve or an on-line database such as Project Muse or JSTOR. You should assume that the reading material is accessible through electronic-reserve unless stated otherwise.

Asked the instructor for the password for electronic reserve material.

NB: This syllabus is subject to change.

Turn off your cell phone and other electronic devices.

Citation Method - Chicago Manual of Style:

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

Introduction: Surrealism and Assemblage

Session 1: August 29, 2005

Naqoyqatsi, Godfrey Reggio, 2002

Labor Day September 5, 2005 NO CLASS

Session 2: September 12, 2005

Un Chien Andalou, Luis Bu–uel and Salvador Dali, 1928

L'Age d'or, Luis Bu–uel and Salvador Dali, 1930

Reading:

1. Salvador Dali, "The Stinking Ass," in Art in Theory 1900 - 1990: An Anthology of Changing Ideas, Charles Harrison and Paul Wood, eds. (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), 478-481.

2. Stuart Liebman, "Un Chien andalou: The Talking Cure," in Dada and Surrealist Film, Rudolf E. Kuenzli, ed. (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2001), 143 - 158.

Session 3: September 19, 2005

Meshes of the Afternoon, Maya Deren and Alexander Hamid, 1943

Invocations: Maya Deren, Joann Kaplan, 1987

Reading:

1. Maya Deren, "Cinematography: The Creative Use of Reality," in Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Fifth Edition, Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen eds. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 216 - 227.

2. Maria Pramaggiore, "Performance and Persona in the U.S. Avant-Garde: The Case of Maya Deren," Cinema Journal vol. 36, no. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp. 17-40. Available through JSTOR

Session 4: September 26, 2005

A Movie, Bruce Conner, 1958

Human Remains, Jay Rosenblatt, 1998

Free Fall, Peter Forgács, 1996

Reading:

1. Bill Nichols, "The Memory of Loss: Peter Forgacs's Saga of Family Life and Social Hell," Film Quarterly vol. 56, no. 4 (2003): 2 - 12.

2. James Peterson, "The Usual Suspects Still at Large: The Interpretive Schemata of the Assemblage Strain," Dreams of Chaos, Visions of Order: Understanding the American Avant-Garde Cinema, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1994, 126 - 144.

Contestations: Documentary, Non-Fiction and "Realism"

Session 5: October 3, 2005

First Paper Due in class

The couple in the cage: a Guatinaui odyssey, Guillermo Gomez-Peña and Coco Fusco, 1993

Sans Soleil, Chris Marker, 1982

Reassemblage: from the firelight to the screen, Trinh T. Minh-ha, 1982

Reading:

1. Bill Nichols, "The Ethnographer's Tale," in Visualizing Theory: Selected Essays from VAR 1990-1994, Lucien Taylor, ed. New York: Routledge, 1994.

2. Scott MacDonald, "Trinh T. Minh-ha: Naked Spaces - Living Is Round," Avant-Garde Film, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997, 147 - 156.

Session 6: October 10, 2005

Bara no Soretsu, Toshio Matsumoto, 1969 [Funeral Parade of Roses]

Reading:

1. Abe Mark(us) Normes, "The Postwar Documentary Trace: Groping in the Dark," positions: east asia cultures critique vol. 10, no. 1 (Spring 2002): 39 - 78. Available through Project Muse.

Sexuality and the Body

Session 7: October 17, 2005

Fuses, Carolee Schneemann, 1967

Imaging her erotics: Carolee Schneemann, Maria Beatty, 1993

Blow-Job, Andy Warhol, 1963

Window Water Baby Moving, Stan Brakhage, 1959

Removed, Naomi Uman, 1999

Reading:

1. An Interview with Carolee Schneemann, Wide Angle vol. 20, no. 1 (1998): 20 - 49. Available through the Project Muse database.

2. Wayne Koestenbaum, selection from "The Sixties: Screens," Andy Warhol, New York: Viking Book, 2001, 78 - 89.

3. OPTIONAL Jay Murphy, "Assimilating the Unassimilable: Carolee Schneemann in Relation to Antonin Artaud," Parkett 50/51, (1997): 224 - 231.

Session 8: October 24, 2005

Second Paper Due in class

Begotten, Elias Merhige, 1989

Reading:

1. Elias Merhige, "On Begotten," interview by Scott MacDonald, A Critical Cinema 3: Interviews with Independent Filmmakers, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998, 284 - 292.

2. OPTIONAL selected readings from Butoh: Dance of the Dark Soul, New York: Aperture Foundation, 1987.

Session 9: October 31, 2005

Tetsuo: Iron Man, Shinya Tsukamoto, 1989

Reading:

1. Susan J. Napier, "Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira," Journal of Japanese Studies, vol. 19, no. 2. (Summer, 1993): 327-351. Available through the JSTOR database.

2. Watch Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988. Available at the Media Access Center.

Session 10: November 7, 2005

Looking For Langston, Isaac Julien, 1989

Fireworks, Kenneth Anger, 1947

Reading:

1. Isaac Julien interviewed by Bruce Morrow, Callaloo vol. 18, no. 2 (1995): 406 - 415. Available through the Project Muse database.

2. Manthia Diawara, "The Absent One: The Avant-Garde and the Black Imaginary in Looking for Langston," Wide Angle vol. 13, no. 3/4 (July-October, 1991): 96 - 109.

Session 11: November 14, 2005

Blue, Derek Jarman, 1995

Reading:

1. Tim Lawrence, "AIDS, the Problem of Representation, and Plurality in Derek Jarman's Blue," Social Text, 52/53 (Autumn-Winter, 1997): 241 - 264. Available through the JSTOR database.

Session 12: November 21, 2005

Third Paper Due in class

Prospero's Books, Peter Greenaway, 1991

The Pillow Book, Peter Greenaway, 1996

Reading:

1. Paula Willoquet-Maricondi, "Fleshing the Text: Greenaway's Pillow Book and the Erasure of the Body," Postmodern Culture, vol. 9, no. 2 (1999): ¦ 22. Available through the Project Muse database.

1. "Peter Greenaway: An Interview," interviewed by Lawrence Chua, Peter Greenaway Interviews Vernon Gras and Marguerite Gras, eds. (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2000), 176 - 185.

Session 13: November 28, 2005

The Cremaster Cycle, Matthew Barney 1994 - 1999

Reading:

1. Matthew Barney, interviewed by Hans Ulrich Obrist, in Interviews Volume I, Thomas Boutoux, ed. (Milan: Charta, 2005), 69 - 77.

2. Calvin Tomkins, "His Body, Himself: Matthew Barney's strange and passionate exploration of gender," The New Yorker (January 27, 2005), 50 - 59.

Session 14: December 5, 2005

Submit final paper in class

Session 15: December 12, 2005

Finals Week No Class

Additional reading available as general reference for avant-garde film:

Lauren Rabinovitz, "The Meanings of the Avant-garde," in Points of Resistance: Women, Power and Politics in the New York Avant-garde Cinema 1943-71, Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2005.