CINE 724: Film Theory I
Fall 2008
Monday 1:00-4:00
Instructor: Aaron Kerner
Office: FA 536
Email: amkerner@sfsu.edu
Website:
http://online.sfsu.edu/~amkerner/
Office Hours:
Monday 12:00-1:00
Tuesday 11:00 – 1:00
Or by appointment.
Course
Description: The general
course description reads: Research in aesthetic issues and their relationship
to theories of subjectivity, representation, and cultural politics. Aesthetics
as it pertains to film-video production: the expressive potential of aural and
visual elements and the implications or consequences of various relationships
of sound and image for spectators.
The course will
focus on strategies for representing history and memory, evaluating narrative
(i.e., fictional, or fictionalized accounts) and non-narrative (i.e.,
non-fiction, or documentary genre) representations of history and memory. The
last section will be reserved for student presentations.
The objectives
of the course are multifold:
The
introduction and concentrated study of specific theoretical material.
Develop
strategies for presenting material.
Prepare
students for the following semester, with a specific emphasis on preparing
students for the CINE726/CINE770 cluster.
Reading:
1.
Many of the
assigned readings are accessible online (e.g., on the JSTOR database, or a
specified website).
2.
Some
material is accessible via electronic reserve. Password TBA.
3.
There are
three books that you need to get:
a.
Barthes,
Roland. Camera Lucida. Translated by Richard Howard. New York: Hill and
Wang, 1981.
b.
Spiegelman,
Art. Maus: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds History I. New York:
Pantheon Books, 1986.
c.
Spiegelman,
Art. Maus: A Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles Began Volume II. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1991.
Assignments:
1.
Creative
multimedia project: Adopt a specific theoretical strategy and then present
illustrative examples. Select media that is appropriate for your purposes.
Examples of creative multimedia projects: an assemblage video (e.g., re-editing
a film(s)), culture jamming projects (e.g., the appropriation of material and
subverting it for other purposes).
2.
A
presentation of your multimedia project. Discuss the theoretical strategy that
you have adopted. Lead a class discussion based on your chosen theoretical
strategy.
3.
A 10-page
paper that elaborates the theoretical content of your creative multimedia
project. For example, if you were to create a multimedia project on
representations of history in cinema, your paper should present relevant
research on this topic, in this specific case one would expect to find a
discussion of Bill Nichols, Hayden White, et al.
Citation Method
- Chicago Manual of Style:
For assistance
with citations see the online version of Diana Hackers A Pocket Style Manual.
Assessment:
|
Participation: |
25% |
|
Creative
Multimedia Project: |
25% |
|
Presentation: |
25% |
|
Final Paper: |
25% |
Introduction:
History and Memory
Session 1:
September 8, 2008
Screening:
The Road to Guantnamo, Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom, 2006
Session 2:
September 15, 2008
Screening:
September 11th, Alain Brigand (creative producer), 2002
Reading:
Inga Clendinnen, Representing the Holocaust, in Reading the
Holocaust (Melbourne: Text Publishing, 1998), 183 - 207.
Hayden White, On History and Historicism, translators introduction to Carlo Antoni, From History to Sociology: The Transition in German Historical Thinking, trans. Hayden White (London: Merlin Press, 1962), xv – xxviii.
Flight 93,
Paul Greengrass, 2006
Reading:
Roland Barthes, The Discourse of History, in The Rustle of
Language, trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1989), 127 - 140.
Barthes, The Reality Effect, in The Rustle of Language,
trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 141 -
148.
Barthes, Writing the Event, in The Rustle of Language,
trans. Richard Howard (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 149 -
154.
Session 4:
September 29, 2008
Screening:
Sal: The 120 Days of Sodom, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1975
Reading:
Craig
Owens, The Allegorical Impulse: Towards a Theory of Postmodernism, in Brian
Wallis ed., Art After Modernism: Rethinking Representation (New York:
The New Museum of Contemporary Art in association with David R. Godine,
Publisher Inc., 1988), 203 – 235.
Max Horkheimer and Theodor
Adorno, Juliette or Enlightenment and Morality, Dialectic of Enlightenment,
trans. John Cumming (New York: Continuum, 1996), 81 - 119.
Screening:
Holocaust on Trial, Leslie Woodhead, 2000
Mr. Death: The Rise and Fall of Fred A. Leuchter, Jr., Errol Morris, 1999
Reading:
Deborah
Lipstadt, The Gas Chamber Controversy,
Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory (New
York: The Free Press, 1993), 157 - 182.
Stuart
Sim, The time has come to philosophize: The Differend, in Jean-Franois Lyotard (Sydney: Prentice
Hall; Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1996), 69 – 90.
Session 6:
October 13, 2008
Screening:
Ararat,
Atom Egoyan, 2002
Reading:
Victor Burgin, Re-Reading Camera Lucida, in The End of Art
Theory: Criticism and Postmodernity (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities
Press International, 1990), 71 – 92.
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, trans. Richard Howard (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1981), PART ONE.
Session 7:
October 20, 2008
Screening:
Hiroshima mon amour, Alain Resnais, 1959
Reading:
Roland Barthes, Camera Lucida, trans. Richard Howard (New
York: Hill and Wang, 1981), PART TWO.
Session 8:
October 27, 2008
Screening:
Akira,
Otomo Katsuhiro, 1988
Gojira,
Honda Ishiro, 1954
Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Terry Morse (and Ishiro Honda), 1956
Barefoot Gen, Mori Masaki/ Nakazawa Keiji, 1983
Daigo Fukuryu Maru, Shindo Kaneto, 1959
Reading:
Susan Napier, No More Words: Barefoot Gen, Grave of the
Fireflies, and Victims History, in Anime: from Akira to Princess
Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation (New York: Palgrave,
2000), 161-173.
Susan Napier, Panic Sites: The Japanese Imagination of Disaster
from Godzilla to Akira, The Journal of Japanese Studies vol. 19, no. 2
(Summer 1993): 327 – 351. Available via JSTOR.
Aaron Kerners Faux Proposal
Project Gojira vs. Godzilla
Session 9:
November 3, 2008
Screening:
Night and Fog, Alain Resnais, 1956
Shoah,
Claude Lanzmann, 1985 (Second Era - part one)
Reading:
Shoshana Felman, In an Era of Testimony: Claude Lanzmanns
Shoah, Yale French Studies: Literature and the Ethical Question 79
(1991): 39 - 81. Available via JSTOR.
Claude Lanzmann, Seminar with Claude Lanzmann 11 April 1990, Yale
French Studies: Literature and the Ethical Question 79 (1991), 82 –
99. Available via JSTOR.
Session 10:
November 10, 2008
NO Screening
Reading:
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivors Tale: My Father Bleeds
History Volume I (New York: Pantheon Books, 1986).
Art Spiegelman, Maus: A Survivors Tale: And Here My Troubles
Began Volume II (New York: Pantheon Books, 1991).
Hayden White, Historical Emplotment and the Problem of Truth, in
Saul Friedlander, ed., Probing the Limits of Representation: Nazism and the
Final Solution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992), 37 –
53.
Presentations: Step Into the Limelight
Session 11:
November 17, 2008
|
Name |
Project |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
November 24 NO
CLASS – THANKSGIVING BREAK
Session 13:
December 1, 2008
|
Name |
Project |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Session 13:
December 8, 2008
|
Name |
Project |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Session 14:
December 15, 2008
|
Name |
Project |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Submit final
papers