50136 Cinematic Cultures

Handbook description

The subject offers a broad introduction to film studies by concentrating on some key historical moments in film-making together with some of the main theoretical issues and debates that have defined film studies as an area of intellectual interest. Issues discussed in any given semester are chosen from the following topics: Hollywood cinema (old and new), star, genre, authorship, style, narrative, mise en scene, spectatorship, politics, historical contexts, race, sexuality, gender, notions of camp and cult, queer cinema, early/silent cinema, nations and national cinemas, nation-period-style (e.g. 1930s French poetic realism, 1940s American film noir, 1940s/1950s Italian neo-realism, 1950s/1960s English social realism, 1960s French new wave, the New German Cinema, the New Australian cinema), the action film, independent cinema, avant-garde and documentary.

Subject objectives/outcomes

At the completion of this subject, students are expected to be able to:

1. be familiar with some of the texts and debates that pertain to the broad field of cinema studies
2. have expanded their historical knowledge of film theory and history
3. be able to provide accurate accounts of particular key arguments and positions within the field of film studies and be able to bring their own perspective to bear on these other positions
4. be able to provide an accurate historical and social account of certain film-cultural theories and practices of filmmaking.

Contribution to graduate profile

This subject will contribute to the graduate profile by ensuring that students:

• have a broad range of skills and knowledge, making for creative and critically informed communications professionals
• have a critical knowledge of Australian cultural traditions, industries and institutions
• have a critical knowledge of cultural and aesthetic debates, and their implications for cultural policy developments
• be able to think critically and creatively about future developments in cultural industries
• have a strong awareness of the needs of specific communities and the ability to evaluate a range of strategies for dealing with cultural and social problems, and
• are able to function within groups and be sensitive to the multiple dimensions of social and cultural difference.

Teaching and learning strategies

There is a book of readings containing the subject's core readings for each week. The booklet contains the essential, minimum readings for Cinematic Cultures. Students are expected to pursue further readings of books and journal articles for inclusion in their final essay. There will be weekly screenings of films, which will be introduced by the lecturers, and then discussed further in tutorials in relation to the weekly readings.

Content

In this subject students will:

• perform critical analyses of film 'texts' and be aware of the principal critical terminology for 'reading' a film
• be familiar with the principal issues and concepts covered in the weekly readings
• explore stylistic, formal and referential connections between the films covered in the subject and with other films
• discuss issues of film style, form, technique, genre and content in a global context
• be conversant with concepts such as spectatorship, affect, cinematography, narrative, genre, suture, etc.

Assessment

Assessment item 1: Short Film Review

Assessment item 2: Seminar presentation

Assessment item 3: Research Essay

Minimum requirements

Students are expected to read the subject outline to ensure they are familiar with the subject requirements. Since class discussion and participation in activities form an integral part of this subject, you are expected to attend, arrive punctually and actively participate in classes. If you experience difficulties meeting this requirement, please contact your lecturer. Students who have a reason for extended absence (e.g., illness) may be required to complete additional work to ensure they achieve the subject objectives.

Indicative references

Abbas, Ackbar, 'Wong Kar-wai: Hong Kong Filmmaker', Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance (London: University of Minnesota Press, 1997),pp.48-58.

Allen, Richard William et al. (ed.), Hitchcock: Past and Future (London and New York: Routledge, 2004).

Andrew, Dudley (ed.), Breathless (London: Rutgers University Press, 1987).

Bordwell, David and Thompson, Kristin 'Space and Narrative in the Flms of Ozu', Screen, 17:2 (Summer, 1976),pp.41-73.

Bordwell, David, Ozu and the Poetics of Cinema (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1988).

Brunette, Peter, Wong Kar-Wai (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005).

Burch, Noel, 'Ozu Yasujiro', in To the Distant Observer: Form and Meaning in Japanese Cinema, ed. Annette Michelson (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979).

Corrigan, Timothy, New German Cinema: The Displaced Image (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994).

Dabashi, Hamid, Close-Up: Iranian Cinema, past, present, and future (London and New York: Verso, 2001).

D'Lugo, Marvin, The Films of Carlos Saura: The Practice of Seeing (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1991).

D'Lugo, Marvin, Guide to the Cinema of Spain (Wesport & London: Greenwood Press, 1997).

Elsaesser, Thomas New German Cinema: A History (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989).

Flynn, Caryl, The new German cinema: music, history, and the matter of style (Berkeley : University of California Press, 2003).

Frieden, Sandra (ed.), Gender and German cinema: feminist interventions (Providence: Berg, 1993).

Hake, Sabine German National Cinema (London & New York : Routledge, 2001).

Issari, Mohammad Ali, Cinema in Iran, 1900-1979 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1989).

Knight, Julia Women and the New German Cinema (London & New York: Verso, 1992).

Kinder, Marsha, 'Carlos Saura: The Political Development of Individual Consciousness', Film Quarterly, 32, (Spring 1979),pp.14-25.

Kinder, Marsha, Blood Cinema: The Reconstruction of Identity in Spain (Berkeley & London: University of California Press, 1993).

Klinger, Barbara, Melodrama and Meaning: History, Culture, and the Films of Douglas Sirk (Bloomington Indiana University Press, 1994).

Lahiji, Shanhla 'Chaste Dolls and Unchaste Dolls: Women in Iranian Cinema since 1979', in Richard Tapper (ed.), The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation, and Identity (London and New York: I.B Taurus Publishers, 2002),pp.254-261.

Lalanne, Jean-Marc et al. (ed.), Wong Kar-Wai (Paris: Disvoir, 1997).

Lellis, George, Bertolt Brecht: Cahiers du Cinéma and Contemporary Film Theory (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1982).

MacCabe, Colin, Godard: A Portrait of the Artist at 70 (London: Bloomsbury, 2003).

Marchetti, Gina, 'Buying American, Consuming Hong Kong: Cultural Commerce, Fantasies of Identity, and the Cinema', in New Chinese Cinemas: Forms, Identities, Politics, ed. Nick Browne et al. (Cambridge University Press, 1994),pp.289-313.

Margretta, William R. and Joan Magretta, 'Story and Discourse: Schlöndorff and von Trotta's The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum (1975)', in Andrew S. Horton and Joan Magretta (ed.), Modern European Filmmakers and the Age of Adaptation (New York: Friedrich Ungar Publishing, 1981),pp.278-294.

Marie, Michel, '"It really makes you sick!" Jean-Luc Godard's A bout de souffle' (1959), in French Film: Texts and Contexts, ed. Susan Hayward et al. (London: Routledge, 1990),pp.201-215.

Marker, Chris 'A Free Replay (Notes on Vertigo)', Projections 4 and 1/2 (1995),pp.123-130.

Mast, Gerald and Cohen, Marhsall (ed.), Film Theory and Criticism (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1985).

McGilligan, Patrick, Alfred Hitchcock: A Life in Darkness and Light (New York: Regan Books, 2003).

Moeller, Hans-Bernhard, Volker Schlöndorff's Cinema: Adaptation, Politics, and the 'Movie Appropriate' (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2002).

Monaco, James, The New Wave: Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette (Oxford and New York: Oxford UP, 1976).

Samuels, Robert, 'Vertigo: Sexual Dis-Orientation and the En-gendering of the Real', in Hitchcock's Bi-Textuality: Lacan, Feminisms, and Queer Theory (Albany: SUNY Press, 1998),pp.77-92.

Singer, Irving, Three Philosophical Filmmakers: Hitchcock, Welles, Renoir (Cambridge, Mass.: The MIT Press, 2004).

Soila, Tytti et al. (ed.), Nordic National Cinemas (London and New York: Routledge, 1998).

Soila, Tytti (ed.), Cinema of Scandinavia (London: Wallflower Press, 2005).

Sorlin, Pierre, Italian National Cinema: 1896-1996 (London and New York: Routledge, 1996).

Sterritt, David, The Films of Jean-Luc Godard: Seeing the Invisible (New York: Cambridge UP, 1999).

Sterritt, David, Jean-Luc Godard: Interviews (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1998).

Stevenson, Jack, Dogme uncut: Lars von Trier, Thomas Vinterburg, and the Gang that took on Hollywood (Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press, 2003).

Teo, Stephen, Wong Kar-Wai (London: BFI, 2005).

Thornham, Sue (ed.), Feminist Film Theory: A Reader (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press,1999).

White, Susan, 'Vertigo and Problems of Knowledge in Feminist Theory', in Richard Allen and S. Ishii Gonzalès (ed.), Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays (London: BFI, 1999),pp.279-306.

Willett, John (ed. and trans.), Brecht on Theatre: The Development of an Aesthetic (New York: Hill and Wang, 1978).

Wills, David, 'The French Remark: Breathless and Cinematic Citationality', in Andrew Horton and Stuart Y. McDougal (ed.), Play it Again Sam: Retakes on Remakes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998),pp.147-161.