CMM-100; ENGL-190 or equivalent level of English recommended.
Para qué te prepara
Commerce, high art, and popular culture intermingle on the celluloid strip. An approach to film through an eclectic array of tools: formal analysis, theoretical constructs, and reading films as cultural expressions that betray social tensions of their time and place of production. Weekly screenings and analysis of films from a variety of time periods, genres and national cinemas.
Dirigido a
Curriculum: Fulfills Fine Arts Requirement for A and S, Business, Engineering and Nursing.
This course presents a survey of the first century of film as an art form and as a medium of mass communication.
The course will broadly orient students to the fundamentals of film studies.
We will examine the formal aspects of film that constitute the “language” of the medium (i.e., narrative, cinematography, mise-en-scene, editing, sound).
Along with reading films, the course will introduce issues in film theory (e.g., auteurism), the political economy of the industry, and present background on the conditions under which films on the syllabus were produced.
The films that will be screened span the decades between the 1920s and the new millennium and they range from commercially viable to “art house” films.
They are drawn from several national film industries (i.e., United States, Spain, Denmark, Mexico, Germany, Japan, People’s Republic of China) and are also distinct with respect to genre.
II. Sequence of Films and Readings:
Week I
Introduction
Bordwell & Thompson, pp.8-37 (“Production, Distribution, and Exhibition”)
Screening: El Mariachi (Dir: Robert Rodriguez, 1992, USA-Mexico)
Reader: Robert Rodríguez, Rebel Without a Crew (excerpts)
Journal Entry Assigned
Week II
Screening: North by Northwest (Dir: Alfred Hitchcock, 1959, USA)
Bordwell and Thompson, pp.59-78 (“Narrative as a Formal System”)
Reader: Alfred Hitchcock and Françoise Truffaut, “The MacGuffin”; James Wolcott, “Death and the Master”
Journal Entry Due
Week III
Screening: The Big Lebowski (Dir: Joel Coen, 1998, USA)
Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 7 (“Cinematography”)
Reader: William Preston Robertson, “The Storyboards”
Week IV
Screening: Metropolis (Dir: Fritz Lang, 1927, Germany)
Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 6 (“Mise-en-Scene”)
Reader: Reader: Jonathan L. Bowen, “Metropolis”
Week V
Screening: The Celebration (Festen) (Dir: Thomas Vinterberg, 1998, Denmark)
Bordwell & Thompson, Chapter 8 (“Editing”)
Reader: Jeremy Lehrer, “Denmark’s DV Director Thomas Vinterberg Delves into ‘The Celebration’”; Richard Combs, “Rules of the Game”
First Essay Assigned
Week VI
Screening: Dr. Strangelove (Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1963, United Kingdom)
Bordwell and Thompson, pp.291-315 (“Sound in Cinema”)
Reader: Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, “Dr. Strangelove”
First Essay Due
Week VII
Run Lola Run (Lola Rennt) (Dir: Thomas Tykwer, 1998, Germany)
Reader: Margit Sinka, “Tom Tykwer’s Run Lola Run”
Mid-Term Examination
Week VIII
Mid-Semester Holiday: ¡No Classes Will Convene!
Week IX
Screening: The Thin Blue Line (Dir: Erroll Morris, 1988, USA)
Bordwell and Thompson, Chapter 4 (“Film Genres”) and pp.380-86
Margaret Carlson, “Recrossing The Thin Blue Line”; Alan Pendergrast, “The Thin Blue Line”
Week X
Screening: Viridiana (Dir: Luis Buñuel, 1961, Spain)
Reader: José de la Colina & Tómas Pérez Turrent, “The Return to Spain”
All Campus Holiday
Week XI
The Big Sleep (Dir: Howard Hawks, 1946, USA)
Reader: Roger Ebert, “The Big Sleep”; Janey Place, “Women in Film Noir”
Week XII
Yojimbo (The Bodyguard) (Dir: Akira Kurosawa, 1961, Japan)
Reader: Tadao Sato, “Akira Kurosawa: Tradition in a Time of Transition”; Robert Stam, “The Author”
Week XIII
Screening: Chinatown (Dir: Roman Polanski, 1974, USA)
Bordwell and Thompson, pp.46-49
Reader: Michael Sragow, “Chinatown: The Roman Version”; Roman Polanski, from Roman; John Cawelti, “Chinatown and Generic Transformations in Recent American Films”
Second Essay Assigned
Week XIV
Screening: Bonnie and Clyde (Dir: Arthur Penn, 1967, USA)
Reader: Newsweek, “Crime: The Law Cancels a few Debts With the Underworld”; Bonnie Parker, “The Story of Bonnie and Clyde”; John Toland, from The Dillinger Days; David Cook, from A History of Narrative Film; Bosley Crowther, “Screen: ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ Arrives”
Second Essay Due
Week XV
Screening: Twelve Monkeys (Dir: Terry Gilliam, 1995, USA)
Reader: Terry Gilliam with Nick James, “Time and the Machine”; Thomas Roy, “From the Evangelist”; J.D. Lafrance, “Dangerous Visions”
Week XVI
Screening: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Wo hu cang long) (Dir: Ang Lee, 2000, China-Hong Kong-Taiwan-USA)
Reader: Philip Kemp, “Stealth and Duty”; Stephanie Zacharek, “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon”
