English 5040

Film Criticism and Theory

Winter 2010
Mon/Wed 6:00 pm-9:00 pm
326 State Hall

Steven Shaviro
shaviro@shaviro.com
5057 Woodward, room 9309
office hours Mon/Wed 3:30 pm-4:30 pm

http://www.shaviro.com/Classes/5040W10.html

Course Description

This class provides an introduction to major trends in the theory of film, from the 1920s to the present. Topics include theories of silent film, formalism (Eisenstein), realism (Bazin), psychoanalytic theory, feminist theory, auteur theory, genre theory, theories of cinephilia, theories of sound, political approaches, film and philosophy, theories of cinematic embodiment, and recent approaches that deal with the currently evolving digital technologies and with the relations of film to new media (video, television, computer games).

Assignments

The main writing assignments for this class are weekly responses to the theoretical readings. These are due every Monday; in every case, they are responses to the readings that we discussed in class during the previous week. The first response is due on January 25 (responding to the readings discussed on January 20), and they are due every Monday thereafter throughout the semester. All in all, there are thirteen responses due, of which you must do at least ten. (If you do more than ten, the ones with the lowest grades will be dropped).

The only exception to this rule is if you are an English major taking this class in order to fulfill the Writing Intensive requirement. In this case, you need only write five weekly responses. In place of the other five, you must instead write a final paper (10-12 pages), due on the last day of class (April 26). Instructions for the final paper can be found here.

Readings (required texts)

One textbook has been ordered for the class:
Film Theory and Criticism, 7th Edition, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen.
It is available at Marwil Books.
Readings from this textbook will be designated by: (BC).
Other readings will be available online.

Schedule of Classes

Jan. 11, 13: INTRODUCTION
Guy Maddin, Cowards Bend the Knee (2004)
Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, Gamer (2009)

• Siegfried Kracauer, "Basic Concepts" (BC 147-158)
• Siegfried Kracauer, "The Establishment of Physical Existence" (BC 262-272)
• Rudolf Arnheim, "The Complete Film" (BC 167-170)
• Rudolf Arnheim, "Film and Reality" and "The Making of a Film" (BC 282-291)
• Geoffrey O'Brien, selections from The Phantom Empire (via Blackboard)

Jan. 20: MODERNITY AND THE SILENT FILM
Early Cinema (short films, 1895-1910)

• Tom Gunning, "An Aesthetic of Astonishment" (BC 736-750)
• Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (BC 665-685)

Jan. 25, 27: MONTAGE THEORY: EISENSTEIN AND OTHERS
Dziga Vertov, Man With a Movie Camera (1929)

• Sergei Eisenstein, selections from Film Form (BC 13-40)
• Vsevolod Pudovkin, "On Editing" (BC 7-12)
• Sergei Eisenstein et al., "Statement on Sound" (BC 315-317)
• Dziga Vertov, "Kinoks: A Revolution" (via Blackboard)

Feb. 1, 3: BAZIN AND REALISM
Jean Renoir, The Crime of Monsieur Lange (1936)

• Andre Bazin, "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" and "The Myth of Total Cinema" (BC 159-166)
• Andre Bazin, "The Evolution of the Language of Cinema" (BC 41-53)

Feb. 8, 10: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND FEMINISM
Michael Powell, Peeping Tom (1961)

• Christian Metz, selections from The Imaginary Signifier (BC 694-710)
• Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (BC 711-722)
• Laura Mulvey, "Afterthoughts on 'Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema,' inspired by Duel in the Sun" (via Blackboard)
• Mandy Merck, "Mulvey's Manifesto" (Camera Obscura 2007; 22: 1 - 23; available here)

Feb. 15, 17: FEMINISM: LATER DEVELOPMENTS
Douglas Sirk, Magnificent Obsession (1954)
Mitchell Lichtenstein, Teeth (2007)

• Gaylyn Studlar, "Masochism and the Perverse Pleasures of the Cinema" (via Blackboard)
• Linda Williams, "Film Bodies: Gender, Genre, and Excess" (BC 602-616)
• Tania Modleski, "The Terror of Pleasure" (BC 617-626)
• Molly Haskell, "Female Stars of the 1940s" (BC 501-514)

Feb. 22, 24: MEDIA THEORY, PSYCHOANALYSIS, MARXISM
Fritz Lang, While the City Sleeps (1955)
Sophie Fiennes, The Pervert's Guide To Cinema (2006)

• Jacques Ranciere, "From One Manhunt To Another" (via Blackboard)
• Slavoj Zizek, "The Matrix, Or Malebranche in Hollywood" (Philosophy Today 43 (1999), pp. 11-26; available here)
• Jonathan Beller, "Cinema, Capital of the Twentieth Century" (Postmodern Culture 4:3, May 1994; available here, or plaintext here)

March 1, 3: THEORIZING FILM SOUND
Jacques Tati, Playtime (1967)

• Michel Chion, selections from Audio-Vision (via Blackboard)
• Mary Ann Doane, "The Voice in the Cinema" (BC 318-330)
• John Belton, "Technology and the Aesthetics of Film Sound" (BC 331-339)
• Claudia Gorbman, "Narrative Film Music" (Yale French Studies, No. 60, Cinema/Sound (1980), pp. 183-203; available here)

March 8, 10: GENRE THEORY, AUTEUR THEORY, NARRATIVE THEORY
Mabrouk El Mechri, JCVD (2008)
Kathryn Bigelow, Near Dark (1987)

• Leo Braudy, "Genre: The Conventions of a Connection" (BC 535-551)
• Rick Altman, "A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre" (BC 552-563)
• Thomas Schatz, "Film Genre and the Genre Film" (BC 564-575)
• Andrew Sarris, "Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962" (BC 451-454)
• Peter Wollen, "The Auteur Theory" (BC 455-470)
• Richard Dyer, from Stars (BC 480-485)
• Robin Wood, "Ideology, Genre, Auteur" (BC 592-601)
• Steven Shaviro, "Kathryn Bigelow"
• Kathleen Murphy, "Black Arts"
• Robert C. Cumbow, "The Loveless Worlds of Kathryn Bigelow"
  
• David Bordwell, "Intensified Continuity" (Film Quarterly 55:3, Spring 2002, pp. 16-28; available here)

March 22, 24: CINEPHILIA
Alex Cox, Revengers Tragedy (2003)
Alex Rivera, Sleep Dealer (2009)

• Manny Farber, "White Elephant Art Vs. Termite Art" (via Blackboard)
• Jason Sperb, "Sensing an Intellectual Nemesis" (Film Criticism 32.1, Fall 2007, pp. 49-71; available here)
• Manohla Dargis, "The 21st-Century Cinephile"
• Adrian Martin, "The State of Film Criticism"

March 29, 31: STANLEY CAVELL AND FILM THEORY
Abel Ferrara, Go-Go Tales (2007)

• Stanley Cavell, from The World Viewed (BC 304-314)
• Stanley Cavell, "A Capra Moment"
• Thomas Elsaesser, "Stanley Cavell and Cinema"

April 5, 7: PHENOMENOLOGY AND THE BODY OF THE FILM
Robert Bresson, L'argent (1983)

• Vivian Sobchack, "What My Fingers Knew"
• Vivian Sobchack, "The Scene of the Screen" (via Blackboard)
• Laura U. Marks, "Multisensory Culture"
• Laura U. Marks, "The Memory of Touch," from The Skin of the Film (via Blackboard)
• Anne Rutherford, "Cinema and Embodied Affect"

April 12, 14: GILLES DELEUZE AND FILM THEORY
Olivier Assayas, Demonlover (2002)

• Gilles Deleuze, From Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 (BC 216-239)

April 19-21: FILM IN THE DIGITAL AGE
Sally Potter, Rage (2009)

• Lev Manovich, from The Language of New Media (BC 785-801)
• Anne Friedberg, "The End of Cinema" (BC 802-813)
• Anne Friedberg, "Les Flaneurs du Mal(l): Cinema and the Postmodern Condition" (via Blackboard)
• Michael Allen, "The Impact of Digital Technologies on Film Aesthetics" (BC 824-833)
• Kristen Whissel, "Tales of Upward Mobility" (BC 834-852)

April 26: CONCLUSIONS; BEYOND FILM
Screening of music videos
Readings TBA

NOTE: Plagiarism is the act of copying work from books, articles, and websites without citing and documenting the source. Plagiarism includes copying language, texts, and visuals without citation (e.g., cutting and pasting from websites). Plagiarism also includes submitting papers that were written by another student or purchased from the internet. Plagiarism is a serious academic offense: the minimum penalty for plagiarism is an F for the assignment; the full penalty for plagiarism may result in an F for the course.