Fall 2013
Thursday, 6 - 10 pm
State 326
Web address for this page:
http://www.shaviro.com/Classes/7051F12.html
5057 Woodward, Room 9309
Office hours: Monday and Wednesday 12 noon - 1 pm, and by appointment
This class will be focused upon ways of thinking and writing about film (and to a lesser extent, post-cinematic media). We will give consideration to the major developments of 20th-century film theory (Eisenstein and montage theory, Bazin and realism); to film-philosophy (Cavell, Deleuze, phenomenology); and to formal and historical questions. At the end of the semester, we will briefly consider how to theorize post-cinematic forms (television, video art, music video, computer games, and more generally digital and Internet-based media).
I am ordering one textbook for this class: Film Theory and Criticism, edited by Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, 7th edition (2009) (Cited below as BC, with page numbers for assigned readings). This book will be available at Marwil Books. The book is overly expensive, so I urge you to try to find a used copy if possible. You can also "rent" the book from amazon.com, for a lesser price than buying it. If you find a used copy, try to be sure that it is the same (7th) edition; otherwise not all the readings will be the same.
Class requirements include regular attendance, participation in an online discussion board, several short writing assignments, and leading class discussion at one point during the semester.
August 30
Introduction.
Three Crowns of the Sailor (Raul Ruiz, 1983).
September 6
[NO CLASS. ASSIGNED READING AND VIEWING. DISCUSSION ON BLACKBOARD FORUM]
Unconscious Optics.
Man With A Movie Camera (Dziga Vertov, 1929).
Daisies (Vera Chytilova, 1966).
Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (BC 665-685).
Tom Gunning, "An Aesthetic of Astonishment" (BC 736-750).
September 13
[NO CLASS. ASSIGNED READING AND VIEWING. DISCUSSION ON BLACKBOARD FORUM]
Montage Theory. The role of editing.
Earth (Aleksandr Dovzhenko, 1930).
Domino (Tony Scott, 2005).
Sergei Eisenstein, selections from Film Form (BC 13-40).
David Bordwell, "Intensified Continuity" (pdf)
Thursday, September 20, 3 pm: Special Event: Roundtable discussion of Lars von Trier's Melancholia (2011), with Sianne Ngai (Department of English, Stanford), Jonathan Flatley, Steven Shaviro. English Department Lecture Room (room 10305, 5057 Woodward).
September 20
Magic, Melodrama, "Women's Pictures".
Celine and Julie Go Boating (Jacques Rivette, 1974).
Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema" (BC 711-722).
September 27
[NO CLASS. ASSIGNED READING AND VIEWING. DISCUSSION ON BLACKBOARD FORUM]
Psychoanalysis: Slavoj Zizek.
The Pervert's Guide to Cinema (Sophie Fiennes and Slavoj Zizek, 2006).
Slavoj Zizek, "The Matrix, or Two Sides of Perversion" (available here)
October 4
Bazin and Realism. Guest Lecturer: Scott Richmond.
Crossroads (Bruce Conner, 1976).
Andre Bazin, selections from What Is Cinema Volume I (available here)
Andre Bazin, "Death Every Afternoon" (pdf)
October 11
[NO CLASS. ASSIGNED READING AND VIEWING. DISCUSSION ON BLACKBOARD FORUM]
Expressive Esoterica.
Screaming Mimi (Gerd Oswald, 1958)
Keyhole (Guy Maddin, 2011)
Manny Farber, "White Elephant Art and Termite Art" (pdf)
October 18
Genre Theory. Guest Lecturer: Chera Kee.
Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1975)
John Cawelti, "Chinatown and Generic Transformation in Recent American Films"
October 25
Film-Philosophy: Phenomenology.
All About Lily Chou-Chou (Shunji Iwai, 2001)
Vivian Sobchack, "What My Fingers Knew" (available here)
November 1
Film-Philosophy: Gilles Deleuze.
Shirin (Abbas Kiarostami, 2008)
Gilles Deleuze, selections from Cinema 1 and Cinema 2 (BC 240-269)
Friday, November 2, 3 pm: Special Event: DeRoy Lecture by Kara Keeling (School of Cinematic Arts, USC). English Department Lecture Room (room 10305, 5057 Woodward).
November 8
Film-Philosophy: Stanley Cavell.
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (R. W. Fassbinder, 1972)
Stanley Cavell, selections from The World Viewed (BC 304-314)
November 15
Film Sound.
Playtime (Jacques Tati, 1967).
Michel Chion, selections from Audio-Vision
November 29
Film and Capitalism.
India Song (Marguerite Duras, 1975)
Jonathan Beller, "The Cinematic Mode of Production" (pdf)
December 6
Post-Cinematic Forms.
Screening of music videos.
Richard Dienst, "Ineluctable Modalities of the Televisual" (pdf)
J. David Bolter and Richard Grusin, "Remediation" (Configurations 4.3 (1996) 311-358, via Project Muse)
Friedrich Kittler, Introduction to Gramophone, Film, Typewriter (pdf)
Lev Manovich, "Database as a Symbolic Form" (available here)