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Cinema Through the Lens of Distribution

FILM 140, Fall 2006
Film Studies Program

Mondays, 4-7pm, 188 Dwinelle

Professor Alexander Cohen

Assignments

Written Assignment (take home 3-5pgs)
Final Project (15-20pg final paper)
CLASS PARTICIPATION

All students are expected to read all the material BEFORE the class meets (pop quizes not unusual), to participate in discussions, and complete the written assignments in order to complete the course.

Your grade will be based 1/3 on class participation, 1/3 on take home, and 1/3 on Final Paper, however I typically adjust those percentages to reflect improvement. Because 1/3 of your grade depends on class participation, missing class will decrease your grade substantially.

I will be setting up a wiki and all students are expected to participate over the course of the semester.

Course Information

Course Dates: August 28 to December 4, 2006
Lecture Schedule: Monday 4 to 7pm in 188 Dwinelle Hall

Required Texbooks

Reader: at University Copy, 2425 Channing Way, Berkeley, CA 94704 (Available Wed Sept. 6) [MAP]
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964)
Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas (2001)
Steven Weber, The Success of Open Source Software (2004)

Office Hours

Alex will be available in room 6216 in Dwinelle Hall from 2-4pm Mondays. Additional hours to be determined based on student's schedules. email: xcohen@cinemaspace.berkeley.edu

Syllabus

Aug. 28 - Introduction to the course

The trajectory from Early Cinema to Open-Source

Sept. 11 - Early Cinema

Charles Musser, Before the Nickelodeon (1991), Chap. 4, "Cinema, a Screen novelty: 1895-1897" [Reader]
Frederick Wasser, Veni, Vidi, Video (2001), Chap. 1, "Film Distribution and home Viewing before the VCR" [Reader]

Sept. 18 - Mechanical Reproduction

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (1936) [Reader]

Sept. 25 - The Studio System

Ralph Cassady, Jr., Monopoly in Motion Picture Production and Distribution 1908-1915 (1959)[Reader]
Janet Staiger, Dividing Labor for Production Control: Thomas Ince and the Rise of the Studio System, Cinema Journal 18, no. 2 (Spring 1979):16-25

Oct. 2 - Mass Culture/The Culture Industry

Theodore Adorno and Max Horkheimer, (1944) The Culture Industry ([Reader]
Film to be discussed: Stanley Kubrick, A Clockwork Orange (1971)
Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), Chaps. 1

Amazon: Understanding Media

Chap. 1: "The Medium is the Message"

Oct. 9 - TV

Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man (1964), Chaps. 29, 30,31
Chap. 29: "Movies: The Reel World"
Chap. 30: "Radio: The Tribal Drum
Chap. 31: "Television, The Timid Giant"

Oct. 16 - VideoPolitics

Guy Debord, The Society of the Spectacle (1967) [Reader]
Film to be discussed: Elia Kazan, Face in the Crowd (1957)

Oct. 23 - VideoPolitics (continued)

Oct. 30- VCR

Frederick Wasser, Veni, Vidi, Video (2001), Chap.2, 3, 5 [Reader]

Chap. 2 "The Development of Video Recording"
Chap. 3 "Home Video: The Early Years"
Chap. 5 "Video Becomes Big Business"

Betamax suit [Reader]

Nov. 6 - The Internet, Napster and Copyright

Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas (2001), Chap. 1, 2, 8

Available at Amazon

The Piano Roll Case [see Reader]

Nov. 13 - DRM and DMCA

Lawrence Lessig, The Future of Ideas (2001), Chap. 11
Additional Material in Reader

Nov. 20 - Open-Source and the Digital Commons

Richard Stallman, GNU Manifesto (1985-2005), available at: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html [Reader]
Eric Raymond, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, available at: http://www.catb.org/~esr/writings/cathedral-bazaar/cathedral-bazaar/
Steven Weber, The Success of Open Source Software (2004), Chaps. 1-2

Available at Amazon

Nov. 27 - Open-Source Content

Weber, Chap. 7-8
Yochai Benkler, The Wealth of Networks (2006), Chap. 1, available at http://habitat.igc.org/wealth-of-networks/ [Reader, p. 485]
Creative Commons Licenses, http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses/meet-the-licenses [Reader]
CC Mixter, http://ccmixter.org/