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| Summer
2005 (All courses are 4 units unless otherwise noted.) |
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Session A (May 23 - July 1)
Session D (July 5- August 12)
Special Session (July 5 - July 29) |
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| This course fulfills the film major lower division sound film history requirement. History of Film II: Sound Era | |
Film
25B This course will document the history of cinema since the advent of the sound film (roughly 1927). To do so, we will look at a diverse group of sound films that significantly affected the aesthetic and institutional parameters of cinema. We will also use these films to discuss different critical models for viewing film and for writing film history. Up for consideration are questions of authorship, genre, identity politics, nationalism, realism, and technology. Beyond charting the development of cinema, this course will also have two secondary objectives. First, the class will aid students in honing their analytic skills by asking how the addition of sound has affected film language. Second, the course will question the practice of writing history--a question that seems doubly relevant since we continue to make and watch movies in the 'Sound Era.'Films we will watch: M (Fritz Lang, 1931), A Nous la Liberté (René Clair, 1931), Blonde Venus (Josef von Sternberg, 1932), Double Indemnity (Billy Wilder, 1944), Bicycle Thief (Vittorio De Sica, 1948), Singin' in the Rain (Gene Kelly & Stanley Donen, 1952), Ugetsu (Kenji Mizoguchi, 1953), The Searchers (John Ford, 1956), Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1959), Blow-Up (Michelangelo Antonioni, 1966), Taxi Driver (Martin Scorsese, 1976), Do the Right Thing (Spike Lee, 1989), Mississippi Masala (Mira Nair, 1992), Independence Day (Roland Emmerich, 1996). Authors we will read: André Bazin, Noel Burch, Seymour Chatman, René Clair, Carol J. Clover, Michel Chion, Mary Ann Doane, Thomas Elsaesser, Marilyn Fabe, Jane Feuer, Anton Kaes, Siegfried Kracauer, Christian Metz, Laura Mulvey, James Naremore, V.I. Pudovkin, Douglas Pye, Michael Rogin, Paul Schrader, Kaja Silverman, Susan Sontag, Lesley Stern, Gaylyn Studlar, Amy Taubin, Alan Williams, Robert Warshow, and Peter Wollen. Required Texts David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, Film Art ; David Cook, Film History ; A course reader. |
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| This course fulfills the film major lower division documentary requirement. Documentary Film | |
Film 28A (3 units) This class will look at the documentary film, from the first film named to the genre - Nanook of the North - to the present day. When John Grierson described Nanook as a "documentary," he spoke of "the creative treatment of actuality," but the tendency still exists for us to equate documentary with 'document'; with a universal and historical expression of truth. Given the recent success enjoyed by a number of cinematic documentaries - from Fahrenheit 911 to To Be and To Have - and their radical differences in tone and effect, the time seems ripe to reconsider what it is that we understand by documentary today. In this class we will concentrate on films made for cinematic distribution, but within that framework we'll study films from a range of national cultures and showing the influence of a range of cinematic styles. What effect do changes in technique and genre have on our efforts to represent reality, from the expressive or poetic documentaries of the twenties and thirties, to sixties cinema verité and direct cinema, to postmodernist 'self-reflexive' texts, to digital and interactive forms of the 'real'? What are the local and regional differences to be found in non-fiction filmmaking, and how has the documentary been used to express national culture? How have documentary makers used the medium to spark debate about social issues, such as race, or gender, or class? Is the documentary today the same thing it was in Grierson's day? Films to be shown may include Song of Ceylon (Basil Wright, 1934), Primary (Robert Drew, 1960), The Hour of the Furnaces (Solanas and Getino, 1968), Harlan County, USA (Barbara Koppel, 1976), Cannibal Tours (Dennis O'Rourke, 1989), Roger and Me (Michael Moore, 1989), War and Peace (Anand Patwardhan, 2001) and To Be and To Have (Nicolas Filibert, 2002) Coursework consists of two papers and an exam; in place of the final paper, students may submit a short documentary film which they've worked on during the course, and which must be approved in advance. Bill Nichols, Introduction to Documentary |
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| This course may be used for the film major genre requirement. The Horror Film | |
Film 108, sec. 1(4 units) Taking stock of the horror genre from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) to The Ring (2002), this course will explore both the horror film's main currents and its multiple variations throughout the twentieth century, including its early interest in monsters and mad scientists and its post-1960 turn toward psycho killers and internal possessions. To this end, we will interrogate the horror genre's signal characteristics: What kinds of threat does it depict and how do these change over time? How do different subgenres respond to these threats? What effects do horror films produce in their spectators? Shock? Terror? Disgust? Paranoia? Why do we find these sensations so pleasurable? What kinds of 'cultural work' does the horror film do? To answer such questions, the course will take a film-intensive approach, carefully analyzing in class a number of foundational films from horror's silent and 'classic' eras ( Nosferatu, Frankenstein ), its various convergences with film noir and science fiction ( I Walked with a Zombie, Alien ), and its later secularization in 'familial' horror ( The Exorcist, The Shining ) and the slasher film ( The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, A Nightmare on Elm Street ). Selections from a course reader will contribute to our discussions with texts that take up the history of the horror genre, its narrative structure and spectatorial pleasures, and its links to larger social and cultural concerns, including economics and sexuality. Course requirements include a viewing journal, midterm exam, and final paper. Required Texts |
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| This course may be used as an elective for the film major. Expanded Cinema and New Media Art: Between the Black Box and the White Cube | |
Film 140(4 units) This course will survey the incredible rise of the film and video in contemporary art since the 1960s, and its attempt to create new conditions for aesthetic production somewhere between the immersive conditions of the traditional cinema's "black box" and the more distanced conditions of the museum's "white cube." It will not be a course on "video art" or "experimental film" as those fields have typically been understood, but seeks to embark upon a wider-ranging consideration of the emergence of time-based, moving-image technologies in relation to contemporary theories of medium, process, performance, documentation, site-specificity, and spectatorship. Attending to the massive influx of film and video art in the last decade from an oblique angle, our seminar will attempt to construct an aesthetic and conceptual genealogy of contemporary practice, considering how the themes, forms, processes, questions, and problems of these early practices have been inherited within contemporary art, and how this inheritance has been taken up, ignored, transformed, or reanimated. We will view and discuss the masterpieces of contemporary media art in class, as well as making use of local museums such as the BAM/PFA, CCA, SFAI, and SFMoMA to view and discuss current exhibitions. Required Texts Michael Rush, New Media in Late 20th Century Art; Christiane Paul, Digitial Art |
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| This course fulfills the film major lower division silent film history requirement. History of Film I: Silent Era | |
Film 25A This course provides an advanced introduction to the history of silent film from the late nineteenth century until the early sound era of the late 1920s and early 1930s. We will focus on the development and institutionalization of film aesthetics and industrial practices, the emergence of narrative forms, film genres and styles, and the implementation of various modes of production and forms of spectatorship in Europe and the United States. Topics will include: the rise of commercialized leisure in the nineteenth century; the cinema of attractions and the aesthetic of astonishment; the emergence of narrative film; racial politics and American film of the teens; silent documentary; European avant-garde film and Surrealism; Weimer German Expressionism; montage theory and Soviet cinema; the coming of sound. Films will include works by Lumiere, Edison/Porter, Griffith, Murnau, Lang, Dulac, Vidor, Dreyer and Eisenstein. Required Texts Tom Gunning, D.W. Griffith and the Origins of American Narrative Film: The Early Years at Biograph |
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| This course can be used to fullfill the film major upper division theory requirement. Film Theory | |
Film 100 In this course, designed as an introduction to film theory, we will survey some of the philosophical, theoretical, and critical literature inspired by over a century of motion picture history. Our approach will be both "diachronic," in the sense that we will be following changes in film-thought over time, and "synchronic," since we will be pausing to consider selected thematic and methodological clusters whose parameters are not exclusively determined by chronology. Students will be given the opportunity to produce both written and videographic works in response to the theoretical issues discussed in class. Required Texts Course Reader |
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| This course can be used to fullfill the film major upper division genre requirement. Road Trip Movies and Other Tours of America | |
Film 108, section 2 In this class we will discuss films about journeys through America--not just road trip movies, but also other travel via foot, stagecoach, or railroad. Traveling is a narrative device which emphasizes growth and change in characters as well as adventure and sometimes humor. The rebellious characters who take to the roads are often looking for escape, but they face surprises along the way which are more threatening or more bizarre than what they left behind. We will also be looking at the way traveling films offer social observations and commentary on American culture. Travelers are outsiders to the places they visit, and thus they have unique points of view on the distinct places that make up America, such as the small town or the West. This class will start historically, looking at a few short silent films and pre-automobile travel in Stagecoach . We will then look at some straightforward road trip films such as Grapes of Wrath, Easy Rider, Badlands, Thelma and Louise, My Own Private Idaho, and Smoke Signals. Then we will consider the similarities between road trip films and a variety of other journey films from the second half of the twentieth century including Sullivan's Travels, The Defiant Ones, Sweet Sweetback's Baadassss Song, Deliverance, Taxi Driver, Brother From Another Planet, and Dead Man. We will look at common motifs of all travel films, but also pay attention to how the mode of travel (car, train, foot) affects the film.Required Texts David Laderman, Driving Visions; Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark, The Road Movie Book |
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| This course fulfills the film major upper division auteur requirement. Auteur Theory: Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen | |
Film 151 In this course we shall analyze the lives and works of Charlie Chaplin and Woody Allen, two comic film artists who wrote, directed and performed in their films. The success of both gave them unprecedented independence in the American film industry. The course is organized around a cluster of questions: Why are they funny? What is it about them (or their comic personas) that makes us laugh? To what extent does their appeal alter with time? What elements in their art retain their freshness? What makes us wince and why? What are the similarities and differences in their use of the film medium in the creation of their art? What accounts for the enormous appeal of the comic persona each created--Chaplin's tramp and Allen's schlemiel? How is the persona related to the person? How (and why) do the personas change and alter as their respective careers developed? How do the films of Chaplin and Allen and their popularity (or lack thereof) with the public reflect the issues and preoccupations of their respective lives and times? Finally, by looking at the sometimes uncanny resemblance in the art and careers of Chaplin and Allen, we can gain insight into the issues involved in the debate around auteur theory. To what extent do Chaplin and Allen as artists rise above their times to project a uniquely individual vision and to what extent does their art reflect the historical and social forces which act upon them? We will try to answer these questions through the close analysis of the films in conjunctions with readings on theories of comedy and auteur theory. Course Requirements 1. Journal. Students are required to respond to each film screened in class in a journal. The more concrete your response, the better. The journal should include a general outline or description of what happens in the film along with your particular response to the film--what works for you? What fails? Are there any interesting or telling details you want to remember? You might also include your observations about the films in regard to the topics listed in the course description. For example, does the humor in the film reflect or accord with particular theories of humor we will be studying in conjunction with the films. The purpose of the journal is twofold: (1) to help you in preparation for your final paper topic, mid-term and final exam; (2) to help make class discussions more concrete and lively. Journals should be turned in at mid-term and final exam time. 2. Midterm Exam 3. 6-8 page final paper 4. Final ExamRequired Texts Sigmund Freud, Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious; Charles J. Maland, Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image; Andrew S. Horton, ed., Comedy/Cinema/Theory |
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| This course cannot be used for credit for the film major. It is designed for entering freshman, qualified high school students and non-majors. Feel Good/Feel Bad Genres | |
Film N70 In this course we will approach the fascinating topic of film genres in Hollywood by contrasting two majors modes of filmmaking in the classical period of the Hollywood film: the Musical and the Film Noir. Because one of these modes creates elation and joy and the other creates angst and despair, the study of the formal and thematic characteristics of these two genres will give us insight into the power of the film medium to affect our |
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