The course will emphasize the close reading of films by such major directors as John Ford, Vittorio de Sica, Stanley Donen, Agnes Varda, Federico Fellini, Alain Resnais and David Lynch. In addition, the course will pay attention to filmmakers such as Wong Kar-wai (Hong Kong) and Abbas Kiarostami (Iran) who have recently changed the shape of international cinema.

The course is organized by a selection of films that illustrate key phenomena of the past fifty years of cinema. The topics under consideration include, among others, the development and influence of Italian Neo-Realism, the uses of self-reflexivity to investigate the impact of cinema upon the 20th century, the contributions of women directors to film history, and the changes in stories of adultery as a genre.

A number of recurrent questions will inform the course. What is the role of "authorship" in the cinema? Why and how do film styles change? How are films shaped by their contexts of production and reception? Why do particular film movements or national cinemas become influential? How does Hollywood respond to international challenges to its dominance? And how do cultural, social, and political forces relate to a medium that frequently claims innocence as "just entertainment?"

Students are expected to attend all screenings and lectures, to prepare the readings on time, to be ready to participate in classroom discussions, and to hand in assignments on the designated dates.

There are two main assignments: a five page exercise in close textual analysis and a longer research paper exploring an aspect of post-war film. Specific instructions for both assignments will be distributed in class. Announced quizzes may be administered to assess mastery of assigned materials.

Questions about the structure and function of the filmic "text," the nature of cinematic representation and film spectatorship raised by various schools of thought, including phenomenology, Marxism, semiology, psychoanalysis, and feminism will be considered.

Although attention is largely on primary theoretical writings, secondary texts and films that help to contextualize specific theories will be used as well.

Required texts for the class include selections from Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen, eds., Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings Fifth Edition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999); Robert Stam and Toby Miller, eds., Film and Theory: An Anthology (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2000); Toby Miller and Robert Stam, eds., A Companion to Film Theory (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999); Christine Gledhill and Linda Williams, eds., Reinventing Film Studies (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson, Film Studies: Critical Approaches (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000).

In addition to participating in class discussion, students will write several brief essays responding to the readings, lead discussion of selected readings, and prepare a research project, culminating in a 12-15 page paper and a seminar presentation.

Information: WBoddy@gc.cuny.edu

FSCP 81000/THEA 81500 Pageantry & Power: Film as Historical Narrative, Professor Robert Singer, Thursday, 6:30-9:30 pm, Room C419, 3 credits

This 3 credit course will focus on the role of filmmaker as historian. The historical film links the spectator to the past in the present. This course will examine questions associated with the production of meaning in the historical film narrative, in particular, how do spectacle, performance, and simulation generate a text that is more than an exercise in symbolic realism or factual reproduction? We will examine the process and product of interdisciplinary intersections in representative films, from the turn-of-the century actualités of Méliès and the Edison Studio, to Mullan's The Magdalene Sisters (2002).

Students will engage related disciplines, such as psychology, political science, and literature, among others, while specifically focusing on traditional historical research and practices in relationship to film history and theory.

We will analyze issues involving historical figures, eras and movements, in relationship to diverse film genre, the studio "blockbuster," the traditional dramatic narrative, and the independent film production. I have not included documentary film.

Films to be studied, whole or in part

Introduction
The "History/Film"--a critical overview: Lumière/Méliès/Edison actualités, Judith of Bethulia, Asoka, The Magdalene Sisters
A Case Study: Richard the Third (1911, 1912, 1955, 1995), Nixon

Genre
Western: My Darling Clementine, Hour of the Gun, Doc, Tombstone, Wyatt Earp
Crime: Ma Barker's Killer Brood, Bonnie Parker Story, Bonnie and Clyde, Bandit Queen Religion: Ten Commandments, Greatest Story Ever Told, Mohammed, Messenger of God, Last Temptation of Christ
Bio/Pic: Rosa Luxemburg, Gorillas in the Mist, Danton, Malcolm X, Nasser 56
War: Mephisto, Casualties of War, Hamsun, Amen

Reel Representations
Assassination: Z, The Assassination of Trotsky, JFK, Lumumba
Revolution/Decay: Fall of the Roman Empire, Bloody Sunday, Four Days in September, La Commune, Paris 1871
Political Scandal: Stavisky, All the President's Men, Scandal, Tora, Tora, Tora
Social Otherness: The Blum Affair, I Accuse, The Jew, Dreyfus
Sexual Otherness: Aimee & Jaguar, Swoon, I, the Worst of All, Wilde
Imaginary History: Duck Soup, Zelig, Scarlet Empress, Our Hitler
Myth/Revisionism: The Right Stuff, Amistad, Black Hawk Down, We Were Soldiers

Reading selections will include (excerpted texts): Foner's Who Owns History?: Rethinking the Past in a Changing World, White's Figural Realism: Studies in the Mimesis Effect and Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism, Sorlin's The Film in History: Restaging the Past, Shapiro's Atomic Bomb Cinema: the Apocalyptic Imagination on Film, Landy's The Historical Film: History and Memory in Media, Cartmell's  Retrovisions: Reinventing the Past in Film and Fiction, Walker's Westerns: Films Through History, Toplin's Oliver Stone's USA: Film, History, and Controversy, Stam and Miller's A Companion to Film Theory and Film and Theory: An Anthology, Burke's The French Historical Revolution: the Annales School, 1929-89, Smith's The Gender of History: Men, Women, and Historical Practice, Stam's Subversive Pleasures: Bakhtin, Cultural Criticism, and Film, Howell's From Reliable Sources: An Introduction to Historical Methods, plus reading selections on individual films.

Students will be assigned an end-term project evolving from an interpretation and analysis of course material that the student will develop with the instructor. Students are encouraged to engage in discussion of the films and material throughout the course, and students will be asked to make a class presentation (approx.15 mins.).

Information: Robert Singer

FSCP 81000/THEA 81500  Realism and Cinema, Professor Ivone Marguiles, Monday, 6:30-9:30pm, Room C-419, 3 credits

Realism is a key aesthetic and critical category in film studies. This course examines a number of realist films from the post-war to the present, alongside major theoretical and critical texts.

We will consider films and realist theories historically. We will start with a discussion of the question of indexicality in cinema; Andre Bazin’s formulations on the realist vocation of cinema and how his realist aesthetics accommodates Jean Renoir, neorealist cinema, Orson Welles and William Wyler.

The second half of the course considers historical representation and the relations of cinema to extra-textual referents; cinema verite and its relations to post-war existentialism; the notion of social representativeness and type in Godard and Akerman;

The course ends with a discussion of contemporary forms of realist cinema, in particular Abbas Kiarostami’s reflexive realism in his Kolker Trilogy —Where is my Friend’s House Life and Nothing But, and Under the Olive Trees.

Requirements and grades: Two page proposal for the final paper. Due on the 7th week of class. (15%) ; Final Paper: Due a week after the last day of class (20 double spaced pages) You may use any of the class required or recommended readings as your theoretical or historical background. (60%) ; Class presentations. Students may either present a critical summary of that week’s readings or present an excerpt from a film explaining its applicability in a given realist argument.( 15 %).

Required readings: What is Cinema Vol. I. And II.; Jean Renoir; Bazin at Work, "Death Every Afternoon" Bazin; Springtime in Italy: A Reader in Neorealism Ed. David Overbey (by week 6); "Introduction to Versimilitude" Todorov; "Realism or Naturalism" Raymond Williams; "Realism and The Cinema: Some Brechtian Theses" MacCabe; Realism Linda Nochlin; Dziga Vertov’s Writings; "On realism" Brecht; "Visual Anthropology in a Discourse of Words" Mead "Idea and Event in Urban Cinema; Observational Cinema. (by week 9).

Assigned readings are on reserve in the library. (Schedule and bibliography are available in the Certificate Programs Office, Room 5109)

Information:  Ivone Marguiles

See Also:

FRENCH 87400 --North African Film, Professor Andrea Flores-Khalil, Tuesday, 2:30-6:15pm, Room C-419, 3 credits

In this course we will examine literary texts and films in order to better understand the cultural production of the Middle East and North Africa during the mid-twentieth century. Our main subject of inquiry is the colonial and postcolonial relationship that has conditioned both the film making process itself as well as the characters and plots of films. We will begin the semester with a look at some colonial images of North Africans and Arabs. We will move on to contrast these colonial images with the images of Arabs as seen in films produced by North Africans themselves.

Readings: Arab Cinema, Viola Shafik; Dreams of Trespass, Fatima Mernissi; The Wretched of the Earth, Franz Fanon; Bab El-Oued, Merzak Allouache; Men in the Sun, Ghassan Kanafani; Lawrence of Arabia, Steven Caton; Postcolonial Images, Roy Armes