Cine 103.

401 Introduction to Film Theory

Prof. Meta Mazaj mmazaj@sas.upenn.edu Office: FBH 202 Office Hours: T, R 12:00-1:00 pm and by appointment

Spring 2012 T R 10:30 - 12:00 am FBH 401 Teaching Assistants:

Philip Maciak maciak@sas.upenn.edu Peter Gaffney pgaffney@sas.upenn.edu Required texts: Corrigan, Timothy, Patricia White, Meta Mazaj. Critical Visions in Film Theory: Classic and Contemporary Readings. New York: Bedford/St. Martins, 2011. Additional articles on Blackboard (marked on syllabus with Bb) The book is available at the Penn Book Center (34th and Sansom). All additional articles for the course are available on the course Blackboard site. There will be no official screenings for this course. You are responsible for viewing the films listed under the primary film list on your own. Copies of these films are placed on reserve at the Van Pelt Library. Course Description: This course is a survey in the shifting and prolific terrain of the field of film theory, tracing out some of the major strands of the field. Since film theory features an incredibly wide spectrum of approaches (auteurism, semiotics, psychoanalysis, feminism, etc.) which cannot all be covered in a single semester, the course will be oriented not only around major theoretical paradigms but also around the questions that often unify otherwise distinct schools of thought: What is cinema, and what distinguishes it from other arts? What is the cinematic apparatus? How does the filmmaker compare to an author? What is realism, and what are its alternatives? What is the role of the spectator in the filmic process? What are the modes of narration in the cinema? In posing these questions, our aim will be not to discover a single theoretical truth, but rather to understand the specific cultural and historical situatedness of a certain theoretical grid and establish a conversation among different camps. At the same time, we will try to rethink the issue of what qualifies as film theory and trace the shift from film theory as

such into emerging fields such as visual culture and postcolonial theory. Primary Films: The Wizard of Oz (1939), Victor Fleming, 101 min Elephant (2003), Gus Van Sant Man With A Movie Camera (1929), Dziga Vertov Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplin Gaslight (1944), George Cukor, 114 min Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Jim Jarmusch, 117 min Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock, 112 min The Lessons of Darkness (1992), Werner Herzog, 50 min Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Maya Deren Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee, 135 min Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Danny Boyle Assignments & Grading: Attendance and class participation: 20% Midterm examination (in-class) (short essay questions): 40% Final examination (take-home) (longer essay questions): 40% Attendance grade will be based on your physical presence, and more so on the level of participation, preparation and engagement in class. Always be prepared to discuss the readings and the films. Speaking has to be substantive. If you have to miss a class, contact another student for information and to complete the work you have missed before the next class meeting.

Contacting the Professor: You can reach me during the semester either by dropping by my office during office hours or making an appointment. For a more reliable method, email me. Before emailing, please consider if the answer to your question can be found on our syllabus, on Blackboard, or at the library. If you would like to discuss your work or have questions about the material, make an appointment and prepare your questions in advance to make the most of our meeting.

Schedule

R Jan 12: Introduction to Film Theory. _____________________________________________________________________ T Jan 17: Narrative, Spectacle and Gaze Tom Gunning, Narrative Discourse and the Narrator System (Bb); Kristin Thompson, The Concept of Cinematic Excess (Bb).

R Jan 19: John Berger, from Ways of Seeing (CV). _______________________________________________________________________ T Jan 24: Experiencing Film Plato, The Allegory of the Cave (CV); Hugo Munsterberg, Why We Go to the Movies (CV).

R Jan 26:

Tom Gunning, The Cinema of Attractions: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant-Garde (CV); Vivian Sobchack, Phenomenology and Film Experience (CV). _______________________________________________________________________ T Jan 31: Classical Film Theory Rudolph Arnheim, Film and Reality (CV); Bela Belazs, The CloseUp, & The Face of Man (CV).

R Feb 2:

Sigfried Kracauer, Basic Concepts (CV); Andre Bazin, The Ontology of the Photographic Image, The Evolution of the Language of Cinema (CV). Watch: Elephant (2003), Gus Van Sant _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Feb 7: Soviet Montage Theory Lev Kuleshov, The Principles of Montage (CV); Dziga Vertov, Film Directors: A Revolution (CV).

R Feb 9:

Sergei Eisenstein, The Cinematographic Principle and the Ideogram (Bb); Sergei Eisenstein, The Dramaturgy of Film Form (CV). Watch: Man With a Movie Camera (1929), Dziga Vertov _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Feb 14: Culture Industry and Mass Media

Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility (CV). R Feb 16: Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception (CV). Watch: Modern Times (1936), Charlie Chaplin _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Feb 21: Auteur and Genre Theories Roland Barthes, The Death of the Author (CV); Peter Wollen, The Auteur Theory (CV).

R Feb 23:

Rick Altman, A Semantic/Syntactic Approach to Film Genre (CV); Thomas Schatz, Film Genre and the Genre Film (CV). Watch: Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Jim Jarmusch _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Feb 28: Midterm Review

R Mar 1: In-class Midterm Exam! ______________________________________________________________________ Mar 6 & 8: SPRING BREAK _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Mar 13: Film Language and Semiotics Roland Barthes, The Face of Garbo (Bb); Christian Metz, Problems of Denotation in the Fiction Film (Bb).

R Mar 15:

Peter Wollen, The Semiology of the Cinema (Bb). Watch: Gaslight (1944), George Cukor _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Mar 20: Psychoanalysis/Apparatus Theory Jacques Lacan, Ecrits: The Mirror Stage (Bb); Jean-Louis Baudry, Ideological Effects of the Basic Cinematographic Apparatus (CV).

R Mar 22:

Christian Metz, Loving the Cinema, Identification, Mirror, Disavowal, Fetishism (CV). Watch: Rear Window (1954), Alfred Hitchcock _______________________________________________________________________ _

T Mar 27:

Gender and Sexuality Laura Mulvey, Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema (CV); Tania Modleski, Hitchcock, Feminism and the Patriarchal Unconscious (CV).

R Mar 29:

Teresa de Lauretis, Through the Looking Glass: Woman, Cinema and Language (Bb); Ruby Rich, New Queer Cinema (CV). Watch: Meshes of the Afternoon (1943), Maya Deren _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Apr 3: Race, Ethnicity and Self-Representation Franz Fanon, The Fact of Blackness (CV); Ella Shohat and Robert Stam, Stereotype, Realism, and the Struggle over Representation (CV).

R Apr 5:

Manthia Diawara, Black American Cinema: The New Realism (CV); bell hooks, The Oppositional Gaze: Black Female Spectators (Bb); Richard Dyer, White (CV). Watch: Bamboozled (2000), Spike Lee _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Apr 10: National and Transnational Film Histories Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (CV); Stephen Crofts, Reconceptualizing National Cinema/s (CV).

R Apr 12:

Andrew Higson, The Instability of the National (Bb); Dudley Andrew, An Atlas of World Cinema (CV). Watch: Slumdog Millionaire (2008), Danny Boyle _______________________________________________________________________ _ T Apr 17: Current Debates in Film Theory Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism and Consumer Society (CV); Lev Manovich, What is Digital Cinema? (CV). Alexander Galloway, Origins of the First-Person Shooter (CV); David Rodowick, Dr. Strange Media, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Film Theory (Bb).

R Apr 19:

T Apr 24:

Review for the Final Exam.