Christian Metz
Level: MA
Course Occasions I mgr (MA Year 1) and II mgr (MA Year 2)
Academic year 20011/2011 – winter semester
Class I mgr (MA Year 1): Thursday 15.15-16.45 301
Class II mgr (MA Year 2): Tuesday 10-11.30 301
Assessment: 60% homework and class participation (how active you are during discussions), 40% presentations (alternatively an essay of 2300-2500 words to be handed in by the end of Janurary – to see examplary essay topics from past years, scroll down to the bottom of the page)
IMPORTANT: You’re entitled to two absences per semester without providing sick notes. If you have more than two, please note that your grade will be affected.
To view your syllabus for this semester scroll below
Learning Outcomes
In order to pass the course the student has to:
Course Content
Whereas many literature/culture courses on offer include films in their curriculum, they don’t provide students with tools necessary in discussing film texts. This module fills in this gap by introducing film theory and history to help you appreciate, analyse, and interpret film as an art form. It offers a concise history of both European and Hollywood cinema with the focus on most important movements. Topics discussed include:
Throughout the course, a body of critical terminology is taught to enable students to recognise the ways the cinematic medium transforms and interprets the text through character, setting (mise-en-scène), editing (mise-en-shot), and soundtrack. Amongst others, we will be looking at the seminal works of Robert Wiene, Jean-Luc Godard, Orson Welles, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino, Billy Wilder, Alfred Hitchcock, Dziga Vertov, and others. By the end of the course, participants should be able to identify how meanings are created and conveyed to viewers through visual means and to critically examine film texts moving beyond basic categorisations of ‘like/dislike’.
Forms of Study
The class will take the form of a structured discussion, punctuated by your presentations, film clips, occasional mini lectures/introductions by myself, and in-class screenings of chosen movies. All teaching is in English.
Grades
2-5
Literature
Primary sources:
Films:
Secondary sources:
Syllabus for Semester I:
Week 1: Introduction: cinema vs. novel, theatre, photography; cinema as life vs. cinema as death; watching a 15-minute documentary about the origin of cinematograph;
Homework 1: Read about formalism, classicism and realism, content vs. form from Understanding Movies: Ch. 1, pp. 2-10; Ch. 4, pp. 150-172; Ch. 8, pp. 337-341, Ch.11, pp. 439-448
Week 2: Film aesthetics: formalism, realism, classicism, content vs. form
Homework 1: Read about mise-en-scene from Understanding Movies: Ch. 1, pp. 10-16; Ch. 2; Homework 2: Show a short (max. 1 minute fragment) and explain in which of the 3 modes it is filmed
Week 3: mise-en-scene; mise-en-shot;SS Presentation nr 1 on 3 modes of filming
Homework 1: Bring a film still or freezframe a chosen fragment of a film and discuss its mise-en-scene for about 3-5 mts
Week 4: Mise-en-scene – SS presentatation nr 2
Homework 1: Read on editing from any available source and learn the appropriate vocabulary (ex. cut, dissolve, iris, superimpositions, etc.) ;Homework 2: Read on Soviet Montage; Homework 3: Read from any available source about German Expressionism
Week 5: Mise-en-shot; Editing, Soviet Montage; watching fragments of: Psycho, The Man with a Movie Camera, The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (to watch the whole film click here) and fragments of Nosferatu (to see the whole film click here)
Homework 1: Bring an example of a contemporary visual project inspired by German Expressionism or Soviet Montage
Week 6: SS presentations nr 3
Homework 1: Read: “Hollywood Industry,” “Classical Hollywood Cinema” and “Star” from your folder.
Week 7: Classical Hollywood Cinema; Genres; movie clichés; Reel Bad Arabs – a 50-minute documentary; Hollywood conventions; star system
Homework 1: Read some examples of movie cliches and think about films you’ve seen that follow them; if you have time, watch the documentary Reel Bad Arabs and consider in this context to what degree Hollywood is ideologically suspect and how it shapes the common imaginary
Week 8: Classical Hollywood Cinema: breaking the rules; Film structure: narrative, narration
Homework 1: Read about the French New Wave
Week 9: Breathless
Homework 1: Read about film noir
Week 10: The French New Wave; film noir: themes, visual style, origins
Week 11: Film noir: Sunset Boulevard, The Lady in the Lake, etc. Vertigo
Week 12: Vertigo
Homework 1: Read “Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema” and “The Postmodern Always Rings Twice: Femme Fatale in 90s Cinema” from your folder
Week 13: Film noir, The French New Wave: contemporary influences; SS presentations nr 4 on film noir, The French New Wave: contemporary influences
Week 14: Auteur theory
Example essay topics from previous years:
“Vertigo” – Circles, Fractals, Gothic and Projection of Mind on Screen
The goals and rules of filmmaking according to the Hollywood cinema and Dogme 95
Modernist techniques in “Citizen Kane”
Pleasure in looking, the importance of looking – Laura Mulvey’s theory in practice: “Truman Show”, “Being John Malkovich”, “American Beauty” and “Minority Report”
“Memento” as a contemporary noir
Decoration and obstacle – woman in action film
Visual obsession of Stanley Kubrick on the basis of “The Shining” and “Clockwork Orange”
“Basic Instinct” and its resemblance to film noir and Hitchcock’s “Vertigo”
German Expressionism in video clips
Classicism versus formalism in Frank Miller’s “Sin City”
“Insomina” as film blanche