2012-2013 Film History Courses

This course is an introduction to the history of the art of film from its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century to the present time. Form and meaning in the film medium, the techniques of film, and their expressive uses and effects will be the object of study. A wide range of films will be covered: older and more recent, mainstream and alternative, and films from countries all over the world. The transaction between films and their audiences—the ways in which a movie moves us, how it engages and orients its viewers, how it affects us and influences us—will be a central concern. Films will be considered in relation to the culture and society in which they were made. Special attention will be paid to the work of several major filmmakers. Students who feel disinclined to watch silent films, avant-garde films, films in black and white, or foreign films should not enroll in this course.

A genre is a kind of story, and in this course we will study different kinds of stories told on the screen: comedies and melodramas, Westerns and other forms of epic, horror films and other expressionist genres, crime films and portrayals of everyday life. Genre is sometimes thought of as mere formula, conventional and predictable; but art depends on conventions even when it departs from them—and only by creating expectations can it bring about the unexpected. Genre is sometimes opposed to originality and imagination; but in this course, we will see how much originality and imagination genre can make possible and how some of the best movies have put it to use. We will examine genre in relation to narrative structure, different kinds of story in relation to different ways of telling a story. We will look at Hollywood movies of the studio era—when genre conspicuously flourished—and also at films made at different times and places through to the present day.

What is cinema? Is it a mass entertainment medium or an art? And if it is an art, how does it differ from other artistic mediums to which it bears a resemblance, such as theatre and literature? Is it a tool of enlightenment that reveals reality as it is, or is it a tool of deception offering merely an “illusion” of reality? How does it effect viewers, both cognitively and emotionally? Can it change society for the better, or does it merely reproduce relations of power? These, and many other fascinating questions, have been debated widely by film theorists—many of them also filmmakers—almost since cinema’s inception in the 1890s. Due to cinema’s enormous popularity in the 20th century, they have also attracted the attention of intellectuals more generally, such as Rudolf Arnheim, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Gilles Deleuze. Film theory has, moreover, tended to be an interdisciplinary affair, drawing on the latest developments in psychology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, the natural sciences, and philosophy. This course will survey the major film theories, beginning with debates about cinema’s nature and functions that emerged in the 1920s; the widespread utopian belief in its potential to change both human beings and society for the better prevalent before WWII; the countervailing view, often held by Marxists, that the cinema is a tool of domination and control; the turn since WWII to theoretical paradigms such as linguistics, psychoanalysis, and cognitivism to answer questions about the cinema; feminist interventions into film theory in the 1970s; and the wholesale critique of film theory undertaken by theorists and philosophers trained in Anglo-American analytical philosophy since the 1980s. The only prerequisite for this course is a commitment to analytical thinking, in-depth reading, and rational debate.

According to some, most famously Walter Kerr and René Clair, the film genre of comedian comedy—with its roots in physical, visual comedy, or slapstick—reached its artistic peak in the late silent era and declined with the coming of sound and the verbal comedy enabled by synchronized dialogue. Others argue that comedian comedy remains a vibrant, vital genre to this day and that slapstick is alive and well. In this course, we will examine the history of the genre, beginning with its emergence in cinema’s earliest period (1894-1904) and its development in the 1900s. We will closely analyze the individual styles of the great silent comedians who became stars in the 1910s (Linder, Chaplin, Keaton) and 1920s (Lloyd, Langdon, Laurel and Hardy) and see how they developed sophisticated sight gags and negotiated the transition from short one- or two-reelers (10-20 minutes) to feature-length films. We will consider the extent to which they survived the coming of sound in the late 1920s and the genre was changed by synchronized dialogue. Finally, we will look at comedians of the sound era (the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Jacques Tati, Peter Sellers) and, if there is time, more recent comedians such as Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Jim Carrey in order to determine the degree to which synchronized sound diminished, if not destroyed, the artistic excellence that the genre had attained by the late 1920s.

Central to modernism—that vast, diverse movement that transformed the arts in the late 19th and 20th centuries—was the desire to modernize art, to break with tradition and cultivate new artistic forms and styles more suited to the modern world, even though, paradoxically, modernists often did this by mining “the greatest works of the tradition for irreducible structures which can be made to support new works” (P. Adams Sitney). But how did modernism impact the cinema given that, as a new medium, it initially lacked traditions to break with? In the first semester of this course, we will consider what modernism was in general and how it initially took root in film. Beginning with German Expressionism of the 1920s, arguably the first modernist movement in cinema, we will examine how European filmmakers sought to create equivalents of modernist and avant-garde movements in the fine arts, theatre, and literature while simultaneously attempting to purify film of these arts. We will see how modernist and avant-garde filmmakers negotiated the transition to sound in the late 1920s, as well as the re-emergence of varieties of realism in the politically charged 1930s and war-torn 1940s. In the second semester, after considering whether Italian Neo-Realism is a form of modernism, we will turn our attention to European filmmakers—such as Bresson, Tati, Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, and Godard—who cultivated innovative forms and styles in the postwar period, often in dialogue with Hollywood genre filmmaking. Beginning with Hitchcock and continuing with Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, and others, we will also look at the extent to which modernism influenced filmmakers working in the studio system in the United States. Finally, we will return to Europe to witness the politicization of modernism in the late 1960s and 1970s in the work of filmmakers such as Godard, Jansco, Straub and Huillet, and Akerman; and we will ask whether modernist cinema, as many have argued, came to an end in the 1980s. Some prior exposure to modernist and/or avant-garde art is a prerequisite for this class.

In this course, we will study representations of the artist in films. The artist may be a painter, a writer, an actor, a dancer, a musician, an architect, a photographer, or a filmmaker. A portrait of the artist is often an inquiry into the form and meaning and uses of art, a reflection on what art is and what art does. We will look at films from different countries and periods portraying artists in different ways—films such as Chaplin’s The Circus and Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera and Fellini’s 8½, 42nd Street and The Band Wagon, Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy and Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, Carné and Prévert’s Children of Paradise and Victor Erice’s Sun of the Quince Tree, Angelopoulos’s Travelling Players and Jia Zhangke’s Platform, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career, Renoir’s La Chienne and French Cancan, Mizoguchi’s Five Women Around Utamaro and Ugetsu, Bergman’s Magician and Persona, Antonioni’s La Notte and Blow-Up, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and Mirror, Godard’s Contempt and In Praise of Love—and we will examine what they have to tell us about the character of artists and the nature of art, its means and its ends, and its situation in society.

This course is an introduction to the history of the art of film from its beginnings at the turn of the 20th century to the present time. Form and meaning in the film medium, the techniques of film, and their expressive uses and effects will be the object of study. A wide range of films will be covered: older and more recent, mainstream and alternative, and films from countries all over the world. The transaction between films and their audiences—the ways in which a movie moves us, how it engages and orients its viewers, how it affects us and influences us—will be a central concern. Films will be considered in relation to the culture and society in which they were made. Special attention will be paid to the work of several major filmmakers. Students who feel disinclined to watch silent films, avant-garde films, films in black and white, or foreign films should not enroll in this course.

A genre is a kind of story, and in this course we will study different kinds of stories told on the screen: comedies and melodramas, Westerns and other forms of epic, horror films and other expressionist genres, crime films and portrayals of everyday life. Genre is sometimes thought of as mere formula, conventional and predictable; but art depends on conventions even when it departs from them—and only by creating expectations can it bring about the unexpected. Genre is sometimes opposed to originality and imagination; but in this course, we will see how much originality and imagination genre can make possible and how some of the best movies have put it to use. We will examine genre in relation to narrative structure, different kinds of story in relation to different ways of telling a story. We will look at Hollywood movies of the studio era—when genre conspicuously flourished—and also at films made at different times and places through to the present day.

What is cinema? Is it a mass entertainment medium or an art? And if it is an art, how does it differ from other artistic mediums to which it bears a resemblance, such as theatre and literature? Is it a tool of enlightenment that reveals reality as it is, or is it a tool of deception offering merely an “illusion” of reality? How does it effect viewers, both cognitively and emotionally? Can it change society for the better, or does it merely reproduce relations of power? These, and many other fascinating questions, have been debated widely by film theorists—many of them also filmmakers—almost since cinema’s inception in the 1890s. Due to cinema’s enormous popularity in the 20th century, they have also attracted the attention of intellectuals more generally, such as Rudolf Arnheim, Walter Benjamin, Theodor Adorno, and Gilles Deleuze. Film theory has, moreover, tended to be an interdisciplinary affair, drawing on the latest developments in psychology, anthropology, sociology, linguistics, the natural sciences, and philosophy. This course will survey the major film theories, beginning with debates about cinema’s nature and functions that emerged in the 1920s; the widespread utopian belief in its potential to change both human beings and society for the better prevalent before WWII; the countervailing view, often held by Marxists, that the cinema is a tool of domination and control; the turn since WWII to theoretical paradigms such as linguistics, psychoanalysis, and cognitivism to answer questions about the cinema; feminist interventions into film theory in the 1970s; and the wholesale critique of film theory undertaken by theorists and philosophers trained in Anglo-American analytical philosophy since the 1980s. The only prerequisite for this course is a commitment to analytical thinking, in-depth reading, and rational debate.

According to some, most famously Walter Kerr and René Clair, the film genre of comedian comedy—with its roots in physical, visual comedy, or slapstick—reached its artistic peak in the late silent era and declined with the coming of sound and the verbal comedy enabled by synchronized dialogue. Others argue that comedian comedy remains a vibrant, vital genre to this day and that slapstick is alive and well. In this course, we will examine the history of the genre, beginning with its emergence in cinema’s earliest period (1894-1904) and its development in the 1900s. We will closely analyze the individual styles of the great silent comedians who became stars in the 1910s (Linder, Chaplin, Keaton) and 1920s (Lloyd, Langdon, Laurel and Hardy) and see how they developed sophisticated sight gags and negotiated the transition from short one- or two-reelers (10-20 minutes) to feature-length films. We will consider the extent to which they survived the coming of sound in the late 1920s and the genre was changed by synchronized dialogue. Finally, we will look at comedians of the sound era (the Marx Brothers, Mae West, Bob Hope, Jerry Lewis, Jacques Tati, Peter Sellers) and, if there is time, more recent comedians such as Woody Allen, Steve Martin, and Jim Carrey in order to determine the degree to which synchronized sound diminished, if not destroyed, the artistic excellence that the genre had attained by the late 1920s.

Central to modernism—that vast, diverse movement that transformed the arts in the late 19th and 20th centuries—was the desire to modernize art, to break with tradition and cultivate new artistic forms and styles more suited to the modern world, even though, paradoxically, modernists often did this by mining “the greatest works of the tradition for irreducible structures which can be made to support new works” (P. Adams Sitney). But how did modernism impact the cinema given that, as a new medium, it initially lacked traditions to break with? In the first semester of this course, we will consider what modernism was in general and how it initially took root in film. Beginning with German Expressionism of the 1920s, arguably the first modernist movement in cinema, we will examine how European filmmakers sought to create equivalents of modernist and avant-garde movements in the fine arts, theatre, and literature while simultaneously attempting to purify film of these arts. We will see how modernist and avant-garde filmmakers negotiated the transition to sound in the late 1920s, as well as the re-emergence of varieties of realism in the politically charged 1930s and war-torn 1940s. In the second semester, after considering whether Italian Neo-Realism is a form of modernism, we will turn our attention to European filmmakers—such as Bresson, Tati, Bergman, Fellini, Antonioni, and Godard—who cultivated innovative forms and styles in the postwar period, often in dialogue with Hollywood genre filmmaking. Beginning with Hitchcock and continuing with Stanley Kubrick, Robert Altman, and others, we will also look at the extent to which modernism influenced filmmakers working in the studio system in the United States. Finally, we will return to Europe to witness the politicization of modernism in the late 1960s and 1970s in the work of filmmakers such as Godard, Jansco, Straub and Huillet, and Akerman; and we will ask whether modernist cinema, as many have argued, came to an end in the 1980s. Some prior exposure to modernist and/or avant-garde art is a prerequisite for this class.

In this course, we will study representations of the artist in films. The artist may be a painter, a writer, an actor, a dancer, a musician, an architect, a photographer, or a filmmaker. A portrait of the artist is often an inquiry into the form and meaning and uses of art, a reflection on what art is and what art does. We will look at films from different countries and periods portraying artists in different ways—films such as Chaplin’s The Circus and Cocteau’s Blood of a Poet, Vertov’s Man with a Movie Camera and Fellini’s 8½, 42nd Street and The Band Wagon, Satyajit Ray’s Apu trilogy and Abbas Kiarostami’s Koker trilogy, Carné and Prévert’s Children of Paradise and Victor Erice’s Sun of the Quince Tree, Angelopoulos’s Travelling Players and Jia Zhangke’s Platform, Maya Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon and Gillian Armstrong’s My Brilliant Career, Renoir’s La Chienne and French Cancan, Mizoguchi’s Five Women Around Utamaro and Ugetsu, Bergman’s Magician and Persona, Antonioni’s La Notte and Blow-Up, Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev and Mirror, Godard’s Contempt and In Praise of Love—and we will examine what they have to tell us about the character of artists and the nature of art, its means and its ends, and its situation in society.