HL301—Fall 2014
HL 301/3001—The History of Film Theory I
Seminar
Instructor Information:
Module Coordinator: Dr. Brian Bergen-Aurand
Office: HSS—03—60
Telephone: 6790-5381
Email: brian@ntu.edu.sg
Module Description:
What is cinema and how do we understand it? How does it provoke us to respond? Does the
cinema most resemble the stage, a painting, or a photograph? When is it like poetry? When do
we treat it like a novel or short story? What is the relationship between cinema, television, video,
digital arts, and other moving images? What sort of machine is it? Is it more like a picture frame,
window on the world, mystic writing pad, or a mirror? Does it function like a language, an
address, a puzzle, or a provocation? How should we examine it in terms of narrative, apparatus,
and ideology? In terms of image and sound, style, genre, the film artist, and audience reception?
What is the relationship between the cinema and democracy? These have been the primary
questions throughout the history of film theory and will be the key concerns of this module. It
seeks to introduce students to the history and debates of film theory from its beginnings to the
modern period. Students will be exposed to various ways of addressing films and writing about
the cinema, including formalist and realist theories, cultural studies approaches to cinema,
semiotics, auteur theory, genre and star analysis, ideological critiques, and apparatus theory.
Screenings may include examples from early cinema, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Potemkin,
Man with a Movie Camera, Bicycle Thieves, Perfumed Nightmare, Battle of Algiers, Citizen
Kane, Rear Window, and Weekend.
Print Texts:
Corrigan, Timothy. A Short Guide to Writing about Film. New York: Pearson, 2007.
Stam, Robert. Film Theory: An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000.
Braudy, Leo and Marshall Cohen, eds. Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings. Sixth
Edition. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. (FTC on the Schedule)
Additional readings available on reserve in the HSS library. (HSS Reserves on the Schedule)
Non-Print Texts:
DVDs and Videotapes are available on reserve in the Business Library or at the ADM library.
Evaluation:
Engagement
Screening Exercise
Midterm & Final Test
Study Guide
Analytical Essay
Total
20%
10%
20%
10%
40%
100%
1
HL301—Fall 2014
Module Schedule
(This schedule is subject to change.)
Week
1
Reading
Corrigan, CH 1 & 2
(Exercises
p. 17 & p. 35)
Screening
Selected Early Films
Corrigan, CH 3 & 4
Stam, pp. 1-37
4
5
Topic
Introductions
Reading the History of Film
Theory:
1. Film Theory, History, and
Criticism
2. Metaphors and Comparisons
3. Democracy and Machines
Film, Form, and Function
Early Film Theory and the Essence
of Cinema
Montage and Formalism I
Montage and Formalism II
6
The Historical Avant-Gardes
Stam, pp. 55-58
7
8
9
Film Sound
Selected Early Films
The Cabinet of Dr.
Caligari
Potemkin
Man with a Movie
Camera
The Seashell and the
Clergyman
&
Un Chien Andalou
Singin’ in the Rain
2
3
10
11
12
13
14
15
Stam, pp. 37-47
Stam, pp. 47-55
Casablanca
Stam, pp. 58-64
Reading Week
Culture Critique & The Frankfurt
Stam, pp. 64-72
Blonde Venus
School
Realisms and Film
Stam, pp. 72-83
Bicycle Thieves
Phenomenology
Film Authorship
Stam, pp. 83-92
Selections from Maya
(See Deren, Arzner, Dulac, &
Deren: Experimental
Lupino Documentaries)
Films
Third Cinema
Stam, pp. 92-102
Perfumed Nightmare
Structuralism and the Question of
Stam, pp. 102-119
Citizen Kane
Film Language
What is Cinema? How do we Understand it?
Essay Due
2