Cinema 10
The Art of the Cinema
Dr. Daniel Smith-Rowsey
Spring 2016
LEARNING OBJECTIVES:
Upon completion of this course, the student will be able to analyze and evaluate the impact of cinema
on culture; assess the historical, artistic, social, business, and philosophical environments in which
cinema exists; apply critical viewing methods for motion pictures; evaluate and critique elements of the
motion picture production process, including different aspects of screen writing, acting, directing,
design, artisanal and technical skills. Students will be able to critically
assess
any
given
film's
place
in
film
history, its
socio‐cultural
impact, its
effectiveness
as
a
means
of
communication,
the
filmmaker’s
mastery
of
aesthetic
and
theoretical
principles,
and
the
film’s
utilization
of
production
techniques.
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HOUSEKEEPING:
Course Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays, 9:30-10:45, Room 308
Communication: Email me at Daniel.smith-rowsey@solano.edu, leave me a voice mail at x5747
Office Hours: Tuesdays 11:00-11:30, Adjunct Office, 100 Bldg (next to Graphics)
Required textbook: Looking at Movies, Richard Barsam and Dave Monahan. (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice
Hall.) Fourth Edition. (Third Edition is acceptable)
CLASS BLOG: https://introductiontocinema.wordpress.com/ (All articles/PowerPoints are there under a
tab called “Course Content: Docs and Links”)
This class requires regular internet access, a DVD player (a computer that plays DVDs is fine), and the
one textbook. The library can help you with the first two.
Failure to complete any of the below assignments is grounds for failing the course. Let’s not let it come
to that. BETTER LATE THAN NEVER. Never is an F; late is almost always graded higher than that. Also,
non-cited plagiarism = failure. While in class, you may not use phones or any electronic devices,
including laptops. Sorry, but previous students have ruined it for you.
Your attendance is regularly monitored. Repeated absences, late arrivals, and/or early departures can
negatively affect your grade.
Your grade is:
Participation – 12.5%
Blog post paragraphs – 15% (every week starting Week 2)
IN CLASS PRESENTATION (dates vary) – 10% - bring physical copy of report
Paper #1 – 10% (DUE 3/10) – bring physical copy (don’t put it on the blog)
Paper #2 – 12.5% (DUE 4/26) – bring physical copy (don’t put it on the blog)
Paper #3 – 15% (DUE 5/10) – bring physical copy (don’t put it on the blog)
Final Exam – 10% (on 5/12 at 8:00am. YES. EIGHT A.M. NO, REALLY. Not my idea)
Quizzes – 15% (Dates vary; there are 11 quizzes, all online, no time limits)
The following pages explain these criteria.
FINAL EXAM (5/12, 100 multiple-choice questions, bring Scantron 0882-E and a pencil):
Because this class has no midterm, we’re piling it onto the final. The plan is 85 questions from the online
quizzes, and about 15 questions on genre from the PowerPoints. In advance, you will be given a Final
Exam Study Guide with all the questions (just not the answers).
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QUIZZES – Not half as scary as they sound. First read the relevant chapter. Then go here:
http://www.wwnorton.com/college/film/movies4/ Click the relevant chapter number on the toolbar (it
has 1 through 11). The next link has a menu at left that includes “Review Quiz.” Click that, go through it.
The quiz will ask you how many questions; use this syllabus as reference (sometimes I ask for 10, other
times 15). Every quiz is exclusively multiple-choice questions. At the end, if you don’t like your score,
take it again! (Though they do change up the questions.) After you are finished, the interface will make it
very easy for you to email the results of the quiz to the class blog. Do this. We will do the first two
together, in class. Doesn’t sound so hard now, does it? Grades are solid (no minuses or pluses) and
figured just like in math and science classes; 90% and above = A; 80% and above = B, etc.
BLOG POSTS (every week starting Week 3) – We will spend Weeks 1 and 2 getting acquainted with the
class blog, introductiontocinema.wordpress.com. (In the past, we’ve made the blog private and
password-protected, but we’ve found that students generally prefer to have it public and easy to
access.) Your weekly blog entry must be dated sometime before the start of Tuesday’s class (before
9:30am Tuesday). Your blog entry includes two things: your summarized quiz results and your paragraph
of reflections on one of the films screened during the previous week’s classes. Your quiz results should
be directly cut and pasted from your email from Norton. Feel free to delete your last name for privacy
reasons – as long as I know who you are. You may wonder why I ask for the results on the blog; we can
discuss the many reasons verbally in class. Your paragraph of reflections adheres to the SLO as defined
on the first page of this syllabus: you may critically
assess the film’s place in film history, its sociocultural impact, its effectivesness as a means of communication, the filmmaker’s mastery of aesthetic
and theoretical principles, and
the
film’s
utilization
of
production
techniques. Your minimal
requirement for the paragraph is to note how the film communicates its themes and/or messages
(themes ≠ messages, as we will discuss) via no less than (3) categories of techniques. Most of the book’s
chapters are about a category of technique: writing, camerawork, editing, music, acting, and so on. In
other words, your paragraph will include at least three sentences that each reference one of these, for
example, “Citizen Kane’s use of deep focus (camera) helped to bring out themes of isolation and a oncenimble playfulness turned to despair.” Or something. You must write in complete sentences, because
these can be seen as draftwork for your papers. You may wait until the last minute and you may echo
your classmates, but if I feel you’ve plagiarized anyone, you’ll be interrogated and potentially
downgraded or worse. (In other words, to avoid appearing imitative, you may want to post early.) For
extra credit, feel free to comment on your classmates’ posts. Do not expect extra credit for commenting
on week-old or older posts. You will not receive written grades for your paragraphs; if you are on time, if
you have written three sentences on three techniques (one for each technique), if the sentences have
no glaring grammar problems, and if you make reasonable, supportable points about one of the films in
question, you can assume you received an A for that post.
***********************Guide to my shorthand comments on your papers: awk = awkward; r/p = rephrase; w/c
= word choice (or, why choose this word?), vtc = verb tense consistency (for example, you use past and present
tense interchangeably) …Spelling counts, grammar counts, coherence counts. Be careful when using an actor’s
name and a character’s name in the same paragraph. (Inevitably, someone will discuss a scene between, as an
example, Bruce Wayne and Heath Ledger. That makes you look like you’re not taking the class seriously.) You
cannot write about films that aren’t on the syllabus, so don’t ask. Imagine if you were in a literature class and you
were assigned people like Isabel Allende and Richard Wright and you told the instructor you’d be writing about
Harry Potter instead. How do you think that would go over?
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IN CLASS PRESENTATIONS (1000-word report plus verbal presentation; dates vary; 10% of grade) – How
does form affect content? How do filmmakers draw our attention to explicit and implicit meanings? You
are to show how style (formal choices) supports content (themes, meanings, story ideas). You will
demonstrate your mastery of the terms used by the book – for example, narrative, cinematography,
performance, and montage – as you provide evidence of how filmmakers decided to tell their stories a
certain way (instead of some other way). Extra points awarded for historical context. When you arrive in
class on 3/8, the board will look something like the below. You will write your name and your partner’s
name under the film (clip) that you will be presenting. You are stuck with the date; don’t come to me
later and say you didn’t know you were committing to the date you put your name under. If you need
me to loan you a copy of the movie, PLEASE come to me the week before, and ask for it. If you forget to
do that, I’ll assume you have your own copy or can get it *wink nudge*. If I loan it you must be SURE to
bring it to back to class; if not you earn an “F” on this assignment. If we already watched the entire film
in question, your presentation should take around 10 minutes to read (and we’ll allow 1 or 2 minutes for
Q&A). If we have NOT watched the entire film, your ICP should take 20 minutes; 10 minutes of film
clip(s), and 10 minutes to read your report/PowerPoint. Please turn in your jointly written 1000-word
report on the same day as the ICP. You and your partner write ONE report TOGETHER, not two
separately. You are partly being judged on how well you work with others, so please do not come to me
with excuses for your partner.
3/17
Casablanca
Sunset Boulevard
3/24
Duck Amuck
Singin’ in the Rain
Om Shanti Om
A Fisftful of Dollars
Last Man Standing
Bonnie and Clyde
Natural Born Killers
Stardust Memories
Nine
4/7
Yojimbo
4/14
Breathless
4/21
8½
4/28
Pulp Fiction
City of God
5/5
Waltz With Bashir
WALL-E
5/10
Living in Oblivion
Tropic Thunder
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Paper #1 – A Formal Analysis (10% of grade, 1000+ words, Due 10/29) How does form affect content?
How do filmmakers draw our attention to explicit and implicit meanings? In a manner very similar to the
ICP, you are to show how style (formal choices) supports content (themes, meanings, story ideas). You
will demonstrate your mastery of the terms used by the book – for example, narrative, cinematography,
performance, and montage – as you provide evidence of how filmmakers decided to tell their stories a
certain way (instead of some other way). Extra points awarded for historical context. For this paper, you
are marshalling all the knowledge acquired thus far in support of a formal analysis of one (1) of the films
on the syllabus. By now, you have seen numerous, numerous examples of formal analysis in the
textbook; try to write as if you were contributing part of one of their chapters. Why include this scene
and not another type of scene? Why put the camera here and not there? Why cut at that frame and not
at another time? Why does the actor do this and not that? You are showing how the filmmakers’ choices
helped the film say or examine something.
Paper #2 – Compare and Contrast (12.5% of grade, 1500+ words, Due 11/24) How does form affect
content? How do filmmakers draw our attention to explicit and implicit meanings? For this paper, you
are writing something much like the first paper, but you’re comparing and contrasting two different
films. You choose 1) an original and its remake (“remake” may be loosely defined) OR 2) a film and its
“making-of” film (one of these may not be real). If this sounds unclear, ask me. You are restricted to the
list of films just below.
Making of
As shown in
Citizen Kane
The Battle over Citizen Kane
The Dancing Cavalier
Singin’ in the Rain
Living in Oblivion
Living in Oblivion
Om Shanti Om
Om Shanti Om
Tropic Blunder
Tropic Thunder
OR
Original
Remake
King Kong (1933)
King Kong (2005)
Singin’ in the Rain
Om Shanti Om
Breathless
Bonnie and Clyde
Bonnie and Clyde
Natural Born Killers
8½
Stardust Memories
8½
Nine
Yojimbo
A Fistful of Dollars
Yojimbo
Last Man Standing
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Paper #3 Genre (15% of grade, 2000+ words, Due 12/10) How does form affect content? How do
filmmakers draw our attention to explicit and implicit meanings? For this paper, you are writing
something much like the first two papers, but you’re comparing and contrasting three different films.
And not just any three films, but films linked through a genre. See the list of genres and potential films
below (and remember that you must use three films from the class). And you have to do something else,
namely reference the PowerPoint on genre that I have posted on the class blog. As you’ll see, there are
slides on musicals, science fiction, animation…etc. (I almost made you read the summarized articles;
though I was nice, you can feel free to write as though you’ve read them.) You use a given genre’s slide
as a “lens” through which to observe the formal choices of the three films.
Suggestions for Paper #3:
Action/Adventure: Sherlock Jr., King Kong, Hero, Tropic Thunder, WALL-E, Gravity, Mad Max Fury Road
Animation: Duck Amuck, Waltz with Bashir, WALL-E
Avant-garde: Man with a Movie Camera, Meshes of the Afternoon, Duck Amuck
Crime: Sherlock Jr., Sunset Blvd., Psycho, Om Shanti Om, Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born
Killers, Pulp Fiction, City of God
Documentary: Man with a Movie Camera, The Battle over Citizen Kane, Waltz with Bashir, Cave of
Forgotten Dreams, Stories We Tell
Fantasy: Sherlock Jr., King Kong, 8 ½, Groundhog Day, Mad Max Fury Road
Gangster: Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born Killers, Pulp Fiction, City of God
Horror: The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, King Kong, Psycho, Gravity (yes)
Melodrama: Citizen Kane, Casablanca, Sunset Blvd., Psycho, Hero, Juno, Fruitvale Station
Meta (Movies About Making Movies): Sherlock Jr., King Kong, Sunset Blvd., Singin’ in the Rain, Living in
Oblivion, Om Shanti Om, Tropic Thunder, 8 ½, Stardust Memories, Nine
Musical: Singin’ in the Rain, Om Shanti Om, Nine
Parody/Satire Comedy: Sherlock Jr., Stardust Memories, Living in Oblivion, Tropic Thunder
Romantic Comedy: Groundhog Day, Sherlock Jr., Singin’ in the Rain
Romance: Casablanca, Breathless, Bonnie and Clyde, Natural Born Killers
Science Fiction: King Kong, The Man Who Fell to Earth, WALL-E, Gravity, Mad Max Fury Road
War: Battleship Potemkin, Casablanca, Hero, Tropic Thunder, Waltz with Bashir
Western: Yojimbo, A Fistful of Dollars, Django Unchained
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SCHEDULE
Week 1: Introduction to Movies
Tue 1/12: From Chauvet Cave to The Man Who Fell to Earth (1975) to Steven Soderbergh’s State of the
Cinema
Thu 1/14: Reflections on Cinema; clips from Gravity and Juno
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 1
Week 2: The Current Cinema
Tue 1/19: Mad Max Fury Road (2015)
Thu 1/21: Discussing a film; Working online in this class – Chapter 1
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 2
Week 3: Principles of Film Form – Realism and non-realism
Tue 1/26: Fruitvale Station (2013) DUE: Chapter 1 Quiz (10 questions)
Thu 1/28: Explicit and implicit meaning; Working online in this class – Chapter 2; Meshes of the
Afternoon (1943)
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 4 (not Chapter 3)
Week 4: Screenwriting
Tue 2/2: Groundhog Day (1993), DUE: Chapter 2 Quiz (10 questions)
Thu 2/4: Elements of Narrative, DUE: Chapter 4 Quiz (10 questions)
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 5
Week 5: Mise-en-Scène
Tue 2/9: Citizen Kane (1941), DUE: Chapter 5 Quiz (15 questions)
Thu 2/11: Design, Composition; The Battle Over Citizen Kane (clip); The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (clip)
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 6
Week 6: Cinematography
Tue 2/16: Hero (2002), DUE: Chapter 6 Quiz (15 questions)
Thu 2/18: What a DP does
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 7
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Week 7: Acting
Tue 2/23: Sherlock Jr. (1924), DUE: Chapter 7 Quiz (15 questions)
Thu 2/25: Analyzing acting; other Sherlocks; Stories We Tell (clips) (2012)
HOMEWORK: Read Chapters 8 and 9
Week 8: Editing
Tue 3/1: Man With a Movie Camera (1929), DUE: Chapter 8 Quiz (15 questions)
Thu 3/3: What editors do (including Battleship Potemkin and Psycho) HOMEWORK: Do Paper #1
Week 9: Sound and King Kong
Tue 3/8: King Kong (1933), DUE: Chapter 9 Quiz (10 questions)
Thu 3/10: King Kong (2005) (clip); “Passion, Sound and Fury” from King Kong DVD; DUE: Paper #1
Week 10: A bit about film history
Tue 3/15: Casablanca (1942)
Tue 3/17: Sunset Blvd. (1950) (clip); IN CLASS PRESENTATIONS BEGIN
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 10
Week 11: Film History
Tue 3/22: Duck Amuck (1952), Singin’ in the Rain (1952), DUE: Chapter 10 Quiz (15 questions)
Thu 3/24: Om Shanti Om (2007) (clip)
SPRING BREAK
Week 12: A word about cultural appropriation
Tue 4/5: Yojimbo (1961)
Thu 4/7: A Fistful of Dollars (1964) (clip), Last Man Standing (1996) (clip)
Week 13: The Hollywood Renaissance Pt. I, Gangsta Gangsta
Tue 4/12: Breathless (1960)
Thu 4/14: Bonnie and Clyde (1967) (clip), Natural Born Killers (1994) (clip)
Week 14: The Hollywood Renaissance Pt. 2, Meta-Films
Tue 4/19: 8 ½ (clip), Stardust Memories (1980)
Thu 4/21: Nine (2009)
HOMEWORK: Do Paper #2
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Week 14: The new independents; foreign energy
Tue 4/26: Pulp Fiction (1994) (clip), City of God (2003), DUE: Paper #2
Thu 4/28: Finish City of God
HOMEWORK: Read Chapter 11
Week 15: The new animation
Tue 5/3: Waltz with Bashir (2008), DUE Chapter 11 Quiz (10 questions)
Thu 5/5: WALL-E (2008) (clip)
HOMEWORK: Do Paper #3
Week 16: Putting it all together
Tue 5/10: Living in Oblivion (1995) (clip), Tropic Thunder (2008) (clip), DUE: Paper #3, FINAL EXAM
STUDY GUIDE PROVIDED
THE FINAL EXAM IS ON THURSDAY, MAY 12TH, FROM 8:00am to 10:00am IN OUR USUAL ROOM.
THE FINAL EXAM IS ON THURSDAY, MAY 12TH, FROM 8:00am to 10:00am IN OUR USUAL ROOM.
THE FINAL EXAM IS ON THURSDAY, MAY 12TH, FROM 8:00am to 10:00am IN OUR USUAL ROOM.
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