DEPARTMENT OF FILM AND TELEVISION STUDIES
MA IN FILM AND TELEVISION STUDIES
SCREEN CULTURES AND METHODS 2014-15
Core Module, Autumn Term 2014
(Mondays, 10-4, A1.27)
Learning Aims and Outcomes
This core module aims to explore significant methodologies and conceptual frameworks which are central to
the study of audio-visual media. The module will be divided into three sections: (I) textual analysis; (II)
historiography, and (III) theoretical and conceptual paradigms. The module provides a grounding in key
concepts and methods, but will also encourage an advanced level of reflection on the key areas addressed.
The module is taught through a combination of screenings, presentations, reading and discussion and this
document details the work for each week, the required and suggested further reading and assessment.
Assessment
The assessment for this module consists of a portfolio of three pieces of work, each relating to the three
sections of the module. The essay should be submitted to the departmental secretary, Adam Gallimore in the
office by midday on the day of the deadline. Please submit your essay in duplicate, and identified only by
your student number. The questions and deadlines are given below; please consult the Postgraduate
Handbook for guidelines on presenting and submitting assessed work.
Assessment One: Textual Analysis (2000 words)
Deadline: Monday, Week 6
For this exercise, you may choose to write on either film or television
If you wish to write on film, you should answer the following question:
Synthesis […], where there is no distinction between how and what, content and form, is what
interests us if we are interested in film as film.' (Perkins, Film as Film [1972], 133) Evaluate the
relationship between 'how' and 'what' in one shot, or one cut, within a film of your choosing. Please
append a DVD of or link to your chosen extract, with precise timings.
If you wish to write on television, you should answer the following question:
Write a textual analysis of a short piece of television, of no more than 5 minutes in length. A title
sequence from a television sequence would work well, but you can choose any piece of television. In
writing your textual analysis, you should reflect on the ways in which the critical analysis of television
might be both similar to and different from that of film.
It may be helpful to offer some graphic representation of elements of your chosen sequence using
ICT; try to use these to demonstrate the significance of the points you make, rather than simply as
illustration. Please append a DVD of or link to your chosen extract, with precise timings.
Assessment Two: Historiography (2000 words)
Deadline: Monday, Week 10
For this exercise, you may choose to write on either film or television
If you wish to write on film, you should answer the following question:
This essay should critically reflect on some of the sources and materials considered in the workshop
and should evaluate the usefulness of these in situating La Dolce Vita in film history. You do not
have to tie your essay closely to this film if you prefer to develop a broader reflection.
If you wish to write on television, you should answer the following question:
Following on from the television historiography workshop in Week Eight, in writing this essay you
should make use of EITHER the Radio Times and TV Times archives held in the University library
OR Asa Briggs' volumes of The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom to reflect upon the
usefulness of your chosen resource for the television historian. You may choose to focus your
discussion around a particular television programme or 'moment' in British television history, or to
keep your discussion at a broader level.
Assessment Three: Theorising the Film and Television Text
Deadline: Monday, Week 1 (Spring Term)
Working from the notes you prepared for the "Viewing Activity" in Week 9, describe how your
selected clip illustrates a key passage from one of the readings from the theory weeks. Then talk
about how your clip extends, expands, or complicates the passage. This essay relies on your careful
selection of a passage of the theory as it does on finding a productive clip. Do not ignore the essay's
larger argument and how the passage fits into that argument and the unit's broader questions about
platforms, the parameters of the text, cine/tele-philia, and circulation.
Module tutors will be available for essay preparation tutorials during office hours.
WEEK ONE
There will be an introductory session run by the module tutors on the Tuesday of Week One (30
September 2.30-4.30).
Weeks Two, Three and Four: Issues in Textual Analysis in Film and Television Studies
These three weeks of the module will focus on developing, practising and reflecting on skills in textual
analysis of the moving image. Textual analysis is a key methodological approach in the disciplines of Film
and Television Studies, and this part of the module will enable you to develop your skills in this area as well
as providing the opportunity for critical reflection on this method of analysis. The first two weeks will focus on
film (Dr James MacDowell) and in the third we shall turn to the analysis of television (Dr Rachel Moseley).
WEEK TWO (Monday 6 October)
Film and Textual Analysis 1
Weeks 2 and 3 will test and extend your skills in the advanced analysis of film style and interpretation.
Structured around the detailed examination of two versions of the film Psycho (Alfred Hitchcock, 1960 and
Gus Van Sant, 1998), our workshops in these weeks will consist of full screenings of the films, close analysis
of clips, group discussions, written exercises, and detailed responses to set reading. Central issues to be
considered will be the relationship between ‘how’ and ‘what’ in filmmaking, between describing and
interpreting in film criticism, the concept of aesthetic intention, and the role of evaluation in film analysis.
Each session will be structured as follows:
10 – 10.30:
Introduction
10.30 – 12.30: Screening (This week, Psycho [1960])
12.30 – 4.00:
Group workshop on film and reading
Essential Reading
• John Gibbs (2002), ‘The Elements of Mise-en-Scène’, Mise en Scène: Film Style and Interpretation,
London: Wallflower Books, 5-26.
• V. F. Perkins (1972) [1993], ‘“How” is “What”’, in Film as Film: Understanding and Judging Movies
(Second edition), New York: Da Capo Press, 116-133.
Further Reading
David Bordwell (1989) ‘Rhetoric in Action: Seven Models of Psycho’, in Making Meaning: Inference and
Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 224-248.
Tom Brown and James Walters (2010) ‘Part One: Criticism’, Film Moments: Criticism, History, Theory,
London: Palgrave McMillan, http://www.palgrave.com/PDFs/9781844573356.Pdf.
Andrew Britton (1986) [2009] ‘In Defense of Criticism’ Britton on Film: The Complete Film Criticism of Andrew
Britton, ed. Barry Keith Grant. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 373-377.
Alex Clayton and Andrew Klevan (2011) ‘Introduction: The language and style of film criticism’, in Alex
Clayton and Andrew Klevan (eds.) The Language and Style of Film Criticism, London: Routledge, p. 1-26.
John Gibbs (2002) ‘The Elements of Mise-en-Scène’, Mise en Scène: Film Style and Interpretation, London:
Wallflower Books, p. 5-26.
John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (2005) ‘Introduction’, in John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (eds.) Style and
Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p. 1-15.
Andrew Klevan (2005) ‘Notes on Teaching Film Style’, in John Gibbs and Douglas Pye (eds.) Style and
Meaning: Studies in the Detailed Analysis of Film, Manchester: Manchester University Press, p.214-227.
George Toles (2001) ‘If Thine Eye Offend Thee: Psycho and the Art of Infection’, in A House Made of Light:
Essays on the Art of Film, Detroit: Wayne State University Press, p. 137-158.
George Wilson (1998) ‘On Film Narrative and Narrative Meaning’ in Richard Allen and Murray Smith (eds.)
Film Theory and Philosophy, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 221-38.
Robin Wood (1965) Hitchcock’s Films. London: Zwemmer.
WEEK THREE (Monday 13 October)
Film and Textual Analysis 2
See description for week 2. Workshop structure:
10 – 10.30:
Introduction
10.30 – 12.30: Screening (Psycho [1998])
12.30 – 4.00:
Group workshop on film and reading
Essential Reading
• Alex Clayton (2011) ‘The Texture of Performance in Psycho and its Remake’, Movie: A Journal of Film
Criticism, Issue 3, http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/film/movie/contents/psycho_clayton.pdf
• Thomas M. Leitch. (2003) ‘Hitchcock Without Hitchcock’ in Literary Film Quarterly.
Vol. 31, No. 4, 248-259. http://missingimage.com/book/export/html/250521
• Steven Jay Schneider (2000) ‘A Tale of Two Psychos (Prelude to a Future Reassessment)’, Senses of
Cinema, Issue 10, http://sensesofcinema.com/2000/feature-articles/psychos/
Further Reading
Sarah Cardwell (2013) ‘Television Aesthetics: Stylistic Analysis and Beyond’, in Jason Jacobs and Steven
Peacock (eds.) Television Aesthetics and Style, London: Bloomsbury Publishing, p. 23-44.
Mark Carpenter (2004) 'Rip in the Curtain: Gus Van Sant’s Psycho', Offscreen 8.1,
http://offscreen.com/view/psycho
Noël Carroll (2009) On Criticism, London: Routledge.
Catherine Constable (2009) ‘Reflections on the Surface: Remaking the Postmodern with van Sant's Psycho’,
in Rachel Carroll (ed) Adaptation in Contemporary Culture: Textual Infidelities, London: Continuum, p. 23-33.
Matthew Kieren (1998) ‘Value of Art’, The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, London: Routledge, 293-305.
Thomas M. Leitch (2000) ‘101 Ways to tell Hitchcock’s Psycho from Gus Van Sant’s’, Literary Film Quarterly,
Vol. 28, No. 4, 269-273.
Susan Sontag (1966) ‘Against Interpretation’, in Against Interpretation and Other Essays. Farrar, Straus &
Giroux. 3-14.
Janet Staiger (2004) ‘Authorship Studies and Gus Van Sant’ in Film
Criticism. vol. 29, no1, p.1-22
Donato Totaro (2004) ‘Psycho Redux’, Offscreen 8.1, http://offscreen.com/view/psycho_redux
WEEK FOUR (Monday 20 October)
Television Textual Analysis
• Screenings
• Small group work on extracts and discussion of reading
• Questionnaire about the ways in which we each watch television
Screening: Extracts from The Funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales (BBC, UK, 1997) and This Morning
(Granada for ITV, UK, 1988-)
Essential Reading
David Cardiff and Paddy Scannell (1987) ‘Broadcasting and national unity’, in James Curran, Anthony Smith
and Pauline Wingate (eds) Impacts and Influences: Essays on Media Power in the Twentieth Century,
London and New York: Methuen.
John Ellis (1982) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, London: Routledge, Chapter 7 ‘Broadcast TV
as Cultural Form’, pp. 111—126 & Chapter 8 ‘Broadcast TV as sound and image’, pp. 127—144 (if you have
time).
Raymond Williams (1974) Television, Technology and Cultural Form, London: Fontana, Chapter 4
‘Programming: distribution and flow’
Further Reading
John Thornton Caldwell (1995) Televisuality: Style, Crisis and Authority in American Television, New Jersey:
Rutgers University Press.
John Thornton Caldwell (2003) ‘Second-shift media aesthetics: programming, interactivity and user flows’, in
A. Everett and J.T. Caldwell (eds) New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, New York,
Routledge, p. 127-144.
John Corner (1999) Critical Ideas in Television Studies, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Jane Feuer (1983) ‘The concept of live television: ontology as ideology’, in E. Ann Kaplan (ed.) Regarding
Television: Critical Approaches – An Anthology, Los Angeles: AFI, University Publications of America, Inc. p.
12-22.
John Fiske (1987) ‘Segmentation and flow’, Television Culture, London and New York: Routledge, p. 9-105.
Amy Holdsworth (2013) 'Poetry and/on television: Drinking for England (BBC, 1998)', Critical Studies in
Television 8, 1.
Jason Jacobs (2001) ‘Issues of judgement and value in television studies’, International Journal of Cultural
Studies 4,4: 427—447.
Karen Lury (2005) Interpreting Television, London: Arnold. I hope you will have read this over the
summer, but this text will be useful for this week’s work.
Margaret Morse (1990) ‘An ontology of everyday distraction: the freeway, the mall, and television’, in
Mellencamp (ed.) Logics of Television, p. 193—221.
William Urrichio (2004) ‘Television’s next generation: technology/interface culture/flow’, in Lynn Spigel and
Jan Olssen (eds.) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, Durham and London: Duke
University Press, p. 163-182.
Raymond Williams (1974) Television, Technology and Cultural Form, London: Fontana.
Helen Wood (2007) ‘Television is happening: Methodological considerations for capturing digital television
reception’ in European Journal of Cultural Studies, 10 (4).
Weeks Five, Seven and Eight: Film and Television Historiography
Weeks 5 and 7 of the term will concentrate on historiographical issues and methodologies specific to Film
Studies. They are designed to help develop students’ empirical research skills and to discuss the value of
archival and other sources in contextualising film texts over time and examining the history of film exhibition
and cinema-going. The purpose is to develop an understanding of ‘where we are’ in relation to methodologies
of film history and consider how these may applied, supplemented or critiqued when placed in relation to a
variety of actual primary and secondary sources. Some of these sources will be easy to locate, others will
require some investigation and research by participating students.
La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960) has been selected for this exercise for several reasons: it is regarded as
having had an impact in at least four areas - film history, cultural history, social customs, fashion and
advertising. It was an international success (winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes) and a source of controversy
in Italy and other countries. Today the film is seen as the best work by a leading director, a source of ideas
and innovations in film style, and a key contributor to the on-going popular mythology of Rome in the 1950s
and a herald of the ‘swinging Sixties’. It has also been released on VHS, packaged with documentary material
for showing on British television, restored and released on DVD, and distributed free with a British newspaper
(The Observer). It has also been ‘re-visited’ in different ways, in advertising for example, and most recently in
La grande bellezza (The Great Beauty, Paolo Sorrentino, 2012)
The purpose of the workshop is:
- to explore the range of primary and secondary sources that a film researcher can draw on in order to
illuminate a film and its context,
- to evaluate these sources for what they can offer, their completeness and usefulness,
- to consider how different sources can be used separately or in conjunction for different purposes.
- to identify gaps in sources and think out how these can be negotiated by a researcher,
- to reflect on the ways a given film film has been packaged, repackaged and re-visited for consumption in a
variety of media.
WEEK FIVE (Wednesday 5 November)
Historiography, resources and screening
Lecture; screening (with introduction) of La Dolce Vita (Federico Fellini, 1960); seminar on film; assignment
of mini-projects for week 7.
Essential Reading:
James Chapman, Mark Glancy and Susan Harper (eds.), The New Film History: Sources, Methods,
Approaches (Introduction, pp.1-10 and any chapters you choose).
Further Reading:
Richard Maltby, ‘How Can Cinema History Matter More?’, Screening the Past, 22 (December 2007)
<http://tlweb.latrobe.edu.au/humanities/screeningthepast/22/board-richard-maltby.html>.
Richard Abel, ‘“Don’t Know Much About History”, or The (In)vested Interests of Doing Cinema
History’, Film History, 6:1 (Spring 1994), pp. 110-115.
Robert C. Allen, ‘Relocating American Film History: The Problem of the Empirical’, Cultural Studies,
20:1 (January 2006), pp. 48-88.
Robert C. Allen, Douglas Gomery, Film History: Theory and Practice (New
York: McGraw-Hill, 1985).
Stephen Bottomore, ‘Out of This World: Theory, Fact and Film History’, Film History, 6:1 (Spring 1994),
pp. 7-25.
Sumiko Higashi (ed.), ‘In Focus: Film History, or a Baedeker Guide to the Historical Turn’, Cinema
Journal, 44:1 (Fall 2004), pp. 94-143 (Sumiko Higashi, ‘Film History, or a Baedeker Guide to the
Historical Turn’, pp. 94-100; Charles Musser, ‘Historiographic Method and the Study of Early Cinema’,
pp. 101-07; Richard Abel, ‘“History Can Work For You, You Know How to Use It”’, pp. 107-112; Jane M.
Gaines, ‘Film History and the Two Presents of Feminist Film Theory’, pp. 113-19; Lee Grieveson,
‘Woof, Warp, History’, pp. 119-126; Janet Staiger, ‘The Future of the Past’, pp. 126-29; Steven J. Ross,
‘Jargon and the Crisis of Readability: Methodology, Language, and the Future of Film History’, pp.
130-33; Robert Sklar, ‘Does Film History Need a Crisis?’, pp. 134-38;Donald Crafton, ‘“Collaborative
Research, Doc?”’, pp. 138-143.)
Jeffrey F. Klenotic, ‘The Place of Rhetoric in “New” Film Historiography: The Discourse of Corrective
Revisionism’, Film History, 6:1 (Spring 1994), pp. 45-58.
Barbara Klinger, ‘Film History Terminable and Interminable: Recovering the Past in Reception
Studies’, Screen, 38:2 (Summer 1997), pp. 107-128.
Janet Staiger, Interpreting Films: Studies in the Historical Reception of American Cinema (Princeton, N.J.:
Princeton University Press, 1992).
See also Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television of recent years for many examples of the
historical analysis of cinema and other media.
WEEK SIX - READING WEEK
WEEK SEVEN (Wednesday 12 November)
Film history workshop on La Dolce Vita with short presentations by all students
Each student will select one of the following tasks to research for a short presentation (approximately 10 minutes,
although a little more is possible if you need it). They should consult the material(s) identified and endeavour to find
additional ones relevant to the topic. They should summarise and evaluate the material and offer critical reflections
on it. You are encouraged to use visual sources and/or select documents for everyone to see in your presentation.
Anyone wishing to have documents photocopied for the class should send them to Stephen Gundle
(s.gundle@warwick.ac.uk).
Please note that it is not expected that the presentations will be polished or elaborate. They should raise questions
and consider evidence and sources. Therefore they should be based on notes rather than fully written texts.
Tasks:
A. Pre-production, Production and Marketing of the film
1.Consult T. Kezich, Dino: the Life and Films of Dino De Laurentiis, Federico Fellini, His Life and Work and other works
on Fellini (see bibliography below).
2. Consult P. Bondanella, A History of Italian Cinema; G.P. Brunetta, The History of Italian Cinema and other
historiographical sources on Italian cinema (see bibliography below).
3. Google images and other sources to look at the advertising posters of the film in different countries. Try YouTube
for trailers and any other material. See also: www.archivioluce.com for Italian newsreel material.
4. On trade issues, see: http://mediahistoryproject.org/ for the following publications:
Motion Picture Daily 1959-60
Independent Exhibitors Film Bulletin 1960-63
Film Bulletin 1961
B. Reception
5. Consult on-line press historical archives: Daily Mail (via Library electronic resources), The Times (via Library
electronic resources), New York Times (via its own website) etc. for features, reviews, and also for information on
production, festivals, prizes etc.
6. For critical reception, consult Monthly Film Bulletin no.28 (1961) on Film Index International (via Library
electronic resources), Film Quarterly July 1961 (online Project Muse), American Cinematographer April
1960 (Microfilm, Library Floor 2), Films & Filming April 1959, June 1960, Jan 1961 (Library Floor 2).
C. Social and Cultural Context
7.Italian social history. See K. Pinkus, The Montesi Scandal, S.Gundle, Death and the Dolce Vita and works on postwar
Italian history by P.Ginsborg, and J.Dunnage. See also relevant pages in A. Marwick, The Sixties.
8. Contemporary visual culture, the paparazzi etc., see S. Bayley, La Dolce Vita: The Golden Age of Italian Style and
Celebrity, M. Gasparini, La Dolce Vita: 60s Lifestyle in Rome, S. Greggio, Dolce Vita: 1959-79, Anon, La Dolce Vita
9.Fashion, style and consumption, see S. Stanfill (ed.), The Glamour of Italian Fashion (Introduction and other essays),
essay by J. Reich on Mastroianni in S. Bruzzi and P.C. Gibson (eds), Fashion Cultures: Theories,
Explorations, Analysis; essay by R. Buckley in P. Bondanella (ed.), The Italian Cinema Book, S.
Gundle `Hollywood Glamour and Mass Consumption in Postwar Italy' in Koshar, R. (ed.),
Histories of Leisure
10. Positioning the film in film culture: View Roman Holiday (Wyler, 1953), Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, 1957) and La
Notte (Antonioni, 1960) and/or other relevant films.
D. The Film in Cultural Memory
11. Memoirs, biographies and autobiographies: see J.F.Lane, To Each His Own Dolce Vita, R. Packard, Rome Was My
Beat (to be borrowed from SG), any popular biographical material on Ava gardner (the inspiration for ‘Silvia Rank’) or
Anita Ekberg. See also D. Dewey. Marcello Mastroianni: His Life and Art.
12. Film and video culture: see You Tube and on-line video sources, as well as Google images etc. for uses of imagery
in contemporary advertising (eg Dolce & Gabbana, Peroni beer). See also La grande bellezza/The Great Beauty
(Sorrentino, 2012)
E. Re-packaging and Re-presenting the Film for Contemporary Audiences
13. La Dolce Vita on British commercial television in the 1990s. Close analysis of DVD recording, including all
supplementary material and ad breaks (supplied by SG).
14. DVD versions of the film, examining extras, booklets, notes, cover art etc. (MIRC resources).
General Reading on Italian Cinema and Italy after 1945
HISTORIES OF ITALIAN CINEMA
Bondanella, P., A History of Italian Cinema
Brunetta, G., The History of Italian Cinema
Landy, M., Italian Film
Liehm, M., Passion and Defiance: film in Italy from 1942 to the present
Wood, M., Italian Cinema
Sorlin, P., Italian National Cinema, 1896-1996
FELLINI
Kezich, T., Federico Fellini: His Life and Work
Bondanella, P., The Films of Federico Fellini
Bondanella, P., The Cinema of Federico Fellini
Bondanella, P. (ed.), Federico Fellini: Essays in Criticism
Gundle, S. Death and the Dolce Vita
Bondanella, P. and Degli Esposti C. (eds.), Perspectives on Federico Fellini
Cardillo, B., Federico Fellini: Interviews
Rohdie, S., Fellini Lexicon
Burke, F. and Waller, M. (eds.), Federcio Fellini: Contemporary Perspectives
Burke, F., Federico Fellini: Variety Lights to la Dolce Vita
Chandler, C., I, Fellini
Baxter, J., Fellini
Fava, C and A Vigan, The Films of Federico Fellini
HISTORIES OF CONTEMPORARY ITALY
Ginsborg, P., A History of Contemporary Italy, 1943-88
Dunnage, J. Twentieth Century Italy: A Social History
Clark, M., Modern Italy, 1871-1995
Duggan, C., The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796
WEEK EIGHT (Monday 17 November)
Issues in Television Historiography
This week will consider issues in television historiography, looking at approaches to and methods of
researching television history. We will spend part of the session on a practical archive exercise in the library,
and the rest of the day presenting results to the group. A detailed timetable for this session will be circulated
in Week Seven. It is essential that you have done the required reading for this week before the session! (Dr
Rachel Moseley)
No screening
• Presentation: Issues in Television Historiography
• Library Exercise
• Discussion and Presentation of Results
Essential Reading
John Corner (2003) ‘Finding data, reading patterns, telling stories: Issues in the historiography of television’,
Media, Culture & Society 25, 2: 273-280.
Lynn Spigel (1992) ‘Installing the television set: popular discourses on television and domestic space, 19481955’, in Lynn Spigel and Denise Mann (eds) Private Screenings: Television and the Female Consumer,
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 3-40.
Further Reading
Julia Hallam (2005) ‘Remembering Butterflies: the comic art of housework’, in J.Bignell and S. Lacey (eds)
Popular Television Drama: Critical Perspectives, Manchester: Manchester University Press, pp. 34-50.
Amy Holdsworth (2008) ‘“Television Resurrections”: Television and Memory’, Cinema Journal 47, 3: 137144.
Jason Jacobs (2000) The Intimate Screen: Early British Television Drama, London: BFI.
Jason Jacobs (2006). ‘Television and history: investigating the past’ in G. Creeber (ed.) Tele-Visions: An
Introduction to Studying Television, pp. 107-115.
Lacey, S. (2006) ‘Some thoughts on television history and historiography: a British perspective’, Critical
Studies in Television, 1, 1: 3-12.
Rachel Moseley (2009) ‘Marguerite Patten, television cookery and postwar British femininity’, in Stacy Gillis
and Joanne Hollows (eds) Feminism, Domesticity and Popular Culture, London: Routledge pp.17-31.
Rachel Moseley and Helen Wheatley (2008) 'Is archiving a feminist issue? Historical research and the past
present and future of television studies', Cinema Journal 47, 3: 152-158.
Tim O’Sullivan (1991) ‘Television Memories and Cultures of Viewing 1950-1965’, in John Corner (ed.)
Popular Television in Britain: Studies in Cultural History, London: BFI, pp.159-181.
Helen Wheatley (ed.) (2007) Re-Viewing Television History, London: IB Tauris.
Weeks Nine and Ten: Theorising the Film and Television Text
The next week of the module will focus on theorising movie viewership, medium specificity, and cinephilia in
the context of late twentieth and early twenty first century technological changes (e.g. bootleg videotape,
VOD, piracy, crowd-sourcing, YouTube). The final week of the module (Week 10) will extend these
concerns by considering questions around media convergence and the relationships between film and
television.
It is important that you have a good sense of conventional theories of film and TV spectatorship. Standard
introductions to spectatorship can be found in the following two texts:
Judith Mayne (1993) Cinema and Spectatorship, London: Routledge.
John Ellis (1992) Visible Fictions: Cinema, Television, Video, London: Routledge.
WEEK NINE (Monday 24 November)
Film Culture without Cinemas: Bootlegging, Piracy, and Digital Cinephilia (Dr Karl Schoonover)
Screening
Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (Todd Haynes, 1988, 43 min.)
Essential Reading
• Lucas Hilderbrand (2004) ‘Grainy Days and Mondays: Superstar and Bootleg Aesthetics’ Camera Obscura
19, 3: 56–91.
• Ramon Lobato (2012) Shadow Economies of Cinema: Mapping Informal Film Distribution, London: British
Film Institute.
- Introduction
- Chapter 1, ‘Distribution from Above and Below’
- Chapter 3, ‘Informal Media Economies’
- Chapter 5, ‘Six Faces of Piracy’
- Chapter 6, ‘The Grey Internet’
Further Reading
- Dina Iordanova and Stuart Cunningham (eds.) (2012) Digital Disruption: Cinema Moves On-line. St
Andrews, Scotland: St Andrews Film Studies.
- Barbara Klinger (2007) “Cinema’s Shadow: Reconsidering Non-Theatrical Exhibition,” in Going to the
Movies: Hollywood and the Social Experience of Cinema, ed. Richard Maltby, Melvyn Stokes, and Robert C.
Allen (Exeter, UK: University of Exeter Press, 2007), 273-290.
- Barbara Klinger (2006) Beyond the Multiplex: Cinema, New Technologies, and the Home, Berkeley, Calif.:
Univ. of California Press. (see in particular: Introduction, ‘What is Cinema Today?’; Chapter 2, ‘The
Contemporary Cinephile: Film Collecting after the VCR’; Chapter 3, ‘Once Is Not Enough: The Functions
and Pleasures of Repeat Viewings’.)
Additional readings on the politics of film pirating and filesharing platforms
- Barbara Klinger (2010) ‘Contraband Cinema: Piracy, Titanic, and Central Asia’, Cinema Journal 49, 2
(Winter): 106- 124.
- Brian Larkin (2004) ‘Degraded Images, Distorted Sounds: Nigerian Video and the Infrastructure of Piracy’,
Public Culture 16, 2: 289–314.
- Gavin Mueller (2012) ‘Gimme the Loot’ Jacobin 7-8:
http://jacobinmag.com/2012/08/gimme-the-loot/
- Gavin Mueller (2011) ‘Piracy is Looting — And That’s OK’ Jacobin 8.29:
http://jacobinmag.com/2011/08/piracy-is-looting-and-thats-ok/
- Quintín (2009) ‘Black Crow Blues’ Film Comment 45.2 (Jul/Aug): 36-37.
[Available online via Warwick Library.]
- Brad Stevens (2013) ‘Flaming the fans’ Sight and Sound [Web exclusive] 31 July 2013:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/bradlands/flaming-fans
- Brad Stevens (2012) ‘Networking opportunities’ Sight and Sound (October):
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news-opinion/sight-sound-magazine/comment/bradlands/networking-opportunities
Additional readings on cinephilia
- Jonathan Buchsbaum and Elena Gorfinkel (eds.) (2009) “Dossier on Cinephilia: What Is Being Fought for
by Today's Cinephilia(s)?” Framework 50, 1 & 2, (Spring & Fall).
- Jeffrey Sconce (1995) ‘“Trashing” the Academy: Taste, Excess, and an Emerging Politics of Cinematic
Style’, Screen 36, 4: 371–393.
- Jason Sperb and Scott Balcerzak (eds.) (2009) Cinephilia in the Age of Digital Reproduction, Volume 1:
Film, Pleasure, and Digital Culture, New York: Wallflower Press.
- Mark Betz (ed.) (2010) ‘In Focus [Dossier]: Cinephilia’ Cinema Journal 49, 2 (Winter): 130-132
- Marijke de Valck and Malte Hagener (eds.) Cinephilia Movies, Love and Memory. Amsterdam: Amsterdam
University Press, 2005.
- Daniel Hebert (2011) ‘From Art House to Your House: The Distribution of Quality Cinema on Home Video’,
Canadian Journal of Film Studies 20, 2 (Fall): 2-18.
- Catherine Grant (2009) “C is for Cinephilia Studies (plus some telephilia, too)”, [a blog post listing many
additional essays on the recent eruption of cinephilia],
http://filmstudiesforfree.blogspot.co.uk/2009/05/c-for-cinephilia-studies-plussome.html
Viewing Activity (complete on your own and present to seminar)
1. Select a moving image text of less than 3 minutes (e.g., clip, short film, youtube video, etc.) that interests
you and that you think speaks to the questions of cinema and its online consumption. If the full text you’ve
selected is longer than 3 minutes, please curate a 3-minute excerpt for us.
2. Email to your chosen moving image text to Karl by Sunday evening at 17:00. You can send it to me as a
file (careful of file size), deposit in dropbox, or send the URL where it can be viewed. Remember to tell us
the exact times of your selected clip if your text is longer than 3 minutes total.
3. Write up viewing notes on the moving image text using the following questions. Be as precise and
detailed in your descriptions as possible.
- How/where did you find it? Where did you first view it? Subsequent viewings?
How would you cite this text in an academic journal or essay?
- Why did you choose this text? Was it a personal obsession? Related to a specific research interest?
- How does your text illustrates, extends, and/or complicates a concept from the readings?
- What can you tell about the history of this text from this site were it originates?
- What can you tell us about its form/context tell us about the social history of the text’s production? Its
exhibition history?
- Compare the accessibility of this text and the legal parameters of this text’s availability (copyright).
4. Present your clip in seminar and talk us through your responses to above questions.
WEEK TEN (Monday 1 December)
Theoretical Perspectives in Film and Television: Media Convergence (Drs Rachel Moseley and Karl
Schoonover)
Screening: We will look at a selection of webisodes, so-called 'cinematic' television, digitally
delivered film and television (e.g. Netflix, Love Film Instant, iTunes) viewed on different devices.
• Seminar Discussion
Questions guiding our discussion might include: Does media convergence impact upon aesthetics
as well as delivery and consumption? How might the question of media convergence affect the
methods of film and television analysis and historiography we have been considering this term?
What methodological toolkit do we need to study film and TV the contemporary landscape?
• Module Review: how useful have the past weeks been in providing an introduction to the basic
methods and concepts in Film and Television Studies? Stretch out this feedback session.
Essential Reading
• James Bennett and Nikki Strange (2011) Television as Digital Media, Durham: Duke University Press.
There are a number of useful essays in this volume, but you certainly should look at William Boddy '"Is it
TV yet?" The dislocated screens of television in a mobile digital culture' (76-101) and one or ideally both of:
Max Dawson 'Television's aesthetic of efficiency: convergence television and the digital short' (204-229)
and Jason Jacobs 'Television, Interrupted: Pollution or Aesthetic?'
• John Thornton Caldwell (2003) ‘Second-shift media aesthetics: programming, interactivity and user flows’,
in A. Everett and J.T. Caldwell (eds) New Media: Theories and Practices of Digitextuality, New York,
Routledge, p. 127-144.
• Matt Hills (2007) ‘From the box in the corner to the box set on the shelf’: ‘TVIII and the cultural/textual
valorisations of DVD’, New Review of Film and Television Studies, 5, 1: 41-60.
Further Reading
John Ellis (2000) Seeing Things: Television in the Age of Uncertainty, London: IB Tauris.
Paul Grainge (2011) Ephemeral Media: transitory Screen Culture from a Television to YouTube, London:
BFI.
Jason Jacobs (2006) ‘The television archive: past, present and future’, Critical Studies in Television, 1, 1: 1320.
Henry Jenkins (2008) Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide, New York: New York
University Press.
Michael Z. Newman (2014) Video Revolutions: On the History of a Medium, New York: Columbia University
Press.
Lynn Spigel and Jan Olsson (eds.) (2004) Television After TV: Essays on a Medium in Transition, Durham:
Duke University Press.
Lynn Spigel. (2009) ‘My TV Studies… now playing on a YouTube site near you’, Television and New Media
10, 1: 149-153.
Graeme Turner and Jinna Tay (2009) Television Studies After TV: Understanding Television in the PostBroadcast Era, London: Routledge.
Professor Stephen Gundle
Dr James MacDowell
Dr Rachel Moseley (convenor)
Dr Karl Schoonover
September 2014