E87.2392 Approaches to International Film: The Experience of Modernity
Spring 2011
Professor René Arcilla
Office: 317 Kimball Hall (212-998-5631)
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3:00-5:00 PM and by appt.
E-mail: ra45@nyu.edu
This course will explore how films from a variety of historical conjunctures and national
cultures may shed light on a common experience: that of living in a society undergoing
modernization. Citizens in these situations have to cope with the loss of their old, familiar world
and the emergence of a new one of hopes and challenges. Such settings are apt to give rise to
dramas of existential meaning and to experimental artistic forms that facilitate our learning from
such dramas; indeed, they produced the modernist art cinema. This course will address questions
that include: What is modernist art cinema and how does it employ certain characteristic forms
to explore dramas that are specifically rooted in modernizing societies? How do examples of
such film illuminate different paths, and ways of responding, to the existential questions at the
heart of these dramas? What are some of the chief considerations that should guide our critical
response to these films? What can we learn from the films about the experience of modernity?
We will address these and related questions not only in the abstract, but with a concrete focus on
select cinematic works from a spectrum of non-Anglophone countries. There are no
prerequisites for the course and all are welcome.
Required Reading (in xerox packet):
Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air (selection).
David Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice."
David Bordwell, "Art-Cinema Narration."
András Bálint Kovács, Screening Modernism (selections).
Required Films to Be Studied:
Alain Resnais, La guerre est finie (France).
Ingmar Bergman, Winter Light (Sweden).
Jean-Luc Godard, Two or Three Things I Know about Her (France).
Pier Paolo Pasolini, Teorema (Italy).
Andrei Tarkovsky, Solaris (Soviet Union).
Wim Wenders, Alice in the Cities (Germany).
Chantal Akerman, Jeanne Dielman (Belgium).
Abbas Kiarostami, The Wind Will Carry Us (Iran).
Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Distant (Turkey).
Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Café Lumière (Taiwan / Japan).
Jia Zhangke, Still Life (China).
Lucrecia Martel, The Headless Woman (Argentinia).
Pedro Costa, Colossal Youth (Portugal).
Course Requirements:
You are expected to attend class regularly and to be prepared to discuss the scheduled
reading and film. The latter requirement is particularly important, because the course is designed
to emphasize class discussion over lecture. In addition, you are expected to write response
papers of 2-3 pages on two films, one in each half of the term, and to present these responses to
the class in order to prime our discussion. Finally, you are expected to write a term paper of 1015 pages that examines a film we did not discuss and explains why it may be considered an
example of modernist art cinema, and in what measure it is a successful or unsuccessful example.
Your course grade will be determined by the quality of your class participation and of your
writing.