University of Warwick
Department of Film and Television Studies
MA in Film and Television Studies
Spring Term 2015
Journeys and Landscapes in Film
Course tutor: Dr. Alastair Phillips
TIMETABLE
The module will be taught on Tuesdays from 10.00 – 15.00 (approx.) in
Room A1.27.
OVERVIEW
As a recorded audiovisual medium, cinema is especially suited to the
representation of place and movement through the simultaneous
registration of space and time. This module will examine the implications
of this proposition in a series of film texts that privilege the narrative
trope of the journey within a particular geographical landscape. It will
introduce you to a range of current disciplinary and inter-disciplinary
debates about film’s engagement with landscape, place, ecology and
mobility. In particular, the module will also give you a chance to engage
with a deliberately broad range of global and local cinemas. In so doing, it
will think both about the representation of journeys and landscapes, and
look at the way in which travel and terrain may also be understood as
fundamentally significant cinematic metaphors.
NOTE
Please get into the regular habit of reading all the reviews, articles and
interviews related to each week’s film by consulting the major UK and US
quality film journals (via Film Index International) i.e. Film Comment, Film
Quarterly, Monthly Film Bulletin, Sight and Sound, Wide Angle. Below, I
only signal key pieces of relevant reading within this important literature
field.
Week One
Journeys and Landscapes: An Introduction
On the American Road: Reading the Road Movie
SCREENING
Badlands (Terrence Malick, 1973)
SUGGESTED READING
Michael Atkinson (1994) ‘Crossing Frontiers’, Sight and Sound 4, 1: 1416.
Iain Borden (2012) Drive: Journeys Through Film, Cities, and
Landscapes
John Brinckerhoff Jackson (1994) ‘Roads Belong in the Landscape’ in A
Sense of Place, A Sense of Time
Steve Cohan and Ina Rae Hark (eds.) (1997) The Road Movie Book
Tom Conley (2007) Cartographic Cinema
Timothy Corrigan (1991) ‘Gender, genre and hysteria: the road movie
in outer space’, in his A Cinema Without Walls: Movies and
Culture After Vietnam, pp. 137-160
Leslie Dick (1997) ‘R-Road’, Sight and Sound 7, 11: 22-27
Christophe Girot and Fred Trumiger (eds.) Landscape, Vision, Motion
Brian Henderson (1983) ‘Exploring Badlands’, Wide Angle 5:4, 38-51
Adrian Ivakhiv (2013) Ecologies of the Moving Image: Cinema, Affect,
Nature
Marsha Kinder (1974) ‘The return of the outlaw couple’, Film Quarterly
27, 2-10
David Laderman (2002) Driving Visions : Exploring the Road Movie,
Henri Lefebvre (1991) Production of Space
Lloyd Michaels (2009) Terrence Malick
James Morrison and Thomas Schur (2003) The films of Terrence Malick
Hannah Patterson (ed.) (2007) The Cinema of Terrence Malick: Poetic
Visions of America
Jack Sargeant and Stephanie Watson (1999) Lost Highways: An
Illustrated History of the Road Movie
Amy Taubin (1991), ‘Roads to freedom’, Sight and Sound, 1:3, 14-19
Jason Wood (2007) 100 Road Movies
John Wylie (2007) Landscape Chapter 2, ‘Landscaping Traditions’
ADDITIONAL VIEWING
Thelma and Louise (Ridley Scott, 1991)
My Own Private Idaho (Gus van Sant, 1991)
Easy Rider
Lost Highway (David Lynch, 1996)
Paris Texas (Wim Wenders, 1984)
Week Two
European Roads I: Wim Wenders and The New German Cinema
SCREENING
Alice in the Cities (Wim Wenders, 1974)
SUGGESTED READING
Roger Bromley (2011) From Alice to Buena Vista: The Films of Wim
Wenders
Roger Cook and Gert Gemünden (1997) The Cinema of Wim Wenders:
Image, Narrative and the Postmodern
Michael Corvino (1977) ‘Wim Wenders: A Worldwide Homesickness’ in
Film Quarterly Vol. 31 no. 2
Thomas Elseasser (1989) New German Cinema
Kathe Geist (1998) The Cinema of Wim Wenders: From Paris, France to
Paris, Texas
Alexander Graf The Cinema of Wim Wenders: The Cinematic Highway
Sheila Johnston (1981) Wim Wenders
Robert Kolker and Peter Beicken The Films of Wim Wenders: Cinema as
Vision and Desire
Silvestra Mariniello and James Cisneros (2005) ‘Experience and Memory in
the Films of Wim Wenders’ in SubStance Vol. 34 no. 1
Eva Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli (2006) Crossing New Europe.
Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie
Nick Roddick (2008) ‘The Road Goes on Forever’ in Sight and Sound vol.
18 no. 1.
ADDITIONAL VIEWING
Kings of the Road (Wim Wenders, 1976)
Wrong Movement (Wim Wenders, 1975)
Week Three
European Roads II: British Roads and Signposts
SCREENINGS
Radio On (Chris Petit, 1979)
Robinson in Ruins (Patrick Keiller, 2010)
SUGGESTED READING
Tim Cresswell (2004) Place: A Short Introduction
Stephen Daniels, Patrick Keiller, Doreen Massey ‘To Dispel a Great
Malady: Robinson in Ruins, the Future of Landscape and the Moving
Image’ at:
http://www.tate.org.uk/research/publications/tate-papers/dispelgreat-malady-robinson-ruins-future-landscape-and-moving
Brian Dillon ‘Robinson in Ruins’ at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/20/robinson-ruinspatrick-keiller-dillon
Mark Fisher ‘A Requiem for Neoliberal England’ in Sight and Sound
November 2010 at:
http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/feature/49663
Peter Hogue ‘Radio On by Peter Hogue’ in Film Quarterly Vol. 36 no. 2
Brian Hoyle (2009) ‘Radio On and British Art Cinema’ in Journal of British
Cinema and Television Vol. 6 no. 3
Patrick Keiller (1999) Robinson in Space
Patrick Keiller ‘The Future of Landscape’ at:
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-future-of-landscapepatrick-keiller/
Patrick Keiller ‘Landscape and Cinematography’ in Cultural Geographies
July 2009 16: 409-414
Patrick Keiller ‘The Future of Landscape and the Moving Image’
(various blog posts) at:
http://thefutureoflandscape.wordpress.com/
Patrick Keiller (2012) The Possibility of Life’s Survival on the Planet
Doreen Massey ‘Landscape/Space/Politics: An Essay’ at:
http://thefutureoflandscape.wordpress.com/landscapespacepoliticsan-essay/
Doreen Massey ‘The Future of Landscape’ at:
http://www.3ammagazine.com/3am/the-future-of-landscapedoreen-massey/
Doreen Massey (1994) Space, Place and Gender
Doreen Massey (2005) For Space
Eva Mazierska and Laura Rascaroli (2006) Crossing New Europe.
Postmodern Travel and the European Road Movie
W.J.T. Mitchell (1994) ‘Imperial Landscape’ in Mitchell (ed.) (1994)
Landscape and Power
Tom Whitaker (2009) ‘Frozen Landscapes in Control and Radio On’ in
Journal of British Cinema and Television Vol. 6 no. 3
Raymond Williams (1973) The Country and the City
ADDITIONAL VIEWING
Butterfly Kiss (Michael Winterbottom, 1995)
Robinson in Space (Patrick Keiller, 1997)
Week Four
European Roads III: Agnès Varda and the Essay Film
SCREENING
The Gleaners and I (Agnès Varda, 2000)
SUGGESTED READING
Melissa Anderson (2001) ‘The Modest Gesture of the Filmmaker. An
Interview with Agnès Varda’ in Cinéaste Vol. 26 no. 4
Neil Archer (2012) The French Road Movie: Space, Mobility, Identity
Ernest Callenbach (2002) ‘The Gleaners and I’ in Film Quarterly vol. 56
no. 2 (Winter 2002)
Timothy Corrigan (2011) The Essay Film: From Montaigne, After Marker
Ruth Cruickshank (2007) ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Global
Consumption: Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse’ in
L’Esprit Créateur Vol. 47 no. 3
Chris Darke (2001) ‘Refuseniks’ in Sight and Sound Vol. 11 no. 1
Michael Gott (2013) Open Roads, Closed Borders: The Contemporary
French Language Road Movie
Emma Jackson (2010) ‘The Eyes of Agnès Varda: Portraiture,
Cinécriture and the Filmic Ethnographic Eye’ in Feminist Review no.
96
Phil Powrie (2011) ‘Heterotopic Spaces and Nomadic Gazes in Varda:
From Cléo de 5 à 7 to Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse’ in L’Esprit
Créateur Vol. 51 no. 1
Laura Rascaroli (2009) The Personal Camera: Subjective Cinema and
the Essay Film
Mireille Rosello (2001) ‘Agnès Varda’s Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse:
Portrait of an Artist as an Old Lady’ in Studies in French Cinema
Vol. 1 no. 1
Alison Smith (1998) Agnès Varda
Domietta Torlasco (2011) ‘Digital Impressions: Writing Memory After
Agnès Varda’ in Discourse Vol. 33 no. 3
John Wylie (2007) Landscape Chapter 4, ‘Cultures of Landscape’
Week Five
European Roads IV: Migration and Exile in Contemporary Europe
SCREENING
In This World (Michael Winterbottom, 2002)
SUGGESTED READING
Deborah Allison (2013) The Cinema of Michael Winterbottom
Daniela Berghahn (2010) ‘Locating Migrant and Diasporic Cinema in
Contemporary Europe’ in Berghahn and Sternberg (eds.) European
Cinema in Motion
Bruce Bennett (2014) The Cinema of Michael Winterbottom: Borders,
Intimacy, Terror
Natasa Durovicova and Kathleen E. Newman (eds.) (2009) World
Cinemas, Transnational Perspectives
Elizabeth Ezra (ed.) (2005) Transnational Cinema, The Film Reader
Yosefa Loshitzky (2010) Screening Strangers: Migration and Diaspora in
Contemporary European Cinema
Ohad Landesman (2008) ‘In and Out of this World: Digital Video and the
Aesthetics of Realism in the New Hybrid Documentary
Brian McFarlane and Deane Williams (2009) Michael Winterbottom
W.J.T. Mitchell (2002) ‘Imperial Landscape’ in Mitchell (ed.) Landscape
and Power
Rebecca Prime (2006) ‘Stranger Than Fiction: Genre and Hybridity in the
‘Refugee Film’ in Postscript Vol. 25 no. 2
Rebecca Prime (ed.) (2015) Cinematic Homecomings
Week Seven
Landscapes of the New Iranian Cinema
SCREENINGS
Where is the Friend’s Home? (Abbas Kiarostami, 1987)
Roads of Kiarostami (Abbas Kiarostami, 2006)
SUGGESTED READING
Alberto Alena (2005) The Cinema of Abbas Kiarostami
Shohini Chaudhuri and Howard Finn (2003) ‘The Open Image: Poetic
Realism and the New Iranian Cinema’ in Screen Vol. 44 no. 1
Ian Christie (2000) ‘Landscape and Location: Reading Filmic Space
Historically’ in Rethinking History 4 no. 2
Catherine Fowler and Gillian Hellfield (2006). Representing the Rural.
Space, Place and Identity in Films About the Land
Graeme Harper and Jonathan Rayner (2010) ‘Introduction: Cinema and
Landscape’ in Harper and Rayner (eds.) Cinema and Landscape
Martin Lefebvre (2006) ‘Between Setting and Landscape in the Cinema’
in Lefebvre (ed.) Landscape and Film
Martin Lefebvre (2011) ‘On Landscape and Narrative Cinema’ in
Canadian Journal of Film Studies 20:1
Erik Nakjavani (2006) ‘Between the Dark Earth and the Sheltering Sky.
The Arboreal in Kiarostami’s Photography’ in Iranian Studies vol. 39
no. 1
Devin Orgeron (2008) Road Movies from Muybridge and Meliès to Lynch
and Kiarostami
Gilberto Perez (2005) ‘Where is the Director?’ in Sight and Sound Vol. 15
no. 5
Merhnraz Saeed-Vafa and Jonathan Rosenbaum (2003) Abbas Kiarostami
Khatereh Sheibani (2011) The Poetics of Iranian Cinema
Jerry White (2002) ‘Children, Narrative and Third Cinema in Iran and
Syria’ in Canadian Journal of Film Studies Vol. 11 no. 1
Week Eight
Landscape and Memory I: The Past in the Present
SCREENING
Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong
Weerasethakul, 2010)
SUGGESTED READING
Karen Beckmann and Jean Ma (2008) Still Moving: Between Cinema and
Photography
Laurence Chua (2010) ‘Apichatpong Weerasethakul’ in BOMB no. 114
Kieron Corliss (2010) ‘Symbols of Transformation’ in Sight and Sound Vol.
20 no. 12
Geoff Dyer (2011) Zona
Dimitris Eleftheriotis (2010) Cinematic Journeys. Film and Movement
Matthew Flanagan ‘16:9 in English: Towards an Aesthetic of Slow in
Contemporary Cinema’ at:
http://www.16-9.dk/2008-11/side11_inenglish.htm
Rosalind Galt and Karl Schoonover (2010) ‘The Impurity of Art Cinema’
in Galt and Schoonover (eds.) Global Art Cinema
Kim, Ji-Hoon (2011) ‘Learning About Time: An Interview with
Apichatpong Weerasethakul’ Film Quarterly Vol. 64 no. 4
Tim Ingold (1993) ‘The Temporality of Landscape’ in World Archeology
Vol. 25 no. 2
Ira Jaffe (2014) Slow Cinema: Countering the Cinema of Action
Russell Kilbourn (2012) Cinema, Memory, Modernity: The Representation
of Memory from the Art Film to Transnational Cinema
Colin MacCabe (2010) ‘An Amorous Catfish’ in Film Quarterly Vol. 64 no. 1
Adrian Martin (2010) ‘Extraordinary Joe’ in Sight and Sound Vol. 20 no. 12
Henry K. Miller (2012) ‘Doing Time: ‘Slow Cinema’ at the AV Festival’ in
Sight and Sound (March 2012)
James Quandt (2009) Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Jonathan Romney (2010) ‘Slow Cinema’ in Sight and Sound (February
2010)
Jonathan Romney (2010) ‘Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives’
in Sight and Sound Vol. 20 no. 12
P. Adams Sitney (1995) ‘Landscape in the Cinema: the Rhythms of the
World and the Camera’ in Kemal and Gaskel (eds.) Landscape,
Natural Beauty and the Arts
Andrew Ray ‘Some Landscapes’ blog at:
http://some-landscapes.blogspot.co.uk/
Slow Cinema Weekend podcast at:
https://soundcloud.com/#film-and-beyond/podcast-slow-cinemawkend
Sukhdev Sandhu (2012) 'Slow cinema' fights back against Bourne's
supremacy at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/mar/09/slow-cinema-fightsbournes-supremacy
John Wylie (2007) Landscape Chapter 5, ‘Landscape Phenomenology’
ADDITIONAL VIEWING
Stalker (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979)
Tropical Malady (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, 2004)
Week Nine
Landscape and Memory II: Documentation and National Identity
SCREENING
Still Life (Jia Zhang-ke, 2006)
SUGGESTED READING
Jens Andermann (2012) ‘Expanded Fields: Postdictatorship and the
Landscape’ in Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies:
Travesia, 21:2, 165-187 (pdf distributed)
Dudley Andrew (2009) ‘Interview with Jia Zhang-ke’ in Film Quarterly
Vol. 62 no. 4
Dudley Andrew (2010) ‘Time Zones and Jet Lag: the Flows and Phases
of World Cinema’ in Durovicova and Newman (eds.) World Cinemas,
Transnational Perspectives
Chris Berry (2009) ‘Jia Zhangke and the Temporality of Postsocialist
Chinese Cinema’ in Olivia Khoo and Sean Metzger (eds.) Futures of
Chinese Cinema:
Technologies and Temporalities in Chinese Screen Cultures
Michael Berry (2002) Speaking in Images. Interviews with Contemporary
Chinese Filmmakers
Yvette Biro (2008) ‘Tender is the Regard’ in Film Quarterly Vol. 61 no. 4
Sean Cubitt (2005) Ecomedia
Wang Hui and Nathaniel Proctor (2011) ‘Jia Zhangke’s World and China’s
Great Transformation: A Revised Version of a Speech Given at ‘The
Still Life Symposium’ at Fenyang High School’ in positions: east asia
cultures critique Vol. 19 no. 1
David Ingram (2012) ‘The Aesthetics and Ethics of Eco Film Criticism’ in
Rust, Monani and Cubitt (eds.) (2012) Ecocinema: Theory and
Practice
Pietari Kääpä and Tommy Gustafsson (eds.) (2013) Transnational
Ecocinema in an Era of Ecological Transformation
Scott Macdonald (2012) ‘The Ecocinema Experience’ in Rust, Monani and
Cubitt (eds.) (2012) Ecocinema: Theory and Practice
Martha P. Nochimson (2009) ‘Passion for Documentation: an Interview
with Jia Zhang-ke’ in New Review of Film and Television Vol. 7 no. 4
Jared Rapfogel (2008) ‘Still Lives in Times of Change. An Interview with
Jia Zhangke’ in Cinéaste Vol. 33 no. 2
Tony Rayns and James Bell (2008) ‘Before the Deluge’ in Sight and Sound
Vol. 18 no. 2
Paula Willoquet-Maricondi (ed.) (2010) Framing the World: Explorations in
Ecocriticism and Film
Ping Zhu (2011) ‘Destruction, Moral Nihilism and the Poetics of Debris
in Jia Zhangke's Still Life’ in Visual Anthropology Vol. 24 no. 4
ADDITIONAL VIEWING
24 City (Jia Zhang-ke, 2008)
Week Ten
SCREENING
Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, 2010)
SUGGESTED READING
Michael Chanan ‘Nostalgia for the Light’ at:
http://www.putneydebater.com/?p=849&preview=true
Chris Darke (2012) ‘Desert of the Disappeared. Patricio Guzmán on
Nostalgia for the Light’ at:
http://www.bfi.org.uk/news/sightsound/patricio-guzman-extendedinterview
Macarena GomezBarris ‘Atacama Remains and Post Memory’ in Media
Fields Journal 5 (2012) (pdf distributed)
David Martin Jones (2013) ‘Archival Landscapes and a NonAnthropocentric ‘Universe Memory’ in Third Text Vol. 27 no. 6
Revista Special Edition on Chile at:
http://www.drclas.harvard.edu/publications/revistaonline/content
/chile
Simon Schama (1995) Landscape and Memory
Tiago de Luca (2012) ‘Realism of the Senses: A Tendency in
Contemporary World Cinema’ in Nagib, Perriam and Dudrah (eds.)
Theorizing World Cinema
Essays
Essays must be handed in to Dr. Adam Gallimore, Departmental
Secretary, in Room A0.12, Millburn House before 12.00 on Wednesday 22
April (W1 Spring Term) 2015. Return date: Thursday 21 May 2015.
Word count: 5, 000 words
Topics should be arrived at in discussion with myself and I will announce
essay tutorial times in weeks Seven and Ten of the Spring Term. You
should prepare for your essay tutorial by doing preliminary reading and
viewing on your proposed topic and drafting the question/s that your
essay will seek to answer. You are welcome to come to an essay tutorial
with more than one possibility. You must have agreement to a topic
before commencing the substantial work on an essay. Essays will
normally discuss more than one film (or television programme) in detail,
and demonstrate a wider range of viewing as well as a thorough
knowledge of both the scholarship on the themes of the module and
specific material related to your topic. You are encouraged to consider the
many different ways in which you could arrive at a coherent choice of
corpus in relation to the theme of landscapes and journeys, such as:
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Films (or television) programmes set in a particular place or series
of places made by a particular ‘film-maker’ (‘film-maker’
conceptualised broadly: director, producer, writer, production
designer, cinematographer, studio etc.) e.g. the ‘local’ America of
John Sayles, the televisual representation of the British coastline,
the Mexico of Gabriel Figuerora
The cinematic (or televisual) landscape of a particular genre
(usually within a specific time period) e.g. recent British country
house television drama, the New German Cinema road movie
Journeys and landscapes of a particular period e.g. 1930s Japan,
1960s Northern England
Particular agents or characters: the couple on the run, the
wandering artist, the exiled city dweller, the tourist, the
archeologist
Utopian or dystopian landscapes and journeys of the future or the
imagination
Landscapes and journeys in contemporary world cinemas e.g. Latin
America, Iran, China, Africa
Related contemporary theoretical debates and concerns in the field
e.g. transnational cinema, diasporic cinema, ‘slow cinema’, ecocinema