Boğaçizi University
FA 49C American Cinema
Summer 2015
Instructor: Toni Perrine
The American cinema has been able, in an extraordinarily
competent way, to show American society just as it wanted to see
itself; not at all passively, as a simple act of satisfaction and
escape, but dynamically.
-- André Bazin
Course Description:
American movies have captured the imagination of the mass audience since the end of
the 19th century. Like all popular culture, movies developed through a complex set of
negotiations between producers and audiences that occurred over time, and evolved in
response to changing cultural and historical contexts. In this course, students will
examine the evolution of the formal elements through which American films tell stories
that respond to changing audience expectations and social contexts. The focus will be
on American commercial cinema.
Learning Objectives:
This course will provide students the opportunity to learn and/or practice:
1. The history of American cinema with a focus on the significance of American film
culture
2. The evolution of film technology and how it shaped film form/style
3. The history of censorship in American movies and issues of representation
4. The formal qualities of film, including narrative structure, editing, mise-en-scene and
the conventions of genre filmmaking
5. The economic, sociocultural and historical contexts for American film production
6. The globalization of American cinema
7. Analysis and writing skills
Grading:
Attendance and participation:
Midterm paper:
Final paper:
40%
30%
30%
Proposed Schedule:
Week 1a
Emergence of Hollywood as an Institution
Reading: Belton, “The Emergence of Cinema as an Institution” (320)
Screening: Edison and Biograph shorts; The Birth of a Nation
(Griffith, 1914)
Week 1b
The Silent Era: Chaplinitis
Reading: Maland, “At the Top: Charlie in the 1920s” (55-93)
Screening: The Immigrant (Mutual, 1918); The Gold Rush (Chaplin,
1925); City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
Week 2a
Studio System: Warner Bros. Studio
Reading: Schatz, “A Triumph of Bitchery”: Warner Bros., Bette
Davis and Jezebel;” (74-92)
Screening: Jazz Singer (Crosland, 1927); Gold Diggers of 1933
(LeRoy, 1933) Jezebel (Wyler,1938);
Week 2b
Studio System: Classical Hollywood Style
Reading: Belton, “Classical Hollywood Cinema: Style” (44-63)
Screening: Casablanca (Curtiz, 1942)
Week 3a
Film Noir
Reading: Buhle and Wagner, “Politics and Mythology of Film Art:
The Noir Era;” Neale, “Film Noir”
Screening: Sunset Boulevard (Wilder, 1950); The Big Sleep
(Hawks, 1946);
Week 3b
The Western
Reading: Bazin, “The Evolution of the Western” (149-157)
Screening: High Noon (Zinneman, 1952); The Searchers (Ford,
1956); Unforgiven (Eastwood, 1992)
Week 4a
New American Cinema
Reading: Cook, “Auteur Cinema and the “Film Generation” in
Hollywood (11-37).
Screening: The Godfather Part I (Coppola, 1972); Taxi Driver
(Scorcese, 1976)
1970s
Week 4b
New Hollywood
Reading: Schatz, “The New Hollywood.” (8–37). Seabrook, “Why is
the Force Still With Us?”
Screening: Jaws (Spielberg, 1975); Star Wars (Lucas, 1977)
Week 5a
The Disney Version
Reading: Konnikova, “How Frozen Took Over the World”
Screening: Disney shorts, Snow White (1937), The Little Mermaid
(1989); Aladdin (1992); Frozen (2013)
Week 5b
Independent American Cinema
Reading: Hillier, American Independent Cinema, selected essays.
Screening: Slacker (Linklater, 1991); Do The Right Thing (Lee,
1989)
Week 6
Globalized Cinema
Reading: Balio, “The Globalization of Hollywood in the 1990s” (58 73); Bordwell, “Introduction: Beyond the Blockbuster.” (1-26)
Screening: Slumdog Millionaire (Boyle, 2008); The Avengers
(Whedon, 2012)
Bibliography:
Balio, Tino. “’A Major Presence in All of the World’s Important Markets’: The
Globalization of Hollywood in the 1990s.” Neale, Steve and Murray Smith,
eds. Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London: Routledge, 1998. Print.
Bazin, Andre. “The Evolution of the Western.” What is Cinema? Vol. II. Translated by
Hugh Gray. Berkeley: U of California Press, 1971.
Belton, John. American Cinema/American Culture. New York: McGraw Hill, 2013.
Bordwell, David. The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies.
Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Print.
Buhle, Paul and Dave Wagner. Radical Hollywood: The Untold Story behind America’s
Favorite Movies. New York: The New Press, 2002. Print.
Collins, Jim, Hillary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins, eds. Film Theory Goes to the
Movies. Routledge: New York, 1993.
Cook David. “Auteur Cinema and the “film Generation” in 1970s Hollywood. The New
American Cinema. Jon Lewis, ed. Chapel Hill: Duke UP, 1999. Print.
Hillier, Jim. American Independent Cinema. London, BFI, 2001.
Konnikova, Maria. “How Frozen Took Over the World.” The New Yorker. June 25,
2014. http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/how-frozentook-over-the-world
Maland, Charles J. Chaplin and American Culture: The Evolution of a Star Image.
Princeton NJ: Princeton UP, 1989. Print.
Mintz, Stephen and Randy Roberts, eds. Hollywood’s America: Twentieth Century
American Through Film. London: Blackwell, 2010.
Monaco, Paul. American Movies: A Film-by-Film Look at the Art, Craft and Business of
Cinema. London: Scarecrow Press, 2010. Print.
Neale, Steve. Genre and Hollywood. London: Routledge, 2000. Print.
Neale, Steve and Murray Smith, eds. Contemporary Hollywood Cinema. London:
Routledge, 1998.
Prince, Stephen. Visions of Empire: Political Imagery in Contemporary American
Cinema. Greenwood, 1992.
Prince, Stephen. Firestorm: American Film In the Age of Terrorism. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2009.
Schatz, Thomas. “The New Hollywood.” Film Theory Goes to the Movies. Jim Collins,
Hilary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins (eds.) New York: Routledge,
1993. 8–37.
Schatz, Thomas, “A Triumph of Bitchery”: Warner Bros. Bette Davis, and Jezebel.” The
Studio System. Ed. Janet Staiger. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1995.
Print.
Seabrook, John. “Why is the Force Still With Us?” The New Yorker. January 6, 1997.
http://www.booknoise.net/johnseabrook/stories/culture/force/
Sklar, Robert. Movie-Made America: A Cultural History of American Movies. New York:
Vintage, 1994.